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3529	----	RESIDENCE IN SWEDEN, NORWAY, AND DENMARK*** Transcribed from the 1889 Cassell & Company edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org CASSELL'S NATIONAL LIBRARY. LETTERS WRITTEN _DURING A SHORT RESIDENCE_ IN SWEDEN, NORWAY, AND DENMARK BY MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT. CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited: _LONDON_, _PARIS_, _NEW YORK & MELBOURNE_. 1889. INTRODUCTION. Mary Wollstonecraft was born on the 27th of April, 1759. Her father--a quick-tempered and unsettled man, capable of beating wife, or child, or dog--was the son of a manufacturer who made money in Spitalfields, when Spitalfields was prosperous. Her mother was a rigorous Irishwoman, of the Dixons of Ballyshannon. Edward John Wollstonecraft--of whose children, besides Mary, the second child, three sons and two daughters lived to be men and women--in course of the got rid of about ten thousand pounds, which had been left him by his father. He began to get rid of it by farming. Mary Wollstonecraft's first-remembered home was in a farm at Epping. When she was five years old the family moved to another farm, by the Chelmsford Road. When she was between six and seven years old they moved again, to the neighbourhood of Barking. There they remained three years before the next move, which was to a farm near Beverley, in Yorkshire. In Yorkshire they remained six years, and Mary Wollstonecraft had there what education fell to her lot between the ages of ten and sixteen. Edward John Wollstonecraft then gave up farming to venture upon a commercial speculation. This caused him to live for a year and a half at Queen's Row, Hoxton. His daughter Mary was then sixteen; and while at Hoxton she had her education advanced by the friendly care of a deformed clergyman--a Mr. Clare--who lived next door, and stayed so much at home that his one pair of shoes had lasted him for fourteen years. But Mary Wollstonecraft's chief friend at this time was an accomplished girl only two years older than herself, who maintained her father, mother, and family by skill in drawing. Her name was Frances Blood, and she especially, by her example and direct instruction, drew out her young friend's powers. In 1776, Mary Wollstonecraft's father, a rolling stone, rolled into Wales. Again he was a farmer. Next year again he was a Londoner; and Mary had influence enough to persuade him to choose a house at Walworth, where she would be near to her friend Fanny. Then, however, the conditions of her home life caused her to be often on the point of going away to earn a living for herself. In 1778, when she was nineteen, Mary Wollstonecraft did leave home, to take a situation as companion with a rich tradesman's widow at Bath, of whom it was said that none of her companions could stay with her. Mary Wollstonecraft, nevertheless, stayed two years with the difficult widow, and made herself respected. Her mother's failing health then caused Mary to return to her. The father was then living at Enfield, and trying to save the small remainder of his means by not venturing upon any business at all. The mother died after long suffering, wholly dependent on her daughter Mary's constant care. The mother's last words were often quoted by Mary Wollstonecraft in her own last years of distress--"A little patience, and all will be over." After the mother's death, Mary Wollstonecraft left home again, to live with her friend, Fanny Blood, who was at Walham Green. In 1782 she went to nurse a married sister through a dangerous illness. The father's need of support next pressed upon her. He had spent not only his own money, but also the little that had been specially reserved for his children. It is said to be the privilege of a passionate man that he always gets what he wants; he gets to be avoided, and they never find a convenient corner of their own who shut themselves out from the kindly fellowship of life. In 1783 Mary Wollstonecraft--aged twenty-four--with two of her sisters, joined Fanny Blood in setting up a day school at Islington, which was removed in a few months to Newington Green. Early in 1785 Fanny Blood, far gone in consumption, sailed for Lisbon to marry an Irish surgeon who was settled there. After her marriage it was evident that she had but a few months to live; Mary Wollstonecraft, deaf to all opposing counsel, then left her school, and, with help of money from a friendly woman, she went out to nurse her, and was by her when she died. Mary Wollstonecraft remembered her loss ten years afterwards in these "Letters from Sweden and Norway," when she wrote: "The grave has closed over a dear friend, the friend of my youth; still she is present with me, and I hear her soft voice warbling as I stray over the heath." Mary Wollstonecraft left Lisbon for England late in December, 1785. When she came back she found Fanny's poor parents anxious to go back to Ireland; and as she had been often told that she could earn by writing, she wrote a pamphlet of 162 small pages--"Thoughts on the Education of Daughters"--and got ten pounds for it. This she gave to her friend's parents to enable them to go back to their kindred. In all she did there is clear evidence of an ardent, generous, impulsive nature. One day her friend Fanny Blood had repined at the unhappy surroundings in the home she was maintaining for her father and mother, and longed for a little home of her own to do her work in. Her friend quietly found rooms, got furniture together, and told her that her little home was ready; she had only to walk into it. Then it seemed strange to Mary Wollstonecraft that Fanny Blood was withheld by thoughts that had not been uppermost in the mood of complaint. She thought her friend irresolute, where she had herself been generously rash. Her end would have been happier had she been helped, as many are, by that calm influence of home in which some knowledge of the world passes from father and mother to son and daughter, without visible teaching and preaching, in easiest companionship of young and old from day to day. The little payment for her pamphlet on the "Education of Daughters" caused Mary Wollstonecraft to think more seriously of earning by her pen. The pamphlet seems also to have advanced her credit as a teacher. After giving up her day school, she spent some weeks at Eton with the Rev. Mr. Prior, one of the masters there, who recommended her as governess to the daughters of Lord Kingsborough, an Irish viscount, eldest son of the Earl of Kingston. Her way of teaching was by winning love, and she obtained the warm affection of the eldest of her pupils, who became afterwards Countess Mount-Cashel. In the summer of 1787, Lord Kingsborough's family, including Mary Wollstonecraft, was at Bristol Hot-wells, before going to the Continent. While there, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote her little tale published as "Mary, a Fiction," wherein there was much based on the memory of her own friendship for Fanny Blood. The publisher of Mary Wollstonecraft's "Thoughts on the Education of Daughters" was the same Joseph Johnson who in 1785 was the publisher of Cowper's "Task." With her little story written and a little money saved, the resolve to live by her pen could now be carried out. Mary Wollstonecraft, therefore, parted from her friends at Bristol, went to London, saw her publisher, and frankly told him her determination. He met her with fatherly kindness, and received her as a guest in his house while she was making her arrangements. At Michaelmas, 1787, she settled in a house in George Street, on the Surrey side of Blackfriars Bridge. There she produced a little book for children, of "Original Stories from Real Life," and earned by drudgery for Joseph Johnson. She translated, she abridged, she made a volume of Selections, and she wrote for an "Analytical Review," which Mr. Johnson founded in the middle of the year 1788. Among the books translated by her was Necker "On the Importance of Religious Opinions." Among the books abridged by her was Salzmann's "Elements of Morality." With all this hard work she lived as sparely as she could, that she might help her family. She supported her father. That she might enable her sisters to earn their living as teachers, she sent one of them to Paris, and maintained her there for two years; the other she placed in a school near London as parlour-boarder until she was admitted into it as a paid teacher. She placed one brother at Woolwich to qualify for the Navy, and he obtained a lieutenant's commission. For another brother, articled to an attorney whom he did not like, she obtained a transfer of indentures; and when it became clear that his quarrel was more with law than with the lawyers, she placed him with a farmer before fitting him out for emigration to America. She then sent him, so well prepared for his work there that he prospered well. She tried even to disentangle her father's affairs; but the confusion in them was beyond her powers of arrangement. Added to all this faithful work, she took upon herself the charge of an orphan child, seven years old, whose mother had been in the number of her friends. That was the life of Mary Wollstonecraft, thirty years old, in 1789, the year of the Fall of the Bastille; the noble life now to be touched in its enthusiasms by the spirit of the Revolution, to be caught in the great storm, shattered, and lost among its wrecks. To Burke's attack on the French Revolution Mary Wollstonecraft wrote an Answer--one of many answers provoked by it--that attracted much attention. This was followed by her "Vindication of the Rights of Woman," while the air was full of declamation on the "Rights of Man." The claims made in this little book were in advance of the opinion of that day, but they are claims that have in our day been conceded. They are certainly not revolutionary in the opinion of the world that has become a hundred years older since the book was written. At this the Mary Wollstonecraft had moved to rooms in Store Street, Bedford Square. She was fascinated by Fuseli the painter, and he was a married man. She felt herself to be too strongly drawn towards him, and she went to Paris at the close of the year 1792, to break the spell. She felt lonely and sad, and was not the happier for being in a mansion lent to her, from which the owner was away, and in which she lived surrounded by his servants. Strong womanly instincts were astir within her, and they were not all wise folk who had been drawn around her by her generous enthusiasm for the new hopes of the world, that made it then, as Wordsworth felt, a very heaven to the young. Four months after she had gone to Paris, Mary Wollstonecraft met at the house of a merchant, with whose wife she had become intimate, an American named Gilbert Imlay. He won her affections. That was in April, 1793. He had no means, and she had home embarrassments, for which she was unwilling that he should become in any way responsible. A part of the new dream in some minds then was of a love too pure to need or bear the bondage of authority. The mere forced union of marriage ties implied, it was said, a distrust of fidelity. When Gilbert Imlay would have married Mary Wollstonecraft, she herself refused to bind him; she would keep him legally exempt from her responsibilities towards the father, sisters, brothers, whom she was supporting. She took his name and called herself his wife, when the French Convention, indignant at the conduct of the British Government, issue a decree from the effects of which she would escape as the wife of a citizen of the United States. But she did not marry. She witnessed many of the horrors that came of the loosened passions of an untaught populace. A child was born to her--a girl whom she named after the dead friend of her own girlhood. And then she found that she had leant upon a reed. She was neglected; and was at last forsaken. Having sent her to London, Imlay there visited her, to explain himself away. She resolved on suicide, and in dissuading her from that he gave her hope again. He needed somebody who had good judgment, and who cared for his interests, to represent him in some business affairs in Norway. She undertook to act for him, and set out on the voyage only a week after she had determined to destroy herself. The interest of this book which describes her travel is quickened by a knowledge of the heart-sorrow that underlies it all. Gilbert Imlay had promised to meet her upon her return, and go with her to Switzerland. But the letters she had from him in Sweden and Norway were cold, and she came back to find that she was wholly forsaken for an actress from a strolling company of players. Then she went up the river to drown herself. She paced the road at Putney on an October night, in 1795, in heavy rain, until her clothes were drenched, that she might sink more surely, and then threw herself from the top of Putney Bridge. She was rescued, and lived on with deadened spirit. In 1796 these "Letters from Sweden and Norway" were published. Early in 1797 she was married to William Godwin. On the 10th of September in the same year, at the age of thirty-eight, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin died, after the birth of the daughter who lived to become the wife of Shelley. The mother also would have lived, if a womanly feeling, in itself to be respected, had not led her also to unwise departure from the customs of the world. Peace be to her memory. None but kind thoughts can dwell upon the life of this too faithful disciple of Rousseau. H. M. LETTER I. Eleven days of weariness on board a vessel not intended for the accommodation of passengers have so exhausted my spirits, to say nothing of the other causes, with which you are already sufficiently acquainted, that it is with some difficulty I adhere to my determination of giving you my observations, as I travel through new scenes, whilst warmed with the impression they have made on me. The captain, as I mentioned to you, promised to put me on shore at Arendall or Gothenburg in his way to Elsineur, but contrary winds obliged us to pass both places during the night. In the morning, however, after we had lost sight of the entrance of the latter bay, the vessel was becalmed; and the captain, to oblige me, hanging out a signal for a pilot, bore down towards the shore. My attention was particularly directed to the lighthouse, and you can scarcely imagine with what anxiety I watched two long hours for a boat to emancipate me; still no one appeared. Every cloud that flitted on the horizon was hailed as a liberator, till approaching nearer, like most of the prospects sketched by hope, it dissolved under the eye into disappointment. Weary of expectation, I then began to converse with the captain on the subject, and from the tenor of the information my questions drew forth I soon concluded that if I waited for a boat I had little chance of getting on shore at this place. Despotism, as is usually the case, I found had here cramped the industry of man. The pilots being paid by the king, and scantily, they will not run into any danger, or even quit their hovels, if they can possibly avoid it, only to fulfil what is termed their duty. How different is it on the English coast, where, in the most stormy weather, boats immediately hail you, brought out by the expectation of extraordinary profit. Disliking to sail for Elsineur, and still more to lie at anchor or cruise about the coast for several days, I exerted all my rhetoric to prevail on the captain to let me have the ship's boat, and though I added the most forcible of arguments, I for a long the addressed him in vain. It is a kind of rule at sea not to send out a boat. The captain was a good-natured man; but men with common minds seldom break through general rules. Prudence is ever the resort of weakness, and they rarely go as far as they may in any undertaking who are determined not to go beyond it on any account. If, however, I had some trouble with the captain, I did not lose much time with the sailors, for they, all alacrity, hoisted out the boat the moment I obtained permission, and promised to row me to the lighthouse. I did not once allow myself to doubt of obtaining a conveyance from thence round the rocks--and then away for Gothenburg--confinement is so unpleasant. The day was fine, and I enjoyed the water till, approaching the little island, poor Marguerite, whose timidity always acts as a feeler before her adventuring spirit, began to wonder at our not seeing any inhabitants. I did not listen to her. But when, on landing, the same silence prevailed, I caught the alarm, which was not lessened by the sight of two old men whom we forced out of their wretched hut. Scarcely human in their appearance, we with difficulty obtained an intelligible reply to our questions, the result of which was that they had no boat, and were not allowed to quit their post on any pretence. But they informed us that there was at the other side, eight or ten miles over, a pilot's dwelling. Two guineas tempted the sailors to risk the captain's displeasure, and once more embark to row me over. The weather was pleasant, and the appearance of the shore so grand that I should have enjoyed the two hours it took to reach it, but for the fatigue which was too visible in the countenances of the sailors, who, instead of uttering a complaint, were, with the thoughtless hilarity peculiar to them, joking about the possibility of the captain's taking advantage of a slight westerly breeze, which was springing up, to sail without them. Yet, in spite of their good humour, I could not help growing uneasy when the shore, receding, as it were, as we advanced, seemed to promise no end to their toil. This anxiety increased when, turning into the most picturesque bay I ever saw, my eyes sought in vain for the vestige of a human habitation. Before I could determine what step to take in such a dilemma (for I could not bear to think of returning to the ship), the sight of a barge relieved me, and we hastened towards it for information. We were immediately directed to pass some jutting rocks, when we should see a pilot's hut. There was a solemn silence in this scene which made itself be felt. The sunbeams that played on the ocean, scarcely ruffled by the lightest breeze, contrasted with the huge dark rocks, that looked like the rude materials of creation forming the barrier of unwrought space, forcibly struck me, but I should not have been sorry if the cottage had not appeared equally tranquil. Approaching a retreat where strangers, especially women, so seldom appeared, I wondered that curiosity did not bring the beings who inhabited it to the windows or door. I did not immediately recollect that men who remain so near the brute creation, as only to exert themselves to find the food necessary to sustain life, have little or no imagination to call forth the curiosity necessary to fructify the faint glimmerings of mind which entitle them to rank as lords of the creation. Had they either they could not contentedly remain rooted in the clods they so indolently cultivate. Whilst the sailors went to seek for the sluggish inhabitants, these conclusions occurred to me; and, recollecting the extreme fondness which the Parisians ever testify for novelty, their very curiosity appeared to me a proof of the progress they had made in refinement. Yes, in the art of living--in the art of escaping from the cares which embarrass the first steps towards the attainment of the pleasures of social life. The pilots informed the sailors that they were under the direction of a lieutenant retired from the service, who spoke English; adding that they could do nothing without his orders, and even the offer of money could hardly conquer their laziness and prevail on them to accompany us to his dwelling. They would not go with me alone, which I wanted them to have done, because I wished to dismiss the sailors as soon as possible. Once more we rowed off, they following tardily, till, turning round another bold protuberance of the rocks, we saw a boat making towards us, and soon learnt that it was the lieutenant himself, coming with some earnestness to see who we were. To save the sailors any further toil, I had my baggage instantly removed into his boat; for, as he could speak English, a previous parley was not necessary, though Marguerite's respect for me could hardly keep her from expressing the fear, strongly marked on her countenance, which my putting ourselves into the power of a strange man excited. He pointed out his cottage; and, drawing near to it, I was not sorry to see a female figure, though I had not, like Marguerite, been thinking of robberies, murders, or the other evil which instantly, as the sailors would have said, runs foul of a woman's imagination. On entering I was still better pleased to find a clean house, with some degree of rural elegance. The beds were of muslin, coarse it is true, but dazzlingly white; and the floor was strewed over with little sprigs of juniper (the custom, as I afterwards found, of the country), which formed a contrast with the curtains, and produced an agreeable sensation of freshness, to soften the ardour of noon. Still nothing was so pleasing as the alacrity of hospitality--all that the house afforded was quickly spread on the whitest linen. Remember, I had just left the vessel, where, without being fastidious, I had continually been disgusted. Fish, milk, butter, and cheese, and, I am sorry to add, brandy, the bane of this country, were spread on the board. After we had dined hospitality made them, with some degree of mystery, bring us some excellent coffee. I did not then know that it was prohibited. The good man of the house apologised for coming in continually, but declared that he was so glad to speak English he could not stay out. He need not have apologised; I was equally glad of his company. With the wife I could only exchange smiles, and she was employed observing the make of our clothes. My hands, I found, had first led her to discover that I was the lady. I had, of course, my quantum of reverences; for the politeness of the north seems to partake of the coldness of the climate and the rigidity of its iron-sinewed rocks. Amongst the peasantry there is, however, so much of the simplicity of the golden age in this land of flint--so much overflowing of heart and fellow-feeling, that only benevolence and the honest sympathy of nature diffused smiles over my countenance when they kept me standing, regardless of my fatigue, whilst they dropped courtesy after courtesy. The situation of this house was beautiful, though chosen for convenience. The master being the officer who commanded all the pilots on the coast, and the person appointed to guard wrecks, it was necessary for him to fix on a spot that would overlook the whole bay. As he had seen some service, he wore, not without a pride I thought becoming, a badge to prove that he had merited well of his country. It was happy, I thought, that he had been paid in honour, for the stipend he received was little more than twelve pounds a year. I do not trouble myself or you with the calculation of Swedish ducats. Thus, my friend, you perceive the necessity of perquisites. This same narrow policy runs through everything. I shall have occasion further to animadvert on it. Though my host amused me with an account of himself, which gave me aim idea of the manners of the people I was about to visit, I was eager to climb the rocks to view the country, and see whether the honest tars had regained their ship. With the help of the lieutenant's telescope, I saw the vessel under way with a fair though gentle gale. The sea was calm, playful even as the most shallow stream, and on the vast basin I did not see a dark speck to indicate the boat. My conductors were consequently arrived. Straying further, my eye was attracted by the sight of some heartsease that peeped through the rocks. I caught at it as a good omen, and going to preserve it in a letter that had not conveyed balm to my heart, a cruel remembrance suffused my eyes; but it passed away like an April shower. If you are deep read in Shakespeare, you will recollect that this was the little western flower tinged by love's dart, which "maidens call love in idleness." The gaiety of my babe was unmixed; regardless of omens or sentiments, she found a few wild strawberries more grateful than flowers or fancies. The lieutenant informed me that this was a commodious bay. Of that I could not judge, though I felt its picturesque beauty. Rocks were piled on rocks, forming a suitable bulwark to the ocean. "Come no further," they emphatically said, turning their dark sides to the waves to augment the idle roar. The view was sterile; still little patches of earth of the most exquisite verdure, enamelled with the sweetest wild flowers, seemed to promise the goats and a few straggling cows luxurious herbage. How silent and peaceful was the scene! I gazed around with rapture, and felt more of that spontaneous pleasure which gives credibility to our expectation of happiness than I had for a long, long time before. I forgot the horrors I had witnessed in France, which had cast a gloom over all nature, and suffering the enthusiasm of my character--too often, gracious God! damped by the tears of disappointed affection--to be lighted up afresh, care took wing while simple fellow-feeling expanded my heart. To prolong this enjoyment, I readily assented to the proposal of our host to pay a visit to a family, the master of which spoke English, who was the drollest dog in the country, he added, repeating some of his stories with a hearty laugh. I walked on, still delighted with the rude beauties of the scene; for the sublime often gave place imperceptibly to the beautiful, dilating the emotions which were painfully concentrated. When we entered this abode, the largest I had yet seen, I was introduced to a numerous family; but the father, from whom I was led to expect so much entertainment, was absent. The lieutenant consequently was obliged to be the interpreter of our reciprocal compliments. The phrases were awkwardly transmitted, it is true; but looks and gestures were sufficient to make them intelligible and interesting. The girls were all vivacity, and respect for me could scarcely keep them from romping with my host, who, asking for a pinch of snuff, was presented with a box, out of which an artificial mouse, fastened to the bottom, sprang. Though this trick had doubtless been played the out of mind, yet the laughter it excited was not less genuine. They were overflowing with civility; but, to prevent their almost killing my babe with kindness, I was obliged to shorten my visit; and two or three of the girls accompanied us, bringing with them a part of whatever the house afforded to contribute towards rendering my supper more plentiful; and plentiful in fact it was, though I with difficulty did honour to some of the dishes, not relishing the quantity of sugar and spices put into everything. At supper my host told me bluntly that I was a woman of observation, for I asked him _men's questions_. The arrangements for my journey were quickly made. I could only have a car with post-horses, as I did not choose to wait till a carriage could be sent for to Gothenburg. The expense of my journey (about one or two and twenty English miles) I found would not amount to more than eleven or twelve shillings, paying, he assured me, generously. I gave him a guinea and a half. But it was with the greatest difficulty that I could make him take so much--indeed anything--for my lodging and fare. He declared that it was next to robbing me, explaining how much I ought to pay on the road. However, as I was positive, he took the guinea for himself; but, as a condition, insisted on accompanying me, to prevent my meeting with any trouble or imposition on the way. I then retired to my apartment with regret. The night was so fine that I would gladly have rambled about much longer, yet, recollecting that I must rise very early, I reluctantly went to bed; but my senses had been so awake, and my imagination still continued so busy, that I sought for rest in vain. Rising before six, I scented the sweet morning air; I had long before heard the birds twittering to hail the dawning day, though it could scarcely have been allowed to have departed. Nothing, in fact, can equal the beauty of the northern summer's evening and night, if night it may be called that only wants the glare of day, the full light which frequently seems so impertinent, for I could write at midnight very well without a candle. I contemplated all Nature at rest; the rocks, even grown darker in their appearance, looked as if they partook of the general repose, and reclined more heavily on their foundation. "What," I exclaimed, "is this active principle which keeps me still awake? Why fly my thoughts abroad, when everything around me appears at home?" My child was sleeping with equal calmness--innocent and sweet as the closing flowers. Some recollections, attached to the idea of home, mingled with reflections respecting the state of society I had been contemplating that evening, made a tear drop on the rosy cheek I had just kissed, and emotions that trembled on the brink of ecstasy and agony gave a poignancy to my sensations which made me feel more alive than usual. What are these imperious sympathies? How frequently has melancholy and even misanthropy taken possession of me, when the world has disgusted me, and friends have proved unkind. I have then considered myself as a particle broken off from the grand mass of mankind; I was alone, till some involuntary sympathetic emotion, like the attraction of adhesion, made me feel that I was still a part of a mighty whole, from which I could not sever myself--not, perhaps, for the reflection has been carried very far, by snapping the thread of an existence, which loses its charms in proportion as the cruel experience of life stops or poisons the current of the heart. Futurity, what hast thou not to give to those who know that there is such a thing as happiness! I speak not of philosophical contentment, though pain has afforded them the strongest conviction of it. After our coffee and milk--for the mistress of the house had been roused long before us by her hospitality--my baggage was taken forward in a boat by my host, because the car could not safely have been brought to the house. The road at first was very rocky and troublesome, but our driver was careful, and the horses accustomed to the frequent and sudden acclivities and descents; so that, not apprehending any danger, I played with my girl, whom I would not leave to Marguerite's care, on account of her timidity. Stopping at a little inn to bait the horses, I saw the first countenance in Sweden that displeased me, though the man was better dressed than any one who had as yet fallen in my way. An altercation took place between him and my host, the purport of which I could not guess, excepting that I was the occasion of it, be it what it would. The sequel was his leaving the house angrily; and I was immediately informed that he was the custom- house officer. The professional had indeed effaced the national character, for, living as he did within these frank hospitable people, still only the exciseman appeared, the counterpart of some I had met with in England and France. I was unprovided with a passport, not having entered any great town. At Gothenburg I knew I could immediately obtain one, and only the trouble made me object to the searching my trunks. He blustered for money; but the lieutenant was determined to guard me, according to promise, from imposition. To avoid being interrogated at the town-gate, and obliged to go in the rain to give an account of myself (merely a form) before we could get the refreshment we stood in need of, he requested us to descend--I might have said step--from our car, and walk into town. I expected to have found a tolerable inn, but was ushered into a most comfortless one; and, because it was about five o'clock, three or four hours after their dining hour, I could not prevail on them to give me anything warm to eat. The appearance of the accommodations obliged me to deliver one of my recommendatory letters, and the gentleman to whom it was addressed sent to look out for a lodging for me whilst I partook of his supper. As nothing passed at this supper to characterise the country, I shall here close my letter. Yours truly. LETTER II. Gothenburg is a clean airy town, and, having been built by the Dutch, has canals running through each street; and in some of them there are rows of trees that would render it very pleasant were it not for the pavement, which is intolerably bad. There are several rich commercial houses--Scotch, French, and Swedish; but the Scotch, I believe, have been the most successful. The commerce and commission business with France since the war has been very lucrative, and enriched the merchants I am afraid at the expense of the other inhabitants, by raising the price of the necessaries of life. As all the men of consequence--I mean men of the largest fortune--are merchants, their principal enjoyment is a relaxation from business at the table, which is spread at, I think, too early an hour (between one and two) for men who have letters to write and accounts to settle after paying due respect to the bottle. However, when numerous circles are to be brought together, and when neither literature nor public amusements furnish topics for conversation, a good dinner appears to be the only centre to rally round, especially as scandal, the zest of more select parties, can only be whispered. As for politics, I have seldom found it a subject of continual discussion in a country town in any part of the world. The politics of the place, being on a smaller scale, suits better with the size of their faculties; for, generally speaking, the sphere of observation determines the extent of the mind. The more I see of the world, the more I am convinced that civilisation is a blessing not sufficiently estimated by those who have not traced its progress; for it not only refines our enjoyments, but produces a variety which enables us to retain the primitive delicacy of our sensations. Without the aid of the imagination all the pleasures of the senses must sink into grossness, unless continual novelty serve as a substitute for the imagination, which, being impossible, it was to this weariness, I suppose, that Solomon alluded when he declared that there was nothing new under the sun!--nothing for the common sensations excited by the senses. Yet who will deny that the imagination and understanding have made many, very many discoveries since those days, which only seem harbingers of others still more noble and beneficial? I never met with much imagination amongst people who had not acquired a habit of reflection; and in that state of society in which the judgment and taste are not called forth, and formed by the cultivation of the arts and sciences, little of that delicacy of feeling and thinking is to be found characterised by the word sentiment. The want of scientific pursuits perhaps accounts for the hospitality, as well as for the cordial reception which strangers receive from the inhabitants of small towns. Hospitality has, I think, been too much praised by travellers as a proof of goodness of heart, when, in my opinion, indiscriminate hospitality is rather a criterion by which you may form a tolerable estimate of the indolence or vacancy of a head; or, in other words, a fondness for social pleasures in which the mind not having its proportion of exercise, the bottle must be pushed about. These remarks are equally applicable to Dublin, the most hospitable city I ever passed through. But I will try to confine my observations more particularly to Sweden. It is true I have only had a glance over a small part of it; yet of its present state of manners and acquirements I think I have formed a distinct idea, without having visited the capital--where, in fact, less of a national character is to be found than in the remote parts of the country. The Swedes pique themselves on their politeness; but far from being the polish of a cultivated mind, it consists merely of tiresome forms and ceremonies. So far, indeed, from entering immediately into your character, and making you feel instantly at your ease, like the well-bred French, their over-acted civility is a continual restraint on all your actions. The sort of superiority which a fortune gives when there is no superiority of education, excepting what consists in the observance of senseless forms, has a contrary effect than what is intended; so that I could not help reckoning the peasantry the politest people of Sweden, who, only aiming at pleasing you, never think of being admired for their behaviour. Their tables, like their compliments, seem equally a caricature of the French. The dishes are composed, as well as theirs, of a variety of mixtures to destroy the native taste of the food without being as relishing. Spices and sugar are put into everything, even into the bread; and the only way I can account for their partiality to high-seasoned dishes is the constant use of salted provisions. Necessity obliges them to lay up a store of dried fish and salted meat for the winter; and in summer, fresh meat and fish taste insipid after them. To which may be added the constant use of spirits. Every day, before dinner and supper, even whilst the dishes are cooling on the table, men and women repair to a side-table; and to obtain an appetite eat bread-and- butter, cheese, raw salmon, or anchovies, drinking a glass of brandy. Salt fish or meat then immediately follows, to give a further whet to the stomach. As the dinner advances, pardon me for taking up a few minutes to describe what, alas! has detained me two or three hours on the stretch observing, dish after dish is changed, in endless rotation, and handed round with solemn pace to each guest; but should you happen not to like the first dishes, which was often my case, it is a gross breach of politeness to ask for part of any other till its turn comes. But have patience, and there will be eating enough. Allow me to run over the acts of a visiting day, not overlooking the interludes. Prelude a luncheon--then a succession of fish, flesh, and fowl for two hours, during which time the dessert--I was sorry for the strawberries and cream--rests on the table to be impregnated by the fumes of the viands. Coffee immediately follows in the drawing-room, but does not preclude punch, ale, tea and cakes, raw salmon, &c. A supper brings up the rear, not forgetting the introductory luncheon, almost equalling in removes the dinner. A day of this kind you would imagine sufficient; but a to-morrow and a to-morrow--A never-ending, still-beginning feast may be bearable, perhaps, when stern winter frowns, shaking with chilling aspect his hoary locks; but during a summer, sweet as fleeting, let me, my kind strangers, escape sometimes into your fir groves, wander on the margin of your beautiful lakes, or climb your rocks, to view still others in endless perspective, which, piled by more than giant's hand, scale the heavens to intercept its rays, or to receive the parting tinge of lingering day--day that, scarcely softened unto twilight, allows the freshening breeze to wake, and the moon to burst forth in all her glory to glide with solemn elegance through the azure expanse. The cow's bell has ceased to tinkle the herd to rest; they have all paced across the heath. Is not this the witching time of night? The waters murmur, and fall with more than mortal music, and spirits of peace walk abroad to calm the agitated breast. Eternity is in these moments. Worldly cares melt into the airy stuff that dreams are made of, and reveries, mild and enchanting as the first hopes of love or the recollection of lost enjoyment, carry the hapless wight into futurity, who in bustling life has vainly strove to throw off the grief which lies heavy at the heart. Good night! A crescent hangs out in the vault before, which woos me to stray abroad. It is not a silvery reflection of the sun, but glows with all its golden splendour. Who fears the fallen dew? It only makes the mown grass smell more fragrant. Adieu! LETTER III. The population of Sweden has been estimated from two millions and a half to three millions; a small number for such an immense tract of country, of which only so much is cultivated--and that in the simplest manner--as is absolutely requisite to supply the necessaries of life; and near the seashore, whence herrings are easily procured, there scarcely appears a vestige of cultivation. The scattered huts that stand shivering on the naked rocks, braving the pitiless elements, are formed of logs of wood rudely hewn; and so little pains are taken with the craggy foundation that nothing hike a pathway points out the door. Gathered into himself by the cold, lowering his visage to avoid the cutting blast, is it surprising that the churlish pleasure of drinking drams takes place of social enjoyments amongst the poor, especially if we take into the account that they mostly live on high-seasoned provision and rye bread? Hard enough, you may imagine, as it is baked only once a year. The servants also, in most families, eat this kind of bread, and have a different kind of food from their masters, which, in spite of all the arguments I have heard to vindicate the custom, appears to me a remnant of barbarism. In fact, the situation of the servants in every respect, particularly that of the women, shows how far the Swedes are from having a just conception of rational equality. They are not termed slaves; yet a man may strike a man with impunity because he pays him wages, though these wages are so low that necessity must teach them to pilfer, whilst servility renders them false and boorish. Still the men stand up for the dignity of man by oppressing the women. The most menial, and even laborious offices, are therefore left to these poor drudges. Much of this I have seen. In the winter, I am told, they take the linen down to the river to wash it in the cold water, and though their hands, cut by the ice, are cracked and bleeding, the men, their fellow-servants, will not disgrace their manhood by carrying a tub to lighten their burden. You will not be surprised to hear that they do not wear shoes or stockings, when I inform you that their wages are seldom more than twenty or thirty shillings per annum. It is the custom, I know, to give them a new year's gift and a present at some other period, but can it all amount to a just indemnity for their labour? The treatment of servants in most countries, I grant, is very unjust, and in England, that boasted land of freedom, it is often extremely tyrannical. I have frequently, with indignation, heard gentlemen declare that they would never allow a servant to answer them; and ladies of the most exquisite sensibility, who were continually exclaiming against the cruelty of the vulgar to the brute creation, have in my presence forgot that their attendants had human feelings as well as forms. I do not know a more agreeable sight than to see servants part of a family. By taking an interest, generally speaking, in their concerns you inspire them with one for yours. We must love our servants, or we shall never be sufficiently attentive to their happiness; and how can those masters be attentive to their happiness who, living above their fortunes, are more anxious to outshine their neighbours than to allow their household the innocent enjoyments they earn? It is, in fact, much more difficult for servants, who are tantalised by seeing and preparing the dainties of which they are not to partake, to remain honest, than the poor, whose thoughts are not led from their homely fare; so that, though the servants here are commonly thieves, you seldom hear of housebreaking, or robbery on the highway. The country is, perhaps, too thinly inhabited to produce many of that description of thieves termed footpads, or highwaymen. They are usually the spawn of great cities--the effect of the spurious desires generated by wealth, rather than the desperate struggles of poverty to escape from misery. The enjoyment of the peasantry was drinking brandy and coffee, before the latter was prohibited, and the former not allowed to be privately distilled, the wars carried on by the late king rendering it necessary to increase the revenue, and retain the specie in the country by every possible means. The taxes before the reign of Charles XII. were inconsiderable. Since then the burden has continually been growing heavier, and the price of provisions has proportionately increased--nay, the advantage accruing from the exportation of corn to France and rye to Germany will probably produce a scarcity in both Sweden and Norway, should not a peace put a stop to it this autumn, for speculations of various kinds have already almost doubled the price. Such are the effects of war, that it saps the vitals even of the neutral countries, who, obtaining a sudden influx of wealth, appear to be rendered flourishing by the destruction which ravages the hapless nations who are sacrificed to the ambition of their governors. I shall not, however, dwell on the vices, though they be of the most contemptible and embruting cast, to which a sudden accession of fortune gives birth, because I believe it may be delivered as an axiom, that it is only in proportion to the industry necessary to acquire wealth that a nation is really benefited by it. The prohibition of drinking coffee under a penalty, and the encouragement given to public distilleries, tend to impoverish the poor, who are not affected by the sumptuary laws; for the regent has lately laid very severe restraints on the articles of dress, which the middling class of people found grievous, because it obliged them to throw aside finery that might have lasted them for their lives. These may be termed vexatious; still the death of the king, by saving them from the consequences his ambition would naturally have entailed on them, may be reckoned a blessing. Besides, the French Revolution has not only rendered all the crowned heads more cautious, but has so decreased everywhere (excepting amongst themselves) a respect for nobility, that the peasantry have not only lost their blind reverence for their seigniors, but complain in a manly style of oppressions which before they did not think of denominating such, because they were taught to consider themselves as a different order of beings. And, perhaps, the efforts which the aristocrats are making here, as well as in every other part of Europe, to secure their sway, will be the most effectual mode of undermining it, taking into the calculation that the King of Sweden, like most of the potentates of Europe, has continually been augmenting his power by encroaching on the privileges of the nobles. The well-bred Swedes of the capital are formed on the ancient French model, and they in general speak that language; for they have a knack at acquiring languages with tolerable fluency. This may be reckoned an advantage in some respects; but it prevents the cultivation of their own, and any considerable advance in literary pursuits. A sensible writer has lately observed (I have not his work by me, therefore cannot quote his exact words), "That the Americans very wisely let the Europeans make their books and fashions for them." But I cannot coincide with him in this opinion. The reflection necessary to produce a certain number even of tolerable productions augments more than he is aware of the mass of knowledge in the community. Desultory reading is commonly a mere pastime. But we must have an object to refer our reflections to, or they will seldom go below the surface. As in travelling, the keeping of a journal excites to many useful inquiries that would not have been thought of had the traveller only determined to see all he could see, without ever asking himself for what purpose. Besides, the very dabbling in literature furnishes harmless topics of conversation; for the not having such subjects at hand, though they are often insupportably fatiguing, renders the inhabitants of little towns prying and censorious. Idleness, rather than ill-nature, gives birth to scandal, and to the observation of little incidents which narrows the mind. It is frequently only the fear of being talked of which produces that puerile scrupulosity about trifles incompatible with an enlarged plan of usefulness, and with the basis of all moral principles--respect for the virtues which are not merely the virtues of convention. I am, my friend, more and more convinced that a metropolis, or an abode absolutely solitary, is the best calculated for the improvement of the heart, as well as the understanding; whether we desire to become acquainted with man, nature, or ourselves. Mixing with mankind, we are obliged to examine our prejudices, and often imperceptibly lose, as we analyse them. And in the country, growing intimate with nature, a thousand little circumstances, unseen by vulgar eyes, give birth to sentiments dear to the imagination, and inquiries which expand the soul, particularly when cultivation has not smoothed into insipidity all its originality of character. I love the country, yet whenever I see a picturesque situation chosen on which to erect a dwelling I am always afraid of the improvements. It requires uncommon taste to form a whole, and to introduce accommodations and ornaments analogous with the surrounding-scene. It visited, near Gothenburg, a house with improved land about it, with which I was particularly delighted. It was close to a lake embosomed in pine-clad rocks. In one part of the meadows your eye was directed to the broad expanse, in another you were led into a shade, to see a part of it, in the form of a river, rush amongst the fragments of rocks and roots of trees; nothing seemed forced. One recess, particularly grand and solemn amongst the towering cliffs, had a rude stone table and seat placed in it, that might have served for a Druid's haunt, whilst a placid stream below enlivened the flowers on its margin, where light-footed elves would gladly have danced their airy rounds. Here the hand of taste was conspicuous though not obtrusive, and formed a contrast with another abode in the same neighbourhood, on which much money had been lavished; where Italian colonnades were placed to excite the wonder of the rude crags, and a stone staircase, to threaten with destruction a wooden house. Venuses and Apollos condemned to lie hid in snow three parts of the year seemed equally displaced, and called the attention off from the surrounding sublimity, without inspiring any voluptuous sensations. Yet even these abortions of vanity have been useful. Numberless workmen have been employed, and the superintending artist has improved the labourers, whose unskilfulness tormented him, by obliging them to submit to the discipline of rules. Adieu! Yours affectionately. LETTER IV. The severity of the long Swedish winter tends to render the people sluggish, for though this season has its peculiar pleasures, too much time is employed to guard against its inclemency. Still as warm clothing is absolutely necessary, the women spin and the men weave, and by these exertions get a fence to keep out the cold. I have rarely passed a knot of cottages without seeing cloth laid out to bleach, and when I entered, always found the women spinning or knitting. A mistaken tenderness, however, for their children, makes them even in summer load them with flannels, and having a sort of natural antipathy to cold water, the squalid appearance of the poor babes, not to speak of the noxious smell which flannel and rugs retain, seems a reply to a question I had often asked--Why I did not see more children in the villages I passed through? Indeed the children appear to be nipt in the bud, having neither the graces nor charms of their age. And this, I am persuaded, is much more owing to the ignorance of the mothers than to the rudeness of the climate. Rendered feeble by the continual perspiration they are kept in, whilst every pore is absorbing unwholesome moisture, they give them, even at the breast, brandy, salt fish, and every other crude substance which air and exercise enables the parent to digest. The women of fortune here, as well as everywhere else, have nurses to suckle their children; and the total want of chastity in the lower class of women frequently renders them very unfit for the trust. You have sometimes remarked to me the difference of the manners of the country girls in England and in America; attributing the reserve of the former to the climate--to the absence of genial suns. But it must be their stars, not the zephyrs, gently stealing on their senses, which here lead frail women astray. Who can look at these rocks, and allow the voluptuousness of nature to be an excuse for gratifying the desires it inspires? We must therefore, find some other cause beside voluptuousness, I believe, to account for the conduct of the Swedish and American country girls; for I am led to conclude, from all the observations I have made, that there is always a mixture of sentiment and imagination in voluptuousness, to which neither of them have much pretension. The country girls of Ireland and Wales equally feel the first impulse of nature, which, restrained in England by fear or delicacy, proves that society is there in a more advanced state. Besides, as the mind is cultivated, and taste gains ground, the passions become stronger, and rest on something more stable than the casual sympathies of the moment. Health and idleness will always account for promiscuous amours; and in some degree I term every person idle, the exercise of whose mind does not bear some proportion to that of the body. The Swedish ladies exercise neither sufficiently; of course, grow very fat at an early age; and when they have not this downy appearance, a comfortable idea, you will say, in a cold climate, they are not remarkable for fine forms. They have, however, mostly fine complexions; but indolence makes the lily soon displace the rose. The quantity of coffee, spices, and other things of that kind, with want of care, almost universally spoil their teeth, which contrast but ill with their ruby lips. The manners of Stockholm are refined, I hear, by the introduction of gallantry; but in the country, romping and coarse freedoms, with coarser allusions, keep the spirits awake. In the article of cleanliness, the women of all descriptions seem very deficient; and their dress shows that vanity is more inherent in women than taste. The men appear to have paid still less court to the graces. They are a robust, healthy race, distinguished for their common sense and turn for humour, rather than for wit or sentiment. I include not, as you may suppose, in this general character, some of the nobility and officers, who having travelled, are polite and well informed. I must own to you that the lower class of people here amuse and interest me much more than the middling, with their apish good breeding and prejudices. The sympathy and frankness of heart conspicuous in the peasantry produces even a simple gracefulness of deportment which has frequently struck me as very picturesque; I have often also been touched by their extreme desire to oblige me, when I could not explain my wants, and by their earnest manner of expressing that desire. There is such a charm in tenderness! It is so delightful to love our fellow-creatures, and meet the honest affections as they break forth. Still, my good friend, I begin to think that I should not like to live continually in the country with people whose minds have such a narrow range. My heart would frequently be interested; but my mind would languish for more companionable society. The beauties of nature appear to me now even more alluring than in my youth, because my intercourse with the world has formed without vitiating my taste. But, with respect to the inhabitants of the country, my fancy has probably, when disgusted with artificial manners, solaced itself by joining the advantages of cultivation with the interesting sincerity of innocence, forgetting the lassitude that ignorance will naturally produce. I like to see animals sporting, and sympathise in their pains and pleasures. Still I love sometimes to view the human face divine, and trace the soul, as well as the heart, in its varying lineaments. A journey to the country, which I must shortly make, will enable me to extend my remarks.--Adieu! LETTER V. Had I determined to travel in Sweden merely for pleasure, I should probably have chosen the road to Stockholm, though convinced, by repeated observation, that the manners of a people are best discriminated in the country. The inhabitants of the capital are all of the same genus; for the varieties in the species we must, therefore, search where the habitations of men are so separated as to allow the difference of climate to have its natural effect. And with this difference we are, perhaps, most forcibly struck at the first view, just as we form an estimate of the leading traits of a character at the first glance, of which intimacy afterwards makes us almost lose sight. As my affairs called me to Stromstad (the frontier town of Sweden) in my way to Norway, I was to pass over, I heard, the most uncultivated part of the country. Still I believe that the grand features of Sweden are the same everywhere, and it is only the grand features that admit of description. There is an individuality in every prospect, which remains in the memory as forcibly depicted as the particular features that have arrested our attention; yet we cannot find words to discriminate that individuality so as to enable a stranger to say, this is the face, that the view. We may amuse by setting the imagination to work; but we cannot store the memory with a fact. As I wish to give you a general idea of this country, I shall continue in my desultory manner to make such observations and reflections as the circumstances draw forth, without losing time, by endeavouring to arrange them. Travelling in Sweden is very cheap, and even commodious, if you make but the proper arrangements. Here, as in other parts of the Continent, it is necessary to have your own carriage, and to have a servant who can speak the language, if you are unacquainted with it. Sometimes a servant who can drive would be found very useful, which was our case, for I travelled in company with two gentlemen, one of whom had a German servant who drove very well. This was all the party; for not intending to make a long stay, I left my little girl behind me. As the roads are not much frequented, to avoid waiting three or four hours for horses, we sent, as is the constant custom, an _avant courier_ the night before, to order them at every post, and we constantly found them ready. Our first set I jokingly termed requisition horses; but afterwards we had almost always little spirited animals that went on at a round pace. The roads, making allowance for the ups and downs, are uncommonly good and pleasant. The expense, including the postillions and other incidental things, does not amount to more than a shilling the Swedish mile. The inns are tolerable; but not liking the rye bread, I found it necessary to furnish myself with some wheaten before I set out. The beds, too, were particularly disagreeable to me. It seemed to me that I was sinking into a grave when I entered them; for, immersed in down placed in a sort of box, I expected to be suffocated before morning. The sleeping between two down beds--they do so even in summer--must be very unwholesome during any season; and I cannot conceive how the people can bear it, especially as the summers are very warm. But warmth they seem not to feel; and, I should think, were afraid of the air, by always keeping their windows shut. In the winter, I am persuaded, I could not exist in rooms thus closed up, with stoves heated in their manner, for they only put wood into them twice a day; and, when the stove is thoroughly heated, they shut the flue, not admitting any air to renew its elasticity, even when the rooms are crowded with company. These stoves are made of earthenware, and often in a form that ornaments an apartment, which is never the case with the heavy iron ones I have seen elsewhere. Stoves may be economical, but I like a fire, a wood one, in preference; and I am convinced that the current of air which it attracts renders this the best mode of warming rooms. We arrived early the second evening at a little village called Quistram, where we had determined to pass the night, having been informed that we should not afterwards find a tolerable inn until we reached Stromstad. Advancing towards Quistram, as the sun was beginning to decline, I was particularly impressed by the beauty of the situation. The road was on the declivity of a rocky mountain, slightly covered with a mossy herbage and vagrant firs. At the bottom, a river, straggling amongst the recesses of stone, was hastening forward to the ocean and its grey rocks, of which we had a prospect on the left; whilst on the right it stole peacefully forward into the meadows, losing itself in a thickly-wooded rising ground. As we drew near, the loveliest banks of wild flowers variegated the prospect, and promised to exhale odours to add to the sweetness of the air, the purity of which you could almost see, alas! not smell, for the putrefying herrings, which they use as manure, after the oil has been extracted, spread over the patches of earth, claimed by cultivation, destroyed every other. It was intolerable, and entered with us into the inn, which was in other respects a charming retreat. Whilst supper was preparing I crossed the bridge, and strolled by the river, listening to its murmurs. Approaching the bank, the beauty of which had attracted my attention in the carriage, I recognised many of my old acquaintance growing with great luxuriance. Seated on it, I could not avoid noting an obvious remark. Sweden appeared to me the country in the world most proper to form the botanist and natural historian; every object seemed to remind me of the creation of things, of the first efforts of sportive nature. When a country arrives at a certain state of perfection, it looks as if it were made so; and curiosity is not excited. Besides, in social life too many objects occur for any to be distinctly observed by the generality of mankind; yet a contemplative man, or poet, in the country--I do not mean the country adjacent to cities--feels and sees what would escape vulgar eyes, and draws suitable inferences. This train of reflections might have led me further, in every sense of the word; but I could not escape from the detestable evaporation of the herrings, which poisoned all my pleasure. After making a tolerable supper--for it is not easy to get fresh provisions on the road--I retired, to be lulled to sleep by the murmuring of a stream, of which I with great difficulty obtained sufficient to perform my daily ablutions. The last battle between the Danes and Swedes, which gave new life to their ancient enmity, was fought at this place 1788; only seventeen or eighteen were killed, for the great superiority of the Danes and Norwegians obliged the Swedes to submit; but sickness, and a scarcity of provision, proved very fatal to their opponents on their return. It would be very easy to search for the particulars of this engagement in the publications of the day; but as this manner of filling my pages does not come within my plan, I probably should not have remarked that the battle was fought here, were it not to relate an anecdote which I had from good authority. I noticed, when I first mentioned this place to you, that we descended a steep before we came to the inn; an immense ridge of rocks stretching out on one side. The inn was sheltered under them; and about a hundred yards from it was a bridge that crossed the river, the murmurs of which I have celebrated; it was not fordable. The Swedish general received orders to stop at the bridge and dispute the passage--a most advantageous post for an army so much inferior in force; but the influence of beauty is not confined to courts. The mistress of the inn was handsome; when I saw her there were still some remains of beauty; and, to preserve her house, the general gave up the only tenable station. He was afterwards broke for contempt of orders. Approaching the frontiers, consequently the sea, nature resumed an aspect ruder and ruder, or rather seemed the bones of the world waiting to be clothed with everything necessary to give life and beauty. Still it was sublime. The clouds caught their hue of the rocks that menaced them. The sun appeared afraid to shine, the birds ceased to sing, and the flowers to bloom; but the eagle fixed his nest high amongst the rocks, and the vulture hovered over this abode of desolation. The farm houses, in which only poverty resided, were formed of logs scarcely keeping off the cold and drifting snow: out of them the inhabitants seldom peeped, and the sports or prattling of children was neither seen or heard. The current of life seemed congealed at the source: all were not frozen, for it was summer, you remember; but everything appeared so dull that I waited to see ice, in order to reconcile me to the absence of gaiety. The day before, my attention had frequently been attracted by the wild beauties of the country we passed through. The rocks which tossed their fantastic heads so high were often covered with pines and firs, varied in the most picturesque manner. Little woods filled up the recesses when forests did not darken the scene, and valleys and glens, cleared of the trees, displayed a dazzling verdure which contrasted with the gloom of the shading pines. The eye stole into many a covert where tranquillity seemed to have taken up her abode, and the number of little lakes that continually presented themselves added to the peaceful composure of the scenery. The little cultivation which appeared did not break the enchantment, nor did castles rear their turrets aloft to crush the cottages, and prove that man is more savage than the natives of the woods. I heard of the bears but never saw them stalk forth, which I was sorry for; I wished to have seen one in its wild state. In the winter, I am told, they sometimes catch a stray cow, which is a heavy loss to the owner. The farms are small. Indeed most of the houses we saw on the road indicated poverty, or rather that the people could just live. Towards the frontiers they grew worse and worse in their appearance, as if not willing to put sterility itself out of countenance. No gardens smiled round the habitations, not a potato or cabbage to eat with the fish drying on a stick near the door. A little grain here and there appeared, the long stalks of which you might almost reckon. The day was gloomy when we passed over this rejected spot, the wind bleak, and winter seemed to be contending with nature, faintly struggling to change the season. Surely, thought I, if the sun ever shines here it cannot warm these stones; moss only cleaves to them, partaking of their hardness, and nothing like vegetable life appears to cheer with hope the heart. So far from thinking that the primitive inhabitants of the world lived in a southern climate where Paradise spontaneously arose, I am led to infer, from various circumstances, that the first dwelling of man happened to be a spot like this which led him to adore a sun so seldom seen; for this worship, which probably preceded that of demons or demigods, certainly never began in a southern climate, where the continual presence of the sun prevented its being considered as a good; or rather the want of it never being felt, this glorious luminary would carelessly have diffused its blessings without being hailed as a benefactor. Man must therefore have been placed in the north, to tempt him to run after the sun, in order that the different parts of the earth might be peopled. Nor do I wonder that hordes of barbarians always poured out of these regions to seek for milder climes, when nothing like cultivation attached them to the soil, especially when we take into the view that the adventuring spirit, common to man, is naturally stronger and more general during the infancy of society. The conduct of the followers of Mahomet, and the crusaders, will sufficiently corroborate my assertion. Approaching nearer to Stromstad, the appearance of the town proved to be quite in character with the country we had just passed through. I hesitated to use the word country, yet could not find another; still it would sound absurd to talk of fields of rocks. The town was built on and under them. Three or four weather-beaten trees were shrinking from the wind, and the grass grew so sparingly that I could not avoid thinking Dr. Johnson's hyperbolical assertion "that the man merited well of his country who made a few blades of grass grow where they never grew before," might here have been uttered with strict propriety. The steeple likewise towered aloft, for what is a church, even amongst the Lutherans, without a steeple? But to prevent mischief in such an exposed situation, it is wisely placed on a rock at some distance not to endanger the roof of the church. Rambling about, I saw the door open, and entered, when to my great surprise I found the clergyman reading prayers, with only the clerk attending. I instantly thought of Swift's "Dearly beloved Roger," but on inquiry I learnt that some one had died that morning, and in Sweden it is customary to pray for the dead. The sun, who I suspected never dared to shine, began now to convince me that he came forth only to torment; for though the wind was still cutting, the rocks became intolerably warm under my feet, whilst the herring effluvia, which I before found so very offensive, once more assailed me. I hastened back to the house of a merchant, the little sovereign of the place, because he was by far the richest, though not the mayor. Here we were most hospitably received, and introduced to a very fine and numerous family. I have before mentioned to you the lilies of the north, I might have added, water lilies, for the complexion of many, even of the young women, seem to be bleached on the bosom of snow. But in this youthful circle the roses bloomed with all their wonted freshness, and I wondered from whence the fire was stolen which sparkled in their fine blue eyes. Here we slept; and I rose early in the morning to prepare for my little voyage to Norway. I had determined to go by water, and was to leave my companions behind; but not getting a boat immediately, and the wind being high and unfavourable, I was told that it was not safe to go to sea during such boisterous weather; I was, therefore, obliged to wait for the morrow, and had the present day on my hands, which I feared would be irksome, because the family, who possessed about a dozen French words amongst them and not an English phrase, were anxious to amuse me, and would not let me remain alone in my room. The town we had already walked round and round, and if we advanced farther on the coast, it was still to view the same unvaried immensity of water surrounded by barrenness. The gentlemen, wishing to peep into Norway, proposed going to Fredericshall, the first town--the distance was only three Swedish miles. There and back again was but a day's journey, and would not, I thought, interfere with my voyage. I agreed, and invited the eldest and prettiest of the girls to accompany us. I invited her because I like to see a beautiful face animated by pleasure, and to have an opportunity of regarding the country, whilst the gentlemen were amusing themselves with her. I did not know, for I had not thought of it, that we were to scale some of the most mountainous cliffs of Sweden in our way to the ferry which separates the two countries. Entering amongst the cliffs, we were sheltered from the wind, warm sunbeams began to play, streams to flow, and groves of pines diversified the rocks. Sometimes they became suddenly bare and sublime. Once, in particular, after mounting the most terrific precipice, we had to pass through a tremendous defile, where the closing chasm seemed to threaten us with instant destruction, when, turning quickly, verdant meadows and a beautiful lake relieved and charmed my eyes. I had never travelled through Switzerland, but one of my companions assured me that I should not there find anything superior, if equal, to the wild grandeur of these views. As we had not taken this excursion into our plan, the horses had not been previously ordered, which obliged us to wait two hours at the first post. The day was wearing away. The road was so bad that walking up the precipices consumed the time insensibly; but as we desired horses at each post ready at a certain hour, we reckoned on returning more speedily. We stopped to dine at a tolerable farm; they brought us out ham, butter, cheese, and milk, and the charge was so moderate that I scattered a little money amongst the children who were peeping at us, in order to pay them for their trouble. Arrived at the ferry, we were still detained, for the people who attend at the ferries have a stupid kind of sluggishness in their manner, which is very provoking when you are in haste. At present I did not feel it, for, scrambling up the cliffs, my eye followed the river as it rolled between the grand rocky banks; and, to complete the scenery, they were covered with firs and pines, through which the wind rustled as if it were lulling itself to sleep with the declining sun. Behold us now in Norway; and I could not avoid feeling surprise at observing the difference in the manners of the inhabitants of the two sides of the river, for everything shows that the Norwegians are more industrious and more opulent. The Swedes (for neighbours are seldom the best friends) accuse the Norwegians of knavery, and they retaliate by bringing a charge of hypocrisy against the Swedes. Local circumstances probably render both unjust, speaking from their feelings rather than reason; and is this astonishing when we consider that most writers of travels have done the same, whose works have served as materials for the compilers of universal histories? All are eager to give a national character, which is rarely just, because they do not discriminate the natural from the acquired difference. The natural, I believe, on due consideration, will be found to consist merely in the degree of vivacity, or thoughtfulness, pleasures or pain, inspired by the climate, whilst the varieties which the forms of government, including religion, produce are much more numerous and unstable. A people have been characterised as stupid by nature; what a paradox! because they did not consider that slaves, having no object to stimulate industry; have not their faculties sharpened by the only thing that can exercise them, self-interest. Others have been brought forward as brutes, having no aptitude for the arts and sciences, only because the progress of improvement had not reached that stage which produces them. Those writers who have considered the history of man, or of the human mind, on a more enlarged scale have fallen into similar errors, not reflecting that the passions are weak where the necessaries of life are too hardly or too easily obtained. Travellers who require that every nation should resemble their native country, had better stay at home. It is, for example, absurd to blame a people for not having that degree of personal cleanliness and elegance of manners which only refinement of taste produces, and will produce everywhere in proportion as society attains a general polish. The most essential service, I presume, that authors could render to society, would be to promote inquiry and discussion, instead of making those dogmatical assertions which only appear calculated to gird the human mind round with imaginary circles, like the paper globe which represents the one he inhabits. This spirit of inquiry is the characteristic of the present century, from which the succeeding will, I am persuaded, receive a great accumulation of knowledge; and doubtless its diffusion will in a great measure destroy the factitious national characters which have been supposed permanent, though only rendered so by the permanency of ignorance. Arriving at Fredericshall, at the siege of which Charles XII. lost his life, we had only time to take a transient view of it whilst they were preparing us some refreshment. Poor Charles! I thought of him with respect. I have always felt the same for Alexander, with whom he has been classed as a madman by several writers, who have reasoned superficially, confounding the morals of the day with the few grand principles on which unchangeable morality rests. Making no allowance for the ignorance and prejudices of the period, they do not perceive how much they themselves are indebted to general improvement for the acquirements, and even the virtues, which they would not have had the force of mind to attain by their individual exertions in a less advanced state of society. The evening was fine, as is usual at this season, and the refreshing odour of the pine woods became more perceptible, for it was nine o'clock when we left Fredericshall. At the ferry we were detained by a dispute relative to our Swedish passport, which we did not think of getting countersigned in Norway. Midnight was coming on, yet it might with such propriety have been termed the noon of night that, had Young ever travelled towards the north, I should not have wondered at his becoming enamoured of the moon. But it is not the Queen of Night alone who reigns here in all her splendour, though the sun, loitering just below the horizon, decks her within a golden tinge from his car, illuminating the cliffs that hide him; the heavens also, of a clear softened blue, throw her forward, and the evening star appears a smaller moon to the naked eye. The huge shadows of the rocks, fringed with firs, concentrating the views without darkening them, excited that tender melancholy which, sublimating the imagination, exalts rather than depresses the mind. My companions fell asleep--fortunately they did not snore; and I contemplated, fearless of idle questions, a night such as I had never before seen or felt, to charm the senses, and calm the heart. The very air was balmy as it freshened into morn, producing the most voluptuous sensations. A vague pleasurable sentiment absorbed me, as I opened my bosom to the embraces of nature; and my soul rose to its Author, with the chirping of the solitary birds, which began to feel, rather than see, advancing day. I had leisure to mark its progress. The grey morn, streaked with silvery rays, ushered in the orient beams (how beautifully varying into purple!), yet I was sorry to lose the soft watery clouds which preceded them, exciting a kind of expectation that made me almost afraid to breathe, lest I should break the charm. I saw the sun--and sighed. One of my companions, now awake, perceiving that the postillion had mistaken the road, began to swear at him, and roused the other two, who reluctantly shook off sleep. We had immediately to measure back our steps, and did not reach Stromstad before five in the morning. The wind had changed in the night, and my boat was ready. A dish of coffee, and fresh linen, recruited my spirits, and I directly set out again for Norway, purposing to land much higher up the coast. Wrapping my great-coat round me, I lay down on some sails at the bottom of the boat, its motion rocking me to rest, till a discourteous wave interrupted my slumbers, and obliged me to rise and feel a solitariness which was not so soothing as that of the past night. Adieu! LETTER VI. The sea was boisterous, but, as I had an experienced pilot, I did not apprehend any danger. Sometimes, I was told, boats are driven far out and lost. However, I seldom calculate chances so nicely--sufficient for the day is the obvious evil! We had to steer amongst islands and huge rocks, rarely losing sight of the shore, though it now and then appeared only a mist that bordered the water's edge. The pilot assured me that the numerous harbours on the Norway coast were very safe, and the pilot-boats were always on the watch. The Swedish side is very dangerous, I am also informed; and the help of experience is not often at hand to enable strange vessels to steer clear of the rocks, which lurk below the water close to the shore. There are no tides here, nor in the Cattegate, and, what appeared to me a consequence, no sandy beach. Perhaps this observation has been made before; but it did not occur to me till I saw the waves continually beating against the bare rocks, without ever receding to leave a sediment to harden. The wind was fair, till we had to tack about in order to enter Laurvig, where we arrived towards three o'clock in the afternoon. It is a clean, pleasant town, with a considerable iron-work, which gives life to it. As the Norwegians do not frequently see travellers, they are very curious to know their business, and who they are--so curious, that I was half tempted to adopt Dr. Franklin's plan, when travelling in America, where they are equally prying, which was to write on a paper, for public inspection, my name, from whence I came, where I was going, and what was my business. But if I were importuned by their curiosity, their friendly gestures gratified me. A woman coming alone interested them. And I know not whether my weariness gave me a look of peculiar delicacy, but they approached to assist me, and inquire after my wants, as if they were afraid to hurt, and wished to protect me. The sympathy I inspired, thus dropping down from the clouds in a strange land, affected me more than it would have done had not my spirits been harassed by various causes--by much thinking--musing almost to madness--and even by a sort of weak melancholy that hung about my heart at parting with my daughter for the first time. You know that, as a female, I am particularly attached to her; I feel more than a mother's fondness and anxiety when I reflect on the dependent and oppressed state of her sex. I dread lest she should be forced to sacrifice her heart to her principles, or principles to her heart. With trembling hand I shall cultivate sensibility and cherish delicacy of sentiment, lest, whilst I lend fresh blushes to the rose, I sharpen the thorns that will wound the breast I would fain guard; I dread to unfold her mind, lest it should render her unfit for the world she is to inhabit. Hapless woman! what a fate is thine! But whither am I wandering? I only meant to tell you that the impression the kindness of the simple people made visible on my countenance increased my sensibility to a painful degree. I wished to have had a room to myself, for their attention, and rather distressing observation, embarrassed me extremely. Yet, as they would bring me eggs, and make my coffee, I found I could not leave them without hurting their feelings of hospitality. It is customary here for the host and hostess to welcome their guests as master and mistress of the house. My clothes, in their turn, attracted the attention of the females, and I could not help thinking of the foolish vanity which makes many women so proud of the observation of strangers as to take wonder very gratuitously for admiration. This error they are very apt to fall into when, arrived in a foreign country, the populace stare at them as they pass. Yet the make of a cap or the singularity of a gown is often the cause of the flattering attention which afterwards supports a fantastic superstructure of self-conceit. Not having brought a carriage over with me, expecting to have met a person where I landed, who was immediately to have procured me one, I was detained whilst the good people of the inn sent round to all their acquaintance to search for a vehicle. A rude sort of cabriole was at last found, and a driver half drunk, who was not less eager to make a good bargain on that account. I had a Danish captain of a ship and his mate with me; the former was to ride on horseback, at which he was not very expert, and the latter to partake of my seat. The driver mounted behind to guide the horses and flourish the whip over our shoulders; he would not suffer the reins out of his own hands. There was something so grotesque in our appearance that I could not avoid shrinking into myself when I saw a gentleman-like man in the group which crowded round the door to observe us. I could have broken the driver's whip for cracking to call the women and children together, but seeing a significant smile on the face, I had before remarked, I burst into a laugh to allow him to do so too, and away we flew. This is not a flourish of the pen, for we actually went on full gallop a long time, the horses being very good; indeed, I have never met with better, if so good, post-horses as in Norway. They are of a stouter make than the English horses, appear to be well fed, and are not easily tired. I had to pass over, I was informed, the most fertile and best cultivated tract of country in Norway. The distance was three Norwegian miles, which are longer than the Swedish. The roads were very good; the farmers are obliged to repair them; and we scampered through a great extent of country in a more improved state than any I had viewed since I left England. Still there was sufficient of hills, dales, and rocks to prevent the idea of a plain from entering the head, or even of such scenery as England and France afford. The prospects were also embellished by water, rivers, and lakes before the sea proudly claimed my regard, and the road running frequently through lofty groves rendered the landscapes beautiful, though they were not so romantic as those I had lately seen with such delight. It was late when I reached Tonsberg, and I was glad to go to bed at a decent inn. The next morning the 17th of July, conversing with the gentleman with whom I had business to transact, I found that I should be detained at Tonsberg three weeks, and I lamented that I had not brought my child with me. The inn was quiet, and my room so pleasant, commanding a view of the sea, confined by an amphitheatre of hanging woods, that I wished to remain there, though no one in the house could speak English or French. The mayor, my friend, however, sent a young woman to me who spoke a little English, and she agreed to call on me twice a day to receive my orders and translate them to my hostess. My not understanding the language was an excellent pretext for dining alone, which I prevailed on them to let me do at a late hour, for the early dinners in Sweden had entirely deranged my day. I could not alter it there without disturbing the economy of a family where I was as a visitor, necessity having forced me to accept of an invitation from a private family, the lodgings were so incommodious. Amongst the Norwegians I had the arrangement of my own time, and I determined to regulate it in such a manner that I might enjoy as much of their sweet summer as I possibly could; short, it is true, but "passing sweet." I never endured a winter in this rude clime, consequently it was not the contrast, but the real beauty of the season which made the present summer appear to me the finest I had ever seen. Sheltered from the north and eastern winds, nothing can exceed the salubrity, the soft freshness of the western gales. In the evening they also die away; the aspen leaves tremble into stillness, and reposing nature seems to be warmed by the moon, which here assumes a genial aspect. And if a light shower has chanced to fall with the sun, the juniper, the underwood of the forest, exhales a wild perfume, mixed with a thousand nameless sweets that, soothing the heart, leave images in the memory which the imagination will ever hold dear. Nature is the nurse of sentiment, the true source of taste; yet what misery, as well as rapture, is produced by a quick perception of the beautiful and sublime when it is exercised in observing animated nature, when every beauteous feeling and emotion excites responsive sympathy, and the harmonised soul sinks into melancholy or rises to ecstasy, just as the chords are touched, like the AEolian harp agitated by the changing wind. But how dangerous is it to foster these sentiments in such an imperfect state of existence, and how difficult to eradicate them when an affection for mankind, a passion for an individual, is but the unfolding of that love which embraces all that is great and beautiful! When a warm heart has received strong impressions, they are not to be effaced. Emotions become sentiments, and the imagination renders even transient sensations permanent by fondly retracing them. I cannot, without a thrill of delight, recollect views I have seen, which are not to be forgotten, nor looks I have felt in every nerve, which I shall never more meet. The grave has closed over a dear friend, the friend of my youth. Still she is present with me, and I hear her soft voice warbling as I stray over the heath. Fate has separated me from another, the fire of whose eyes, tempered by infantine tenderness, still warms my breast; even when gazing on these tremendous cliffs sublime emotions absorb my soul. And, smile not, if I add that the rosy tint of morning reminds me of a suffusion which will never more charm my senses, unless it reappears on the cheeks of my child. Her sweet blushes I may yet hide in my bosom, and she is still too young to ask why starts the tear so near akin to pleasure and pain. I cannot write any more at present. To-morrow we will talk of Tonsberg. LETTER VII. Though the king of Denmark be an absolute monarch, yet the Norwegians appear to enjoy all the blessings of freedom. Norway may be termed a sister kingdom; but the people have no viceroy to lord it over them, and fatten his dependants with the fruit of their labour. There are only two counts in the whole country who have estates, and exact some feudal observances from their tenantry. All the rest of the country is divided into small farms, which belong to the cultivator. It is true some few, appertaining to the Church, are let, but always on a lease for life, generally renewed in favour of the eldest son, who has this advantage as well as a right to a double portion of the property. But the value of the farm is estimated, and after his portion is assigned to him he must be answerable for the residue to the remaining part of the family. Every farmer for ten years is obliged to attend annually about twelve days to learn the military exercise, but it is always at a small distance from his dwelling, and does not lead him into any new habits of life. There are about six thousand regulars also in garrison at Christiania and Fredericshall, who are equally reserved, with the militia, for the defence of their own country. So that when the Prince Royal passed into Sweden in 1788, he was obliged to request, not command, them to accompany him on this expedition. These corps are mostly composed of the sons of the cottagers, who being labourers on the farms, are allowed a few acres to cultivate for themselves. These men voluntarily enlist, but it is only for a limited period (six years), at the expiration of which they have the liberty of retiring. The pay is only twopence a day and bread; still, considering the cheapness of the country, it is more than sixpence in England. The distribution of landed property into small farms produces a degree of equality which I have seldom seen elsewhere; and the rich being all merchants, who are obliged to divide their personal fortune amongst their children, the boys always receiving twice as much as the girls, property has met a chance of accumulating till overgrowing wealth destroys the balance of liberty. You will be surprised to hear me talk of liberty; yet the Norwegians appear to me to be the most free community I have ever observed. The mayor of each town or district, and the judges in the country, exercise an authority almost patriarchal. They can do much good, but little harm,--as every individual can appeal from their judgment; and as they may always be forced to give a reason for their conduct, it is generally regulated by prudence. "They have not time to learn to be tyrants," said a gentleman to me, with whom I discussed the subject. The farmers not fearing to be turned out of their farms, should they displease a man in power, and having no vote to be commanded at an election for a mock representative, are a manly race; for not being obliged to submit to any debasing tenure in order to live, or advance themselves in the world, they act with an independent spirit. I never yet have heard of anything like domineering or oppression, excepting such as has arisen from natural causes. The freedom the people enjoy may, perhaps, render them a little litigious, and subject them to the impositions of cunning practitioners of the law; but the authority of office is bounded, and the emoluments of it do not destroy its utility. Last year a man who had abused his power was cashiered, on the representation of the people to the bailiff of the district. There are four in Norway who might with propriety be termed sheriffs; and from their sentence an appeal, by either party, may be made to Copenhagen. Near most of the towns are commons, on which the cows of all the inhabitants, indiscriminately, are allowed to graze. The poor, to whom a cow is necessary, are almost supported by it. Besides, to render living more easy, they all go out to fish in their own boats, and fish is their principal food. The lower class of people in the towns are in general sailors; and the industrious have usually little ventures of their own that serve to render the winter comfortable. With respect to the country at large, the importation is considerably in favour of Norway. They are forbidden, at present, to export corn or rye on account of the advanced price. The restriction which most resembles the painful subordination of Ireland, is that vessels, trading to the West Indies, are obliged to pass by their own ports, and unload their cargoes at Copenhagen, which they afterwards reship. The duty is indeed inconsiderable, but the navigation being dangerous, they run a double risk. There is an excise on all articles of consumption brought to the towns; but the officers are not strict, and it would be reckoned invidious to enter a house to search, as in England. The Norwegians appear to me a sensible, shrewd people, with little scientific knowledge, and still less taste for literature; but they are arriving at the epoch which precedes the introduction of the arts and sciences. Most of the towns are seaports, and seaports are not favourable to improvement. The captains acquire a little superficial knowledge by travelling, which their indefatigable attention to the making of money prevents their digesting; and the fortune that they thus laboriously acquire is spent, as it usually is in towns of this description, in show and good living. They love their country, but have not much public spirit. Their exertions are, generally speaking, only for their families, which, I conceive, will always be the case, till politics, becoming a subject of discussion, enlarges the heart by opening the understanding. The French Revolution will have this effect. They sing, at present, with great glee, many Republican songs, and seem earnestly to wish that the republic may stand; yet they appear very much attached to their Prince Royal, and, as far as rumour can give an idea of a character, he appears to merit their attachment. When I am at Copenhagen, I shall be able to ascertain on what foundation their good opinion is built; at present I am only the echo of it. In the year 1788 he travelled through Norway; and acts of mercy gave dignity to the parade, and interest to the joy his presence inspired. At this town he pardoned a girl condemned to die for murdering an illegitimate child, a crime seldom committed in this country. She is since married, and become the careful mother of a family. This might be given as an instance, that a desperate act is not always a proof of an incorrigible depravity of character, the only plausible excuse that has been brought forward to justify the infliction of capital punishments. I will relate two or three other anecdotes to you, for the truth of which I will not vouch because the facts were not of sufficient consequence for me to take much pains to ascertain them; and, true or false, they evince that the people like to make a kind of mistress of their prince. An officer, mortally wounded at the ill-advised battle of Quistram, desired to speak with the prince; and with his dying breath, earnestly recommended to his care a young woman of Christiania, to whom he was engaged. When the prince returned there, a ball was given by the chief inhabitants: he inquired whether this unfortunate girl was invited, and requested that she might, though of the second class. The girl came; she was pretty; and finding herself among her superiors, bashfully sat down as near the door as possible, nobody taking notice of her. Shortly after, the prince entering, immediately inquired for her, and asked her to dance, to the mortification of the rich dames. After it was over he handed her to the top of the room, and placing himself by her, spoke of the loss she had sustained, with tenderness, promising to provide for anyone she should marry, as the story goes. She is since married, and he has not forgotten his promise. A little girl, during the same expedition, in Sweden, who informed him that the logs of a bridge were out underneath, was taken by his orders to Christiania, and put to school at his expense. Before I retail other beneficial effects of his journey, it is necessary to inform you that the laws here are mild, and do not punish capitally for any crime but murder, which seldom occurs. Every other offence merely subjects the delinquent to imprisonment and labour in the castle, or rather arsenal at Christiania, and the fortress at Fredericshall. The first and second conviction produces a sentence for a limited number of years--two, three, five, or seven, proportioned to the atrocity of the crime. After the third he is whipped, branded in the forehead, and condemned to perpetual slavery. This is the ordinary course of justice. For some flagrant breaches of trust, or acts of wanton cruelty, criminals have been condemned to slavery for life time first the of conviction, but not frequently. The number of these slaves do not, I am informed, amount to more than a hundred, which is not considerable, compared with the population, upwards of eight hundred thousand. Should I pass through Christiania, on my return to Gothenburg, I shall probably have an opportunity of learning other particulars. There is also a House of Correction at Christiania for trifling misdemeanours, where the women are confined to labour and imprisonment even for life. The state of the prisoners was represented to the prince, in consequence of which he visited the arsenal and House of Correction. The slaves at the arsenal were loaded with irons of a great weight; he ordered them to be lightened as much as possible. The people in the House of Correction were commanded not to speak to him; but four women, condemned to remain there for life, got into the passage, and fell at his feet. He granted them a pardon; and inquiring respecting the treatment of the prisoners, he was informed that they were frequently whipped going in, and coming out, and for any fault, at the discretion of the inspectors. This custom he humanely abolished, though some of the principal inhabitants, whose situation in life had raised them above the temptation of stealing, were of opinion that these chastisements were necessary and wholesome. In short, everything seems to announce that the prince really cherishes the laudable ambition of fulfilling the duties of his station. This ambition is cherished and directed by the Count Bernstorff, the Prime Minister of Denmark, who is universally celebrated for his abilities and virtue. The happiness of the people is a substantial eulogium; and, from all I can gather, the inhabitants of Denmark and Norway are the least oppressed people of Europe. The press is free. They translate any of the French publications of the day, deliver their opinion on the subject, and discuss those it leads to with great freedom, and without fearing to displease the Government. On the subject of religion they are likewise becoming tolerant, at least, and perhaps have advanced a step further in free-thinking. One writer has ventured to deny the divinity of Jesus Christ, and to question the necessity or utility of the Christian system, without being considered universally as a monster, which would have been the case a few years ago. They have translated many German works on education; and though they have not adopted any of their plans, it has become a subject of discussion. There are some grammar and free schools; but, from what I hear, not very good ones. All the children learn to read, write, and cast accounts, for the purposes of common life. They have no university; and nothing that deserves the name of science is taught; nor do individuals, by pursuing any branch of knowledge, excite a degree of curiosity which is the forerunner of improvement. Knowledge is not absolutely necessary to enable a considerable portion of the community to live; and, till it is, I fear it never becomes general. In this country, where minerals abound, there is not one collection; and, in all probability, I venture a conjecture, the want of mechanical and chemical knowledge renders the silver mines unproductive, for the quantity of silver obtained every year is not sufficient to defray the expenses. It has been urged that the employment of such a number of hands is very beneficial. But a positive loss is never to be done away; and the men, thus employed, would naturally find some other means of living, instead of being thus a dead weight on Government, or rather on the community from whom its revenue is drawn. About three English miles from Tonsberg there is a salt work, belonging, like all their establishments, to Government, in which they employ above a hundred and fifty men, and maintain nearly five hundred people, who earn their living. The clear profit, an increasing one, amounts to two thousand pounds sterling. And as the eldest son of the inspector, an ingenious young man, has been sent by the Government to travel, and acquire some mathematical and chemical knowledge in Germany, it has a chance of being improved. He is the only person I have met with here who appears to have a scientific turn of mind. I do not mean to assert that I have not met with others who have a spirit of inquiry. The salt-works at St. Ubes are basins in the sand, and the sun produces the evaporation, but here there is no beach. Besides, the heat of summer is so short-lived that it would be idle to contrive machines for such an inconsiderable portion of the year. They therefore always use fires; and the whole establishment appears to be regulated with judgment. The situation is well chosen and beautiful. I do not find, from the observation of a person who has resided here for forty years, that the sea advances or recedes on this coast. I have already remarked that little attention is paid to education, excepting reading, writing, and the rudiments of arithmetic; I ought to have added that a catechism is carefully taught, and the children obliged to read in the churches, before the congregation, to prove that they are not neglected. Degrees, to enable any one to practise any profession, must be taken at Copenhagen; and the people of this country, having the good sense to perceive that men who are to live in a community should at least acquire the elements of their knowledge, and form their youthful attachments there, are seriously endeavouring to establish a university in Norway. And Tonsberg, as a central place in the best part of the country, had the most suffrages, for, experiencing the bad effects of a metropolis, they have determined not to have it in or near Christiania. Should such an establishment take place, it will promote inquiry throughout the country, and give a new face to society. Premiums have been offered, and prize questions written, which I am told have merit. The building college-halls, and other appendages of the seat of science, might enable Tonsberg to recover its pristine consequence, for it is one of the most ancient towns of Norway, and once contained nine churches. At present there are only two. One is a very old structure, and has a Gothic respectability about it, which scarcely amounts to grandeur, because, to render a Gothic pile grand, it must have a huge unwieldiness of appearance. The chapel of Windsor may be an exception to this rule; I mean before it was in its present nice, clean state. When I first saw it, the pillars within had acquired, by time, a sombre hue, which accorded with the architecture; and the gloom increased its dimensions to the eye by hiding its parts; but now it all bursts on the view at once, and the sublimity has vanished before the brush and broom; for it has been white-washed and scraped till it has become as bright and neat as the pots and pans in a notable house-wife's kitchen--yes; the very spurs on the recumbent knights were deprived of their venerable rust, to give a striking proof that a love of order in trifles, and taste for proportion and arrangement, are very distinct. The glare of light thus introduced entirely destroys the sentiment these piles are calculated to inspire; so that, when I heard something like a jig from the organ-loft, I thought it an excellent hall for dancing or feasting. The measured pace of thought with which I had entered the cathedral changed into a trip; and I bounded on the terrace, to see the royal family, with a number of ridiculous images in my head that I shall not now recall. The Norwegians are fond of music, and every little church has an organ. In the church I have mentioned there is an inscription importing that a king James VI. of Scotland and I. of England, who came with more than princely gallantry to escort his bride home--stood there, and heard divine service. There is a little recess full of coffins, which contains bodies embalmed long since--so long, that there is not even a tradition to lead to a guess at their names. A desire of preserving the body seems to have prevailed in most countries of the world, futile as it is to term it a preservation, when the noblest parts are immediately sacrificed merely to save the muscles, skin, and bone from rottenness. When I was shown these human petrifactions, I shrank back with disgust and horror. "Ashes to ashes!" thought I--"Dust to dust!" If this be not dissolution, it is something worse than natural decay--it is treason against humanity, thus to lift up the awful veil which would fain hide its weakness. The grandeur of the active principle is never more strongly felt than at such a sight, for nothing is so ugly as the human form when deprived of life, and thus dried into stone, merely to preserve the most disgusting image of death. The contemplation of noble ruins produces a melancholy that exalts the mind. We take a retrospect of the exertions of man, the fate of empires and their rulers, and marking the grand destruction of ages, it seems the necessary change of the leading to improvement. Our very soul expands, and we forget our littleness--how painfully brought to our recollection by such vain attempts to snatch from decay what is destined so soon to perish. Life, what art thou? Where goes this breath?--this _I_, so much alive? In what element will it mix, giving or receiving fresh energy? What will break the enchantment of animation? For worlds I would not see a form I loved--embalmed in my heart--thus sacrilegiously handled? Pugh! my stomach turns. Is this all the distinction of the rich in the grave? They had better quietly allow the scythe of equality to mow them down with the common mass, than struggle to become a monument of the instability of human greatness. The teeth, nails, and skin were whole, without appearing black like the Egyptian mummies; and some silk, in which they had been wrapped, still preserved its colour--pink--with tolerable freshness. I could not learn how long the bodies had been in this state, in which they bid fair to remain till the Day of Judgment, if there is to be such a day; and before that time, it will require some trouble to make them fit to appear in company with angels without disgracing humanity. God bless you! I feel a conviction that we have some perfectible principle in our present vestment, which will not be destroyed just as we begin to be sensible of improvement; and I care not what habit it next puts on, sure that it will be wisely formed to suit a higher state of existence. Thinking of death makes us tenderly cling to our affections; with more than usual tenderness I therefore assure you that I am yours, wishing that the temporary death of absence may not endure longer than is absolutely necessary. LETTER VIII. Tonsberg was formerly the residence of one of the little sovereigns of Norway; and on an adjacent mountain the vestiges of a fort remain, which was battered down by the Swedes, the entrance of the bay lying close to it. Here I have frequently strayed, sovereign of the waste; I seldom met any human creature; and sometimes, reclining on the mossy down, under the shelter of a rock, the prattling of the sea amongst the pebbles has lulled me to sleep--no fear of any rude satyr's approaching to interrupt my repose. Balmy were the slumbers, and soft the gales, that refreshed me, when I awoke to follow, with an eye vaguely curious, the white sails, as they turned the cliffs, or seemed to take shelter under the pines which covered the little islands that so gracefully rose to render the terrific ocean beautiful. The fishermen were calmly casting their nets, whilst the sea-gulls hovered over the unruffled deep. Everything seemed to harmonise into tranquillity; even the mournful call of the bittern was in cadence with the tinkling bells on the necks of the cows, that, pacing slowly one after the other, along an inviting path in the vale below, were repairing to the cottages to be milked. With what ineffable pleasure have I not gazed--and gazed again, losing my breath through my eyes--my very soul diffused itself in the scene; and, seeming to become all senses, glided in the scarcely-agitated waves, melted in the freshening breeze, or, taking its flight with fairy wing, to the misty mountain which bounded the prospect, fancy tripped over new lawns, more beautiful even than the lovely slopes on the winding shore before me. I pause, again breathless, to trace, with renewed delight, sentiments which entranced me, when, turning my humid eyes from the expanse below to the vault above, my sight pierced the fleecy clouds that softened the azure brightness; and imperceptibly recalling the reveries of childhood, I bowed before the awful throne of my Creator, whilst I rested on its footstool. You have sometimes wondered, my dear friend, at the extreme affection of my nature. But such is the temperature of my soul. It is not the vivacity of youth, the heyday of existence. For years have I endeavoured to calm an impetuous tide, labouring to make my feelings take an orderly course. It was striving against the stream. I must love and admire with warmth, or I sink into sadness. Tokens of love which I have received have wrapped me in Elysium, purifying the heart they enchanted. My bosom still glows. Do not saucily ask, repeating Sterne's question, "Maria, is it still so warm?" Sufficiently, O my God! Has it been chilled by sorrow and unkindness; still nature will prevail; and if I blush at recollecting past enjoyment, it is the rosy hue of pleasure heightened by modesty, for the blush of modesty and shame are as distinct as the emotions by which they are produced. I need scarcely inform you, after telling you of my walks, that my constitution has been renovated here, and that I have recovered my activity even whilst attaining a little _embonpoint_. My imprudence last winter, and some untoward accidents just at the time I was weaning my child, had reduced me to a state of weakness which I never before experienced. A slow fever preyed on me every night during my residence in Sweden, and after I arrived at Tonsberg. By chance I found a fine rivulet filtered through the rocks, and confined in a basin for the cattle. It tasted to me like a chalybeate; at any rate, it was pure; and the good effect of the various waters which invalids are sent to drink depends, I believe, more on the air, exercise, and change of scene, than on their medicinal qualities. I therefore determined to turn my morning walks towards it, and seek for health from the nymph of the fountain, partaking of the beverage offered to the tenants of the shade. Chance likewise led me to discover a new pleasure equally beneficial to my health. I wished to avail myself of my vicinity to the sea and bathe; but it was not possible near the town; there was no convenience. The young woman whom I mentioned to you proposed rowing me across the water amongst the rocks; but as she was pregnant, I insisted on taking one of the oars, and learning to row. It was not difficult, and I do not know a pleasanter exercise. I soon became expert, and my train of thinking kept time, as it were, with the oars, or I suffered the boat to be carried along by the current, indulging a pleasing forgetfulness or fallacious hopes. How fallacious! yet, without hope, what is to sustain life, but the fear of annihilation--the only thing of which I have ever felt a dread. I cannot bear to think of being no more--of losing myself--though existence is often but a painful consciousness of misery; nay, it appears to me impossible that I should cease to exist, or that this active, restless spirit, equally alive to joy and sorrow, should only be organised dust--ready to fly abroad the moment the spring snaps, or the spark goes out which kept it together. Surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable, and life is more than a dream. Sometimes, to take up my oar once more, when the sea was calm, I was amused by disturbing the innumerable young star fish which floated just below the surface; I had never observed them before, for they have not a hard shell like those which I have seen on the seashore. They look like thickened water with a white edge, and four purple circles, of different forms, were in the middle, over an incredible number of fibres or white lines. Touching them, the cloudy substance would turn or close, first on one side, then on the other, very gracefully, but when I took one of them up in the ladle, with which I heaved the water out of the boat, it appeared only a colourless jelly. I did not see any of the seals, numbers of which followed our boat when we landed in Sweden; but though I like to sport in the water I should have had no desire to join in their gambols. Enough, you will say, of inanimate nature and of brutes, to use the lordly phrase of man; let me hear something of the inhabitants. The gentleman with whom I had business is the Mayor of Tonsberg. He speaks English intelligibly, and, having a sound understanding, I was sorry that his numerous occupations prevented my gaining as much information from him as I could have drawn forth had we frequently conversed. The people of the town, as far as I had an opportunity of knowing their sentiments, are extremely well satisfied with his manner of discharging his office. He has a degree of information and good sense which excites respect, whilst a cheerfulness, almost amounting to gaiety, enables him to reconcile differences and keep his neighbours in good humour. "I lost my horse," said a woman to me, "but ever since, when I want to send to the mill, or go out, the Mayor lends me one. He scolds if I do not come for it." A criminal was branded, during my stay here, for the third offence; but the relief he received made him declare that the judge was one of the best men in the world. I sent this wretch a trifle, at different times, to take with him into slavery. As it was more than he expected, he wished very much to see me, and this wish brought to my remembrance an anecdote I heard when I was in Lisbon. A wretch who had been imprisoned several years, during which period lamps had been put up, was at last condemned to a cruel death, yet, in his way to execution, he only wished for one night's respite to see the city lighted. Having dined in company at the mayor's I was invited with his family to spend the day at one of the richest merchant's houses. Though I could not speak Danish I knew that I could see a great deal; yes, I am persuaded that I have formed a very just opinion of the character of the Norwegians, without being able to hold converse with them. I had expected to meet some company, yet was a little disconcerted at being ushered into an apartment full of well dressed people, and glancing my eyes round they rested on several very pretty faces. Rosy cheeks, sparkling eyes, and light brown or golden locks; for I never saw so much hair with a yellow cast, and, with their fine complexions, it looked very becoming. These women seem a mixture of indolence and vivacity; they scarcely ever walk out, and were astonished that I should for pleasure, yet they are immoderately fond of dancing. Unaffected in their manners, if they have no pretensions to elegance, simplicity often produces a gracefulness of deportment, when they are animated by a particular desire to please, which was the case at present. The solitariness of my situation, which they thought terrible, interested them very much in my favour. They gathered round me, sung to me, and one of the prettiest, to whom I gave my hand with some degree of cordiality, to meet the glance of her eyes, kissed me very affectionately. At dinner, which was conducted with great hospitality, though we remained at table too long, they sung several songs, and, amongst the rest, translations of some patriotic French ones. As the evening advanced they became playful, and we kept up a sort of conversation of gestures. As their minds were totally uncultivated I did not lose much, perhaps gained, by not being able to understand them; for fancy probably filled up, more to their advantage, the void in the picture. Be that as it may, they excited my sympathy, and I was very much flattered when I was told the next day that they said it was a pleasure to look at me, I appeared so good-natured. The men were generally captains of ships. Several spoke English very tolerably, but they were merely matter-of-fact men, confined to a very narrow circle of observation. I found it difficult to obtain from them any information respecting their own country, when the fumes of tobacco did not keep me at a distance. I was invited to partake of some other feasts, and always had to complain of the quantity of provision and the length of time taken to consume it; for it would not have been proper to have said devour, all went on so fair and softly. The servants wait as slowly as their mistresses carve. The young women here, as well as in Sweden, have commonly bad teeth, which I attribute to the same causes. They are fond of finery, but do not pay the necessary attention to their persons, to render beauty less transient than a flower, and that interesting expression which sentiment and accomplishments give seldom supplies its place. The servants have, likewise, an inferior sort of food here, but their masters are not allowed to strike them with impunity. I might have added mistresses, for it was a complaint of this kind brought before the mayor which led me to a knowledge of the fact. The wages are low, which is particularly unjust, because the price of clothes is much higher than that of provision. A young woman, who is wet nurse to the mistress of the inn where I lodge, receives only twelve dollars a year, and pays ten for the nursing of her own child. The father had run away to get clear of the expense. There was something in this most painful state of widowhood which excited my compassion and led me to reflections on the instability of the most flattering plans of happiness, that were painful in the extreme, till I was ready to ask whether this world was not created to exhibit every possible combination of wretchedness. I asked these questions of a heart writhing with anguish, whilst I listened to a melancholy ditty sung by this poor girl. It was too early for thee to be abandoned, thought I, and I hastened out of the house to take my solitary evening's walk. And here I am again to talk of anything but the pangs arising from the discovery of estranged affection and the lonely sadness of a deserted heart. The father and mother, if the father can be ascertained, are obliged to maintain an illegitimate child at their joint expense; but, should the father disappear, go up the country or to sea, the mother must maintain it herself. However, accidents of this kind do not prevent their marrying, and then it is not unusual to take the child or children home, and they are brought up very amicably with the marriage progeny. I took some pains to learn what books were written originally in their language; but for any certain information respecting the state of Danish literature I must wait till I arrive at Copenhagen. The sound of the language is soft, a great proportion of the words ending in vowels; and there is a simplicity in the turn of some of the phrases which have been translated to me that pleased and interested me. In the country the farmers use the _thou_ and _thee_; and they do not acquire the polite plurals of the towns by meeting at market. The not having markets established in the large towns appears to me a great inconvenience. When the farmers have anything to sell they bring it to the neighbouring town and take it from house to house. I am surprised that the inhabitants do not feel how very incommodious this usage is to both parties, and redress it; they, indeed, perceive it, for when I have introduced the subject they acknowledged that they were often in want of necessaries, there being no butchers, and they were often obliged to buy what they did not want; yet it was the custom, and the changing of customs of a long standing requires more energy than they yet possess. I received a similar reply when I attempted to persuade the women that they injured their children by keeping them too warm. The only way of parrying off my reasoning was that they must do as other people did; in short, reason on any subject of change, and they stop you by saying that "the town would talk." A person of sense, with a large fortune to ensure respect, might be very useful here, by inducing them to treat their children and manage their sick properly, and eat food dressed in a simpler manner--the example, for instance, of a count's lady. Reflecting on these prejudices made me revert to the wisdom of those legislators who established institutions for the good of the body under the pretext of serving heaven for the salvation of the soul. These might with strict propriety be termed pious frauds; and I admire the Peruvian pair for asserting that they came from the sun, when their conduct proved that they meant to enlighten a benighted country, whose obedience, or even attention, could only be secured by awe. Thus much for conquering the _inertia_ of reason; but, when it is once in motion, fables once held sacred may be ridiculed; and sacred they were when useful to mankind. Prometheus alone stole fire to animate the first man; his posterity needs not supernatural aid to preserve the species, though love is generally termed a flame; and it may not be necessary much longer to suppose men inspired by heaven to inculcate the duties which demand special grace when reason convinces them that they are the happiest who are the most nobly employed. In a few days I am to set out for the western part of Norway, and then shall return by land to Gothenburg. I cannot think of leaving this place without regret. I speak of the place before the inhabitants, though there is a tenderness in their artless kindness which attaches me to them; but it is an attachment that inspires a regret very different from that I felt at leaving Hull in my way to Sweden. The domestic happiness and good-humoured gaiety of the amiable family where I and my Frances were so hospitably received would have been sufficient to ensure the tenderest remembrance, without the recollection of the social evening to stimulate it, when good breeding gave dignity to sympathy and wit zest to reason. Adieu!--I am just informed that my horse has been waiting this quarter of an hour. I now venture to ride out alone. The steeple serves as a landmark. I once or twice lost my way, walking alone, without being able to inquire after a path; I was therefore obliged to make to the steeple, or windmill, over hedge and ditch. Yours truly. LETTER IX. I have already informed you that there are only two noblemen who have estates of any magnitude in Norway. One of these has a house near Tonsberg, at which he has not resided for some years, having been at court, or on embassies. He is now the Danish Ambassador in London. The house is pleasantly situated, and the grounds about it fine; but their neglected appearance plainly tells that there is nobody at home. A stupid kind of sadness, to my eye, always reigns in a huge habitation where only servants live to put cases on the furniture and open the windows. I enter as I would into the tomb of the Capulets, to look at the family pictures that here frown in armour, or smile in ermine. The mildew respects not the lordly robe, and the worm riots unchecked on the cheek of beauty. There was nothing in the architecture of the building, or the form of the furniture, to detain me from the avenue where the aged pines stretched along majestically. Time had given a greyish cast to their ever-green foliage; and they stood, like sires of the forest, sheltered on all sides by a rising progeny. I had not ever seen so many oaks together in Norway as in these woods, nor such large aspens as here were agitated by the breeze, rendering the wind audible--nay musical; for melody seemed on the wing around me. How different was the fresh odour that reanimated me in the avenue, from the damp chillness of the apartments; and as little did the gloomy thoughtfulness excited by the dusty hangings, and worm-eaten pictures, resemble the reveries inspired by the soothing melancholy of their shade. In the winter, these august pines, towering above the snow, must relieve the eye beyond measure and give life to the white waste. The continual recurrence of pine and fir groves in the day sometimes wearies the sight, but in the evening, nothing can be more picturesque, or, more properly speaking, better calculated to produce poetical images. Passing through them, I have been struck with a mystic kind of reverence, and I did, as it were, homage to their venerable shadows. Not nymphs, but philosophers, seemed to inhabit them--ever musing; I could scarcely conceive that they were without some consciousness of existence--without a calm enjoyment of the pleasure they diffused. How often do my feelings produce ideas that remind me of the origin of many poetical fictions. In solitude, the imagination bodies forth its conceptions unrestrained, and stops enraptured to adore the beings of its own creation. These are moments of bliss; and the memory recalls them with delight. But I have almost forgotten the matters of fact I meant to relate, respecting the counts. They have the presentation of the livings on their estates, appoint the judges, and different civil officers, the Crown reserving to itself the privilege of sanctioning them. But though they appoint, they cannot dismiss. Their tenants also occupy their farms for life, and are obliged to obey any summons to work on the part he reserves for himself; but they are paid for their labour. In short, I have seldom heard of any noblemen so innoxious. Observing that the gardens round the count's estate were better cultivated than any I had before seen, I was led to reflect on the advantages which naturally accrue from the feudal tenures. The tenants of the count are obliged to work at a stated price, in his grounds and garden; and the instruction which they imperceptibly receive from the head gardener tends to render them useful, and makes them, in the common course of things, better husbandmen and gardeners on their own little farms. Thus the great, who alone travel in this period of society, for the observation of manners and customs made by sailors is very confined, bring home improvement to promote their own comfort, which is gradually spread abroad amongst the people, till they are stimulated to think for themselves. The bishops have not large revenues, and the priests are appointed by the king before they come to them to be ordained. There is commonly some little farm annexed to the parsonage, and the inhabitants subscribe voluntarily, three times a year, in addition to the church fees, for the support of the clergyman. The church lands were seized when Lutheranism was introduced, the desire of obtaining them being probably the real stimulus of reformation. The tithes, which are never required in kind, are divided into three parts--one to the king, another to the incumbent, and the third to repair the dilapidations of the parsonage. They do not amount to much. And the stipend allowed to the different civil officers is also too small, scarcely deserving to be termed an independence; that of the custom-house officers is not sufficient to procure the necessaries of life--no wonder, then, if necessity leads them to knavery. Much public virtue cannot be expected till every employment, putting perquisites out of the question, has a salary sufficient to reward industry;--whilst none are so great as to permit the possessor to remain idle. It is this want of proportion between profit and labour which debases men, producing the sycophantic appellations of patron and client, and that pernicious _esprit du corps_, proverbially vicious. The farmers are hospitable as well as independent. Offering once to pay for some coffee I drank when taking shelter from the rain, I was asked, rather angrily, if a little coffee was worth paying for. They smoke, and drink drams, but not so much as formerly. Drunkenness, often the attendant disgrace of hospitality, will here, as well as everywhere else, give place to gallantry and refinement of manners; but the change will not be suddenly produced. The people of every class are constant in their attendance at church; they are very fond of dancing, and the Sunday evenings in Norway, as in Catholic countries, are spent in exercises which exhilarate the spirits without vitiating the heart. The rest of labour ought to be gay; and the gladness I have felt in France on a Sunday, or Decadi, which I caught from the faces around me, was a sentiment more truly religious than all the stupid stillness which the streets of London ever inspired where the Sabbath is so decorously observed. I recollect, in the country parts of England, the churchwardens used to go out during the service to see if they could catch any luckless wight playing at bowls or skittles; yet what could be more harmless? It would even, I think, be a great advantage to the English, if feats of activity (I do not include boxing matches) were encouraged on a Sunday, as it might stop the progress of Methodism, and of that fanatical spirit which appears to be gaining ground. I was surprised when I visited Yorkshire, on my way to Sweden, to find that sullen narrowness of thinking had made such a progress since I was an inhabitant of the country. I could hardly have supposed that sixteen or seventeen years could have produced such an alteration for the worse in the morals of a place--yes, I say morals; for observance of forms, and avoiding of practices, indifferent in themselves, often supply the place of that regular attention to duties which are so natural, that they seldom are vauntingly exercised, though they are worth all the precepts of the law and the prophets. Besides, many of these deluded people, with the best meaning, actually lose their reason, and become miserable, the dread of damnation throwing them into a state which merits the term; and still more, in running after their preachers, expecting to promote their salvation, they disregard their welfare in this world, and neglect the interest and comfort of their families; so that, in proportion as they attain a reputation for piety, they become idle. Aristocracy and fanaticism seem equally to be gaining ground in England, particularly in the place I have mentioned; I saw very little of either in Norway. The people are regular in their attendance on public worship, but religion does not interfere with their employments. As the farmers cut away the wood they clear the ground. Every year, therefore, the country is becoming fitter to support the inhabitants. Half a century ago the Dutch, I am told, only paid for the cutting down of the wood, and the farmers were glad to get rid of it without giving themselves any trouble. At present they form a just estimate of its value; nay, I was surprised to find even firewood so dear when it appears to be in such plenty. The destruction, or gradual reduction, of their forests will probably ameliorate the climate, and their manners will naturally improve in the same ratio as industry requires ingenuity. It is very fortunate that men are a long time but just above the brute creation, or the greater part of the earth would never have been rendered habitable, because it is the patient labour of men, who are only seeking for a subsistence, which produces whatever embellishes existence, affording leisure for the cultivation of the arts and sciences that lift man so far above his first state. I never, my friend, thought so deeply of the advantages obtained by human industry as since I have been in Norway. The world requires, I see, the hand of man to perfect it, and as this task naturally unfolds the faculties he exercises, it is physically impossible that he should have remained in Rousseau's golden age of stupidity. And, considering the question of human happiness, where, oh where does it reside? Has it taken up its abode with unconscious ignorance or with the high-wrought mind? Is it the offspring of thoughtless animal spirits or the dye of fancy continually flitting round the expected pleasure? The increasing population of the earth must necessarily tend to its improvement, as the means of existence are multiplied by invention. You have probably made similar reflections in America, where the face of the country, I suppose, resembles the wilds of Norway. I am delighted with the romantic views I daily contemplate, animated by the purest air; and I am interested by the simplicity of manners which reigns around me. Still nothing so soon wearies out the feelings as unmarked simplicity. I am therefore half convinced that I could not live very comfortably exiled from the countries where mankind are so much further advanced in knowledge, imperfect as it is, and unsatisfactory to the thinking mind. Even now I begin to long to hear what you are doing in England and France. My thoughts fly from this wilderness to the polished circles of the world, till recollecting its vices and follies, I bury myself in the woods, but find it necessary to emerge again, that I may not lose sight of the wisdom and virtue which exalts my nature. What a long time it requires to know ourselves; and yet almost every one has more of this knowledge than he is willing to own, even to himself. I cannot immediately determine whether I ought to rejoice at having turned over in this solitude a new page in the history of my own heart, though I may venture to assure you that a further acquaintance with mankind only tends to increase my respect for your judgment and esteem for your character. Farewell! LETTER X. I have once more, my friend, taken flight, for I left Tonsberg yesterday, but with an intention of returning in my way back to Sweden. The road to Laurvig is very fine, and the country the best cultivated in Norway. I never before admired the beech tree, and when I met stragglers here they pleased me still less. Long and lank, they would have forced me to allow that the line of beauty requires some curves, if the stately pine, standing near, erect, throwing her vast arms around, had not looked beautiful in opposition to such narrow rules. In these respects my very reason obliges me to permit my feelings to be my criterion. Whatever excites emotion has charms for me, though I insist that the cultivation of the mind by warming, nay, almost creating the imagination, produces taste and an immense variety of sensations and emotions, partaking of the exquisite pleasure inspired by beauty and sublimity. As I know of no end to them, the word infinite, so often misapplied, might on this occasion be introduced with something like propriety. But I have rambled away again. I intended to have remarked to you the effect produced by a grove of towering beech, the airy lightness of their foliage admitting a degree of sunshine, which, giving a transparency to the leaves, exhibited an appearance of freshness and elegance that I had never before remarked. I thought of descriptions of Italian scenery. But these evanescent graces seemed the effect of enchantment; and I imperceptibly breathed softly, lest I should destroy what was real, yet looked so like the creation of fancy. Dryden's fable of the flower and the leaf was not a more poetical reverie. Adieu, however, to fancy, and to all the sentiments which ennoble our nature. I arrived at Laurvig, and found myself in the midst of a group of lawyers of different descriptions. My head turned round, my heart grew sick, as I regarded visages deformed by vice, and listened to accounts of chicanery that was continually embroiling the ignorant. These locusts will probably diminish as the people become more enlightened. In this period of social life the commonalty are always cunningly attentive to their own interest; but their faculties, confined to a few objects, are so narrowed, that they cannot discover it in the general good. The profession of the law renders a set of men still shrewder and more selfish than the rest; and it is these men, whose wits have been sharpened by knavery, who here undermine morality, confounding right and wrong. The Count of Bernstorff, who really appears to me, from all I can gather, to have the good of the people at heart, aware of this, has lately sent to the mayor of each district to name, according to the size of the place, four or six of the best-informed inhabitants, not men of the law, out of which the citizens were to elect two, who are to be termed mediators. Their office is to endeavour to prevent litigious suits, and conciliate differences. And no suit is to be commenced before the parties have discussed the dispute at their weekly meeting. If a reconciliation should, in consequence, take place, it is to be registered, and the parties are not allowed to retract. By these means ignorant people will be prevented from applying for advice to men who may justly be termed stirrers-up of strife. They have for a long time, to use a significant vulgarism, set the people by the ears, and live by the spoil they caught up in the scramble. There is some reason to hope that this regulation will diminish their number, and restrain their mischievous activity. But till trials by jury are established, little justice can be expected in Norway. Judges who cannot be bribed are often timid, and afraid of offending bold knaves, lest they should raise a set of hornets about themselves. The fear of censure undermines all energy of character; and, labouring to be prudent, they lose sight of rectitude. Besides, nothing is left to their conscience, or sagacity; they must be governed by evidence, though internally convinced that it is false. There is a considerable iron manufactory at Laurvig for coarse work, and a lake near the town supplies the water necessary for working several mills belonging to it. This establishment belongs to the Count of Laurvig. Without a fortune and influence equal to his, such a work could not have been set afloat; personal fortunes are not yet sufficient to support such undertakings. Nevertheless the inhabitants of the town speak of the size of his estate as an evil, because it obstructs commerce. The occupiers of small farms are obliged to bring their wood to the neighbouring seaports to be shipped; but he, wishing to increase the value of his, will not allow it to be thus gradually cut down, which turns the trade into another channel. Added to this, nature is against them, the bay being open and insecure. I could not help smiling when I was informed that in a hard gale a vessel had been wrecked in the main street. When there are such a number of excellent harbours on the coast, it is a pity that accident has made one of the largest towns grow up on a bad one. The father of the present count was a distant relation of the family; he resided constantly in Denmark, and his son follows his example. They have not been in possession of the estate many years; and their predecessor lived near the town, introducing a degree of profligacy of manners which has been ruinous to the inhabitants in every respect, their fortunes not being equal to the prevailing extravagance. What little I have seen of the manners of the people does not please me so well as those of Tonsberg. I am forewarned that I shall find them still more cunning and fraudulent as I advance towards the westward, in proportion as traffic takes place of agriculture, for their towns are built on naked rocks, the streets are narrow bridges, and the inhabitants are all seafaring men, or owners of ships, who keep shops. The inn I was at in Laurvig this journey was not the same that I was at before. It is a good one--the people civil, and the accommodations decent. They seem to be better provided in Sweden; but in justice I ought to add that they charge more extravagantly. My bill at Tonsberg was also much higher than I had paid in Sweden, and much higher than it ought to have been where provision is so cheap. Indeed, they seem to consider foreigners as strangers whom they shall never see again, and may fairly pluck. And the inhabitants of the western coast, isolated, as it were, regard those of the east almost as strangers. Each town in that quarter seems to be a great family, suspicious of every other, allowing none to cheat them but themselves; and, right or wrong, they support one another in the face of justice. On this journey I was fortunate enough to have one companion with more enlarged views than the generality of his countrymen, who spoke English tolerably. I was informed that we might still advance a mile and a quarter in our cabrioles; afterwards there was no choice, but of a single horse and wretched path, or a boat, the usual mode of travelling. We therefore sent our baggage forward in the boat, and followed rather slowly, for the road was rocky and sandy. We passed, however, through several beech groves, which still delighted me by the freshness of their light green foliage, and the elegance of their assemblage, forming retreats to veil without obscuring the sun. I was surprised, at approaching the water, to find a little cluster of houses pleasantly situated, and an excellent inn. I could have wished to have remained there all night; but as the wind was fair, and the evening fine, I was afraid to trust to the wind--the uncertain wind of to-morrow. We therefore left Helgeraac immediately with the declining sun. Though we were in the open sea, we sailed more amongst the rocks and islands than in my passage from Stromstad; and they often forced very picturesque combinations. Few of the high ridges were entirely bare; the seeds of some pines or firs had been wafted by the winds or waves, and they stood to brave the elements. Sitting, then, in a little boat on the ocean, amidst strangers, with sorrow and care pressing hard on me--buffeting me about from clime to clime--I felt "Like the lone shrub at random cast, That sighs and trembles at each blast!" On some of the largest rocks there were actually groves, the retreat of foxes and hares, which, I suppose, had tripped over the ice during the winter, without thinking to regain the main land before the thaw. Several of the islands were inhabited by pilots; and the Norwegian pilots are allowed to be the best in the world--perfectly acquainted with their coast, and ever at hand to observe the first signal or sail. They pay a small tax to the king and to the regulating officer, and enjoy the fruit of their indefatigable industry. One of the islands, called Virgin Land, is a flat, with some depth of earth, extending for half a Norwegian mile, with three farms on it, tolerably well cultivated. On some of the bare rocks I saw straggling houses; they rose above the denomination of huts inhabited by fishermen. My companions assured me that they were very comfortable dwellings, and that they have not only the necessaries, but even what might be reckoned the superfluities of life. It was too late for me to go on shore, if you will allow me to give that name to shivering rocks, to ascertain the fact. But rain coming on, and the night growing dark, the pilot declared that it would be dangerous for us to attempt to go to the place of our destination--East Rusoer--a Norwegian mile and a half further; and we determined to stop for the night at a little haven, some half dozen houses scattered under the curve of a rock. Though it became darker and darker, our pilot avoided the blind rocks with great dexterity. It was about ten o'clock when we arrived, and the old hostess quickly prepared me a comfortable bed--a little too soft or so, but I was weary; and opening the window to admit the sweetest of breezes to fan me to sleep, I sunk into the most luxurious rest: it was more than refreshing. The hospitable sprites of the grots surely hovered round my pillow; and, if I awoke, it was to listen to the melodious whispering of the wind amongst them, or to feel the mild breath of morn. Light slumbers produced dreams, where Paradise was before me. My little cherub was again hiding her face in my bosom. I heard her sweet cooing beat on my heart from the cliffs, and saw her tiny footsteps on the sands. New-born hopes seemed, like the rainbow, to appear in the clouds of sorrow, faint, yet sufficient to amuse away despair. Some refreshing but heavy showers have detained us; and here I am writing quite alone--something more than gay, for which I want a name. I could almost fancy myself in Nootka Sound, or on some of the islands on the north-west coast of America. We entered by a narrow pass through the rocks, which from this abode appear more romantic than you can well imagine; and seal-skins hanging at the door to dry add to the illusion. It is indeed a corner of the world, but you would be surprised to see the cleanliness and comfort of the dwelling. The shelves are not only shining with pewter and queen's ware, but some articles in silver, more ponderous, it is true, than elegant. The linen is good, as well as white. All the females spin, and there is a loom in the kitchen. A sort of individual taste appeared in the arrangement of the furniture (this is not the place for imitation) and a kindness in their desire to oblige. How superior to the apish politeness of the towns! where the people, affecting to be well bred, fatigue with their endless ceremony. The mistress is a widow, her daughter is married to a pilot, and has three cows. They have a little patch of land at about the distance of two English miles, where they make hay for the winter, which they bring home in a boat. They live here very cheap, getting money from the vessels which stress of weather, or other causes, bring into their harbour. I suspect, by their furniture, that they smuggle a little. I can now credit the account of the other houses, which I last night thought exaggerated. I have been conversing with one of my companions respecting the laws and regulations of Norway. He is a man within great portion of common sense and heart--yes, a warm heart. This is not the first time I have remarked heart without sentiment; they are distinct. The former depends on the rectitude of the feelings, on truth of sympathy; these characters have more tenderness than passion; the latter has a higher source--call it imagination, genius, or what you will, it is something very different. I have been laughing with these simple worthy folk--to give you one of my half-score Danish words--and letting as much of my heart flow out in sympathy as they can take. Adieu! I must trip up the rocks. The rain is ever. Let me catch pleasure on the wing--I may be melancholy to-morrow. Now all my nerves keep time with the melody of nature. Ah! let me be happy whilst I can. The tear starts as I think of it. I must flee from thought, and find refuge from sorrow in a strong imagination--the only solace for a feeling heart. Phantoms of bliss! ideal forms of excellence! again enclose me in your magic circle, and wipe clear from my remembrance the disappointments that reader the sympathy painful, which experience rather increases than damps, by giving the indulgence of feeling the sanction of reason. Once more farewell! LETTER XI. I left Portoer, the little haven I mentioned, soon after I finished my last letter. The sea was rough, and I perceived that our pilot was right not to venture farther during a hazy night. We had agreed to pay four dollars for a boat from Helgeraac. I mention the sum, because they would demand twice as much from a stranger. I was obliged to pay fifteen for the one I hired at Stromstad. When we were ready to set out, our boatman offered to return a dollar and let us go in one of the boats of the place, the pilot who lived there being better acquainted with the coast. He only demanded a dollar and a half, which was reasonable. I found him a civil and rather intelligent man; he was in the American service several years, during the Revolution. I soon perceived that an experienced mariner was necessary to guide us, for we were continually obliged to tack about, to avoid the rocks, which, scarcely reaching to the surface of the water, could only be discovered by the breaking of the waves over them. The view of this wild coast, as we sailed along it, afforded me a continual subject for meditation. I anticipated the future improvement of the world, and observed how much man has still to do to obtain of the earth all it could yield. I even carried my speculations so far as to advance a million or two of years to the moment when the earth would perhaps be so perfectly cultivated, and so completely peopled, as to render it necessary to inhabit every spot--yes, these bleak shores. Imagination went still farther, and pictured the state of man when the earth could no longer support him. Whither was he to flee from universal famine? Do not smile; I really became distressed for these fellow creatures yet unborn. The images fastened on me, and the world appeared a vast prison. I was soon to be in a smaller one--for no other name can I give to Rusoer. It would be difficult to form an idea of the place, if you have never seen one of these rocky coasts. We were a considerable time entering amongst the islands, before we saw about two hundred houses crowded together under a very high rock--still higher appearing above. Talk not of Bastilles! To be born here was to be bastilled by nature--shut out from all that opens the understanding, or enlarges the heart. Huddled one behind another, not more than a quarter of the dwellings even had a prospect of the sea. A few planks formed passages from house to house, which you must often scale, mounting steps like a ladder to enter. The only road across the rocks leads to a habitation sterile enough, you may suppose, when I tell you that the little earth on the adjacent ones was carried there by the late inhabitant. A path, almost impracticable for a horse, goes on to Arendall, still further to the westward. I inquired for a walk, and, mounting near two hundred steps made round a rock, walked up and down for about a hundred yards viewing the sea, to which I quickly descended by steps that cheated the declivity. The ocean and these tremendous bulwarks enclosed me on every side. I felt the confinement, and wished for wings to reach still loftier cliffs, whose slippery sides no foot was so hardy as to tread. Yet what was it to see?--only a boundless waste of water--not a glimpse of smiling nature--not a patch of lively green to relieve the aching sight, or vary the objects of meditation. I felt my breath oppressed, though nothing could be clearer than the atmosphere. Wandering there alone, I found the solitude desirable; my mind was stored with ideas, which this new scene associated with astonishing rapidity. But I shuddered at the thought of receiving existence, and remaining here, in the solitude of ignorance, till forced to leave a world of which I had seen so little, for the character of the inhabitants is as uncultivated, if not as picturesquely wild, as their abode. Having no employment but traffic, of which a contraband trade makes the basis of their profit, the coarsest feelings of honesty are quickly blunted. You may suppose that I speak in general terms; and that, with all the disadvantages of nature and circumstances, there are still some respectable exceptions, the more praiseworthy, as tricking is a very contagious mental disease, that dries up all the generous juices of the heart. Nothing genial, in fact, appears around this place, or within the circle of its rocks. And, now I recollect, it seems to me that the most genial and humane characters I have met with in life were most alive to the sentiments inspired by tranquil country scenes. What, indeed, is to humanise these beings, who rest shut up (for they seldom even open their windows), smoking, drinking brandy, and driving bargains? I have been almost stifled by these smokers. They begin in the morning, and are rarely without their pipe till they go to bed. Nothing can be more disgusting than the rooms and men towards the evening--breath, teeth, clothes, and furniture, all are spoilt. It is well that the women are not very delicate, or they would only love their husbands because they were their husbands. Perhaps, you may add, that the remark need not be confined to so small a part of the world; and, _entre nous_, I am of the same opinion. You must not term this innuendo saucy, for it does not come home. If I had not determined to write I should have found my confinement here, even for three or four days, tedious. I have no books; and to pace up and down a small room, looking at tiles overhung by rocks, soon becomes wearisome. I cannot mount two hundred steps to walk a hundred yards many times in the day. Besides, the rocks, retaining the heat of the sun, are intolerably warm. I am, nevertheless, very well; for though there is a shrewdness in the character of these people, depraved by a sordid love of money which repels me, still the comparisons they force me to make keep my heart calm by exercising my understanding. Everywhere wealth commands too much respect, but here almost exclusively; and it is the only object pursued, not through brake and briar, but over rocks and waves; yet of what use would riches be to me, I have sometimes asked myself, were I confined to live in such in a spot? I could only relieve a few distressed objects, perhaps render them idle, and all the rest of life would be a blank. My present journey has given fresh force to my opinion that no place is so disagreeable and unimproving as a country town. I should like to divide my time between the town and country; in a lone house, with the business of farming and planting, where my mind would gain strength by solitary musing, and in a metropolis to rub off the rust of thought, and polish the taste which the contemplation of nature had rendered just. Thus do we wish as we float down the stream of life, whilst chance does more to gratify a desire of knowledge than our best laid plans. A degree of exertion, produced by some want, more or less painful, is probably the price we must all pay for knowledge. How few authors or artists have arrived at eminence who have not lived by their employment? I was interrupted yesterday by business, and was prevailed upon to dine with the English vice-consul. His house being open to the sea, I was more at large; and the hospitality of the table pleased me, though the bottle was rather too freely pushed about. Their manner of entertaining was such as I have frequently remarked when I have been thrown in the way of people without education, who have more money than wit--that is, than they know what to do with. The women were unaffected, but had not the natural grace which was often conspicuous at Tonsberg. There was even a striking difference in their dress, these having loaded themselves with finery in the style of the sailors' girls of Hull or Portsmouth. Taste has not yet taught them to make any but an ostentatious display of wealth. Yet I could perceive even here the first steps of the improvement which I am persuaded will make a very obvious progress in the course of half a century, and it ought not to be sooner, to keep pace with the cultivation of the earth. Improving manners will introduce finer moral feelings. They begin to read translations of some of the most useful German productions lately published, and one of our party sung a song ridiculing the powers coalesced against France, and the company drank confusion to those who had dismembered Poland. The evening was extremely calm and beautiful. Not being able to walk, I requested a boat as the only means of enjoying free air. The view of the town was now extremely fine. A huge rocky mountain stood up behind it, and a vast cliff stretched on each side, forming a semicircle. In a recess of the rocks was a clump of pines, amongst which a steeple rose picturesquely beautiful. The churchyard is almost the only verdant spot in the place. Here, indeed, friendship extends beyond the grave, and to grant a sod of earth is to accord a favour. I should rather choose, did it admit of a choice, to sleep in some of the caves of the rocks, for I am become better reconciled to them since I climbed their craggy sides last night, listening to the finest echoes I ever heard. We had a French horn with us, and there was an enchanting wildness in the dying away of the reverberation that quickly transported me to Shakespeare's magic island. Spirits unseen seemed to walk abroad, and flit from cliff to cliff to soothe my soul to peace. I reluctantly returned to supper, to be shut up in a warm room, only to view the vast shadows of the rocks extending on the slumbering waves. I stood at the window some time before a buzz filled the drawing-room, and now and then the dashing of a solitary oar rendered the scene still more solemn. Before I came here I could scarcely have imagined that a simple object (rocks) could have admitted of so many interesting combinations, always grand and often sublime. Good night! God bless you! LETTER XII. I left East Rusoer the day before yesterday. The weather was very fine; but so calm that we loitered on the water near fourteen hours, only to make about six and twenty miles. It seemed to me a sort of emancipation when we landed at Helgeraac. The confinement which everywhere struck me whilst sojourning amongst the rocks, made me hail the earth as a land of promise; and the situation shone with fresh lustre from the contrast--from appearing to be a free abode. Here it was possible to travel by land--I never thought this a comfort before--and my eyes, fatigued by the sparkling of the sun on the water, now contentedly reposed on the green expanse, half persuaded that such verdant meads had never till then regaled them. I rose early to pursue my journey to Tonsberg. The country still wore a face of joy--and my soul was alive to its charms. Leaving the most lofty and romantic of the cliffs behind us, we were almost continually descending to Tonsberg, through Elysian scenes; for not only the sea, but mountains, rivers, lakes, and groves, gave an almost endless variety to the prospect. The cottagers were still carrying home the hay; and the cottages on this road looked very comfortable. Peace and plenty--I mean not abundance--seemed to reign around--still I grew sad as I drew near my old abode. I was sorry to see the sun so high; it was broad noon. Tonsberg was something like a home--yet I was to enter without lighting up pleasure in any eye. I dreaded the solitariness of my apartment, and wished for night to hide the starting tears, or to shed them on my pillow, and close my eyes on a world where I was destined to wander alone. Why has nature so many charms for me--calling forth and cherishing refined sentiments, only to wound the breast that fosters them? How illusive, perhaps the most so, are the plans of happiness founded on virtue and principle; what inlets of misery do they not open in a half-civilised society? The satisfaction arising from conscious rectitude, will not calm an injured heart, when tenderness is ever finding excuses; and self-applause is a cold solitary feeling, that cannot supply the place of disappointed affection, without throwing a gloom over every prospect, which, banishing pleasure, does not exclude pain. I reasoned and reasoned; but my heart was too full to allow me to remain in the house, and I walked, till I was wearied out, to purchase rest--or rather forgetfulness. Employment has beguiled this day, and to-morrow I set out for Moss, on my way to Stromstad. At Gothenburg I shall embrace my Fannikin; probably she will not know me again--and I shall be hurt if she do not. How childish is this! still it is a natural feeling. I would not permit myself to indulge the "thick coming fears" of fondness, whilst I was detained by business. Yet I never saw a calf bounding in a meadow, that did not remind me of my little frolicker. A calf, you say. Yes; but a capital one I own. I cannot write composedly--I am every instant sinking into reveries--my heart flutters, I know not why. Fool! It is time thou wert at rest. Friendship and domestic happiness are continually praised; yet how little is there of either in the world, because it requires more cultivation of mind to keep awake affection, even in our own hearts, than the common run of people suppose. Besides, few like to be seen as they really are; and a degree of simplicity, and of undisguised confidence, which, to uninterested observers, would almost border on weakness, is the charm, nay the essence of love or friendship, all the bewitching graces of childhood again appearing. As objects merely to exercise my taste, I therefore like to see people together who have an affection for each other; every turn of their features touches me, and remains pictured on my imagination in indelible characters. The zest of novelty is, however, necessary to rouse the languid sympathies which have been hackneyed in the world; as is the factitious behaviour, falsely termed good-breeding, to amuse those, who, defective in taste, continually rely for pleasure on their animal spirits, which not being maintained by the imagination, are unavoidably sooner exhausted than the sentiments of the heart. Friendship is in general sincere at the commencement, and lasts whilst there is anything to support it; but as a mixture of novelty and vanity is the usual prop, no wonder if it fall with the slender stay. The fop in the play paid a greater compliment than he was aware of when he said to a person, whom he meant to flatter, "I like you almost as well as a _new acquaintance_." Why am I talking of friendship, after which I have had such a wild-goose chase. I thought only of telling you that the crows, as well as wild-geese, are here birds of passage. LETTER XIII. I left Tonsberg yesterday, the 22nd of August. It is only twelve or thirteen English miles to Moss, through a country less wild than any tract I had hitherto passed over in Norway. It was often beautiful, but seldom afforded those grand views which fill rather than soothe the mind. We glided along the meadows and through the woods, with sunbeams playing around us; and, though no castles adorned the prospects, a greater number of comfortable farms met my eyes during this ride than I have ever seen, in the same space, even in the most cultivated part of England; and the very appearance of the cottages of the labourers sprinkled amidst them excluded all those gloomy ideas inspired by the contemplation of poverty. The hay was still bringing in, for one harvest in Norway treads on the heels of the other. The woods were more variegated, interspersed with shrubs. We no longer passed through forests of vast pines stretching along with savage magnificence. Forests that only exhibited the slow decay of time or the devastation produced by warring elements. No; oaks, ashes, beech, and all the light and graceful tenants of our woods here sported luxuriantly. I had not observed many oaks before, for the greater part of the oak-planks, I am informed, come from the westward. In France the farmers generally live in villages, which is a great disadvantage to the country; but the Norwegian farmers, always owning their farms or being tenants for life, reside in the midst of them, allowing some labourers a dwelling rent free, who have a little land appertaining to the cottage, not only for a garden, but for crops of different kinds, such as rye, oats, buck-wheat, hemp, flax, beans, potatoes, and hay, which are sown in strips about it, reminding a stranger of the first attempts at culture, when every family was obliged to be an independent community. These cottagers work at a certain price (tenpence per day) for the farmers on whose ground they live, and they have spare time enough to cultivate their own land and lay in a store of fish for the winter. The wives and daughters spin and the husbands and sons weave, so that they may fairly be reckoned independent, having also a little money in hand to buy coffee, brandy and some other superfluities. The only thing I disliked was the military service, which trammels them more than I at first imagined. It is true that the militia is only called out once a year, yet in case of war they have no alternative but must abandon their families. Even the manufacturers are not exempted, though the miners are, in order to encourage undertakings which require a capital at the commencement. And, what appears more tyrannical, the inhabitants of certain districts are appointed for the land, others for the sea service. Consequently, a peasant, born a soldier, is not permitted to follow his inclination should it lead him to go to sea, a natural desire near so many seaports. In these regulations the arbitrary government--the King of Denmark being the most absolute monarch in Europe--appears, which in other respects seeks to hide itself in a lenity that almost renders the laws nullities. If any alteration of old customs is thought of, the opinion of the old country is required and maturely considered. I have several times had occasion to observe that, fearing to appear tyrannical, laws are allowed to become obsolete which ought to be put in force or better substituted in their stead; for this mistaken moderation, which borders on timidity, favours the least respectable part of the people. I saw on my way not only good parsonage houses, but comfortable dwellings, with glebe land for the clerk, always a consequential man in every country, a being proud of a little smattering of learning, to use the appropriate epithet, and vain of the stiff good-breeding reflected from the vicar, though the servility practised in his company gives it a peculiar cast. The widow of the clergyman is allowed to receive the benefit of the living for a twelvemonth after the death of the incumbent. Arriving at the ferry (the passage over to Moss is about six or eight English miles) I saw the most level shore I had yet seen in Norway. The appearance of the circumjacent country had been preparing me for the change of scene which was to greet me when I reached the coast. For the grand features of nature had been dwindling into prettiness as I advanced; yet the rocks, on a smaller scale, were finely wooded to the water's edge. Little art appeared, yet sublimity everywhere gave place to elegance. The road had often assumed the appearance of a gravelled one, made in pleasure-grounds; whilst the trees excited only an idea of embellishment. Meadows, like lawns, in an endless variety, displayed the careless graces of nature; and the ripening corn gave a richness to the landscape analogous with the other objects. Never was a southern sky more beautiful, nor more soft its gales. Indeed, I am led to conclude that the sweetest summer in the world is the northern one, the vegetation being quick and luxuriant the moment the earth is loosened from its icy fetters and the bound streams regain their wonted activity. The balance of happiness with respect to climate may be more equal than I at first imagined; for the inhabitants describe with warmth the pleasures of a winter at the thoughts of which I shudder. Not only their parties of pleasure but of business are reserved for this season, when they travel with astonishing rapidity the most direct way, skimming over hedge and ditch. On entering Moss I was struck by the animation which seemed to result from industry. The richest of the inhabitants keep shops, resembling in their manners and even the arrangement of their houses the tradespeople of Yorkshire; with an air of more independence, or rather consequence, from feeling themselves the first people in the place. I had not time to see the iron-works, belonging to Mr. Anker, of Christiania, a man of fortune and enterprise; and I was not very anxious to see them after having viewed those at Laurvig. Here I met with an intelligent literary man, who was anxious to gather information from me relative to the past and present situation of France. The newspapers printed at Copenhagen, as well as those in England, give the most exaggerated accounts of their atrocities and distresses, but the former without any apparent comments or inferences. Still the Norwegians, though more connected with the English, speaking their language and copying their manners, wish well to the Republican cause, and follow with the most lively interest the successes of the French arms. So determined were they, in fact, to excuse everything, disgracing the struggle of freedom, by admitting the tyrant's plea, necessity, that I could hardly persuade them that Robespierre was a monster. The discussion of this subject is not so general as in England, being confined to the few, the clergy and physicians, with a small portion of people who have a literary turn and leisure; the greater part of the inhabitants having a variety of occupations, being owners of ships, shopkeepers, and farmers, have employment enough at home. And their ambition to become rich may tend to cultivate the common sense which characterises and narrows both their hearts and views, confirming the former to their families, taking the handmaids of it into the circle of pleasure, if not of interest, and the latter to the inspection of their workmen, including the noble science of bargain-making--that is, getting everything at the cheapest, and selling it at the dearest rate. I am now more than ever convinced that it is an intercourse with men of science and artists which not only diffuses taste, but gives that freedom to the understanding without which I have seldom met with much benevolence of character on a large scale. Besides, though you do not hear of much pilfering and stealing in Norway, yet they will, with a quiet conscience, buy things at a price which must convince them they were stolen. I had an opportunity of knowing that two or three reputable people had purchased some articles of vagrants, who were detected. How much of the virtue which appears in the world is put on for the world? And how little dictated by self-respect?--so little, that I am ready to repeat the old question, and ask, Where is truth, or rather principle, to be found? These are, perhaps, the vapourings of a heart ill at ease--the effusions of a sensibility wounded almost to madness. But enough of this; we will discuss the subject in another state of existence, where truth and justice will reign. How cruel are the injuries which make us quarrel with human nature! At present black melancholy hovers round my footsteps; and sorrow sheds a mildew over all the future prospects, which hope no longer gilds. A rainy morning prevented my enjoying the pleasure the view of a picturesque country would have afforded me; for though this road passed through a country a greater extent of which was under cultivation than I had usually seen here, it nevertheless retained all the wild charms of Norway. Rocks still enclosed the valleys, the great sides of which enlivened their verdure. Lakes appeared like branches of the sea, and branches of the sea assumed the appearance of tranquil lakes; whilst streamlets prattled amongst the pebbles and the broken mass of stone which had rolled into them, giving fantastic turns to the trees, the roots of which they bared. It is not, in fact, surprising that the pine should be often undermined; it shoots its fibres in such a horizontal direction, merely on the surface of the earth, requiring only enough to cover those that cling to the crags. Nothing proves to me so clearly that it is the air which principally nourishes trees and plants as the flourishing appearance of these pines. The firs, demanding a deeper soil, are seldom seen in equal health, or so numerous on the barren cliffs. They take shelter in the crevices, or where, after some revolving ages, the pines have prepared them a footing. Approaching, or rather descending, to Christiania, though the weather continued a little cloudy, my eyes were charmed with the view of an extensive undulated valley, stretching out under the shelter of a noble amphitheatre of pine-covered mountains. Farm houses scattered about animated, nay, graced a scene which still retained so much of its native wildness, that the art which appeared seemed so necessary, it was scarcely perceived. Cattle were grazing in the shaven meadows; and the lively green on their swelling sides contrasted with the ripening corn and rye. The corn that grew on the slopes had not, indeed, the laughing luxuriance of plenty, which I have seen in more genial climes. A fresh breeze swept across the grain, parting its slender stalks, but the wheat did not wave its head with its wonted careless dignity, as if nature had crowned it the king of plants. The view, immediately on the left, as we drove down the mountain, was almost spoilt by the depredations committed on the rocks to make alum. I do not know the process. I only saw that the rocks looked red after they had been burnt, and regretted that the operation should leave a quantity of rubbish to introduce an image of human industry in the shape of destruction. The situation of Christiania is certainly uncommonly fine, and I never saw a bay that so forcibly gave me an idea of a place of safety from the storms of the ocean; all the surrounding objects were beautiful and even grand. But neither the rocky mountains, nor the woods that graced them, could be compared with the sublime prospects I had seen to the westward; and as for the hills, "capped with _eternal_ snow," Mr. Coxe's description led me to look for them, but they had flown, for I looked vainly around for this noble background. A few months ago the people of Christiania rose, exasperated by the scarcity and consequent high price of grain. The immediate cause was the shipping of some, said to be for Moss, but which they suspected was only a pretext to send it out of the country, and I am not sure that they were wrong in their conjecture. Such are the tricks of trade. They threw stones at Mr. Anker, the owner of it, as he rode out of town to escape from their fury; they assembled about his house, and the people demanded afterwards, with so much impetuosity, the liberty of those who were taken up in consequence of the tumult, that the Grand Bailiff thought it prudent to release them without further altercation. You may think me too severe on commerce, but from the manner it is at present carried on little can be advanced in favour of a pursuit that wears out the most sacred principles of humanity and rectitude. What is speculation but a species of gambling, I might have said fraud, in which address generally gains the prize? I was led into these reflections when I heard of some tricks practised by merchants, miscalled reputable, and certainly men of property, during the present war, in which common honesty was violated: damaged goods and provision having been shipped for the express purpose of falling into the hands of the English, who had pledged themselves to reimburse neutral nations for the cargoes they seized; cannon also, sent back as unfit for service, have been shipped as a good speculation, the captain receiving orders to cruise about till he fell in with an English frigate. Many individuals I believe have suffered by the seizures of their vessels; still I am persuaded that the English Government has been very much imposed upon in the charges made by merchants who contrived to get their ships taken. This censure is not confined to the Danes. Adieu, for the present, I must take advantage of a moment of fine weather to walk out and see the town. At Christiania I met with that polite reception, which rather characterises the progress of manners in the world, than of any particular portion of it. The first evening of my arrival I supped with some of the most fashionable people of the place, and almost imagined myself in a circle of English ladies, so much did they resemble them in manners, dress, and even in beauty; for the fairest of my countrywomen would not have been sorry to rank with the Grand Bailiff's lady. There were several pretty girls present, but she outshone them all, and, what interested me still more, I could not avoid observing that in acquiring the easy politeness which distinguishes people of quality, she had preserved her Norwegian simplicity. There was, in fact, a graceful timidity in her address, inexpressibly charming. This surprised me a little, because her husband was quite a Frenchman of the _ancien regime_, or rather a courtier, the same kind of animal in every country. Here I saw the cloven foot of despotism. I boasted to you that they had no viceroy in Norway, but these Grand Bailiffs, particularly the superior one, who resides at Christiania, are political monsters of the same species. Needy sycophants are provided for by their relations and connections at Copenhagen as at other courts. And though the Norwegians are not in the abject state of the Irish, yet this second-hand government is still felt by their being deprived of several natural advantages to benefit the domineering state. The Grand Bailiffs are mostly noblemen from Copenhagen, who act as men of common minds will always act in such situations--aping a degree of courtly parade which clashes with the independent character of a magistrate. Besides, they have a degree of power over the country judges, which some of them, who exercise a jurisdiction truly patriarchal most painfully feel. I can scarcely say why, my friend, but in this city thoughtfulness seemed to be sliding into melancholy or rather dulness. The fire of fancy, which had been kept alive in the country, was almost extinguished by reflections on the ills that harass such a large portion of mankind. I felt like a bird fluttering on the ground unable to mount, yet unwilling to crawl tranquilly like a reptile, whilst still conscious it had wings. I walked out, for the open air is always my remedy when an aching head proceeds from an oppressed heart. Chance directed my steps towards the fortress, and the sight of the slaves, working with chains on their legs, only served to embitter me still more against the regulations of society, which treated knaves in such a different manner, especially as there was a degree of energy in some of their countenances which unavoidably excited my attention, and almost created respect. I wished to have seen, through an iron grate, the face of a man who has been confined six years for having induced the farmers to revolt against some impositions of the Government. I could not obtain a clear account of the affair, yet, as the complaint was against some farmers of taxes, I am inclined to believe that it was not totally without foundation. He must have possessed some eloquence, or have had truth on his side; for the farmers rose by hundreds to support him, and were very much exasperated at his imprisonment, which will probably last for life, though he has sent several very spirited remonstrances to the upper court, which makes the judges so averse to giving a sentence which may be cavilled at, that they take advantage of the glorious uncertainty of the law, to protract a decision which is only to be regulated by reasons of state. The greater number of the slaves I saw here were not confined for life. Their labour is not hard; and they work in the open air, which prevents their constitutions from suffering by imprisonment. Still, as they are allowed to associate together, and boast of their dexterity, not only to each other but to the soldiers around them, in the garrison; they commonly, it is natural to conclude, go out more confirmed and more expert knaves than when they entered. It is not necessary to trace the origin of the association of ideas which led me to think that the stars and gold keys, which surrounded me the evening before, disgraced the wearers as much as the fetters I was viewing--perhaps more. I even began to investigate the reason, which led me to suspect that the former produced the latter. The Norwegians are extravagantly fond of courtly distinction, and of titles, though they have no immunities annexed to them, and are easily purchased. The proprietors of mines have many privileges: they are almost exempt from taxes, and the peasantry born on their estates, as well as those on the counts', are not born soldiers or sailors. One distinction, or rather trophy of nobility, which I might have occurred to the Hottentots, amused me; it was a bunch of hog's bristles placed on the horses' heads, surmounting that part of the harness to which a round piece of brass often dangles, fatiguing the eye with its idle motion. From the fortress I returned to my lodging, and quickly was taken out of town to be shown a pretty villa, and English garden. To a Norwegian both might have been objects of curiosity; and of use, by exciting to the comparison which leads to improvement. But whilst I gazed, I was employed in restoring the place to nature, or taste, by giving it the character of the surrounding scene. Serpentine walks, and flowering-shrubs, looked trifling in a grand recess of the rooks, shaded by towering pines. Groves of smaller trees might have been sheltered under them, which would have melted into the landscape, displaying only the art which ought to point out the vicinity of a human abode, furnished with some elegance. But few people have sufficient taste to discern, that the art of embellishing consists in interesting, not in astonishing. Christiania is certainly very pleasantly situated, and the environs I passed through, during this ride, afforded many fine and cultivated prospects; but, excepting the first view approaching to it, rarely present any combination of objects so strikingly new, or picturesque, as to command remembrance. Adieu! LETTER XIV. Christiania is a clean, neat city; but it has none of the graces of architecture, which ought to keep pace with the refining manners of a people--or the outside of the house will disgrace the inside, giving the beholder an idea of overgrown wealth devoid of taste. Large square wooden houses offend the eye, displaying more than Gothic barbarism. Huge Gothic piles, indeed, exhibit a characteristic sublimity, and a wildness of fancy peculiar to the period when they were erected; but size, without grandeur or elegance, has an emphatical stamp of meanness, of poverty of conception, which only a commercial spirit could give. The same thought has struck me, when I have entered the meeting-house of my respected friend, Dr. Price. I am surprised that the dissenters, who have not laid aside all the pomps and vanities of life, should imagine a noble pillar, or arch, unhallowed. Whilst men have senses, whatever soothes them lends wings to devotion; else why do the beauties of nature, where all that charm them are spread around with a lavish hand, force even the sorrowing heart to acknowledge that existence is a blessing? and this acknowledgment is the most sublime homage we can pay to the Deity. The argument of convenience is absurd. Who would labour for wealth, if it were to procure nothing but conveniences. If we wish to render mankind moral from principle, we must, I am persuaded, give a greater scope to the enjoyments of the senses by blending taste with them. This has frequently occurred to me since I have been in the north, and observed that there sanguine characters always take refuge in drunkenness after the fire of youth is spent. But I have flown from Norway. To go back to the wooden houses; farms constructed with logs, and even little villages, here erected in the same simple manner, have appeared to me very picturesque. In the more remote parts I had been particularly pleased with many cottages situated close to a brook, or bordering on a lake, with the whole farm contiguous. As the family increases, a little more land is cultivated; thus the country is obviously enriched by population. Formerly the farmers might more justly have been termed woodcutters. But now they find it necessary to spare the woods a little, and this change will be universally beneficial; for whilst they lived entirely by selling the trees they felled, they did not pay sufficient attention to husbandry; consequently, advanced very slowly in agricultural knowledge. Necessity will in future more and more spur them on; for the ground, cleared of wood, must be cultivated, or the farm loses its value; there is no waiting for food till another generation of pines be grown to maturity. The people of property are very careful of their timber; and, rambling through a forest near Tonsberg, belonging to the Count, I have stopped to admire the appearance of some of the cottages inhabited by a woodman's family--a man employed to cut down the wood necessary for the household and the estate. A little lawn was cleared, on which several lofty trees were left which nature had grouped, whilst the encircling firs sported with wild grace. The dwelling was sheltered by the forest, noble pines spreading their branches over the roof; and before the door a cow, goat, nag, and children, seemed equally content with their lot; and if contentment be all we can attain, it is, perhaps, best secured by ignorance. As I have been most delighted with the country parts of Norway, I was sorry to leave Christiania without going farther to the north, though the advancing season admonished me to depart, as well as the calls of business and affection. June and July are the months to make a tour through Norway; for then the evenings and nights are the finest I have ever seen; but towards the middle or latter end of August the clouds begin to gather, and summer disappears almost before it has ripened the fruit of autumn--even, as it were, slips from your embraces, whilst the satisfied senses seem to rest in enjoyment. You will ask, perhaps, why I wished to go farther northward. Why? not only because the country, from all I can gather, is most romantic, abounding in forests and lakes, and the air pure, but I have heard much of the intelligence of the inhabitants, substantial farmers, who have none of that cunning to contaminate their simplicity, which displeased me so much in the conduct of the people on the sea coast. A man who has been detected in any dishonest act can no longer live among them. He is universally shunned, and shame becomes the severest punishment. Such a contempt have they, in fact, for every species of fraud, that they will not allow the people on the western coast to be their countrymen; so much do they despise the arts for which those traders who live on the rocks are notorious. The description I received of them carried me back to the fables of the golden age: independence and virtue; affluence without vice; cultivation of mind, without depravity of heart; with "ever smiling Liberty;" the nymph of the mountain. I want faith! My imagination hurries me forward to seek an asylum in such a retreat from all the disappointments I am threatened with; but reason drags me back, whispering that the world is still the world, and man the same compound of weakness and folly, who must occasionally excite love and disgust, admiration and contempt. But this description, though it seems to have been sketched by a fairy pencil, was given me by a man of sound understanding, whose fancy seldom appears to run away with him. A law in Norway, termed the _odels right_, has lately been modified, and probably will be abolished as an impediment to commerce. The heir of an estate had the power of re-purchasing it at the original purchase money, making allowance for such improvements as were absolutely necessary, during the space of twenty years. At present ten is the term allowed for afterthought; and when the regulation was made, all the men of abilities were invited to give their opinion whether it were better to abrogate or modify it. It is certainly a convenient and safe way of mortgaging land; yet the most rational men whom I conversed with on the subject seemed convinced that the right was more injurious than beneficial to society; still if it contribute to keep the farms in the farmers' own hands, I should be sorry to hear that it were abolished. The aristocracy in Norway, if we keep clear of Christiania, is far from being formidable; and it will require a long the to enable the merchants to attain a sufficient moneyed interest to induce them to reinforce the upper class at the expense of the yeomanry, with whom they are usually connected. England and America owe their liberty to commerce, which created new species of power to undermine the feudal system. But let them beware of the consequence; the tyranny of wealth is still more galling and debasing than that of rank. Farewell! I must prepare for my departure. LETTER XV. I left Christiania yesterday. The weather was not very fine, and having been a little delayed on the road, I found that it was too late to go round, a couple of miles, to see the cascade near Fredericstadt, which I had determined to visit. Besides, as Fredericstadt is a fortress, it was necessary to arrive there before they shut the gate. The road along the river is very romantic, though the views are not grand; and the riches of Norway, its timber, floats silently down the stream, often impeded in its course by islands and little cataracts, the offspring, as it were, of the great one I had frequently heard described. I found an excellent inn at Fredericstadt, and was gratified by the kind attention of the hostess, who, perceiving that my clothes were wet, took great pains procure me, as a stranger, every comfort for the night. It had rained very hard, and we passed the ferry in the dark without getting out of our carriage, which I think wrong, as the horses are sometimes unruly. Fatigue and melancholy, however, had made me regardless whether I went down or across the stream, and I did not know that I was wet before the hostess marked it. My imagination has never yet severed me from my griefs, and my mind has seldom been so free as to allow my body to be delicate. How I am altered by disappointment! When going to Lisbon, the elasticity of my mind was sufficient to ward off weariness, and my imagination still could dip her brush in the rainbow of fancy, and sketch futurity in glowing colours. Now--but let me talk of something else--will you go with me to the cascade? The cross road to it was rugged and dreary; and though a considerable extent of land was cultivated on all sides, yet the rocks were entirely bare, which surprised me, as they were more on a level with the surface than any I had yet seen. On inquiry, however, I learnt that some years since a forest had been burnt. This appearance of desolation was beyond measure gloomy, inspiring emotions that sterility had never produced. Fires of this kind are occasioned by the wind suddenly rising when the farmers are burning roots of trees, stalks of beans, &c, with which they manure the ground. The devastation must, indeed, be terrible, when this, literally speaking, wildfire, runs along the forest, flying from top to top, and crackling amongst the branches. The soil, as well as the trees, is swept away by the destructive torrent; and the country, despoiled of beauty and riches, is left to mourn for ages. Admiring, as I do, these noble forests, which seem to bid defiance to time, I looked with pain on the ridge of rocks that stretched far beyond my eye, formerly crowned with the most beautiful verdure. I have often mentioned the grandeur, but I feel myself unequal to the task of conveying an idea of the beauty and elegance of the scene when the spiry tops of the pines are loaded with ripening seed, and the sun gives a glow to their light-green tinge, which is changing into purple, one tree more or less advanced contrasted with another. The profusion with which Nature has decked them with pendant honours, prevents all surprise at seeing in every crevice some sapling struggling for existence. Vast masses of stone are thus encircled, and roots torn up by the storms become a shelter for a young generation. The pine and fir woods, left entirely to Nature, display an endless variety; and the paths in the woods are not entangled with fallen leaves, which are only interesting whilst they are fluttering between life and death. The grey cobweb-like appearance of the aged pines is a much finer image of decay; the fibres whitening as they lose their moisture, imprisoned life seems to be stealing away. I cannot tell why, but death, under every form, appears to me like something getting free to expand in I know not what element--nay, I feel that this conscious being must be as unfettered, have the wings of thought, before it can be happy. Reaching the cascade, or rather cataract, the roaring of which had a long time announced its vicinity, my soul was hurried by the falls into a new train of reflections. The impetuous dashing of the rebounding torrent from the dark cavities which mocked the exploring eye produced an equal activity in my mind. My thoughts darted from earth to heaven, and I asked myself why I was chained to life and its misery. Still the tumultuous emotions this sublime object excited were pleasurable; and, viewing it, my soul rose with renewed dignity above its cares. Grasping at immortality--it seemed as impossible to stop the current of my thoughts, as of the always varying, still the same, torrent before me; I stretched out my hand to eternity, bounding over the dark speck of life to come. We turned with regret from the cascade. On a little hill, which commands the best view of it, several obelisks are erected to commemorate the visits of different kings. The appearance of the river above and below the falls is very picturesque, the ruggedness of the scenery disappearing as the torrent subsides into a peaceful stream. But I did not like to see a number of saw-mills crowded together close to the cataracts; they destroyed the harmony of the prospect. The sight of a bridge erected across a deep valley, at a little distance, inspired very dissimilar sensations. It was most ingeniously supported by mast-like trunks, just stripped of their branches; and logs, placed one across the other, produced an appearance equally light and firm, seeming almost to be built in the air when we were below it, the height taking from the magnitude of the supporting trees give them a slender graceful look. There are two noble estates in this neighbourhood, the proprietors of which seem to have caught more than their portion of the enterprising spirit that is gone abroad. Many agricultural experiments have been made, and the country appears better enclosed and cultivated, yet the cottages had not the comfortable aspect of those I had observed near Moss and to the westward. Man is always debased by servitude of any description, and here the peasantry are not entirely free. Adieu! I almost forgot to tell you that I did not leave Norway without making some inquiries after the monsters said to have been seen in the northern sea; but though I conversed with several captains, I could not meet with one who had ever heard any traditional description of them, much less had any ocular demonstration of their existence. Till the fact is better ascertained, I should think the account of them ought to be torn out of our geographical grammars. LETTER XVI. I set out from Fredericstadt about three o'clock in the afternoon, and expected to reach Stromstad before the night closed in; but the wind dying away, the weather became so calm that we scarcely made any perceptible advances towards the opposite coast, though the men were fatigued with rowing. Getting amongst the rocks and islands as the moon rose, and the stars darted forward out of the clear expanse, I forgot that the night stole on whilst indulging affectionate reveries, the poetical fictions of sensibility; I was not, therefore, aware of the length of time we had been toiling to reach Stromstad. And when I began to look around, I did not perceive anything to indicate that we were in its neighbourhood. So far from it, that when I inquired of the pilot, who spoke a little English, I found that he was only accustomed to coast along the Norwegian shore; and had been only once across to Stromstad. But he had brought with him a fellow better acquainted, he assured me, with the rocks by which they were to steer our course, for we had not a compass on board; yet, as he was half a fool, I had little confidence in his skill. There was then great reason to fear that we had lost our way, and were straying amidst a labyrinth of rocks without a clue. This was something like an adventure, but not of the most agreeable cast; besides, I was impatient to arrive at Stromstad, to be able to send forward that night a boy to order horses on the road to be ready, for I was unwilling to remain there a day without having anything to detain me from my little girl, and from the letters which I was impatient to get from you. I began to expostulate, and even to scold the pilot, for not having informed me of his ignorance previous to my departure. This made him row with more force, and we turned round one rock only to see another, equally destitute of the tokens we were in search of to tell us where we were. Entering also into creek after creek which promised to be the entrance of the bay we were seeking, we advanced merely to find ourselves running aground. The solitariness of the scene, as we glided under the dark shadows of the rocks, pleased me for a while; but the fear of passing the whole night thus wandering to and fro, and losing the next day, roused me. I begged the pilot to return to one of the largest islands, at the side of which we had seen a boat moored. As we drew nearer, a light through a window on the summit became our beacon; but we were farther off than I supposed. With some difficulty the pilot got on shore, not distinguishing the landing-place; and I remained in the boat, knowing that all the relief we could expect was a man to direct us. After waiting some time, for there is an insensibility in the very movements of these people that would weary more than ordinary patience, he brought with him a man who, assisting them to row, we landed at Stromstad a little after one in the morning. It was too late to send off a boy, but I did not go to bed before I had made the arrangements necessary to enable me to set out as early as possible. The sun rose with splendour. My mind was too active to allow me to loiter long in bed, though the horses did not arrive till between seven and eight. However, as I wished to let the boy, who went forward to order the horses, get considerably the start of me, I bridled in my impatience. This precaution was unavailing, for after the three first posts I had to wait two hours, whilst the people at the post-house went, fair and softly, to the farm, to bid them bring up the horses which were carrying in the first-fruits of the harvest. I discovered here that these sluggish peasants had their share of cunning. Though they had made me pay for a horse, the boy had gone on foot, and only arrived half an hour before me. This disconcerted the whole arrangement of the day; and being detained again three hours, I reluctantly determined to sleep at Quistram, two posts short of Uddervalla, where I had hoped to have arrived that night. But when I reached Quistram I found I could not approach the door of the inn for men, horses, and carts, cows, and pigs huddled together. From the concourse of people I had met on the road I conjectured that there was a fair in the neighbourhood; this crowd convinced me that it was but too true. The boisterous merriment that almost every instant produced a quarrel, or made me dread one, with the clouds of tobacco, and fumes of brandy, gave an infernal appearance to the scene. There was everything to drive me back, nothing to excite sympathy in a rude tumult of the senses, which I foresaw would end in a gross debauch. What was to be done? No bed was to be had, or even a quiet corner to retire to for a moment; all was lost in noise, riot, and confusion. After some debating they promised me horses, which were to go on to Uddervalla, two stages. I requested something to eat first, not having dined; and the hostess, whom I have mentioned to you before as knowing how to take care of herself, brought me a plate of fish, for which she charged a rix-dollar and a half. This was making hay whilst the sun shone. I was glad to get out of the uproar, though not disposed to travel in an incommodious open carriage all night, had I thought that there was any chance of getting horses. Quitting Quistram I met a number of joyous groups, and though the evening was fresh many were stretched on the grass like weary cattle; and drunken men had fallen by the road-side. On a rock, under the shade of lofty trees, a large party of men and women had lighted a fire, cutting down fuel around to keep it alive all night. They were drinking, smoking, and laughing with all their might and main. I felt for the trees whose torn branches strewed the ground. Hapless nymphs! your haunts, I fear, were polluted by many an unhallowed flame, the casual burst of the moment! The horses went on very well; but when we drew near the post-house the postillion stopped short and neither threats nor promises could prevail on him to go forward. He even began to howl and weep when I insisted on his keeping his word. Nothing, indeed, can equal the stupid obstinacy of some of these half-alive beings, who seem to have been made by Prometheus when the fire he stole from Heaven was so exhausted that he could only spare a spark to give life, not animation, to the inert clay. It was some time before we could rouse anybody; and, as I expected, horses, we were told, could not be had in less than four or five hours. I again attempted to bribe the churlish brute who brought us there, but I discovered that, in spite of the courteous hostess's promises, he had received orders not to go any father. As there was no remedy I entered, and was almost driven back by the stench--a softer phrase would not have conveyed an idea of the hot vapour that issued from an apartment in which some eight or ten people were sleeping, not to reckon the cats and dogs stretched on the floor. Two or three of the men or women were on the benches, others on old chests; and one figure started half out of a trunk to look at me, whom might have taken for a ghost, had the chemise been white, to contrast with the sallow visage. But the costume of apparitions not being preserved I passed, nothing dreading, excepting the effluvia, warily amongst the pots, pans, milk-pails, and washing-tubs. After scaling a ruinous staircase I was shown a bed-chamber. The bed did not invite me to enter; opening, therefore, the window, and taking some clean towels out of my night-sack, I spread them over the coverlid, on which tired Nature found repose, in spite of the previous disgust. With the grey of the morn the birds awoke me; and descending to inquire for the horses, I hastened through the apartment I have already described, not wishing to associate the idea of a pigstye with that of a human dwelling. I do not now wonder that the girls lose their fine complexions at such an early age, or that love here is merely an appetite to fulfil the main design of Nature, never enlivened by either affection or sentiment. For a few posts we found the horses waiting; but afterwards I was retarded, as before, by the peasants, who, taking advantage of my ignorance of the language, made me pay for the fourth horse that ought to have gone forward to have the others in readiness, though it had never been sent. I was particularly impatient at the last post, as I longed to assure myself that my child was well. My impatience, however, did not prevent my enjoying the journey. I had six weeks before passed over the same ground; still it had sufficient novelty to attract my attention, and beguile, if not banish, the sorrow that had taken up its abode in my heart. How interesting are the varied beauties of Nature, and what peculiar charms characterise each season! The purple hue which the heath now assumed gave it a degree of richness that almost exceeded the lustre of the young green of spring, and harmonised exquisitely with the rays of the ripening corn. The weather was uninterruptedly fine, and the people busy in the fields cutting down the corn, or binding up the sheaves, continually varied the prospect. The rocks, it is true, were unusually rugged and dreary; yet as the road runs for a considerable way by the side of a fine river, with extended pastures on the other side, the image of sterility was not the predominant object, though the cottages looked still more miserable, after having seen the Norwegian farms. The trees likewise appeared of me growth of yesterday, compared with those Nestors of the forest I have frequently mentioned. The women and children were cutting off branches from the beech, birch, oak, &c, and leaving them to dry. This way of helping out their fodder injures the trees. But the winters are so long that the poor cannot afford to lay in a sufficient stock of hay. By such means they just keep life in the poor cows, for little milk can be expected when they are so miserably fed. It was Saturday, and the evening was uncommonly serene. In the villages I everywhere saw preparations for Sunday; and I passed by a little car loaded with rye, that presented, for the pencil and heart, the sweetest picture of a harvest home I had ever beheld. A little girl was mounted a- straddle on a shaggy horse, brandishing a stick over its head; the father was walking at the side of the car with a child in his arms, who must have come to meet him with tottering steps; the little creature was stretching out its arms to cling round his neck; and a boy, just above petticoats, was labouring hard with a fork behind to keep the sheaves from falling. My eyes followed them to the cottage, and an involuntary sigh whispered to my heart that I envied the mother, much as I dislike cooking, who was preparing their pottage. I was returning to my babe, who may never experience a father's care or tenderness. The bosom that nurtured her heaved with a pang at the thought which only an unhappy mother could feel. Adieu! LETTER XVII. I was unwilling to leave Gothenburg without visiting Trolhaettae. I wished not only to see the cascade, but to observe the progress of the stupendous attempt to form a canal through the rocks, to the extent of an English mile and a half. This work is carried on by a company, who employ daily nine hundred men; five years was the time mentioned in the proposals addressed to the public as necessary for the completion. A much more considerable sum than the plan requires has been subscribed, for which there is every reason to suppose the promoters will receive ample interest. The Danes survey the progress of this work with a jealous eye, as it is principally undertaken to get clear of the Sound duty. Arrived at Trolhaettae, I must own that the first view of the cascade disappointed me; and the sight of the works, as they advanced, though a grand proof of human industry, was not calculated to warm the fancy. I, however, wandered about; and at last coming to the conflux of the various cataracts rushing from different falls, struggling with the huge masses of rock, and rebounding from the profound cavities, I immediately retracted, acknowledging that it was indeed a grand object. A little island stood in the midst, covered with firs, which, by dividing the torrent, rendered it more picturesque; one half appearing to issue from a dark cavern, that fancy might easily imagine a vast fountain throwing up its waters from the very centre of the earth. I gazed I know not how long, stunned with the noise, and growing giddy with only looking at the never-ceasing tumultuous motion, I listened, scarcely conscious where I was, when I observed a boy, half obscured by the sparkling foam, fishing under the impending rock on the other side. How he had descended I could not perceive; nothing like human footsteps appeared, and the horrific crags seemed to bid defiance even to the goat's activity. It looked like an abode only fit for the eagle, though in its crevices some pines darted up their spiral heads; but they only grew near the cascade, everywhere else sterility itself reigned with dreary grandeur; for the huge grey massy rocks, which probably had been torn asunder by some dreadful convulsion of nature, had not even their first covering of a little cleaving moss. There were so many appearances to excite the idea of chaos, that, instead of admiring the canal and the works, great as they are termed, and little as they appear, I could not help regretting that such a noble scene had not been left in all its solitary sublimity. Amidst the awful roaring of the impetuous torrents, the noise of human instruments and the bustle of workmen, even the blowing up of the rocks when grand masses trembled in the darkened air, only resembled the insignificant sport of children. One fall of water, partly made by art, when they were attempting to construct sluices, had an uncommonly grand effect; the water precipitated itself with immense velocity down a perpendicular, at least fifty or sixty yards, into a gulf, so concealed by the foam as to give full play to the fancy. There was a continual uproar. I stood on a rock to observe it, a kind of bridge formed by nature, nearly on a level with the commencement of the fall. After musing by it a long time I turned towards the other side, and saw a gentle stream stray calmly out. I should have concluded that it had no communication with the torrent had I not seen a huge log that fell headlong down the cascade steal peacefully into the purling stream. I retired from these wild scenes with regret to a miserable inn, and next morning returned to Gothenburg, to prepare for my journey to Copenhagen. I was sorry to leave Gothenburg without travelling farther into Sweden, yet I imagine I should only have seen a romantic country thinly inhabited, and these inhabitants struggling with poverty. The Norwegian peasantry, mostly independent, have a rough kind of frankness in their manner; but the Swedish, rendered more abject by misery, have a degree of politeness in their address which, though it may sometimes border on insincerity, is oftener the effect of a broken spirit, rather softened than degraded by wretchedness. In Norway there are no notes in circulation of less value than a Swedish rix-dollar. A small silver coin, commonly not worth more than a penny, and never more than twopence, serves for change; but in Sweden they have notes as low as sixpence. I never saw any silver pieces there, and could not without difficulty, and giving a premium, obtain the value of a rix- dollar in a large copper coin to give away on the road to the poor who open the gates. As another proof of the poverty of Sweden, I ought to mention that foreign merchants who have acquired a fortune there are obliged to deposit the sixth part when they leave the kingdom. This law, you may suppose, is frequently evaded. In fact, the laws here, as well as in Norway, are so relaxed that they rather favour than restrain knavery. Whilst I was at Gothenburg, a man who had been confined for breaking open his master's desk and running away with five or six thousand rix-dollars, was only sentenced to forty days' confinement on bread and water; and this slight punishment his relations rendered nugatory by supplying him with more savoury food. The Swedes are in general attached to their families, yet a divorce may be obtained by either party on proving the infidelity of the other or acknowledging it themselves. The women do not often recur to this equal privilege, for they either retaliate on their husbands by following their own devices or sink into the merest domestic drudges, worn down by tyranny to servile submission. Do not term me severe if I add, that after youth is flown the husband becomes a sot, and the wife amuses herself by scolding her servants. In fact, what is to be expected in any country where taste and cultivation of mind do not supply the place of youthful beauty and animal spirits? Affection requires a firmer foundation than sympathy, and few people have a principle of action sufficiently stable to produce rectitude of feeling; for in spite of all the arguments I have heard to justify deviations from duty, I am persuaded that even the most spontaneous sensations are more under the direction of principle than weak people are willing to allow. But adieu to moralising. I have been writing these last sheets at an inn in Elsineur, where I am waiting for horses; and as they are not yet ready, I will give you a short account of my journey from Gothenburg, for I set out the morning after I returned from Trolhaettae. The country during the first day's journey presented a most barren appearance, as rocky, yet not so picturesque as Norway, because on a diminutive scale. We stopped to sleep at a tolerable inn in Falckersberg, a decent little town. The next day beeches and oaks began to grace the prospects, the sea every now and then appearing to give them dignity. I could not avoid observing also, that even in this part of Sweden, one of the most sterile, as I was informed, there was more ground under cultivation than in Norway. Plains of varied crops stretched out to a considerable extent, and sloped down to the shore, no longer terrific. And, as far as I could judge, from glancing my eye over the country as we drove along, agriculture was in a more advanced state, though in the habitations a greater appearance of poverty still remained. The cottages, indeed, often looked most uncomfortable, but never so miserable as those I had remarked on the road to Stromstad, and the towns were equal, if not superior, to many of the little towns in Wales, or some I have passed through in my way from Calais to Paris. The inns as we advanced were not to be complained of, unless I had always thought of England. The people were civil, and much more moderate in their demands than the Norwegians, particularly to the westward, where they boldly charge for what you never had, and seem to consider you, as they do a wreck, if not as lawful prey, yet as a lucky chance, which they ought not to neglect to seize. The prospect of Elsineur, as we passed the Sound, was pleasant. I gave three rix-dollars for my boat, including something to drink. I mention the sum, because they impose on strangers. Adieu! till I arrive at Copenhagen. LETTER XVIII.--COPENHAGEN. The distance from Elsineur to Copenhagen is twenty-two miles; the road is very good, over a flat country diversified with wood, mostly beech, and decent mansions. There appeared to be a great quantity of corn land, and the soil looked much more fertile than it is in general so near the sea. The rising grounds, indeed, were very few, and around Copenhagen it is a perfect plain; of course has nothing to recommend it but cultivation, not decorations. If I say that the houses did not disgust me, I tell you all I remember of them, for I cannot recollect any pleasurable sensations they excited, or that any object, produced by nature or art, took me out of myself. The view of the city, as we drew near, was rather grand, but without any striking feature to interest the imagination, excepting the trees which shade the footpaths. Just before I reached Copenhagen I saw a number of tents on a wide plain, and supposed that the rage for encampments had reached this city; but I soon discovered that they were the asylum of many of the poor families who had been driven out of their habitations by the late fire. Entering soon after, I passed amongst the dust and rubbish it had left, affrighted by viewing the extent of the devastation, for at least a quarter of the city had been destroyed. There was little in the appearance of fallen bricks and stacks of chimneys to allure the imagination into soothing melancholy reveries; nothing to attract the eye of taste, but much to afflict the benevolent heart. The depredations of time have always something in them to employ the fancy, or lead to musing on subjects which, withdrawing the mind from objects of sense, seem to give it new dignity; but here I was treading on live ashes. The sufferers were still under the pressure of the misery occasioned by this dreadful conflagration. I could not take refuge in the thought: they suffered, but they are no more! a reflection I frequently summon to calm my mind when sympathy rises to anguish. I therefore desired the driver to hasten to the hotel recommended to me, that I might avert my eyes and snap the train of thinking which had sent me into all the corners of the city in search of houseless heads. This morning I have been walking round the town, till I am weary of observing the ravages. I had often heard the Danes, even those who had seen Paris and London, speak of Copenhagen with rapture. Certainly I have seen it in a very disadvantageous light, some of the best streets having been burnt, and the whole place thrown into confusion. Still the utmost that can, or could ever, I believe, have been said in its praise, might be comprised in a few words. The streets are open, and many of the houses large; but I saw nothing to rouse the idea of elegance or grandeur, if I except the circus where the king and prince royal reside. The palace, which was consumed about two years ago, must have been a handsome, spacious building; the stone-work is still standing, and a great number of the poor, during the late fire, took refuge in its ruins till they could find some other abode. Beds were thrown on the landing- places of the grand staircase, where whole families crept from the cold, and every little nook is boarded up as a retreat for some poor creatures deprived of their home. At present a roof may be sufficient to shelter them from the night air; but as the season advances, the extent of the calamity will be more severely felt, I fear, though the exertions on the part of Government are very considerable. Private charity has also, no doubt, done much to alleviate the misery which obtrudes itself at every turn; still, public spirit appears to me to be hardly alive here. Had it existed, the conflagration might have been smothered in the beginning, as it was at last, by tearing down several houses before the flames had reached them. To this the inhabitants would not consent; and the prince royal not having sufficient energy of character to know when he ought to be absolute, calmly let them pursue their own course, till the whole city seemed to be threatened with destruction. Adhering, with puerile scrupulosity, to the law which he has imposed on himself, of acting exactly right, he did wrong by idly lamenting whilst he marked the progress of a mischief that one decided step would have stopped. He was afterwards obliged to resort to violent measures; but then, who could blame him? And, to avoid censure, what sacrifices are not made by weak minds? A gentleman who was a witness of the scene assured me, likewise, that if the people of property had taken half as much pains to extinguish the fire as to preserve their valuables and furniture, it would soon have been got under. But they who were not immediately in danger did not exert themselves sufficiently, till fear, like an electrical shock, roused all the inhabitants to a sense of the general evil. Even the fire- engines were out of order, though the burning of the palace ought to have admonished them of the necessity of keeping them in constant repair. But this kind of indolence respecting what does not immediately concern them seems to characterise the Danes. A sluggish concentration in themselves makes them so careful to preserve their property, that they will not venture on any enterprise to increase it in which there is a shadow of hazard. Considering Copenhagen as the capital of Denmark and Norway, I was surprised not to see so much industry or taste as in Christiania. Indeed, from everything I have had an opportunity of observing, the Danes are the people who have made the fewest sacrifices to the graces. The men of business are domestic tyrants, coldly immersed in their own affairs, and so ignorant of the state of other countries, that they dogmatically assert that Denmark is the happiest country in the world; the Prince Royal the best of all possible princes; and Count Bernstorff the wisest of ministers. As for the women, they are simply notable housewives; without accomplishments or any of the charms that adorn more advanced social life. This total ignorance may enable them to save something in their kitchens, but it is far from rendering them better parents. On the contrary, the children are spoiled, as they usually are when left to the care of weak, indulgent mothers, who having no principle of action to regulate their feelings, become the slaves of infants, enfeebling both body and mind by false tenderness. I am, perhaps, a little prejudiced, as I write from the impression of the moment; for I have been tormented to-day by the presence of unruly children, and made angry by some invectives thrown out against the maternal character of the unfortunate Matilda. She was censured, with the most cruel insinuation, for her management of her son, though, from what I could gather, she gave proofs of good sense as well as tenderness in her attention to him. She used to bathe him herself every morning; insisted on his being loosely clad; and would not permit his attendants to injure his digestion by humouring his appetite. She was equally careful to prevent his acquiring haughty airs, and playing the tyrant in leading-strings. The Queen Dowager would not permit her to suckle him; but the next child being a daughter, and not the Heir-Apparent of the Crown, less opposition was made to her discharging the duty of a mother. Poor Matilda! thou hast haunted me ever since may arrival; and the view I have had of the manners of the country, exciting my sympathy, has increased my respect for thy memory. I am now fully convinced that she was the victim of the party she displaced, who would have overlooked or encouraged her attachment, had not her lover, aiming at being useful, attempted to overturn some established abuses before the people, ripe for the change, had sufficient spirit to support him when struggling in their behalf. Such indeed was the asperity sharpened against her that I have heard her, even after so many years have elapsed, charged with licentiousness, not only for endeavouring to render the public amusements more elegant, but for her very charities, because she erected, amongst other institutions, a hospital to receive foundlings. Disgusted with many customs which pass for virtues, though they are nothing more than observances of forms, often at the expense of truth, she probably ran into an error common to innovators, in wishing to do immediately what can only be done by time. Many very cogent reasons have been urged by her friends to prove that her affection for Struensee was never carried to the length alleged against her by those who feared her influence. Be that as it may she certainly was no a woman of gallantry, and if she had an attachment for him it did not disgrace her heart or understanding, the king being a notorious debauchee and an idiot into the bargain. As the king's conduct had always been directed by some favourite, they also endeavoured to govern him, from a principle of self-preservation as well as a laudable ambition; but, not aware of the prejudices they had to encounter, the system they adopted displayed more benevolence of heart than soundness of judgment. As to the charge, still believed, of their giving the King drugs to injure his faculties, it is too absurd to be refuted. Their oppressors had better have accused them of dabbling in the black art, for the potent spell still keeps his wits in bondage. I cannot describe to you the effect it had on me to see this puppet of a monarch moved by the strings which Count Bernstorff holds fast; sit, with vacant eye, erect, receiving the homage of courtiers who mock him with a show of respect. He is, in fact, merely a machine of state, to subscribe the name of a king to the acts of the Government, which, to avoid danger, have no value unless countersigned by the Prince Royal; for he is allowed to be absolutely aim idiot, excepting that now and then an observation or trick escapes him, which looks more like madness than imbecility. What a farce is life. This effigy of majesty is allowed to burn down to the socket, whilst the hapless Matilda was hurried into an untimely grave. "As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport." Adieu! LETTER XIX. Business having obliged me to go a few miles out of town this morning I was surprised at meeting a crowd of people of every description, and inquiring the cause of a servant, who spoke French, I was informed that a man had been executed two hours before, and the body afterwards burnt. I could not help looking with horror around--the fields lost their verdure--and I turned with disgust from the well-dressed women who were returning with their children from this sight. What a spectacle for humanity! The seeing such a flock of idle gazers plunged me into a train of reflections on the pernicious effects produced by false notions of justice. And I am persuaded that till capital punishments are entirely abolished executions ought to have every appearance of horror given to them, instead of being, as they are now, a scene of amusement for the gaping crowd, where sympathy is quickly effaced by curiosity. I have always been of opinion that the allowing actors to die in the presence of the audience has an immoral tendency, but trifling when compared with the ferocity acquired by viewing the reality as a show; for it seems to me that in all countries the common people go to executions to see how the poor wretch plays his part, rather than to commiserate his fate, much less to think of the breach of morality which has brought him to such a deplorable end. Consequently executions, far from being useful examples to the survivors, have, I am persuaded, a quite contrary effect, by hardening the heart they ought to terrify. Besides the fear of an ignominious death, I believe, never deferred anyone from the commission of a crime, because, in committing it, the mind is roused to activity about present circumstances. It is a game at hazard, at which all expect the turn of the die in their own favour, never reflecting on the chance of ruin till it comes. In fact, from what I saw in the fortresses of Norway, I am more and more convinced that the same energy of character which renders a man a daring villain would have rendered him useful to society, had that society been well organised. When a strong mind is not disciplined by cultivation it is a sense of injustice that renders it unjust. Executions, however, occur very rarely at Copenhagen; for timidity, rather than clemency, palsies all the operations of the present Government. The malefactor who died this morning would not, probably, have been punished with death at any other period; but an incendiary excites universal execration; and as the greater part of the inhabitants are still distressed by the late conflagration, an example was thought absolutely necessary; though, from what I can gather, the fire was accidental. Not, but that I have very seriously been informed, that combustible materials were placed at proper distance, by the emissaries of Mr. Pitt; and, to corroborate the fact, many people insist that the flames burst out at once in different parts of the city; not allowing the wind to have any hand in it. So much for the plot. But the fabricators of plots in all countries build their conjectures on the "baseless fabric of a vision;" and it seems even a sort of poetical justice, that whilst this Minister is crushing at home plots of his own conjuring up, on the Continent, and in the north, he should, with as little foundation, be accused of wishing to set the world on fire. I forgot to mention to you, that I was informed, by a man of veracity, that two persons came to the stake to drink a glass of the criminal's blood, as an infallible remedy for the apoplexy. And when I animadverted in the company, where it was mentioned, on such a horrible violation of nature, a Danish lady reproved me very severely, asking how I knew that it was not a cure for the disease? adding, that every attempt was justifiable in search of health. I did not, you may imagine, enter into an argument with a person the slave of such a gross prejudice. And I allude to it not only as a trait of the ignorance of the people, but to censure the Government for not preventing scenes that throw an odium on the human race. Empiricism is not peculiar to Denmark; and I know no way of rooting it out, though it be a remnant of exploded witchcraft, till the acquiring a general knowledge of the component parts of the human frame becomes a part of public education. Since the fire, the inhabitants have been very assiduously employed in searching for property secreted during the confusion; and it is astonishing how many people, formerly termed reputable, had availed themselves of the common calamity to purloin what the flames spared. Others, expert at making a distinction without a difference, concealed what they found, not troubling themselves to inquire for the owners, though they scrupled to search for plunder anywhere, but amongst the ruins. To be honester than the laws require is by most people thought a work of supererogation; and to slip through the grate of the law has ever exercised the abilities of adventurers, who wish to get rich the shortest way. Knavery without personal danger is an art brought to great perfection by the statesman and swindler; and meaner knaves are not tardy in following their footsteps. It moves my gall to discover some of the commercial frauds practised during the present war. In short, under whatever point of view I consider society, it appears to me that an adoration of property is the root of all evil. Here it does not render the people enterprising, as in America, but thrifty and cautious. I never, therefore, was in a capital where there was so little appearance of active industry; and as for gaiety, I looked in vain for the sprightly gait of the Norwegians, who in every respect appear to me to have got the start of them. This difference I attribute to their having more liberty--a liberty which they think their right by inheritance, whilst the Danes, when they boast of their negative happiness, always mention it as the boon of the Prince Royal, under the superintending wisdom of Count Bernstorff. Vassalage is nevertheless ceasing throughout the kingdom, and with it will pass away that sordid avarice which every modification of slavery is calculated to produce. If the chief use of property be power, in the shape of the respect it procures, is it not among the inconsistencies of human nature most incomprehensible, that men should find a pleasure in hoarding up property which they steal from their necessities, even when they are convinced that it would be dangerous to display such an enviable superiority? Is not this the situation of serfs in every country. Yet a rapacity to accumulate money seems to become stronger in proportion as it is allowed to be useless. Wealth does not appear to be sought for amongst the Danes, to obtain the excellent luxuries of life, for a want of taste is very conspicuous at Copenhagen; so much so that I am not surprised to hear that poor Matilda offended the rigid Lutherans by aiming to refine their pleasures. The elegance which she wished to introduce was termed lasciviousness; yet I do not find that the absence of gallantry renders the wives more chaste, or the husbands more constant. Love here seems to corrupt the morals without polishing the manners, by banishing confidence and truth, the charm as well as cement of domestic life. A gentleman, who has resided in this city some time, assures me that he could not find language to give me an idea of the gross debaucheries into which the lower order of people fall; and the promiscuous amours of the men of the middling class with their female servants debase both beyond measure, weakening every species of family affection. I have everywhere been struck by one characteristic difference in the conduct of the two sexes; women, in general, are seduced by their superiors, and men jilted by their inferiors: rank and manners awe the one, and cunning and wantonness subjugate the other; ambition creeping into the woman's passion, and tyranny giving force to the man's, for most men treat their mistresses as kings do their favourites: _ergo_ is not man then the tyrant of the creation? Still harping on the same subject, you will exclaim--How can I avoid it, when most of the struggles of an eventful life have been occasioned by the oppressed state of my sex? We reason deeply when we feel forcibly. But to return to the straight road of observation. The sensuality so prevalent appears to me to arise rather from indolence of mind and dull senses, than from an exuberance of life, which often fructifies the whole character when the vivacity of youthful spirits begins to subside into strength of mind. I have before mentioned that the men are domestic tyrants, considering them as fathers, brothers, or husbands; but there is a kind of interregnum between the reign of the father and husband which is the only period of freedom and pleasure that the women enjoy. Young people who are attached to each other, with the consent of their friends, exchange rings, and are permitted to enjoy a degree of liberty together which I have never noticed in any other country. The days of courtship are, therefore, prolonged till it be perfectly convenient to marry: the intimacy often becomes very tender; and if the lover obtain the privilege of a husband, it can only be termed half by stealth, because the family is wilfully blind. It happens very rarely that these honorary engagements are dissolved or disregarded, a stigma being attached to a breach of faith which is thought more disgraceful, if not so criminal, as the violation of the marriage-vow. Do not forget that, in my general observations, I do not pretend to sketch a national character, but merely to note the present state of morals and manners as I trace the progress of the world's improvement. Because, during my residence in different countries, my principal object has been to take such a dispassionate view of men as will lead me to form a just idea of the nature of man. And, to deal ingenuously with you, I believe I should have been less severe in the remarks I have made on the vanity and depravity of the French, had I travelled towards the north before I visited France. The interesting picture frequently drawn of the virtues of a rising people has, I fear, been fallacious, excepting the accounts of the enthusiasm which various public struggles have produced. We talk of the depravity of the French, and lay a stress on the old age of the nation; yet where has more virtuous enthusiasm been displayed than during the two last years by the common people of France, and in their armies? I am obliged sometimes to recollect the numberless instances which I have either witnessed, or heard well authenticated, to balance the account of horrors, alas! but too true. I am, therefore, inclined to believe that the gross vices which I have always seem allied with simplicity of manners, are the concomitants of ignorance. What, for example, has piety, under the heathen or Christian system, been, but a blind faith in things contrary to the principles of reason? And could poor reason make considerable advances when it was reckoned the highest degree of virtue to do violence to its dictates? Lutherans, preaching reformation, have built a reputation for sanctity on the same foundation as the Catholics; yet I do not perceive that a regular attendance on public worship, and their other observances, make them a whit more true in their affections, or honest in their private transactions. It seems, indeed, quite as easy to prevaricate with religious injunctions as human laws, when the exercise of their reason does not lead people to acquire principles for themselves to be the criterion of all those they receive from others. If travelling, as the completion of a liberal education, were to be adopted on rational grounds, the northern states ought to be visited before the more polished parts of Europe, to serve as the elements even of the knowledge of manners, only to be acquired by tracing the various shades in different countries. But, when visiting distant climes, a momentary social sympathy should not be allowed to influence the conclusions of the understanding, for hospitality too frequently leads travellers, especially those who travel in search of pleasure, to make a false estimate of the virtues of a nation, which, I am now convinced, bear an exact proportion to their scientific improvements. Adieu. LETTER XX. I have formerly censured the French for their extreme attachment to theatrical exhibitions, because I thought that they tended to render them vain and unnatural characters; but I must acknowledge, especially as women of the town never appear in the Parisian as at our theatres, that the little saving of the week is more usefully expended there every Sunday than in porter or brandy, to intoxicate or stupify the mind. The common people of France have a great superiority over that class in every other country on this very score. It is merely the sobriety of the Parisians which renders their fetes more interesting, their gaiety never becoming disgusting or dangerous, as is always the case when liquor circulates. Intoxication is the pleasure of savages, and of all those whose employments rather exhaust their animal spirits than exercise their faculties. Is not this, in fact, the vice, both in England and the northern states of Europe, which appears to be the greatest impediment to general improvement? Drinking is here the principal relaxation of the men, including smoking, but the women are very abstemious, though they have no public amusements as a substitute. I ought to except one theatre, which appears more than is necessary; for when I was there it was not half full, and neither the ladies nor actresses displayed much fancy in their dress. The play was founded on the story of the "Mock Doctor;" and, from the gestures of the servants, who were the best actors, I should imagine contained some humour. The farce, termed ballet, was a kind of pantomime, the childish incidents of which were sufficient to show the state of the dramatic art in Denmark, and the gross taste of the audience. A magician, in the disguise of a tinker, enters a cottage where the women are all busy ironing, and rubs a dirty frying-pan against the linen. The women raise a hue-and-cry, and dance after him, rousing their husbands, who join in the dance, but get the start of them in the pursuit. The tinker, with the frying-pan for a shield, renders them immovable, and blacks their cheeks. Each laughs at the other, unconscious of his own appearance; meanwhile the women enter to enjoy the sport, "the rare fun," with other incidents of the same species. The singing was much on a par with the dancing, the one as destitute of grace as the other of expression; but the orchestra was well filled, the instrumental being far superior to the vocal music. I have likewise visited the public library and museum, as well as the palace of Rosembourg. This palace, now deserted, displays a gloomy kind of grandeur throughout, for the silence of spacious apartments always makes itself to be felt; I at least feel it, and I listen for the sound of my footsteps as I have done at midnight to the ticking of the death- watch, encouraging a kind of fanciful superstition. Every object carried me back to past times, and impressed the manners of the age forcibly on my mind. In this point of view the preservation of old palaces and their tarnished furniture is useful, for they may be considered as historical documents. The vacuum left by departed greatness was everywhere observable, whilst the battles and processions portrayed on the walls told you who had here excited revelry after retiring from slaughter, or dismissed pageantry in search of pleasure. It seemed a vast tomb full of the shadowy phantoms of those who had played or toiled their hour out and sunk behind the tapestry which celebrated the conquests of love or war. Could they be no more--to whom my imagination thus gave life? Could the thoughts, of which there remained so many vestiges, have vanished quite away? And these beings, composed of such noble materials of thinking and feeling, have they only melted into the elements to keep in motion the grand mass of life? It cannot be!--as easily could I believe that the large silver lions at the top of the banqueting room thought and reasoned. But avaunt! ye waking dreams! yet I cannot describe the curiosities to you. There were cabinets full of baubles and gems, and swords which must have been wielded by giant's hand. The coronation ornaments wait quietly here till wanted, and the wardrobe exhibits the vestments which formerly graced these shows. It is a pity they do not lend them to the actors, instead of allowing them to perish ingloriously. I have not visited any other palace, excepting Hirsholm, the gardens of which are laid out with taste, and command the finest views the country affords. As they are in the modern and English style, I thought I was following the footsteps of Matilda, who wished to multiply around her the images of her beloved country. I was also gratified by the sight of a Norwegian landscape in miniature, which with great propriety makes a part of the Danish King's garden. The cottage is well imitated, and the whole has a pleasing effect, particularly so to me who love Norway--its peaceful farms and spacious wilds. The public library consists of a collection much larger than I expected to see; and it is well arranged. Of the value of the Icelandic manuscripts I could not form a judgment, though the alphabet of some of them amused me, by showing what immense labour men will submit to, in order to transmit their ideas to posterity. I have sometimes thought it a great misfortune for individuals to acquire a certain delicacy of sentiment, which often makes them weary of the common occurrences of life; yet it is this very delicacy of feeling and thinking which probably has produced most of the performances that have benefited mankind. It might with propriety, perhaps, be termed the malady of genius; the cause of that characteristic melancholy which "grows with its growth, and strengthens with its strength." There are some good pictures in the royal museum. Do not start, I am not going to trouble you with a dull catalogue, or stupid criticisms on masters to whom time has assigned their just niche in the temple of fame; had there been any by living artists of this country, I should have noticed them, as making a part of the sketches I am drawing of the present state of the place. The good pictures were mixed indiscriminately with the bad ones, in order to assort the frames. The same fault is conspicuous in the new splendid gallery forming at Paris; though it seems an obvious thought that a school for artists ought to be arranged in such a manner, as to show the progressive discoveries and improvements in the art. A collection of the dresses, arms, and implements of the Laplanders attracted my attention, displaying that first species of ingenuity which is rather a proof of patient perseverance, than comprehension of mind. The specimens of natural history, and curiosities of art, were likewise huddled together without that scientific order which alone renders them useful; but this may partly have been occasioned by the hasty manner in which they were removed from the palace when in flames. There are some respectable men of science here, but few literary characters, and fewer artists. They want encouragement, and will continue, I fear, from the present appearance of things, to languish unnoticed a long time; for neither the vanity of wealth, nor the enterprising spirit of commerce, has yet thrown a glance that way. Besides, the Prince Royal, determined to be economical, almost descends to parsimony; and perhaps depresses his subjects, by labouring not to oppress them; for his intentions always seem to be good--yet nothing can give a more forcible idea of the dulness which eats away all activity of mind, than the insipid routine of a court, without magnificence or elegance. The Prince, from what I can now collect, has very moderate abilities; yet is so well disposed, that Count Bernstorff finds him as tractable as he could wish; for I consider the Count as the real sovereign, scarcely behind the curtain; the Prince having none of that obstinate self-sufficiency of youth, so often the forerunner of decision of character. He and the Princess his wife, dine every day with the King, to save the expense of two tables. What a mummery it must be to treat as a king a being who has lost the majesty of man! But even Count Bernstorff's morality submits to this standing imposition; and he avails himself of it sometimes, to soften a refusal of his own, by saying it is the _will_ of the King, my master, when everybody knows that he has neither will nor memory. Much the same use is made of him as, I have observed, some termagant wives make of their husbands; they would dwell on the necessity of obeying their husbands, poor passive souls, who never were allowed _to will_, when they wanted to conceal their own tyranny. A story is told here of the King's formerly making a dog counsellor of state, because when the dog, accustomed to eat at the royal table, snatched a piece of meat off an old officer's plate, he reproved him jocosely, saying that he, _monsieur le chien_, had not the privilege of dining with his majesty, a privilege annexed to this distinction. The burning of the palace was, in fact, a fortunate circumstance, as it afforded a pretext for reducing the establishment of the household, which was far too great for the revenue of the Crown. The Prince Royal, at present, runs into the opposite extreme; and the formality, if not the parsimony, of the court, seems to extend to all the other branches of society, which I had an opportunity of observing; though hospitality still characterises their intercourse with strangers. But let me now stop; I may be a little partial, and view everything with the jaundiced eye of melancholy--for I am sad--and have cause. God bless you! LETTER XXI. I have seen Count Bernstorff; and his conversation confirms me in the opinion I had previously formed of him; I mean, since my arrival at Copenhagen. He is a worthy man, a little vain of his virtue _a la_ Necker; and more anxious not to do wrong, that is to avoid blame, than desirous of doing good; especially if any particular good demands a change. Prudence, in short, seems to be the basis of his character; and, from the tenor of the Government, I should think inclining to that cautious circumspection which treads on the heels of timidity. He has considerable information, and some finesse; or he could not be a Minister. Determined not to risk his popularity, for he is tenderly careful of his reputation, he will never gloriously fail like Struensee, or disturb, with the energy of genius, the stagnant state of the public mind. I suppose that Lavater, whom he invited to visit him two years ago--some say to fix the principles of the Christian religion firmly in the Prince Royal's mind, found lines in his face to prove him a statesman of the first order; because he has a knack at seeing a great character in the countenances of men in exalted stations, who have noticed him or his works. Besides, the Count's sentiments relative to the French Revolution, agreeing with Lavater's, must have ensured his applause. The Danes, in general, seem extremely averse to innovation, and if happiness only consist in opinion, they are the happiest people in the world; for I never saw any so well satisfied with their own situation. Yet the climate appears to be very disagreeable, the weather being dry and sultry, or moist and cold; the atmosphere never having that sharp, bracing purity, which in Norway prepares you to brave its rigours. I do not hear the inhabitants of this place talk with delight of the winter, which is the constant theme of the Norwegians; on the contrary, they seem to dread its comfortless inclemency. The ramparts are pleasant, and must have been much more so before the fire, the walkers not being annoyed by the clouds of dust which, at present, the slightest wind wafts from the ruins. The windmills, and the comfortable houses contiguous, belonging to the millers, as well as the appearance of the spacious barracks for the soldiers and sailors, tend to render this walk more agreeable. The view of the country has not much to recommend it to notice but its extent and cultivation: yet as the eye always delights to dwell on verdant plains, especially when we are resident in a great city, these shady walks should be reckoned amongst the advantages procured by the Government for the inhabitants. I like them better than the Royal Gardens, also open to the public, because the latter seem sunk in the heart of the city, to concentrate its fogs. The canals which intersect the streets are equally convenient and wholesome; but the view of the sea commanded by the town had little to interest me whilst the remembrance of the various bold and picturesque shores I had seen was fresh in my memory. Still the opulent inhabitants, who seldom go abroad, must find the spots were they fix their country seats much pleasanter on account of the vicinity of the ocean. One of the best streets in Copenhagen is almost filled with hospitals, erected by the Government, and, I am assured, as well regulated as institutions of this kind are in any country; but whether hospitals or workhouses are anywhere superintended with sufficient humanity I have frequently had reason to doubt. The autumn is so uncommonly fine that I am unwilling to put off my journey to Hamburg much longer, lest the weather should alter suddenly, and the chilly harbingers of winter catch me here, where I have nothing now to detain me but the hospitality of the families to whom I had recommendatory letters. I lodged at an hotel situated in a large open square, where the troops exercise and the market is kept. My apartments were very good; and on account of the fire I was told that I should be charged very high; yet, paying my bill just now, I find the demands much lower in proportion than in Norway, though my dinners were in every respect better. I have remained more at home since I arrived at Copenhagen than I ought to have done in a strange place, but the mind is not always equally active in search of information, and my oppressed heart too often sighs out-- "How dull, flat, and unprofitable Are to me all the usages of this world: That it should come to this!" Farewell! Fare thee well, I say; if thou canst, repeat the adieu in a different tone. LETTER XXII. I arrived at Corsoer the night after I quitted Copenhagen, purposing to take my passage across the Great Belt the next morning, though the weather was rather boisterous. It is about four-and-twenty miles but as both I and my little girl are never attacked by sea-sickness--though who can avoid _ennui_?--I enter a boat with the same indifference as I change horses; and as for danger, come when it may, I dread it not sufficiently to have any anticipating fears. The road from Copenhagen was very good, through an open, flat country that had little to recommend it to notice excepting the cultivation, which gratified my heart more than my eye. I took a barge with a German baron who was hastening back from a tour into Denmark, alarmed by the intelligence of the French having passed the Rhine. His conversation beguiled the time, and gave a sort of stimulus to my spirits, which had been growing more and more languid ever since my return to Gothenburg; you know why. I had often endeavoured to rouse myself to observation by reflecting that I was passing through scenes which I should probably never see again, and consequently ought not to omit observing. Still I fell into reveries, thinking, by way of excuse, that enlargement of mind and refined feelings are of little use but to barb the arrows of sorrow which waylay us everywhere, eluding the sagacity of wisdom and rendering principles unavailing, if considered as a breastwork to secure our own hearts. Though we had not a direct wind, we were not detained more than three hours and a half on the water, just long enough to give us an appetite for our dinner. We travelled the remainder of the day and the following night in company with the same party, the German gentleman whom I have mentioned, his friend, and servant. The meetings at the post-houses were pleasant to me, who usually heard nothing but strange tongues around me. Marguerite and the child often fell asleep, and when they were awake I might still reckon myself alone, as our train of thoughts had nothing in common. Marguerite, it is true, was much amused by the costume of the women, particularly by the pannier which adorned both their heads and tails, and with great glee recounted to me the stories she had treasured up for her family when once more within the barriers of dear Paris, not forgetting, with that arch, agreeable vanity peculiar to the French, which they exhibit whilst half ridiculing it, to remind me of the importance she should assume when she informed her friends of all her journeys by sea and land, showing the pieces of money she had collected, and stammering out a few foreign phrases, which she repeated in a true Parisian accent. Happy thoughtlessness! ay, and enviable harmless vanity, which thus produced a _gaite du coeur_ worth all my philosophy! The man I had hired at Copenhagen advised me to go round about twenty miles to avoid passing the Little Belt excepting by a ferry, as the wind was contrary. But the gentlemen overruled his arguments, which we were all very sorry for afterwards, when we found ourselves becalmed on the Little Belt ten hours, tacking about without ceasing, to gain the shore. An oversight likewise made the passage appear much more tedious, nay, almost insupportable. When I went on board at the Great Belt, I had provided refreshments in case of detention, which remaining untouched I thought not then any such precaution necessary for the second passage, misled by the epithet of "little," though I have since been informed that it is frequently the longest. This mistake occasioned much vexation; for the child, at last, began to cry so bitterly for bread, that fancy conjured up before me the wretched Ugolino, with his famished children; and I, literally speaking, enveloped myself in sympathetic horrors, augmented by every fear my babe shed, from which I could not escape till we landed, and a luncheon of bread and basin of milk routed the spectres of fancy. I then supped with my companions, with whom I was soon after to part for ever--always a most melancholy death-like idea--a sort of separation of soul; for all the regret which follows those from whom fate separates us seems to be something torn from ourselves. These were strangers I remember; yet when there is any originality in a countenance, it takes its place in our memory, and we are sorry to lose an acquaintance the moment he begins to interest us, through picked up on the highway. There was, in fact, a degree of intelligence, and still more sensibility, in the features and conversation of one of the gentlemen, that made me regret the loss of his society during the rest of the journey; for he was compelled to travel post, by his desire to reach his estate before the arrival of the French. This was a comfortable inn, as were several others I stopped at; but the heavy sandy roads were very fatiguing, after the fine ones we had lately skimmed over both in Sweden and Denmark. The country resembled the most open part of England--laid out for corn rather than grazing. It was pleasant, yet there was little in the prospects to awaken curiosity, by displaying the peculiar characteristics of a new country, which had so frequently stole me from myself in Norway. We often passed over large unenclosed tracts, not graced with trees, or at least very sparingly enlivened by them, and the half-formed roads seemed to demand the landmarks, set up in the waste, to prevent the traveller from straying far out of his way, and plodding through the wearisome sand. The heaths were dreary, and had none of the wild charms of those of Sweden and Norway to cheat time; neither the terrific rocks, nor smiling herbage grateful to the sight and scented from afar, made us forget their length. Still the country appeared much more populous, and the towns, if not the farmhouses, were superior to those of Norway. I even thought that the inhabitants of the former had more intelligence--at least, I am sure they had more vivacity in their countenances than I had seen during my northern tour: their senses seemed awake to business and pleasure. I was therefore gratified by hearing once more the busy hum of industrious men in the day, and the exhilarating sounds of joy in the evening; for, as the weather was still fine, the women and children were amusing themselves at their doors, or walking under the trees, which in many places were planted in the streets; and as most of the towns of any note were situated on little bays or branches of the Baltic, their appearance as we approached was often very picturesque, and, when we entered, displayed the comfort and cleanliness of easy, if not the elegance of opulent, circumstances. But the cheerfulness of the people in the streets was particularly grateful to me, after having been depressed by the deathlike silence of those of Denmark, where every house made me think of a tomb. The dress of the peasantry is suited to the climate; in short, none of that poverty and dirt appeared, at the sight of which the heart sickens. As I only stopped to change horses, take refreshment, and sleep, I had not an opportunity of knowing more of the country than conclusions which the information gathered by my eyes enabled me to draw, and that was sufficient to convince me that I should much rather have lived in some of the towns I now pass through than in any I had seen in Sweden or Denmark. The people struck me as having arrived at that period when the faculties will unfold themselves; in short; they look alive to improvement, neither congealed by indolence, nor bent down by wretchedness to servility. From the previous impression--I scarcely can trace whence I received it--I was agreeably surprised to perceive such an appearance of comfort in this part of Germany. I had formed a conception of the tyranny of the petty potentates that had thrown a gloomy veil over the face of the whole country in my imagination, that cleared away like the darkness of night before the sun as I saw the reality. I should probably have discovered much lurking misery, the consequence of ignorant oppression, no doubt, had I had time to inquire into particulars; but it did not stalk abroad and infect the surface over which my eye glanced. Yes, I am persuaded that a considerable degree of general knowledge pervades this country, for it is only from the exercise of the mind that the body acquires the activity from which I drew these inferences. Indeed, the King of Denmark's German dominions--Holstein--appeared to me far superior to any other part of his kingdom which had fallen under my view; and the robust rustics to have their muscles braced, instead of the, as it were, lounge of the Danish peasantry. Arriving at Sleswick, the residence of Prince Charles of Hesse-Cassel, the sight of the soldiers recalled all the unpleasing ideas of German despotism, which imperceptibly vanished as I advanced into the country. I viewed, with a mixture of pity and horror, these beings training to be sold to slaughter, or be slaughtered, and fell into reflections on an old opinion of mine, that it is the preservation of the species, not of individuals, which appears to be the design of the Deity throughout the whole of Nature. Blossoms come forth only to be blighted; fish lay their spawn where it will be devoured; and what a large portion of the human race are born merely to be swept prematurely away! Does not this waste of budding life emphatically assert that it is not men, but Man, whose preservation is so necessary to the completion of the grand plan of the universe? Children peep into existence, suffer, and die; men play like moths about a candle, and sink into the flame; war, and "the thousand ills which flesh is heir to," mow them down in shoals; whilst the more cruel prejudices of society palsy existence, introducing not less sure though slower decay. The castle was heavy and gloomy, yet the grounds about it were laid out with some taste; a walk, winding under the shade of lofty trees, led to a regularly built and animated town. I crossed the drawbridge, and entered to see this shell of a court in miniature, mounting ponderous stairs--it would be a solecism to say a flight--up which a regiment of men might have marched, shouldering their firelocks to exercise in vast galleries, where all the generations of the Princes of Hesse-Cassel might have been mustered rank and file, though not the phantoms of all the wretched they had bartered to support their state, unless these airy substances could shrink and expand, like Milton's devils, to suit the occasion. The sight of the presence-chamber, and of the canopy to shade the fauteuil which aped a throne, made me smile. All the world is a stage, thought I; and few are there in it who do not play the part they have learnt by rote; and those who do not, seem marks set up to be pelted at by fortune, or rather as sign-posts which point out the road to others, whilst forced to stand still themselves amidst the mud and dust. Waiting for our horses, we were amused by observing the dress of the women, which was very grotesque and unwieldy. The false notion of beauty which prevails here as well as in Denmark, I should think very inconvenient in summer, as it consists in giving a rotundity to a certain part of the body, not the most slim, when Nature has done her part. This Dutch prejudice often leads them to toil under the weight of some ten or a dozen petticoats, which, with an enormous basket, literally speaking, as a bonnet, or a straw hat of dimensions equally gigantic, almost completely conceal the human form as well as face divine, often worth showing; still they looked clean, and tripped along, as it were, before the wind, with a weight of tackle that I could scarcely have lifted. Many of the country girls I met appeared to me pretty--that is, to have fine complexions, sparkling eyes, and a kind of arch, hoyden playfulness which distinguishes the village coquette. The swains, in their Sunday trim, attended some of these fair ones in a more slouching pace, though their dress was not so cumbersome. The women seem to take the lead in polishing the manners everywhere, this being the only way to better their condition. From what I have seen throughout my journey, I do not think the situation of the poor in England is much, if at all, superior to that of the same class in different parts of the world; and in Ireland I am sure it is much inferior. I allude to the former state of England; for at present the accumulation of national wealth only increases the cares of the poor, and hardens the hearts of the rich, in spite of the highly extolled rage for almsgiving. You know that I have always been an enemy to what is termed charity, because timid bigots, endeavouring thus to cover their sins, do violence to justice, till, acting the demigod, they forget that they are men. And there are others who do not even think of laying up a treasure in heaven, whose benevolence is merely tyranny in disguise; they assist the most worthless, because the most servile, and term them helpless only in proportion to their fawning. After leaving Sleswick, we passed through several pretty towns; Itzchol particularly pleased me; and the country, still wearing the same aspect, was improved by the appearance of more trees and enclosures. But what gratified me most was the population. I was weary of travelling four or five hours, never meeting a carriage, and scarcely a peasant; and then to stop at such wretched huts as I had seen in Sweden was surely sufficient to chill any heart awake to sympathy, and throw a gloom over my favourite subject of contemplation, the future improvement of the world. The farmhouses, likewise, with the huge stables, into which we drove whilst the horses were putting to or baiting, were very clean and commodious. The rooms, with a door into this hall-like stable and storehouse in one, were decent; and there was a compactness in the appearance of the whole family lying thus snugly together under the same roof that carried my fancy back to the primitive times, which probably never existed with such a golden lustre as the animated imagination lends when only able to seize the prominent features. At one of them, a pretty young woman, with languishing eyes of celestial blue, conducted us into a very neat parlour, and observing how loosely and lightly my little girl was clad, began to pity her in the sweetest accents, regardless of the rosy down of health on her cheeks. This same damsel was dressed--it was Sunday--with taste and even coquetry, in a cotton jacket, ornamented with knots of blue ribbon, fancifully disposed to give life to her fine complexion. I loitered a little to admire her, for every gesture was graceful; and, amidst the other villagers, she looked like a garden lily suddenly rearing its head amongst grain and corn-flowers. As the house was small, I gave her a piece of money rather larger than it was my custom to give to the female waiters--for I could not prevail on her to sit down--which she received with a smile; yet took care to give it, in my presence, to a girl who had brought the child a slice of bread; by which I perceived that she was the mistress or daughter of the house, and without doubt the belle of the village. There was, in short, an appearance of cheerful industry, and of that degree of comfort which shut out misery, in all the little hamlets as I approached Hamburg, which agreeably surprised me. The short jackets which the women wear here, as well as in France, are not only more becoming to the person, but much better calculated for women who have rustic or household employments than the long gowns worn in England, dangling in the dirt. All the inns on the road were better than I expected, though the softness of the beds still harassed me, and prevented my finding the rest I was frequently in want of, to enable me to bear the fatigue of the next day. The charges were moderate, and the people very civil, with a certain honest hilarity and independent spirit in their manner, which almost made me forget that they were innkeepers, a set of men--waiters, hostesses, chambermaids, &c., down to the ostler, whose cunning servility in England I think particularly disgusting. The prospect of Hamburg at a distance, as well as the fine road shaded with trees, led me to expect to see a much pleasanter city than I found. I was aware of the difficulty of obtaining lodgings, even at the inns, on account of the concourse of strangers at present resorting to such a centrical situation, and determined to go to Altona the next day to seek for an abode, wanting now only rest. But even for a single night we were sent from house to house, and found at last a vacant room to sleep in, which I should have turned from with disgust had there been a choice. I scarcely know anything that produces more disagreeable sensations, I mean to speak of the passing cares, the recollection of which afterwards enlivens our enjoyments, than those excited by little disasters of this kind. After a long journey, with our eyes directed to some particular spot, to arrive and find nothing as it should be is vexatious, and sinks the agitated spirits. But I, who received the cruellest of disappointments last spring in returning to my home, term such as these emphatically passing cares. Know you of what materials some hearts are made? I play the child, and weep at the recollection--for the grief is still fresh that stunned as well as wounded me--yet never did drops of anguish like these bedew the cheeks of infantine innocence--and why should they mine, that never was stained by a blush of guilt? Innocent and credulous as a child, why have I not the same happy thoughtlessness? Adieu! LETTER XXIII. I might have spared myself the disagreeable feelings I experienced the first night of my arrival at Hamburg, leaving the open air to be shut up in noise and dirt, had I gone immediately to Altona, where a lodging had been prepared for me by a gentleman from whom I received many civilities during my journey. I wished to have travelled in company with him from Copenhagen, because I found him intelligent and friendly, but business obliged him to hurry forward, and I wrote to him on the subject of accommodations as soon as I was informed of the difficulties I might have to encounter to house myself and brat. It is but a short and pleasant walk from Hamburg to Altona, under the shade of several rows of trees, and this walk is the more agreeable after quitting the rough pavement of either place. Hamburg is an ill, close-built town, swarming with inhabitants, and, from what I could learn, like all the other free towns, governed in a manner which bears hard on the poor, whilst narrowing the minds of the rich; the character of the man is lost in the Hamburger. Always afraid of the encroachments of their Danish neighbours, that is, anxiously apprehensive of their sharing the golden harvest of commerce with them, or taking a little of the trade off their hands--though they have more than they know what to do with--they are ever on the watch, till their very eyes lose all expression, excepting the prying glance of suspicion. The gates of Hamburg are shut at seven in the winter and nine in the summer, lest some strangers, who come to traffic in Hamburg, should prefer living, and consequently--so exactly do they calculate--spend their money out of the walls of the Hamburger's world. Immense fortunes have been acquired by the per-cents. arising from commissions nominally only two and a half, but mounted to eight or ten at least by the secret manoeuvres of trade, not to include the advantage of purchasing goods wholesale in common with contractors, and that of having so much money left in their hands, not to play with, I can assure you. Mushroom fortunes have started up during the war; the men, indeed, seem of the species of the fungus, and the insolent vulgarity which a sudden influx of wealth usually produces in common minds is here very conspicuous, which contrasts with the distresses of many of the emigrants, "fallen, fallen from their high estate," such are the ups and downs of fortune's wheel. Many emigrants have met, with fortitude, such a total change of circumstances as scarcely can be paralleled, retiring from a palace to an obscure lodging with dignity; but the greater number glide about, the ghosts of greatness, with the _Croix de St. Louis_ ostentatiously displayed, determined to hope, "though heaven and earth their wishes crossed." Still good breeding points out the gentleman, and sentiments of honour and delicacy appear the offspring of greatness of soul when compared with the grovelling views of the sordid accumulators of cent. per cent. Situation seems to be the mould in which men's characters are formed: so much so, inferring from what I have lately seen, that I mean not to be severe when I add--previously asking why priests are in general cunning and statesmen false?--that men entirely devoted to commerce never acquire or lose all taste and greatness of mind. An ostentatious display of wealth without elegance, and a greedy enjoyment of pleasure without sentiment, embrutes them till they term all virtue of an heroic cast, romantic attempts at something above our nature, and anxiety about the welfare of others, a search after misery in which we have no concern. But you will say that I am growing bitter, perhaps personal. Ah! shall I whisper to you, that you yourself are strangely altered since you have entered deeply into commerce--more than you are aware of; never allowing yourself to reflect, and keeping your mind, or rather passions, in a continual state of agitation? Nature has given you talents which lie dormant, or are wasted in ignoble pursuits. You will rouse yourself and shake off the vile dust that obscures you, or my understanding, as well as my heart, deceives me egregiously--only tell me when. But to go farther afield. Madame la Fayette left Altona the day I arrived, to endeavour, at Vienna, to obtain the enlargement of her husband, or permission to share his prison. She lived in a lodging up two pairs of stairs, without a servant, her two daughters cheerfully assisting; choosing, as well as herself, to descend to anything before unnecessary obligations. During her prosperity, and consequent idleness, she did not, I am told, enjoy a good state of health, having a train of nervous complaints, which, though they have not a name, unless the significant word _ennui_ be borrowed, had an existence in the higher French circles; but adversity and virtuous exertions put these ills to flight, and dispossessed her of a devil who deserves the appellation of legion. Madame Genus also resided at Altona some time, under an assumed name, with many other sufferers of less note though higher rank. It is, in fact, scarcely possible to stir out without meeting interesting countenances, every lineament of which tells you that they have seen better days. At Hamburg, I was informed, a duke had entered into partnership with his cook, who becoming a _traiteur_, they were both comfortably supported by the profit arising from his industry. Many noble instances of the attachment of servants to their unfortunate masters have come to my knowledge, both here and in France, and touched my heart, the greatest delight of which is to discover human virtue. At Altona, a president of one of the _ci-devant_ parliaments keeps an ordinary, in the French style; and his wife with cheerful dignity submits to her fate, though she is arrived at an age when people seldom relinquish their prejudices. A girl who waits there brought a dozen _double louis d'or_ concealed in her clothes, at the risk of her life, from France, which she preserves lest sickness or any other distress should overtake her mistress, "who," she observed, "was not accustomed to hardships." This house was particularly recommended to me by an acquaintance of yours, the author of the "American Farmer's Letters." I generally dine in company with him: and the gentleman whom I have already mentioned is often diverted by our declamations against commerce, when we compare notes respecting the characteristics of the Hamburgers. "Why, madam," said he to me one day, "you will not meet with a man who has any calf to his leg; body and soul, muscles and heart, are equally shrivelled up by a thirst of gain. There is nothing generous even in their youthful passions; profit is their only stimulus, and calculations the sole employment of their faculties, unless we except some gross animal gratifications which, snatched at spare moments, tend still more to debase the character, because, though touched by his tricking wand, they have all the arts, without the wit, of the wing-footed god." Perhaps you may also think us too severe; but I must add that the more I saw of the manners of Hamburg, the more was I confirmed in my opinion relative to the baleful effect of extensive speculations on the moral character. Men are strange machines; and their whole system of morality is in general held together by one grand principle which loses its force the moment they allow themselves to break with impunity over the bounds which secured their self-respect. A man ceases to love humanity, and then individuals, as he advances in the chase after wealth; as one clashes with his interest, the other with his pleasures: to business, as it is termed, everything must give way; nay, is sacrificed, and all the endearing charities of citizen, husband, father, brother, become empty names. But--but what? Why, to snap the chain of thought, I must say farewell. Cassandra was not the only prophetess whose warning voice has been disregarded. How much easier it is to meet with love in the world than affection! Yours sincerely. LETTER XXIV. My lodgings at Altona are tolerably comfortable, though not in any proportion to the price I pay; but, owing to the present circumstances, all the necessaries of life are here extravagantly dear. Considering it as a temporary residence, the chief inconvenience of which I am inclined to complain is the rough streets that must be passed before Marguerite and the child can reach a level road. The views of the Elbe in the vicinity of the town are pleasant, particularly as the prospects here afford so little variety. I attempted to descend, and walk close to the water's edge; but there was no path; and the smell of glue, hanging to dry, an extensive manufactory of which is carried on close to the beach, I found extremely disagreeable. But to commerce everything must give way; profit and profit are the only speculations--"double--double, toil and trouble." I have seldom entered a shady walk without being soon obliged to turn aside to make room for the rope-makers; and the only tree I have seen, that appeared to be planted by the hand of taste, is in the churchyard, to shade the tomb of the poet Klopstock's wife. Most of the merchants have country houses to retire to during the summer; and many of them are situated on the banks of the Elbe, where they have the pleasure of seeing the packet-boats arrive--the periods of most consequence to divide their week. The moving picture, consisting of large vessels and small craft, which are continually changing their position with the tide, renders this noble river, the vital stream of Hamburg, very interesting; and the windings have sometimes a very fine effect, two or three turns being visible at once, intersecting the flat meadows; a sudden bend often increasing the magnitude of the river; and the silvery expanse, scarcely gliding, though bearing on its bosom so much treasure, looks for a moment like a tranquil lake. Nothing can be stronger than the contrast which this flat country and strand afford, compared with the mountains and rocky coast I have lately dwelt so much among. In fancy I return to a favourite spot, where I seemed to have retired from man and wretchedness; but the din of trade drags me back to all the care I left behind, when lost in sublime emotions. Rocks aspiring towards the heavens, and, as it were, shutting out sorrow, surrounded me, whilst peace appeared to steal along the lake to calm my bosom, modulating the wind that agitated the neighbouring poplars. Now I hear only an account of the tricks of trade, or listen to the distressful tale of some victim of ambition. The hospitality of Hamburg is confined to Sunday invitations to the country houses I have mentioned, when dish after dish smokes upon the board, and the conversation ever flowing in the muddy channel of business, it is not easy to obtain any appropriate information. Had I intended to remain here some time, or had my mind been more alive to general inquiries, I should have endeavoured to have been introduced to some characters not so entirely immersed in commercial affairs, though in this whirlpool of gain it is not very easy to find any but the wretched or supercilious emigrants, who are not engaged in pursuits which, in my eyes, appear as dishonourable as gambling. The interests of nations are bartered by speculating merchants. My God! with what _sang froid_ artful trains of corruption bring lucrative commissions into particular hands, disregarding the relative situation of different countries, and can much common honesty be expected in the discharge of trusts obtained by fraud? But this _entre nous_. During my present journey, and whilst residing in France, I have had an opportunity of peeping behind the scenes of what are vulgarly termed great affairs, only to discover the mean machinery which has directed many transactions of moment. The sword has been merciful, compared with the depredations made on human life by contractors and by the swarm of locusts who have battened on the pestilence they spread abroad. These men, like the owners of negro ships, never smell on their money the blood by which it has been gained, but sleep quietly in their beds, terming such occupations lawful callings; yet the lightning marks not their roofs to thunder conviction on them "and to justify the ways of God to man." Why should I weep for myself? "Take, O world! thy much indebted tear!" Adieu! LETTER XXV. There is a pretty little French theatre at Altona, and the actors are much superior to those I saw at Copenhagen. The theatres at Hamburg are not open yet, but will very shortly, when the shutting of the gates at seven o'clock forces the citizens to quit their country houses. But, respecting Hamburg, I shall not be able to obtain much more information, as I have determined to sail with the first fair wind for England. The presence of the French army would have rendered my intended tour through Germany, in my way to Switzerland, almost impracticable, had not the advancing season obliged me to alter my plan. Besides, though Switzerland is the country which for several years I have been particularly desirous to visit, I do not feel inclined to ramble any farther this year; nay, I am weary of changing the scene, and quitting people and places the moment they begin to interest me. This also is vanity! DOVER. I left this letter unfinished, as I was hurried on board, and now I have only to tell you that, at the sight of Dover cliffs, I wondered how anybody could term them grand; they appear so insignificant to me, after those I had seen in Sweden and Norway. Adieu! My spirit of observation seems to be fled, and I have been wandering round this dirty place, literally speaking, to kill time, though the thoughts I would fain fly from lie too close to my heart to be easily shook off, or even beguiled, by any employment, except that of preparing for my journey to London. God bless you! MARY ----. APPENDIX. Private business and cares have frequently so absorbed me as to prevent my obtaining all the information during this journey which the novelty of the scenes would have afforded, had my attention been continually awake to inquiry. This insensibility to present objects I have often had occasion to lament since I have been preparing these letters for the press; but, as a person of any thought naturally considers the history of a strange country to contrast the former with the present state of its manners, a conviction of the increasing knowledge and happiness of the kingdoms I passed through was perpetually the result of my comparative reflections. The poverty of the poor in Sweden renders the civilisation very partial, and slavery has retarded the improvement of every class in Denmark, yet both are advancing; and the gigantic evils of despotism and anarchy have in a great measure vanished before the meliorating manners of Europe. Innumerable evils still remain, it is true, to afflict the humane investigator, and hurry the benevolent reformer into a labyrinth of error, who aims at destroying prejudices quickly which only time can root out, as the public opinion becomes subject to reason. An ardent affection for the human race makes enthusiastic characters eager to produce alteration in laws and governments prematurely. To render them useful and permanent, they must be the growth of each particular soil, and the gradual fruit of the ripening understanding of the nation, matured by time, not forced by an unnatural fermentation. And, to convince me that such a change is gaining ground with accelerating pace, the view I have had of society during my northern journey would have been sufficient had I not previously considered the grand causes which combine to carry mankind forward and diminish the sum of human misery. 
15186	----	FOLK-LORE AND LEGENDS SCANDINAVIAN W. W. Gibbings 18 Bury St., London, W.C. 1890 PREFATORY NOTE. Thanks to Thiele, to Hylten-Cavallius and Stephens, and to Asbjörnsen and Moe, Scandinavian Folklore is well to the front. Its treasures are many, and of much value. One may be almost sorry to find among them the originals of many of our English tales. Are we indebted to the folk of other nations for all our folk-tales? It would almost seem so. I have introduced into the present volume only one or two stories from the Prose Edda. Space would not allow me to give so much of the Edda as I could have wished. In selecting and translating the matter for this volume, I have endeavoured to make the book such as would afford its readers a fair general view of the main features of the Folklore of the North. C.J.T. CONTENTS The Wonderful Plough (Isle of Rugen) How a Lad stole the Giant's Treasure (Sweden) Tales of Cats (Denmark) The Magician's Daughter (Sweden) The Hill-man invited to the Christening (Denmark) The Meal of Frothi (Norway) The Lost Bell (Isle of Rugen) Maiden Swanwhite and Maiden Foxtail (Sweden) Tales of Treasure (Denmark) Holger Danske (Denmark) Tales from the Prose Edda-- The Gods and the Wolf The Strange Builder Thor's Journey to the Land of Giants How Thor Went a-Fishing The Death of Baldur The Punishment of Loki The Origin of Tiis Lake (Denmark) There are such Women (Norway) Tales of the Nisses (Denmark) The Dwarfs' Banquet (Norway) The Icelandic Sorceresses (Eyrbiggia Saga) The Three Dogs (Sweden) The Legend of Thorguima (Eyrbiggia Saga) The Little Glass Shoe (Isle of Rugen) How Loki Wagered his Head (Edda Resenii) The Adventures of John Dietrich (Isle of Rugen) How Thorston Became Rich (Thorston's Saga) Gudbrand of the Hillside (Norway) The Dwarf-Sword Tirfing (Hervarar Saga) THE WONDERFUL PLOUGH. There was once a farmer who was master of one of the little black dwarfs that are the blacksmiths and armourers, and he got him in a very curious way. On the road leading to this farmer's ground there stood a stone cross, and every morning as he went to his work he used to stop and kneel down before this cross, and pray for some minutes. On one of these occasions he noticed on the cross a pretty, bright insect, of such a brilliant hue that he could not recollect having ever before seen the like in an insect. He wondered greatly at this, but still he did not disturb it. The insect did not remain long quiet, but ran without ceasing backwards and forwards upon the cross, as if it was in pain and wanted to get away. Next morning the farmer again saw the very same insect, and again it was running to and fro in the same state of uneasiness. The farmer began now to have some suspicions about it, and thought to himself-- "Would this now be one of the little black enchanters? It runs about just like one that has an evil conscience, as one that would, but cannot, get away." A variety of thoughts and conjectures passed through his mind, and he remembered what he had often heard from his father and other old people, that when any of the underground people chance to touch anything holy they are held fast and cannot quit the spot, and so they are extremely careful to avoid all such things. "But," thought he, "you may even be something else, and I should, perhaps, be committing a sin in taking the little insect away." So he let it stay where it was. When, however, he twice again found it in the same place, and still running about with the same signs of uneasiness, he said-- "No, it is not all right with it, so now, in the name of God." He made a grasp at the insect, which resisted and clung fast to the stone; but he held it tight, and tore it away by main force, and lo! then he found he had, by the top of the head, a little ugly black chap, about six inches long, screeching and kicking at a furious rate. The farmer was greatly astounded at this sudden transformation. Still he held his prize fast, and kept calling to him, while he administered to him a few smart slaps-- "Be quiet, be quiet, my little man! If crying was to do the business, we might look for heroes in swaddling-clothes. We'll just take you with us a bit, and see what you are good for." The little fellow trembled and shook in every limb, and then began to whimper most piteously, and begged of the farmer to let him go. "No, my lad," replied the farmer, "I will not let you go till you tell me who you are, and how you came here, and what trade you know that enables you to earn your bread in the world." At this the little man grinned and shook his head, but said not a word in reply, only begging and praying the more to get loose. The farmer thought he must now entreat him if he would coax any information out of him. But it was all to no purpose. He then adopted the contrary method, and whipped and slashed him, but just to as little effect. The little black thing remained as dumb as the grave, for this species is the most malicious and obstinate of all the underground folk. The farmer now got angry, and said-- "Do but be quiet, my child. I should be a fool to put myself into a passion with such a little brat. Never fear, I shall soon make you tame enough." So saying, he ran home with him, and clapped him into a black sooty iron pot, and put the iron lid upon it, and laid on the top of the lid a great heavy stone. Then he set the pot in a dark, cold room, and as he was going out, said to him-- "Stay there, now, and freeze till you are black! I'll engage that at last you will answer me civilly." Twice a week the farmer went regularly into the room and asked his little black captive if he would answer him now, but the little one still obstinately persisted in his silence. The farmer had, without success, pursued this course for six weeks, at the end of which time his prisoner at last gave up. One day, as the farmer was opening the room door, of his own accord he asked him to come and take him out of his dirty, gloomy dungeon, promising that he would now cheerfully do all that was wanted of him. The farmer first ordered him to tell him his history. The black one replied-- "My dear friend, you know it just as well as I do, or else you never would have had me here. You see I happened by chance to come too near the cross, a thing we little people may not do, and then I was held fast, and obliged instantly to let my body become visible. In order that people might not recognise me, I turned myself into an insect. But you found me out. When we get fastened to holy or consecrated things we can never get away from them unless a man takes us off. That, however, does not happen without plague and annoyance to us; though, indeed, to say the truth, the staying fastened there is not over pleasant. So I struggled against you too, for we have a natural aversion to let ourselves be taken in a man's hand." "Ho, ho! is that the tune with you?" cried the farmer. "You have a natural aversion have you? Believe me, my sooty friend, I have just the same for you, and so you shall be away without a moment's delay, and we will lose no time in making our bargain with each other. But you must first make me some present." "What you will you have only to ask," said the little one, "silver and gold, and precious stones, and costly furniture--all shall be thine in less than an instant." "Silver and gold, and precious stones, and all such glittering fine things, will I none," said the farmer. "They have turned the heart and broken the neck of many a one before now, and few are they whose lives they make happy. I know that you are handy smiths, and have many a strange thing with you that other smiths know nothing about. So, come now, swear to me that you will make me an iron plough, such that the smallest foal may be able to draw it without being tired, and then run off with you as fast as your legs will carry you." So the black swore, and then the farmer cried out-- "Now, in the name of God. There you are at liberty," and the little one vanished like lightning. Next morning, before the sun was up, there stood in the farmer's yard a new iron plough, and he yoked his dog, Water, to it; and though it was of the size of an ordinary plough, Water drew it with ease through the heaviest clayland, and it tore up prodigious furrows. The farmer used this plough for many years, and the smallest foal or the leanest little horse could draw it through the ground, to the amazement of every one who beheld it, without turning a single hair. This plough made a rich man of the farmer, for it cost him no horse-flesh, and he led a cheerful and contented life by means of it. Hereby we may see that moderation holds out the longest, and that it is not good to covet too much. HOW A LAD STOLE THE GIANT'S TREASURE. Once upon a time there lived a peasant who had three sons. The two elder ones used to go with him to the field and to the forest, and helped him in his work, but the youngest remained at home with his mother, to help her in the house. His brothers despised him for doing this, and whenever they had a chance they used him badly. At length the father and mother died, and the sons divided the property among them. As might have been looked for, the elder brothers took all that was of any value for themselves, leaving nothing to the youngest but an old cracked kneading-trough, which neither of them thought worth the having. "The old trough," said one of the brothers, "will do very well for our young brother, for he is always baking and scrubbing." The boy thought this, as was only natural, a poor thing to inherit, but he could do nothing, and he now recognised that it would be no use his remaining at home, so he wished his brothers good-bye, and went off to seek his fortune. On coming to the side of a lake he made his trough water-tight with oakum, and converted it into a little boat. Then he found two sticks, and using these as oars rowed away. When he had crossed the water, he saw a large palace, and entering it, he asked to speak with the king. The king questioned him respecting his family and the purpose of his visit. "I," said the boy, "am the son of a poor peasant, and all I have in the world is an old kneading-trough. I have come here to seek work." The king laughed when he heard this. "Indeed," said he, "you have not inherited much, but fortune works many a change." He took the lad to be one of his servants, and he became a favourite for his courage and honesty. Now the king who owned this palace had an only daughter, who was so beautiful and so clever that she was talked of all through the kingdom, and many came from the east and from the west to ask her hand in marriage. The princess, however, rejected them all, saying that none should have her for his wife unless he brought her for a wedding-present four valuable things belonging to a giant who lived on the other side of the lake. These four treasures were a gold sword, three gold hens, a gold lantern, and a gold harp. Many king's sons and many good warriors tried to win these treasures, but none of them came back, for the giant caught them all and eat them. The king was very sorrowful, for he feared that at this rate his daughter would never get a husband, and so he would not have a son-in-law to whom to leave his kingdom. The boy when he heard of this thought that it might be well worth his while to try to win the king's beautiful daughter. So he went to the king one day, and told him what he meant to do. When the king heard him, he got angry, and said-- "Do you think that you, who are only a servant, can do what great warriors have failed in?" The boy, however, was not to be dissuaded, and begged him so to let him go that at last the king grew calmer and gave him his permission. "But," said he, "you will lose your life, and I shall be sorry to miss you." With that they parted. The boy went down to the shore of the lake, and, having found his trough, he looked it over very closely. Then he got into it and rowed across the lake, and coming to the giant's dwelling he hid himself, and stayed the night there. Very early in the morning, before it was light, the giant went to his barn, and began to thrash, making such a noise that the mountains all around echoed again. When the boy heard this he collected some stones and put them in his pouch. Then he climbed up on to the roof of the barn and made a little hole so that he could look in. Now the giant had by his side his golden sword, which had the strange property that it clanked whenever the giant was angry. While the giant was busy thrashing at full speed, the boy threw a little stone which hit the sword, and caused it to clank. "Why do you clank?" said the giant. "I am not angry." He went on thrashing, but the next moment the sword clanked again. Once more the giant pursued his work, and the sword clanked a third time. Then the giant got so angry that he undid the belt, and threw the sword out of the barn door. "Lie there," said he, "till I have done my thrashing." The lad waited no longer, but slipping down from the roof seized on the sword, ran to his boat, and rowed across the water. On reaching the other side he hid his treasure, and was full of glee at the success of his adventure. The next day he filled his pouch with corn, put a bundle of bast-twine in his boat, and once more set off to the giant's dwelling. He lay hiding for a time, and then he saw the giant's three golden hens walking about on the shore, and spreading their feathers, which sparkled beautifully in the bright sunshine. He was soon near them, and began to softly lead them on, scattering corn for them out of his pouch. While they were picking the boy gradually led them to the water, till at last he got them into his little boat. Then he jumped in himself, secured the fowl with his twine, pushed out from the shore, and rowed as quickly as he could to the other side of the water. The third day he put some lumps of salt into his pouch, and again rowed across the lake. As night came on he noticed how the smoke rose from the giant's dwelling, and concluded that the giant's wife was busy getting ready his food. He crept up on to the roof, and, looking down through the hole by which the smoke escaped, saw a large caldron boiling on the fire. Then he took the lumps of salt out of his pouch, and threw them one by one into the pot. Having done this, he crept down from the roof, and waited to see what would follow. Soon after the giant's wife took the caldron off the fire, poured out the porridge into a bowl, and put it on the table. The giant was hungry, and he fell to at once, but scarcely had he tasted the porridge when he found it too salt. He got very angry, and started from his seat. The old woman made what excuse she could, and said that the porridge must be good; but the giant declared he would eat no more of the stuff, and told her to taste it for herself. She did so, and pulled a terrible face, for she had never in her life tasted such abominable stuff. There was nothing for it but she must make some new porridge. So she seized a can, took the gold lantern down from the wall, and went as fast as she could to the well to draw some water. She put the lantern down by the side of the well, and was stooping down to get the water, when the boy ran to her, and, laying hold of her by the feet, threw her head over heels into the well. He seized hold of the golden lantern, ran away as fast as he could to his boat, and rowed across the water in safety. The giant sat for a long time wondering why his wife was away so long. At last he went to look for her, but nothing could he see of her. Then he heard a splashing in the well, and finding she was in the water, he, with a lot of work, got her out. "Where is my gold lantern?" was the first thing he asked, as the old woman came round a little. "I don't know," answered she. "Somebody came, caught me by the feet, and threw me into the well." The giant was very angry at this. "Three of my treasures," said he, "have gone, and I have now only my golden harp left. But, whoever the thief may be, he shall not have that; I will keep that safe under twelve locks." While these things occurred at the giant's dwelling, the boy sat on the other side of the water, rejoicing that he had got on so well. The most difficult task, however, had yet to be done, and for a long time he thought over how he could get the golden harp. At length he determined to row over to the giant's place and see if fortune would favour him. No sooner said than done. He rowed over and went to a hiding-place. The giant had, however, been on the watch, and had seen him. So he rushed forward in a terrible rage and seized the boy, saying-- "So I have caught you at last, you young rascal. You it was who stole my sword, my three gold hens, and my gold lantern." The boy was terribly afraid, for he thought his last hour was come. "Spare my life, father," said he humbly, "and I will never come here again." "No," replied the giant, "I will do the same with you as with the others. No one slips alive out of my hands." He then shut the boy up in a sty, and fed him with nuts and sweet milk, so as to get him nice and fat preparatory to killing and eating him. The lad was a prisoner, but he ate and drank and made himself as easy as he could. After some time the giant wanted to find out if he were fat enough to be killed. So he went to the sty, made a little hole in the wall, and told the boy to put his finger through it. The lad knew what he wanted; so instead of putting out his finger he poked out a little peeled alder twig. The giant cut the twig, and the red sap ran out. Then he thought the boy must be yet very lean since his flesh was so hard, so he caused a greater supply of milk and nuts to be given to him. Some time after, the giant again visited the sty, and ordered the boy to put his finger through the hole in the wall. The lad now poked out a cabbage-stalk, and the giant, having cut it with his knife, concluded that the lad must be fat enough, his flesh seemed so soft. The next morning the giant said to his wife-- "The boy seems to be fat enough now, mother; take him then to-day, and bake him in the oven, while I go and ask our kinsfolk to the feast." The old woman promised to do what her husband told her. So, having heated the oven, she dragged out the boy to bake him. "Sit on the shovel," said she. The boy did so, but when the old woman raised the shovel the boy always fell off. So they went on many times. At last the giantess got angry, and scolded the boy for being so awkward; the lad excused himself, saying that he did not know the way to sit on the shovel. "Look at me," said the woman, "I will show you." So she sat herself down on the shovel, bending her back and drawing up her knees. No sooner was she seated than the boy, seizing hold of the handle, pushed her into the oven and slammed the door to. Then he took the woman's fur cloak, stuffed it out with straw, and laid it on the bed. Seizing the giant's bunch of keys, he opened the twelve locks, snatched up the golden harp, and ran down to his boat, which he had hidden among the flags on the shore. The giant soon afterwards came home. "Where can my wife be?" said he. "No doubt she has lain down to sleep a bit. Ah! I thought so." The old woman, however, slept a long while, and the giant could not wake her, though he was now expecting his friends to arrive. "Wake up, mother," cried he, but no one replied. He called again, but there was no response. He got angry, and, going to the bed, he gave the fur cloak a good shake. Then he found that it was not his wife, but only a bundle of straw put in her clothes. At this the giant grew alarmed, and he ran off to look after his golden harp. He found his keys gone, the twelve locks undone, and the harp missing. He went to the oven and opened the door to see how the meat for the feast was going on. Behold! there sat his wife, baked, and grinning at him. Then the giant was almost mad with grief and rage, and he rushed out to seek the lad who had done him all this mischief. He came down to the edge of the water and found him sitting in his boat, playing on the harp. The music came over the water, and the gold strings shone wonderfully in the sunshine. The giant jumped into the water after the boy; but finding that it was too deep, he laid himself down, and began to drink the water in order to make the lake shallower. He drank with all his might, and by this means set up a current which drew the boat nearer and nearer to the shore. Just when he was going to lay hold of it he burst, for he had drunk too much; and there was an end of him. The giant lay dead on the shore, and the boy moved away across the lake, full of joy and happiness. When he came to land, he combed his golden hair, put on fine clothes, fastened the giant's gold sword by his side, and, taking the gold harp in one hand and the gold lantern in the other, he led the gold fowl after him, and went to the king, who was sitting in the great hall of the palace surrounded by his courtiers. When the king saw the boy he was heartily glad. The lad went to the king's beautiful daughter, saluted her courteously, and laid the giant's treasures before her. Then there was great joy in the palace, that the princess had after all got the giant's treasures and so bold and handsome a bridegroom. The wedding was celebrated soon after with very much splendour and rejoicing; and when the king died the lad succeeded him, ruling over all the land both long and happily. I know no more respecting them. TALES OF CATS. The house of Katholm (Cat-isle) near Grenaac, in Jutland, got its name from the following circumstance. There was a man in Jutland who had made a good deal of money by improper means. When he died he left his property equally among his three sons. The youngest, when he got his share, thought to himself-- "What comes with sin goes with sorrow," and he resolved to submit his money to the water-ordeal, thinking that the ill-got money would sink to the bottom, and what was honestly acquired swim on the top. He accordingly cast all his money into the water, and only one solitary farthing swam. With this he bought a cat, and he went to sea and visited foreign parts. At length he chanced to come to a place where the people were sadly plagued by an enormous number of rats and mice, and as his cat had had kittens by this time, he acquired great wealth by selling them. So he came home to Jutland, and built himself a house, which he called Katholm. There was one time a poor sailor out of Ribe, who came to a foreign island whose inhabitants were grievously plagued with mice. By good luck he had a cat of his own on board, and the people of the island gave him so much gold for it that he went home as fast as he could to fetch more cats, and by this traffic he in a short time grew so rich that he had no need of any more. Some time after, when he was on his deathbed, he bequeathed a large sum of money for the building of Ribe Cathedral, and a proof of this is still to be seen in a carving over the east door of the church, representing a cat and four mice. The door is called Cat-head Door (Kathoved Dor). THE MAGICIAN'S DAUGHTER Just on the Finland frontiers there is situated a high mountain, which, on the Swedish side, is covered with beautiful copsewood, and on the other with dark pine-trees, so closely ranked together, and so luxuriant in shade, that one might almost say the smallest bird could not find its way through the thickets. Below the copsewood there stands a chapel with the image of St. George, as guardian of the land and as a defence against dragons, if there be such, and other monsters of paganism, while, on the other side, on the borders of the dark firwood, are certain cottages inhabited by wicked sorcerers, who have, moreover, a cave cut so deep into the mountain that it joins with the bottomless abyss, whence come all the demons that assist them. The Swedish Christians who dwelt in the neighbourhood of this mountain thought it would be necessary, besides the chapel and statue of St. George, to choose some living protector, and therefore selected an ancient warrior, highly renowned for his prowess in the battle-field, who had, in his old age, become a monk. When this man went to take up his abode upon the mountains, his only son (for he had formerly lived as a married man in the world) would on no account leave him, but lived there also, assisting his father in his duties as watcher, and in the exercises of prayer and penitence, fully equalling the example that was now afforded him as he had formerly done his example as a soldier. The life led by those two valiant champions is said to have been most admirable and pious. Once on a time it happened that the young hero went out to cut wood in the forest. He bore a sharp axe on his shoulders, and was besides girded with a great sword; for as the woods were not only full of wild beasts, but also haunted by wicked men, the pious hermits took the precaution of always going armed. While the good youth was forcing his way through the thickest of the copsewood, and already beheld over it the pointed tops of the fir-trees (for he was close on the Finland frontier), there rushed out against him a great white wolf, so that he had only just time enough to leap to one side, and not being able immediately to draw his sword, he flung his axe at his assailant. The blow was so well aimed that it struck one of the wolf's fore-legs, and the animal, being sorely wounded, limped back, with a yell of anguish, into the wood. The young hermit warrior, however, thought to himself-- "It is not enough that I am rescued, but I must take such measures that no one else may in future be injured, or even terrified by this wild beast." So he rushed in as fast as possible among the fir-trees, and inflicted such a vehement blow with his sword on the wolf's head, that the animal, groaning piteously, fell to the ground. Hereupon there came over the young man all at once a strange mood of regret and compassion for his poor victim. Instead of putting it immediately to death, he bound up the wounds as well as he could with moss and twigs of trees, placed it on a sort of canvas sling on which he was in the habit of carrying great fagots, and with much labour brought it home, in hopes that he might be able at last to cure and tame his fallen adversary. He did not find his father in the cottage, and it was not without some fear and anxiety that he laid the wolf on his own bed, which was made of moss and rushes, and over which he had nailed St. George and the Dragon. He then turned to the fire-place of the small hut, in order to prepare a healing salve for the wounds. While he was thus occupied, how much was he astonished to hear the moanings and lamentations of a human voice from the bed on which he had just before deposited the wolf. On returning thither his wonder was inexpressible on perceiving, instead of the frightful wild beast, a most beautiful damsel, on whose head the wound which he had inflicted was bleeding through her fine golden hair, and whose right arm, in all its grace and snow-white luxuriance, was stretched out motionless, for it had been broken by the blow from his axe. "Pray," said she, "have pity, and do not kill me outright. The little life that I have still left is, indeed, painful enough, and may not last long; yet, sad as my condition is, it is yet tenfold better than death." The young man then sat down weeping beside her, and she explained to him that she was the daughter of a magician, on the other side of the mountain, who had sent her out in the shape of a wolf to collect plants from places which, in her own proper form, she could not have reached. It was but in terror she had made that violent spring which the youth had mistaken for an attack on him, when her only wish had been to pass by him. "But you directly broke my right arm," said she, "though I had no evil design against you." How she had now regained her proper shape she could not imagine, but to the youth it was quite clear that the picture of St. George and the Dragon had broken the spell by which the poor girl had been transformed. While the son was thus occupied, the old man returned home, and soon heard all that had occurred, perceiving, at the same time, that if the young pagan wanderer had been released from the spells by which she had been bound, the youth was, in his turn, enchanted and spellbound by her beauty and amiable behaviour. From that moment he exerted himself to the utmost for the welfare of her soul, endeavouring to convert her to Christianity, while his son attended to the cure of her wounds; and, as their endeavours were on both sides successful, it was resolved that the lovers should be united in marriage, for the youth had not restricted himself by any monastic vows. The magician's daughter was now restored to perfect health. A day had been appointed for her baptism and marriage. It happened that one evening the bride and bridegroom went to take a pleasure walk through the woods. The sun was yet high in the west, and shone so fervently through the beech-trees on the green turf that they could never resolve on turning home, but went still deeper and deeper into the forest. Then the bride told him stories of her early life, and sang old songs which she had learned when a child, and which sounded beautifully amid the woodland solitude. Though the words were such that they could not be agreeable to the youth's ears (for she had learned them among her pagan and wicked relations), yet he could not interrupt her, first, because he loved her so dearly, and, secondly, because she sang in a voice so clear and sweet that the whole forest seemed to rejoice in her music. At last, however, the pointed heads of the pine-trees again became visible, and the youth wished to turn back, in order that he might not come again too near the hated Finnish frontier. His bride, however, said to him-- "Dearest Conrad, why should we not walk on a little further? I would gladly see the very place where you so cruelly wounded me on the head and arm, and made me prisoner, all which has, in the end contributed to my happiness. Methinks we are now very near the spot." Accordingly they sought about here and there until at last the twilight fell dim and heavy on the dense woods. The sun had long since set. The moon, however, had risen, and, as a light broke forth, the lovers stood on the Finland frontier, or rather they must have gone already some distance beyond it, for the bridegroom was exceedingly terrified when he found his cap lifted from his head, as if by human hand, though he saw only the branch of a fir-tree. Immediately thereafter the whole air around them was filled with strange and supernatural beings--witches, devils, dwarfs, horned-owls, fire-eyed cats, and a thousand other wretches that could not be named and described, whirled around them as if dancing to rapid music. When the bride had looked on for a while, she broke out into loud laughter, and at last began to dance furiously along with them. The poor bridegroom might shout and pray as much and as earnestly as he would, for she never attended to him, but at last transformed herself in a manner so extraordinary that he could not distinguish her from the other dancers. He thought, however, that he had kept his eyes upon her, and seized on one of the dancers; but alas! it was only a horrible spectre which held him fast, and threw its wide waving shroud around him, so that he could not make his escape, while, at the same time, some of the subterraneous black demons pulled at his legs, and wanted to bear him down along with them into their bottomless caves. Fortunately he happened at that moment to cross himself and call on the name of the Saviour, upon which the whole of this vile assembly fell into confusion. They howled aloud and ran off in all directions, while Conrad in the meantime saved himself by recrossing the frontier, and getting under the protection of the Swedish copsewood. His beautiful bride, however, was completely lost; and by no endeavours could he ever obtain her again, though he often came to the Finland border, called out her name aloud, wept and prayed, but all in vain. Many times, it is true, he saw her floating about through the pine-trees, as if in chase, but she was always accompanied by a train of frightful creatures, and she herself also looked wild and disfigured. For the most part she never noticed Conrad, but if she could not help fixing her eyes upon him, she laughed so immoderately, and in a mood of merriment so strange and unnatural, that he was terrified and made the sign of the cross, whereupon she always fled away, howling, into one of the thickets. Conrad fell more and more into melancholy abstraction, hardly ever spoke, and though he had given over his vain walks into the forest, yet if one asked him a question, the only answer he returned was-- "Ay, she is gone away beyond the mountains," so little did he know or remember of any other object in the world but the lost beauty. At last he died of grief; and according to a request which he had once made, his father prepared a grave for him on the place where the bride was found and lost, though during the fulfilment of this duty he had enough to do--one while in contending with his crucifix against evil spirits, and at another, with his sword against wild beasts, which were no doubt sent thither by the magicians to attack and annoy him. At length, however, he brought his task to an end, and thereafter it seemed as if the bride mourned for the youth's untimely death, for there was heard often a sound of howling and lamentation at the grave. For the most part, indeed, this voice is like the voices of wolves, yet, at the same time, human accents are to be distinguished, and I myself have often listened thereto on dark winter nights. Alas! that the poor maiden should have ventured again so near the accursed paths she had once renounced. A few steps in the backward course, and all is lost! THE HILL-MAN INVITED TO THE CHRISTENING. The hill-people are excessively frightened during thunder. When, therefore, they see bad weather coming on, they lose no time in getting to the shelter of their hills. This terror is also the cause of their not being able to endure the beating of a drum. They take it to be the rolling of thunder. It is, therefore, a good recipe for banishing them to beat a drum every day in the neighbourhood of their hills, for they immediately pack up, and depart to some quieter residence. A farmer lived once in great friendship and concord with a hill-man, whose hill was in his lands. One time when his wife was about to have a child, it gave him great perplexity to think that he could not well avoid inviting the hill-man to the christening, which might, not improbably, bring him into ill repute with the priest and the other people of the village. He was going about pondering deeply, but in vain, how he might get out of this dilemma, when it came into his head to ask the advice of the boy that kept his pigs, who had a great head-piece, and had often helped him before. The pig-boy instantly undertook to arrange the matter with the hill-man in such a manner that he should not only stay away without being offended, but, moreover, give a good christening present. Accordingly, when it was night, he took a sack on his shoulder, went to the hill-man's hill, knocked, and was admitted. He delivered his message, gave his master's compliments, and requested the honour of his company at the christening. The hill-man thanked him, and said-- "I think it is but right I should give you a christening present." With these words he opened his money-chests, bidding the boy hold up his sack while he poured money into it. "Is there enough now?" said he, when he had put a good quantity into it. "Many give more, few give less," replied the boy. The hill-man once more fell to filling the sack, and again asked-- "Is there enough now?" The boy lifted the sack a little off the ground to see if he was able to carry any more, and then answered-- "It is about what most people give." Upon this the hill-man emptied the whole chest into the bag, and once more asked-- "Is there enough now?" The guardian of the pigs now saw that there was as much in the sack as he would be able to carry, so he answered-- "No one gives more, most people give less." "Come now," said the hill-man, "let us hear who else is to be at the christening." "Ah," said the boy, "we are to have a great many strangers and great people. First and foremost, we are to have three priests and a bishop." "Hem!" muttered the hill-man; "however, those gentlemen usually look only after the eating and drinking; they will never take any notice of me. Well, who else?" "Then we have asked St. Peter and St. Paul." "Hem! hem! However, there will be a bye-place for me behind the stove. Well, and what then?" "Then Our Lady herself is coming." "Hem! hem! hem! However, guests of such high rank come late and go away early. But tell me, my lad, what sort of music is it you are to have?" "Music," said the boy, "why, we are to have drums." "Drums!" repeated the troll, quite terrified. "No, no! Thank you. I shall stay at home in that case. Give my best respects to your master, and I thank him for the invitation, but I cannot come. I did but once go out to take a little walk, and some people began to beat a drum. I hurried home, and was but just got to my door when they flung the drum-stick after me, and broke one of my shins. I have been lame of that leg ever since, and I shall take good care in future to avoid that sort of music." So saying he helped the boy to put the sack on his back, once more charging him to present his best respects to his master. THE MEAL OF FROTHI. Gold is called by the poets the meal of Frothi, and the origin of the term is found in this story. Odin had a son named Skioldr who settled and reigned in the land which is now called Denmark, but was then called Gotland. Skioldr had a son named Frithleif, who reigned after him. Frithleif's son was called Frothi, and succeeded him on the throne. At the time that the Emperor Augustus made peace over the whole world, Christ was born, but as Frothi was the most powerful of all the monarchs of the north, that peace, wherever the Danish language was spoken, was imputed to him, and the Northmen called it Frothi's peace. At that time no man hurt another, even if he found the murderer of his father or brother, loose or bound. Theft and robbery were then unknown, insomuch that a gold armlet lay for a long time untouched in Jalangursheath. Frothi chanced to go on a friendly visit to a certain king in Sweden, named Fiolnir, and there purchased two female slaves, called Fenia and Menia, equally distinguished for their stature and strength. In those days there were found in Denmark two quern-stones of such a size, that no one was able to move them, and these mill-stones were endued with such virtue, that the quern in grinding produced whatever the grinder wished for. The quern was called Grotti. He who presented this quern to Frothi was called Hengikioptr (hanging-chops). King Frothi caused these slaves to be brought to the quern, and ordered them to grind gold, peace, and prosperity for Frothi. The king allowed them no longer rest or sleep than while the cuckoo was silent or a verse could be recited. Then they are said to have sung the lay called Grotta-Savngr, and before they ended their song to have ground a hostile army against Frothi, insomuch, that a certain sea-king, called Mysingr, arriving the same night, slew Frothi, taking great spoil. And so ended Frothi's peace. Mysingr took with him the quern, Grotti, with Fenia and Menia, and ordered them to grind salt. About midnight they asked Mysingr whether he had salt enough. On his ordering them to go on grinding, they went on a little longer till the ship sank under the weight of the salt. A whirlpool was produced, where the waves are sucked up by the mill-eye, and the waters of the sea have been salt ever since. THE LOST BELL. A shepherd's boy, belonging to Patzig, about half a mile from Bergen, where there are great numbers of underground people in the hills, found one morning a little silver bell on the green heath among the giants' graves, and fastened it on him. It happened to be the bell belonging to the cap of one of the little brown ones, who had lost it while he was dancing, and did not immediately miss it or observe that it was no longer tinkling in his cap. He had gone down into the hill without his bell, and, having discovered his loss, was filled with melancholy, for the worst thing that can befall the underground people is to lose their cap, or their shoes; but even to lose the bell from their caps, or the buckle from their belts, is no trifle to them. Whoever loses his bell must pass some sleepless nights, for not a wink of sleep can he get till he has recovered it. The little fellow was in the greatest trouble, and looked and searched about everywhere. But how could he learn who had the bell? for only on a very few days in the year may they come up to daylight, nor can they then appear in their true form. He had turned himself into every form of birds, beasts, and men, and he had sung and groaned and lamented about his bell, but not the slightest tidings or trace of tidings had he been able to get. Most unfortunately for him, the shepherd's boy had left Patzig the very day he found the little bell, and he was now keeping sheep at Unrich, near Gingst, so that it was not till many a day after, and then by mere chance, that the little underground fellow recovered his bell, and with it his peace of mind. He had thought it not unlikely that a raven, or a crow, or a jackdaw, or a magpie, had found his bell, and from its thievish disposition, which attracts it to anything bright and shining, had carried it into its nest. With this thought he turned himself into a beautiful little bird, and searched all the nests in the island, and he'd sang before all kinds of birds to see if they had found what he had lost, and could restore to him his sleep. He had, however, been able to learn nothing from the birds. As he now, one evening, was flying over the waters of Ralov and the fields of Unrich, the shepherd's boy, whose name was John Schlagenteufel (Smite-devil), happened to be keeping his sheep there at the very time. Several of the sheep had bells about their necks, and they tinkled merrily when the boy's dog set them trotting. The little bird who was flying over them thought of his bell, and sang in a melancholy tone---- "Little bell, little bell, Little ram as well, You, too, little sheep, If you've my tingle too, No sheep's so rich as you, My rest you keep." The boy looked up and listened to this strange song which came out of the sky, and saw the pretty bird, which seemed to him still more strange. "If one," said he to himself, "had but that bird that's singing up there, so plain that one of us could hardly match him! What can he mean by that wonderful song? The whole of it is, it must be a feathered witch. My rams have only pinchbeck bells, he calls them rich cattle; but I have a silver bell, and he sings nothing about me." With these words he began to fumble in his pocket, took out his bell, and rang it. The bird in the air instantly saw what it was, and rejoiced beyond measure. He vanished in a second, flew behind the nearest bush, alighted, and drew off his speckled feather dress, and turned himself into an old woman dressed in tattered clothes. The old dame, well supplied with sighs and groans, tottered across the field to the shepherd-boy, who was still ringing his bell and wondering what was become of the beautiful bird. She cleared her throat, and coughing, bid him a kind good evening, and asked him which was the way to Bergen. Pretending then that she had just seen the little bell, she exclaimed-- "Well now, what a charming pretty little bell! Well, in all my life, I never beheld anything more beautiful. Hark ye, my son, will you sell me that bell? What may be the price of it? I have a little grandson at home, and such a nice plaything as it would make for him!" "No," replied the boy, quite short; "the bell is not for sale. It is a bell that there is not such another bell in the whole world. I have only to give it a little tinkle, and my sheep run of themselves wherever I would have them go. And what a delightful sound it has! Only listen, mother," said he, ringing it; "is there any weariness in the world that can hold out against this bell? I can ring with it away the longest time, so that it will be gone in a second." The old woman thought to herself-- "We will see if he can hold out against bright shining money," and she took out no less than three silver dollars and offered them to him, but he still replied-- "No, I will not sell the bell." She then offered him five dollars. "The bell is still mine," said he. She stretched out her hand full of ducats. He replied this third time-- "Gold is dirt, and does not ring." The old dame then shifted her ground, and turned the discourse another way. She grew mysterious, and began to entice him by talking of secret arts and of charms by which his cattle might be made to thrive prodigiously, relating to him all kinds of wonders of them. It was then the young shepherd began to long, and he lent a willing ear to her tales. The end of the matter was, that she said to him-- "Hark ye, my child, give me your bell; and see, here is a white stick for you," said she, taking out a little white stick which had Adam and Eve very ingeniously cut upon it as they were feeding their flocks in the Garden, with the fattest sheep and lambs dancing before them. There, too, was the shepherd David, as he stood up with his sling against the giant Goliath. "I will give you," said the woman, "this stick for the bell, and as long as you drive the cattle with it they will be sure to thrive. With this you will become a rich shepherd. Your wethers will be always fat a month sooner than the wethers of other shepherds, and every one of your sheep will have two pounds of wool more than others, and yet no one will ever be able to see it on them." The old woman handed him the stick. So mysterious was her gesture, and so strange and bewitching her smile, that the lad was at once in her power. He grasped eagerly at the stick, gave her his hand, and cried-- "Done! strike hands! The bell for the stick!" Cheerfully the old woman took the bell for the stick, and departed like a light breeze over the field and the heath. He saw her vanish, and she seemed to float away before his eyes like a mist, and to go off with a slight whiz and whistle that made the shepherd's hair stand on end. The underground one, however, who, in the shape of an old woman, had wheedled him out of his bell, had not deceived him. For the underground people dare not lie, but must ever keep their word--a breach of it being followed by their sudden change into the shape of toads, snakes, dunghill beetles, wolves, and apes, forms in which they wander about, objects of fear and aversion, for a long course of years before they are freed. They have, therefore, naturally a great dread of lying. John Schlagenteufel gave close attention and made trial of his new shepherd's staff, and he soon found that the old woman had told him the truth, for his flocks and his work, and all the labour of his hands, prospered with him, and he had wonderful luck, so that there was not a sheep-owner or head shepherd but was desirous of having him in his employment. It was not long, however, that he remained an underling. Before he was eighteen years of age he had got his own flocks, and in the course of a few years was the richest sheep-master in the whole island of Bergen. At last he was able to buy a knight's estate for himself, and that estate was Grabitz, close by Rambin, which now belongs to the Lords of Sunde. My father knew him there, and how from a shepherd's boy he became a nobleman. He always conducted himself like a prudent, honest, and pious man, who had a good word for every one. He brought up his sons like gentlemen, and his daughters like ladies, some of whom are still alive, and accounted people of great consequence. Well may people who hear such stories wish that they had met with such an adventure, and had found a little silver bell which the underground people had lost! MAIDEN SWANWHITE AND MAIDEN FOXTAIL. There was once upon a time a wicked woman who had a daughter and a step-daughter. The daughter was ugly and of an evil disposition, but the step-daughter was most beautiful and good, and all who knew her wished her well. When the girl's step-mother and step-sister saw this they hated the poor girl. One day it chanced that she was sent by her step-mother to the well to draw water. When the girl came there she saw a little hand held out of the water, and a voice said-- "Maiden, beautiful and good, give me your golden apple, and in return for it I will thrice wish you well." The girl thought that one who spoke so fairly to her would not do her an ill turn, so she put the apple into the little hand. Then she bent down over the spring, and, taking care not to muddy the water, filled her bucket. As she went home the guardian of the well wished that the girl would become thrice as beautiful as she was, that whenever she laughed a gold ring might fall from her mouth, and that red roses might spring up wherever she trod. The same hour all that he wished came to pass. From that day the girl was called the Maiden Swanwhite, and the fame of her loveliness spread all through the land. When the wicked step-mother perceived this, she was filled with rage, and she thought how her own daughter might become as beautiful as Swanwhite. With this object she set herself to learn all that had happened, and then she sent her own daughter to fetch water. When the wicked girl had come to the well, she saw a little hand rise up out of the water, and heard a voice which said-- "Maiden, beautiful and good, give me your gold apple and I will thrice wish thee well." But the hag's daughter was both wicked and avaricious, and it was not her way to make presents. She therefore made a dash at the little hand, wished the guardian of the well evil, and said pettishly-- "You need not think you'll get a gold apple from me." Then she filled her bucket, muddying the water, and away she went in a rage. The guardian of the well was enraged, so he wished her three evil wishes, as a punishment for her wickedness. He wished that she should become three times as ugly as she was, that a dead rat should fall from her mouth whenever she laughed, and that the fox-tail grass might spring up in the footsteps wherever she trod. So it was. From that day the wicked girl was called Maiden Foxtail, and very much talk was there among the folk of her strange looks and her ill-nature. The hag could not bear her step-daughter should be more beautiful than her own daughter, and poor Swanwhite had to put up with all the ill-usage and suffering that a step-child can meet with. Swanwhite had a brother whom she loved very much, and he also loved her with all his heart. He had long ago left home, and he was now the servant of a king, far, far off in a strange land. The other servants of the king bore him no good-will because he was liked by his master, and they wished to ruin him if they could find anything against him. They watched him closely, and one day, coming to the king, said-- "Lord king, we know well that you do not like evil or vice in your servants. Thence we think it is only right to tell you that the young foreigner, who is in your service, every morning and evening bows the knee to an idol." When the king heard that he set it down to envy and ill-will, and did not think there was any truth in it, but the courtiers said that he could easily discover for himself whether what they said was true or not. They led the king to the young man's rooms, and told him to look through the key-hole. When the king looked in he saw the young man on his knees before a fine picture, and so he could not help believing that what the courtiers had told him was true. The king was much enraged, and ordered the young man to come before him, when he condemned him to die for his great wickedness. "My lord king," said he, "do not imagine that I worship any idol. That is my sister's picture, whom I commend to the care of God every morning and evening, asking Him to protect her, for she remains in a wicked step-mother's power." The king then wished to see the picture, and he never tired of looking on its beauty. "If it is true," said he, "what you tell me, that that is your sister's picture, she shall be my queen, and you yourself shall go and fetch her; but if you lie, this shall be your punishment,--you shall be cast into the lions' den." The king then commanded that a ship should be fitted out in grand style, having wine and treasure in it. Then he sent away the young man in great state to fetch his beautiful sister to the court. The young man sailed away over the ocean, and came at length to his land. Here he delivered his master's message, as became him, and made preparations to return. Then the step-mother and step-sister begged that they might go with him and his sister. The young man had no liking for them, so he said no, and refused their request, but Swanwhite begged for them, and got them what they wanted. When they had put to sea and were on the wide ocean, a great storm arose so that the sailors expected the vessel and all on her to go to the bottom. The young man was, however, in good spirits, and went up the mast in order to see if he could discover land anywhere. When he had looked out from the mast, he called to Swanwhite, who stood on the deck-- "Dear sister, I see land now." It was, however, blowing so hard that the maiden could not hear a word. She asked her step-mother if she knew what her brother said. "Yes," said the false hag; "he says we shall never come to God's land unless you throw your gold casket into the sea." When Swanwhite heard that, she did what the hag told her, and cast the gold casket into the deep sea. A while after her brother once more called to his sister, who stood on the deck-- "Swanwhite, go and deck yourself as a bride, for we shall soon be there." But the maiden could not hear a word for the raging of the sea. She asked her step-mother if she knew what her brother had said. "Yes," said the false hag; "he says we shall never come to God's land unless you cast yourself into the sea." While Swanwhite thought of this, the wicked step-mother sprang to her, and thrust her on a sudden overboard. The young girl was carried away by the blue waves, and came to the mermaid who rules over all those who are drowned in the sea. When the young man came down the mast, and asked whether his sister was attired, the step-mother told him many falsehoods about Swanwhite having fallen into the sea. When the young man heard this he and all the ship-folk were afraid, for they well knew what punishment awaited them for having so ill looked after the king's bride. The false hag then thought of another deception. She said they had better dress her own daughter as the bride, and then no one need know that Swanwhite had perished. The young man would not agree to this, but the sailors, being in fear of their lives, made him do as the step-mother had suggested. Maiden Foxtail was dressed out in the finest manner with red rings and a gold girdle, but the young man was ill at ease, and could not forget what had happened to his sister. In the midst of this the vessel came to shore, where was the king with all his court with much splendour awaiting their arrival. Carpets were spread upon the ground, and the king's bride left the ship in great state. When the king beheld Maiden Foxtail, and was told that that was his bride, he suspected some cheat, and was very angry, and he ordered that the young man should be thrown into the lions' den. He would not, however, break his kingly word, so he took the ugly maiden for his wife, and she became queen in the place of her step-sister. Now Maiden Swanwhite had a little dog of which she was very fond, and she called it Snow-white. Now that its mistress was lost, there was no one who cared for it, so it came into the king's palace and took refuge in the kitchen, where it lay down in front of the fire. When it was night and all had gone to bed, the master-cook saw the kitchen door open of itself and a beautiful little duck, fastened to a chain, came into the kitchen. Wherever the little bird trod the most beautiful roses sprang up. The duck went up to the dog upon the hearth, and said-- "Poor little Snow-white! Once on a time you lay on blue silk cushions. Now you must lie on the grey ashes. Ah! my poor brother, who is in the lions' den! Shame on Maiden Foxtail! she sleeps in my lord's arms." "Alas, poor me!" continued the duck, "I shall come here only on two more nights. After that I shall see you no more." Then it caressed the little dog, and the dog returned its caresses. After a little while the door opened of itself and the little bird went its way. The next morning, when it was daylight, the master-cook took the beautiful roses that lay strewn on the floor and with them decorated the dishes for the king's table. The king so much admired the flowers that he ordered the master-cook to be called to him, and asked him where he had found such magnificent roses. The cook told him all that had happened, and what the duck had said to the little dog. When the king heard it he was much perplexed, and he told the cook to let him know as soon as the bird showed itself again. The next night the little duck again came to the kitchen, and spoke to the dog as before. The cook sent word to the king, and he came just as the bird went out at the door. However he saw the beautiful roses lying all over the kitchen floor, and from them came such a delightful scent that the like had never been known. The king made up his mind that if the duck came again he would see it, so he lay in wait for it. He waited a long while, when, at midnight, the little bird, as before, came walking up to the dog which lay on the hearth, and said-- "Poor little Snow-white! once on a time you lay on blue silk cushions. Now you must lie on grey ashes. Ah! my poor brother, who is in the lions' den. Shame on Maiden Foxtail! she sleeps in my lord's arms." Then it went on-- "Alas! poor me! I shall see thee no more." Then it caressed the little dog, and the dog returned its caresses. As the bird was about to go away, the king sprang out and caught it by the foot. Then the bird changed its form and became a horrible dragon, but the king held it fast. It changed itself again, and took the forms of snakes, wolves, and other fierce animals, but the king did not lose his hold. Then the mermaid pulled hard at the chain, but the king held so fast that the chain broke in two with a great snap and rattling. That moment there stood there a beautiful maiden much more beautiful than that in the fine picture. She thanked the king for having saved her from the power of the mermaid. The king was very glad, and took the beautiful maiden in his arms, kissed her, and said-- "I will have no one else in the world for my queen, and now I well see that your brother was guiltless." Then he sent off at once to the lions' den to learn if the young man was yet alive. There the young man was safe and sound among the wild beasts, which had done him no injury. Then the king was in a happy mood, and rejoiced that everything had chanced so well. The brother and sister told him all that the step-mother had done. When it was daylight the king ordered a great feast to be got ready, and asked the foremost people in the country to the palace. As they all sat at table and were very merry, the king told a story of a brother and sister who had been treacherously dealt with by a step-mother, and he related all that had happened from beginning to end. When the tale was ended the king's folk looked at one another, and all agreed that the conduct of the step-mother in the tale was a piece of unexampled wickedness. The king turned to his mother-in-law, and said-- "Some one should reward my tale. I should like to know what punishment the taking of such an innocent life deserves." The false hag did not know that her own treachery was aimed at, so she said boldly-- "For my part, I certainly think she should be put into boiling lead." The king then turned himself to Foxtail, and said-- "I should like to have your opinion; what punishment is merited by one who takes so innocent a life?" The wicked woman answered at once-- "For my part, I think she deserves to be put into boiling tar." Then the king started up from the table in a great rage, and said-- "You have pronounced doom on yourselves. Such punishment shall you suffer!" He ordered the two women to be taken out to die as they themselves had said, and no one save Swanwhite begged him to have mercy on them. After that the king was married to the beautiful maiden, and all folk agreed that nowhere could be found a finer queen. The king gave his own sister to the brave young man, and there was great joy in all the king's palace. There they live prosperous and happy unto this day, for all I know. TALES OF TREASURE. There are still to be seen near Flensborg the ruins of a very ancient building. Two soldiers once stood on guard there together, but when one of them was gone to the town, it chanced that a tall white woman came to the other, and spoke to him, and said-- "I am an unhappy spirit, who has wandered here these many hundred years, but never shall I find rest in the grave." She then informed him that under the walls of the castle a great treasure was concealed, which only three men in the whole world could take up, and that he was one of the three. The man, who now saw that his fortune was made, promised to follow her directions in every particular, whereupon she desired him to come to the same place at twelve o'clock the following night. The other soldier meanwhile had come back from the town just as the appointment was made with his comrade. He said nothing about what, unseen, he had seen and heard, but went early the next evening and concealed himself amongst some bushes. When his fellow-soldier came with his spade and shovel he found the white woman at the appointed place, but when she perceived they were watched she put off the appointed business until the next evening. The man who had lain on the watch to no purpose went home, and suddenly fell ill; and as he thought he should die of that sickness, he sent for his comrade, and told him how he knew all, and conjured him not to have anything to do with witches or with spirits, but rather to seek counsel of the priest, who was a prudent man. The other thought it would be the wisest plan to follow the advice of his comrade, so he went and discovered the whole affair to the priest, who, however, desired him to do as the spirit had bidden him, only he was to make her lay the first hand to the work herself. The appointed time was now arrived, and the man was at the place. When the white woman had pointed out to him the spot, and they were just beginning the work, she said to him that when the treasure was taken up one-half of it should be his, but that he must divide the other half equally between the church and the poor. Then the devil entered into the man, and awakened his covetousness, so that he cried out-- "What! shall I not have the whole?" Scarcely had he spoken when the figure, with a most mournful wail, passed in a blue flame over the moat of the castle, and the man fell sick, and died within three days. The story soon spread through the country, and a poor scholar who heard it thought he had now an opportunity of making his fortune. He therefore went at midnight to the place, and there he met with the wandering white woman, and he told her why he was come, and offered his services to raise the treasure. She, however, answered that he was not one of the three, one of whom alone could free her, and that the wall in which was the money would still remain so firm that no human being should be able to break it. She also told him that at some future time he should be rewarded for his good inclination; and, it is said, when a long time after he passed by that place, and thought with compassion on the sufferings of the unblest woman, he fell on his face over a great heap of money, which soon put him again on his feet. The wall still remains undisturbed, and as often as any one has attempted to throw it down, whatever is thrown down in the day is replaced again in the night. * * * * * Three men went once in the night-time to Klumhöi to try their luck, for a dragon watches there over a great treasure. They dug into the ground, giving each other a strict charge not to utter a word whatever might happen, otherwise all their labour would be in vain. When they had dug pretty deep, their spades struck against a copper chest. They then made signs to one another, and all, with both hands, laid hold of a great copper ring that was on the top of the chest, and pulled up the treasure. When they had just got it into their possession, one of them forgot the necessity of silence, and shouted out-- "One pull more, and we have it!" That very instant the chest flew away out of their hands to the lake Stöierup, but as they all held hard on the ring it remained in their grasp. They went and fastened the ring on the door of St. Olaf's church, and there it remains to this very day. * * * * * Near Dangstrup there is a hill which is called Dangbjerg Dons. Of this hill it is related that it is at all times covered with a blue mist, and that under it there lies a large copper kettle full of money. One night two men went there to dig after this treasure, and they had got so far as to lay hold of the handle of the kettle. All sorts of wonderful things began then to appear to disturb them at their work. One time a coach, drawn by four black horses, drove by them. Then they saw a black dog with a fiery tongue. Then there came a cock drawing a load of hay. Still the men persisted in not letting themselves speak, and still dug on without stopping. At last a fellow came limping up to them and said-- "See, Dangstrup is on fire!" When the men looked towards the town, it appeared exactly as if the whole place were in a bright flame. Then at length one of the men forgot to keep silence, and the moment he uttered an exclamation the treasure sank deeper and deeper, and as often since as any attempt has been made to get it up, the trolls have, by their spells and artifices, prevented its success. HOLGER DANSKE. The Danish peasantry of the present day relate many wonderful things of an ancient hero whom they name Holger Danske, _i.e_. Danish Holger, and to whom they ascribe wonderful strength and dimensions. Holger Danske came one time to a town named Bagsvoer, in the isle of Zealand, where, being in want of a new suit of clothes, he sent for twelve tailors to make them. He was so tall that they were obliged to set ladders to his back and shoulders to take his measure. They measured and measured away, but unluckily a man, who was on the top of one of the ladders, happened, as he was cutting a mark in the measure, to give Holger's ear a clip with the scissors. Holger, forgetting what was going on, thinking that he was being bitten by a flea, put up his hand and crushed the unlucky tailor to death between his fingers. It is also said that a witch one time gave him a pair of spectacles which would enable him to see through the ground. He lay down at a place not far from Copenhagen to make a trial of their powers, and as he put his face close to the ground, he left in it the mark of his spectacles, which mark is to be seen at this very day, and the size of it proves what a goodly pair they must have been. Tradition does not say at what time it was that this mighty hero honoured the isles of the Baltic with his actual presence, but, in return, it informs us that Holger, like so many other heroes of renown, "is not dead, but sleepeth." The clang of arms, we are told, was frequently heard under the castle of Cronberg, but in all Denmark no one could be found hardy enough to penetrate the subterranean recesses and ascertain the cause. At length a slave, who had been condemned to death, was offered his life and a pardon if he would go down, proceed through the subterranean passage as far as it went, and bring an account of what he should meet there. He accordingly descended, and went along till he came to a great iron door, which opened of itself the instant he knocked at it, and he beheld before him a deep vault. From the roof in the centre hung a lamp whose flame was nearly extinct, and beneath was a huge great stone table, around which sat steel-clad warriors, bowed down over it, each with his head on his crossed arms. He who was seated at the head of the board then raised himself up. This was Holger Danske. When he had lifted his head up from off his arms, the stone table split throughout, for his beard was grown into it. "Give me thy hand," said he to the intruder. The slave feared to trust his hand in the grasp of the ancient warrior, and he reached him the end of an iron bar which he had brought with him. Holger squeezed it so hard, that the mark of his hand remained in it. He let it go at last, saying-- "Well! I am glad to find there are still men in Denmark." TALES FROM THE PROSE EDDA THE GODS AND THE WOLF. Among the Æsir, or gods, is reckoned one named Loki or Loptur. By many he is called the reviler of the gods, the author of all fraud and mischief, and the shame of gods and men alike. He is the son of the giant Farbauti, his mother being Laufey or Nal, and his brothers Byleist and Helblindi. He is of a goodly appearance and elegant form, but his mood is changeable, and he is inclined to all wickedness. In cunning and perfidy he excels every one, and many a time has he placed the gods in great danger, and often has he saved them again by his cunning. He has a wife named Siguna, and their son is called Nari. Loki had three children by Angurbodi, a giantess of Jotunheim (the giants' home). The first of these was Fenris, the wolf; the second was Jörmungand, the Midgard serpent; and the third was Hela, death. Very soon did the gods become aware of this evil progeny which was being reared in Jotunheim, and by divination they discovered that they must receive great injury from them. That they had such a mother spoke bad for them, but their coming of such a sire was a still worse presage. All-father therefore despatched certain of the gods to bring the children to him, and when they were brought before him he cast the serpent down into the ocean which surrounds the world. There the monster waxed so large that he wound himself round the whole globe, and that with such ease that he can with his mouth lay hold of his tail. Hela All-father cast into Niflheim, where she rules over nine worlds. Into these she distributes all those who are sent to her,--that is to say, all who die through sickness or old age. She has there an abode with very thick walls, and fenced with strong gates. Her hall is Elvidnir; her table is Hunger; her knife, Starvation; her man-servant, Delay; her maid-servant, Sloth; her threshold, Precipice; her bed, Care; and her curtains, Anguish of Soul. The one half of her body is livid, the other half is flesh-colour. She has a terrible look, so that she can be easily known. As to the wolf, Fenris, the gods let him grow up among themselves, Tyr being the only one of them who dare give him his food. When, however, they perceived how he every day increased prodigiously in size, and that the oracles warned them that he would one day prove fatal to them, they determined to make very strong iron fetters for him which they called Loeding. These they presented to the wolf, and desired him to put them on to show his strength by endeavouring to break them. The wolf saw that it would not be difficult for him to burst them, so he let the gods put the fetters on him, then violently stretching himself he broke the fetters asunder, and set himself free. Having seen this, the gods went to work, and prepared a second set of fetters, called Dromi, half as strong again as the former, and these they persuaded the wolf to put on, assuring him that if he broke them he would then furnish them with an undeniable proof of his power. The wolf saw well enough that it would not be easy to break this set, but he considered that he had himself increased in strength since he broke the others, and he knew that without running some risk he could never become celebrated. He therefore allowed the gods to place the fetters on him. Then Fenris shook himself, stretched his limbs, rolled on the ground, and at length burst the fetters, which he made fly in all directions. Thus did he free himself the second time from his chains, and from this has arisen the saying, "To get free from Loeding, or to burst from Dromi," meaning to perform something by strong exertion. The gods now despaired of ever being able to secure the wolf with any chain of their own making. All-father, however, sent Skirnir, the messenger of the god Frey, into the country of the Black Elves, to the dwarfs, to ask them to make a chain to bind Fenris with. This chain was composed of six things--the noise made by the fall of a cat's foot, the hair of a woman's beard, the roots of stones, the nerves of bears, the breath of fish, and the spittle of birds. The fetters were as smooth and as soft as silk, and yet, as you will presently see, of great strength. The gods were very thankful for them when they were brought to them, and returned many thanks to him who brought them. Then they took the wolf with them on to the island Lyngvi, which is in the lake Amsvartnir, and there they showed him the chain, desiring him to try his strength in breaking it. At the same time they told him that it was a good deal stronger than it looked. They took it in their own hands and pulled at it, attempting in vain to break it, and then they said to Fenris-- "No one else but you, Fenris, can break it." "I don't see," replied the wolf, "that I shall gain any glory by breaking such a slight string, but if any artifice has been employed in the making of it, you may be sure, though it looks so fragile, it shall never touch foot of mine." The gods told him he would easily break so slight a bandage, since he had already broken asunder shackles of iron of the most solid make. "But," said they, "if you should not be able to break the chain, you are too feeble to cause us any anxiety, and we shall not hesitate to loose you again." "I very much fear," replied the wolf, "that if you once tie me up so fast that I cannot release myself, you will be in no haste to unloose me. I am, therefore, unwilling to have this cord wound around me; but to show you I am no coward, I will agree to it, but one of you must put his hand in my mouth, as a pledge that you intend me no deceit." The gods looked on one another wistfully, for they found themselves in an embarrassing position. Then Tyr stepped forward and bravely put his right hand in the monster's mouth. The gods then tied up the wolf, who forcibly stretched himself, as he had formerly done, and exerted all his powers to disengage himself; but the more efforts he made the tighter he drew the chain about him, and then all the gods, except Tyr, who lost his hand, burst out into laughter at the sight. Seeing that he was so fast tied that he would never be able to get loose again, they took one end of the chain, which was called Gelgja, and having drilled a hole for it, drew it through the middle of a large broad rock, which they sank very deep in the earth. Afterwards, to make all still more secure, they tied the end of the chain, which came through the rock to a great stone called Keviti, which they sank still deeper. The wolf used his utmost power to free himself, and, opening his mouth, tried to bite them. When the gods saw that they took a sword and thrust it into his mouth, so that it entered his under jaw right up to the hilt, and the point reached his palate. He howled in the most terrible manner, and since then the foam has poured from his mouth in such abundance that it forms the river called Von. So the wolf must remain until Ragnarök. Such a wicked race has Loki begot. The gods would not put the wolf to death because they respected the sanctity of the place, which forbade blood being shed there. THE STRANGE BUILDER. Once upon a time, when the gods were building their abodes, a certain builder came and offered to erect them, in the space of three half-years, a city so well fortified that they should be quite safe in it from the incursions of the forest-giants and the giants of the mountains, even although these foes should have already penetrated within the enclosure Midgard. He asked, however, for his reward, the goddess Freyja, together with the sun and moon. The gods thought over the matter a long while, and at length agreed to his terms, on the understanding that he would finish the whole work himself without any one's assistance, and that all was to be finished within the space of one single winter. If anything remained to be done when the first day of summer came, the builder was to entirely forfeit the reward agreed on. When the builder was told this he asked that he might be allowed the use of his horse, Svadilfari, and to this the gods, by the advice of Loki, agreed. On the first day of winter the builder set to work, and during the night he caused his horse to draw stones for the building. The gods beheld with astonishment the extraordinary size of these, and marked with wonder that the horse did much more work than his master. The contract between them and the giant had, however, been confirmed with many oaths and in the presence of many witnesses, for without such a precaution a giant would not have trusted himself among the gods, especially at a time when Thor was returning from an expedition he had made into the east against the giants. The winter was far advanced, and towards its end the city had been built so strongly and so lofty as to be almost secure. The time was nearly expired, only three days remaining, and nothing was wanted to complete the work save the gates, which were not yet put up. The gods then began to deliberate, and to ask one another who it was that had advised that Freyja should be given to one who dwelt in Jotunheim, and that they should plunge the heavens in darkness by allowing one to carry away with him the sun and moon. They all agreed that only Loki could have given such bad counsel, and that it would be only just to either make him contrive some way or other to prevent the builder accomplishing his work and having a right to claim his reward, or to put him to death. They at once laid hands on Loki, who, in his fright, promised upon oath to do what they desired, let it cost him what it might. That very night, while the builder was employing his horse to convey stones, a mare suddenly ran out of a neighbouring forest and commenced to neigh. The horse broke loose and ran after the mare into the forest, and the builder ran after his horse. Between one thing and another the whole night was lost, so that when day broke the work was not completed. The builder, recognising that he could by no means finish his task, took again his giant form; and the gods, seeing that it was a mountain-giant with whom they had to deal, feeling that their oath did not bind them, called on Thor. He at once ran to them, and paid the builder his fee with a blow of his hammer which shattered his skull to pieces and threw him down headlong into Niflhel. The horse Sleipner comes of the horse Svadilfari, and it excels all others possessed by gods or men. THOR'S JOURNEY TO THE LAND OF GIANTS. One day the god Thor set out with Loki in his chariot drawn by two he-goats. Night coming on they were obliged to put up at a peasant's cottage, when Thor slew his goats, and having skinned them, had them put into the pot. When this had been done he sat down to supper and invited the peasant and his children to take part in the feast. The peasant had a son named Thjalfi, and a daughter, Röska. Thor told them to throw the bones into the goatskins, which were spread out near the hearth, but young Thjalfi, in order to get at the marrow, broke one of the shank bones with his knife. Having passed the night in this place, Thor rose early in the morning, and having dressed himself, held up his hammer, Mjolnir, and thus consecrating the goatskins; he had no sooner done it than the two goats took again their usual form, only one of them was now lame in one of its hind-legs. When Thor saw this he at once knew that the peasant or one of his family had handled the bones of the goat too roughly, for one was broken. They were terribly afraid when Thor knit his brows, rolled his eyes, seized his hammer, and grasped it with such force that the very joints of his fingers were white again. The peasant, trembling, and fearful that he would be struck down by the looks of the god, begged with his family for pardon, offering whatever they possessed to repair the damage they might have done. Thor allowed them to appease him, and contented himself with taking with him Thjalfi and Röska, who became his servants, and have since followed him. Leaving his goats at that place, Thor set out to the east, to the country of the giants. At length they came to the shore of a wide and deep sea which Thor, with Loki, Thjalfi, and Röska passed over. Then they came to a strange country, and entered an immense forest in which they journeyed all day. Thjalfi was unexcelled by any man as a runner, and he carried Thor's bag, but in the forest they could find nothing eatable to put in it. As night came on they searched on all sides for a place where they might sleep, and at last they came to what appeared to be a large hall, the gate of which was so large that it took up the whole of one side of the building. Here they lay down to sleep, but about the middle of the night they were alarmed by what seemed to be an earthquake which shook the whole of the building. Thor, rising, called his companions to seek with him some safer place. Leaving the apartment they were in, they found on their right hand an adjoining chamber into which they entered, but while the others, trembling with fear, crept to the farthest corner of their retreat, Thor, armed with his mace, remained at the entrance ready to defend himself, happen what might. Throughout the night they heard a terrible groaning, and when the morning came, Thor, going out, observed a man of enormous size, lying near, asleep and snoring heavily. Then Thor knew that this was the noise he had heard during the night. He immediately girded on his belt of prowess which had the virtue of increasing his strength. The giant awoke and stood up, and it is said that for once Thor was too frightened to use his hammer, and he therefore contented himself with inquiring the giant's name. "My name," replied the giant, "is Skrymir. As for you it is not necessary I should ask your name. You are the god Thor. Tell me, what have you done with my glove?" Then Skrymir stretched out his hand and took it up, and Thor saw that what he and his companions had taken for a hall in which they had passed the night, was the giant's glove, the chamber into which they had retreated being only the thumb. Skrymir asked whether they might not be friends, and Thor agreeing, the giant opened his bag and took out something to eat. Thor and his companions also made their morning meal, but eat in another place. Then Skrymir, proposing that they should put their provisions together, and Thor assenting to it, put all into one bag, and laying it on his shoulder marched before them, with huge strides, during the whole day. At night he found a place where Thor and his companions might rest under an oak. There, he said, he would lie down and sleep. "You take the bag," said he, "and make your supper." He was soon asleep, and, strange as it may seem, when Thor tried to open the bag he could not untie a single knot nor loose the string. Enraged at this he seized his hammer, swayed it in both his hands, took a step forward, and hurled it at the giant's head. This awoke the giant, who asked him if a leaf had not fallen on his head, and whether they had finished their supper. Thor said they were just about to lie down to sleep, and went to lie under another oak-tree. About midnight, observing that Skrymir was snoring so loudly that the forest re-echoed the din, Thor grasped his hammer and hurled it with such force at him that it sank up to the handle in his head. "What is the matter?" asked he, awakening. "Did an acorn fall on my head? How are you going on, Thor?" Thor departed at once, saying that it was only midnight and that he hoped to get some more sleep yet. He resolved, however, to have a third blow at the giant, hoping that with this he might settle everything. Seizing his hammer, he, with all his force, threw it at the giant's cheek, into which it buried itself up to the handle. Skrymir, awaking, put his hand to his cheek, and said-- "Are there any birds perched on this tree? I thought some moss fell upon me. How! art thou awake, Thor? It is time, is it not, for us to get up and dress ourselves? You have not far, however, to go before you arrive at the city Utgard. I have heard you whispering together that I am a very tall fellow, but there you will see many larger than me. Let me advise you then when you get there not to take too much upon yourselves, for the men of Utgard-Loki will not bear much from such little folk as you. I believe your best way would even be to turn back again, but if you are determined to proceed take the road that goes towards the east, as for me mine now lies to the north." After he had said this, he put his bag upon his shoulder and turned away into a forest; and I could never hear that Thor wished him a good journey. Proceeding on his way with his companions, Thor saw towards noon a city situated in the middle of a vast plain. The wall of the city was so lofty that one could not look up to the top of it without throwing one's head quite back upon the shoulder. On coming to the wall, they found the gate-way closed with bars, which Thor never could have opened, but he and his companions crept in between them, and thus entered the place. Before them was a large palace, and as the door of it was open, they entered and found a number of men of enormous size, seated on benches. Going on they came into the presence of the king, Utgard-Loki, whom they saluted with great respect, but he, looking upon them for a time, at length cast a scornful glance at them, and burst into laughter. "It would take up too much time," said he, "to ask you concerning the long journey you have made, but if I am not mistaken that little man there is Aku-Thor. You may," said he to Thor, "be bigger than you seem to be. What are you and your companions skilled in that we may see what they can do, for no one may remain here unless he understands some art and excels in it all other men?" "I," said Loki, "can eat quicker than any one else, and of that I am ready to give proof if there is here any one who will compete with me." "It must, indeed, be owned," replied the king, "that you are not wanting in dexterity, if you are able to do what you say. Come, let us test it." Then he ordered one of his followers who was sitting at the further end of the bench, and whose name was Logi (Flame) to come forward, and try his skill with Loki. A great tub or trough full of flesh meat was placed in the hall, and Loki having placed himself at one end of the trough, and Logi having set himself at the other end, the two commenced to eat. Presently they met in the middle of the trough, but Loki had only devoured the flesh of his portion, whereas the other had devoured both flesh and bones. All the company therefore decided that Loki was beaten. Then Utgard-Loki asked what the young man could do who accompanied Thor. Thjalfi said that in running he would compete with any one. The king admitted that skill in running was something very good, but he thought Thjalfi must exert himself to the utmost to win in the contest. He rose and, accompanied by all the company, went to a plain where there was a good place for the match, and then calling a young man named Hugi (Spirit or Thought), he ordered him to run with Thjalfi. In the first race Hugi ran so fast away from Thjalfi that on his returning to the starting-place he met him not far from it. Then said the king-- "If you are to win, Thjalfi, you must run faster, though I must own no man has ever come here who was swifter of foot." In the second trial, Thjalfi was a full bow-shot from the boundary when Hugi arrived at it. "Very well do you run, Thjalfi," said Utgard-Loki; "but I do not think you will gain the prize. However, the third trial will decide." They ran a third time, but Hugi had already reached the goal before Thjalfi had got half-way. Then all present cried out that there had been a sufficient trial of skill in that exercise. Then Utgard-Loki asked Thor in what manner he would choose to give them a proof of the dexterity for which he was so famous. Thor replied that he would contest the prize for drinking with any one in the court. Utgard-Loki consented to the match, and going into the palace, ordered his cup-bearer to bring the large horn out of which his followers were obliged to drink when they had trespassed in any way against the customs of the court. The cup-bearer presented this to Thor, and Utgard-Loki said-- "Whoever is a good drinker will empty that horn at a draught. Some men make two draughts of it, but the most puny drinker of all can empty it in three." Thor looked at the horn, which seemed very long, but was otherwise of no extraordinary size. He put it to his mouth, and, without drawing breath, pulled as long and as deeply as he could, that he might not be obliged to make a second draught of it. When, however, he set the horn down and looked in it he could scarcely perceive that any of the liquor was gone. "You have drunk well," said Utgard-Loki; "but you need not boast. Had it been told me that Asu-Thor could only drink so little, I should not have credited it. No doubt you will do better at the second pull." Without a word, Thor again set the horn to his lips and exerted himself to the utmost. When he looked in it seemed to him that he had not drunk quite so much as before, but the horn could now be carried without danger of spilling the liquor. Then Utgard-Loki said-- "Well, Thor, you should not spare yourself more than befits you in such drinking. If now you mean to drink off the horn the third time it seems to me you must drink more than you have done. You will never be reckoned so great a man amongst us as the Æsir make you out to be if you cannot do better in other games than it appears to me you will do in this." Thor, angry, put the horn to his mouth and drank the best he could and as long as he was able, but when he looked into the horn the liquor was only a little lower. Then he gave the horn to the cup-bearer, and would drink no more. Then said Utgard-Loki-- "It is plain that you are not so mighty as we imagined. Will you try another game? It seems to me there is little chance of your taking a prize hence." "I will try more contests yet," answered Thor. "Such draughts as I have drunk would not have seemed small to the Æsir. But what new game have you?" Utgard-Loki answered-- "The lads here do a thing which is not much. They lift my cat up from the ground. I should not have thought of proposing such a feat to Asu-Thor, had I not first seen that he is less by far than we took him to be." As he spoke there sprang upon the hall floor a very large grey cat. Thor went up to it and put his hand under its middle and tried to lift it from the floor. The cat bent its back as Thor raised his hands, and when Thor had exerted himself to the utmost the cat had only one foot off the floor. Then Thor would make no further trial. "I thought this game would go so," said Utgard-Loki. "The cat is large and Thor is little when compared with our men." "Little as you call me," answered Thor, "let any one come here and wrestle with me, for now I am angry." Utgard-Loki looked along the benches, and said-- "I see no man here who would not think it absurd to wrestle with you, but let some one call here the old woman, my nurse, Elli, and let Thor wrestle with her, if he will. She has cast to the ground many a man who seemed to me to be as strong as Thor." Then came into the hall a toothless old woman, and Utgard-Loki told her to wrestle with Asu-Thor. The story is not a long one. The harder Thor tightened his hold, the firmer the old woman stood. Then she began to exert herself, Thor tottered, and at last, after a violent tussle, he fell on one knee. On this Utgard-Loki told them to stop, adding that Thor could not desire any one else to wrestle with him in the hall, and the night had closed in. He showed Thor and his companions to seats, and they passed the night, faring well. At daybreak the next morning, Thor and his companions rose, dressed themselves, and prepared to leave at once. Then Utgard-Loki came to them and ordered a table to be set for them having on it plenty of meat and drink. Afterwards he led them out of the city, and on parting asked Thor how he thought his journey had prospered, and whether he had met with any stronger than himself. Thor said he must own he had been much shamed. "And," said he, "I know you will call me a man of little might, and I can badly bear that." "Shall I tell you the truth?" said Utgard-Loki. "We are now out of the city, and while I live and have my own way, you will never again enter it. By my word you had never come in had I known before you had been so strong and would bring us so near to great misfortune. I have deluded thee with vain shows; first in the forest, where I met you, and where you were unable to untie the wallet because I had bound it with iron-thread so that you could not discover where the knot could be loosened. After that you gave me three blows with your hammer. The first blow, though the lightest, would have killed me had it fallen on me, but I put a rock in my place which you did not see. In that rocky mountain you will find three dales, one of which is very deep, those are the dints made by your hammer. In the other games, I have deceived you with illusions. The first one was the match with Loki. He was hungry and eat fast, but Logi was Flame, and he consumed not only the flesh but the trough with it. When Thjalfi contended with Hugi in running, Hugi was my thought, and it was not possible for Thjalfi to excel that in swiftness. When you drank of the horn and the liquor seemed to get lower so slowly, you did, indeed, so well that had I not seen it, I should never have believed it. You did not see that one end of the horn was in the sea, but when you come to the shore you will see how much the sea has shrunk in consequence of your draughts, which have caused what is called the ebb. Nor did you do a less wondrous thing when you lifted up the cat, and I can assure you all were afraid when you raised one of its paws off the ground. The cat was the great Midgard serpent which lies stretched round the whole earth, and when you raised it so high then did its length barely suffice to enclose the earth between its head and tail. Your wrestling match with Elli was, too, a great feat, for no one has there been yet, and no one shall there be whom old age does not come and trip up, if he but await her coming. Now we must part, and let me say that it will be better for both of us if you never more come to seek me, for I shall always defend my city with tricks, so that you will never overcome me." When Thor heard that he grasped his mace in a rage, and raised it to hurl it at Utgard-Loki, but he had disappeared. Then Thor wanted to return to the city, but he could see nothing but a wide fair plain. So he turned, and went on his way till he came to Thrudvang, resolving if he had an opportunity to attack the Midgard serpent. HOW THOR WENT A-FISHING. Thor had not been long at home before he left it so hastily that he did not take his car, his goats, or any follower with him. He left Midgard disguised as a young man, and when night was coming on, arrived at the house of a giant, called Hymir. Thor stayed there as a guest for the night, and when he saw in the morning that the giant rose, dressed himself, and prepared to go out to sea-fishing in his boat, he begged him to let him go also. Hymir said he was too little and young to be of much use. "And besides," added he, "you will die of cold, if I go so far out and sit so long as I am accustomed." Thor said he would row as far out as ever Hymir wanted, and he thought he might not be the first to want to row back. While he said this he was in such a rage that he had much to do to keep himself from throwing the hammer at once at the giant's head, but he calmed himself thinking that he might soon try his strength elsewhere. He asked Hymir what bait he should use, but Hymir told him to look out for himself. Then Thor went up to a herd of oxen belonging to Hymir, and capturing the largest bull, called Himinbrjot, he wrung off its head, and went with it to the sea-shore. Hymir launched the skiff, and Thor, sitting down in the after-part, rowed with two oars so that Hymir, who rowed in the fore-part, wondered to see how fast the boat went on. At length he said they had arrived at the place where he was accustomed to fish for flat fish, but Thor told him they had better go on further. So they rowed till Hymir cried out that if they proceeded further they might be in danger from the Midgard serpent. In spite of this, Thor said he would row further, and so he rowed on, disregarding Hymir's words. When he laid down his oars, he took out a very strong fishing line to which was a no less strong hook. On this he fixed the bull's head and cast it over into the sea. The bait soon reached the ground, and then truly Thor deceived the Midgard serpent no less than Utgard-Loki deceived Thor when he gave him the serpent to lift in his hand. The Midgard serpent gaped wide at the bait, and the hook stuck fast in his mouth. When the worm felt this he tugged at the hook so that Thor's hands were dashed against the side of the boat. Then Thor got angry, and, collecting to himself all his divine strength, he pulled so hard that his feet went through the bottom of the boat and down to the sea's bottom. Then he drew the serpent up on board. No one can be said to have seen an ugly sight who did not see that. Thor threw wrathful looks on the serpent, and the monster staring at him from below cast out venom at him. The giant Hymir, it is said, turned pale when he saw the serpent, quaked, and, seeing that the sea ran in and out of the skiff, just as Thor raised aloft his mace, took out his knife and cut the line so that the serpent at once sank under the water. Thor cast his mace at the serpent, and some say it cut off its head at the bottom, but it is more true that the Midgard serpent is yet alive lying at the bottom of the ocean. With his fist Thor struck Hymir such a blow over the ear that the giant tumbled headlong into the water, and Thor then waded to land. THE DEATH OF BALDUR. Baldur the Good had dreams which forewarned him that his life was in danger, and he told the gods of them. The gods took counsel together what should be done, and it was agreed that they should conjure away all danger that might threaten him. Frigga took an oath of fire, water, iron, and all other metals, stones, earth, trees, sicknesses, beasts, birds, poisons, and worms, that these would none of them hurt Baldur. When this had been done the gods used to divert themselves, Baldur standing up in the assembly, and all the others throwing at him, hewing at him, and smiting him with stones, for, do all they would, he received no hurt, and in this sport all enjoyed themselves. Loki, however, looked on with envy when he saw that Baldur was not hurt. So he assumed the form of a woman, and set out to Fensalir to Frigga. Frigga asked if the stranger knew what the gods did when they met. He answered that they all shot at Baldur and he was not hurt. "No weapon, nor tree may hurt Baldur," answers Frigga, "I have taken an oath of them all not to do so." "What," said the pretended woman, "have all things then sworn to spare Baldur?" "There is only one little twig which grows to the east of Valhalla, which is called the mistletoe. Of that I took no oath, for it seemed to me too young and feeble to do any hurt." Then the strange woman departed, and Loki having found the mistletoe, cut it off, and went to the assembly. There he found Hodur standing apart by himself, for he was blind. Then said Loki to him-- "Why do you not throw at Baldur?" "Because," said he, "I am blind and cannot see him, and besides I have nothing to throw." "Do as the others," said Loki, "and honour Baldur as the rest do. I will direct your aim. Throw this shaft at him." Hodur took the mistletoe and, Loki directing him, aimed at Baldur. The aim was good. The shaft pierced him through, and Baldur fell dead upon the earth. Surely never was there a greater misfortune either among gods or men. When the gods saw that Baldur was dead then they were silent, aghast, and stood motionless. They looked on one another, and were all agreed as to what he deserved who had done the deed, but out of respect to the place none dared avenge Baldur's death. They broke the silence at length with wailing, words failing them with which to express their sorrow. Odin, as was right, was more sorrowful than any of the others, for he best knew what a loss the gods had sustained. At last when the gods had recovered themselves, Frigga asked-- "Who is there among the gods who will win my love and good-will? That shall he have if he will ride to Hel, and seek Baldur, and offer Hela a reward if she will let Baldur come home to Asgard." Hermod the nimble, Odin's lad, said he would make the journey. So he mounted Odin's horse, Sleipner, and went his way. The gods took Baldur's body down to the sea-shore, where stood Hringhorn, Baldur's vessel, the biggest in the world. When the gods tried to launch it into the water, in order to make on it a funeral fire for Baldur, the ship would not stir. Then they despatched one to Jotunheim for the sorceress called Hyrrokin, who came riding on a wolf with twisted serpents by way of reins. Odin called for four Berserkir to hold the horse, but they could not secure it till they had thrown it to the ground. Then Hyrrokin went to the stem of the ship, and set it afloat with a single touch, the vessel going so fast that fire sprang from the rollers, and the earth trembled. Then Thor was so angry that he took his hammer and wanted to cast it at the woman's head, but the gods pleaded for her and appeased him. The body of Baldur being placed on the ship, Nanna, the daughter of Nep, Baldur's wife, seeing it, died of a broken heart, so she was borne to the pile and thrown into the fire. Thor stood up and consecrated the pile with Mjolnir. A little dwarf, called Litur, ran before his feet, and Thor gave him a push, and threw him into the fire, and he was burnt. Many kinds of people came to this ceremony. With Odin came Frigga and the Valkyrjor with his ravens. Frey drove in a car drawn by the boar, Gullinbursti or Slidrugtanni. Heimdall rode the horse Gulltopp, and Freyja drove her cats. There were also many of the forest-giants and mountain-giants there. On the pile Odin laid the gold ring called Draupnir, giving it the property that every ninth night it produces eight rings of equal weight. In the same pile was also consumed Baldur's horse. For nine nights and days Hermod rode through deep valleys, so dark that he could see nothing. Then he came to the river Gjöll which he crossed by the bridge which is covered with shining gold. The maid who keeps the bridge is called Modgudur. She asked Hermod his name and family, and told him that on the former day there had ridden over the bridge five bands of dead men. "They did not make my bridge ring as you do, and you have not the hue of the dead. Why ride you thus on the way to Hel?" He said-- "I ride to Hel to find Baldur. Have you seen him on his way to that place?" "Baldur," answered she, "has passed over the bridge, but the way to Hel is below to the north." Hermod rode on till he came to the entrance of Hel, which was guarded by a grate. He dismounted, looked to the girths of his saddle, mounted, and clapping his spurs into the horse, cleared the grate easily. Then he rode on to the hall and, dismounting, entered it. There he saw his brother, Baldur, seated in the first place, and there Hermod stopped the night. In the morning he saw Hela, and begged her to let Baldur ride home with him, telling her how much the gods had sorrowed over his death. Hela told him she would test whether it were true that Baldur was so much loved. "If," said she, "all things weep for him, then he shall return to the gods, but if any speak against him or refuse to weep, then he shall remain in Hel." Then Hermod rose to go, and Baldur, leading him out of the hall, gave him the ring, Draupnir, which he wished Odin to have as a keepsake. Nanna also sent Frigga a present, and a ring to Fulla. Hermod rode back, and coming to Asgard related all he had seen and heard. Then the gods sent messengers over all the world seeking to get Baldur brought back again by weeping. All wept, men and living things, earth, stones, trees, and metals, all weeping as they do when they are subjected to heat after frost. Then the messengers came back again, thinking they had done their errand well. On their way they came to a cave wherein sat a hag named Thaukt. The messengers prayed her to assist in weeping Baldur out of Hel. "I will weep dry tears," answered she, "over Baldur's pyre. What gain I by the son of man, be he live or dead? Let Hela hold what she has." It was thought that this must have been Loki, Laufey's son, he who has ever wrought such harm to the gods. THE PUNISHMENT OF LOKI. The gods were so angry with Loki that he had to run away and hide himself in the mountains, and there he built a house which had four doors, so that he could see around him on every side. He would often in the day-time change himself into a salmon and hide in the water called Franangursfors, and he thought over what trick the gods might devise to capture him there. One day while he sat in his house, he took flax and yarn, and with it made meshes like those of a net, a fire burning in front of him. Then he became aware that the gods were near at hand, for Odin had seen out of Hlidskjalf where he was. Loki sprang up, threw his work into the fire, and went to the river. When the gods came to the house, the first that entered was Kvasir, who was the most acute of them all. In the hot embers he saw the ashes of a net, such as is used in fishing, and he told the gods of it, and they made a net like that which they saw in the ashes. When it was ready they went to the river and cast the net in, Thor holding one end and the rest of the gods the other, and so they drew it. Loki travelled in front of it and lay down between two stones so that the net went over him, but the gods felt that something living had been against the net. Then they cast the net a second time, binding up in it a weight so that nothing could pass under it. Loki travelled before it till he saw the sea in front of him. Then he leapt over the top of the net and again made his way up the stream. The gods saw this, so they once more dragged the stream, while Thor waded in the middle of it. So they went to the sea. Then Loki saw in what a dangerous situation he was. He must risk his life if he swam out to sea. The only other alternative was to leap over the net. That he did, jumping as quickly as he could over the top cord. Thor snatched at him, and tried to hold him, but he slipped through his hand, and would have escaped, but for his tail, and this is the reason why salmon have their tails so thin. Loki being captured, they took him to a certain cavern, and they took three rocks, through each of which they bored a hole. Then they took Loki's sons Vali and Nari, and having changed Vali into a wolf, he tore his brother Nari into pieces. Then the gods took his intestines and bound Loki with them to the three stones, and they changed the cord into bands of iron. Skadi then took a serpent and suspended it over Loki's head so that the venom drops from it on to his face. Siguna, Loki's wife, stands near him, and holds a dish receiving the venom as it falls, and when the dish is full she goes out and pours its contents away. While she is doing this, however, the venom falls on Loki, and causes him such intense pain that he writhes so that the earth is shaken as if by an earthquake. There he lies till Ragnarök (the twilight of the gods). ORIGIN OF TIIS LAKE. A troll had once taken up his abode near the village of Kund, in the high bank on which the church now stands, but when the people about there had become pious, and went constantly to church, the troll was dreadfully annoyed by their almost incessant ringing of bells in the steeple of the church. He was at last obliged, in consequence of it, to take his departure, for nothing has more contributed to the emigration of the troll-folk out of the country, than the increasing piety of the people, and their taking to bell-ringing. The troll of Kund accordingly quitted the country, and went over to Funen, where he lived for some time in peace and quiet. Now it chanced that a man who had lately settled in the town of Kund, coming to Funen on business, met this same troll on the road. "Where do you live?" asked the troll. Now there was nothing whatever about the troll unlike a man, so he answered him, as was the truth-- "I am from the town of Kund." "So?" said the troll, "I don't know you then. And yet I think I know every man in Kund. Will you, however," said he, "be so kind as to take a letter for me back with you to Kund?" The man, of course, said he had no objection. The troll put a letter into his pocket and charged him strictly not to take it out until he came to Kund church. Then he was to throw it over the churchyard wall, and the person for whom it was intended would get it. The troll then went away in great haste, and with him the letter went entirely out of the man's mind. But when he was come back to Zealand he sat down by the meadow where Tiis lake now is, and suddenly recollected the troll's letter. He felt a great desire to look at it at least, so he took it out of his pocket and sat a while with it in his hands, when suddenly there began to dribble a little water out of the seal. The letter now unfolded itself and the water came out faster and faster, and it was with the utmost difficulty the poor man was able to save his life, for the malicious troll had enclosed a whole lake in the letter. The troll, it is plain, had thought to avenge himself on Kund church by destroying it in this manner, but God ordered it so that the lake chanced to run out in the great meadow where it now stands. THERE ARE SUCH WOMEN. There was once upon a time a man and his wife, and they wanted to sow their fields, but they had neither seed nor money to buy it with. However, they had one cow, and so they decided that the man should drive it to the town and sell it, so that they might buy seed with the money. When the time came, however, the woman was afraid to let her husband take the cow, fearing he would spend the money in drink. So she set off herself with the cow, and took a hen with her also. When she was near the town she met a butcher, who said-- "Do you want to sell the cow, mother?" "Yes," answered she, "I do." "How much do you want for it?" "I want a mark for the cow, and you shall have the hen for sixty marks." "Well," said he, "I have no need of the hen. You can get rid of that when you come to the town, but I will give you a mark for the cow." She sold him the cow and got the mark for it, but when she came to the town she could find no one who would give her sixty marks for a tough lean hen. So she went back to the butcher and said-- "I cannot get this hen off, master, so you had better take it also with the cow." "We will see about it," said the butcher. So he gave her something to eat, and gave her so much brandy that she became tipsy and lost her senses, and fell asleep. When he saw that, the butcher dipped her in a barrel of tar, and then laid her on a heap of feathers. When she awoke she found herself feathered all over, and wondered at herself. "Is it me or some one else?" said she. "No, it cannot be me. It must be a strange bird. How shall I find out whether it is me or not? Oh, I know. When I get home, if the calves lick me, and the dog does not bark at me, then it is me myself." The dog had no sooner seen her than he began to bark, as if there were thieves and robbers in the yard. "Now," said she, "I see it is not me." She went to the cow-house but the calves would not lick her, for they smelt the strong tar. "No," said she, "I see it cannot be me. It must be some strange bird." So she crept up to the top of the barn, and began to flap her arms as if they had been wings, and tried to fly. Her husband saw her, so he came out with his gun and took aim. "Don't shoot, don't shoot," called his wife. "It is me." "Is it you?" said the man. "Then don't stand there like a goat. Come down and tell me what account you can give of yourself." She crept down again; but she had not a shilling, for she had lost the mark the butcher had given her while she was drunk. When the man heard that he was very angry, and declared he would leave her, and never come back again until he had found three women as big fools as his wife. So he set off, and when he had gone a little way he saw a woman who ran in and out of a newly built wood hut with an empty sieve. Every time she ran in she threw her apron over the sieve, as if she had something in it. "Why do you do that, mother?" asked he. "Why, I am only carrying in a little sun," said she, "but I don't understand how it is, when I am outside I get the sunshine in the sieve, but when I get in I have somehow lost it. When I was in my old hut I had plenty of sunshine, though I never carried it in. I wish I knew some one who would give me sunshine. I would give him three hundred dollars." "Have you an axe?" asked the man. "If so I will get you sunshine." She gave him an axe and he cut some windows in the hut, for the carpenter had forgotten them. Then the sun shone in, and the woman gave him three hundred dollars. "That's one," said the man, and he set out once more. Some time after he came to a house in which he heard a terrible noise and bellowing. He went in and saw a woman who was beating her husband across the head with a stick with all her might. Over the man's head there was a shirt in which there was no hole for his head to go through. "Mother," said he, "will you kill your husband?" "No," said she, "I only want a hole for his head in the shirt." The man called out and, struggling, cried-- "Heaven preserve and comfort all such as have new shirts! If any one would only teach my wife some new way to make a head-hole in them I would gladly give him three hundred dollars." "That shall soon be done. Give me a pair of scissors," said the other. The woman gave him the scissors, and he cut a hole in the shirt for the man's head to go through, and took the three hundred dollars. "That is number two," said he to himself. After some time he came to a farm-house, where he thought he would rest a while. When he went in the woman said-- "Where do you come from, father?" "I am from Ringerige (Paradise)," said he. "Ah! dear, dear! Are you from Himmerige (Heaven)?" said she. "Then you will know my second husband, Peter; happy may he be!" The woman had had three husbands. The first and third had been bad and had used her ill, but the second had used her well, so she counted him as safe. "Yes," said the man, "I know him well." "How does he get on there?" asked the woman. "Only pretty well," said the man. "He goes about begging from one house to another, and has but little food, or clothes on his back. As to money he has nothing." "Heaven have mercy on him!" cried the woman. "He ought not to go about in such a miserable state when he left so much behind. There is a cupboard full of clothes which belonged to him, and there is a big box full of money, too. If you will take the things with you, you can have a horse and cart to carry them. He can keep the horse, and he can sit in the cart as he goes from house to house, for so he ought to go." The man from Ringerige got a whole cart-load of clothes and a box full of bright silver money, with meat and drink, as much as he wanted. When he had got all he wished, he got into the cart, and once more set out. "That is the third," said he to himself. Now the woman's third husband was ploughing in a field, and when he saw a man he did not know come out of his yard with his horse and cart, he went home and asked his wife, who it was that was going off with the black horse. "Oh," said the woman, "that is a man from Himmerige (Heaven). He told me that things went so miserably with my second Peter, my poor husband, that he had to go begging from house to house and had no money or clothes. I have therefore sent him the old clothes he left behind, and the old money box with the money in it." The man saw how matters were, so he saddled a horse and went out of the yard at full speed. It was not long before he came up to the man who sat and drove the cart. When the other saw him he drove the horse and cart into a wood, pulled a handful of hair out of the horse's tail, and ran up a little hill, where he tied the hair fast to a birch-tree. Then he lay down under the tree and began to look and stare at the sky. "Well, well," said he, as if talking to himself, when Peter the third came near. "Well! never before have I seen anything to match it." Peter stood still for a time and looked at him, and wondered what was come to him. At last he said-- "Why do you lie there and stare so?" "I never saw anything like it," said the other. "A man has gone up to heaven on a black horse. Here in the birch-tree is some of the horse's tail hanging, and there in the sky you may see the black horse." Peter stared first at the man and then at the sky, and said-- "For my part, I see nothing but some hair out of a horse's tail in the birch-tree." "Yes," said the other, "you cannot see it where you stand, but come here and lie down, and look up, and take care not to take your eyes off the sky." Peter the third lay down and stared up at the sky till the tears ran from his eyes. The man from Ringerige took his horse, mounted it, and galloped away with it and the horse and cart. When he heard the noise on the road, Peter the third sprang up, but when he found the man had gone off with his horse he was so astonished that he did not think of going after him till it was too late. He was very down-faced when he went home to his wife, and when she asked him what he had done with the horse, he said-- "I gave it to Peter the second, for I didn't think it was right he should sit in a cart and jolt about from house to house in Himmerige. Now then he can sell the cart, and buy himself a coach, and drive about." "Heaven bless you for that," said the woman. "I never thought you were so kind-hearted a man." When the Ringerige man reached home with his six hundred dollars, his cart-load of clothes, and the money, he saw that all his fields were ploughed and sown. The first question he put to his wife was how she had got the seed. "Well," said she, "I always heard that what a man sowed he reaped, so I sowed the salt the North-people left here, and if we only have rain I don't doubt but that it will come up nicely." "You are silly," said the man, "and silly you must remain, but that does not much matter, for the others are as silly as yourself." TALES OF THE NISSES. The Nis is the same being that is called Kobold in Germany, and Brownie in Scotland. He is in Denmark and Norway also called Nisse god Dreng (Nissè good lad), and in Sweden, Tomtegubbe (the old man of the house). He is of the dwarf family, and resembles them in appearance, and, like them, has the command of money, and the same dislike to noise and tumult. His usual dress is grey, with a pointed red cap, but on Michaelmas-day he wears a round hat like those of the peasants. No farm-house goes on well without there is a Nis in it, and well is it for the maids and the men when they are in favour with him. They may go to their beds and give themselves no trouble about their work, and yet in the morning the maids will find the kitchen swept up, and water brought in; and the men will find the horses in the stable well cleaned and curried, and perhaps a supply of corn cribbed for them from the neighbours' barns. There was a Nis in a house in Jutland. He every evening got his groute at the regular time, and he, in return, used to help both the men and the maids, and looked to the interest of the master of the house in every respect. There came one time a mischievous boy to live at service in this house, and his great delight was, whenever he got an opportunity, to give the Nis all the annoyance in his power. Late one evening, when everything was quiet in the house, the Nis took his little wooden dish, and was just going to eat his supper, when he perceived that the boy had put the butter at the bottom and had concealed it, in hopes that he might eat the groute first, and then find the butter when all the groute was gone. He accordingly set about thinking how he might repay the boy in kind. After pondering a little he went up into the loft where a man and the boy were lying asleep in the same bed. The Nis whisked off the bed clothes, and when he saw the little boy by the tall man, he said-- "Short and long don't match," and with this word he took the boy by the legs and dragged him down to the man's feet. He then went up to the head of the bed, and-- "Short and long don't match," said he again, and then he dragged the boy up to the man's head. Do what he would he could not succeed in making the boy as long as the man, but persisted in dragging him up and down in the bed, and continued at this work the whole night long till it was broad daylight. By this time he was well tired, so he crept up on the window stool, and sat with his legs dangling down into the yard. The house-dog--for all dogs have a great enmity to the Nis--as soon as he saw him began to bark at him, which afforded him much amusement, as the dog could not get up to him. So he put down first one leg and then the other, and teased the dog, saying-- "Look at my little leg. Look at my little leg!" In the meantime the boy had awoke, and had stolen up behind him, and, while the Nis was least thinking of it, and was going on with his, "Look at my little leg," the boy tumbled him down into the yard to the dog, crying out at the same time-- "Look at the whole of him now!" * * * * * There lived a man in Thyrsting, in Jutland, who had a Nis in his barn. This Nis used to attend to his cattle, and at night he would steal fodder for them from the neighbours, so that this farmer had the best fed and most thriving cattle in the country. One time the boy went along with the Nis to Fugleriis to steal corn. The Nis took as much as he thought he could well carry, but the boy was more covetous, and said-- "Oh! take more. Sure, we can rest now and then!" "Rest!" said the Nis. "Rest! and what is rest?" "Do what I tell you," replied the boy. "Take more, and we shall find rest when we get out of this." The Nis took more, and they went away with it, but when they came to the lands of Thyrsting, the Nis grew tired, and then the boy said to him-- "Here now is rest!" and they both sat down on the side of a little hill. "If I had known," said the Nis, as they sat. "If I had known that rest was so good, I'd have carried off all that was in the barn." It happened, some time after, that the boy and the Nis were no longer friends, and as the Nis was sitting one day in the granary-window with his legs hanging out into the yard, the boy ran at him and tumbled him back into the granary. The Nis was revenged on him that very night, for when the boy was gone to bed he stole down to where he was lying and carried him as he was into the yard. Then he laid two pieces of wood across the well and put him lying on them, expecting that when he awoke he would fall, from the fright, into the well and be drowned. He was, however, disappointed, for the boy came off without injury. * * * * * There was a man who lived in the town of Tirup who had a very handsome white mare. This mare had for many years belonged to the same family, and there was a Nis attached to her who brought luck to the place. This Nis was so fond of the mare that he could hardly endure to let them put her to any kind of work, and he used to come himself every night and feed her of the best; and as for this purpose he usually brought a superfluity of corn, both thrashed and in the straw, from the neighbours' barns, all the rest of the cattle enjoyed the advantage, and they were all kept in exceedingly good condition. It happened at last that the farm-house passed into the hands of a new owner, who refused to put any faith in what they told him about the mare, so the luck speedily left the place, and went after the mare to a poor neighbour who had bought her. Within five days after his purchase, the poor farmer began to find his circumstances gradually improving, while the income of the other, day after day, fell away and diminished at such a rate that he was hard set to make both ends meet. If now the man who had got the mare had only known how to be quiet and enjoy the good times that were come upon him, he and his children and his children's children after him would have been in flourishing circumstances till this very day. But when he saw the quantity of corn that came every night to his barn, he could not resist his desire to get a sight of the Nis. So he concealed himself one evening at nightfall in the stable, and as soon as it was midnight he saw how the Nis came from his neighbour's barn and brought a sack full of corn with him. It was now unavoidable that the Nis should get a sight of the man who was watching, so he, with evident marks of grief, gave the mare her food for the last time, cleaned and dressed her to the best of his ability, and when he had done, turned round to where the man was lying, and bid him farewell. From that day forward the circumstances of both the neighbours were on an equality, for each now kept his own. THE DWARFS' BANQUET. There lived in Norway, not far from the city of Drontheim, a powerful man who was blessed with all the goods of fortune. A part of the surrounding country was his property, numerous herds fed on his pastures, and a great retinue and a crowd of servants adorned his mansion. He had an only daughter, called Aslog, the fame of whose beauty spread far and wide. The greatest men of the country sought her, but all were alike unsuccessful in their suit, and he who had come full of confidence and joy, rode away home silent and melancholy. Her father, who thought his daughter delayed her choice only to select, forbore to interfere, and exulted in her prudence, but when at length the richest and noblest tried their fortune with as little success as the rest, he grew angry and called his daughter, and said to her-- "Hitherto I have left you to your free choice, but since I see that you reject all without any distinction, and the very best of your suitors seems not good enough for you, I will keep measures no longer with you. What! shall my family become extinct, and my inheritance pass away into the hands of strangers? I will break your stubborn spirit. I give you now till the festival of the great winter-night. Make your choice by that time, or prepare to accept him whom I shall fix on." Aslog loved a youth named Orm, handsome as he was brave and noble. She loved him with her whole soul, and she would sooner die than bestow her hand on another. But Orm was poor, and poverty compelled him to serve in the mansion of her father. Aslog's partiality for him was kept a secret, for her father's pride of power and wealth was such that he would never have given his consent to a union with so humble a man. When Aslog saw the darkness of his countenance, and heard his angry words, she turned pale as death, for she knew his temper, and doubted not that he would put his threats into execution. Without uttering a word in reply, she retired to her chamber, and thought deeply but in vain how to avert the dark storm that hung over her. The great festival approached nearer and nearer, and her anguish increased every day. At last the lovers resolved on flight. "I know," said Orm, "a secure place where we may remain undiscovered until we find an opportunity of quitting the country." At night, when all were asleep, Orm led the trembling Aslog over the snow and ice-fields away to the mountains. The moon and the stars, sparkling still brighter in the cold winter's night, lighted them on their way. They had under their arms a few articles of dress and some skins of animals, which were all they could carry. They ascended the mountains the whole night long till they reached a lonely spot enclosed with lofty rocks. Here Orm conducted the weary Aslog into a cave, the low and narrow entrance to which was hardly perceptible, but it soon enlarged to a great hall, reaching deep into the mountain. He kindled a fire, and they now, reposing on their skins, sat in the deepest solitude far away from all the world. Orm was the first who had discovered this cave, which is shown to this very day, and as no one knew anything of it, they were safe from the pursuit of Aslog's father. They passed the whole winter in this retirement. Orm used to go a-hunting, and Aslog stayed at home in the cave, minded the fire, and prepared the necessary food. Frequently did she mount the points of the rocks, but her eyes wandered as far as they could reach only over glittering snow-fields. The spring now came on: the woods were green, the meadows pat on their various colours, and Aslog could but rarely, and with circumspection, venture to leave the cave. One evening Orm came in with the intelligence that he had recognised her father's servants in the distance, and that he could hardly have been unobserved by them whose eyes were as good as his own. "They will surround this place," continued he, "and never rest till they have found us. We must quit our retreat then without a minute's delay." They accordingly descended on the other side of the mountain, and reached the strand, where they fortunately found a boat. Orm shoved off, and the boat drove into the open sea. They had escaped their pursuers, but they were now exposed to dangers of another kind. Whither should they turn themselves? They could not venture to land, for Aslog's father was lord of the whole coast, and they would infallibly fall into his hands. Nothing then remained for them but to commit their bark to the wind and waves. They drove along the entire night. At break of day the coast had disappeared, and they saw nothing but the sky above, the sea beneath, and the waves that rose and fell. They had not brought one morsel of food with them, and thirst and hunger began now to torment them. Three days did they toss about in this state of misery, and Aslog, faint and exhausted, saw nothing but certain death before her. At length, on the evening of the third day, they discovered an island of tolerable magnitude, and surrounded by a number of smaller ones. Orm immediately steered for it, but just as he came near to it there suddenly arose a violent wind, and the sea rolled higher and higher against him. He turned about with a view of approaching it on another side, but with no better success. His vessel, as often as he approached the island, was driven back as if by an invisible power. "Lord God!" cried he, and blessed himself and looked on poor Aslog, who seemed to be dying of weakness before his eyes. Scarcely had the exclamation passed his lips when the storm ceased, the waves subsided, and the vessel came to the shore without encountering any hindrance. Orm jumped out on the beach. Some mussels that he found upon the strand strengthened and revived the exhausted Aslog so that she was soon able to leave the boat. The island was overgrown with low dwarf shrubs, and seemed to be uninhabited; but when they had got about the middle of it, they discovered a house reaching but a little above the ground, and appearing to be half under the surface of the earth. In the hope of meeting human beings and assistance, the wanderers approached it. They listened if they could hear any noise, but the most perfect silence reigned there. Orm at length opened the door, and with his companion walked in; but what was their surprise to find everything regulated and arranged as if for inhabitants, yet not a single living creature visible. The fire was burning on the hearth in the middle of the room, and a kettle with fish hung on it, apparently only waiting for some one to take it off and eat. The beds were made and ready to receive their weary tenants. Orm and Aslog stood for some time dubious, and looked on with a certain degree of awe, but at last, overcome with hunger, they took up the food and ate. When they had satisfied their appetites, and still in the last beams of the setting sun, which now streamed over the island far and wide, discovered no human being, they gave way to weariness, and laid themselves in the beds to which they had been so long strangers. They had expected to be awakened in the night by the owners of the house on their return home, but their expectation was not fulfilled. They slept undisturbed till the morning sun shone in upon them. No one appeared on any of the following days, and it seemed as if some invisible power had made ready the house for their reception. They spent the whole summer in perfect happiness. They were, to be sure, solitary, yet they did not miss mankind. The wild birds' eggs and the fish they caught yielded them provisions in abundance. When autumn came, Aslog presented Orm with a son. In the midst of their joy at his appearance they were surprised by a wonderful apparition. The door opened on a sudden, and an old woman stepped in. She had on her a handsome blue dress. There was something proud, but at the same time strange and surprising in her appearance. "Do not be afraid," said she, "at my unexpected appearance. I am the owner of this house, and I thank you for the clean and neat state in which you have kept it, and for the good order in which I find everything with you. I would willingly have come sooner, but I had no power to do so, till this little heathen (pointing to the new-born babe) was come to the light. Now I have free access. Only, fetch no priest from the mainland to christen it, or I must depart again. If you will in this matter comply with my wishes, you may not only continue to live here, but all the good that ever you can wish for I will cause you. Whatever you take in hand shall prosper. Good luck shall follow you wherever you go; but break this condition, and depend upon it that misfortune after misfortune will come on you, and even on this child will I avenge myself. If you want anything, or are in danger, you have only to pronounce my name three times, and I will appear and lend you assistance. I am of the race of the old giants, and my name is Guru. But beware of uttering in my presence the name of him whom no giant may hear of, and never venture to make the sign of the cross, or to cut it on beam or on board of the house. You may dwell in this house the whole year long, only be so good as to give it up to me on Yule evening, when the sun is at the lowest, as then we celebrate our great festival, and then only are we permitted to be merry. At least, if you should not be willing to go out of the house, keep yourselves up in the loft as quiet as possible the whole day long, and, as you value your lives, do not look down into the room until midnight is past. After that you may take possession of everything again." When the old woman had thus spoken she vanished, and Aslog and Orm, now at ease respecting their situation, lived, without any disturbance, content and happy. Orm never made a cast of his net without getting a plentiful draught. He never shot an arrow from his bow that missed its aim. In short, whatever they took in hand, were it ever so trifling, evidently prospered. When Christmas came, they cleaned up the house in the best manner, set everything in order, kindled a fire on the hearth, and, as the twilight approached, they went up to the loft, where they remained quiet and still. At length it grew dark. They thought they heard a sound of flying and labouring in the air, such as the swans make in the winter-time. There was a hole in the roof over the fire-place which might be opened or shut either to let in the light from above or to afford a free passage for the smoke. Orm lifted up the lid, which was covered with a skin, and put out his head, but what a wonderful sight then presented itself to his eyes! The little islands around were all lit up with countless blue lights, which moved about without ceasing, jumped up and down, then skipped down to the shore, assembled together, and now came nearer and nearer to the large island where Orm and Aslog lived. At last they reached it and arranged themselves in a circle around a large stone not far from the shore, and which Orm well knew. What was his surprise when he saw that the stone had now completely assumed the form of a man, though of a monstrous and gigantic one! He could clearly perceive that the little blue lights were borne by dwarfs, whose pale clay-coloured faces, with their huge noses and red eyes, disfigured, too, by birds' bills and owls' eyes, were supported by misshapen bodies. They tottered and wobbled about here and there, so that they seemed to be, at the same time, merry and in pain. Suddenly the circle opened, the little ones retired on each side, and Guru, who was now much enlarged and of as immense a size as the stone, advanced with gigantic steps. She threw both her arms about the stone image, which immediately began to receive life and motion. As soon as the first sign of motion showed itself the little ones began, with wonderful capers and grimaces, a song, or, to speak more properly, a howl, with which the whole island resounded and seemed to tremble. Orm, quite terrified, drew in his head, and he and Aslog remained in the dark, so still that they hardly ventured to draw their breath. The procession moved on towards the house, as might be clearly perceived by the nearer approach of the shouting and crying. They were now all come in, and, light and active, the dwarfs jumped about on the benches, and heavy and loud sounded, at intervals, the steps of the giants. Orm and his wife heard them covering the table, and the clattering of the plates, and the shouts of joy with which they celebrated their banquet. When it was over, and it drew near to midnight, they began to dance to that ravishing fairy air which charms the mind into such sweet confusion, and which some have heard in the rocky glens, and learned by listening to the underground musicians. As soon as Aslog caught the sound of the air she felt an irresistible longing to see the dance, nor was Orm able to keep her back. "Let me look," said she, "or my heart will burst." She took her child and placed herself at the extreme end of the loft whence, without being observed, she could see all that passed. Long did she gaze, without taking off her eyes for an instant, on the dance, on the bold and wonderful springs of the little creatures who seemed to float in the air and not so much as to touch the ground, while the ravishing melody of the elves filled her whole soul. The child, meanwhile, which lay in her arms, grew sleepy and drew its breath heavily, and without ever thinking of the promise she had given to the old woman, she made, as is usual, the sign of the cross over the mouth of the child, and said-- "Christ bless you, my babe!" The instant she had spoken the word there was raised a horrible, piercing cry. The spirits tumbled head over heels out at the door, with terrible crushing and crowding, their lights went out, and in a few minutes the whole house was clear of them and left desolate. Orm and Aslog, frightened to death, hid themselves in the most retired nook in the house. They did not venture to stir till daybreak, and not till the sun shone through the hole in the roof down on the fire-place did they feel courage enough to descend from the loft. The table remained still covered as the underground people had left it. All their vessels, which were of silver, and manufactured in the most beautiful manner, were upon it. In the middle of the room there stood upon the ground a huge copper kettle half-full of sweet mead, and, by the side of it, a drinking-horn of pure gold. In the corner lay against the wall a stringed instrument not unlike a dulcimer, which, as people believe, the giantesses used to play on. They gazed on what was before them full of admiration, but without venturing to lay their hands on anything; but great and fearful was their amazement when, on turning about, they saw sitting at the table an immense figure, which Orm instantly recognised as the giant whom Guru had animated by her embrace. He was now a cold and hard stone. While they were standing gazing on it, Guru herself entered the room in her giant form. She wept so bitterly that the tears trickled down on the ground. It was long ere her sobbing permitted her to utter a single word. At length she spoke-- "Great affliction have you brought on me, and henceforth must I weep while I live. I know you have not done this with evil intentions, and therefore I forgive you, though it were a trifle for me to crush the whole house like an egg-shell over your heads." "Alas!" cried she, "my husband, whom I love more than myself, there he sits petrified for ever. Never again will he open his eyes! Three hundred years lived I with my father on the island of Kunnan, happy in the innocence of youth, as the fairest among the giant maidens. Mighty heroes sued for my hand. The sea around that island is still filled with the rocky fragments which they hurled against each other in their combats. Andfind won the victory, and I plighted myself to him; but ere I was married came the detestable Odin into the country, who overcame my father, and drove us all from the island. My father and sisters fled to the mountains, and since that time my eyes have beheld them no more. Andfind and I saved ourselves on this island, where we for a long time lived in peace and quiet, and thought it would never be interrupted. Destiny, which no one escapes, had determined it otherwise. Oluf came from Britain. They called him the Holy, and Andfind instantly found that his voyage would be inauspicious to the giants. When he heard how Oluf's ship rushed through the waves, he went down to the strand and blew the sea against him with all his strength. The waves swelled up like mountains, but Oluf was still more mighty than he. His ship flew unchecked through the billows like an arrow from a bow. He steered direct for our island. When the ship was so near that Andfind thought he could reach it with his hands, he grasped at the fore-part with his right hand, and was about to drag it down to the bottom, as he had often done with other ships. Then Oluf, the terrible Oluf, stepped forward, and, crossing his hands over each other, he cried with a loud voice--" "'Stand there as a stone till the last day!' and in the same instant my unhappy husband became a mass of rock. The ship went on unimpeded, and ran direct against the mountain, which it cut through, separating from it the little island which lies yonder." "Ever since my happiness has been annihilated, and lonely and melancholy have I passed my life. On Yule eve alone can petrified giants receive back their life, for the space of seven hours, if one of their race embraces them, and is, at the same time, willing to sacrifice a hundred years of his own life. Seldom does a giant do that. I loved my husband too well not to bring him back cheerfully to life, every time that I could do it, even at the highest price, and never would I reckon how often I had done it that I might not know when the time came when I myself should share his fate, and, at the moment I threw my arms around him, become the same as he. Alas! now even this comfort is taken from me. I can never more by any embrace awake him, since he has heard the name which I dare not utter, and never again will he see the light till the dawn of the last day shall bring it." "Now I go hence! You will never again behold me! All that is here in the house I give you! My dulcimer alone will I keep. Let no one venture to fix his habitation on the little islands which lie around here. There dwell the little underground ones whom you saw at the festival, and I will protect them as long as I live." With these words Guru vanished. The next spring Orm took the golden horn and the silver ware to Drontheim where no one knew him. The value of the things was so great that he was able to purchase everything a wealthy man desires. He loaded his ship with his purchases, and returned to the island, where he spent many years in unalloyed happiness, and Aslog's father was soon reconciled to his wealthy son-in-law. The stone image remained sitting in the house. No human power was able to move it. So hard was the stone that hammer and axe flew in pieces without making the slightest impression upon it. The giant sat there till a holy man came to the island, who, with one single word, removed him back to his former station, where he stands to this hour. The copper kettle, which the underground people left behind them, was preserved as a memorial upon the island, which bears the name of House Island to the present day. THE ICELANDIC SORCERESSES. "Tell me," said Katla, a handsome and lively widow, to Gunlaugar, an accomplished and gallant young warrior, "tell me why thou goest so oft to Mahfahlida? Is it to caress an old woman?" "Thine own age, Katla," answered the youth inconsiderately, "might prevent thy making that of Geirrida a subject of reproach." "I little deemed," replied the offended matron, "that we were on an equality in that particular--but thou, who supposest that Geirrida is the sole source of knowledge, mayst find that there are others who equal her in science." It happened in the course of the following winter that Gunlaugar, in company with Oddo, the son of Katla, had renewed one of those visits to Geirrida with which Katla had upbraided him. "Thou shalt not depart to-night," said the sage matron; "evil spirits are abroad, and thy bad destiny predominates." "We are two in company," answered Gunlaugar, "and have therefore nothing to fear." "Oddo," replied Geirrida, "will be of no aid to thee; but go, since thou wilt go, and pay the penalty of thy own rashness." In their way they visited the rival matron, and Gunlaugar was invited to remain in her house that night. This he declined, and, passing forward alone, was next morning found lying before the gate of his father Thorbiorn, severely wounded and deprived of his judgment. Various causes were assigned for this disaster; but Oddo, asserting that they had parted in anger that evening from Geirrida, insisted that his companion must have sustained the injury through her sorcery. Geirrida was accordingly cited to the popular assembly and accused of witchcraft. But twelve witnesses, or compurgators, having asserted upon their oath the innocence of the accused party, Geirrida was honourably freed from the accusation brought against her. Her acquittal did not terminate the rivalry between the two sorceresses, for, Geirrida belonging to the family of Kiliakan, and Katla to that of the pontiff Snorro, the animosity which still subsisted between these septs became awakened by the quarrel. It chanced that Thorbiorn, called Digri (or the corpulent), one of the family of Snorro, had some horses which fed in the mountain pastures, near to those of Thorarin, called the Black, the son of the enchantress Geirrida. But when autumn arrived, and the horses were to be withdrawn from the mountains and housed for the winter, those of Thorbiorn could nowhere be found, and Oddo, the son of Katla, being sent to consult a wizard, brought back a dubious answer, which seemed to indicate that they had been stolen by Thorarin. Thorbiorn, with Oddo and a party of armed followers, immediately set forth for Mahfahlida, the dwelling of Geirrida and her son Thorarin. Arrived before the gate, they demanded permission to search for the horses which were missing. This Thorarin refused, alleging that neither was the search demanded duly authorised by law, nor were the proper witnesses cited to be present, nor did Thorbiorn offer any sufficient pledge of security when claiming the exercise of so hazardous a privilege. Thorbiorn replied, that as Thorarin declined to permit a search, he must be held as admitting his guilt; and constituting for that purpose a temporary court of justice, by choosing out six judges, he formally accused Thorarin of theft before the gate of his own house. At this the patience of Geirrida forsook her. "Well," said she to her son Thorarin, "is it said of thee that thou art more a woman than a man, or thou wouldst not bear these intolerable affronts." Thorarin, fired at the reproach, rushed forth with his servants and guests; a skirmish soon disturbed the legal process which had been instituted, and one or two of both parties were wounded and slain before the wife of Thorarin and the female attendants could separate the fray by flinging their mantles over the weapons of the combatants. Thorbiorn and his party retreating, Thorarin proceeded to examine the field of battle. Alas! among the reliques of the fight was a bloody hand too slight and fair to belong to any of the combatants. It was that of his wife Ada, who had met this misfortune in her attempts to separate the foes. Incensed to the uttermost, Thorarin threw aside his constitutional moderation, and, mounting on horseback, with his allies and followers, pursued the hostile party, and overtook them in a hay-field, where they had halted to repose their horses, and to exult over the damage they had done to Thorarin. At this moment he assailed them with such fury that he slew Thorbiorn upon the spot, and killed several of his attendants, although Oddo, the son of Katla, escaped free from wounds, having been dressed by his mother in an invulnerable garment. After this action, more blood being shed than usual in an Icelandic engagement, Thorarin returned to Mahfahlida, and, being questioned by his mother concerning the events of the skirmish, he answered in the improvisatory and enigmatical poetry of his age and country-- "From me the foul reproach be far, With which a female waked the war, From me, who shunned not in the fray Through foemen fierce to hew my way (Since meet it is the eagle's brood On the fresh corpse should find their food); Then spared I not, in fighting field, With stalwart hand my sword to wield; And well may claim at Odin's shrine The praise that waits this deed of mine." To which effusion Geirrida answered-- "Do these verses imply the death of Thorbiorn?" And Thorarin, alluding to the legal process which Thorbiorn had instituted against him, resumed his song-- "Sharp bit the sword beneath the hood Of him whose zeal the cause pursued, And ruddy flowed the stream of death, Ere the grim brand resumed the sheath; Now on the buckler of the slain The raven sits, his draught to drain, For gore-drenched is his visage bold, That hither came his courts to hold." As the consequence of this slaughter was likely to be a prosecution at the instance of the pontiff Snorro, Thorarin had now recourse to his allies and kindred, of whom the most powerful were Arnkill, his maternal uncle, and Verimond, who readily premised their aid both in the field and in the Comitia, or popular meeting, in spring, before which it was to be presumed Snorro would indict Thorarin for the slaughter of his kinsman. Arnkill could not, however, forbear asking his nephew how he had so far lost his usual command of temper. He replied in verse-- "Till then, the master of my mood, Men called me gentle, mild, and good; But yon fierce dame's sharp tongue might wake In wintry den the frozen snake." While Thorarin spent the winter with his uncle Arnkill, he received information from his mother Geirrida that Oddo, son of her old rival Katla, was the person who had cut off the hand of his wife Ada, and that he gloried in the fact. Thorarin and Arnkill determined on instant vengeance, and, travelling rapidly, surprised the house of Katla. The undismayed sorceress, on hearing them approach, commanded her son to sit close beside her, and when the assailants entered they only beheld Katla, spinning coarse yarn from what seemed a large distaff, with her female domestics seated around her. "My son," she said, "is absent on a journey;" and Thorarin and Arnkill, having searched the house in vain, were obliged to depart with this answer. They had not, however, gone far before the well-known skill of Katla, in optical delusion occurred to them, and they resolved on a second and stricter search. Upon their return they found Katla in the outer apartment, who seemed to be shearing the hair of a tame kid, but was in reality cutting the locks of her son Oddo. Entering the inner room, they found the large distaff flung carelessly upon a bench. They returned yet a third time, and a third delusion was prepared for them; for Katla had given her son the appearance of a hog, which seemed to grovel upon the heap of ashes. Arnkill now seized and split the distaff, which he had at first suspected, upon which Kalta tauntingly observed, that if their visits had been frequent that evening, they could not be said to be altogether ineffectual, since they had destroyed a distaff. They were accordingly returning completely baffled, when Geirrida met them, and upbraided them with carelessness in searching for their enemy. "Return yet again," she said, "and I will accompany you." Katla's maidens, still upon the watch, announced to her the return of the hostile party, their number augmented by one who wore a blue mantle. "Alas!" cried Katla, "it is the sorceress Geirrida, against whom spells will be of no avail." Immediately rising from the raised and boarded seat which she occupied, she concealed Oddo beneath it, and covered it with cushions as before, on which she stretched herself complaining of indisposition. Upon the entrance of the hostile party, Geirrida, without speaking a word, flung aside her mantle, took out a piece of sealskin, in which she wrapped up Katla's head, and commanded that she should be held by some of the attendants, while the others broke open the boarded space, beneath which Oddo lay concealed, seized upon him, bound him, and led him away captive with his mother. Next morning Oddo was hanged, and Katla stoned to death; but not until she had confessed that, through her sorcery, she had occasioned the disaster of Gunlaugar, which first led the way to these feuds. THE THREE DOGS. Once upon a time there was a king who travelled to a strange country, where he married a queen. When they had been married some time the queen had a daughter, which gave rise to much joy through the whole land, for all people liked the king, he was so kind and just. As the child was born there came an old woman into the room. She was of a strange appearance, and nobody could guess where she came from, or to what place she was going. This old woman declared that the royal child must not be taken out under the sky until it was fifteen years old. If she was she would be in danger of being carried away by the giants of the mountains. The king, when he was told what the woman had said, heeded her words, and set a guard to see that the princess did not come out into the open air. In a short time the queen bore another daughter, and there was again much joy in the land. The old woman once more made her appearance, and she said that the king must not let the young princess go out under the sky before she was fifteen. The queen had a third daughter, and the third time the old woman came, warning the king respecting this child as she had done regarding the two former. The king was much distressed, for he loved his children more than anything else in the world. So he gave strict orders that the three princesses should be always kept indoors, and he commanded that every one should respect his edict. A considerable time passed by, and the princesses grew up to be the most beautiful girls that could be seen far or near. Then a war began, and the king had to leave his home. One day, while he was away at the seat of war, the three princesses sat at a window looking at how the sun shone on the flowers in the garden. They felt that they would like very much to go and play among the flowers, and they begged the guards to let them out for a little while to walk in the garden. The guards refused, for they were afraid of the king, but the girls begged of them so prettily and so earnestly that they could not long refuse them, so they let them do as they wished. The princesses were delighted, and ran out into the garden, but their pleasure was short-lived. Scarcely had they got into the open air when a cloud came down and carried them off, and no one could find them again, though they searched the wide world over. The whole of the people mourned, and the king, as you may imagine, was very much grieved when, on his return home, he learned what had happened. However, there is an old saying, "What's done cannot be undone," so the king had to let matters remain as they were. As no one could advise him how to recover his daughters, the king caused proclamation to be made throughout the land that whoever should bring them back to him from the power of the mountain-giants should have one of them for his wife, and half the kingdom as a wedding present. As soon as this proclamation was made in the neighbouring countries many young warriors went out, with servants and horses, to look for the three princesses. There were at the king's court at that time two foreign princes and they started off too, to see how fortunate they might be. They put on fine armour, and took costly weapons, and they boasted of what they would do, and how they would never come back until they had accomplished their purpose. We will leave these two princes to wander here and there in their search, and look at what was passing in another place. Deep down in the heart of a wild wood there dwelt at that time an old woman who had an only son, who used daily to attend to his mother's three hogs. As the lad roamed through the forest, he one day cut a little pipe to play on. He found much pleasure in the music, and he played so well that the notes charmed all who heard him. The boy was well built, of an honest heart, and feared nothing. One day it chanced that, as he was sitting in the wood playing on his pipe, while his three hogs grubbed among the roots of the pine-trees, a very old man came along. He had a beard so long that it reached to his waist, and a large dog accompanied him. When the lad saw the dog he said to himself-- "I wish I had a dog like that as a companion here in the wood. Then there would be no danger." The old man knew what the boy thought, and he said-- "I have come to ask you to let me give you my dog for one of your hogs." The lad was ready to close the bargain, and gave a gray hog in exchange for the big dog. As he was going the old man said-- "I think you will be satisfied with your bargain. The dog is not like other dogs. His name is Hold-fast, and if you tell him to hold, hold he will whatever it may be, were it even the fiercest giant." Then he departed, and the lad thought that for once, at all events, fortune had been kind to him. When evening had come, the lad called his dog, and drove the hogs to his home in the forest. When the old woman learnt how her son had given away the gray hog for a dog, she flew into a great rage, and gave him a good beating. The lad begged her to be quiet, but it was of no use, for she only seemed to get the more angry. When the boy saw that it was no good pleading, he called to the dog-- "Hold fast." The dog at once rushed forward, and, seizing the old woman, held her so firmly that she could not move; but he did her no harm. The old woman now had to promise that she would agree to what her son had done; but she could not help thinking that she had suffered a great misfortune in losing her fat gray hog. The next day the boy went once more to the forest with his dog and the two hogs. When he arrived there he sat down and played upon his pipe as usual, and the dog danced to the music in such a wonderful manner that it was quite amazing. While he thus sat, the old man with the gray beard came up to him out of the forest. He was accompanied by a dog as large as the former one. When the boy saw the fine animal, he said to himself-- "I wish I had that dog as a companion in this wood. Then there would be no danger." The old man knew what he thought, and said-- "I have come to ask you to let me give you my dog for one of your hogs." The boy did not hesitate long, but agreed to the bargain. He got the big dog, and the man took the hog in exchange. As he went, the old man said-- "I think you will be satisfied with your bargain. The dog is not like other dogs. He is called Tear, and if you tell him to tear, tear he will in pieces whatever it be, even the fiercest mountain giant." Then he departed, and the boy was glad at heart, thinking he had made a good bargain, though he well knew his old mother would not be much pleased at it. Towards evening he went home, and his mother was not a bit less angry than she had been on the previous day. She dared not beat her son, however, for his big dogs made her afraid. It usually happens that when women have scolded enough they at last give in. So it was now. The boy and his mother became friends once more; but the old woman thought she had sustained such a loss as could never again be made good. The boy went to the forest again with the hog and the two dogs. He was very happy, and, sitting down on the trunk of a tree he played, as usual, on his pipe; and the dogs danced in such fine fashion that it was a treat to look at them. While the boy thus sat amusing himself, the old man with the gray beard again appeared out of the forest. He had with him a third dog as large as either of the others. When the boy saw it, he said to himself-- "I wish I had that dog as a companion in this wood. Then there would be no danger." The old man said-- "I came because I wished you to see my dog, for I well know you would like to have him." The lad was ready enough, and the bargain was made. So he got the big dog, giving his last hog for it. The old man then departed, saying-- "I think you will be satisfied with your bargain. The dog is not like other dogs. He is called Quick-ear, and so quick does he hear, that he knows all that takes place, be it ever so many miles away. Why, he hears even the trees and the grass growing in the fields!" Then the old man went off, and the lad felt very happy, for he thought he had nothing now to be afraid of. As evening came on the boy went home, and his mother was sorely grieved when she found her son had parted with her all; but he told her to bid farewell to sorrow, saying that he would see she had no loss. The lad spoke so well that the old woman was quite pleased. At daybreak the lad went out a-hunting with his two dogs, and in the evening he came back with as much game as he could carry. He hunted till his mother's larder was well stocked, then he bade her farewell, telling her he was going to travel to see what fortune had in store for him, and called his dogs to him. He travelled on over hills, and along gloomy roads, till he got deep in a dark forest. There the old man with the gray beard met him. The lad was very glad to fall in with him again, and said to him-- "Good-day, father. I thank you for our last meeting." "Good-day," answered the old man. "Where are you going?" "I am going into the world," said the boy, "to see what fortune I shall have." "Go on," said the old man, "and you will come to a royal palace; there you will have a change of fortune." With that they parted; but the lad paid good heed to the old man's words, and kept on his way. When he came to a house, he played on his pipe while his dogs danced, and so he got food and shelter, and whatever he wanted. Having travelled for some days, he at last entered a large city, through the streets of which great crowds of people were passing. The lad wondered what was the cause of all this. At last he came to where proclamation was being made, that whoever should rescue the three princesses from the hands of the mountain giants should have one of them for his wife and half the kingdom with her. Then the lad remembered what the old man had told him, and understood what he meant. He called his dogs to him, and went on till he came to the palace. There, from the time that the princesses disappeared, the place had been filled with sorrow and mourning, and the king and the queen grieved more than all the others. The boy entered the palace, and begged to be allowed to play to the king and show him his dogs. The people of the palace were much pleased at this, for they thought it might do something to make the king forget his grief. So they let him go in and show what he could do. When the king heard how he played, and saw how wonderfully his dogs danced, he was so merry that no one had seen him so during the seven long years that had passed since he lost his daughters. When the dancing was finished, the king asked the boy what he should give him as a return for the amusement he had given them. "My lord king," said the boy, "I am not come here for silver, goods, or gold! I ask one thing of you, that you will give me leave to go and seek the three princesses who are now in the hands of the mountain giants." When the king heard this he knit his brow--"So you think," said he, "that you can restore my daughters. The task is a dangerous one, and men who were better than you have suffered in it. If, however, any one save the princesses I will never break my word." The lad thought these words kingly and honest. He bade farewell to the king and set out, determined that he would not rest till he had found what he wanted. He travelled through many great countries without any extraordinary adventure, and wherever he went his dogs went with him. Quick-ear ran and heard what there was to hear in the place; Hold-fast carried the bag; and on Tear, who was the strongest of the three, the lad rode when he was tired. One day Quick-ear came running fast to his master to tell him that he had been near a high mountain, and had heard one of the princesses spinning within it. The giant, Quick-ear said, was not at home. At this the boy felt very glad, and he made haste to the mountain with his dogs. When they were come to it, Quick-ear said-- "We have no time to lose. The giant is only ten miles away, and I can hear his horse's golden shoes beating on the stones." The lad at once ordered his dogs to break in the door of the mountain, which they did. He entered, and saw a beautiful maiden who sat spinning gold thread on a spindle of gold. He stepped forward and spoke to her. She was much astonished, and said--"Who are you, that dare to come into the giant's hall? For seven long years have I lived here, and never during that time have I looked on a human being. Run away, for Heaven's sake, before the giant comes, or you will lose your life." The boy told her his errand, and said he would await the troll's coming. While they were talking, the giant came, riding on his gold-shod horse, and stopped outside the mountain. When he saw that the door was open he was very angry, and called out, in such a voice that the whole mountain shook to its base, "Who has broken open my door?" The boy boldly answered-- "I did it, and now I will break you too. Hold-fast, hold him fast; Tear and Quick-ear, tear him into a thousand pieces!" Hardly had he spoken the words when the three dogs rushed forward, threw themselves on the giant, and tore him into numberless pieces. The princess was very glad, and said-- "Heaven be thanked! Now I am free." She threw herself on the lad's neck and kissed him. The lad would not stop in the place, so he saddled the giant's horses, put on them all the goods and gold he found, and set off with the beautiful young princess. They travelled together for a long time, the lad waiting on the maiden with that respect and attention that such a noble lady deserved. It chanced one day that Quick-ear, who had gone before to obtain news, came running fast to his master and informed him that he had been to a high mountain, and had heard another of the king's daughters sitting within it spinning gold thread. The giant, he said, was not at home. The lad was well pleased to hear this, and hastened to the mountain with his three dogs. When they arrived there, Quick-ear said-- "We have no time to waste. The giant is but eight miles off. I can hear the sound of his horse's gold shoes on the stones!" The lad ordered the dogs to break in the door, and when they had done so he entered and found a beautiful maiden sitting in the hall, winding gold thread. The lad stepped forward and spoke to her. She was much surprised, and said-- "Who are you, who dare to come into the giant's dwelling? Seven long years have I lived here, and never during that time have I looked on a human being. Run away, for Heaven's sake, before the giant comes, or you will lose your life." The lad told her why he had come, and said he would wait for the giant's return home. In the midst of their talk the giant came, riding on his gold-shod horse, and stopped outside the mountain. When he saw the door was open he was in a great rage, and called out with such a voice that the mountain shook to its base. "Who," said he, "has broken open my door?" The lad answered boldly-- "I did it, and now I will break you. Hold-fast, hold him fast; Tear and Quick-ear, tear him into a thousand pieces!" The dogs straightway sprang forward and threw themselves on the giant, and tore him into pieces as numberless as are the leaves which fall in the autumn. Then the princess was very glad, and said-- "Heaven be thanked! Now I am free!" She threw herself on the lad's neck and kissed him. He led her to her sister, and one can well imagine how glad they were to meet. The lad took all the treasures that the giant's dwelling contained, put them on the gold-shod horses, and set out with the two princesses. They again travelled a great distance, and the youth waited on the princesses with the respect and care they deserved. It chanced one day that Quick-ear, who went before to get news, came running fast to his master, and told him he had been near a high mountain, and had heard the third princess sitting within, spinning cloth of gold. The giant himself was not in. The youth was well pleased to hear this, and he hurried to the mountain accompanied by his dogs. When they came there, Quick-ear said-- "There is no time to be lost. The giant is not more than five miles off. I well know it. I hear the sound of his horse's gold shoes on the stones." The lad told his dogs to break in the door, and they did so. When he entered the mountain he saw there a maiden, sitting and weaving cloth of gold. She was so beautiful that the lad thought another such could not be found in the world. He advanced and spoke to her. The young princess was much astonished, and said-- "Who are you, who dare to come into the giant's hall? For seven long years have I lived here, and never during that time have I looked on a human being. For Heaven's sake," added she, "run away before the giant comes, or he will kill you!" The lad, however, was brave, and said that he would lay down his life for the beautiful princess. In the middle of their talk home came the giant, riding on his horse with the golden shoes, and stopped at the mountain. When he came in and saw what unwelcome visitors were there he was very much afraid, for he knew what had happened to his brethren. He thought it best to be careful and cunning, for he dared not act openly. He began therefore with fine words, and was very smooth and amiable. He told the princess to dress meat, so that he might entertain the guest, and behaved in such a friendly manner that the lad was perfectly deceived, and forgot to be on his guard. He sat down at the table with the giant. The princess wept in secret, and the dogs were very uneasy, but no one noticed it. When the giant and his guest had finished the meal, the youth said-- "I am no longer hungry. Give me something to drink." "There is," said the giant, "a spring up in the mountain which runs with sparkling wine, but I have no one to fetch of it." "If that is all," said the lad, "one of my dogs can go up there." The giant laughed in his false heart when he heard that, for what he wanted was that the lad should send away his dogs. The lad told Hold-fast to go for the wine, and the giant gave him a large jug. The dog went, but one might see that he did so very unwillingly. Time went on and on, but the dog did not come back. After some time the giant said-- "I wonder why the dog is so long away. It might, perhaps, be as well to let another dog go to help him. He has to go a long distance, and the jug is a heavy one to carry." The lad, suspecting no trickery, fell in with the giant's suggestion, and told Tear to go and see why Hold-fast did not come. The dog wagged his tail and did not want to leave his master, but he noticed it, and drove him off to the spring. The giant laughed to himself, and the princess wept, but the lad did not mark it, being very merry, jested with his entertainer, and did not dream of any danger. A long time passed, but neither the wine nor the dogs appeared. "I can well see," said the giant, "that your dogs do not do what you tell them, or we should not sit here thirsty. It seems to me it would be best to send Quick-ear to ascertain why they don't come back." The lad was nettled at that, and ordered his third dog to go in haste to the spring. Quick-ear did not want to go, but whined and crept to his master's feet. Then the lad became angry, and drove him away. The dog had to obey, so away he set in great haste to the top of the mountain. When he reached it, it happened to him as it had to the others. There arose a high wall around him, and he was made a prisoner by the giant's sorcery. When all the three dogs were gone, the giant stood up, put on a different look, and gripped his bright sword which hung upon the wall. "Now will I avenge my brethren," said he, "and you shall die this instant, for you are in my hands." The lad was frightened, and repented that he had parted with his dogs. "I will not ask my life," said he, "for I must die some day. I only ask one thing, that I may say my _Paternoster_ and play a psalm on my pipe. That is the custom in my country." The giant granted him his wish, but said he would not wait long. The lad knelt down, and devoutly said his _Paternoster_, and began to play upon his pipe so that it was heard over hill and dale. That instant the magic lost its power, and the dogs were once more set free. They came down like a blast of wind, and rushed into the mountain. Then the lad sprang up and cried-- "Hold-fast, hold him; Tear and Quick-ear, tear him into a thousand pieces." The dogs flew on the giant, and tore him into countless shreds. Then the lad took all the treasures in the mountain, harnessed the giant's horses to a golden chariot, and made haste to be gone. As may well be imagined, the young princesses were very glad at being thus saved, and they thanked the lad for having delivered them from the power of mountain giants. He himself fell deep in love with the youngest princess, and they vowed to be true and faithful. So they travelled, with mirth and jest and great gladness, and the lad waited on the princesses with the respect and care they deserved. As they went on, the princesses played with the lad's hair, and each one hung her finger-ring in his long locks as a keepsake. One day as they were journeying, they came up with two wanderers who were going the same way. They had on tattered clothes, their feet were sore, and altogether one would have thought they had come a long distance. The lad stopped his chariot and asked them who they were and where they came from. The strangers said they were two princes who had gone out to look for the three maidens who had been carried off to the mountains. They had, however, searched in vain, so they had now to go home more like beggars than princes. When the lad heard that, he had pity on the two wanderers, and he asked them to go with him in the beautiful chariot. The princes gave him many thanks for the favour. So they travelled on together till they came to the land over which the father of the princesses ruled. Now when the princes heard how the poor lad had rescued the princesses, they were filled with envy, thinking how they themselves had wandered to no purpose. They considered how they could get rid of him, and obtain the honour and rewards for themselves. So one day they suddenly set on him, seized him by the throat, and nearly strangled him. Then they threatened to kill the princesses unless they took an oath not to reveal what they had done, and they, being in the princes' power, did not dare to refuse. However, they were very sorry for the youth who had risked his life for them, and the youngest princess mourned him with all her heart, and would not be comforted. After having done this, the princes went on to the king's demesnes, and one can well imagine how glad the king was to once more see his three daughters. Meanwhile the poor lad lay in the forest as if he were dead. He was not, however, forsaken, for the three dogs lay down by him, kept him warm, and licked his wounds. They attended to him till he got his breath again, and came once more to life. When he had regained life and strength, he began his journey, and came, after having endured many hardships, to the king's demesnes, where the princesses lived. When he went into the palace, he marked that the whole place was filled with mirth and joy, and in the royal hall he heard dancing and the sound of harps. The lad was much astonished, and asked what it all meant. "You have surely come from a distance," said the servant, "not to know that the king has got back his daughters from the mountain giants. The two elder princesses are married to-day." The lad asked about the youngest princess, whether she was to be married. The servant said she would have no one, but wept continually, and no one could find out the reason for her sorrow. Then the lad was glad, for he well knew that his love was faithful and true to him. He went up into the guard-room, and sent a message to the king that a guest had come who prayed that he might add to the wedding mirth by exhibiting his dogs. The king was pleased, and ordered that the stranger should be well received. When the lad came into the hall, the wedding guests much admired his smartness and his manly form, and they all thought they had never before seen so brave a young man. When the three princesses saw him they knew him at once, rose from the table, and ran into his arms. Then the princes thought they had better not stay there, for the princesses told how the lad had saved them, and how all had befallen. As a proof of the truth of what they said, they showed their rings in the lad's hair. When the king knew how the two foreign princes had acted so treacherously and basely he was much enraged, and ordered that they should be driven off his demesnes with disgrace. The brave youth was welcomed with great honour, as, indeed, he deserved, and he was, the same day, married to the youngest princess. When the king died, the youth was chosen ruler over the land, and made a brave king. There he yet lives with his beautiful queen, and there he governs prosperously to this day. I know no more about him. THE LEGEND OF THORGUNNA. A ship from Iceland chanced to winter in a haven near Helgafels. Among the passengers was a woman named Thorgunna, a native of the Hebrides, who was reported by the sailors to possess garments and household furniture of a fashion far surpassing those used in Iceland. Thurida, sister of the pontiff Snorro, and wife of Thorodd, a woman of a vain and covetous disposition, attracted by these reports, made a visit to the stranger, but could not prevail upon her to display her treasures. Persisting, however, in her inquiries, she pressed Thorgunna to take up her abode at the house of Thorodd. The Hebridean reluctantly assented, but added, that as she could labour at every usual kind of domestic industry, she trusted in that manner to discharge the obligation she might lie under to the family, without giving any part of her property in recompense of her lodging. As Thurida continued to urge her request, Thorgunna accompanied her to Froda, the house of Thorodd, where the seamen deposited a huge chest and cabinet, containing the property of her new guest, which Thurida viewed with curious and covetous eyes. So soon as they had pointed out to Thorgunna the place assigned for her bed, she opened the chest, and took forth such an embroidered bed coverlid, and such a splendid and complete set of tapestry hangings, and bed furniture of English linen, interwoven with silk, as had never been seen in Iceland. "Sell to me," said the covetous matron, "this fair bed furniture." "Believe me," answered Thorgunna, "I will not lie upon straw in order to feed thy pomp and vanity;" an answer which so greatly displeased Thurida that she never again repeated her request. Thorgunna, to whose character subsequent events added something of a mystical solemnity, is described as being a woman of a tall and stately appearance, of a dark complexion, and having a profusion of black hair. She was advanced in age; assiduous in the labours of the field and of the loom; a faithful attendant upon divine worship; grave, silent, and solemn in domestic society. She had little intercourse with the household of Thorodd, and showed particular dislike to two of its inmates. These were Thorer, who, having lost a leg in the skirmish between Thorbiorn and Thorarin the Black, was called Thorer-Widlegr (wooden-leg), from the substitute he had adopted; and his wife, Thorgrima, called Galldra-Kinna (wicked sorceress), from her supposed skill in enchantments. Kiartan, the son of Thurida, a boy of excellent promise, was the only person of the household to whom Thorgunna showed much affection; and she was much vexed at times when the childish petulance of the boy made an indifferent return to her kindness. After this mysterious stranger had dwelt at Froda for some time, and while she was labouring in the hay-field with other members of the family, a sudden cloud from the northern mountain led Thorodd to anticipate a heavy shower. He instantly commanded the hay-workers to pile up in ricks the quantity which each had been engaged in turning to the wind. It was afterwards remembered that Thorgunna did not pile up her portion, but left it spread on the field. The cloud approached with great celerity, and sank so heavily around the farm, that it was scarce possible to see beyond the limits of the field. A heavy shower next descended, and so soon as the clouds broke away and the sun shone forth it was observed that it had rained blood. That which fell upon the ricks of the other labourers soon dried up, but what Thorgunna had wrought upon remained wet with gore. The unfortunate Hebridean, appalled at the omen, betook herself to her bed, and was seized with a mortal illness. On the approach of death she summoned Thorodd, her landlord, and intrusted to him the disposition of her property and effects. "Let my body," said she, "be transported to Skalholt, for my mind presages that in that place shall be founded the most distinguished church in this island. Let my golden ring be given to the priests who shall celebrate my obsequies, and do thou indemnify thyself for the funeral charges out of my remaining effects. To thy wife I bequeath my purple mantle, in order that, by this sacrifice to her avarice, I may secure the right of disposing of the rest of my effects at my own pleasure. But for my bed, with its coverings, hangings, and furniture, I entreat they may be all consigned to the flames. I do not desire this because I envy any one the possession of these things after my death, but because I wish those evils to be avoided which I plainly foresee will happen if my will be altered in the slightest particular." Thorodd promised faithfully to execute this extraordinary testament in the most exact manner. Accordingly, so soon as Thorgunna was dead, her faithful executor prepared a pile for burning her splendid bed. Thurida entered, and learned with anger and astonishment the purpose of these preparations. To the remonstrances of her husband she answered that the menaces of future danger were only caused by Thorgunna's selfish envy, who did not wish any one should enjoy her treasures after her decease. Then, finding Thorodd inaccessible to argument, she had recourse to caresses and blandishments, and at length extorted permission to separate from the rest of the bed-furniture the tapestried curtains and coverlid; the rest was consigned to the flames, in obedience to the will of the testator. The body of Thorgunna, being wrapped in new linen and placed in a coffin, was next to be transported through the precipices and morasses of Iceland to the distant district she had assigned for her place of sepulture. A remarkable incident occurred on the way. The transporters of the body arrived at evening, late, weary, and drenched with rain, in a house called Nether-Ness, where the niggard hospitality of the proprietor only afforded them house-room, without any supply of food or fuel. But, so soon as they entered, an unwonted noise was heard in the kitchen of the mansion, and the figure of a woman, soon recognised to be the deceased Thorgunna, was seen busily employed in preparing victuals. Their inhospitable landlord, being made acquainted with this frightful circumstance, readily agreed to supply every refreshment which was necessary, on which the vision instantly disappeared. The apparition having become public, they had no reason to ask twice for hospitality as they proceeded on their journey, and they came to Skalholt, where Thorgunna, with all due ceremonies of religion, was deposited quietly in the grave. But the consequences of the breach of her testament were felt severely at Froda. The dwelling at Froda was a simple and patriarchal structure, built according to the fashion used by the wealthy among the Icelanders. The apartments were very large, and a part boarded off contained the beds of the family. On either side was a sort of store-room, one of which contained meal, the other dried fish. Every evening large fires were lighted in this apartment for dressing the victuals; and the domestics of the family usually sat around them for a considerable time, until supper was prepared. On the night when the conductors of Thorgunna's funeral returned to Froda, there appeared, visible to all who were present, a meteor, or spectral appearance, resembling a half-moon, which glided around the boarded walls of the mansion in an opposite direction to the course of the sun, and continued to perform its revolutions until the domestics retired to rest. This apparition was renewed every night during a whole week, and was pronounced by Thorer with the wooden leg to presage pestilence or mortality. Shortly after a herdsman showed signs of mental alienation, and gave various indications of having sustained the persecution of evil demons. This man was found dead in his bed one morning, and then commenced a scene of ghost-seeing unheard of in the annals of superstition. The first victim was Thorer, who had presaged the calamity. Going out of doors one evening, he was grappled by the spectre of the deceased shepherd as he attempted to re-enter the house. His wooden leg stood him in poor stead in such an encounter; he was hurled to the earth, and so fearfully beaten, that he died in consequence of the bruises. Thorer was no sooner dead than his ghost associated itself to that of the herdsman, and joined him in pursuing and assaulting the inhabitants of Froda. Meantime an infectious disorder spread fast among them, and several of the bondsmen died one after the other. Strange portents were seen within-doors, the meal was displaced and mingled, and the dried fish flung about in a most alarming manner, without any visible agent. At length, while the servants were forming their evening circle round the fire, a spectre, resembling the head of a seal-fish, was seen to emerge out of the pavement of the room, bending its round black eyes full on the tapestried bed-curtains of Thorgunna. Some of the domestics ventured to strike at this figure, but, far from giving way, it rather erected itself further from the floor, until Kiartan, who seemed to have a natural predominance over these supernatural prodigies, seizing a huge forge-hammer, struck the seal repeatedly on the head, and compelled it to disappear, forcing it down into the floor, as if he had driven a stake into the earth. This prodigy was found to intimate a new calamity. Thorodd, the master of the family, had some time before set forth on a voyage to bring home a cargo of dried fish; but in crossing the river Enna the skiff was lost and he perished with the servants who attended him. A solemn funeral feast was held at Froda, in memory of the deceased, when, to the astonishment of the guests, the apparition of Thorodd and his followers seemed to enter the apartment dripping with water. Yet this vision excited less horror than might have been expected, for the Icelanders, though nominally Christians, retained, among other pagan superstitions, a belief that the spectres of such drowned persons as had been favourably received by the goddess Rana were wont to show themselves at their funeral feast. They saw, therefore, with some composure, Thorodd and his dripping attendants plant themselves by the fire, from which all mortal guests retreated to make room for them. It was supposed this apparition would not be renewed after the conclusion of the festival. But so far were their hopes disappointed, that, so soon as the mourning guests had departed, the fires being lighted, Thorodd and his comrades marched in on one side, drenched as before with water; on the other entered Thorer, heading all those who had died in the pestilence, and who appeared covered with dust. Both parties seized the seats by the fire, while the half-frozen and terrified domestics spent the night without either light or warmth. The same phenomenon took place the next night, though the fires had been lighted in a separate house, and at length Kiartan was obliged to compound matters with the spectres by kindling a large fire for them in the principal apartment, and one for the family and domestics in a separate hut. This prodigy continued during the whole feast of Jol. Other portents also happened to appal this devoted family: the contagious disease again broke forth, and when any one fell a sacrifice to it his spectre was sure to join the troop of persecutors, who had now almost full possession of the mansion of Froda. Thorgrima Galldrakinna, wife of Thorer, was one of these victims, and, in short, of thirty servants belonging to the household, eighteen died, and five fled for fear of the apparitions, so that only seven remained in the service of Kiartan. Kiartan had now recourse to the advice of his maternal uncle Snorro, in consequence of whose counsel, which will perhaps appear surprising to the reader, judicial measures were instituted against the spectres. A Christian priest was, however, associated with Thordo Kausa, son of Snorro, and with Kiartan, to superintend and sanctify the proceedings. The inhabitants were regularly summoned to attend upon the inquest, as in a cause between man and man, and the assembly was constituted before the gate of the mansion, just as the spectres had assumed their wonted station by the fire. Kiartan boldly ventured to approach them, and, snatching a brand from the fire, he commanded the tapestry belonging to Thorgunna to be carried out of doors, set fire to it, and reduced it to ashes with all the other ornaments of her bed, which had been so inconsiderately preserved at the request of Thurida. A tribunal being then constituted with the usual legal solemnities, a charge was preferred by Kiartan against Thorer with the wooden leg, by Thordo Kausa against Thorodd, and by others chosen as accusers against the individual spectres present, accusing them of molesting the mansion, and introducing death and disease among its inhabitants. All the solemn rites of judicial procedure were observed on this singular occasion; evidence was adduced, charges given, and the cause formally decided. It does not appear that the ghosts put themselves on their defence, so that sentence of ejectment was pronounced against them individually in due and legal form. When Thorer heard the judgment, he arose, and saying-- "I have sat while it was lawful for me to do so," left the apartment by the door opposite to that at which the judicial assembly was constituted. Each of the spectres, as it heard its individual sentence, left the place, saying something which indicated its unwillingness to depart, until Thorodd himself was solemnly called on to leave. "We have here no longer," said he, "a peaceful dwelling, therefore will we remove." Kiartan then entered the hall with his followers, and the priest, with holy water, and celebration of a solemn mass, completed the conquest over the goblins, which had been commenced by the power and authority of the Icelandic law. THE LITTLE GLASS SHOE. A peasant, named John Wilde, who lived in Rodenkirchen, found, one time, a little glass shoe on one of the hills, where the little people used to dance. He clapped it instantly in his pocket, and ran away with it, keeping his hand as close on his pocket as if he had a dove in it, for he knew he had found a treasure which the underground people must redeem at any price. Others say that John Wilde lay in ambush one night for the underground people, and snatched an opportunity to pull off one of their shoes by stretching himself there with a brandy bottle beside him, and acting like one that was dead drunk, for he was a very cunning man, not over scrupulous in his morals, and had taken in many a one by his craftiness, and, on this account, his name was in no good repute among his neighbours, who, to say the truth, were willing to have as little to do with him as possible. Many hold, too, that he was acquainted with forbidden acts, and used to carry on an intercourse with the fiends and old women that raised storms, and such like. However, be this as it may, when John had got the shoe he lost no time in letting the folk that dwell under the ground know that he had it. At midnight he went to the Nine-hills, and cried with all his might-- "John Wilde of Rodenkirchen has got a beautiful glass shoe. Who will buy it? who will buy it?" for he knew that the little one who had lost the shoe must go barefoot till he got it again; and that is no trifle, for the little people have generally to walk upon very hard and stony ground. John's advertisement was speedily attended to. The little fellow who had lost the shoe made no delay in setting about redeeming it. The first free day he got that he might come out in the daylight, he came as a respectable merchant, knocked at John Wilde's door, and asked if John had not got a glass shoe to sell: "For," says he, "they are an article now in great demand, and are sought for in every market." John replied that it was true that he had a very pretty little glass shoe; but it was so small that even a dwarf's foot would be squeezed in it, and that a person must be made on purpose to suit it before it could be of use. For all that, it was an extraordinary shoe, a valuable shoe, and a dear shoe, and it was not every merchant that could afford to pay for it. The merchant asked to see it, and when he had examined it-- "Glass shoes," said he, "are not by any means such rare articles, my good friend, as you think here in Rodenkirchen, because you do not happen to go much into the world. However," said he, after humming a little, "I will give you a good price for it, because I happen to have the very fellow of it." He bid the countryman a thousand dollars for it. "A thousand dollars are money, my father used to say when he drove fat oxen to market," replied John Wilde, in a mocking tone; "but it will not leave my hands for that shabby price, and, for my own part, it may ornament the foot of my daughter's doll! Hark ye, my friend, I have heard a sort of little song sung about the glass shoe, and it is not for a parcel of dirt it will go out of my hands. Tell me now, my good fellow, should you happen to know the knack of it, how in every furrow I make when I am ploughing I may find a ducat? If not, the shoe is still mine; and you may inquire for glass shoes at those other markets." The merchant made still a great many attempts, and twisted and turned in every direction to get the shoe; but when he found the farmer inflexible, he agreed to what John desired, and swore to the performance of it. Cunning John believed him, and gave him up the glass shoe, for he knew right well with whom he had to do. So, the business being ended, away went the merchant with his glass shoe. Without a moment's delay John repaired to his stable, got ready his horses and his plough, and went out to the field. He selected a piece of ground where he would have the shortest turns possible, and began to plough. Hardly had the plough turned up the first sod when up sprang a ducat out of the ground, and it was the same with every fresh furrow he made. There was now no end of his ploughing, and John Wilde soon bought eight new horses, and put them into the stable to the eight he already had, and their mangers were never without plenty of oats in them, that he might be able every two hours to yoke two fresh horses, and so be enabled to drive them the faster. John was now insatiable in ploughing. Every morning he was out before sunrise, and many a time he ploughed on till after midnight. Summer and winter it was plough, plough with him ever-more, except when the ground was frozen as hard as a stone. He always ploughed by himself, and never suffered any one to go out with him, or to come to him when he was at work, for John understood too well the nature of his crop to let people see for what it was he ploughed so constantly. However, it fared far worse with him than with his horses, who ate good oats, and were regularly changed and relieved, for he grew pale and meagre by reason of his continual working and toiling. His wife and children had no longer any comfort for him. He never went to the ale-house or to the club. He withdrew himself from every one, and scarcely ever spoke a single word, but went about silent and wrapped up in his own thoughts. All the day long he toiled for his ducats, and at night he had to count them, and to plan and meditate how he might find out a still swifter kind of plough. His wife and the neighbours lamented over his strange conduct, his dulness and melancholy, and began to think he was grown foolish. Everybody pitied his wife and children, for they imagined the numerous horses that he kept in his stable, and the preposterous mode of agriculture he pursued, with his unnecessary and superfluous ploughing, must soon leave him without house or land. Their anticipations, however, were not fulfilled. True it is, the poor man never enjoyed a happy or contented hour since he began to plough the ducats up out of the ground. The old saying held good in his case, that he who gives himself up to the pursuit of gold is half-way in the claws of the evil one. Flesh and blood cannot bear perpetual labour, and John Wilde did not long hold out against his running through the furrows day and night. He got through the first spring; but one day in the second he dropped down at the tail of the plough like an exhausted November fly. Out of the pure thirst for gold he was wasted away and dried up to nothing, whereas he had been a very strong and hearty man the day the shoe of the little underground man fell into his hands. His wife, however, found he had left a great treasure--two great nailed-up chests full of good new ducats; and his sons purchased large estates for themselves, and became lords and noblemen. But what good did all that to poor John Wilde? HOW LOKI WAGERED HIS HEAD. Loki, the son of Laufey, out of mischief cut off all the hair of Sif. When Thor discovered this he seized Loki, and would have broken every bone in his body, only he swore that he would get the black dwarfs to make hair of gold for Sif, which should grow like any other hair. Loki then went to the dwarfs that are called the sons of Ivallda. They first made the hair, which, as soon as it was put on the head, grew like natural hair. Then they made the ship Skidbladnir, which always had the wind with it wherever it would sail. Lastly, they made the spear Gugner, which always hit its mark in battle. Then Loki wagered his head against the dwarf Brock, that his brother, Eitri, could not forge three such valuable things as these. They went to the forge. Eitri set the bellows to the fire, and bid his brother, Brock, blow. While he was blowing there came a fly that settled on his hand and bit him, but he blew without stopping till the smith took the work out of the fire, and it was a boar, and its bristles were of gold. Eitri then put gold into the fire, and bid his brother not stop blowing till he came back. He went away, and the fly came and settled on Brock's neck, and bit him more severely than before, but he blew on till the smith came back, and took out of the fire the gold ring which is called Draupnir. Then he put iron into the fire, and bid Brock blow, and said that if he stopped blowing all the work would be lost. The fly settled between Brock's eyes, and bit so hard that the blood ran down so that he could not see. So, when the bellows were down, he caught at the fly in all haste, and tore off its wings. When the smith came he said that all that was in the fire was nearly spoiled. Then he took out of it the hammer, Mjolnir. He then gave all the things to his brother Brock, and bade him go with them to Asgard, and settle the wager. Loki produced his articles, and Odin, Thor, and Frey were the judges. Then Loki gave to Odin the spear Gugner, and to Thor the hair that Sif was to have, and to Frey Skidbladnir, and told them what virtues those things possessed. Brock took out his articles, and gave to Odin the ring, and told him that every ninth night there would drop from it eight other rings as valuable as itself. To Frey he gave the boar, and said that it would run through air and water, by night and by day, better than any horse, and that never was there night so dark that the way by which he went would not be light from his hide. The hammer he gave to Thor, and said that it would never fail to hit a troll, and that at whatever he threw it, it would never miss the mark, and that Thor could never throw it so far that it would not return to his hand. It would also, when Thor chose, become so small that he could put it in his pocket. The only fault of the hammer was that its handle was a little too short. Their judgment was that the hammer was the best of all the things before them, and that the dwarf had won his wager. Then Loki prayed hard not to lose his head, but the dwarf said that could not be. "Catch me, then!" said Loki, and when the dwarf sought to catch him he was far away, for Loki had shoes with which he could run through air and water. Then the dwarf prayed Thor to catch him, and he did so. The dwarf now proceeded to cut off his head, but Loki objected that he was to have the head only, and not the neck. As he would not be quiet, the dwarf took a knife and a thong, and began to sew his mouth up; but the knife was bad, so the dwarf wished that he had his brother's awl, and as soon as he wished it, it was there. So he sewed Loki's lips together. THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN DIETRICH. There once lived in Rambin an honest, industrious man, named James Dietrich. He had several children, all of a good disposition, especially the youngest, whose name was John. John Dietrich was a handsome, smart boy, diligent at school, and obedient at home. His great passion was for hearing stories, and whenever he met any one who was well stored he never let him go till he had heard them all. When John was about eight years old he was sent to spend a summer with his uncle, a farmer, in Rodenkirchen. Here John had to keep cows with other boys, and they used to drive them to graze about the Nine-hills. There was an old cowherd, one Klas Starkwolt who used frequently to join the boys, and then they would sit down together and tell stories. Klas abounded in these, and he became John Dietrich's dearest friend. In particular, he knew a number of stories of the Nine-hills, and the underground people in the old times, when the giants disappeared from the country and the little ones came into the hills. These tales John swallowed so eagerly that he thought of nothing else, and was for ever talking of golden cups, and crowns, and glass shoes, and pockets full of ducats, and gold rings, and diamond coronets, and snow-white brides, and such like. Old Klas used often to shake his head at him, and say-- "John! John! what are you about? The spade and scythe will be your sceptre and crown, and your bride will wear a garland of rosemary, and a gown of striped drill." Still John almost longed to get into the Nine-hills, for Klas told him that every one who by luck or cunning should get a cap of the little ones might go down with safety, and instead of their making a servant of him, he would be their master. The person whose cap he got would be his servant, and obey all his commands. St. John's day, when the days were longest and the nights shortest, was now come. Old and young kept the holiday, had all sorts of plays, and told all kinds of stories. John could now no longer contain himself, but the day after the festival he slipt away to the Nine-hills, and when it grew dark laid himself down on the top of the highest of them, where Klas had told him the underground people had their principal dancing-place. John lay quite still from ten till twelve at night. At last it struck twelve. Immediately there was a ringing and a singing in the hills, and then a whispering and a lisping, and a whiz and a buzz all about him, for the little people were now, some whirling round and round in the dance, and others sporting and tumbling about in the moonshine, and playing a thousand merry pranks and tricks. He felt a secret dread come over him at this whispering and buzzing, for he could see nothing of them, as the caps they wore made them invisible, but he lay quite still with his face in the grass, and his eyes fast shut, snoring a little, just as if he were asleep. Now and then he ventured to open his eyes a little and peep out, but not the slightest trace of them could he see, though it was bright moonlight. It was not long before three of the underground people came jumping up to where he was lying, but they took no heed of him, and flung their brown caps up into the air, and caught them from one another. At length one snatched the cap out of the hand of another and flung it away. It flew direct, and fell upon John's head. The moment he felt it he caught hold of it, and, standing up, bid farewell to sleep. He flung his cap about for joy and made the little silver bell of it jingle, then set it upon his head, and--oh wonderful! that instant he saw the countless and merry swarm of the little people. The three little men came slily up to him, and thought by their nimbleness to get back the cap, but he held his prize fast, and they saw clearly that nothing was to be done in this way with him, for in size and strength John was a giant in comparison with these little fellows, who hardly came up to his knee. The owner of the cap now came up very humbly to the finder, and begged, in as supplicating a tone as if his life depended upon it, that he would give him back his cap. "No," said John, "you sly little rogue, you will get the cap no more. That's not the sort of thing one gives away for buttered cake. I should be in a nice way with you if I had not something of yours, but now you have no power over me, but must do what I please. I will go down with you and see how you live down below, and you shall be my servant. Nay, no grumbling. You know you must. I know that just as well as you do, for Klas Starkwolt told it to me often and often!" The little man made as if he had not heard or understood one word of all this. He began his crying and whining over again, and wept and screamed and howled most piteously for his little cap. John, however, cut the matter short by saying-- "Have done. You are my servant, and I intend to make a trip with you." So he gave up, especially as the others told him there was no remedy. John now flung away his old hat, and put on the cap, and set it firm on his head lest it should slip off or fly away, for all his power lay in the cap. He lost no time in trying its virtues, and commanded his new servant to fetch him food and drink. The servant ran away like the wind, and in a second was there again with bottles of wine, and bread, and rich fruits. So John ate and drank, and looked at the sports and dancing of the little ones, and it pleased him right well, and he behaved himself stoutly and wisely, as if he had been a born master. When the cock had now crowed for the third time, and the little larks had made their first twirl in the sky, and the infant light appeared in solitary white streaks in the east, then it went hush, hush, hush, through the bushes and flowers and stalks, and the hills rent again, and opened up, and the little men went down. John gave close attention to everything, and found that it was exactly as he had been told, and, behold! on the top of the hill, where they had just been dancing, and where all was full of grass and flowers, as people see it by day, there rose of a sudden, when the retreat was sounded, a bright glass point. Whoever wanted to go in stepped upon this. It opened, and he glided gently in, the grass closing again after him; and when they had all entered it vanished, and there was no further trace of it to be seen. Those who descended through the glass point sank quite gently into a wide silver tun, which held them all, and could have easily harboured a thousand such little people. John and his man went down into such a one along with several others, all of whom screamed out, and prayed him not to tread on them, for if his weight came on them they were dead men. He was, however, careful, and acted in a very friendly way towards them. Several tuns of this kind went up and down after each other, until all were in. They hung by long silver chains, which were drawn and hung without. In his descent John was amazed at the brilliancy of the walls between which the tun glided down. They were all, as it were, beset with pearls and diamonds, glittering and sparkling brightly, and below him he heard the most beautiful music tinkling at a distance, so that he did not know what was become of him, and from excess of pleasure he fell fast asleep. He slept a long time, and when he awoke he found himself in the most beautiful bed that could be, such as he had never seen the like of in his father's house, and it was in the prettiest chamber in the world, and his servant was beside him with a fan to keep away the flies and gnats. He had hardly opened his eyes when his little servant brought him a basin and towel, and held him the nicest new clothes of brown silk to put on, most beautifully made. With these was a pair of new black shoes with red ribbons, such as John had never beheld in Rambin or in Rodinkirchen either. There were also there several pairs of beautiful shining glass shoes, such as are only used on great occasions. John was, as we may well suppose, delighted to have such clothes to wear, and he put them upon him joyfully. His servant then flew like lightning, and returned with a breakfast of wine and milk, and beautiful white bread and fruits, and such other things as boys are fond of. He now perceived every moment more and more, that Klas Starkwolt, the old cowherd, knew what he was talking about, for the splendour and magnificence he saw here surpassed anything he had ever dreamt of. His servant, too, was the most obedient one possible, a nod or a sign was enough for him, for he was as wise as a bee, as all these little people are by nature John's bedchamber was all covered with emeralds and other precious stones, and in the ceiling was a diamond as big as a nine-pin bowl, that gave light to the whole chamber. In this place they have neither sun nor moon nor stars to give them light, neither do they use lamps or candlesticks of any kind, but they live in the midst of precious stones, and have the purest of gold and silver in abundance, and the skill to make it light both by day and night, though indeed, properly speaking, as there is no sun there, there is no distinction between day and night, and they reckon only by weeks. They set the brightest and clearest precious stones in their dwellings, and in the ways and passages leading underground, and in the places where they had their large halls, and their dances and their feasts, where they sparkled so as to make it eternal day. When John had finished breakfast, his servant opened a little door in the wall, where was a closet with the most beautiful silver and gold cups and dishes and other vessels and baskets filled with ducats and boxes of jewels and precious stones. There were also charming pictures, and the most delightful books he had seen in the whole course of his life. John spent the morning looking at these things, and when it was midday a bell rang, and his servant said-- "Will you dine alone, sir, or with the large company?" "With the large company, to be sure," replied John. So his servant led him out. John, however, saw nothing but solitary halls lighted up with precious stones, and here and there little men and women, who appeared to him to glide in and out of the clefts and fissures of the rocks. Wondering what it was the bells rang for, he said to his servant-- "But where is the company?" Scarcely had he spoken when the hall they were in opened out to a great extent, and a canopy set with diamonds and precious stones was drawn over it. At the same moment he saw an immense throng of nicely dressed little men and women pouring in through several open doors. The floor opened in several places, and tables, covered with the most beautiful ware, and the most luscious meats and fruits and wines, placed themselves beside each other, and the chairs arranged themselves along the tables, and then the men and women took their seats. The principal persons now came forward and bowed to John, and led him to their table, where they placed him among their most beautiful maidens, a distinction which pleased John well. The party, too, was very merry, for the underground people are extremely lively and cheerful, and can never stay long quiet. Then the most charming music sounded over their heads, and beautiful birds, flying about, sang most sweetly, and these were not real birds but artificial ones which the little men make so ingeniously that they can fly about and sing like natural ones. The servants of both sexes who waited at table and handed about the golden cups, and the silver and crystal baskets with fruit, were children belonging to this world, whom some casualty or other had thrown among the underground people, and who, having come down without securing any pledge, were fallen into the power of the little ones. These were differently clad. The boys and girls were dressed in short white coats and jackets, and wore glass shoes so fine that their step could never be heard, with blue caps on their heads, and silver belts round their waists. John at first pitied them, seeing how they were forced to run about and wait on the little people, but as they looked cheerful and happy, and were handsomely dressed, and had such rosy cheeks, he said to himself--"After all, they are not so badly off, and I was myself much worse when I had to be running after the cows and bullocks. To be sure I am now a master here, and they are servants, but there is no help for it. Why were they so foolish as to let themselves be taken and not get some pledge beforehand? At any rate the time must come when they will be set at liberty, and they will certainly not be longer than fifty years here." With these thoughts he consoled himself, and sported and played away with his little play-fellows, and ate, and drank, and made his servant tell him stories, for he would know everything exactly. They sat at table about two hours. The principal person then rang a bell, and the tables and chairs all vanished in a whiff, leaving all the company on their feet. The birds now struck up a most lively air, and the little people danced their rounds most merrily. When they were done, the joyous sets jumped and leaped, and whirled themselves round and round, as if the world was grown dizzy. The pretty girls who sat next John caught hold of him and whirled him about, and, without making any resistance, he danced round and round with them for two good hours. Every afternoon while he remained there he used to dance thus merrily with them, and, to the last hour of his life, he used to speak of it with the greatest glee. His language was--that the joys of heaven and the songs and music of the angels, which the righteous hope to enjoy there, might be excessively beautiful, but that he could conceive nothing to surpass the music and the dancing under the earth, the beautiful and lively little men, the wonderful birds in the branches, and the tinkling silver bells in their caps. "No one," said he, "who has not seen and heard it, can form any idea whatever of it." When the music and dancing were over it might be about four o'clock. The little people then disappeared, and went each about his own business or pleasure. After supper they sported and danced in the same way, and at midnight, especially on star-light nights, they slipped out of their hills to dance in the open air. John used then to say his prayers, a duty he never neglected either in the evening or in the morning, and go to sleep. For the first week John was in the glass hill, he only went from his chamber to the great hall and back again. After the first week, however, he began to walk about, making his servant show and explain everything to him. He found that there were in that place the most beautiful walks in which he might ramble about for miles, in all directions, without ever finding an end to them, so immensely large was the hill in which the little people lived, and yet outwardly it seemed but a little place, with a few bushes and trees growing on it. It was extraordinary that, between the meads and fields, which were thick sown with hills and lakes and islands, and ornamented with trees and flowers in great variety, there ran, as it were, small lanes, through which, as through crystal rocks, one was obliged to pass to come to any new place; and the single meads and fields were often a mile long, and the flowers were so brilliant and so fragrant, and the songs of the numerous birds so sweet, that John had never seen anything on earth like it. There was a breeze, and yet one did not feel the wind. It was quite clear and bright, and yet there was no heat. The waves were dashing, still there was no danger, and the most beautiful little barks and canoes came, like white swans, when one wanted to cross the water, and went backwards and forwards of themselves. Whence all this came no one knew, nor could John's servant tell anything about it, but one thing John saw plainly, which was, that the large carbuncles and diamonds that were set in the roof and walls gave light instead of the sun, moon, and stars. These lovely meads and plains were, for the most part, all lonesome. Few of the underground people were to be seen upon them, and those that were just glided across them as if in the greatest hurry. It very rarely happened that any of them danced out there in the open air. Sometimes about three of them did so, or, at the most, half a dozen. John never saw a greater number together. The meads were never cheerful except when the servants, of whom there might be some hundreds, were let out to walk. This, however, happened but twice a week, for they were mostly kept employed in the great hall and adjoining apartments or at school. For John soon found they had schools there also. He had been there about ten months when one day he saw something snow-white gliding into a rock and disappearing. "What!" said he to his servant, "are there some of you that wear white like the servants?" He was informed that there were, but they were few in number, and never appeared at the large tables or the dances, except once a year, on the birthday of the great Hill-king, who dwelt many thousand miles below in the great deep. These were the oldest among them, some of them many thousand years old, who knew all things and could tell of the beginning of the world, and were called the Wise. They lived all alone, and only left their chambers to instruct the underground children and the attendants of both sexes, for whom there was a great school. John was much pleased with this intelligence, and he determined to take advantage of it; so next morning he made his servant conduct him to the school, and was so well pleased with it that he never missed a day going there. They were there taught reading, writing, and accounts, to compose and relate histories, stories, and many elegant kinds of work, so that many came out of the hills, both men and women, very prudent and knowing people in consequence of what they were taught there. The biggest, and those of best capacity, received instruction in natural science and astronomy, and in poetry and in riddle-making, arts highly esteemed among the little people. John was very diligent, and soon became a most clever painter and drawer. He wrought, too, most ingeniously in gold and silver and stones, and in verse and riddle-making he had no fellow. John had spent many a happy year here without ever thinking of the upper world, or of those he had left behind, so pleasantly passed the time--so many agreeable companions had he. Of all of them there was none of whom he was so fond as of a fair-haired girl named Elizabeth Krabbe. She was from his own village, and was the daughter of Frederick Krabbe, the minister of Rambin. She was but four years old when she was taken away, and John had often heard tell of her. She was not, however, stolen by the little people, but had come into their power in this manner. One day in summer she and other children ran out into the fields. In their rambles they went to the Nine-hills, where little Elizabeth fell asleep, and was forgotten by the rest. At night when she awoke, she found herself under the ground among the little people. It was not merely because she was from his own village that John was so fond of Elizabeth, but she was very beautiful, with clear blue eyes and ringlets of fair hair, and a most angelic smile. Time flew away unperceived. John was now eighteen, and Elizabeth sixteen. Their childish fondness was now become love, and the little people were pleased to see it, thinking that by means of her they might get John to renounce his power, and become their servant, for they were fond of him, and would willingly have had him to wait upon them, for the love of dominion is their vice. They were, however, mistaken. John had learned too much from his servant to be caught in that way. John's chief delight was walking about with Elizabeth, for he now knew every place so well that he could dispense with the attendance of his servant. In these rambles he was always gay and lively, but his companion was frequently sad and melancholy, thinking on the land above, where men live, and where the sun, moon, and stars shine. Now it happened in one of their walks, as they talked of their love, and it was after midnight, they passed under the place where the tops of the glass hills used to open and let the underground people in and out. As they went along, they heard of a sudden the crowing of several cocks above. At this sound, which she had not heard for several years, Elizabeth felt her heart so affected that she could contain herself no longer, but throwing her arms about John's neck, she bathed his cheek with her tears. At length she said-- "Dearest John, everything down here is very beautiful, and the little people are kind and do nothing to injure me, but still I have been always uneasy, nor ever felt any pleasure till I began to love you; and yet that is not pure pleasure, for this is not a right way of living, such as is fit for human beings. Every night I dream of my father and mother, and of our churchyard where the people stand so pious at the church door waiting for my father, and I could weep tears of blood that I cannot go into the church with them and worship God as a human being should, for this is no Christian life we lead down here, but a delusive half-heathen one. And only think, dear John, that we can never marry, as there is no priest to join us. Do, then, plan some way for us to leave this place, for I cannot tell you how I long to get once more to my father, and among pious Christians." John, too, had not been unaffected by the crowing of the cocks, and he felt what he had never felt there before, a longing after the land where the sun shines. "Dear Elizabeth," said he, "all you say is true, and I now feel it is a sin for Christians to stay here, and it seems to me as if our Lord said to us in that cry of the cocks, 'Come up, ye Christian children, out of those abodes of illusion and magic. Come to the light of the stars, and act as children of the light.' I now feel that it was a great sin for me to come down here, but I trust I shall be forgiven on account of my youth, for I was only a boy, and knew not what I did. But now I will not stay a day longer. They cannot keep _me_ here." At these last words Elizabeth turned pale, for she recollected that she was a servant, and must serve her fifty years. "And what will it avail me," cried she, "that I shall continue young, and be but as of twenty years when I go out, for my father and mother will be dead, and all my companions old and grey; and you, dearest John, will be old and grey also," cried she, throwing herself on his bosom. John was thunderstruck at this, for it had never before occurred to him. He, however, comforted her as well as he could, and declared he would never leave the place without her. He spent the whole night in forming various plans. At last he fixed on one, and in the morning he despatched his servant to summon to his apartment six of the principal of the little people. When they came, John thus mildly addressed them-- "My friends, you know how I came here, not as a prisoner or servant, but as a lord and master over one of you, and of consequence over all. You have now for the ten years I have been with you treated me with respect and attention, and for that I am your debtor. But you are still more my debtors, for I might have given you every sort of vexation and annoyance, and you must have submitted to it. I have, however, not done so, but have behaved as your equal, and have sported and played with you rather than ruled over you. I have now one request to make. There is a girl among your servants whom I love, Elizabeth Krabbe, of Rambin, where I was born. Give her to me and let us depart, for I will return to where the sun shines and the plough goes through the land. I ask to take nothing with me but her and the ornaments and furniture of my chamber." He spoke in a determined tone, and they hesitated and cast their eyes upon the ground. At last the oldest of them replied-- "Sir, you ask what we cannot grant. It is a fixed law that no servant can leave this place before the appointed time. Were we to break through this law our whole subterranean empire would fall. Anything else you desire, for we love and respect you, but we cannot give up Elizabeth." "You can, and you shall, give her up!" cried John in a rage. "Go, think of it till to-morrow. Return then at this hour. I will show you whether or not I can triumph over your hypocritical and cunning stratagems." The six retired. Next morning, on their return, John addressed them in the kindest manner, but to no purpose. They persisted in their refusal. He gave them till the next day, threatening them severely in case they still proved refractory. Next day, when the six little people appeared before him, John looked at them sternly, and made no return to their salutations, but said to them shortly-- "Yes, or No?" They answered, with one voice, "No." He then ordered his servant to summon twenty-four more of the principal persons, with their wives and children. When they came they were in all five hundred men, women, and children. John ordered them forthwith to go and fetch pick-axes, spades, and bars, which they did in a second. He now led them out to a rock in one of the fields, and ordered them to fall to work at blasting, hewing, and dragging stones. They toiled patiently, and made as if it were only sport to them. From morning till night their task-master made them labour without ceasing, standing over them constantly to prevent them resting. Still their obstinacy was inflexible, and at the end of some weeks his pity for them was so great that he was obliged to give over. He now thought of a new species of punishment for them. He ordered them to appear before him next morning, each provided with a new whip. They obeyed, and John commanded them to lash one another, and he stood looking on while they did it, as grim and cruel as an Eastern tyrant. Still the little people cut and slashed themselves and mocked at John, and refused to comply with his wishes. This he did for three or four days. Several other courses did he try, but all in vain. His temper was too gentle to struggle with their obstinacy, and he commenced to despair of ever accomplishing his dearest wish. He began now to hate the little people of whom he had before been so fond. He kept away from their banquets and dances, and associated with none but Elizabeth, and ate and drank quite solitary in his chamber. In short, he became almost a hermit, and sank into moodiness and melancholy. While in this temper, as he was taking a solitary walk in the evening, and, to divert his melancholy, was flinging the stones that lay in his path against each other, he happened to break a tolerably large one, and out of it jumped a toad. The moment John saw the ugly animal he caught him up in ecstasy, and put him in his pocket and ran home, crying-- "Now I have her! I have my Elizabeth! Now you shall get it, you little mischievous rascals!" On getting home he put the toad into a costly silver casket, as if it was the greatest treasure. To account for John's joy, you must know that Klas Starkwolt had often told him that the underground people could not endure any ill smell, and that the sight, or even the smell, of a toad made them faint, and suffer the most dreadful tortures, and that by means of one of those odious animals one could compel them to do anything. Hence there are no bad smells to be found in the whole glass empire, and a toad is a thing unheard of there. This toad must certainly have been enclosed in the stone from the creation, as it were, for the sake of John and Elizabeth. Resolved to try the effect of his toad, John took the casket under his arm and went out, and on the way he met two of the little people in a lonesome place. The moment he approached they fell to the ground, and whimpered and howled most lamentably as long as he was near them. Satisfied now of his power, he, the next morning, summoned the fifty principal persons, with their wives and children, to his apartment. When they came he addressed them, reminding them once again of his kindness and gentleness towards them, and of the good terms on which they had hitherto lived. He reproached them with their ingratitude in refusing him the only favour he had ever asked of them, but firmly declared that he would not give way to their obstinacy. "Therefore," said he, "for the last time, think for a minute, and if you then say 'No,' you shall feel that pain which is to you and your children the most terrible of all pains." They did not take long to deliberate, but unanimously replied "No"; and they thought to themselves, "What new scheme has the youth hit on with which he thinks to frighten wise ones like us?" and they smiled as they said "No." Their smiling enraged John above all, and he ran back a few hundred paces to where he had laid the casket with the toad under a bush. He was hardly come within a few hundred paces of them when they all fell to the ground as if struck with a thunderbolt, and began to howl and whimper, and to writhe, as if suffering the most excruciating pain. They stretched out their hands, and cried-- "Have mercy, have mercy! We feel you have a toad, and there is no escape for us. Take the odious beast away, and we will do all you require." He let them kick a few seconds longer, and then took the toad away. They then stood up and felt no more pain. John let all depart but the six chief persons, to whom he said-- "This night, between twelve and one, Elizabeth and I will depart. Load then for me three waggons with gold and silver and precious stones. I might, you know, take all that is in the hill, and you deserve it; but I will be merciful. Further, you must put all the furniture of my chamber in two waggons, and get ready for me the handsomest travelling carriage that is in the hill, with six black horses. Moreover, you must set at liberty all the servants who have been so long here that on earth they would be twenty years old and upwards; and you must give them as much silver and gold as will make them rich for life, and make a law that no one shall be detained here longer than his twentieth year." The six took the oath, and went away quite melancholy; and John buried his toad deep in the ground. The little people laboured hard, and prepared everything. At midnight everything was out of the hill; and John and Elizabeth got into the silver tun, and were drawn up. It was then one o'clock, and it was midsummer, the very time that, twelve years before, John had gone down into the hill. Music sounded around them, and they saw the glass hill open, and the rays of the light of heaven shine on them after so many years. And when they got out, they saw the first streaks of dawn already in the east. Crowds of the underground people were around them, busied about the waggons. John bid them a last farewell, waved his brown cap three times in the air, and then flung it among them. At the same moment he ceased to see them. He beheld nothing but a green hill, and the well-known bushes and fields, and heard the town-clock of Rambin strike two. When all was still, save a few larks, who were tuning their morning songs, they all fell on their knees and worshipped God, resolving henceforth to live a pious and a Christian life. When the sun rose, John arranged the procession, and they set out for Rambin. Every well-known object that they saw awoke pleasing recollections in the bosom of John and his bride; and as they passed by Rodenkirchen, John recognised, among the people that gazed at and followed them, his old friend Klas Starkwolt, the cowherd, and his dog Speed. It was about four in the morning when they entered Rambin, and they halted in the middle of the village, about twenty paces from the house where John was born. The whole village poured out to gaze on these Asiatic princes, for such the old sexton, who had in his youth been at Constantinople and at Moscow, said they were. There John saw his father and mother, and his brother Andrew, and his sister Trine. The old minister Krabbe stood there too, in his black slippers and white nightcap, gaping and staring with the rest. John discovered himself to his parents, and Elizabeth to hers; and the wedding-day was soon fixed. And such a wedding was never seen before or since in the island of Rügen, for John sent to Stralsund and Greifswald for whole boat-loads of wine and sugar and coffee; and whole herds of oxen, sheep, and pigs were driven to the feast. The quantity of harts and roes and hares that were shot upon the occasion it were vain to attempt to tell, or to count the fish that was caught. There was not a musician in Rügen or in Pomerania that was not engaged, for John was immensely rich, and he wished to display his wealth. John did not neglect his old friend Klas Starkwolt, the cowherd. He gave him enough to make him comfortable for the rest of his days, and insisted on his coming and staying with him as often and as long as he wished. After his marriage John made a progress through the country with his wife; and he purchased towns and villages and lands until he became master of nearly half Rügen and a very considerable Count in the country. His father, old James Dietrich, was made a nobleman, and his brothers and sisters gentlemen and ladies--for what cannot money do? John and his wife spent their days in doing acts of piety and charity. They built several churches, and had the blessing of every one that knew them, and died universally lamented. It was Count John Dietrich that built and richly endowed the present church of Rambin. He built it on the site of his father's house, and presented to it several of the cups and plates made by the underground people, and his own and Elizabeth's glass-shoes, in memory of what had befallen them in their youth. But they were taken away in the time of the great Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, when the Russians came on the island and the Cossacks plundered even the churches, and took away everything. HOW THORSTON BECAME RICH. When spring came Thorston made ready his ship and put twenty-four men on board of her. When they came to Finland they ran her into a harbour, and every day he went on shore to amuse himself. He came one day to an open part of the wood, where he saw a great rock, and a little way out from it was a horribly ugly dwarf. He was looking over his head, with his mouth wide open, and it appeared to Thorston that it stretched from ear to ear, and that the lower jaw came down to his knees. Thorston asked him why he acted so foolishly. "Do not be surprised, my good lad," answered the dwarf, "do you not see that great dragon that is flying up there? He has taken off my son, and I believe that it is Odin himself that has sent the monster to do it. I shall burst and die if I lose my son." Then Thorston shot at the dragon, and hit him under one of the wings, so that he fell dead to the earth; but Thorston caught the dwarf's child in the air, and brought him to his father. The dwarf was very glad, more rejoiced than any one can tell, and he said-- "I have to reward you for a great service, you who are the deliverer of my son. Now choose your reward in silver or gold." "Take your son," said Thorston; "but I am not used to accept rewards for my services." "It would not be becoming," said the dwarf, "if I did not reward you. I will give you my vest of sheep's wool. Do not think it is a contemptible gift, for you will never be tired when swimming, or wounded, if you wear it next your skin." Thorston took it and put it on, and it fitted him well, though it had appeared too small for the dwarf. The dwarf next took a gold ring out of his purse and gave it to Thorston, and bade him take good care of it, telling him he should never want money while he had the ring. Next he gave him a black stone, and said-- "If you hide this stone in the palm of your hand no one will see you. I have not many more things to offer you, or that would be of any value to you. I will, however, give you a firestone for your amusement." He took the stone out of his purse, and with it a steel point. The stone was triangular, white on one side and red on the other, and a yellow border ran round it. The dwarf said-- "If you prick the stone with the point in the white side there will come on such a hailstorm that no one will be able to look at it. If you want to stop the shower you have only to prick on the yellow part, and there will come so much sunshine that the hail will melt away. If you prick the red side then there will come out of it such fire, with sparks and crackling, that no one will be able to look at it. You may also get whatever you will by means of this point and stone, and they will come of themselves back to your hand when you call them. I can give you no more of such gifts." Thorston then thanked the dwarf for his presents, and returned to his men; and it was better for him to have made that voyage than to have stayed at home. GUDBRAND. There was once upon a time a man who was called Gudbrand. He had a farm which lay far away on a hill, and he was therefore known as Gudbrand of the Hillside. He and his wife lived so happily together, and were so well matched, that do what the man would his wife was well pleased, thinking nothing in the world could be better. Whatever he did she was satisfied. The farm was their own, and they had a hundred dollars which lay in a box, and in the stall they had two cows. One day the woman said to Gudbrand. "I think it would be well to take one of the cows to town and sell it, and so we shall have some money at hand. We are such fine folk that we ought to have a little ready money, as other people have. As for the hundred dollars which lie in the chest, we must not make a hole in them, but I do not see why we should keep more than one cow. We shall, too, gain something, for I shall then have only to look after one cow, instead of having to litter and feed two." This Gudbrand thought was right and reasonable, so he took the cow, and set off to town to sell it. When he arrived there he could find no one who would buy the beast. "Well, well," said he, "I can go home again with the cow. I have stall and litter for her, and the road home is no longer than the road here." So he began to go homewards again. When he had gone a little distance he met a man who had a horse he wanted to sell. So Gudbrand thought it was better to have a horse than a cow, and exchanged with him. He went on a bit further, and met a man walking along driving a fat pig before him, and he thought it would be better to have a fat pig than a horse. So he exchanged with the man. He went on a bit further, and met a man with a goat. A goat, he thought, was better than a pig. So he exchanged with him. He went on a good bit further till he met a man who had a sheep, and he exchanged with him, for he thought a sheep was always better than a goat. He went on again, and met a man with a goose. So he exchanged the sheep for the goose. Then he went a long, long way, and met a man with a cock. So he gave the goose for the cock, for he thought to himself-- "It is better to have a cock than a goose." He walked on till late in the day, and then as he was getting hungry he sold the cock for twelve shillings, and bought something to eat, for, thought Gudbrand of the Hillside-- "It is better to save one's life than have a cock." Then he walked on homeward till he came to the house of his nearest neighbour, and there he looked in. "Well, how did you get on at the town?" asked the neighbour. "Only so and so," said the man. "I cannot say I have had good or bad luck," and then he began and told them all that had happened. "Well," said the neighbour, "you will catch it when you get home to your wife. Heaven help you! I would not stand in your shoes." "I think things might have been much worse," said Gudbrand of the Hillside; "but whether things have gone well or badly, I have such a gentle wife that she never says anything, do what I will." "Ah," said the neighbour, "I hear what you say, but I don't believe it." "Shall we make a bet?" said Gudbrand. "I have a hundred dollars lying at home in a chest, will you lay as much?" The neighbour was willing, so the bet was made. They waited till evening, and then set out for Gudbrand's house. The neighbour stood outside the door, while Gudbrand went inside to his wife. "Good evening," said Gudbrand, when he was inside. "Good evening," said his wife. "Heaven be praised. Is it you?" Yes, it was he. His wife then asked him how things went at the town. "Oh, but so-so," said Gudbrand, "not much to boast of. When I came to the town I could find no one to buy the cow, so I exchanged it for a horse." "Thanks for that!" said the wife; "we are such fine folk that we can ride to church the same as other people, and as we can keep a horse we might as well have one. Go and put the horse up, children." "But," said Gudbrand, "I have not got the horse. After I had gone a bit further I exchanged it for a pig." "Well, well," said his wife, "that was good. I should have done the same. Thanks for that! now I shall have meat in the house to put before folk when they come to see me. What could we do with a horse? People would only have said that we had got too proud to walk to church. Go along, children, and put the pig in the sty." "But I have not got the pig either," said Gudbrand. "When I had gone on a bit further I exchanged it for a milch goat." "Bless me," said the wife, "you do everything well! When I think of it, what could we have done with a pig? Folk would only have said we eat up all we had. Now we have a goat we shall have milk and cheese, and we shall have the goat too. Run, children, and put up the goat." "But I have not got the goat," said Gudbrand. "I went on a bit, and exchanged it for a fine sheep." "Well," said the wife, "you have done just what I should have wished--just as if I had done it myself. What did we want a goat for? I should have had to go over hill and dale after it. Now we have a sheep I shall have wool and clothes in the house, and food as well. Go, children, and put up the sheep." "But I have not got the sheep either," said Gudbrand. "I went on a while, and then I exchanged it for a goose." "You shall have thanks for that," said the wife, "many thanks! What would we have done with a sheep? I have no spinning-wheel nor distaff, and I should not care to bother about making clothes. We can buy clothes, as we have always done. Now we shall have roast goose, which I have so often wished for, and I shall be able to stuff my little pillow with the down. Go and bring in the goose, children." "But," said Gudbrand, "I have not got the goose either. When I had gone a bit further I gave it in exchange for a cock." "Heaven knows," said his wife, "how you thought all this out so well! It is just what I should have done myself. A cock! why it is just the same as if you had bought an eight-day clock, for the cock crows at four o'clock every morning, so we shall be able to get up in good time. What could we have done with a goose? I don't know how to cook it, and I can stuff my pillow with moss. Run and fetch the cock in, children." "But," said Gudbrand, "I have not got the cock either. When I had gone a bit further I got hungry, and so I sold the cock for twelve shillings so that I might live." "Thank God you did so," said his wife; "whatever you do you do it just as I should have wished. What could we have done with a cock? We are our own masters, and can lie in bed in the morning as late as we please. Thank Heaven you have come back again safe. You do everything so well that we can well spare the cock, the goose, the pig, and the cow." Then Gudbrand opened the door. "Have I won the hundred dollars?" said he, and the neighbour was obliged to own that he had. THE DWARF-SWORD TIRFING. Suaforlami, the second in descent from Odin, was king over Gardarike (Russia). One day he rode a-hunting, and sought long after a hart, but could not find one the whole day. When the sun was setting, he found himself plunged so deep in the forest that he knew not where he was. On his right hand he saw a hill, and before it he saw two dwarfs. He drew his sword against them, and cut off their retreat by getting between them and the rock. They offered him ransom for their lives, and he asked them their names, and they said that one of them was called Dyren and the other Dualin. Then he knew that they were the most ingenious and the most expert of all the dwarfs, and he therefore demanded that they should make for him a sword, the best that they could form. Its hilt was to be of gold, and its belt of the same metal. He moreover commanded that the sword should never miss a blow, should never rust, that it should cut through iron and stone as through a garment, and that it should always be victorious in war and in single combat. On these conditions he granted the dwarfs their lives. At the time appointed he came, and the dwarfs appearing, they gave him the sword. When Dualin stood at the door, he said-- "This sword shall be the bane of a man every time it is drawn, and with it shall be perpetrated three of the greatest atrocities, and it will also prove thy bane." Suaforlami, when he heard that, struck at the dwarf, so that the blade of the sword penetrated the solid rock. Thus Suaforlami became possessed of this sword, and he called it Tirfing. He bore it in war and in single combat, and with it he slew the giant Thiasse, whose daughter Fridur he took. Suaforlami was soon after slain by the Berserker Andgrim, who then became master of the sword. When the twelve sons of Andgrim were to fight with Hialmar and Oddur for Ingaborg, the beautiful daughter of King Inges, Angantyr bore the dangerous Tirfing, but all the brethren were slain in the combat, and were buried with their arms. Angantyr left an only daughter, Hervor, who, when she grew up, dressed herself in man's attire, and took the name of Hervardar, and joined a party of Vikinger, or pirates. Knowing that Tirfing lay buried with her father, she determined to awaken the dead, and obtain the charmed blade. She landed alone, in the evening, on the Island of Sams, where her father and uncles lay in their sepulchral mounds, and ascending by night to their tombs, that were enveloped in flame, she, by the force of entreaty, obtained from the reluctant Angantyr the formidable Tirfing. Hervor proceeded to the court of King Gudmund, and there one day, as she was playing at tables with the king, one of the servants chanced to take up and draw Tirfing, which shone like a sunbeam. But Tirfing was never to see the light but for the bane of men, and Hervor, by a sudden impulse, sprang from her seat, snatched the sword, and struck off the head of the unfortunate man. After this she returned to the house of her grandfather, Jarl Biartmar, where she resumed her female attire, and was married to Haufud, the son of King Gudmund. She bore him two sons, Angantyr and Heidreker; the former of a mild and gentle disposition, the latter violent and fierce. Haufud would not permit Heidreker to remain at his court, and as he was departing, his mother, among other gifts, presented him with Tirfing. His brother accompanied him out of the castle. Before they parted, Heidreker drew out his sword to look at and admire it, but scarcely did the rays of light fall on the magic blade, when the Berserker rage came on its owner, and he slew his gentle brother. After this he joined a body of Vikinger, and became so distinguished that King Harold, for the aid he lent him, gave him his daughter Helga in marriage. But it was the destiny of Tirfing to commit crime, and Harold fell by the sword of his son-in-law. Heidreker was afterwards in Russia, and the son of the king was his foster-son. One day as they were out hunting, Heidreker and his foster-son happened to be separated from the rest of the party, when a wild boar appeared before them. Heidreker ran at him with his spear, but the beast caught it in his mouth and broke it across. Then he alighted and drew Tirfing, and killed the boar. On looking round him, he saw no one but his foster-son, and Tirfing could only be appeased with warm human blood, so Heidreker slew the poor youth. In the end Heidreker was murdered in his bed by his Scottish slaves, who carried off Tirfing. His son Angantyr, who succeeded him, discovered the thieves and put them to death, and recovered the magic blade. He made great slaughter in battle against the Huns, but among the slain was discovered his own brother, Landur. So ends the history of the Dwarf-Sword Tirfing. * * * * * Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty, at the Edinburgh University Press. 
981	----	BEOWULF By Anonymous Translated by Gummere BEOWULF PRELUDE OF THE FOUNDER OF THE DANISH HOUSE LO, praise of the prowess of people-kings of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped, we have heard, and what honor the athelings won! Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes, from many a tribe, the mead-bench tore, awing the earls. Since erst he lay friendless, a foundling, fate repaid him: for he waxed under welkin, in wealth he throve, till before him the folk, both far and near, who house by the whale-path, heard his mandate, gave him gifts: a good king he! To him an heir was afterward born, a son in his halls, whom heaven sent to favor the folk, feeling their woe that erst they had lacked an earl for leader so long a while; the Lord endowed him, the Wielder of Wonder, with world's renown. Famed was this Beowulf: {0a} far flew the boast of him, son of Scyld, in the Scandian lands. So becomes it a youth to quit him well with his father's friends, by fee and gift, that to aid him, aged, in after days, come warriors willing, should war draw nigh, liegemen loyal: by lauded deeds shall an earl have honor in every clan. Forth he fared at the fated moment, sturdy Scyld to the shelter of God. Then they bore him over to ocean's billow, loving clansmen, as late he charged them, while wielded words the winsome Scyld, the leader beloved who long had ruled.... In the roadstead rocked a ring-dight vessel, ice-flecked, outbound, atheling's barge: there laid they down their darling lord on the breast of the boat, the breaker-of-rings, {0b} by the mast the mighty one. Many a treasure fetched from far was freighted with him. No ship have I known so nobly dight with weapons of war and weeds of battle, with breastplate and blade: on his bosom lay a heaped hoard that hence should go far o'er the flood with him floating away. No less these loaded the lordly gifts, thanes' huge treasure, than those had done who in former time forth had sent him sole on the seas, a suckling child. High o'er his head they hoist the standard, a gold-wove banner; let billows take him, gave him to ocean. Grave were their spirits, mournful their mood. No man is able to say in sooth, no son of the halls, no hero 'neath heaven, -- who harbored that freight! I Now Beowulf bode in the burg of the Scyldings, leader beloved, and long he ruled in fame with all folk, since his father had gone away from the world, till awoke an heir, haughty Healfdene, who held through life, sage and sturdy, the Scyldings glad. Then, one after one, there woke to him, to the chieftain of clansmen, children four: Heorogar, then Hrothgar, then Halga brave; and I heard that -- was -- 's queen, the Heathoscylfing's helpmate dear. To Hrothgar was given such glory of war, such honor of combat, that all his kin obeyed him gladly till great grew his band of youthful comrades. It came in his mind to bid his henchmen a hall uprear, a master mead-house, mightier far than ever was seen by the sons of earth, and within it, then, to old and young he would all allot that the Lord had sent him, save only the land and the lives of his men. Wide, I heard, was the work commanded, for many a tribe this mid-earth round, to fashion the folkstead. It fell, as he ordered, in rapid achievement that ready it stood there, of halls the noblest: Heorot {1a} he named it whose message had might in many a land. Not reckless of promise, the rings he dealt, treasure at banquet: there towered the hall, high, gabled wide, the hot surge waiting of furious flame. {1b} Nor far was that day when father and son-in-law stood in feud for warfare and hatred that woke again. {1c} With envy and anger an evil spirit endured the dole in his dark abode, that he heard each day the din of revel high in the hall: there harps rang out, clear song of the singer. He sang who knew {1d} tales of the early time of man, how the Almighty made the earth, fairest fields enfolded by water, set, triumphant, sun and moon for a light to lighten the land-dwellers, and braided bright the breast of earth with limbs and leaves, made life for all of mortal beings that breathe and move. So lived the clansmen in cheer and revel a winsome life, till one began to fashion evils, that field of hell. Grendel this monster grim was called, march-riever {1e} mighty, in moorland living, in fen and fastness; fief of the giants the hapless wight a while had kept since the Creator his exile doomed. On kin of Cain was the killing avenged by sovran God for slaughtered Abel. Ill fared his feud, {1f} and far was he driven, for the slaughter's sake, from sight of men. Of Cain awoke all that woful breed, Etins {1g} and elves and evil-spirits, as well as the giants that warred with God weary while: but their wage was paid them! II WENT he forth to find at fall of night that haughty house, and heed wherever the Ring-Danes, outrevelled, to rest had gone. Found within it the atheling band asleep after feasting and fearless of sorrow, of human hardship. Unhallowed wight, grim and greedy, he grasped betimes, wrathful, reckless, from resting-places, thirty of the thanes, and thence he rushed fain of his fell spoil, faring homeward, laden with slaughter, his lair to seek. Then at the dawning, as day was breaking, the might of Grendel to men was known; then after wassail was wail uplifted, loud moan in the morn. The mighty chief, atheling excellent, unblithe sat, labored in woe for the loss of his thanes, when once had been traced the trail of the fiend, spirit accurst: too cruel that sorrow, too long, too loathsome. Not late the respite; with night returning, anew began ruthless murder; he recked no whit, firm in his guilt, of the feud and crime. They were easy to find who elsewhere sought in room remote their rest at night, bed in the bowers, {2a} when that bale was shown, was seen in sooth, with surest token, -- the hall-thane's {2b} hate. Such held themselves far and fast who the fiend outran! Thus ruled unrighteous and raged his fill one against all; until empty stood that lordly building, and long it bode so. Twelve years' tide the trouble he bore, sovran of Scyldings, sorrows in plenty, boundless cares. There came unhidden tidings true to the tribes of men, in sorrowful songs, how ceaselessly Grendel harassed Hrothgar, what hate he bore him, what murder and massacre, many a year, feud unfading, -- refused consent to deal with any of Daneland's earls, make pact of peace, or compound for gold: still less did the wise men ween to get great fee for the feud from his fiendish hands. But the evil one ambushed old and young death-shadow dark, and dogged them still, lured, or lurked in the livelong night of misty moorlands: men may say not where the haunts of these Hell-Runes {2c} be. Such heaping of horrors the hater of men, lonely roamer, wrought unceasing, harassings heavy. O'er Heorot he lorded, gold-bright hall, in gloomy nights; and ne'er could the prince {2d} approach his throne, -- 'twas judgment of God, -- or have joy in his hall. Sore was the sorrow to Scyldings'-friend, heart-rending misery. Many nobles sat assembled, and searched out counsel how it were best for bold-hearted men against harassing terror to try their hand. Whiles they vowed in their heathen fanes altar-offerings, asked with words {2e} that the slayer-of-souls would succor give them for the pain of their people. Their practice this, their heathen hope; 'twas Hell they thought of in mood of their mind. Almighty they knew not, Doomsman of Deeds and dreadful Lord, nor Heaven's-Helmet heeded they ever, Wielder-of-Wonder. -- Woe for that man who in harm and hatred hales his soul to fiery embraces; -- nor favor nor change awaits he ever. But well for him that after death-day may draw to his Lord, and friendship find in the Father's arms! III THUS seethed unceasing the son of Healfdene with the woe of these days; not wisest men assuaged his sorrow; too sore the anguish, loathly and long, that lay on his folk, most baneful of burdens and bales of the night. This heard in his home Hygelac's thane, great among Geats, of Grendel's doings. He was the mightiest man of valor in that same day of this our life, stalwart and stately. A stout wave-walker he bade make ready. Yon battle-king, said he, far o'er the swan-road he fain would seek, the noble monarch who needed men! The prince's journey by prudent folk was little blamed, though they loved him dear; they whetted the hero, and hailed good omens. And now the bold one from bands of Geats comrades chose, the keenest of warriors e'er he could find; with fourteen men the sea-wood {3a} he sought, and, sailor proved, led them on to the land's confines. Time had now flown; {3b} afloat was the ship, boat under bluff. On board they climbed, warriors ready; waves were churning sea with sand; the sailors bore on the breast of the bark their bright array, their mail and weapons: the men pushed off, on its willing way, the well-braced craft. Then moved o'er the waters by might of the wind that bark like a bird with breast of foam, till in season due, on the second day, the curved prow such course had run that sailors now could see the land, sea-cliffs shining, steep high hills, headlands broad. Their haven was found, their journey ended. Up then quickly the Weders' {3c} clansmen climbed ashore, anchored their sea-wood, with armor clashing and gear of battle: God they thanked or passing in peace o'er the paths of the sea. Now saw from the cliff a Scylding clansman, a warden that watched the water-side, how they bore o'er the gangway glittering shields, war-gear in readiness; wonder seized him to know what manner of men they were. Straight to the strand his steed he rode, Hrothgar's henchman; with hand of might he shook his spear, and spake in parley. "Who are ye, then, ye armed men, mailed folk, that yon mighty vessel have urged thus over the ocean ways, here o'er the waters? A warden I, sentinel set o'er the sea-march here, lest any foe to the folk of Danes with harrying fleet should harm the land. No aliens ever at ease thus bore them, linden-wielders: {3d} yet word-of-leave clearly ye lack from clansmen here, my folk's agreement. -- A greater ne'er saw I of warriors in world than is one of you, -- yon hero in harness! No henchman he worthied by weapons, if witness his features, his peerless presence! I pray you, though, tell your folk and home, lest hence ye fare suspect to wander your way as spies in Danish land. Now, dwellers afar, ocean-travellers, take from me simple advice: the sooner the better I hear of the country whence ye came." IV To him the stateliest spake in answer; the warriors' leader his word-hoard unlocked: -- "We are by kin of the clan of Geats, and Hygelac's own hearth-fellows we. To folk afar was my father known, noble atheling, Ecgtheow named. Full of winters, he fared away aged from earth; he is honored still through width of the world by wise men all. To thy lord and liege in loyal mood we hasten hither, to Healfdene's son, people-protector: be pleased to advise us! To that mighty-one come we on mickle errand, to the lord of the Danes; nor deem I right that aught be hidden. We hear -- thou knowest if sooth it is -- the saying of men, that amid the Scyldings a scathing monster, dark ill-doer, in dusky nights shows terrific his rage unmatched, hatred and murder. To Hrothgar I in greatness of soul would succor bring, so the Wise-and-Brave {4a} may worst his foes, -- if ever the end of ills is fated, of cruel contest, if cure shall follow, and the boiling care-waves cooler grow; else ever afterward anguish-days he shall suffer in sorrow while stands in place high on its hill that house unpeered!" Astride his steed, the strand-ward answered, clansman unquailing: "The keen-souled thane must be skilled to sever and sunder duly words and works, if he well intends. I gather, this band is graciously bent to the Scyldings' master. March, then, bearing weapons and weeds the way I show you. I will bid my men your boat meanwhile to guard for fear lest foemen come, -- your new-tarred ship by shore of ocean faithfully watching till once again it waft o'er the waters those well-loved thanes, -- winding-neck'd wood, -- to Weders' bounds, heroes such as the hest of fate shall succor and save from the shock of war." They bent them to march, -- the boat lay still, fettered by cable and fast at anchor, broad-bosomed ship. -- Then shone the boars {4b} over the cheek-guard; chased with gold, keen and gleaming, guard it kept o'er the man of war, as marched along heroes in haste, till the hall they saw, broad of gable and bright with gold: that was the fairest, 'mid folk of earth, of houses 'neath heaven, where Hrothgar lived, and the gleam of it lightened o'er lands afar. The sturdy shieldsman showed that bright burg-of-the-boldest; bade them go straightway thither; his steed then turned, hardy hero, and hailed them thus: -- "'Tis time that I fare from you. Father Almighty in grace and mercy guard you well, safe in your seekings. Seaward I go, 'gainst hostile warriors hold my watch." V STONE-BRIGHT the street: {5a} it showed the way to the crowd of clansmen. Corselets glistened hand-forged, hard; on their harness bright the steel ring sang, as they strode along in mail of battle, and marched to the hall. There, weary of ocean, the wall along they set their bucklers, their broad shields, down, and bowed them to bench: the breastplates clanged, war-gear of men; their weapons stacked, spears of the seafarers stood together, gray-tipped ash: that iron band was worthily weaponed! -- A warrior proud asked of the heroes their home and kin. "Whence, now, bear ye burnished shields, harness gray and helmets grim, spears in multitude? Messenger, I, Hrothgar's herald! Heroes so many ne'er met I as strangers of mood so strong. 'Tis plain that for prowess, not plunged into exile, for high-hearted valor, Hrothgar ye seek!" Him the sturdy-in-war bespake with words, proud earl of the Weders answer made, hardy 'neath helmet: -- "Hygelac's, we, fellows at board; I am Beowulf named. I am seeking to say to the son of Healfdene this mission of mine, to thy master-lord, the doughty prince, if he deign at all grace that we greet him, the good one, now." Wulfgar spake, the Wendles' chieftain, whose might of mind to many was known, his courage and counsel: "The king of Danes, the Scyldings' friend, I fain will tell, the Breaker-of-Rings, as the boon thou askest, the famed prince, of thy faring hither, and, swiftly after, such answer bring as the doughty monarch may deign to give." Hied then in haste to where Hrothgar sat white-haired and old, his earls about him, till the stout thane stood at the shoulder there of the Danish king: good courtier he! Wulfgar spake to his winsome lord: -- "Hither have fared to thee far-come men o'er the paths of ocean, people of Geatland; and the stateliest there by his sturdy band is Beowulf named. This boon they seek, that they, my master, may with thee have speech at will: nor spurn their prayer to give them hearing, gracious Hrothgar! In weeds of the warrior worthy they, methinks, of our liking; their leader most surely, a hero that hither his henchmen has led." VI HROTHGAR answered, helmet of Scyldings: -- "I knew him of yore in his youthful days; his aged father was Ecgtheow named, to whom, at home, gave Hrethel the Geat his only daughter. Their offspring bold fares hither to seek the steadfast friend. And seamen, too, have said me this, -- who carried my gifts to the Geatish court, thither for thanks, -- he has thirty men's heft of grasp in the gripe of his hand, the bold-in-battle. Blessed God out of his mercy this man hath sent to Danes of the West, as I ween indeed, against horror of Grendel. I hope to give the good youth gold for his gallant thought. Be thou in haste, and bid them hither, clan of kinsmen, to come before me; and add this word, -- they are welcome guests to folk of the Danes." [To the door of the hall Wulfgar went] and the word declared: -- "To you this message my master sends, East-Danes' king, that your kin he knows, hardy heroes, and hails you all welcome hither o'er waves of the sea! Ye may wend your way in war-attire, and under helmets Hrothgar greet; but let here the battle-shields bide your parley, and wooden war-shafts wait its end." Uprose the mighty one, ringed with his men, brave band of thanes: some bode without, battle-gear guarding, as bade the chief. Then hied that troop where the herald led them, under Heorot's roof: [the hero strode,] hardy 'neath helm, till the hearth he neared. Beowulf spake, -- his breastplate gleamed, war-net woven by wit of the smith: -- "Thou Hrothgar, hail! Hygelac's I, kinsman and follower. Fame a plenty have I gained in youth! These Grendel-deeds I heard in my home-land heralded clear. Seafarers say how stands this hall, of buildings best, for your band of thanes empty and idle, when evening sun in the harbor of heaven is hidden away. So my vassals advised me well, -- brave and wise, the best of men, -- O sovran Hrothgar, to seek thee here, for my nerve and my might they knew full well. Themselves had seen me from slaughter come blood-flecked from foes, where five I bound, and that wild brood worsted. I' the waves I slew nicors {6a} by night, in need and peril avenging the Weders, {6b} whose woe they sought, -- crushing the grim ones. Grendel now, monster cruel, be mine to quell in single battle! So, from thee, thou sovran of the Shining-Danes, Scyldings'-bulwark, a boon I seek, -- and, Friend-of-the-folk, refuse it not, O Warriors'-shield, now I've wandered far, -- that I alone with my liegemen here, this hardy band, may Heorot purge! More I hear, that the monster dire, in his wanton mood, of weapons recks not; hence shall I scorn -- so Hygelac stay, king of my kindred, kind to me! -- brand or buckler to bear in the fight, gold-colored targe: but with gripe alone must I front the fiend and fight for life, foe against foe. Then faith be his in the doom of the Lord whom death shall take. Fain, I ween, if the fight he win, in this hall of gold my Geatish band will he fearless eat, -- as oft before, -- my noblest thanes. Nor need'st thou then to hide my head; {6c} for his shall I be, dyed in gore, if death must take me; and my blood-covered body he'll bear as prey, ruthless devour it, the roamer-lonely, with my life-blood redden his lair in the fen: no further for me need'st food prepare! To Hygelac send, if Hild {6d} should take me, best of war-weeds, warding my breast, armor excellent, heirloom of Hrethel and work of Wayland. {6e} Fares Wyrd {6f} as she must." VII HROTHGAR spake, the Scyldings'-helmet: -- "For fight defensive, Friend my Beowulf, to succor and save, thou hast sought us here. Thy father's combat {7a} a feud enkindled when Heatholaf with hand he slew among the Wylfings; his Weder kin for horror of fighting feared to hold him. Fleeing, he sought our South-Dane folk, over surge of ocean the Honor-Scyldings, when first I was ruling the folk of Danes, wielded, youthful, this widespread realm, this hoard-hold of heroes. Heorogar was dead, my elder brother, had breathed his last, Healfdene's bairn: he was better than I! Straightway the feud with fee {7b} I settled, to the Wylfings sent, o'er watery ridges, treasures olden: oaths he {7c} swore me. Sore is my soul to say to any of the race of man what ruth for me in Heorot Grendel with hate hath wrought, what sudden harryings. Hall-folk fail me, my warriors wane; for Wyrd hath swept them into Grendel's grasp. But God is able this deadly foe from his deeds to turn! Boasted full oft, as my beer they drank, earls o'er the ale-cup, armed men, that they would bide in the beer-hall here, Grendel's attack with terror of blades. Then was this mead-house at morning tide dyed with gore, when the daylight broke, all the boards of the benches blood-besprinkled, gory the hall: I had heroes the less, doughty dear-ones that death had reft. -- But sit to the banquet, unbind thy words, hardy hero, as heart shall prompt thee." Gathered together, the Geatish men in the banquet-hall on bench assigned, sturdy-spirited, sat them down, hardy-hearted. A henchman attended, carried the carven cup in hand, served the clear mead. Oft minstrels sang blithe in Heorot. Heroes revelled, no dearth of warriors, Weder and Dane. VIII UNFERTH spake, the son of Ecglaf, who sat at the feet of the Scyldings' lord, unbound the battle-runes. {8a} -- Beowulf's quest, sturdy seafarer's, sorely galled him; ever he envied that other men should more achieve in middle-earth of fame under heaven than he himself. -- "Art thou that Beowulf, Breca's rival, who emulous swam on the open sea, when for pride the pair of you proved the floods, and wantonly dared in waters deep to risk your lives? No living man, or lief or loath, from your labor dire could you dissuade, from swimming the main. Ocean-tides with your arms ye covered, with strenuous hands the sea-streets measured, swam o'er the waters. Winter's storm rolled the rough waves. In realm of sea a sennight strove ye. In swimming he topped thee, had more of main! Him at morning-tide billows bore to the Battling Reamas, whence he hied to his home so dear beloved of his liegemen, to land of Brondings, fastness fair, where his folk he ruled, town and treasure. In triumph o'er thee Beanstan's bairn {8b} his boast achieved. So ween I for thee a worse adventure -- though in buffet of battle thou brave hast been, in struggle grim, -- if Grendel's approach thou darst await through the watch of night!" Beowulf spake, bairn of Ecgtheow: -- "What a deal hast uttered, dear my Unferth, drunken with beer, of Breca now, told of his triumph! Truth I claim it, that I had more of might in the sea than any man else, more ocean-endurance. We twain had talked, in time of youth, and made our boast, -- we were merely boys, striplings still, -- to stake our lives far at sea: and so we performed it. Naked swords, as we swam along, we held in hand, with hope to guard us against the whales. Not a whit from me could he float afar o'er the flood of waves, haste o'er the billows; nor him I abandoned. Together we twain on the tides abode five nights full till the flood divided us, churning waves and chillest weather, darkling night, and the northern wind ruthless rushed on us: rough was the surge. Now the wrath of the sea-fish rose apace; yet me 'gainst the monsters my mailed coat, hard and hand-linked, help afforded, -- battle-sark braided my breast to ward, garnished with gold. There grasped me firm and haled me to bottom the hated foe, with grimmest gripe. 'Twas granted me, though, to pierce the monster with point of sword, with blade of battle: huge beast of the sea was whelmed by the hurly through hand of mine. IX ME thus often the evil monsters thronging threatened. With thrust of my sword, the darling, I dealt them due return! Nowise had they bliss from their booty then to devour their victim, vengeful creatures, seated to banquet at bottom of sea; but at break of day, by my brand sore hurt, on the edge of ocean up they lay, put to sleep by the sword. And since, by them on the fathomless sea-ways sailor-folk are never molested. -- Light from east, came bright God's beacon; the billows sank, so that I saw the sea-cliffs high, windy walls. For Wyrd oft saveth earl undoomed if he doughty be! And so it came that I killed with my sword nine of the nicors. Of night-fought battles ne'er heard I a harder 'neath heaven's dome, nor adrift on the deep a more desolate man! Yet I came unharmed from that hostile clutch, though spent with swimming. The sea upbore me, flood of the tide, on Finnish land, the welling waters. No wise of thee have I heard men tell such terror of falchions, bitter battle. Breca ne'er yet, not one of you pair, in the play of war such daring deed has done at all with bloody brand, -- I boast not of it! -- though thou wast the bane {9a} of thy brethren dear, thy closest kin, whence curse of hell awaits thee, well as thy wit may serve! For I say in sooth, thou son of Ecglaf, never had Grendel these grim deeds wrought, monster dire, on thy master dear, in Heorot such havoc, if heart of thine were as battle-bold as thy boast is loud! But he has found no feud will happen; from sword-clash dread of your Danish clan he vaunts him safe, from the Victor-Scyldings. He forces pledges, favors none of the land of Danes, but lustily murders, fights and feasts, nor feud he dreads from Spear-Dane men. But speedily now shall I prove him the prowess and pride of the Geats, shall bid him battle. Blithe to mead go he that listeth, when light of dawn this morrow morning o'er men of earth, ether-robed sun from the south shall beam!" Joyous then was the Jewel-giver, hoar-haired, war-brave; help awaited the Bright-Danes' prince, from Beowulf hearing, folk's good shepherd, such firm resolve. Then was laughter of liegemen loud resounding with winsome words. Came Wealhtheow forth, queen of Hrothgar, heedful of courtesy, gold-decked, greeting the guests in hall; and the high-born lady handed the cup first to the East-Danes' heir and warden, bade him be blithe at the beer-carouse, the land's beloved one. Lustily took he banquet and beaker, battle-famed king. Through the hall then went the Helmings' Lady, to younger and older everywhere carried the cup, till come the moment when the ring-graced queen, the royal-hearted, to Beowulf bore the beaker of mead. She greeted the Geats' lord, God she thanked, in wisdom's words, that her will was granted, that at last on a hero her hope could lean for comfort in terrors. The cup he took, hardy-in-war, from Wealhtheow's hand, and answer uttered the eager-for-combat. Beowulf spake, bairn of Ecgtheow: -- "This was my thought, when my thanes and I bent to the ocean and entered our boat, that I would work the will of your people fully, or fighting fall in death, in fiend's gripe fast. I am firm to do an earl's brave deed, or end the days of this life of mine in the mead-hall here." Well these words to the woman seemed, Beowulf's battle-boast. -- Bright with gold the stately dame by her spouse sat down. Again, as erst, began in hall warriors' wassail and words of power, the proud-band's revel, till presently the son of Healfdene hastened to seek rest for the night; he knew there waited fight for the fiend in that festal hall, when the sheen of the sun they saw no more, and dusk of night sank darkling nigh, and shadowy shapes came striding on, wan under welkin. The warriors rose. Man to man, he made harangue, Hrothgar to Beowulf, bade him hail, let him wield the wine hall: a word he added: -- "Never to any man erst I trusted, since I could heave up hand and shield, this noble Dane-Hall, till now to thee. Have now and hold this house unpeered; remember thy glory; thy might declare; watch for the foe! No wish shall fail thee if thou bidest the battle with bold-won life." X THEN Hrothgar went with his hero-train, defence-of-Scyldings, forth from hall; fain would the war-lord Wealhtheow seek, couch of his queen. The King-of-Glory against this Grendel a guard had set, so heroes heard, a hall-defender, who warded the monarch and watched for the monster. In truth, the Geats' prince gladly trusted his mettle, his might, the mercy of God! Cast off then his corselet of iron, helmet from head; to his henchman gave, -- choicest of weapons, -- the well-chased sword, bidding him guard the gear of battle. Spake then his Vaunt the valiant man, Beowulf Geat, ere the bed be sought: -- "Of force in fight no feebler I count me, in grim war-deeds, than Grendel deems him. Not with the sword, then, to sleep of death his life will I give, though it lie in my power. No skill is his to strike against me, my shield to hew though he hardy be, bold in battle; we both, this night, shall spurn the sword, if he seek me here, unweaponed, for war. Let wisest God, sacred Lord, on which side soever doom decree as he deemeth right." Reclined then the chieftain, and cheek-pillows held the head of the earl, while all about him seamen hardy on hall-beds sank. None of them thought that thence their steps to the folk and fastness that fostered them, to the land they loved, would lead them back! Full well they wist that on warriors many battle-death seized, in the banquet-hall, of Danish clan. But comfort and help, war-weal weaving, to Weder folk the Master gave, that, by might of one, over their enemy all prevailed, by single strength. In sooth 'tis told that highest God o'er human kind hath wielded ever! -- Thro' wan night striding, came the walker-in-shadow. Warriors slept whose hest was to guard the gabled hall, -- all save one. 'Twas widely known that against God's will the ghostly ravager him {10a} could not hurl to haunts of darkness; wakeful, ready, with warrior's wrath, bold he bided the battle's issue. XI THEN from the moorland, by misty crags, with God's wrath laden, Grendel came. The monster was minded of mankind now sundry to seize in the stately house. Under welkin he walked, till the wine-palace there, gold-hall of men, he gladly discerned, flashing with fretwork. Not first time, this, that he the home of Hrothgar sought, -- yet ne'er in his life-day, late or early, such hardy heroes, such hall-thanes, found! To the house the warrior walked apace, parted from peace; {11a} the portal opended, though with forged bolts fast, when his fists had struck it, and baleful he burst in his blatant rage, the house's mouth. All hastily, then, o'er fair-paved floor the fiend trod on, ireful he strode; there streamed from his eyes fearful flashes, like flame to see. He spied in hall the hero-band, kin and clansmen clustered asleep, hardy liegemen. Then laughed his heart; for the monster was minded, ere morn should dawn, savage, to sever the soul of each, life from body, since lusty banquet waited his will! But Wyrd forbade him to seize any more of men on earth after that evening. Eagerly watched Hygelac's kinsman his cursed foe, how he would fare in fell attack. Not that the monster was minded to pause! Straightway he seized a sleeping warrior for the first, and tore him fiercely asunder, the bone-frame bit, drank blood in streams, swallowed him piecemeal: swiftly thus the lifeless corse was clear devoured, e'en feet and hands. Then farther he hied; for the hardy hero with hand he grasped, felt for the foe with fiendish claw, for the hero reclining, -- who clutched it boldly, prompt to answer, propped on his arm. Soon then saw that shepherd-of-evils that never he met in this middle-world, in the ways of earth, another wight with heavier hand-gripe; at heart he feared, sorrowed in soul, -- none the sooner escaped! Fain would he flee, his fastness seek, the den of devils: no doings now such as oft he had done in days of old! Then bethought him the hardy Hygelac-thane of his boast at evening: up he bounded, grasped firm his foe, whose fingers cracked. The fiend made off, but the earl close followed. The monster meant -- if he might at all -- to fling himself free, and far away fly to the fens, -- knew his fingers' power in the gripe of the grim one. Gruesome march to Heorot this monster of harm had made! Din filled the room; the Danes were bereft, castle-dwellers and clansmen all, earls, of their ale. Angry were both those savage hall-guards: the house resounded. Wonder it was the wine-hall firm in the strain of their struggle stood, to earth the fair house fell not; too fast it was within and without by its iron bands craftily clamped; though there crashed from sill many a mead-bench -- men have told me -- gay with gold, where the grim foes wrestled. So well had weened the wisest Scyldings that not ever at all might any man that bone-decked, brave house break asunder, crush by craft, -- unless clasp of fire in smoke engulfed it. -- Again uprose din redoubled. Danes of the North with fear and frenzy were filled, each one, who from the wall that wailing heard, God's foe sounding his grisly song, cry of the conquered, clamorous pain from captive of hell. Too closely held him he who of men in might was strongest in that same day of this our life. XII NOT in any wise would the earls'-defence {12a} suffer that slaughterous stranger to live, useless deeming his days and years to men on earth. Now many an earl of Beowulf brandished blade ancestral, fain the life of their lord to shield, their praised prince, if power were theirs; never they knew, -- as they neared the foe, hardy-hearted heroes of war, aiming their swords on every side the accursed to kill, -- no keenest blade, no farest of falchions fashioned on earth, could harm or hurt that hideous fiend! He was safe, by his spells, from sword of battle, from edge of iron. Yet his end and parting on that same day of this our life woful should be, and his wandering soul far off flit to the fiends' domain. Soon he found, who in former days, harmful in heart and hated of God, on many a man such murder wrought, that the frame of his body failed him now. For him the keen-souled kinsman of Hygelac held in hand; hateful alive was each to other. The outlaw dire took mortal hurt; a mighty wound showed on his shoulder, and sinews cracked, and the bone-frame burst. To Beowulf now the glory was given, and Grendel thence death-sick his den in the dark moor sought, noisome abode: he knew too well that here was the last of life, an end of his days on earth. -- To all the Danes by that bloody battle the boon had come. From ravage had rescued the roving stranger Hrothgar's hall; the hardy and wise one had purged it anew. His night-work pleased him, his deed and its honor. To Eastern Danes had the valiant Geat his vaunt made good, all their sorrow and ills assuaged, their bale of battle borne so long, and all the dole they erst endured pain a-plenty. -- 'Twas proof of this, when the hardy-in-fight a hand laid down, arm and shoulder, -- all, indeed, of Grendel's gripe, -- 'neath the gabled roof. XIII MANY at morning, as men have told me, warriors gathered the gift-hall round, folk-leaders faring from far and near, o'er wide-stretched ways, the wonder to view, trace of the traitor. Not troublous seemed the enemy's end to any man who saw by the gait of the graceless foe how the weary-hearted, away from thence, baffled in battle and banned, his steps death-marked dragged to the devils' mere. Bloody the billows were boiling there, turbid the tide of tumbling waves horribly seething, with sword-blood hot, by that doomed one dyed, who in den of the moor laid forlorn his life adown, his heathen soul, and hell received it. Home then rode the hoary clansmen from that merry journey, and many a youth, on horses white, the hardy warriors, back from the mere. Then Beowulf's glory eager they echoed, and all averred that from sea to sea, or south or north, there was no other in earth's domain, under vault of heaven, more valiant found, of warriors none more worthy to rule! (On their lord beloved they laid no slight, gracious Hrothgar: a good king he!) From time to time, the tried-in-battle their gray steeds set to gallop amain, and ran a race when the road seemed fair. From time to time, a thane of the king, who had made many vaunts, and was mindful of verses, stored with sagas and songs of old, bound word to word in well-knit rime, welded his lay; this warrior soon of Beowulf's quest right cleverly sang, and artfully added an excellent tale, in well-ranged words, of the warlike deeds he had heard in saga of Sigemund. Strange the story: he said it all, -- the Waelsing's wanderings wide, his struggles, which never were told to tribes of men, the feuds and the frauds, save to Fitela only, when of these doings he deigned to speak, uncle to nephew; as ever the twain stood side by side in stress of war, and multitude of the monster kind they had felled with their swords. Of Sigemund grew, when he passed from life, no little praise; for the doughty-in-combat a dragon killed that herded the hoard: {13a} under hoary rock the atheling dared the deed alone fearful quest, nor was Fitela there. Yet so it befell, his falchion pierced that wondrous worm, -- on the wall it struck, best blade; the dragon died in its blood. Thus had the dread-one by daring achieved over the ring-hoard to rule at will, himself to pleasure; a sea-boat he loaded, and bore on its bosom the beaming gold, son of Waels; the worm was consumed. He had of all heroes the highest renown among races of men, this refuge-of-warriors, for deeds of daring that decked his name since the hand and heart of Heremod grew slack in battle. He, swiftly banished to mingle with monsters at mercy of foes, to death was betrayed; for torrents of sorrow had lamed him too long; a load of care to earls and athelings all he proved. Oft indeed, in earlier days, for the warrior's wayfaring wise men mourned, who had hoped of him help from harm and bale, and had thought their sovran's son would thrive, follow his father, his folk protect, the hoard and the stronghold, heroes' land, home of Scyldings. -- But here, thanes said, the kinsman of Hygelac kinder seemed to all: the other {13b} was urged to crime! And afresh to the race, {13c} the fallow roads by swift steeds measured! The morning sun was climbing higher. Clansmen hastened to the high-built hall, those hardy-minded, the wonder to witness. Warden of treasure, crowned with glory, the king himself, with stately band from the bride-bower strode; and with him the queen and her crowd of maidens measured the path to the mead-house fair. XIV HROTHGAR spake, -- to the hall he went, stood by the steps, the steep roof saw, garnished with gold, and Grendel's hand: -- "For the sight I see to the Sovran Ruler be speedy thanks! A throng of sorrows I have borne from Grendel; but God still works wonder on wonder, the Warden-of-Glory. It was but now that I never more for woes that weighed on me waited help long as I lived, when, laved in blood, stood sword-gore-stained this stateliest house, -- widespread woe for wise men all, who had no hope to hinder ever foes infernal and fiendish sprites from havoc in hall. This hero now, by the Wielder's might, a work has done that not all of us erst could ever do by wile and wisdom. Lo, well can she say whoso of women this warrior bore among sons of men, if still she liveth, that the God of the ages was good to her in the birth of her bairn. Now, Beowulf, thee, of heroes best, I shall heartily love as mine own, my son; preserve thou ever this kinship new: thou shalt never lack wealth of the world that I wield as mine! Full oft for less have I largess showered, my precious hoard, on a punier man, less stout in struggle. Thyself hast now fulfilled such deeds, that thy fame shall endure through all the ages. As ever he did, well may the Wielder reward thee still!" Beowulf spake, bairn of Ecgtheow: -- "This work of war most willingly we have fought, this fight, and fearlessly dared force of the foe. Fain, too, were I hadst thou but seen himself, what time the fiend in his trappings tottered to fall! Swiftly, I thought, in strongest gripe on his bed of death to bind him down, that he in the hent of this hand of mine should breathe his last: but he broke away. Him I might not -- the Maker willed not -- hinder from flight, and firm enough hold the life-destroyer: too sturdy was he, the ruthless, in running! For rescue, however, he left behind him his hand in pledge, arm and shoulder; nor aught of help could the cursed one thus procure at all. None the longer liveth he, loathsome fiend, sunk in his sins, but sorrow holds him tightly grasped in gripe of anguish, in baleful bonds, where bide he must, evil outlaw, such awful doom as the Mighty Maker shall mete him out." More silent seemed the son of Ecglaf {14a} in boastful speech of his battle-deeds, since athelings all, through the earl's great prowess, beheld that hand, on the high roof gazing, foeman's fingers, -- the forepart of each of the sturdy nails to steel was likest, -- heathen's "hand-spear," hostile warrior's claw uncanny. 'Twas clear, they said, that him no blade of the brave could touch, how keen soever, or cut away that battle-hand bloody from baneful foe. XV THERE was hurry and hest in Heorot now for hands to bedeck it, and dense was the throng of men and women the wine-hall to cleanse, the guest-room to garnish. Gold-gay shone the hangings that were wove on the wall, and wonders many to delight each mortal that looks upon them. Though braced within by iron bands, that building bright was broken sorely; {15a} rent were its hinges; the roof alone held safe and sound, when, seared with crime, the fiendish foe his flight essayed, of life despairing. -- No light thing that, the flight for safety, -- essay it who will! Forced of fate, he shall find his way to the refuge ready for race of man, for soul-possessors, and sons of earth; and there his body on bed of death shall rest after revel. Arrived was the hour when to hall proceeded Healfdene's son: the king himself would sit to banquet. Ne'er heard I of host in haughtier throng more graciously gathered round giver-of-rings! Bowed then to bench those bearers-of-glory, fain of the feasting. Featly received many a mead-cup the mighty-in-spirit, kinsmen who sat in the sumptuous hall, Hrothgar and Hrothulf. Heorot now was filled with friends; the folk of Scyldings ne'er yet had tried the traitor's deed. To Beowulf gave the bairn of Healfdene a gold-wove banner, guerdon of triumph, broidered battle-flag, breastplate and helmet; and a splendid sword was seen of many borne to the brave one. Beowulf took cup in hall: {15b} for such costly gifts he suffered no shame in that soldier throng. For I heard of few heroes, in heartier mood, with four such gifts, so fashioned with gold, on the ale-bench honoring others thus! O'er the roof of the helmet high, a ridge, wound with wires, kept ward o'er the head, lest the relict-of-files {15c} should fierce invade, sharp in the strife, when that shielded hero should go to grapple against his foes. Then the earls'-defence {15d} on the floor {15e} bade lead coursers eight, with carven head-gear, adown the hall: one horse was decked with a saddle all shining and set in jewels; 'twas the battle-seat of the best of kings, when to play of swords the son of Healfdene was fain to fare. Ne'er failed his valor in the crush of combat when corpses fell. To Beowulf over them both then gave the refuge-of-Ingwines right and power, o'er war-steeds and weapons: wished him joy of them. Manfully thus the mighty prince, hoard-guard for heroes, that hard fight repaid with steeds and treasures contemned by none who is willing to say the sooth aright. XVI AND the lord of earls, to each that came with Beowulf over the briny ways, an heirloom there at the ale-bench gave, precious gift; and the price {16a} bade pay in gold for him whom Grendel erst murdered, -- and fain of them more had killed, had not wisest God their Wyrd averted, and the man's {16b} brave mood. The Maker then ruled human kind, as here and now. Therefore is insight always best, and forethought of mind. How much awaits him of lief and of loath, who long time here, through days of warfare this world endures! Then song and music mingled sounds in the presence of Healfdene's head-of-armies {16c} and harping was heard with the hero-lay as Hrothgar's singer the hall-joy woke along the mead-seats, making his song of that sudden raid on the sons of Finn. {16d} Healfdene's hero, Hnaef the Scylding, was fated to fall in the Frisian slaughter. {16e} Hildeburh needed not hold in value her enemies' honor! {16f} Innocent both were the loved ones she lost at the linden-play, bairn and brother, they bowed to fate, stricken by spears; 'twas a sorrowful woman! None doubted why the daughter of Hoc bewailed her doom when dawning came, and under the sky she saw them lying, kinsmen murdered, where most she had kenned of the sweets of the world! By war were swept, too, Finn's own liegemen, and few were left; in the parleying-place {16g} he could ply no longer weapon, nor war could he wage on Hengest, and rescue his remnant by right of arms from the prince's thane. A pact he offered: another dwelling the Danes should have, hall and high-seat, and half the power should fall to them in Frisian land; and at the fee-gifts, Folcwald's son day by day the Danes should honor, the folk of Hengest favor with rings, even as truly, with treasure and jewels, with fretted gold, as his Frisian kin he meant to honor in ale-hall there. Pact of peace they plighted further on both sides firmly. Finn to Hengest with oath, upon honor, openly promised that woful remnant, with wise-men's aid, nobly to govern, so none of the guests by word or work should warp the treaty, {16h} or with malice of mind bemoan themselves as forced to follow their fee-giver's slayer, lordless men, as their lot ordained. Should Frisian, moreover, with foeman's taunt, that murderous hatred to mind recall, then edge of the sword must seal his doom. Oaths were given, and ancient gold heaped from hoard. -- The hardy Scylding, battle-thane best, {16i} on his balefire lay. All on the pyre were plain to see the gory sark, the gilded swine-crest, boar of hard iron, and athelings many slain by the sword: at the slaughter they fell. It was Hildeburh's hest, at Hnaef's own pyre the bairn of her body on brands to lay, his bones to burn, on the balefire placed, at his uncle's side. In sorrowful dirges bewept them the woman: great wailing ascended. Then wound up to welkin the wildest of death-fires, roared o'er the hillock: {16j} heads all were melted, gashes burst, and blood gushed out from bites {16k} of the body. Balefire devoured, greediest spirit, those spared not by war out of either folk: their flower was gone. XVII THEN hastened those heroes their home to see, friendless, to find the Frisian land, houses and high burg. Hengest still through the death-dyed winter dwelt with Finn, holding pact, yet of home he minded, though powerless his ring-decked prow to drive over the waters, now waves rolled fierce lashed by the winds, or winter locked them in icy fetters. Then fared another year to men's dwellings, as yet they do, the sunbright skies, that their season ever duly await. Far off winter was driven; fair lay earth's breast; and fain was the rover, the guest, to depart, though more gladly he pondered on wreaking his vengeance than roaming the deep, and how to hasten the hot encounter where sons of the Frisians were sure to be. So he escaped not the common doom, when Hun with "Lafing," the light-of-battle, best of blades, his bosom pierced: its edge was famed with the Frisian earls. On fierce-heart Finn there fell likewise, on himself at home, the horrid sword-death; for Guthlaf and Oslaf of grim attack had sorrowing told, from sea-ways landed, mourning their woes. {17a} Finn's wavering spirit bode not in breast. The burg was reddened with blood of foemen, and Finn was slain, king amid clansmen; the queen was taken. To their ship the Scylding warriors bore all the chattels the chieftain owned, whatever they found in Finn's domain of gems and jewels. The gentle wife o'er paths of the deep to the Danes they bore, led to her land. The lay was finished, the gleeman's song. Then glad rose the revel; bench-joy brightened. Bearers draw from their "wonder-vats" wine. Comes Wealhtheow forth, under gold-crown goes where the good pair sit, uncle and nephew, true each to the other one, kindred in amity. Unferth the spokesman at the Scylding lord's feet sat: men had faith in his spirit, his keenness of courage, though kinsmen had found him unsure at the sword-play. The Scylding queen spoke: "Quaff of this cup, my king and lord, breaker of rings, and blithe be thou, gold-friend of men; to the Geats here speak such words of mildness as man should use. Be glad with thy Geats; of those gifts be mindful, or near or far, which now thou hast. Men say to me, as son thou wishest yon hero to hold. Thy Heorot purged, jewel-hall brightest, enjoy while thou canst, with many a largess; and leave to thy kin folk and realm when forth thou goest to greet thy doom. For gracious I deem my Hrothulf, {17b} willing to hold and rule nobly our youths, if thou yield up first, prince of Scyldings, thy part in the world. I ween with good he will well requite offspring of ours, when all he minds that for him we did in his helpless days of gift and grace to gain him honor!" Then she turned to the seat where her sons wereplaced, Hrethric and Hrothmund, with heroes' bairns, young men together: the Geat, too, sat there, Beowulf brave, the brothers between. XVIII A CUP she gave him, with kindly greeting and winsome words. Of wounden gold, she offered, to honor him, arm-jewels twain, corselet and rings, and of collars the noblest that ever I knew the earth around. Ne'er heard I so mighty, 'neath heaven's dome, a hoard-gem of heroes, since Hama bore to his bright-built burg the Brisings' necklace, jewel and gem casket. -- Jealousy fled he, Eormenric's hate: chose help eternal. Hygelac Geat, grandson of Swerting, on the last of his raids this ring bore with him, under his banner the booty defending, the war-spoil warding; but Wyrd o'erwhelmed him what time, in his daring, dangers he sought, feud with Frisians. Fairest of gems he bore with him over the beaker-of-waves, sovran strong: under shield he died. Fell the corpse of the king into keeping of Franks, gear of the breast, and that gorgeous ring; weaker warriors won the spoil, after gripe of battle, from Geatland's lord, and held the death-field. Din rose in hall. Wealhtheow spake amid warriors, and said: -- "This jewel enjoy in thy jocund youth, Beowulf lov'd, these battle-weeds wear, a royal treasure, and richly thrive! Preserve thy strength, and these striplings here counsel in kindness: requital be mine. Hast done such deeds, that for days to come thou art famed among folk both far and near, so wide as washeth the wave of Ocean his windy walls. Through the ways of life prosper, O prince! I pray for thee rich possessions. To son of mine be helpful in deed and uphold his joys! Here every earl to the other is true, mild of mood, to the master loyal! Thanes are friendly, the throng obedient, liegemen are revelling: list and obey!" Went then to her place. -- That was proudest of feasts; flowed wine for the warriors. Wyrd they knew not, destiny dire, and the doom to be seen by many an earl when eve should come, and Hrothgar homeward hasten away, royal, to rest. The room was guarded by an army of earls, as erst was done. They bared the bench-boards; abroad they spread beds and bolsters. -- One beer-carouser in danger of doom lay down in the hall. -- At their heads they set their shields of war, bucklers bright; on the bench were there over each atheling, easy to see, the high battle-helmet, the haughty spear, the corselet of rings. 'Twas their custom so ever to be for battle prepared, at home, or harrying, which it were, even as oft as evil threatened their sovran king. -- They were clansmen good. XIX THEN sank they to sleep. With sorrow one bought his rest of the evening, -- as ofttime had happened when Grendel guarded that golden hall, evil wrought, till his end drew nigh, slaughter for sins. 'Twas seen and told how an avenger survived the fiend, as was learned afar. The livelong time after that grim fight, Grendel's mother, monster of women, mourned her woe. She was doomed to dwell in the dreary waters, cold sea-courses, since Cain cut down with edge of the sword his only brother, his father's offspring: outlawed he fled, marked with murder, from men's delights warded the wilds. -- There woke from him such fate-sent ghosts as Grendel, who, war-wolf horrid, at Heorot found a warrior watching and waiting the fray, with whom the grisly one grappled amain. But the man remembered his mighty power, the glorious gift that God had sent him, in his Maker's mercy put his trust for comfort and help: so he conquered the foe, felled the fiend, who fled abject, reft of joy, to the realms of death, mankind's foe. And his mother now, gloomy and grim, would go that quest of sorrow, the death of her son to avenge. To Heorot came she, where helmeted Danes slept in the hall. Too soon came back old ills of the earls, when in she burst, the mother of Grendel. Less grim, though, that terror, e'en as terror of woman in war is less, might of maid, than of men in arms when, hammer-forged, the falchion hard, sword gore-stained, through swine of the helm, crested, with keen blade carves amain. Then was in hall the hard-edge drawn, the swords on the settles, {19a} and shields a-many firm held in hand: nor helmet minded nor harness of mail, whom that horror seized. Haste was hers; she would hie afar and save her life when the liegemen saw her. Yet a single atheling up she seized fast and firm, as she fled to the moor. He was for Hrothgar of heroes the dearest, of trusty vassals betwixt the seas, whom she killed on his couch, a clansman famous, in battle brave. -- Nor was Beowulf there; another house had been held apart, after giving of gold, for the Geat renowned. -- Uproar filled Heorot; the hand all had viewed, blood-flecked, she bore with her; bale was returned, dole in the dwellings: 'twas dire exchange where Dane and Geat were doomed to give the lives of loved ones. Long-tried king, the hoary hero, at heart was sad when he knew his noble no more lived, and dead indeed was his dearest thane. To his bower was Beowulf brought in haste, dauntless victor. As daylight broke, along with his earls the atheling lord, with his clansmen, came where the king abode waiting to see if the Wielder-of-All would turn this tale of trouble and woe. Strode o'er floor the famed-in-strife, with his hand-companions, -- the hall resounded, -- wishing to greet the wise old king, Ingwines' lord; he asked if the night had passed in peace to the prince's mind. XX HROTHGAR spake, helmet-of-Scyldings: -- "Ask not of pleasure! Pain is renewed to Danish folk. Dead is Aeschere, of Yrmenlaf the elder brother, my sage adviser and stay in council, shoulder-comrade in stress of fight when warriors clashed and we warded our heads, hewed the helm-boars; hero famed should be every earl as Aeschere was! But here in Heorot a hand hath slain him of wandering death-sprite. I wot not whither, {20a} proud of the prey, her path she took, fain of her fill. The feud she avenged that yesternight, unyieldingly, Grendel in grimmest grasp thou killedst, -- seeing how long these liegemen mine he ruined and ravaged. Reft of life, in arms he fell. Now another comes, keen and cruel, her kin to avenge, faring far in feud of blood: so that many a thane shall think, who e'er sorrows in soul for that sharer of rings, this is hardest of heart-bales. The hand lies low that once was willing each wish to please. Land-dwellers here {20b} and liegemen mine, who house by those parts, I have heard relate that such a pair they have sometimes seen, march-stalkers mighty the moorland haunting, wandering spirits: one of them seemed, so far as my folk could fairly judge, of womankind; and one, accursed, in man's guise trod the misery-track of exile, though huger than human bulk. Grendel in days long gone they named him, folk of the land; his father they knew not, nor any brood that was born to him of treacherous spirits. Untrod is their home; by wolf-cliffs haunt they and windy headlands, fenways fearful, where flows the stream from mountains gliding to gloom of the rocks, underground flood. Not far is it hence in measure of miles that the mere expands, and o'er it the frost-bound forest hanging, sturdily rooted, shadows the wave. By night is a wonder weird to see, fire on the waters. So wise lived none of the sons of men, to search those depths! Nay, though the heath-rover, harried by dogs, the horn-proud hart, this holt should seek, long distance driven, his dear life first on the brink he yields ere he brave the plunge to hide his head: 'tis no happy place! Thence the welter of waters washes up wan to welkin when winds bestir evil storms, and air grows dusk, and the heavens weep. Now is help once more with thee alone! The land thou knowst not, place of fear, where thou findest out that sin-flecked being. Seek if thou dare! I will reward thee, for waging this fight, with ancient treasure, as erst I did, with winding gold, if thou winnest back." XXI BEOWULF spake, bairn of Ecgtheow: "Sorrow not, sage! It beseems us better friends to avenge than fruitlessly mourn them. Each of us all must his end abide in the ways of the world; so win who may glory ere death! When his days are told, that is the warrior's worthiest doom. Rise, O realm-warder! Ride we anon, and mark the trail of the mother of Grendel. No harbor shall hide her -- heed my promise! -- enfolding of field or forested mountain or floor of the flood, let her flee where she will! But thou this day endure in patience, as I ween thou wilt, thy woes each one." Leaped up the graybeard: God he thanked, mighty Lord, for the man's brave words. For Hrothgar soon a horse was saddled wave-maned steed. The sovran wise stately rode on; his shield-armed men followed in force. The footprints led along the woodland, widely seen, a path o'er the plain, where she passed, and trod the murky moor; of men-at-arms she bore the bravest and best one, dead, him who with Hrothgar the homestead ruled. On then went the atheling-born o'er stone-cliffs steep and strait defiles, narrow passes and unknown ways, headlands sheer, and the haunts of the Nicors. Foremost he {21a} fared, a few at his side of the wiser men, the ways to scan, till he found in a flash the forested hill hanging over the hoary rock, a woful wood: the waves below were dyed in blood. The Danish men had sorrow of soul, and for Scyldings all, for many a hero, 'twas hard to bear, ill for earls, when Aeschere's head they found by the flood on the foreland there. Waves were welling, the warriors saw, hot with blood; but the horn sang oft battle-song bold. The band sat down, and watched on the water worm-like things, sea-dragons strange that sounded the deep, and nicors that lay on the ledge of the ness -- such as oft essay at hour of morn on the road-of-sails their ruthless quest, -- and sea-snakes and monsters. These started away, swollen and savage that song to hear, that war-horn's blast. The warden of Geats, with bolt from bow, then balked of life, of wave-work, one monster, amid its heart went the keen war-shaft; in water it seemed less doughty in swimming whom death had seized. Swift on the billows, with boar-spears well hooked and barbed, it was hard beset, done to death and dragged on the headland, wave-roamer wondrous. Warriors viewed the grisly guest. Then girt him Beowulf in martial mail, nor mourned for his life. His breastplate broad and bright of hues, woven by hand, should the waters try; well could it ward the warrior's body that battle should break on his breast in vain nor harm his heart by the hand of a foe. And the helmet white that his head protected was destined to dare the deeps of the flood, through wave-whirl win: 'twas wound with chains, decked with gold, as in days of yore the weapon-smith worked it wondrously, with swine-forms set it, that swords nowise, brandished in battle, could bite that helm. Nor was that the meanest of mighty helps which Hrothgar's orator offered at need: "Hrunting" they named the hilted sword, of old-time heirlooms easily first; iron was its edge, all etched with poison, with battle-blood hardened, nor blenched it at fight in hero's hand who held it ever, on paths of peril prepared to go to folkstead {21b} of foes. Not first time this it was destined to do a daring task. For he bore not in mind, the bairn of Ecglaf sturdy and strong, that speech he had made, drunk with wine, now this weapon he lent to a stouter swordsman. Himself, though, durst not under welter of waters wager his life as loyal liegeman. So lost he his glory, honor of earls. With the other not so, who girded him now for the grim encounter. XXII BEOWULF spake, bairn of Ecgtheow: -- "Have mind, thou honored offspring of Healfdene gold-friend of men, now I go on this quest, sovran wise, what once was said: if in thy cause it came that I should lose my life, thou wouldst loyal bide to me, though fallen, in father's place! Be guardian, thou, to this group of my thanes, my warrior-friends, if War should seize me; and the goodly gifts thou gavest me, Hrothgar beloved, to Hygelac send! Geatland's king may ken by the gold, Hrethel's son see, when he stares at the treasure, that I got me a friend for goodness famed, and joyed while I could in my jewel-bestower. And let Unferth wield this wondrous sword, earl far-honored, this heirloom precious, hard of edge: with Hrunting I seek doom of glory, or Death shall take me." After these words the Weder-Geat lord boldly hastened, biding never answer at all: the ocean floods closed o'er the hero. Long while of the day fled ere he felt the floor of the sea. Soon found the fiend who the flood-domain sword-hungry held these hundred winters, greedy and grim, that some guest from above, some man, was raiding her monster-realm. She grasped out for him with grisly claws, and the warrior seized; yet scathed she not his body hale; the breastplate hindered, as she strove to shatter the sark of war, the linked harness, with loathsome hand. Then bore this brine-wolf, when bottom she touched, the lord of rings to the lair she haunted whiles vainly he strove, though his valor held, weapon to wield against wondrous monsters that sore beset him; sea-beasts many tried with fierce tusks to tear his mail, and swarmed on the stranger. But soon he marked he was now in some hall, he knew not which, where water never could work him harm, nor through the roof could reach him ever fangs of the flood. Firelight he saw, beams of a blaze that brightly shone. Then the warrior was ware of that wolf-of-the-deep, mere-wife monstrous. For mighty stroke he swung his blade, and the blow withheld not. Then sang on her head that seemly blade its war-song wild. But the warrior found the light-of-battle {22a} was loath to bite, to harm the heart: its hard edge failed the noble at need, yet had known of old strife hand to hand, and had helmets cloven, doomed men's fighting-gear. First time, this, for the gleaming blade that its glory fell. Firm still stood, nor failed in valor, heedful of high deeds, Hygelac's kinsman; flung away fretted sword, featly jewelled, the angry earl; on earth it lay steel-edged and stiff. His strength he trusted, hand-gripe of might. So man shall do whenever in war he weens to earn him lasting fame, nor fears for his life! Seized then by shoulder, shrank not from combat, the Geatish war-prince Grendel's mother. Flung then the fierce one, filled with wrath, his deadly foe, that she fell to ground. Swift on her part she paid him back with grisly grasp, and grappled with him. Spent with struggle, stumbled the warrior, fiercest of fighting-men, fell adown. On the hall-guest she hurled herself, hent her short sword, broad and brown-edged, {22b} the bairn to avenge, the sole-born son. -- On his shoulder lay braided breast-mail, barring death, withstanding entrance of edge or blade. Life would have ended for Ecgtheow's son, under wide earth for that earl of Geats, had his armor of war not aided him, battle-net hard, and holy God wielded the victory, wisest Maker. The Lord of Heaven allowed his cause; and easily rose the earl erect. XXIII 'MID the battle-gear saw he a blade triumphant, old-sword of Eotens, with edge of proof, warriors' heirloom, weapon unmatched, -- save only 'twas more than other men to bandy-of-battle could bear at all -- as the giants had wrought it, ready and keen. Seized then its chain-hilt the Scyldings' chieftain, bold and battle-grim, brandished the sword, reckless of life, and so wrathfully smote that it gripped her neck and grasped her hard, her bone-rings breaking: the blade pierced through that fated-one's flesh: to floor she sank. Bloody the blade: he was blithe of his deed. Then blazed forth light. 'Twas bright within as when from the sky there shines unclouded heaven's candle. The hall he scanned. By the wall then went he; his weapon raised high by its hilts the Hygelac-thane, angry and eager. That edge was not useless to the warrior now. He wished with speed Grendel to guerdon for grim raids many, for the war he waged on Western-Danes oftener far than an only time, when of Hrothgar's hearth-companions he slew in slumber, in sleep devoured, fifteen men of the folk of Danes, and as many others outward bore, his horrible prey. Well paid for that the wrathful prince! For now prone he saw Grendel stretched there, spent with war, spoiled of life, so scathed had left him Heorot's battle. The body sprang far when after death it endured the blow, sword-stroke savage, that severed its head. Soon, {23a} then, saw the sage companions who waited with Hrothgar, watching the flood, that the tossing waters turbid grew, blood-stained the mere. Old men together, hoary-haired, of the hero spake; the warrior would not, they weened, again, proud of conquest, come to seek their mighty master. To many it seemed the wolf-of-the-waves had won his life. The ninth hour came. The noble Scyldings left the headland; homeward went the gold-friend of men. {23b} But the guests sat on, stared at the surges, sick in heart, and wished, yet weened not, their winsome lord again to see. Now that sword began, from blood of the fight, in battle-droppings, {23c} war-blade, to wane: 'twas a wondrous thing that all of it melted as ice is wont when frosty fetters the Father loosens, unwinds the wave-bonds, wielding all seasons and times: the true God he! Nor took from that dwelling the duke of the Geats save only the head and that hilt withal blazoned with jewels: the blade had melted, burned was the bright sword, her blood was so hot, so poisoned the hell-sprite who perished within there. Soon he was swimming who safe saw in combat downfall of demons; up-dove through the flood. The clashing waters were cleansed now, waste of waves, where the wandering fiend her life-days left and this lapsing world. Swam then to strand the sailors'-refuge, sturdy-in-spirit, of sea-booty glad, of burden brave he bore with him. Went then to greet him, and God they thanked, the thane-band choice of their chieftain blithe, that safe and sound they could see him again. Soon from the hardy one helmet and armor deftly they doffed: now drowsed the mere, water 'neath welkin, with war-blood stained. Forth they fared by the footpaths thence, merry at heart the highways measured, well-known roads. Courageous men carried the head from the cliff by the sea, an arduous task for all the band, the firm in fight, since four were needed on the shaft-of-slaughter {23d} strenuously to bear to the gold-hall Grendel's head. So presently to the palace there foemen fearless, fourteen Geats, marching came. Their master-of-clan mighty amid them the meadow-ways trod. Strode then within the sovran thane fearless in fight, of fame renowned, hardy hero, Hrothgar to greet. And next by the hair into hall was borne Grendel's head, where the henchmen were drinking, an awe to clan and queen alike, a monster of marvel: the men looked on. XXIV BEOWULF spake, bairn of Ecgtheow: -- "Lo, now, this sea-booty, son of Healfdene, Lord of Scyldings, we've lustily brought thee, sign of glory; thou seest it here. Not lightly did I with my life escape! In war under water this work I essayed with endless effort; and even so my strength had been lost had the Lord not shielded me. Not a whit could I with Hrunting do in work of war, though the weapon is good; yet a sword the Sovran of Men vouchsafed me to spy on the wall there, in splendor hanging, old, gigantic, -- how oft He guides the friendless wight! -- and I fought with that brand, felling in fight, since fate was with me, the house's wardens. That war-sword then all burned, bright blade, when the blood gushed o'er it, battle-sweat hot; but the hilt I brought back from my foes. So avenged I their fiendish deeds death-fall of Danes, as was due and right. And this is my hest, that in Heorot now safe thou canst sleep with thy soldier band, and every thane of all thy folk both old and young; no evil fear, Scyldings' lord, from that side again, aught ill for thy earls, as erst thou must!" Then the golden hilt, for that gray-haired leader, hoary hero, in hand was laid, giant-wrought, old. So owned and enjoyed it after downfall of devils, the Danish lord, wonder-smiths' work, since the world was rid of that grim-souled fiend, the foe of God, murder-marked, and his mother as well. Now it passed into power of the people's king, best of all that the oceans bound who have scattered their gold o'er Scandia's isle. Hrothgar spake -- the hilt he viewed, heirloom old, where was etched the rise of that far-off fight when the floods o'erwhelmed, raging waves, the race of giants (fearful their fate!), a folk estranged from God Eternal: whence guerdon due in that waste of waters the Wielder paid them. So on the guard of shining gold in runic staves it was rightly said for whom the serpent-traced sword was wrought, best of blades, in bygone days, and the hilt well wound. -- The wise-one spake, son of Healfdene; silent were all: -- "Lo, so may he say who sooth and right follows 'mid folk, of far times mindful, a land-warden old, {24a} that this earl belongs to the better breed! So, borne aloft, thy fame must fly, O friend my Beowulf, far and wide o'er folksteads many. Firmly thou shalt all maintain, mighty strength with mood of wisdom. Love of mine will I assure thee, as, awhile ago, I promised; thou shalt prove a stay in future, in far-off years, to folk of thine, to the heroes a help. Was not Heremod thus to offspring of Ecgwela, Honor-Scyldings, nor grew for their grace, but for grisly slaughter, for doom of death to the Danishmen. He slew, wrath-swollen, his shoulder-comrades, companions at board! So he passed alone, chieftain haughty, from human cheer. Though him the Maker with might endowed, delights of power, and uplifted high above all men, yet blood-fierce his mind, his breast-hoard, grew, no bracelets gave he to Danes as was due; he endured all joyless strain of struggle and stress of woe, long feud with his folk. Here find thy lesson! Of virtue advise thee! This verse I have said for thee, wise from lapsed winters. Wondrous seems how to sons of men Almighty God in the strength of His spirit sendeth wisdom, estate, high station: He swayeth all things. Whiles He letteth right lustily fare the heart of the hero of high-born race, -- in seat ancestral assigns him bliss, his folk's sure fortress in fee to hold, puts in his power great parts of the earth, empire so ample, that end of it this wanter-of-wisdom weeneth none. So he waxes in wealth, nowise can harm him illness or age; no evil cares shadow his spirit; no sword-hate threatens from ever an enemy: all the world wends at his will, no worse he knoweth, till all within him obstinate pride waxes and wakes while the warden slumbers, the spirit's sentry; sleep is too fast which masters his might, and the murderer nears, stealthily shooting the shafts from his bow! XXV "UNDER harness his heart then is hit indeed by sharpest shafts; and no shelter avails from foul behest of the hellish fiend. {25a} Him seems too little what long he possessed. Greedy and grim, no golden rings he gives for his pride; the promised future forgets he and spurns, with all God has sent him, Wonder-Wielder, of wealth and fame. Yet in the end it ever comes that the frame of the body fragile yields, fated falls; and there follows another who joyously the jewels divides, the royal riches, nor recks of his forebear. Ban, then, such baleful thoughts, Beowulf dearest, best of men, and the better part choose, profit eternal; and temper thy pride, warrior famous! The flower of thy might lasts now a while: but erelong it shall be that sickness or sword thy strength shall minish, or fang of fire, or flooding billow, or bite of blade, or brandished spear, or odious age; or the eyes' clear beam wax dull and darken: Death even thee in haste shall o'erwhelm, thou hero of war! So the Ring-Danes these half-years a hundred I ruled, wielded 'neath welkin, and warded them bravely from mighty-ones many o'er middle-earth, from spear and sword, till it seemed for me no foe could be found under fold of the sky. Lo, sudden the shift! To me seated secure came grief for joy when Grendel began to harry my home, the hellish foe; for those ruthless raids, unresting I suffered heart-sorrow heavy. Heaven be thanked, Lord Eternal, for life extended that I on this head all hewn and bloody, after long evil, with eyes may gaze! -- Go to the bench now! Be glad at banquet, warrior worthy! A wealth of treasure at dawn of day, be dealt between us!" Glad was the Geats' lord, going betimes to seek his seat, as the Sage commanded. Afresh, as before, for the famed-in-battle, for the band of the hall, was a banquet dight nobly anew. The Night-Helm darkened dusk o'er the drinkers. The doughty ones rose: for the hoary-headed would hasten to rest, aged Scylding; and eager the Geat, shield-fighter sturdy, for sleeping yearned. Him wander-weary, warrior-guest from far, a hall-thane heralded forth, who by custom courtly cared for all needs of a thane as in those old days warrior-wanderers wont to have. So slumbered the stout-heart. Stately the hall rose gabled and gilt where the guest slept on till a raven black the rapture-of-heaven {25b} blithe-heart boded. Bright came flying shine after shadow. The swordsmen hastened, athelings all were eager homeward forth to fare; and far from thence the great-hearted guest would guide his keel. Bade then the hardy-one Hrunting be brought to the son of Ecglaf, the sword bade him take, excellent iron, and uttered his thanks for it, quoth that he counted it keen in battle, "war-friend" winsome: with words he slandered not edge of the blade: 'twas a big-hearted man! Now eager for parting and armed at point warriors waited, while went to his host that Darling of Danes. The doughty atheling to high-seat hastened and Hrothgar greeted. XXVI BEOWULF spake, bairn of Ecgtheow: -- "Lo, we seafarers say our will, far-come men, that we fain would seek Hygelac now. We here have found hosts to our heart: thou hast harbored us well. If ever on earth I am able to win me more of thy love, O lord of men, aught anew, than I now have done, for work of war I am willing still! If it come to me ever across the seas that neighbor foemen annoy and fright thee, -- as they that hate thee erewhile have used, -- thousands then of thanes I shall bring, heroes to help thee. Of Hygelac I know, ward of his folk, that, though few his years, the lord of the Geats will give me aid by word and by work, that well I may serve thee, wielding the war-wood to win thy triumph and lending thee might when thou lackest men. If thy Hrethric should come to court of Geats, a sovran's son, he will surely there find his friends. A far-off land each man should visit who vaunts him brave." Him then answering, Hrothgar spake: -- "These words of thine the wisest God sent to thy soul! No sager counsel from so young in years e'er yet have I heard. Thou art strong of main and in mind art wary, art wise in words! I ween indeed if ever it hap that Hrethel's heir by spear be seized, by sword-grim battle, by illness or iron, thine elder and lord, people's leader, -- and life be thine, -- no seemlier man will the Sea-Geats find at all to choose for their chief and king, for hoard-guard of heroes, if hold thou wilt thy kinsman's kingdom! Thy keen mind pleases me the longer the better, Beowulf loved! Thou hast brought it about that both our peoples, sons of the Geat and Spear-Dane folk, shall have mutual peace, and from murderous strife, such as once they waged, from war refrain. Long as I rule this realm so wide, let our hoards be common, let heroes with gold each other greet o'er the gannet's-bath, and the ringed-prow bear o'er rolling waves tokens of love. I trow my landfolk towards friend and foe are firmly joined, and honor they keep in the olden way." To him in the hall, then, Healfdene's son gave treasures twelve, and the trust-of-earls bade him fare with the gifts to his folk beloved, hale to his home, and in haste return. Then kissed the king of kin renowned, Scyldings' chieftain, that choicest thane, and fell on his neck. Fast flowed the tears of the hoary-headed. Heavy with winters, he had chances twain, but he clung to this, {26a} -- that each should look on the other again, and hear him in hall. Was this hero so dear to him. his breast's wild billows he banned in vain; safe in his soul a secret longing, locked in his mind, for that loved man burned in his blood. Then Beowulf strode, glad of his gold-gifts, the grass-plot o'er, warrior blithe. The wave-roamer bode riding at anchor, its owner awaiting. As they hastened onward, Hrothgar's gift they lauded at length. -- 'Twas a lord unpeered, every way blameless, till age had broken -- it spareth no mortal -- his splendid might. XXVII CAME now to ocean the ever-courageous hardy henchmen, their harness bearing, woven war-sarks. The warden marked, trusty as ever, the earl's return. From the height of the hill no hostile words reached the guests as he rode to greet them; but "Welcome!" he called to that Weder clan as the sheen-mailed spoilers to ship marched on. Then on the strand, with steeds and treasure and armor their roomy and ring-dight ship was heavily laden: high its mast rose over Hrothgar's hoarded gems. A sword to the boat-guard Beowulf gave, mounted with gold; on the mead-bench since he was better esteemed, that blade possessing, heirloom old. -- Their ocean-keel boarding, they drove through the deep, and Daneland left. A sea-cloth was set, a sail with ropes, firm to the mast; the flood-timbers moaned; {27a} nor did wind over billows that wave-swimmer blow across from her course. The craft sped on, foam-necked it floated forth o'er the waves, keel firm-bound over briny currents, till they got them sight of the Geatish cliffs, home-known headlands. High the boat, stirred by winds, on the strand updrove. Helpful at haven the harbor-guard stood, who long already for loved companions by the water had waited and watched afar. He bound to the beach the broad-bosomed ship with anchor-bands, lest ocean-billows that trusty timber should tear away. Then Beowulf bade them bear the treasure, gold and jewels; no journey far was it thence to go to the giver of rings, Hygelac Hrethling: at home he dwelt by the sea-wall close, himself and clan. Haughty that house, a hero the king, high the hall, and Hygd {27b} right young, wise and wary, though winters few in those fortress walls she had found a home, Haereth's daughter. Nor humble her ways, nor grudged she gifts to the Geatish men, of precious treasure. Not Thryth's pride showed she, folk-queen famed, or that fell deceit. Was none so daring that durst make bold (save her lord alone) of the liegemen dear that lady full in the face to look, but forged fetters he found his lot, bonds of death! And brief the respite; soon as they seized him, his sword-doom was spoken, and the burnished blade a baleful murder proclaimed and closed. No queenly way for woman to practise, though peerless she, that the weaver-of-peace {27c} from warrior dear by wrath and lying his life should reave! But Hemming's kinsman hindered this. -- For over their ale men also told that of these folk-horrors fewer she wrought, onslaughts of evil, after she went, gold-decked bride, to the brave young prince, atheling haughty, and Offa's hall o'er the fallow flood at her father's bidding safely sought, where since she prospered, royal, throned, rich in goods, fain of the fair life fate had sent her, and leal in love to the lord of warriors. He, of all heroes I heard of ever from sea to sea, of the sons of earth, most excellent seemed. Hence Offa was praised for his fighting and feeing by far-off men, the spear-bold warrior; wisely he ruled over his empire. Eomer woke to him, help of heroes, Hemming's kinsman, Grandson of Garmund, grim in war. XXVIII HASTENED the hardy one, henchmen with him, sandy strand of the sea to tread and widespread ways. The world's great candle, sun shone from south. They strode along with sturdy steps to the spot they knew where the battle-king young, his burg within, slayer of Ongentheow, shared the rings, shelter-of-heroes. To Hygelac Beowulf's coming was quickly told, -- that there in the court the clansmen's refuge, the shield-companion sound and alive, hale from the hero-play homeward strode. With haste in the hall, by highest order, room for the rovers was readily made. By his sovran he sat, come safe from battle, kinsman by kinsman. His kindly lord he first had greeted in gracious form, with manly words. The mead dispensing, came through the high hall Haereth's daughter, winsome to warriors, wine-cup bore to the hands of the heroes. Hygelac then his comrade fairly with question plied in the lofty hall, sore longing to know what manner of sojourn the Sea-Geats made. "What came of thy quest, my kinsman Beowulf, when thy yearnings suddenly swept thee yonder battle to seek o'er the briny sea, combat in Heorot? Hrothgar couldst thou aid at all, the honored chief, in his wide-known woes? With waves of care my sad heart seethed; I sore mistrusted my loved one's venture: long I begged thee by no means to seek that slaughtering monster, but suffer the South-Danes to settle their feud themselves with Grendel. Now God be thanked that safe and sound I can see thee now!" Beowulf spake, the bairn of Ecgtheow: -- "'Tis known and unhidden, Hygelac Lord, to many men, that meeting of ours, struggle grim between Grendel and me, which we fought on the field where full too many sorrows he wrought for the Scylding-Victors, evils unending. These all I avenged. No boast can be from breed of Grendel, any on earth, for that uproar at dawn, from the longest-lived of the loathsome race in fleshly fold! -- But first I went Hrothgar to greet in the hall of gifts, where Healfdene's kinsman high-renowned, soon as my purpose was plain to him, assigned me a seat by his son and heir. The liegemen were lusty; my life-days never such merry men over mead in hall have I heard under heaven! The high-born queen, people's peace-bringer, passed through the hall, cheered the young clansmen, clasps of gold, ere she sought her seat, to sundry gave. Oft to the heroes Hrothgar's daughter, to earls in turn, the ale-cup tendered, -- she whom I heard these hall-companions Freawaru name, when fretted gold she proffered the warriors. Promised is she, gold-decked maid, to the glad son of Froda. Sage this seems to the Scylding's-friend, kingdom's-keeper: he counts it wise the woman to wed so and ward off feud, store of slaughter. But seldom ever when men are slain, does the murder-spear sink but briefest while, though the bride be fair! {28a} "Nor haply will like it the Heathobard lord, and as little each of his liegemen all, when a thane of the Danes, in that doughty throng, goes with the lady along their hall, and on him the old-time heirlooms glisten hard and ring-decked, Heathobard's treasure, weapons that once they wielded fair until they lost at the linden-play {28b} liegeman leal and their lives as well. Then, over the ale, on this heirloom gazing, some ash-wielder old who has all in mind that spear-death of men, {28c} -- he is stern of mood, heavy at heart, -- in the hero young tests the temper and tries the soul and war-hate wakens, with words like these: -- Canst thou not, comrade, ken that sword which to the fray thy father carried in his final feud, 'neath the fighting-mask, dearest of blades, when the Danish slew him and wielded the war-place on Withergild's fall, after havoc of heroes, those hardy Scyldings? Now, the son of a certain slaughtering Dane, proud of his treasure, paces this hall, joys in the killing, and carries the jewel {28d} that rightfully ought to be owned by thee!_ Thus he urges and eggs him all the time with keenest words, till occasion offers that Freawaru's thane, for his father's deed, after bite of brand in his blood must slumber, losing his life; but that liegeman flies living away, for the land he kens. And thus be broken on both their sides oaths of the earls, when Ingeld's breast wells with war-hate, and wife-love now after the care-billows cooler grows. "So {28e} I hold not high the Heathobards' faith due to the Danes, or their during love and pact of peace. -- But I pass from that, turning to Grendel, O giver-of-treasure, and saying in full how the fight resulted, hand-fray of heroes. When heaven's jewel had fled o'er far fields, that fierce sprite came, night-foe savage, to seek us out where safe and sound we sentried the hall. To Hondscio then was that harassing deadly, his fall there was fated. He first was slain, girded warrior. Grendel on him turned murderous mouth, on our mighty kinsman, and all of the brave man's body devoured. Yet none the earlier, empty-handed, would the bloody-toothed murderer, mindful of bale, outward go from the gold-decked hall: but me he attacked in his terror of might, with greedy hand grasped me. A glove hung by him {28f} wide and wondrous, wound with bands; and in artful wise it all was wrought, by devilish craft, of dragon-skins. Me therein, an innocent man, the fiendish foe was fain to thrust with many another. He might not so, when I all angrily upright stood. 'Twere long to relate how that land-destroyer I paid in kind for his cruel deeds; yet there, my prince, this people of thine got fame by my fighting. He fled away, and a little space his life preserved; but there staid behind him his stronger hand left in Heorot; heartsick thence on the floor of the ocean that outcast fell. Me for this struggle the Scyldings'-friend paid in plenty with plates of gold, with many a treasure, when morn had come and we all at the banquet-board sat down. Then was song and glee. The gray-haired Scylding, much tested, told of the times of yore. Whiles the hero his harp bestirred, wood-of-delight; now lays he chanted of sooth and sadness, or said aright legends of wonder, the wide-hearted king; or for years of his youth he would yearn at times, for strength of old struggles, now stricken with age, hoary hero: his heart surged full when, wise with winters, he wailed their flight. Thus in the hall the whole of that day at ease we feasted, till fell o'er earth another night. Anon full ready in greed of vengeance, Grendel's mother set forth all doleful. Dead was her son through war-hate of Weders; now, woman monstrous with fury fell a foeman she slew, avenged her offspring. From Aeschere old, loyal councillor, life was gone; nor might they e'en, when morning broke, those Danish people, their death-done comrade burn with brands, on balefire lay the man they mourned. Under mountain stream she had carried the corpse with cruel hands. For Hrothgar that was the heaviest sorrow of all that had laden the lord of his folk. The leader then, by thy life, besought me (sad was his soul) in the sea-waves' coil to play the hero and hazard my being for glory of prowess: my guerdon he pledged. I then in the waters -- 'tis widely known -- that sea-floor-guardian savage found. Hand-to-hand there a while we struggled; billows welled blood; in the briny hall her head I hewed with a hardy blade from Grendel's mother, -- and gained my life, though not without danger. My doom was not yet. Then the haven-of-heroes, Healfdene's son, gave me in guerdon great gifts of price. XXIX "So held this king to the customs old, that I wanted for nought in the wage I gained, the meed of my might; he made me gifts, Healfdene's heir, for my own disposal. Now to thee, my prince, I proffer them all, gladly give them. Thy grace alone can find me favor. Few indeed have I of kinsmen, save, Hygelac, thee!" Then he bade them bear him the boar-head standard, the battle-helm high, and breastplate gray, the splendid sword; then spake in form: -- "Me this war-gear the wise old prince, Hrothgar, gave, and his hest he added, that its story be straightway said to thee. -- A while it was held by Heorogar king, for long time lord of the land of Scyldings; yet not to his son the sovran left it, to daring Heoroweard, -- dear as he was to him, his harness of battle. -- Well hold thou it all!" And I heard that soon passed o'er the path of this treasure, all apple-fallow, four good steeds, each like the others, arms and horses he gave to the king. So should kinsmen be, not weave one another the net of wiles, or with deep-hid treachery death contrive for neighbor and comrade. His nephew was ever by hardy Hygelac held full dear, and each kept watch o'er the other's weal. I heard, too, the necklace to Hygd he presented, wonder-wrought treasure, which Wealhtheow gave him sovran's daughter: three steeds he added, slender and saddle-gay. Since such gift the gem gleamed bright on the breast of the queen. Thus showed his strain the son of Ecgtheow as a man remarked for mighty deeds and acts of honor. At ale he slew not comrade or kin; nor cruel his mood, though of sons of earth his strength was greatest, a glorious gift that God had sent the splendid leader. Long was he spurned, and worthless by Geatish warriors held; him at mead the master-of-clans failed full oft to favor at all. Slack and shiftless the strong men deemed him, profitless prince; but payment came, to the warrior honored, for all his woes. -- Then the bulwark-of-earls {29a} bade bring within, hardy chieftain, Hrethel's heirloom garnished with gold: no Geat e'er knew in shape of a sword a statelier prize. The brand he laid in Beowulf's lap; and of hides assigned him seven thousand, {29b} with house and high-seat. They held in common land alike by their line of birth, inheritance, home: but higher the king because of his rule o'er the realm itself. Now further it fell with the flight of years, with harryings horrid, that Hygelac perished, {29c} and Heardred, too, by hewing of swords under the shield-wall slaughtered lay, when him at the van of his victor-folk sought hardy heroes, Heatho-Scilfings, in arms o'erwhelming Hereric's nephew. Then Beowulf came as king this broad realm to wield; and he ruled it well fifty winters, {29d} a wise old prince, warding his land, until One began in the dark of night, a Dragon, to rage. In the grave on the hill a hoard it guarded, in the stone-barrow steep. A strait path reached it, unknown to mortals. Some man, however, came by chance that cave within to the heathen hoard. {29e} In hand he took a golden goblet, nor gave he it back, stole with it away, while the watcher slept, by thievish wiles: for the warden's wrath prince and people must pay betimes! XXX THAT way he went with no will of his own, in danger of life, to the dragon's hoard, but for pressure of peril, some prince's thane. He fled in fear the fatal scourge, seeking shelter, a sinful man, and entered in. At the awful sight tottered that guest, and terror seized him; yet the wretched fugitive rallied anon from fright and fear ere he fled away, and took the cup from that treasure-hoard. Of such besides there was store enough, heirlooms old, the earth below, which some earl forgotten, in ancient years, left the last of his lofty race, heedfully there had hidden away, dearest treasure. For death of yore had hurried all hence; and he alone left to live, the last of the clan, weeping his friends, yet wished to bide warding the treasure, his one delight, though brief his respite. The barrow, new-ready, to strand and sea-waves stood anear, hard by the headland, hidden and closed; there laid within it his lordly heirlooms and heaped hoard of heavy gold that warden of rings. Few words he spake: "Now hold thou, earth, since heroes may not, what earls have owned! Lo, erst from thee brave men brought it! But battle-death seized and cruel killing my clansmen all, robbed them of life and a liegeman's joys. None have I left to lift the sword, or to cleanse the carven cup of price, beaker bright. My brave are gone. And the helmet hard, all haughty with gold, shall part from its plating. Polishers sleep who could brighten and burnish the battle-mask; and those weeds of war that were wont to brave over bicker of shields the bite of steel rust with their bearer. The ringed mail fares not far with famous chieftain, at side of hero! No harp's delight, no glee-wood's gladness! No good hawk now flies through the hall! Nor horses fleet stamp in the burgstead! Battle and death the flower of my race have reft away." Mournful of mood, thus he moaned his woe, alone, for them all, and unblithe wept by day and by night, till death's fell wave o'erwhelmed his heart. His hoard-of-bliss that old ill-doer open found, who, blazing at twilight the barrows haunteth, naked foe-dragon flying by night folded in fire: the folk of earth dread him sore. 'Tis his doom to seek hoard in the graves, and heathen gold to watch, many-wintered: nor wins he thereby! Powerful this plague-of-the-people thus held the house of the hoard in earth three hundred winters; till One aroused wrath in his breast, to the ruler bearing that costly cup, and the king implored for bond of peace. So the barrow was plundered, borne off was booty. His boon was granted that wretched man; and his ruler saw first time what was fashioned in far-off days. When the dragon awoke, new woe was kindled. O'er the stone he snuffed. The stark-heart found footprint of foe who so far had gone in his hidden craft by the creature's head. -- So may the undoomed easily flee evils and exile, if only he gain the grace of The Wielder! -- That warden of gold o'er the ground went seeking, greedy to find the man who wrought him such wrong in sleep. Savage and burning, the barrow he circled all without; nor was any there, none in the waste.... Yet war he desired, was eager for battle. The barrow he entered, sought the cup, and discovered soon that some one of mortals had searched his treasure, his lordly gold. The guardian waited ill-enduring till evening came; boiling with wrath was the barrow's keeper, and fain with flame the foe to pay for the dear cup's loss. -- Now day was fled as the worm had wished. By its wall no more was it glad to bide, but burning flew folded in flame: a fearful beginning for sons of the soil; and soon it came, in the doom of their lord, to a dreadful end. XXXI THEN the baleful fiend its fire belched out, and bright homes burned. The blaze stood high all landsfolk frighting. No living thing would that loathly one leave as aloft it flew. Wide was the dragon's warring seen, its fiendish fury far and near, as the grim destroyer those Geatish people hated and hounded. To hidden lair, to its hoard it hastened at hint of dawn. Folk of the land it had lapped in flame, with bale and brand. In its barrow it trusted, its battling and bulwarks: that boast was vain! To Beowulf then the bale was told quickly and truly: the king's own home, of buildings the best, in brand-waves melted, that gift-throne of Geats. To the good old man sad in heart, 'twas heaviest sorrow. The sage assumed that his sovran God he had angered, breaking ancient law, and embittered the Lord. His breast within with black thoughts welled, as his wont was never. The folk's own fastness that fiery dragon with flame had destroyed, and the stronghold all washed by waves; but the warlike king, prince of the Weders, plotted vengeance. Warriors'-bulwark, he bade them work all of iron -- the earl's commander -- a war-shield wondrous: well he knew that forest-wood against fire were worthless, linden could aid not. -- Atheling brave, he was fated to finish this fleeting life, {31a} his days on earth, and the dragon with him, though long it had watched o'er the wealth of the hoard! -- Shame he reckoned it, sharer-of-rings, to follow the flyer-afar with a host, a broad-flung band; nor the battle feared he, nor deemed he dreadful the dragon's warring, its vigor and valor: ventures desperate he had passed a-plenty, and perils of war, contest-crash, since, conqueror proud, Hrothgar's hall he had wholly purged, and in grapple had killed the kin of Grendel, loathsome breed! Not least was that of hand-to-hand fights where Hygelac fell, when the ruler of Geats in rush of battle, lord of his folk, in the Frisian land, son of Hrethel, by sword-draughts died, by brands down-beaten. Thence Beowulf fled through strength of himself and his swimming power, though alone, and his arms were laden with thirty coats of mail, when he came to the sea! Nor yet might Hetwaras {31b} haughtily boast their craft of contest, who carried against him shields to the fight: but few escaped from strife with the hero to seek their homes! Then swam over ocean Ecgtheow's son lonely and sorrowful, seeking his land, where Hygd made him offer of hoard and realm, rings and royal-seat, reckoning naught the strength of her son to save their kingdom from hostile hordes, after Hygelac's death. No sooner for this could the stricken ones in any wise move that atheling's mind over young Heardred's head as lord and ruler of all the realm to be: yet the hero upheld him with helpful words, aided in honor, till, older grown, he wielded the Weder-Geats. -- Wandering exiles sought him o'er seas, the sons of Ohtere, who had spurned the sway of the Scylfings'-helmet, the bravest and best that broke the rings, in Swedish land, of the sea-kings' line, haughty hero. {31c} Hence Heardred's end. For shelter he gave them, sword-death came, the blade's fell blow, to bairn of Hygelac; but the son of Ongentheow sought again house and home when Heardred fell, leaving Beowulf lord of Geats and gift-seat's master. -- A good king he! XXXII THE fall of his lord he was fain to requite in after days; and to Eadgils he proved friend to the friendless, and forces sent over the sea to the son of Ohtere, weapons and warriors: well repaid he those care-paths cold when the king he slew. {32a} Thus safe through struggles the son of Ecgtheow had passed a plenty, through perils dire, with daring deeds, till this day was come that doomed him now with the dragon to strive. With comrades eleven the lord of Geats swollen in rage went seeking the dragon. He had heard whence all the harm arose and the killing of clansmen; that cup of price on the lap of the lord had been laid by the finder. In the throng was this one thirteenth man, starter of all the strife and ill, care-laden captive; cringing thence forced and reluctant, he led them on till he came in ken of that cavern-hall, the barrow delved near billowy surges, flood of ocean. Within 'twas full of wire-gold and jewels; a jealous warden, warrior trusty, the treasures held, lurked in his lair. Not light the task of entrance for any of earth-born men! Sat on the headland the hero king, spake words of hail to his hearth-companions, gold-friend of Geats. All gloomy his soul, wavering, death-bound. Wyrd full nigh stood ready to greet the gray-haired man, to seize his soul-hoard, sunder apart life and body. Not long would be the warrior's spirit enwound with flesh. Beowulf spake, the bairn of Ecgtheow: -- "Through store of struggles I strove in youth, mighty feuds; I mind them all. I was seven years old when the sovran of rings, friend-of-his-folk, from my father took me, had me, and held me, Hrethel the king, with food and fee, faithful in kinship. Ne'er, while I lived there, he loathlier found me, bairn in the burg, than his birthright sons, Herebeald and Haethcyn and Hygelac mine. For the eldest of these, by unmeet chance, by kinsman's deed, was the death-bed strewn, when Haethcyn killed him with horny bow, his own dear liege laid low with an arrow, missed the mark and his mate shot down, one brother the other, with bloody shaft. A feeless fight, {32b} and a fearful sin, horror to Hrethel; yet, hard as it was, unavenged must the atheling die! Too awful it is for an aged man to bide and bear, that his bairn so young rides on the gallows. A rime he makes, sorrow-song for his son there hanging as rapture of ravens; no rescue now can come from the old, disabled man! Still is he minded, as morning breaks, of the heir gone elsewhere; {32c} another he hopes not he will bide to see his burg within as ward for his wealth, now the one has found doom of death that the deed incurred. Forlorn he looks on the lodge of his son, wine-hall waste and wind-swept chambers reft of revel. The rider sleepeth, the hero, far-hidden; {32d} no harp resounds, in the courts no wassail, as once was heard. XXXIII "THEN he goes to his chamber, a grief-song chants alone for his lost. Too large all seems, homestead and house. So the helmet-of-Weders hid in his heart for Herebeald waves of woe. No way could he take to avenge on the slayer slaughter so foul; nor e'en could he harass that hero at all with loathing deed, though he loved him not. And so for the sorrow his soul endured, men's gladness he gave up and God's light chose. Lands and cities he left his sons (as the wealthy do) when he went from earth. There was strife and struggle 'twixt Swede and Geat o'er the width of waters; war arose, hard battle-horror, when Hrethel died, and Ongentheow's offspring grew strife-keen, bold, nor brooked o'er the seas pact of peace, but pushed their hosts to harass in hatred by Hreosnabeorh. Men of my folk for that feud had vengeance, for woful war ('tis widely known), though one of them bought it with blood of his heart, a bargain hard: for Haethcyn proved fatal that fray, for the first-of-Geats. At morn, I heard, was the murderer killed by kinsman for kinsman, {33a} with clash of sword, when Ongentheow met Eofor there. Wide split the war-helm: wan he fell, hoary Scylfing; the hand that smote him of feud was mindful, nor flinched from the death-blow. -- "For all that he {33b} gave me, my gleaming sword repaid him at war, -- such power I wielded, -- for lordly treasure: with land he entrusted me, homestead and house. He had no need from Swedish realm, or from Spear-Dane folk, or from men of the Gifths, to get him help, -- some warrior worse for wage to buy! Ever I fought in the front of all, sole to the fore; and so shall I fight while I bide in life and this blade shall last that early and late hath loyal proved since for my doughtiness Daeghrefn fell, slain by my hand, the Hugas' champion. Nor fared he thence to the Frisian king with the booty back, and breast-adornments; but, slain in struggle, that standard-bearer fell, atheling brave. Not with blade was he slain, but his bones were broken by brawny gripe, his heart-waves stilled. -- The sword-edge now, hard blade and my hand, for the hoard shall strive." Beowulf spake, and a battle-vow made his last of all: "I have lived through many wars in my youth; now once again, old folk-defender, feud will I seek, do doughty deeds, if the dark destroyer forth from his cavern come to fight me!" Then hailed he the helmeted heroes all, for the last time greeting his liegemen dear, comrades of war: "I should carry no weapon, no sword to the serpent, if sure I knew how, with such enemy, else my vows I could gain as I did in Grendel's day. But fire in this fight I must fear me now, and poisonous breath; so I bring with me breastplate and board. {33c} From the barrow's keeper no footbreadth flee I. One fight shall end our war by the wall, as Wyrd allots, all mankind's master. My mood is bold but forbears to boast o'er this battling-flyer. -- Now abide by the barrow, ye breastplate-mailed, ye heroes in harness, which of us twain better from battle-rush bear his wounds. Wait ye the finish. The fight is not yours, nor meet for any but me alone to measure might with this monster here and play the hero. Hardily I shall win that wealth, or war shall seize, cruel killing, your king and lord!" Up stood then with shield the sturdy champion, stayed by the strength of his single manhood, and hardy 'neath helmet his harness bore under cleft of the cliffs: no coward's path! Soon spied by the wall that warrior chief, survivor of many a victory-field where foemen fought with furious clashings, an arch of stone; and within, a stream that broke from the barrow. The brooklet's wave was hot with fire. The hoard that way he never could hope unharmed to near, or endure those deeps, {33d} for the dragon's flame. Then let from his breast, for he burst with rage, the Weder-Geat prince a word outgo; stormed the stark-heart; stern went ringing and clear his cry 'neath the cliff-rocks gray. The hoard-guard heard a human voice; his rage was enkindled. No respite now for pact of peace! The poison-breath of that foul worm first came forth from the cave, hot reek-of-fight: the rocks resounded. Stout by the stone-way his shield he raised, lord of the Geats, against the loathed-one; while with courage keen that coiled foe came seeking strife. The sturdy king had drawn his sword, not dull of edge, heirloom old; and each of the two felt fear of his foe, though fierce their mood. Stoutly stood with his shield high-raised the warrior king, as the worm now coiled together amain: the mailed-one waited. Now, spire by spire, fast sped and glided that blazing serpent. The shield protected, soul and body a shorter while for the hero-king than his heart desired, could his will have wielded the welcome respite but once in his life! But Wyrd denied it, and victory's honors. -- His arm he lifted lord of the Geats, the grim foe smote with atheling's heirloom. Its edge was turned brown blade, on the bone, and bit more feebly than its noble master had need of then in his baleful stress. -- Then the barrow's keeper waxed full wild for that weighty blow, cast deadly flames; wide drove and far those vicious fires. No victor's glory the Geats' lord boasted; his brand had failed, naked in battle, as never it should, excellent iron! -- 'Twas no easy path that Ecgtheow's honored heir must tread over the plain to the place of the foe; for against his will he must win a home elsewhere far, as must all men, leaving this lapsing life! -- Not long it was ere those champions grimly closed again. The hoard-guard was heartened; high heaved his breast once more; and by peril was pressed again, enfolded in flames, the folk-commander! Nor yet about him his band of comrades, sons of athelings, armed stood with warlike front: to the woods they bent them, their lives to save. But the soul of one with care was cumbered. Kinship true can never be marred in a noble mind! XXXIV WIGLAF his name was, Weohstan's son, linden-thane loved, the lord of Scylfings, Aelfhere's kinsman. His king he now saw with heat under helmet hard oppressed. He minded the prizes his prince had given him, wealthy seat of the Waegmunding line, and folk-rights that his father owned Not long he lingered. The linden yellow, his shield, he seized; the old sword he drew: -- as heirloom of Eanmund earth-dwellers knew it, who was slain by the sword-edge, son of Ohtere, friendless exile, erst in fray killed by Weohstan, who won for his kin brown-bright helmet, breastplate ringed, old sword of Eotens, Onela's gift, weeds of war of the warrior-thane, battle-gear brave: though a brother's child had been felled, the feud was unfelt by Onela. {34a} For winters this war-gear Weohstan kept, breastplate and board, till his bairn had grown earlship to earn as the old sire did: then he gave him, mid Geats, the gear of battle, portion huge, when he passed from life, fared aged forth. For the first time now with his leader-lord the liegeman young was bidden to share the shock of battle. Neither softened his soul, nor the sire's bequest weakened in war. {34b} So the worm found out when once in fight the foes had met! Wiglaf spake, -- and his words were sage; sad in spirit, he said to his comrades: -- "I remember the time, when mead we took, what promise we made to this prince of ours in the banquet-hall, to our breaker-of-rings, for gear of combat to give him requital, for hard-sword and helmet, if hap should bring stress of this sort! Himself who chose us from all his army to aid him now, urged us to glory, and gave these treasures, because he counted us keen with the spear and hardy 'neath helm, though this hero-work our leader hoped unhelped and alone to finish for us, -- folk-defender who hath got him glory greater than all men for daring deeds! Now the day is come that our noble master has need of the might of warriors stout. Let us stride along the hero to help while the heat is about him glowing and grim! For God is my witness I am far more fain the fire should seize along with my lord these limbs of mine! {34c} Unsuiting it seems our shields to bear homeward hence, save here we essay to fell the foe and defend the life of the Weders' lord. I wot 'twere shame on the law of our land if alone the king out of Geatish warriors woe endured and sank in the struggle! My sword and helmet, breastplate and board, for us both shall serve!" Through slaughter-reek strode he to succor his chieftain, his battle-helm bore, and brief words spake: -- "Beowulf dearest, do all bravely, as in youthful days of yore thou vowedst that while life should last thou wouldst let no wise thy glory droop! Now, great in deeds, atheling steadfast, with all thy strength shield thy life! I will stand to help thee." At the words the worm came once again, murderous monster mad with rage, with fire-billows flaming, its foes to seek, the hated men. In heat-waves burned that board {34d} to the boss, and the breastplate failed to shelter at all the spear-thane young. Yet quickly under his kinsman's shield went eager the earl, since his own was now all burned by the blaze. The bold king again had mind of his glory: with might his glaive was driven into the dragon's head, -- blow nerved by hate. But Naegling {34e} was shivered, broken in battle was Beowulf's sword, old and gray. 'Twas granted him not that ever the edge of iron at all could help him at strife: too strong was his hand, so the tale is told, and he tried too far with strength of stroke all swords he wielded, though sturdy their steel: they steaded him nought. Then for the third time thought on its feud that folk-destroyer, fire-dread dragon, and rushed on the hero, where room allowed, battle-grim, burning; its bitter teeth closed on his neck, and covered him with waves of blood from his breast that welled. XXXV 'TWAS now, men say, in his sovran's need that the earl made known his noble strain, craft and keenness and courage enduring. Heedless of harm, though his hand was burned, hardy-hearted, he helped his kinsman. A little lower the loathsome beast he smote with sword; his steel drove in bright and burnished; that blaze began to lose and lessen. At last the king wielded his wits again, war-knife drew, a biting blade by his breastplate hanging, and the Weders'-helm smote that worm asunder, felled the foe, flung forth its life. So had they killed it, kinsmen both, athelings twain: thus an earl should be in danger's day! -- Of deeds of valor this conqueror's-hour of the king was last, of his work in the world. The wound began, which that dragon-of-earth had erst inflicted, to swell and smart; and soon he found in his breast was boiling, baleful and deep, pain of poison. The prince walked on, wise in his thought, to the wall of rock; then sat, and stared at the structure of giants, where arch of stone and steadfast column upheld forever that hall in earth. Yet here must the hand of the henchman peerless lave with water his winsome lord, the king and conqueror covered with blood, with struggle spent, and unspan his helmet. Beowulf spake in spite of his hurt, his mortal wound; full well he knew his portion now was past and gone of earthly bliss, and all had fled of his file of days, and death was near: "I would fain bestow on son of mine this gear of war, were given me now that any heir should after me come of my proper blood. This people I ruled fifty winters. No folk-king was there, none at all, of the neighboring clans who war would wage me with 'warriors'-friends' {35a} and threat me with horrors. At home I bided what fate might come, and I cared for mine own; feuds I sought not, nor falsely swore ever on oath. For all these things, though fatally wounded, fain am I! From the Ruler-of-Man no wrath shall seize me, when life from my frame must flee away, for killing of kinsmen! Now quickly go and gaze on that hoard 'neath the hoary rock, Wiglaf loved, now the worm lies low, sleeps, heart-sore, of his spoil bereaved. And fare in haste. I would fain behold the gorgeous heirlooms, golden store, have joy in the jewels and gems, lay down softlier for sight of this splendid hoard my life and the lordship I long have held." XXXVI I HAVE heard that swiftly the son of Weohstan at wish and word of his wounded king, -- war-sick warrior, -- woven mail-coat, battle-sark, bore 'neath the barrow's roof. Then the clansman keen, of conquest proud, passing the seat, {36a} saw store of jewels and glistening gold the ground along; by the wall were marvels, and many a vessel in the den of the dragon, the dawn-flier old: unburnished bowls of bygone men reft of richness; rusty helms of the olden age; and arm-rings many wondrously woven. -- Such wealth of gold, booty from barrow, can burden with pride each human wight: let him hide it who will! -- His glance too fell on a gold-wove banner high o'er the hoard, of handiwork noblest, brilliantly broidered; so bright its gleam, all the earth-floor he easily saw and viewed all these vessels. No vestige now was seen of the serpent: the sword had ta'en him. Then, I heard, the hill of its hoard was reft, old work of giants, by one alone; he burdened his bosom with beakers and plate at his own good will, and the ensign took, brightest of beacons. -- The blade of his lord -- its edge was iron -- had injured deep one that guarded the golden hoard many a year and its murder-fire spread hot round the barrow in horror-billows at midnight hour, till it met its doom. Hasted the herald, the hoard so spurred him his track to retrace; he was troubled by doubt, high-souled hero, if haply he'd find alive, where he left him, the lord of Weders, weakening fast by the wall of the cave. So he carried the load. His lord and king he found all bleeding, famous chief at the lapse of life. The liegeman again plashed him with water, till point of word broke through the breast-hoard. Beowulf spake, sage and sad, as he stared at the gold. -- "For the gold and treasure, to God my thanks, to the Wielder-of-Wonders, with words I say, for what I behold, to Heaven's Lord, for the grace that I give such gifts to my folk or ever the day of my death be run! Now I've bartered here for booty of treasure the last of my life, so look ye well to the needs of my land! No longer I tarry. A barrow bid ye the battle-fanned raise for my ashes. 'Twill shine by the shore of the flood, to folk of mine memorial fair on Hrones Headland high uplifted, that ocean-wanderers oft may hail Beowulf's Barrow, as back from far they drive their keels o'er the darkling wave." From his neck he unclasped the collar of gold, valorous king, to his vassal gave it with bright-gold helmet, breastplate, and ring, to the youthful thane: bade him use them in joy. "Thou art end and remnant of all our race the Waegmunding name. For Wyrd hath swept them, all my line, to the land of doom, earls in their glory: I after them go." This word was the last which the wise old man harbored in heart ere hot death-waves of balefire he chose. From his bosom fled his soul to seek the saints' reward. XXXVII IT was heavy hap for that hero young on his lord beloved to look and find him lying on earth with life at end, sorrowful sight. But the slayer too, awful earth-dragon, empty of breath, lay felled in fight, nor, fain of its treasure, could the writhing monster rule it more. For edges of iron had ended its days, hard and battle-sharp, hammers' leaving; {37a} and that flier-afar had fallen to ground hushed by its hurt, its hoard all near, no longer lusty aloft to whirl at midnight, making its merriment seen, proud of its prizes: prone it sank by the handiwork of the hero-king. Forsooth among folk but few achieve, -- though sturdy and strong, as stories tell me, and never so daring in deed of valor, -- the perilous breath of a poison-foe to brave, and to rush on the ring-board hall, whenever his watch the warden keeps bold in the barrow. Beowulf paid the price of death for that precious hoard; and each of the foes had found the end of this fleeting life. Befell erelong that the laggards in war the wood had left, trothbreakers, cowards, ten together, fearing before to flourish a spear in the sore distress of their sovran lord. Now in their shame their shields they carried, armor of fight, where the old man lay; and they gazed on Wiglaf. Wearied he sat at his sovran's shoulder, shieldsman good, to wake him with water. {37b} Nowise it availed. Though well he wished it, in world no more could he barrier life for that leader-of-battles nor baffle the will of all-wielding God. Doom of the Lord was law o'er the deeds of every man, as it is to-day. Grim was the answer, easy to get, from the youth for those that had yielded to fear! Wiglaf spake, the son of Weohstan, -- mournful he looked on those men unloved: -- "Who sooth will speak, can say indeed that the ruler who gave you golden rings and the harness of war in which ye stand -- for he at ale-bench often-times bestowed on hall-folk helm and breastplate, lord to liegemen, the likeliest gear which near of far he could find to give, -- threw away and wasted these weeds of battle, on men who failed when the foemen came! Not at all could the king of his comrades-in-arms venture to vaunt, though the Victory-Wielder, God, gave him grace that he got revenge sole with his sword in stress and need. To rescue his life, 'twas little that I could serve him in struggle; yet shift I made (hopeless it seemed) to help my kinsman. Its strength ever waned, when with weapon I struck that fatal foe, and the fire less strongly flowed from its head. -- Too few the heroes in throe of contest that thronged to our king! Now gift of treasure and girding of sword, joy of the house and home-delight shall fail your folk; his freehold-land every clansman within your kin shall lose and leave, when lords high-born hear afar of that flight of yours, a fameless deed. Yea, death is better for liegemen all than a life of shame!" XXXVIII THAT battle-toil bade he at burg to announce, at the fort on the cliff, where, full of sorrow, all the morning earls had sat, daring shieldsmen, in doubt of twain: would they wail as dead, or welcome home, their lord beloved? Little {38a} kept back of the tidings new, but told them all, the herald that up the headland rode. -- "Now the willing-giver to Weder folk in death-bed lies; the Lord of Geats on the slaughter-bed sleeps by the serpent's deed! And beside him is stretched that slayer-of-men with knife-wounds sick: {38b} no sword availed on the awesome thing in any wise to work a wound. There Wiglaf sitteth, Weohstan's bairn, by Beowulf's side, the living earl by the other dead, and heavy of heart a head-watch {38c} keeps o'er friend and foe. -- Now our folk may look for waging of war when once unhidden to Frisian and Frank the fall of the king is spread afar. -- The strife began when hot on the Hugas {38d} Hygelac fell and fared with his fleet to the Frisian land. Him there the Hetwaras humbled in war, plied with such prowess their power o'erwhelming that the bold-in-battle bowed beneath it and fell in fight. To his friends no wise could that earl give treasure! And ever since the Merowings' favor has failed us wholly. Nor aught expect I of peace and faith from Swedish folk. 'Twas spread afar how Ongentheow reft at Ravenswood Haethcyn Hrethling of hope and life, when the folk of Geats for the first time sought in wanton pride the Warlike-Scylfings. Soon the sage old sire {38e} of Ohtere, ancient and awful, gave answering blow; the sea-king {38f} he slew, and his spouse redeemed, his good wife rescued, though robbed of her gold, mother of Ohtere and Onela. Then he followed his foes, who fled before him sore beset and stole their way, bereft of a ruler, to Ravenswood. With his host he besieged there what swords had left, the weary and wounded; woes he threatened the whole night through to that hard-pressed throng: some with the morrow his sword should kill, some should go to the gallows-tree for rapture of ravens. But rescue came with dawn of day for those desperate men when they heard the horn of Hygelac sound, tones of his trumpet; the trusty king had followed their trail with faithful band. XXXIX "THE bloody swath of Swedes and Geats and the storm of their strife, were seen afar, how folk against folk the fight had wakened. The ancient king with his atheling band sought his citadel, sorrowing much: Ongentheow earl went up to his burg. He had tested Hygelac's hardihood, the proud one's prowess, would prove it no longer, defied no more those fighting-wanderers nor hoped from the seamen to save his hoard, his bairn and his bride: so he bent him again, old, to his earth-walls. Yet after him came with slaughter for Swedes the standards of Hygelac o'er peaceful plains in pride advancing, till Hrethelings fought in the fenced town. {39a} Then Ongentheow with edge of sword, the hoary-bearded, was held at bay, and the folk-king there was forced to suffer Eofor's anger. In ire, at the king Wulf Wonreding with weapon struck; and the chieftain's blood, for that blow, in streams flowed 'neath his hair. No fear felt he, stout old Scylfing, but straightway repaid in better bargain that bitter stroke and faced his foe with fell intent. Nor swift enough was the son of Wonred answer to render the aged chief; too soon on his head the helm was cloven; blood-bedecked he bowed to earth, and fell adown; not doomed was he yet, and well he waxed, though the wound was sore. Then the hardy Hygelac-thane, {39b} when his brother fell, with broad brand smote, giants' sword crashing through giants'-helm across the shield-wall: sank the king, his folk's old herdsman, fatally hurt. There were many to bind the brother's wounds and lift him, fast as fate allowed his people to wield the place-of-war. But Eofor took from Ongentheow, earl from other, the iron-breastplate, hard sword hilted, and helmet too, and the hoar-chief's harness to Hygelac carried, who took the trappings, and truly promised rich fee 'mid folk, -- and fulfilled it so. For that grim strife gave the Geatish lord, Hrethel's offspring, when home he came, to Eofor and Wulf a wealth of treasure, Each of them had a hundred thousand {39c} in land and linked rings; nor at less price reckoned mid-earth men such mighty deeds! And to Eofor he gave his only daughter in pledge of grace, the pride of his home. "Such is the feud, the foeman's rage, death-hate of men: so I deem it sure that the Swedish folk will seek us home for this fall of their friends, the fighting-Scylfings, when once they learn that our warrior leader lifeless lies, who land and hoard ever defended from all his foes, furthered his folk's weal, finished his course a hardy hero. -- Now haste is best, that we go to gaze on our Geatish lord, and bear the bountiful breaker-of-rings to the funeral pyre. No fragments merely shall burn with the warrior. Wealth of jewels, gold untold and gained in terror, treasure at last with his life obtained, all of that booty the brands shall take, fire shall eat it. No earl must carry memorial jewel. No maiden fair shall wreathe her neck with noble ring: nay, sad in spirit and shorn of her gold, oft shall she pass o'er paths of exile now our lord all laughter has laid aside, all mirth and revel. Many a spear morning-cold shall be clasped amain, lifted aloft; nor shall lilt of harp those warriors wake; but the wan-hued raven, fain o'er the fallen, his feast shall praise and boast to the eagle how bravely he ate when he and the wolf were wasting the slain." So he told his sorrowful tidings, and little {39d} he lied, the loyal man of word or of work. The warriors rose; sad, they climbed to the Cliff-of-Eagles, went, welling with tears, the wonder to view. Found on the sand there, stretched at rest, their lifeless lord, who had lavished rings of old upon them. Ending-day had dawned on the doughty-one; death had seized in woful slaughter the Weders' king. There saw they, besides, the strangest being, loathsome, lying their leader near, prone on the field. The fiery dragon, fearful fiend, with flame was scorched. Reckoned by feet, it was fifty measures in length as it lay. Aloft erewhile it had revelled by night, and anon come back, seeking its den; now in death's sure clutch it had come to the end of its earth-hall joys. By it there stood the stoups and jars; dishes lay there, and dear-decked swords eaten with rust, as, on earth's lap resting, a thousand winters they waited there. For all that heritage huge, that gold of bygone men, was bound by a spell, {39e} so the treasure-hall could be touched by none of human kind, -- save that Heaven's King, God himself, might give whom he would, Helper of Heroes, the hoard to open, -- even such a man as seemed to him meet. XL A PERILOUS path, it proved, he {40a} trod who heinously hid, that hall within, wealth under wall! Its watcher had killed one of a few, {40b} and the feud was avenged in woful fashion. Wondrous seems it, what manner a man of might and valor oft ends his life, when the earl no longer in mead-hall may live with loving friends. So Beowulf, when that barrow's warden he sought, and the struggle; himself knew not in what wise he should wend from the world at last. For {40c} princes potent, who placed the gold, with a curse to doomsday covered it deep, so that marked with sin the man should be, hedged with horrors, in hell-bonds fast, racked with plagues, who should rob their hoard. Yet no greed for gold, but the grace of heaven, ever the king had kept in view. {40d} Wiglaf spake, the son of Weohstan: -- "At the mandate of one, oft warriors many sorrow must suffer; and so must we. The people's-shepherd showed not aught of care for our counsel, king beloved! That guardian of gold he should grapple not, urged we, but let him lie where he long had been in his earth-hall waiting the end of the world, the hest of heaven. -- This hoard is ours but grievously gotten; too grim the fate which thither carried our king and lord. I was within there, and all I viewed, the chambered treasure, when chance allowed me (and my path was made in no pleasant wise) under the earth-wall. Eager, I seized such heap from the hoard as hands could bear and hurriedly carried it hither back to my liege and lord. Alive was he still, still wielding his wits. The wise old man spake much in his sorrow, and sent you greetings and bade that ye build, when he breathed no more, on the place of his balefire a barrow high, memorial mighty. Of men was he worthiest warrior wide earth o'er the while he had joy of his jewels and burg. Let us set out in haste now, the second time to see and search this store of treasure, these wall-hid wonders, -- the way I show you, -- where, gathered near, ye may gaze your fill at broad-gold and rings. Let the bier, soon made, be all in order when out we come, our king and captain to carry thither -- man beloved -- where long he shall bide safe in the shelter of sovran God." Then the bairn of Weohstan bade command, hardy chief, to heroes many that owned their homesteads, hither to bring firewood from far -- o'er the folk they ruled -- for the famed-one's funeral. " Fire shall devour and wan flames feed on the fearless warrior who oft stood stout in the iron-shower, when, sped from the string, a storm of arrows shot o'er the shield-wall: the shaft held firm, featly feathered, followed the barb." And now the sage young son of Weohstan seven chose of the chieftain's thanes, the best he found that band within, and went with these warriors, one of eight, under hostile roof. In hand one bore a lighted torch and led the way. No lots they cast for keeping the hoard when once the warriors saw it in hall, altogether without a guardian, lying there lost. And little they mourned when they had hastily haled it out, dear-bought treasure! The dragon they cast, the worm, o'er the wall for the wave to take, and surges swallowed that shepherd of gems. Then the woven gold on a wain was laden -- countless quite! -- and the king was borne, hoary hero, to Hrones-Ness. XLI THEN fashioned for him the folk of Geats firm on the earth a funeral-pile, and hung it with helmets and harness of war and breastplates bright, as the boon he asked; and they laid amid it the mighty chieftain, heroes mourning their master dear. Then on the hill that hugest of balefires the warriors wakened. Wood-smoke rose black over blaze, and blent was the roar of flame with weeping (the wind was still), till the fire had broken the frame of bones, hot at the heart. In heavy mood their misery moaned they, their master's death. Wailing her woe, the widow {41a} old, her hair upbound, for Beowulf's death sung in her sorrow, and said full oft she dreaded the doleful days to come, deaths enow, and doom of battle, and shame. -- The smoke by the sky was devoured. The folk of the Weders fashioned there on the headland a barrow broad and high, by ocean-farers far descried: in ten days' time their toil had raised it, the battle-brave's beacon. Round brands of the pyre a wall they built, the worthiest ever that wit could prompt in their wisest men. They placed in the barrow that precious booty, the rounds and the rings they had reft erewhile, hardy heroes, from hoard in cave, -- trusting the ground with treasure of earls, gold in the earth, where ever it lies useless to men as of yore it was. Then about that barrow the battle-keen rode, atheling-born, a band of twelve, lament to make, to mourn their king, chant their dirge, and their chieftain honor. They praised his earlship, his acts of prowess worthily witnessed: and well it is that men their master-friend mightily laud, heartily love, when hence he goes from life in the body forlorn away. Thus made their mourning the men of Geatland, for their hero's passing his hearth-companions: quoth that of all the kings of earth, of men he was mildest and most beloved, to his kin the kindest, keenest for praise. Footnotes: {0a} Not, of course, Beowulf the Great, hero of the epic. {0b} Kenning for king or chieftain of a comitatus: he breaks off gold from the spiral rings -- often worn on the arm -- and so rewards his followers. {1a} That is, "The Hart," or "Stag," so called from decorations in the gables that resembled the antlers of a deer. This hall has been carefully described in a pamphlet by Heyne. The building was rectangular, with opposite doors -- mainly west and east -- and a hearth in the middle of th single room. A row of pillars down each side, at some distance from the walls, made a space which was raised a little above the main floor, and was furnished with two rows of seats. On one side, usually south, was the high-seat midway between the doors. Opposite this, on the other raised space, was another seat of honor. At the banquet soon to be described, Hrothgar sat in the south or chief high-seat, and Beowulf opposite to him. The scene for a flying (see below, v.499) was thus very effectively set. Planks on trestles -- the "board" of later English literature -- formed the tables just in front of the long rows of seats, and were taken away after banquets, when the retainers were ready to stretch themselves out for sleep on the benches. {1b} Fire was the usual end of these halls. See v. 781 below. One thinks of the splendid scene at the end of the Nibelungen, of the Nialssaga, of Saxo's story of Amlethus, and many a less famous instance. {1c} It is to be supposed that all hearers of this poem knew how Hrothgar's hall was burnt, -- perhaps in the unsuccessful attack made on him by his son-in-law Ingeld. {1d} A skilled minstrel. The Danes are heathens, as one is told presently; but this lay of beginnings is taken from Genesis. {1e} A disturber of the border, one who sallies from his haunt in the fen and roams over the country near by. This probably pagan nuisance is now furnished with biblical credentials as a fiend or devil in good standing, so that all Christian Englishmen might read about him. "Grendel" may mean one who grinds and crushes. {1f} Cain's. {1g} Giants. {2a} The smaller buildings within the main enclosure but separate from the hall. {2b} Grendel. {2c} "Sorcerers-of-hell." {2d} Hrothgar, who is the "Scyldings'-friend" of 170. {2e} That is, in formal or prescribed phrase. {3a} Ship. {3b} That is, since Beowulf selected his ship and led his men to the harbor. {3c} One of the auxiliary names of the Geats. {3d} Or: Not thus openly ever came warriors hither; yet... {4a} Hrothgar. {4b} Beowulf's helmet has several boar-images on it; he is the "man of war"; and the boar-helmet guards him as typical representative of the marching party as a whole. The boar was sacred to Freyr, who was the favorite god of the Germanic tribes about the North Sea and the Baltic. Rude representations of warriors show the boar on the helmet quite as large as the helmet itself. {5a} Either merely paved, the strata via of the Romans, or else thought of as a sort of mosaic, an extravagant touch like the reckless waste of gold on the walls and roofs of a hall. {6a} The nicor, says Bugge, is a hippopotamus; a walrus, says Ten Brink. But that water-goblin who covers the space from Old Nick of jest to the Neckan and Nix of poetry and tale, is all one needs, and Nicor is a good name for him. {6b} His own people, the Geats. {6c} That is, cover it as with a face-cloth. "There will be no need of funeral rites." {6d} Personification of Battle. {6e} The Germanic Vulcan. {6f} This mighty power, whom the Christian poet can still revere, has here the general force of "Destiny." {7a} There is no irrelevance here. Hrothgar sees in Beowulf's mission a heritage of duty, a return of the good offices which the Danish king rendered to Beowulf's father in time of dire need. {7b} Money, for wergild, or man-price. {7c} Ecgtheow, Beowulf's sire. {8a} "Began the fight." {8b} Breca. {9a} Murder. {10a} Beowulf, -- the "one." {11a} That is, he was a "lost soul," doomed to hell. {12a} Kenning for Beowulf. {13a} "Guarded the treasure." {13b} Sc. Heremod. {13c} The singer has sung his lays, and the epic resumes its story. The time-relations are not altogether good in this long passage which describes the rejoicings of "the day after"; but the present shift from the riders on the road to the folk at the hall is not very violent, and is of a piece with the general style. {14a} Unferth, Beowulf's sometime opponent in the flyting. {15a} There is no horrible inconsistency here such as the critics strive and cry about. In spite of the ruin that Grendel and Beowulf had made within the hall, the framework and roof held firm, and swift repairs made the interior habitable. Tapestries were hung on the walls, and willing hands prepared the banquet. {15b} From its formal use in other places, this phrase, to take cup in hall, or "on the floor," would seem to mean that Beowulf stood up to receive his gifts, drink to the donor, and say thanks. {15c} Kenning for sword. {15d} Hrothgar. He is also the "refuge of the friends of Ing," below. Ing belongs to myth. {15e} Horses are frequently led or ridden into the hall where folk sit at banquet: so in Chaucer's Squire's tale, in the ballad of King Estmere, and in the romances. {16a} Man-price, wergild. {16b} Beowulf's. {16c} Hrothgar. {16d} There is no need to assume a gap in the Ms. As before about Sigemund and Heremod, so now, though at greater length, about Finn and his feud, a lay is chanted or recited; and the epic poet, counting on his readers' familiarity with the story, -- a fragment of it still exists, -- simply gives the headings. {16e} The exact story to which this episode refers in summary is not to be determined, but the following account of it is reasonable and has good support among scholars. Finn, a Frisian chieftain, who nevertheless has a "castle" outside the Frisian border, marries Hildeburh, a Danish princess; and her brother, Hnaef, with many other Danes, pays Finn a visit. Relations between the two peoples have been strained before. Something starts the old feud anew; and the visitors are attacked in their quarters. Hnaef is killed; so is a son of Hildeburh. Many fall on both sides. Peace is patched up; a stately funeral is held; and the surviving visitors become in a way vassals or liegemen of Finn, going back with him to Frisia. So matters rest a while. Hengest is now leader of the Danes; but he is set upon revenge for his former lord, Hnaef. Probably he is killed in feud; but his clansmen, Guthlaf and Oslaf, gather at their home a force of sturdy Danes, come back to Frisia, storm Finn's stronghold, kill him, and carry back their kinswoman Hildeburh. {16f} The "enemies" must be the Frisians. {16g} Battlefield. -- Hengest is the "prince's thane," companion of Hnaef. "Folcwald's son" is Finn. {16h} That is, Finn would govern in all honor the few Danish warriors who were left, provided, of course, that none of them tried to renew the quarrel or avenge Hnaef their fallen lord. If, again, one of Finn's Frisians began a quarrel, he should die by the sword. {16i} Hnaef. {16j} The high place chosen for the funeral: see description of Beowulf's funeral-pile at the end of the poem. {16k} Wounds. {17a} That is, these two Danes, escaping home, had told the story of the attack on Hnaef, the slaying of Hengest, and all the Danish woes. Collecting a force, they return to Frisia and kill Finn in his home. {17b} Nephew to Hrothgar, with whom he subsequently quarrels, and elder cousin to the two young sons of Hrothgar and Wealhtheow, -- their natural guardian in the event of the king's death. There is something finely feminine in this speech of Wealhtheow's, apart from its somewhat irregular and irrelevant sequence of topics. Both she and her lord probably distrust Hrothulf; but she bids the king to be of good cheer, and, turning to the suspect, heaps affectionate assurances on his probity. "My own Hrothulf" will surely not forget these favors and benefits of the past, but will repay them to the orphaned boy. {19a} They had laid their arms on the benches near where they slept. {20a} He surmises presently where she is. {20b} The connection is not difficult. The words of mourning, of acute grief, are said; and according to Germanic sequence of thought, inexorable here, the next and only topic is revenge. But is it possible? Hrothgar leads up to his appeal and promise with a skillful and often effective description of the horrors which surround the monster's home and await the attempt of an avenging foe. {21a} Hrothgar is probably meant. {21b} Meeting place. {22a} Kenning for "sword." Hrunting is bewitched, laid under a spell of uselessness, along with all other swords. {22b} This brown of swords, evidently meaning burnished, bright, continues to be a favorite adjective in the popular ballads. {23a} After the killing of the monster and Grendel's decapitation. {23b} Hrothgar. {23c} The blade slowly dissolves in blood-stained drops like icicles. {23d} Spear. {24a} That is, "whoever has as wide authority as I have and can remember so far back so many instances of heroism, may well say, as I say, that no better hero ever lived than Beowulf." {25a} That is, he is now undefended by conscience from the temptations (shafts) of the devil. {25b} Kenning for the sun. -- This is a strange role for the raven. He is the warrior's bird of battle, exults in slaughter and carnage; his joy here is a compliment to the sunrise. {26a} That is, he might or might not see Beowulf again. Old as he was, the latter chance was likely; but he clung to the former, hoping to see his young friend again "and exchange brave words in the hall." {27a} With the speed of the boat. {27b} Queen to Hygelac. She is praised by contrast with the antitype, Thryth, just as Beowulf was praised by contrast with Heremod. {27c} Kenning for "wife." {28a} Beowulf gives his uncle the king not mere gossip of his journey, but a statesmanlike forecast of the outcome of certain policies at the Danish court. Talk of interpolation here is absurd. As both Beowulf and Hygelac know, -- and the folk for whom the Beowulf was put together also knew, -- Froda was king of the Heathobards (probably the Langobards, once near neighbors of Angle and Saxon tribes on the continent), and had fallen in fight with the Danes. Hrothgar will set aside this feud by giving his daughter as "peace-weaver" and wife to the young king Ingeld, son of the slain Froda. But Beowulf, on general principles and from his observation of the particular case, foretells trouble. Note: {28b} Play of shields, battle. A Danish warrior cuts down Froda in the fight, and takes his sword and armor, leaving them to a son. This son is selected to accompany his mistress, the young princess Freawaru, to her new home when she is Ingeld's queen. Heedlessly he wears the sword of Froda in hall. An old warrior points it out to Ingeld, and eggs him on to vengeance. At his instigation the Dane is killed; but the murderer, afraid of results, and knowing the land, escapes. So the old feud must break out again. {28c} That is, their disastrous battle and the slaying of their king. {28d} The sword. {28e} Beowulf returns to his forecast. Things might well go somewhat as follows, he says; sketches a little tragic story; and with this prophecy by illustration returns to the tale of his adventure. {28f} Not an actual glove, but a sort of bag. {29a} Hygelac. {29b} This is generally assumed to mean hides, though the text simply says "seven thousand." A hide in England meant about 120 acres, though "the size of the acre varied." {29c} On the historical raid into Frankish territory between 512 and 520 A.D. The subsequent course of events, as gathered from hints of this epic, is partly told in Scandinavian legend. {29d} The chronology of this epic, as scholars have worked it out, would make Beowulf well over ninety years of age when he fights the dragon. But the fifty years of his reign need not be taken as historical fact. {29e} The text is here hopelessly illegible, and only the general drift of the meaning can be rescued. For one thing, we have the old myth of a dragon who guards hidden treasure. But with this runs the story of some noble, last of his race, who hides all his wealth within this barrow and there chants his farewell to life's glories. After his death the dragon takes possession of the hoard and watches over it. A condemned or banished man, desperate, hides in the barrow, discovers the treasure, and while the dragon sleeps, makes off with a golden beaker or the like, and carries it for propitiation to his master. The dragon discovers the loss and exacts fearful penalty from the people round about. {31a} Literally "loan-days," days loaned to man. {31b} Chattuarii, a tribe that dwelt along the Rhine, and took part in repelling the raid of (Hygelac) Chocilaicus. {31c} Onla, son of Ongentheow, who pursues his two nephews Eanmund and Eadgils to Heardred's court, where they have taken refuge after their unsuccessful rebellion. In the fighting Heardred is killed. {32a} That is, Beowulf supports Eadgils against Onela, who is slain by Eadgils in revenge for the "care-paths" of exile into which Onela forced him. {32b} That is, the king could claim no wergild, or man-price, from one son for the killing of the other. {32c} Usual euphemism for death. {32d} Sc. in the grave. {33a} Eofor for Wulf. -- The immediate provocation for Eofor in killing "the hoary Scylfing," Ongentheow, is that the latter has just struck Wulf down; but the king, Haethcyn, is also avenged by the blow. See the detailed description below. {33b} Hygelac. {33c} Shield. {33d} The hollow passage. {34a} That is, although Eanmund was brother's son to Onela, the slaying of the former by Weohstan is not felt as cause of feud, and is rewarded by gift of the slain man's weapons. {34b} Both Wiglaf and the sword did their duty. -- The following is one of the classic passages for illustrating the comitatus as the most conspicuous Germanic institution, and its underlying sense of duty, based partly on the idea of loyalty and partly on the practical basis of benefits received and repaid. {34c} Sc. "than to bide safely here," -- a common figure of incomplete comparison. {34d} Wiglaf's wooden shield. {34e} Gering would translate "kinsman of the nail," as both are made of iron. {35a} That is, swords. {36a} Where Beowulf lay. {37a} What had been left or made by the hammer; well-forged. {37b} Trying to revive him. {38a} Nothing. {38b} Dead. {38c} Death-watch, guard of honor, "lyke-wake." {38d} A name for the Franks. {38e} Ongentheow. {38f} Haethcyn. {39a} The line may mean: till Hrethelings stormed on the hedged shields, -- i.e. the shield-wall or hedge of defensive war -- Hrethelings, of course, are Geats. {39b} Eofor, brother to Wulf Wonreding. {39c} Sc. "value in" hides and the weight of the gold. {39d} Not at all. {39e} Laid on it when it was put in the barrow. This spell, or in our days the "curse," either prevented discovery or brought dire ills on the finder and taker. {40a} Probably the fugitive is meant who discovered the hoard. Ten Brink and Gering assume that the dragon is meant. "Hid" may well mean here "took while in hiding." {40b} That is "one and a few others." But Beowulf seems to be indicated. {40c} Ten Brink points out the strongly heathen character of this part of the epic. Beowulf's end came, so the old tradition ran, from his unwitting interference with spell-bound treasure. {40d} A hard saying, variously interpreted. In any case, it is the somewhat clumsy effort of the Christian poet to tone down the heathenism of his material by an edifying observation. {41a} Nothing is said of Beowulf's wife in the poem, but Bugge surmises that Beowulf finally accepted Hygd's offer of kingdom and hoard, and, as was usual, took her into the bargain. 
26653	----	file was produced from scans of public domain material produced by Microsoft for their Live Search Books site.) Transcribers note: In this text the breve has been rendered as [)a] and the macron [=a] * * * * * [Illustration: YOUNG AMERICA IN NORWAY. Page 159.] [Illustration] YOUNG AMERICA ABROAD UP THE BALTIC BOSTON LEE & SHEPARD. _YOUNG AMERICA ABROAD--SECOND SERIES._ UP THE BALTIC; OR, YOUNG AMERICA IN NORWAY, SWEDEN, AND DENMARK. A STORY OF TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE. BY WILLIAM T. ADAMS. (_OLIVER OPTIC_), AUTHOR OF "OUTWARD BOUND," "SHAMROCK AND THISTLE," "RED CROSS," "DIKES AND DITCHES," "PALACE AND COTTAGE," "DOWN THE RHINE," ETC. BOSTON: LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS. NEW YORK: LEE, SHEPARD AND DILLINGHAM, NOS. 47 AND 49 GREENE ST. 1875. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, BY WILLIAM T. ADAMS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. Electrotyped at the Boston Stereotype Foundry, No. 19 Spring Lane. TO MY EVER-CHEERFUL AND GOOD-NATURED FRIEND SHEPARD K. MATTISON, WHOM I MET FOR THE FIRST TIME AT TROLLHÄTTEN, ON THE GÖTA CANAL, AND WITH WHOM I JOURNEYED THROUGH SWEDEN, RUSSIA, AUSTRIA, SPAIN, AND PORTUGAL, _This Volume_ IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. YOUNG AMERICA ABROAD. BY OLIVER OPTIC. A Library of Travel and Adventure in Foreign Lands. First and Second Series; six volumes in each Series. 16mo. Illustrated. _First Series._ I. _OUTWARD BOUND_; OR, YOUNG AMERICA AFLOAT. II. _SHAMROCK AND THISTLE_; OR, YOUNG AMERICA IN IRELAND AND SCOTLAND. III. _RED CROSS_; OR, YOUNG AMERICA IN ENGLAND AND WALES. IV. _DIKES AND DITCHES_; OR, YOUNG AMERICA IN HOLLAND AND BELGIUM. V. _PALACE AND COTTAGE_; OR, YOUNG AMERICA IN FRANCE AND SWITZERLAND. VI. _DOWN THE RHINE_; OR, YOUNG AMERICA IN GERMANY. _Second Series._ I. _UP THE BALTIC_; OR, YOUNG AMERICA IN NORWAY, SWEDEN, AND DENMARK. II. _NORTHERN LANDS_; OR, YOUNG AMERICA IN RUSSIA AND PRUSSIA. In preparation. III. _CROSS AND CRESCENT_; OR, YOUNG AMERICA IN TURKEY AND GREECE. In preparation. IV. _SUNNY SHORES_; OR, YOUNG AMERICA IN ITALY AND AUSTRIA. In preparation. V. _VINE AND OLIVE_; OR, YOUNG AMERICA IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. In preparation. VI. _ISLES OF THE SEA_; OR, YOUNG AMERICA HOMEWARD BOUND. In preparation. PREFACE. UP THE BALTIC, the first volume of the second series of "YOUNG AMERICA ABROAD," like its predecessors, is a record of what was seen and done by the young gentlemen of the Academy Squadron on its second voyage to Europe, embracing its stay in the waters of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Agreeably to the announcement made in the concluding volume of the first series, the author spent the greater portion of last year in Europe. His sole object in going abroad was to obtain the material for the present series of books, and in carrying out his purpose, he visited every country to which these volumes relate, and, he hopes, properly fitted himself for the work he has undertaken. In the preparation of UP THE BALTIC, the writer has used, besides his own note-books, the most reliable works he could obtain at home and in Europe, and he believes his geographical, historical, and political matter is correct, and as full as could be embodied in a story. He has endeavored to describe the appearance of the country, and the manners and customs of the people, so as to make them interesting to young readers. For this purpose these descriptions are often interwoven with the story, or brought out in the comments of the boys of the squadron. The story is principally the adventures of the crew of the second cutter, who attempted "an independent excursion without running away," which includes the career of a young Englishman, spoiled by his mother's indulgence, and of a Norwegian waif, picked up by the squadron in the North Sea. The author is encouraged to enter upon this second series by the remarkable and unexpected success which attended the publication of the first series. Difficult as it is to work the dry details of geography and history into a story, the writer intends to persevere in his efforts to make these books instructive, as well as interesting; and he is confident that no reader will fail to distinguish the good boys from the bad ones of the story, or to give his sympathies to the former. HARRISON SQUARE, BOSTON, May 10, 1871. CONTENTS. PAGE I. A WAIF ON THE NORTH SEA 11 II. OFF THE NAZE OF NORWAY 27 III. AN ACCIDENT TO THE SECOND CUTTER 43 IV. NORWAY IN THE PAST AND THE PRESENT 59 V. MR. CLYDE BLACKLOCK AND MOTHER 76 VI. A DAY AT CHRISTIANSAND 92 VII. UP THE CHRISTIANIA FJORD 110 VIII. SIGHTS OF CHRISTIANIA, AND OTHER MATTERS 128 IX. THE EXCURSION WITHOUT RUNNING AWAY 146 X. GOTTENBURG AND FINKEL 164 XI. ON THE WAY TO THE RJUKANFOS 181 XII. THE BOATSWAIN AND THE BRITON 201 XIII. THE MEETING OF THE ABSENTEES 218 XIV. THROUGH THE SOUND TO COPENHAGEN 237 XV. COPENHAGEN AND TIVOLI 255 XVI. EXCURSION TO KLAMPENBORG AND ELSINORE 274 XVII. TO STOCKHOLM BY GÖTA CANAL 292 XVIII. UP THE BALTIC 310 XIX. THE CRUISE IN THE LITTLE STEAMER 329 XX. STOCKHOLM AND ITS SURROUNDINGS 349 * * * * * UP THE BALTIC; OR, YOUNG AMERICA IN NORWAY, SWEDEN, AND DENMARK. CHAPTER I. A WAIF ON THE NORTH SEA. "Boat on the weather bow, sir!" shouted the lookout on the top-gallant forecastle of the Young America. "Starboard!" replied Judson, the officer of the deck, as he discovered the boat, which was drifting into the track of the ship. "Starboard, sir!" responded the quartermaster in charge of the wheel. "Steady!" added the officer. "Steady, sir," repeated the quartermaster. By this time a crowd of young officers and seamen had leaped upon the top-gallant forecastle, and into the weather rigging, to obtain a view of the little boat, which, like a waif on the ocean, was drifting down towards the coast of Norway. It contained only a single person, who was either a dwarf or a boy, for he was small in stature. He lay upon a seat near the stern of the boat, with his feet on the gunwale. He was either asleep or dead, for though the ship had approached within hail, he neither moved nor made any sign. The wind was light from the southward, and the sea was quite calm. "What do you make of it, Ryder?" called the officer of the deck to the second master, who was on duty forward. "It is a flat-bottomed boat, half full of water, with a boy in it," answered Ryder. "Hail him," added the officer of the deck. "Boat, ahoy!" shouted Ryder, at the top of his lungs. The person in the boat, boy or man, made no reply. Ryder repeated the hail, but with no better success. The officers and seamen held their breath with interest and excitement, for most of them had already come to the conclusion that the occupant of the boat was dead. A feeling akin to horror crept through the minds of the more timid, as they gazed upon the immovable body in the dilapidated craft; for they felt that they were in the presence of death, and to young people this is always an impressive season. By this time the ship was within a short distance of the water-logged bateau. As the waif on the ocean exhibited no signs of life, the first lieutenant, in charge of the vessel, was in doubt as to what he should do. Though he knew that it was the first duty of a sailor to assist a human being in distress, he was not sure that the same effort was required in behalf of one who had already ceased to live. Captain Cumberland, in command of the ship, who had been in the cabin when the excitement commenced, now appeared upon the quarter-deck, and relieved the officer of the responsibility of the moment. Judson reported the cause of the unwonted scene on deck, and as the captain discovered the little boat, just on the weather bow, he promptly directed the ship to be hove to. "Man the main clew-garnets and buntlines!" shouted the first lieutenant; and the hands sprang to their several stations. "Stand by tack and sheet." "All ready, sir," reported the first midshipman, who was on duty in the waist. "Let go tack and sheet! Up mainsail!" continued Ryder. The well-trained crew promptly obeyed the several orders, and the mainsail was hauled up in much less time than it takes to describe the manoeuvre. "Man the main braces!" proceeded the officer of the deck. "Ready, sir," reported the first midshipman. "Let go and haul." As the hands executed the last order; all the yards on the mainmast swung round towards the wind till the light breeze caught the sails aback, and brought them against the mast. The effect was to deaden the headway of the ship. "Avast bracing!" shouted the first lieutenant, when the yards on the mainmast were about square. In a few moments the onward progress of the Young America was entirely checked, and she lay motionless on the sea. There were four other vessels in the squadron, following the flag-ship, and each of them, in its turn, hove to, or came up into the wind. "Fourth cutters, clear away their boat!" continued the first lieutenant, after he had received his order from the captain. "Mr. Messenger will take charge of the boat." The young officer indicated was the first midshipman, whose quarter watch was then on duty. "All the fourth cutters!" piped the boatswain's mate, as Messenger crossed the deck to perform the duty assigned to him. "He's alive!" shouted a dozen of the idlers on the rail, who had not removed their gaze from the waif in the small boat. "He isn't dead any more than I am!" added a juvenile tar, springing into the main rigging, as if to demonstrate the amount of his own vitality. The waif in the bateau had produced this sudden change of sentiment, and given this welcome relief to the crew of the Young America, by rising from his reclining posture, and standing up in the water at the bottom of his frail craft. He gazed with astonishment at the ship and the other vessels of the squadron, and did not seem to realize where he was. "Avast, fourth cutters!" interposed the first lieutenant. "Belay, all!" If the waif was not dead, it was hardly necessary to lower a boat to send to his relief; at least not till it appeared that he needed assistance. "Boat, ahoy!" shouted Ryder. "On board the ship," replied the waif, in tones not at all sepulchral. "What are you doing out here?" demanded the first lieutenant. "Nothing," replied the waif. "Will you come on board the ship?" "Yes, if you will let me," added the stranger, as he picked up a broken oar, which was floating in the water on the bottom of his boat. "Yes, come on board," answered the first lieutenant, prompted by Captain Cumberland, who was quite as much interested in the adventure as any of his shipmates. The waif, using the broken oar as a paddle, worked his water-logged craft slowly towards the ship. The accommodation ladder was lowered for his use, and in a few moments, with rather a heavy movement, as though he was lame, or much exhausted, he climbed up the ladder, and stepped down upon the ship deck. "Fill away again!" said the captain to the first lieutenant, as a curious crowd began to gather around the stranger. Ryder gave the necessary orders to brace up the main yards, and set the mainsail again, and the ship was soon moving on her course towards the Naze of Norway, as though nothing had occurred to interrupt her voyage. "What are you doing out here, in an open boat, out of sight of land?" asked Captain Cumberland, while the watch on deck were bracing up the yards. The waif looked at the commander of the Young America, and carefully examined him from head to foot. The elegant uniform of the captain seemed to produce a strong impression upon his mind, and he evidently regarded him as a person of no small consequence. He did not answer the question put to him, seeming to be in doubt whether it was safe and proper for him to do so. Captain Cumberland was an exceedingly comely-looking young gentleman, tall and well formed in person, graceful and dignified in his manners; and if he had been fifty years old, the stranger before him could not have been more awed and impressed by his bearing. So far as his personal appearance was concerned, the waif appeared to have escaped from the rag-bag, and to have been out long enough to soil his tatters with oil, tar, pitch, and dirt. Though his face and hands, as well as other parts of his body, were very dirty, his eye was bright, and, even seen through the disguise of filth and rags that covered him, he was rather prepossessing. "What is your name?" asked Captain Cumberland, finding his first question was not likely to be answered. "Ole Amundsen," replied the stranger, pronouncing his first name in two syllables. "Then you are not English." "No, sir. Be you?" "I am not; we are all Americans in this ship." "Americans!" exclaimed Ole, opening his eyes, while a smile beamed through the dirt on his face. "Are you going to America now?" "No; we are going up the Baltic now," replied Captain Cumberland; "but we shall return to America in the course of a year or two." "Take me to America with you--will you?" continued Ole, earnestly. "I am a sailor, and I will work for you all the time." "I don't know about that. You must speak to the principal." "Who's he?" "Mr. Lowington. He is in the cabin now. Where do you belong, Ole?" "I don't belong anywhere," answered the waif, looking doubtfully about him. "Where were you born?" "In Norway, sir." "Then you are a Norwegian." "I reckon I am." "In what part of Norway were you born?" "In Bratsberg." "That's where all the brats come from," suggested Sheridan. "This one came from there, at any rate," added Mayley. "But where is Bratsberg, and what is it?" "It is an _amt_, or province, in the south-eastern part of Norway." "I came from the town of Laurdal," said Ole. "Do the people there speak English as well as you do?" asked the captain. "No, sir. I used to be a _skydskarl_, and--" "A what?" demanded the crowd. "A _skydskarl_--a boy that goes on a cariole to take back the horses. I learned a little English from the Englishmen I rode with; and then I was in England almost a year." "But how came you out here, alone in an open boat?" asked the captain, returning to his first inquiry. Ole put one of his dirty fingers in his mouth, and looked stupid and uncommunicative. He glanced at the young officers around him, and then over the rail at the sea. "Were you wrecked?" inquired the captain. "No, sir; not wrecked," replied Ole. "I never was wrecked in my life." "What are you doing out here, out of sight of land, in a boat half full of water?" persisted the captain. "Doing nothing." "Did you get blown off from the shore?" "No, sir; a southerly wind wouldn't blow anybody off from the south coast of Norway," answered Ole, with a smile which showed that he had some perception of things absurd in themselves. "You are no fool." "No, sir, I am not; and I don't think you are," added Ole, again glancing at Captain Cumberland from head to foot. The young tars all laughed at the waif's retort, and the captain was not a little nettled by the remark. He pressed Ole rather sharply for further information in regard to his antecedents; but the youth was silent on this point. While the crowd were anxiously waiting for the stranger to declare himself more definitely, eight bells sounded at the wheel, and were repeated on the large bell forward by the lookout. From each vessel of the fleet the bells struck at nearly the same moment, and were followed by the pipe of the boatswain's whistle, which was the signal for changing the watch. As the officers of the ship were obliged to attend to their various duties, Ole Amundsen was left alone with the captain. The waif still obstinately refused to explain how he happened to be alone in a water-logged boat, asleep, and out of sight of land, though he promptly answered all other questions which were put to him. Mr. Lowington, the principal of the Academy Squadron, was in the main cabin, though he had been fully informed in regard to the events which had transpired on deck. The young commander despaired of his own ability to extort an explanation from the waif, and he concluded to refer the matter to the principal. "How long have you been in that boat?" asked Captain Cumberland, as he led the way towards the companion ladder. "Eighteen hours," answered Ole, after some hesitation, which, perhaps, was only to enable him to count up the hours. "Did you have anything to eat?" "No, sir." "Nothing?" "Not a thing." "Then you are hungry?" "I had a little supper last night--not much," continued Ole, apparently counting the seams in the deck, ashamed to acknowledge his human weakness. "You shall have something to eat at once." "Thank you, sir." Captain Cumberland therefore conducted the stranger to the steerage, instead of the main cabin, and directed one of the stewards to give him his supper. The man set half a cold boiled ham on one of the mess tables, with an abundant supply of bread and butter. Cutting off a large slice of the ham, he placed it on the plate before Ole, whose eyes opened wide with astonishment, and gleamed with pleasure. Without paying much attention to the forms of civilization, the boy began to devour it, with the zeal of one who had not tasted food for twenty-four hours. Captain Cumberland smiled, but with becoming dignity, at the greediness of the guest, before whom the whole slice of ham and half a brick loaf disappeared almost in a twinkling. The steward appeared with a pot of coffee, in time to cut off another slice of ham, which the waif attacked with the same voracity as before. When it was consumed, and the young Norwegian glanced wistfully at the leg before him, as though his capacity for cold ham was not yet exhausted, the captain began to consider whether he ought not to consult the surgeon of the ship before he permitted the waif to eat any more. But the steward, like a generous host, seemed to regard the quantity eaten as complimentary testimony to the quality of the viands, and helped him to a third slice of the ham. He swallowed a pint mug of coffee without stopping to breathe. As the third slice of ham began to wax small before the voracious Norwegian, Captain Cumberland became really alarmed, and determined to report at once to the principal and the surgeon for instructions. Knocking at the door of the main cabin, he was admitted. Dr. Winstock assured him there was no danger to the guest; he had not been without food long enough to render it dangerous for him fully to satisfy himself. The quantity eaten might make him uncomfortable, and even slightly sick, but it would do the gourmand no real injury. The captain returned to the steerage, where Ole had broken down on his fourth slice of ham; but he regarded it wistfully, and seemed to regret his inability to eat any more. "That's good," said he, with emphasis. "It's the best supper I ever ate in my life. I like this ship; I like the grub; and I mean to go to America in her." "We will see about that some other time; but if you don't tell us how you happened to be off here, I am afraid we can do nothing for you," replied the captain. "If you feel better now, we will go and see the principal." "Who's he?" asked Ole. "Mr. Lowington. You must tell him how you happened to be in that leaky boat." "Perhaps I will. I don't know," added Ole, doubtfully, as he followed the commander into the main cabin. Captain Cumberland explained to the principal the circumstances under which Ole had come on board, and that he declined to say anything in regard to the strange situation in which he had been discovered. "Is the captain here?" asked the midshipman of the watch, at the steerage door. "Yes," replied Captain Cumberland. "Mr. Lincoln sent me down to report a light on the lee bow, sir." "Very well. Where is Mr. Beckwith?" "In the cabin, sir." The captain left the main cabin, and entered the after cabin, where he found Beckwith, the first master, attended by the second and third, examining the large chart of the North Sea. "Light on the lee bow, sir," said the first master. "Do you make it out?" "Yes; we are all right to the breadth of a hair," added the master, delighted to find that his calculations had proved to be entirely correct. "It is Egero Light, and we are about fifty miles from the Naze of Norway. We are making about four knots, and if the breeze holds, we ought to see Gunnarshoug Light by one o'clock." Captain Cumberland went on deck to see the light reported. Though it was half past eight, the sun had but just set, and the light, eighteen miles distant, could be distinctly seen. It created a great deal of excitement and enthusiasm among the young officers and seamen, who had read enough about Norway to be desirous of seeing it. For weeks the young gentlemen on board the ship had been talking of Norway, and reading up all the books in the library relating to the country and its people. They had read with interest the accounts of the various travellers who had visited it, including Ross Brown, in Harper's Monthly, and Bayard Taylor, and had studied Harper, Murray, Bradshaw, and other Guides on the subject. The more inquiring students had read the history of Norway, and were well prepared to appreciate a short visit to this interesting region. They had just come from the United States, having sailed in the latter part of March. The squadron had had a fair passage, and the students hoped to be in Christiansand by the first day of May; and now nothing less than a dead calm for forty-eight hours could disappoint their hopes. Five years before, the Young America and the Josephine, her consort, had cruised in the waters of Europe, and returned to America in the autumn. It had been the intention of the principal to make another voyage the next year, go up the Baltic, and winter in the Mediterranean; but the war of 1866 induced him to change his plans. Various circumstances had postponed the cruise until 1870, when it was actually commenced. The Young America was the first, and for more than a year the only, vessel belonging to the Academy. The Josephine, a topsail schooner, had been added the second year; and now the Tritonia, a vessel of the same size and rig, was on her first voyage. The three vessels of the squadron were officered and manned by the students of the Academy. As on the first cruise, the offices were the rewards of merit bestowed upon the faithful and energetic pupils. The highest number of merits gave the highest office, and so on through the several grades in the cabin, and the petty offices in the steerage. The routine and discipline of the squadron were substantially the same as described in the first series of these volumes, though some changes had been made, as further experience suggested. Instead of quarterly, as before, the offices were given out every month. Captains were not retired after a single term, as formerly, but were obliged to accept whatever rank and position they earned, like other students. There was no change from one vessel to another, except at the end of a school year, or with the permission of the principal. The ship had six instructors, three of whom, however, lectured to all the students in the squadron, and each of the smaller vessels had two teachers. Mr. Lowington was still the principal. He was the founder of the institution; and his high moral and religious principles, his love of justice, as well as his skill, firmness, and prudence, had made it a success in spite of the many obstacles which continually confronted it. As a considerable portion of the students in the squadron were the spoiled sons of rich men, who had set at defiance the rules of colleges and academies on shore, it required a remarkable combination of attributes to fit a gentleman for the difficult and trying position he occupied. Mr. Fluxion was the first vice-principal in charge of the Josephine. He was a thorough seaman, a good disciplinarian, and a capital teacher; but he lacked some of the high attributes of character which distinguished the principal. If any man was fit to succeed Mr. Lowington in his responsible position, it was Mr. Fluxion; but it was doubtful whether, under his sole administration, the institution could be an entire success. His love of discipline, and his energetic manner of dealing with delinquents, would probably have increased the number of "rows," mutinies, and runaways. The second vice-principal, in charge of the Tritonia, was Mr. Tompion, who, like his two superiors in rank, had formerly been an officer of the navy. Though he was a good sailor, and a good disciplinarian, he lacked that which a teacher needs most--a hearty sympathy with young people. The principal and the two vice-principals were instructors in mathematics and navigation in their respective vessels. Mr. Lowington had undertaken this task himself, because he felt the necessity of coming more in contact with the student than his position as mere principal required. It tended to promote friendly relations between the governor and the governed, by creating a greater sympathy between them. The Rev. Mr. Agneau still served as chaplain. In port, and at sea when the weather would permit, two services were held in the steerage every Sunday, which were attended, at anchor, by the crew of all the vessels. Prayers were said morning and evening, in the ship by the chaplain, in the schooners by the vice-principal or one of the instructors. Dr. Winstock was the instructor in natural philosophy and chemistry, as well as surgeon and sanitary director. He was a good and true man, and generally popular among the students. Each vessel had an adult boatswain and a carpenter, and the ship a sailmaker, to perform such work as the students could not do, and to instruct them in the details of practical seamanship. After the lapse of five years, hardly a student remained of those who had cruised in the ship or her consort during the first voyage. But in addition to the three vessels which properly constituted the squadron, there were two yachts, each of one hundred and twenty tons. They were fore-and-aft schooners, of beautiful model, and entirely new. The one on the weather wing of the fleet was the Grace, Captain Paul Kendall, whose lady and two friends were in the cabin. Abreast of her sailed the Feodora, Captain Robert Shuffles, whose wife was also with him. Each of these yachts had a first and second officer, and a crew of twenty men, with the necessary complement of cooks and stewards. They were part of the fleet, but not of the Academy Squadron. CHAPTER II. OFF THE NAZE OF NORWAY. Mr. Lowington examined Ole Amundsen very carefully, in order to ascertain what disposition should be made of him. He told where he was born, how he had learned English, and where he had passed the greater portion of his life, just as he had related these particulars to Captain Cumberland. "But how came you out here in an open boat?" asked the principal. Ole examined the carpet on the floor of the cabin, and made no reply. "Won't you answer me?" added Mr. Lowington. The waif was still silent. "You have been to sea?" "Yes, sir; I was six months in a steamer, and over two years in sailing vessels," answered Ole, readily. "What steamer were you in?" "I was in the Drammen steamer a while; and I have been three trips down to Copenhagen and Gottenburg, one to Lübeck, one to Stettin, and one to Stockholm." "Have you been in a steamer this season?" "No, sir." "Then you were in a sailing vessel." Ole would not say that he had been in any vessel the present season. "Where is your home now?" asked the principal, breaking the silence again. "Haven't any." "Have you a father and mother?" "Both dead, sir." "Have you any friends?" "Friends? I don't believe I have." "Any one that takes care of you?" "Takes care of me? No, sir; I'm quite certain I haven't any one that takes care of me. I take care of myself, and it's heavy work I find it, sometimes, I can tell you." "Do you ever go fishing?" "Yes, sir, sometimes." "Have you been lately?" Ole was silent again. "I wish to be your friend, Ole." "Thank you, sir," added Ole, bowing low. "But in order to know what to do for you, I must know something about your circumstances." "I haven't any circumstances, sir. I lost 'em all," replied Ole, gravely and sadly, as though he had met with a very serious loss. Dr. Winstock could not help laughing, but it was impossible to decide whether the boy was ignorant of the meaning of the word, or was trying to perpetrate a joke. "How did you happen to lose your circumstances, Ole?" asked Mr. Lowington. "When my mother died, Captain Olaf took 'em." "Indeed; and who is Captain Olaf?" Ole looked at the principal, and then returned his gaze to the cabin floor, evidently not deeming it prudent to answer the question. "Is he your brother?" "No, sir." "Your uncle?" "No, sir." Ole could not be induced to say anything more about Captain Olaf, and doubtless regretted that he had even mentioned his name. The waif plainly confounded "circumstances" and property. Mr. Lowington several times returned to the main inquiry, but the young man would not even hint at the explanation of the manner in which he had come to be a waif on the North Sea, in an open boat, half full of water. He had told the captain that he was not wrecked, and had not been blown off from the coast. He would make no answer of any kind to any direct question relating to the subject. "Well, Ole, as you will not tell me how you came in the situation in which we found you, I do not see that I can do anything for you," continued Mr. Lowington. "The ship is bound to Christiansand, and when we arrive we must leave you there." "Don't leave me in Christiansand, sir. I don't want to be left there." "Why not?" Ole was silent again. Both the principal and the surgeon pitied him, for he appeared to be a friendless orphan; certainly he had no friends to whom he wished to go, and was only anxious to remain in the ship, and go to America in her. "You may go into the steerage now, Ole," said the principal, despairing of any further solution of the mystery. "Thank you, sir," replied Ole, bowing low, and backing out of the cabin as a courtier retires from the presence of a sovereign. "What do you make of him, doctor?" added Mr. Lowington, as the door closed upon the waif. "I don't make anything of him," replied Dr. Winstock. "The young rascal evidently don't intend that we should make anything of him. He's a young Norwegian, about fifteen years old, with neither father nor mother; for I think we may believe what he has said. If he had no regard to the truth, it was just as easy for him to lie as it was to keep silent, and it would have been more plausible." "I am inclined to believe that he is a runaway, either from the shore or from some vessel," said the principal. "He certainly cannot have been well treated, for his filthy rags scarcely cover his body; and he says that the supper he had to-night was the best he ever ate in his life. It was only coffee, cold ham, and bread and butter; so he cannot have been a high liver. He seems to be honest, and I pity him." "But he is too filthy to remain on board a single hour. I will attend to his sanitary condition at once," laughed the doctor. "He will breed a leprosy among the boys, if he is not taken care of." "Let the purser give you a suit of clothes for him, for we can't do less than this for him." The doctor left the cabin, and Ole was taken to the bath-room by one of the stewards, and compelled to scrub himself with a brush and soap, till he was made into a new creature. He was inclined to rebel at first, for he had his national and inborn prejudice against soap and water in combination; but the sight of the suit of new clothes overcame his constitutional scruples. The steward was faithful to his mission, and Ole left dirt enough in the bath-tub to plant half a dozen hills of potatoes. He looked like a new being, even before he had donned the new clothes. His light hair, cut square across his forehead, was three shades lighter when it had been scrubbed, and deprived of the black earth, grease, and tar, with which it had been matted. The steward was interested in his work, for it is a pleasure to any decent person to transform such a leper of filth into a clean and wholesome individual. Ole put on the heavy flannel shirt and the blue frock which were handed to him, and smiled with pleasure as he observed the effect. He was fitted to a pair of seaman's blue trousers, and provided with socks and shoes. Then he actually danced with delight, and evidently regarded himself as a finished dandy; for never before had he been clothed in a suit half so good. It was the regular uniform of the crew of the ship. "Hold on a moment, my lad," said Muggs, the steward, as he produced a pair of barber's shears. "Your barber did not do justice to your figure-head, the last time he cut your hair." "I cut it myself," replied Ole. "I should think you did, and with a bush scythe." "I only hacked off a little, to keep it out of my eyes. Captain Olaf always used to cut it." "Who's Captain Olaf?" asked Muggs. Ole was silent, but permitted the steward to remove at will the long, snarly white locks, which covered his head. The operator had been a barber once, and received extra pay for his services on board the ship in this capacity. He did his work in an artistic manner, parting and combing the waif's hair as though he were dressing him for a fashionable party. He put a sailor's knot in the black handkerchief under the boy's collar, and then placed the blue cap on his head, a little on one side, so that he looked as jaunty as a dandy man-of-war's-man. "Now put on this jacket, my lad, and you will be all right," continued the steward, as he gazed with pride and pleasure upon the work of his hands. "More clothes!" exclaimed Ole. "I shall be baked. I sweat now with what I have on." "It's hot in here; you will be cool enough when you go on deck. Here's a pea-jacket for you, besides the other." "But that's for winter. I never had so much clothes on before in my life." "You needn't put the pea-jacket on, if you don't want it. Now you look like a decent man, and you can go on deck and show yourself." "Thank you, sir." "But you must wash yourself clean every morning." "Do it every day!" exclaimed Ole, opening his eyes with astonishment. "Why, yes, you heathen," laughed Muggs. "A man isn't fit to live who don't keep himself clean. Why, you could have planted potatoes anywhere on your hide, before you went into that tub." "I haven't been washed before since last summer," added Ole. "You ought to be hung for it." "You spend half your time washing yourselves--don't you?" "We spend time enough at it to keep clean. No wonder you Norwegians have the leprosy, and the flesh rots off the bones!" "But I always go into the water every summer," pleaded Ole. "And don't wash yourself at any other time?" "I always wash myself once a year, and sometimes more, when I get a good chance." "Don't you wash your face and hands every morning." "Every morning? No! I haven't done such a thing since last summer." "Then you are not fit to live. If you stay in this ship, you must wash every day, and more than that when you do dirty work." "Can I stay in the ship if I do that?" asked Ole, earnestly. "I don't know anything about it." "I will wash all the time if they will only let me stay in the ship," pleaded the waif. "You must talk with the principal on that subject. I have nothing to do with it. Now, go on deck. Hold up your head, and walk like a man." Ole left the bath-room, and made his way up the forward ladder. The second part of the starboard watch were on duty, but nearly every person belonging to the ship was on deck, watching the distant light, which assured them they were on the coast of Norway. The waif stepped upon deck as lightly as a mountain sylph. The influence of his new clothes pervaded his mind, and he was inclined to be a little "swellish" in his manner. "How are you, Norway!" shouted Sanford, one of the crew. "How are you, America," replied Ole, imitating the slang of the speaker. "What have you done with your dirt?" added Rodman. "Here is some of it," answered Muggs, the steward, as he came up the ladder, with Ole's rags on a dust-pan, and threw them overboard. "If you throw all his dirt overboard here, we shall get aground, sure," added Stockwell, as Ole danced up to the group of students. "No wonder you feel light after getting rid of such a load of dirt," said Sanford. "O, I'm all right," laughed Ole, good-naturedly; for he did not seem to think that dirt was any disgrace or dishonor to him. "How came you in that leaky boat, Norway?" demanded Rodman; and the entire party gathered around the waif, anxious to hear the story of his adventure. "I went into it." "Is that so?" added Wilde. "Yes, sir." "I say, Norway, you are smart," replied Rodman. "Smart? Where?" "All over." "I don't feel it." "But, Norway, how came you in that old tub, out of sight of land?" persisted Rodman, returning to the charge again. "I went into it just the same as one of you Americans would have got into it," laughed Ole, who did not think it necessary to resort to the tactics he had used with the principal and the captain. "You could have done it if you had tried as hard as I did." "After you got in, then, how came the boat out here, so far from land?" "The wind, the tide, and the broken oar brought it out here." "Indeed! But won't you tell us your story, Ole?" "A story? O, yes. Once there was a king of Norway whose name was Olaf, and half the men of his country were named after him, because--" "Never mind that story, Ole. We want to hear the story about yourself." "About myself? Well, last year things didn't go very well with me; the crop of potatoes was rather short on my farm, and my vessels caught but few fish; so I decided to make a voyage up the Mediterranean, to spend the winter." "What did you go in, Norway?" asked Wilde. "In my boat. We don't make voyages on foot here in Norway." "What boat?" "You won't let me tell my story; so I had better finish it at once. I got back as far as the North Sea, and almost into the Sleeve, when a gale came down upon me, and strained my boat so that she leaked badly. I was worn out with fatigue, and dropped asleep one afternoon. I was dreaming that the King of Sweden and Norway came off in a big man-of-war, to welcome me home again. He hailed me himself, with, "Boat, ahoy!" which waked me; and then I saw this ship. You know all the rest of it." "Do you mean to say you went up the Mediterranean in that old craft?" "I've told my story, and if you don't believe it, you can look in the almanac, and see whether it is true or not," laughed Ole. "But I must go and show myself to the captain and the big gentleman." "He's smart--isn't he?" said Sanford, as the young Norwegian went aft to exhibit himself to the officers on the quarter deck. "Yes; but what's the reason he won't tell how he happened out here in that leaky tub?" added Rodman. "I don't know; he wouldn't tell the captain, nor the principal." "I don't understand it." "No one understands it. Perhaps he has done something wrong, and is afraid of being found out." "Very likely." "He's just the fellow for us," said Stockwell, in a low tone, after he had glanced around him, to see that no listeners were near. "He speaks the lingo of this country. We must buy him up." "Good!" exclaimed Boyden. "We ought not to have let him go till we had fixed his flint." "I didn't think of it before; but there is time enough. If we can get hold of his story we can manage him without any trouble." "But he won't tell his story. He wouldn't even let on to the principal." "No matter; we must have him, somehow or other. Sanford can handle him." "I don't exactly believe in the scrape," said Burchmore, shaking his head dubiously. "We've heard all about the fellows that used to try to run away from the ship and from the Josephine. They always got caught, and always had the worst of it." "We are not going to run away, and we are not going to make ourselves liable to any punishment," interposed Sanford, rather petulantly. "We can have a good time on shore without running away, or anything of that sort." "What's the use?" replied Burchmore. "The principal isn't going to let us see anything at all of Norway. We are going to put in at Christiansand, and then go to Christiania. We want to see the interior of Norway, for there's glorious fishing in the lakes and rivers--salmon as big as whales." "I like fishing as well as any fellow, but I don't want to get into a scrape, and have to stay on board when the whole crowd go ashore afterwards. It won't pay." "But I tell you again, we are not going to run away." "I don't see how you can manage it without running away. You are going into the interior of Norway on your own hook, without the consent or knowledge of the principal. If you don't call this running away, I don't know what you can call it." "No matter what we call it, so long as the principal don't call it running away," argued Sanford. "How can you manage it?" inquired Burchmore. "I don't know yet; and if I did, I wouldn't tell a fellow who has so many doubts." "I shall not go into anything till I understand it." "We don't ask you to do so. As soon as we come to anchor, and see the lay of the land, we can tell exactly what and how to do it. We have plenty of money, and we can have a first-rate time if you only think so. Leave it all to me, and I will bring it out right," continued the confident Sanford, who appeared to be the leader of the little squad. The traditions of the various runaways who had, at one time and another, attempted to escape from the wholesome discipline and restraint of the Academy, were current on board all the vessels of the squadron. The capture of the Josephine, and her cruise in the English Channel, had been repeated to every new student who joined the fleet, till the story was as familiar to the present students as to those of five years before. There were just as many wild and reckless boys on board now as in the earlier days of the institution, and they were as sorely chafed by the necessary restraints of good order as their predecessors had been. Perhaps it was natural that, visiting a foreign country, they should desire to see all they could of its wonders, and even to look upon some things which it was the policy of the principal to prevent them from seeing. Whenever any of the various stories of the runaways were related, Sanford, Rodman, Stockwell, and others of similar tendencies, were always ready to point out the defects in the plan of the operators. They could tell precisely where Wilton, Pelham, and Little had been weak, as they termed it, and precisely what they should have done to render the enterprise a success. Still, running away, in the abstract, was not a popular idea in the squadron at the present time; but Sanford believed that he and his companions could enjoy all the benefits of an independent excursion without incurring any of its perils and penalties. Let him demonstrate his own proposition. Ole Amundsen walked aft, and was kindly greeted by the officers on the quarter-deck, who commented freely upon his improved personal appearance, though they did it in more refined terms than their shipmates on the forecastle had done. Some of them tried to draw from him the explanation of his situation in the leaky boat, but without any better success than had attended the efforts of others. He yielded an extravagant deference to the gold lace on the uniforms of the officers, treating them with the utmost respect. "Well, Ole, you look better than when I saw you last," said Mr. Lowington. "Yes, sir; and I feel better," replied Ole, bowing low to the "big gentleman." "And you speak English very well, indeed." "Thank you, sir." "Can you speak Norwegian as well?" "Yes, sir; better, I hope." "Monsieur Badois, will you ask him a question or two in Norwegian," added the principal, turning to the professor of modern languages, who prided himself on being able to speak fourteen different tongues; "I begin to doubt whether he is a Norwegian." "I will, sir," replied monsieur, who was always glad of an opportunity to exhibit his linguistic powers. "_Hvor staae det til?_" (How do you do?) "_Jeg takker, meget vel._" (Very well, I thank you), replied Ole. "_Forstaaer De mig?_" (Do you understand me?) "_Ja, jeg forstaaer Dem meget vel._" (Yes, I understand you very well.) "That will do," interposed Mr. Lowington. "He speaks Norsk very well," added the professor. "So do you, sir," said Ole, with a low bow to Monsieur Badois. "_Meget vel_," laughed the professor. "I am satisfied, Ole. Now, have you concluded to tell me how you happened to be in that boat, so far from the land." The waif counted the seams in the quarter-deck, but nothing could induce him to answer the question. "I have given you a suit of clothes, and I desire to be of service to you." "I thank you, sir; and a good supper, the best I ever had, though I have often fished with English gentlemen, even with lords and sirs." "If you will tell me who your friends are--" "I have no friends, sir." "You lived on shore, or sailed on the sea, with somebody, I suppose." Ole looked down, and did not deny the proposition. "Now, if you will tell me whom you lived with, I may be able to do something for you." Still the waif was silent. "Berth No. 72 in the steerage is vacant, and I will give it to you, if I can be sure it is right for me to do so." But Ole could not, or would not, give any information on this point, though he was earnest in his desire to remain in the ship. "Very well, Ole; as you will not tell me your story, I shall be obliged to leave you on shore at Christiansand," said the principal, as he walked away. Dr. Winstock also tried to induce the youth to reveal what he plainly regarded as a secret, but with no different result. Ole passed from the officers to the crew again, and with the latter his answers were like those given to Sanford and his companions. He invented strange explanations, and told wild stories, but not a soul on board was the wiser for anything he said. The waif was permitted to occupy berth No. 72, but was distinctly assured that he must leave the ship when she arrived at Christiansand. The wind continued light during the night, but at four o'clock in the morning the squadron was off Gunnarshoug Point, and not more than four miles from the land. The shore was fringed with innumerable islands, which made the coast very picturesque, though it was exceedingly barren and desolate. Most of the islands were only bare rocks, the long swells rolling completely over some of the smaller ones. The students on deck watched the early sunrise, and studied the contour of the coast with deep interest, till it became an old story, and then whistled for a breeze to take them along more rapidly towards their port of destination. The fleet was now fully in the Skager Rack, or Sleeve, as it is also called on the British nautical charts. At eight bells, when, with the forenoon watch, commenced the regular routine of study in the steerage, all the students had seen the Naze, or Lindersnaes, as the Norwegians call it--the southern cape of Norway. It is a reddish headland, beyond which were some hills covered with snow in the spring time. Ole Amundsen remained on deck all day, and had a name for every island and cliff on the coast. He declared that he was competent to pilot the ship into the harbor, for he had often been there. But when the fleet was off Ox-Oe, at the entrance to the port, a regular pilot was taken, at three o'clock in the afternoon. The Josephine and the Tritonia also obtained pilots soon after. The recitations were suspended in order to enable the students to see the harbor. Ole was wanted to explain the various objects which were presented to the view of the young mariners, but no one had seen him since the pilot came on board. All the habitable parts of the vessel were searched, and the stewards even examined the hold; but he could not be found. Mr. Lowington was anxious to see him, to ascertain whether he had changed his mind in regard to his secret; but Ole had disappeared as strangely as he had come on board of the ship. CHAPTER III. AN ACCIDENT TO THE SECOND CUTTER. The gentle breeze from the southward enabled the fleet to proceed without delay up the fjord to the town of Christiansand; and, as there was very little ship's duty to be done under such circumstances, the students had an excellent opportunity to examine the islands and the main shore. On board the ship and her two consorts the boys swarmed like bees in the rigging, eagerly watching every new object that was presented to their view. As nautical young gentlemen, they criticised the Norwegian boats and vessels that sailed on the bay, comparing them with those of their own country. The two yachts, which were not restrained by any insurance restrictions, stood boldly up the fjord, following closely in the wake of the two schooners. The course of the vessels up the fjord was through an archipelago, or "garden of rocks," as it is styled in the Norwegian language. The rocky hills in the vicinity were of a reddish color, with a few fir trees upon them. The country was certainly very picturesque, but the students did not regard it as a very desirable place of residence. The fleet passed between the Island of Dybing and the light on Odderö, and came to anchor in the western harbor. For half an hour the several crews were occupied in furling sails, squaring yards, hauling taut the running rigging, and putting everything in order on board. The accommodation ladder of the ship, which was a regular flight of stairs, had hardly been rigged before a white barge, pulled by four men, came alongside. The oarsmen were dressed in blue uniform, and wore tarpaulin hats, upon which was painted the word "Grace," indicating the yacht to which they belonged. The bowman fastened his boat-hook to the steps, and the rest of the crew tossed their oars in man-of-war style. In the stern-sheets, whose seats were cushioned with red velvet plush, were three persons, all of whom were old friends of our readers. Captain Paul Kendall, the owner and commander of the Grace, though he is a few inches taller and a few pounds heavier than when we last saw him, was hardly changed in his appearance. Even his side whiskers and mustache did not sensibly alter his looks, for his bright eye and his pleasant smile were still the key to his expression. The Grace carried the American yacht flag, and her commander wore the blue uniform of the club to which he belonged. Three years before, Paul Kendall had experienced a heavy loss in the death of his mother. She had inherited a very large fortune, which, however, was held in trust for her son, until he reached his majority. At the age of twenty-one, therefore, Paul came to an inheritance bequeathed by his grandfather, which made him a _millionnaire_. His fortune had been carefully invested by the trustees, and now all he had to do was to collect and spend his income, of which there was a considerable accumulation when he attained his majority. Paul was a young man of high moral and religious principle. He had never spent a dollar in dissipation of any kind, and though he knew the world, he was as child-like and innocent as when he was an infant. His tastes were decidedly nautical, and the first large expenditure from his ample wealth was in the building of the yacht Grace, which was now anchored near the Young America. She was a beautiful craft in every respect, constructed as strong as wood and iron could make her. As her cabin was to be Paul's home during a portion of the year, it was fitted up with every appliance of comfort, convenience, and luxury. It contained a piano, a large library, and every available means of amusement for the hours of a long passage. At the age of twenty-one, Paul was more mature in experience and knowledge than many young men at twenty-five; and hardly had he been placed in possession of his inheritance than he sailed for Europe, and, of course, hastened from Queenstown to Belfast, where Mr. Arbuckle, father of the lady who occupied the stern-sheets of the barge, resided. Six months later he was married to Grace, who still regarded him as "the apple of her eye." On his return to New York his yacht was finished, though too late in the season for use that year. Her first voyage in the spring was to Brockway, which was the residence of Mr. Lowington, and the headquarters of the Academy Squadron. Learning that his old friend the principal was about to sail for Europe with his charge, he promptly decided to accompany him, and the Grace was one of the fleet that crossed the Atlantic in April. Mrs. Kendall was dressed in a plain travelling suit. She was taller and more mature than when she went down the Rhine with the Young Americans, but she was not less beautiful and interesting. If Fortune had been very kind to Paul Kendall, she had not been so constant to all who formerly sailed in the Young America, and who had then basked in her sunny smile. The third person in the stern-sheets of the barge was Mr. Augustus Pelham. He was a fine-looking fellow, with a heavy mustache, dressed like his commander, in the uniform of the yacht club. By one of those disasters common in American mercantile experience, Pelham's father had suddenly been hurled from apparent affluence to real poverty. Being well advanced in years, he could do nothing better for himself and his family than to accept a situation as secretary of an insurance company, which afforded him a salary only sufficient to enable him to live in comfort. Augustus had completed his course in the Academy ship when the change of circumstances compelled him to abandon all luxurious habits, and work for his own living. This was by no means a calamity to him, any more than to other young men. Doubtless it was annoying to have his allowance of pocket money suddenly stopped, and to find himself face to face with one of the sternest realities of life. His training in the Academy ship had been a blessing to him, for it had reformed his life, and elevated his tastes above the low level of dissipation. It had made a new man of him, besides preparing him for a useful calling. He was competent, so far as nautical skill and knowledge were concerned, to command any vessel to any part of the world, though he lacked the necessary experience in the management of a miscellaneous crew, and in the transaction of business. He was ready to accept a situation as chief or second mate of a ship, when he happened to meet Paul Kendall, and was immediately engaged as chief officer of the Grace, at a salary of one hundred dollars a month. Another ex-student of the ship, Bennington, upon whose father fickle Fortune had not continued to smile, had been appointed second officer. Pelham had shipped the crew of the Grace, and no better set of men ever trod a deck. The barge came up to the steps, and Paul and Pelham assisted Mrs. Kendall out of the boat, and the three went upon the deck of the ship. Mr. Lowington, who had not seen them, except at a distance, since the fleet sailed from Brockway harbor, gave them a warm greeting, shaking hands heartily with the lady first, and then with her companions. "I am glad to see you looking so well, Mrs. Kendall," said the principal. "I have enjoyed myself every moment of the voyage, and have never been sick a single hour," she replied. "We have had a fine passage, and there was no excuse for an old salt like you to be sick," laughed the principal. "But I think we shall go on shore, and stay at a hotel a few days, just for a change," added Paul. "That's a good plan; of course you will see more of the town and the people, than if you remain in your yacht." "I am sure I like the cabin of the yacht better than any hotel I ever visited," laughed Mrs. Kendall. "But a change will do you good, my dear," suggested Paul. "What did you pick up last evening, when you hove to, Mr. Lowington?" "We picked up a young Norwegian, about sixteen years old," answered the principal, detailing the circumstances under which Ole had been taken on board. "Where is he now?" asked Paul, looking about him to obtain a sight of the stranger. "We clothed and fed him, and had become quite interested in him; but just as the pilot came alongside we missed him. I have had the ship searched for him, but we have not been able to find him, though he must be concealed somewhere on board." "That's strange!" exclaimed Mrs. Kendall, glancing at her husband. "Perhaps not very strange," continued the principal. "The boy refused to tell us how he came in an open boat, half full of water, and out of sight of land. Probably he has run away from his friends, and has concealed himself to avoid being recognized by the pilot, or other Norwegian people who may come on board. I judged by his appearance that he had some reason for running away from his master or his friends, for he was only half clothed, in the filthiest rags that ever covered a human being." "I should like a Norwegian in my yacht, to act as interpreter for us," added Paul. "I intended to keep him for that purpose myself, if I could ascertain who his friends were, and make an arrangement with them, for I will not encourage any boy in running away from his employers. Very likely we shall find him again in the course of the day." "Very well, sir; if you want him, I will look out for some one on shore," added Paul. "At what time do you pipe to lecture, Mr. Lowington?" "Not before to-morrow forenoon, at two bells." "I want to hear the lecture." "So do I," laughed Mrs. Kendall. "I think it is a capital idea to have a professor tell us all about a country before we attempt to see it. I used to read about the Norsemen, but I have forgotten all about them now, and I want to refresh my memory." "I wish all our boys had the same view of the matter," said Mr. Lowington. "We will come on board before nine to-morrow morning, sir," added Paul, as he handed his lady up the steps over the rail. Descending to the boat, the three oarsmen shoved off, and pulled for the shore, where they landed. The boat had not reached the land, before another barge, the counterpart of the first, and similarly manned, left the Feodora, and pulled alongside the ship. Mr. Robert Shuffles, the owner and commander of the second yacht, assisted his wife up the ladder to the deck of the ship, where they were cordially received by the principal. The yacht Feodora was only six months older than the Grace, for which she had served as the model. Shuffles had not come into possession of any inheritance yet, but his father was as liberal as he was wealthy, and gave his son an annual allowance, which enabled him to marry and keep a yacht. He and Paul had been intimate friends since they were graduated from the Academy ship, and they had made their plans in concert. He had married Lady Feodora a year before, and she had now dropped her aristocratic title, and become a republican lady. Like her husband, she had acquired nautical tastes, and was even more enthusiastic than he in anticipating the pleasures of a yacht cruise up the Baltic, and up the Mediterranean. Shuffles had not been so fortunate as Paul in finding needy graduates of the Academy to officer his yacht, and a fat old shipmaster served as first officer in the Feodora, while the second mate was a young tar, not yet of age. Having paid their respects to the principal, the young couple returned to the boat, and followed Paul to the hotel on shore. "That's the way to go about Europe," said Sanford, who was sitting on the rail with several of his shipmates. "What's the way?" asked Stockwell. "Why, as Kendall and Shuffles do it--in a yacht, with no Latin and geometry to bother their heads, and no decks to wash down on a cold morning." "That's so; but those fellows were the lambs of the squadron, we are told," laughed Stockwell. "They didn't have black marks; didn't pick upon the professors, and didn't run away from the ship." "What has all that to do with yachting?" asked Rodman. "They were good boys, and therefore they have yachts as their reward," replied Stockwell, laughing. "Pelham was as good as Shuffles, but he has no yacht, and has to work on a salary for his living." "He has the fun of it all the same, and Paul Kendall will not overwork him. But I haven't a word to say against them. They were all good fellows, if they were the ship's lambs." "All the second cutters!" shouted the boatswain's mate, after his pipe had sounded through the ship. "That means us," said Sanford. "Take your money and pea-jackets, fellows. Something may turn up before we come back." "Ay, ay," replied Stockwell. "Pass the word to all our fellows." In a few moments the fourth cutters appeared in the waist, with pea-jackets on their arms, and touched their caps to De Forrest, the fourth lieutenant, who appeared as the officer detailed to go in the boat, which now, as formally, was called the professors' barge, because it was generally appropriated to the use of the instructors. It was pulled by eight oarsmen, and Sanford was the coxswain. The party who had been considering the plan for an independent excursion on shore without incurring the perils and penalties of running away, were the crew of the second cutter. The fact of being together so much in the boat, had united them so that they acted and plotted in concert. "What are you going to do with those pea-jackets?" asked De Forrest, when he saw their extra clothing. "It's rather chilly up here in the evening, and we thought we might want them, while we were waiting," replied Sanford. "I don't think it is very cold, and as to the evening, the sun don't set till about eight o'clock," added the officer, as he went aft to the professors who were going on shore, and reported that the boat was ready; for it had already been lowered into the water, and made fast to the swinging boom. Her crew went over the side, and seated themselves in the cutter. "Ready!" said the coxswain, as the stern-sheets of the barge ranged alongside the little stage at the foot of the ladder. "Up oars!" Up went the eight oars to a perpendicular position, where they were held till the boat should be ready to go. "I wonder where Ole is," said Sanford. "Sh!" whispered Stockwell, who pulled the bow oar, shaking his head with energy. "What do you mean?" demanded the coxswain, in a low tone, for he was very much mystified by the pantomime of the bow oarsman. "Don't say a word." "Where is he?" persisted Sanford, who was not willing to have a secret kept from him even for a moment. Stockwell pointed into the bottom of the boat, and then looked up at the sky, with an affectation of cunning, while the rest of the crew smiled as though they were in possession of the secret. Sanford said no more, and joined the bowman in studying the aspect of the sky. Ole was in the boat to act as guide and interpreter, and if they chose to leave without running away, everything seemed to be favorable to the enterprise. Mr. Mapps and Dr. Winstock presently descended the steps, and seated themselves in the boat, followed by De Forrest. "All ready, coxswain," said the latter. "Ready! Let fall!" said Sanford, as he shoved off the stern of the cutter. "Give way--together!" The well-trained crew bent to their oars, and the boat shot away from the ship towards the shore. Mr. Mapps was going to the town to obtain some additional material for his lecture the following morning, and the surgeon intended to call on Paul Kendall and lady at the hotel. "This is a very picturesque town, doctor," said Mr. Mapps, as he gazed at the high, rocky steeps which surround Christiansand. "Very; and I am rather sorry we are not to see more of the environs of the place," replied the surgeon. "I understand we sail to-morrow night." "I dare say the students will see enough of Norway before they leave it." "We want to go into the interior," said De Forrest. "There is fine fishing in the streams of Norway." "Very likely Mr. Lowington will take you into the interior from Christiania," suggested Dr. Winstock. "I don't exactly see how it is possible to do so," added Mr. Mapps. "The only conveyance of the country is the cariole, which seats but one person--perhaps two boys; and our squadron has nearly two hundred students. I am afraid there are not carioles enough in Christiania to carry the whole of them." "I think it's too bad we can't have a trial at the salmon," pouted De Forrest. "Perhaps, if you waited till July, you might catch them," replied Mr. Mapps. "We should be contented with trout, then." "I have no doubt Mr. Lowington will do the best he can for you," said Dr. Winstock, as the boat neared the pier. "In, bows!" called the coxswain; and the two bowmen tossed and boated their oars, taking their stations in the fore-sheets, one of them with the boat-hook in his hand. "Way enough!" added Sanford; and the rest of the crew tossed their oars, and then dropped them upon the thwarts, with a precision which seemed to astonish the group of Norwegians on the wharf, who were observing them. The two gentlemen landed, and walked up to the town together, leaving the barge to wait for them. "Part of you may go on shore for half an hour, if you wish, and walk about," said De Forrest to his crew. "I don't care about going ashore," replied Sanford. "Nor I either," added Stockwell; and so they all said, very much to the astonishment of the fourth lieutenant, who naturally supposed that boys who had been at sea about four weeks would like to stretch their legs on the solid land for a short time. "Don't any of you wish to go on shore?" he inquired. "Not yet," replied Sanford. "If you wish to take a walk, I will push off from the shore, and wait till you return," said Sanford, very respectfully. "What's up? You won't go on shore, and you wish me to do so!" exclaimed the suspicious officer. "Nothing, sir," protested Sanford. "We don't intend to run away. We think that is played out." "If you wanted to do so in this desolate country, I would let you do it, if I were the principal. But you are up to some trick, I know." "What trick, sir?" demanded the coxswain, innocently. "I don't know, but it is your next move," replied De Forrest, as he seated himself, and seemed confident of his ability to check any mischief which might be in the minds of his crew. "Shove off, bowman! Up oars! Let fall! Give way together!" The oarsmen, rather vexed at the turn of events, obeyed the several orders, and the boat was again cutting the still waters of the fjord. All around them were rocks, with several large and small islands in sight. In various places on the rocks were affixed iron rings, to which vessels could make fast in warping out of the bay when the wind was light or foul. A portion of the rock to which they were attached was whitewashed, so that the rings could easily be found, even in the night. To one of these rings, on a small island near Odderö, which commanded a full view of the landing-place, De Forrest directed the coxswain to steer the boat. "Make fast to that ring," said the officer. "Ay, ay, sir," replied the bowman. "Perhaps you would like to land here," added the lieutenant, in a jeering tone, as though he felt that he had checkmated his crew in any evil purpose they entertained. "Whether you do or not, I think I shall stretch my legs on these rocks." De Forrest leaped from thwart to thwart, and then over the bow upon the island, as though he felt nothing but contempt for the power of the boat's crew to do mischief. He walked up the rough rocks to the summit of the islet, where he paused, and for the first time glanced at his companions, whom he suspected of harboring some design against the peace and dignity of the ship. As he did so, he discovered a steamer, which had just passed through the narrow opening between Odderö and the main land, and whose course lay close to the point of the island where the cutter was moored. He saw that the swash of the steamer was likely to throw the boat on the rocks, and grind her planking upon the sharp points of the island. "In the boat!" he shouted, lustily. "Shove off!" Sanford saw the danger which the lieutenant wished to avert, and promptly obeyed the orders. "Shove off, Stockwell!" he promptly shouted. "Up oars! Stern, all! Give way!" Stockwell gave a tremendously hard push when he shoved off, and the cutter shot far out upon the still waters; in fact, so far that she was forced directly into the way of the approaching steamer. [Illustration: THE ACCIDENT TO THE SECOND CUTTER. Page 57.] "Oars!" yelled the coxswain furiously, when he saw that he had overdone the matter. "Hold water! Go ahead! Give way!" The crew, even in this moment of deadly peril,--for it looked as though, in another instant, they would all be under the wheels of the steamer,--obeyed every command with their wonted precision. But it was a second too late to take the back track. If the boat had continued to back as at first, she would probably have escaped, for the steamer put her helm a-starboard a little, in order to favor her manoeuvre. When a collision seemed inevitable, the steamer's bell was rung to stop her, and then to back her. She struck the cutter; but as her progress had been powerfully checked, the blow did not carry her under, though it stove in the side of the boat. The water poured in through the broken broadside, and the crew sprang for their lives. They leaped upon the guys and bob-stays of the steamer, and were hauled in by the people on the bow. "Come out of there, Ole," said Stockwell, as he pulled the boat's sail from the extended form of the waif, who was concealed in the bottom of the boat. Ole lost not a moment in following the example of his companions. As the steamer's headway had now been entirely checked, Stockwell held the wrecked cutter in her position, while Rodman passed the pea-jackets up to the forecastle of the steamer. Having done this, they abandoned the boat, and followed the example of their companions. No one was drowned, or even wet above his knees, for the steamer had struck the boat just hard enough to stave in her side, without carrying her under. The Norwegians hooked up the boat's painter, and taking it in tow, proceeded on her course; for the captain--as interpreted by Ole--declared that his boat carried the mail, and he could not wait for anything. CHAPTER IV. NORWAY IN THE PAST AND THE PRESENT. "Clear away the first cutter!" shouted the first lieutenant of the Young America, from whose deck the catastrophe to the second cutter had been observed. "All the first cutters!" piped the boatswain, with an energy inspired by the stirring occasion. "That was very carelessly done," said Mr. Lowington, whose attention had been called to the scene. "The steamer ran within a couple of rods of the island," added Captain Cumberland. "I saw the fourth lieutenant order the boat to shove off; I suppose he did it to prevent the swash of the steamer from grinding the cutter on the rocks." "What is he doing among those rocks?" asked the principal. "I don't know, sir. He landed Mr. Mapps and the doctor, and was ordered to wait for them. I don't see why he went over to that island." The second lieutenant was directed to take charge of the first cutter; Peaks, the adult boatswain, and Bitts, the carpenter, were ordered to go also, to render any assistance which might be required in succoring the stove boat. The cutter shoved off, her twelve oars struck the water together, and the crew gave way with an energy which caused their oars to bend like twigs, while the barge leaped through the water as though it was some monster of the deep goaded to his utmost to escape the wrath of a more potent pursuer. "With a will, my lads!" shouted the coxswain. "Steady! Keep the stroke, but use your muscle!" "There's a job for you, Bitts," said the boatswain, as the Norwegian took the second cutter in tow. "And a heavy job it will be, too," replied Bitts. "I wonder there is anything left of the boat." "The steamer stopped her wheels, and backed some time before she struck, or there would not have been much left of the boat, or her crew," added Peaks. "Thank God, the boys are all safe." "It's a lucky escape for them." "So it was; and we needn't say anything about the boat." "The steamer is going ahead," said the carpenter. "No matter for that, so long as the boys are all safe," replied Peaks. The people in the steamer seemed to take no notice of the first cutter, appearing not to understand that it had come out for the wrecked crew. But as the boat pulled towards her, she cast off the cutter in tow. "Steamer, ahoy!" shouted Norwood, the second lieutenant, as he saw the cutter cast adrift. She made no reply, but hoisted a flag, on which appeared the word "Post," with something else which none in the first cutter could understand. "She's a mail boat," said the boatswain; "and I suppose she intends to say she is in a hurry." "Does she mean to carry off the crew of that boat?" demanded the second lieutenant, not a little vexed at the conduct of the Norwegians. "She will not carry them far," suggested Dunlap, the coxswain. "She may take them to Bergen." "I think not, sir. If she is a mail steamer, she stops at all the ports on the coast. I don't think she will carry them far. Very likely they will be sent back, on some other steamer, before night," added Dunlap, who had studied the coast of Norway more carefully than the lieutenant in command. "First cutter, ahoy!" shouted De Forrest, on the island. "On shore!" replied Norwood. "We can't catch the steamer--that is certain; steer for the island, coxswain." The first cutter ran up to the rocky island, and as soon as the bow touched the rocks, De Forrest leaped into the fore-sheets. He was nervous and excited, feeling, perhaps, that he had failed in his duty, and was, therefore, responsible for the accident to the second cutter. From feeling that he had circumvented his crew in carrying out some unexplained trick, he realized that he had led them into a trap, from which they had narrowly escaped with their lives. "What are you doing on this island, De Forrest?" asked Norwood, as the discomfited officer took his place in the stern-sheets, and the boat shoved off again. The second lieutenant declared that he had come over to the island to prevent his crew from running away, or from carrying out some trick whose existence he suspected, but whose nature he could not comprehend. "Sanford wanted I should go ashore at the town, and offered to look out for the crew while I did so," he continued. "Of course I wouldn't leave my crew; but I told them that half of them might go on shore and take a walk. None of them wanted to go, and then I was satisfied they were up to something. I went on the island for the sole purpose of watching them. I wanted to know what their plan was." "Well, what did you discover?" "Nothing at all. I saw that steamer coming, and I ordered Sanford to shove off, so that her swash should not damage the boat." "I don't believe they intended to play any trick," added Norwood. "You are too suspicious, De Forrest." "Perhaps I am; but fellows that have been at sea for a month are rather glad of a chance to stretch their legs on shore. They wouldn't do so, when I told them they might; and I don't believe such a thing was ever heard of before. Besides, they all looked as though they were up to something, and just as though they had a big secret in their heads." "Perhaps you were right, but I don't believe you were," said Norwood, too bluntly for good manners, and too bluntly for the harmony of the officers' mess. "I suppose I am responsible for the smashing of the second cutter, but I was trying to do my duty," replied De Forrest, vexed at the implied censure of his superior. "If you had staid at the pier this could not have happened." "But something else might have happened; and if my crew had run away, I should have been blamed just as much," growled the second lieutenant. "You were too sharp for your own good--that is all. But I don't mean to blame you, De Forrest," said Norwood, with a patronizing smile. "Perhaps I should have done the same thing if I had been in your place." "Stand by to lay on your oars!" shouted the coxswain, as the boat approached the water-logged second cutter. "Oars!" The crew stopped pulling, and levelled their oars. "In, bows! Stand by the boat-hooks!" continued the coxswain; and the two forward oarsmen grasped the boat-hooks, and took their station in the fore-sheets. "Hold water." And the ten oars dropped into the water as one, checking the onward progress of the cutter. The bowmen fastened to the second cutter, and recovering her painter, passed it astern to the coxswain, who made it fast to a ring on the stern-board. By this time the steamer, with the luckless crew of the stove boat, had disappeared behind an island. The first cutter pulled back to the ship, and De Forrest immediately reported to the first lieutenant, and explained his conduct in presence of the principal and the captain. He detailed his reasons for supposing his crew intended to run away, or to play some trick upon him. "I think you have done all that a careful and vigilant officer could, De Forrest; and so far as I can see, you are free from blame," replied Mr. Lowington. The fourth lieutenant glanced at Norwood. "Just what I said," added the latter, in a low tone. "If you made any mistake, it was in leaving your boat at the island," continued the principal. "Just exactly my sentiments," whispered Norwood. "I don't blame the fourth lieutenant, but I shouldn't have done just as he did." "Where is that steamer bound?" asked Mr. Lowington of the pilot, who had not yet left the ship, and was really waiting to be invited to supper. "To Christiania, sir," replied the pilot, who, like all of his class on the coast of Norway, spoke a little English. "Where does she stop next?" "At Lillesand." "How far is that?" "About two miles." "Two miles! Why, it is farther than that to the sea," exclaimed Mr. Lowington. "He means Norwegian miles," suggested one of the instructors, who was listening with interest to the conversation. "True; I did not think of that. A Norwegian mile is about seven English miles. It is fourteen miles, then, to Lillesand." With the assistance of Professor Badois, who acted as interpreter, the pilot explained that the steamer which had just left was several hours late, and would go that night to Frederiksværn, where the steamers from Bergen and Christiania made connections with the boat for Gottenburg and Copenhagen. The Christiania steamer would reach Christiansand the next evening, and the boys who had been carried away could return in her. "Why did she carry them off? It would not have taken five minutes to land them," added the principal. "She was very late, and her passengers for Gottenburg and Copenhagen would lose the steamer at Frederiksværn if she does not arrive in season," the pilot explained through Professor Badois. But Mr. Lowington was so grateful that the crew of the second cutter had all escaped with their lives, that he was not disposed to be very critical over the conduct of the Norwegian steamer. The boys were safe, and would return the next night at farthest. The accident was talked about, during the rest of the day, on board of all the vessels of the squadron. The officers and seamen on board of the ship had witnessed the accident, and had seen all the crew of the second cutter go over the bows of the steamer. They had not observed, in the excitement of the moment, that ten, instead of nine, had left the wrecked boat; and as Ole Amundsen was dressed precisely like the crew, his presence in the cutter was not even suspected. The first cutter was sent to the town for Dr. Winstock and Mr. Mapps, and in an hour or two the excitement had entirely subsided. The routine of the ship went on as before, and as there was little work to be done, the absentees were hardly missed. At half past eight the next morning, the signal, "All hands, attend lecture," was flying on board of the Young America. The boats from the Josephine and the Tritonia came alongside the ship, bringing all the officers and crews of those vessels. Paul Kendall and lady, and their friends, were brought off from the shore; Shuffles and his wife also appeared, and a further delegation from each of the yachts asked admission to the ship to hear the lecture, or rather to attend the exercise in geography and history, for the occasion was even less formal than on the first cruise of the ship. The steerage was crowded, after the boatswain had piped the call, and Mr. Mapps was doubtless duly flattered by the number of his audience. On the foremast hung a large map of Sweden and Norway. "If you please, young gentlemen, we will begin with Scandinavia," said the professor, taking his place near the foremast, with the pointer in his hand. "What was Scandinavia?" "The ancient name of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark," replied one of the students. "The barbarous tribes from the northern part of Europe at different times invaded the southern sections, conquering various other tribes, occupying their territory, and thus mingling with all the people from whom originated the present nations of Europe. Thus, in remote ages, the Scandinavians, among others, by their conquests and their emigration, have contributed largely to the modern elements of society. With this explanation we will look at Scandinavia in detail, beginning with Norway. Between what degrees of latitude does it lie?" "Between forty and ninety," replied an enthusiastic youth. "True--quite right; and a safe answer. If you had said between one and ninety, the answer would have been just as good for any other country as for Norway. I would like to have the jacket fit a little closer." "Between fifty-eight and seventy-one, north," answered one who was better posted. "Exactly right; about the same latitude as Greenland, and our newly-acquired Alaska. Our ship is anchored in the same parallel as the northern part of Labrador, and one degree south of the southern point of Greenland. But it is not as 'cold as Greenland, here,' the temperature being some twelve degrees milder, because the warm waters of the Gulf Stream are discharged upon its shores. You know its boundaries. It is one thousand and eighty miles from the Naze to the North Cape, and varies from forty to two hundred and seventy miles in width. How many square miles has it?" "One hundred and twenty-three thousand square miles." "Or a little larger than the six New England States, New York, and New Jersey united. The country is mountainous, and abounds in picturesque scenery. Precipices, cataracts, and rushing torrents are very numerous in the central and northern parts. The Vöringfos is a waterfall, and the Rjukanfos, near the central part, are cataracts of about nine hundred feet perpendicular descent; but of course the volume of water is not very large. The highest mountains are between eight and nine thousand feet high. Norway has an abundance of rivers, but none of them are very long. The coast, as you have seen, is fringed with islands, which, with the numerous indentations, form a vast number of bays, straits, channels, and sounds, which are called _fjords_ here. One of the principal of these is Christiania Fjord, which you will ascend in a few days. The country also abounds in lakes, which, as in most mountainous regions, are very narrow, being simply the widenings of the rivers. The largest of these is Miösen Lake, fifty-five miles long, and from one to twelve wide. "The soil is not very good, and the Norwegians are not progressive farmers. They cling to the methods of their sires, and modern improvements find but little favor among them. The winter is long, and the summer short; but by a provision of provident nature, the crops mature more rapidly than in some of the southern climes, as grain has been reaped six weeks after it was sowed. The principal crops are the grains; but the supply is not equal to the demand, and considerable importations are received from Denmark and Russia. In the south the farmers devote themselves to stock-raising, while in the north the Lapps derive nearly all the comforts of life from the reindeer, the care of which is their chief industry. "The extensive product of pine and fir have created a vast trade in lumber, which constitutes three fourths of the exports to the United Kingdom, and a considerable portion of the inhabitants in the wooded districts are employed in cutting, sawing, and sending to market the wealth of the forests. Next in importance to this are the fisheries, which yield about five million dollars a year. Cod, haddock, and herring are cured for exportation, and are an important source of revenue. Besides these, the roe of the cod is sent to France, Italy, and Spain, as bait for sardines. Norway supplies London with lobsters. Norway iron, as well as Swedish, is very celebrated; but the mines are poorly managed, as are those of copper and silver. "The kingdom of Norway is divided into eighteen provinces, which are called Amts. Its population, in 1865, was one million seven hundred thousand, showing an increase of about two hundred thousand in ten years. The government is a constitutional monarchy." "I thought it was a part of Sweden," said one of the students. "Not at all. The King of Sweden is also the King of Norway; but each country has its own independent and separate government. Each has its own legislature, makes its own laws, and raises and expends its own revenues. The king exercises his functions as ruler over both kingdoms through a council of state, composed of an equal number of Swedes and Norwegians, whose duty it is to advise the sovereign, and, in accordance with a peculiar feature of monarchy, to take the responsibility when any blunder is made; for "the king can do no wrong." If anything is wrong, some one else did it. Having the same king, who rules over each nation separately, is the only connection between Norway and Sweden. The former pays about one hundred and twenty thousand dollars of his civil list, and he is obliged to reside in Norway during a small portion of each year. "The constitution of Norway is one of the most democratic in Europe. The legislative and part of the executive power is vested in the Storthing, which means the 'great court,' composed of the representatives of the people. The king has but little power, though he has a limited veto upon the acts passed by the legislative body. He can create no order of nobility, or grant any titles or dignities. The members of the Storthing are elected indirectly by the people; and when they assemble, they divide themselves into two houses, corresponding to our Senate and House of Representatives. All acts must pass both chambers, and in case of disagreement, the two bodies come together, and discuss the subject. "The religion of Norway is Lutheran, and few of any other sect are to be found; formerly, no other was tolerated, but now religious freedom prevails, though Jesuits and monks of any order are sternly excluded. The clergy, who are generally very well educated, have an average income of about a thousand dollars a year, and I think are better paid than even in our own country. The people are well instructed, and one who cannot read and write is seldom found. "The early history of Norway is that of most of the countries of Europe--a powerful chief subjugated his neighbors, and united the tribes into a nation. Harold the Fair-haired, whose father had conquered the southern part of the country, fell in love with Gyda, the daughter of a petty king, who refused to wed him till he had absolute sway over the entire country. Pleased with the lady's spirit, he vowed never to cut or comb his hair till all Norway lay at his feet. It appears that he eventually had occasion for his barber's services, and wedded the lady. This was in the ninth century; and the victories of Harold drove many of the Norsemen, or Northmen, to seek their fortunes in other lands. They discovered and colonized Greenland and Iceland, and even established settlements on the continental portion of North America. Traces of them have been found on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and some claim that they founded settlements farther south. They figure largely in the early history of England and Scotland, and even carried their piratical arms into Russia, Flanders, France, Italy, and other territories. "A son of Harold, who had been educated in England, brought Christianity into Norway; but, it was three centuries before the new faith had established itself. Like the Hindoos, Greeks, and Romans, the ancient Scandinavians had a mythology, upon which their religion was based. They believed that in the beginning all was chaos, in which was a fountain that sent forth twelve rivers. These streams flowed so far from their source that the waters froze, and the ice, defying the modern law of nature, sank till the fathomless deep was filled up. Far south of the world of mist, in which this miracle was wrought, was a world of fire and light, whence proceeded a hot wind that melted the ice, from the drops of which came the ice-giant, whose name was Ymir, and from whom proceeded a race of ice-giants. From the wedding of the ice and heat of the two extremes of the world came a cow, from which ran four streams of milk, the food of the ice-giants. While this wonderful beast was licking the salt stones in the ice, which formed her diet, a quantity of human hair grew out of them, and the next day a human head was developed, and then appeared a whole man. Bör, the son of this man, married a daughter of one of the ice-giants, and they had three children, the oldest of whom was Odin, who became the rulers of heaven and earth, because they were all good, while the children of Ymir, the ice-giant, were evil. Then, as now, the Good and the Evil were at war. Finally the ice-giant was slain, and being thrown into space, the world was created from his body; his blood forming the sea and the rivers; his flesh the earth; his hair the grass; his bones the rocks; his teeth and broken jaws the stones; and of his head the heavens, at the four ends of which were placed four dwarfs, called North, South, East, and West. Of this giant's brains, thrown into the air, they formed the clouds, while of the sparks from the land of fire were made the stars. "As the sons of Bör, who, you must remember, were the gods of heaven and earth, were walking on the shore of the sea, they discovered two blocks, whereof they created a man and a woman. Odin gave them life and souls, while his brothers endowed them with other human faculties and powers. Odin was the Jupiter, the chief, of the northern gods. He is the god of song and of war, and was the inventor of the Runic characters, or alphabet. He was the ruler of Valhalla, the home of heroes slain in battle. There is much more that is curious and interesting in the mythology of the Scandinavians, which I must ask you to read for yourselves. "Olaf II. propagated Christianity with fire and sword. He demolished the temples of paganism, and founded Trondhjem, or Drontheim, as it is called on our maps. His successor, St. Olaf, followed his example, till his cruelty excited a rebellion, and Canute the Great, of Denmark, landing in Norway, was elected king. Olaf fled into Sweden, where he organized an army, and attempted to recover his throne; but he was defeated and slain in a battle near Trondhjem. His body was found, a few years later, in a perfect state of preservation, which was regarded as a miracle, and Olaf was canonized as a saint. His remains are said to have wrought many miracles, and up to the time of the Reformation, thousands of pilgrims annually visited his shrine at Trondhjem. Even in London churches were dedicated to this saint. "Canute gave Norway to his son Sweyn, who, upon the death of his father, was dispossessed of the throne by Magnus I., the son of St. Olaf. He was succeeded by Harold III., a great warrior, who founded Osloe, now Christiania. After Olaf III. and Magnus III. came Sigurd, who, in 1107, made a pilgrimage of four years to Jerusalem, with a fleet of sixty vessels, and distinguished himself in the holy wars. His death was followed by civil dissensions, until Hako IV. obtained the throne. He lost his life in an attempt to retain the Hebrides Islands, claimed by Scotland. Then war with Denmark, the monopoly of trade by the Hanse towns, and a fearful plague, which depopulated whole sections, produced a decline in the national prosperity of Norway. Hako VI., who died in 1380, had married the daughter of the King of Denmark, and the crown of Norway descended to his son, Olaf III., of Denmark, in whom the sovereignties of Norway and Denmark were united. Olaf was succeeded by his mother Margaret, celebrated in history as 'the Semiramis of the North.' She conquered Sweden, and annexed it to her own dominions. By the 'Union of Calmar,' signed by the principal nobles and prelates of the three Scandinavian kingdoms, the three crowns were united in one person, the subjects of each to have equal rights. This compact was disregarded, and Norway was hopelessly oppressed by the ruler. The Union, however, continued till 1623; but Norway was subject to Denmark till 1814. "When the allied powers of Europe, which were engaged in putting down the first Napoleon, rearranged the map of Europe, the destiny of Norway was changed. Russia wanted Finland, and she offered Norway in compensation for it to Sweden, with the further condition that Bernadotte should join the allies. He accepted the terms, and the King of Denmark was compelled, by force of arms, to cede Norway to Sweden. The Norwegians would not submit to the change, and declared their independence. Prince Christian, of Denmark, who was then governor general of Norway, called a convention of the people at Eidsvold, and a new constitution was framed, and the prince elected King of Norway. Bernadotte invaded Norway with a Swedish army, while the allies blockaded the coast. Resistance was hopeless, and as Sweden offered favorable terms, Christian abdicated, and an arrangement was immediately effected. The constitution was accepted by the king, and Norway became an independent nation, united to Sweden under one king. Bernadotte became King of Sweden and Norway under the title of Charles XIV., John. He refused the Norwegians a separate national flag; but when he attempted to alter the constitution to suit his own views, the Storthing resolutely and successfully resisted his interference. This body abolished titles of nobility--an act which the king vetoed; but three successive Storthings passed the law, and thus, by the constitution, made it valid in spite of the veto. The Norwegians were not to be intimidated even by the appearance of a military force, and have ever been jealous to the last degree of their rights and privileges as a nation. "Bernadotte was succeeded by his son Oscar I., who gave the Norwegians a separate national flag; and he flattered the vanity of the people by allowing himself to be styled the 'King of Norway and Sweden' in all public acts relating to Norway, instead of 'Sweden and Norway.' In 1859, Oscar was succeeded by his son Charles XV., who is now the King of Sweden and Norway. In the history of Denmark and Sweden, more will be said of this kingdom. "In French, Norway is _Norvège_; in German, _Norwegen_; in Spanish, _Noruega_; and _Norge_ in the Scandinavian languages. Now, I dare say you would like to visit the shore." The professor closed his remarks, and the several boatswains piped away their crews. CHAPTER V. MR. CLYDE BLACKLOCK AND MOTHER. Belonging to the squadron were fourteen boats, ranging from the twelve-oar barge down to the four-oar cutter. In the waters of Brockway harbor, rowing had been the principal exercise of the students, though the daily evolutions in seamanship were well calculated to develop the muscles and harden the frame. They had been carefully trained in the art, and, enjoying the amusement which it afforded, they were apt scholars. As the safety of the squadron and the saving of life at sea might often depend upon the skill with which the boats were handled, the principal devoted a great deal of attention to this branch of nautical education. To give an additional zest to the exercise, he had occasionally offered prizes at the boat-races which the students were encouraged to pull; and the first cutter was now in possession of a beautiful silk flag, won by the power of the crew in rowing. Every boy in the squadron was a swimmer. In the summer season this accomplishment had been taught as an art, an hour being devoted to the lesson every day, if the weather was suitable. Cleats, the adult boatswain of the Josephine, was the "professor" of the art, having been selected for the responsible position on account of his remarkable skill as a swimmer. The boys were trained in diving, floating, swimming under water, and taught to perform various evolutions. Not alone in the tranquil bay were they educated to the life of the fishes, but also in the surf, and among the great waves. They were taught to get into a boat from the water in a heavy sea. A worn-out old longboat had done duty during the preceding summer as a wreck, in order to familiarize the students with the possibilities of their future experience. It was so prepared that a portion of its planking could be suddenly knocked out, and the boat almost instantly filled with water; and the problem was, to meet this emergency in the best manner. Other boats were at hand in case of a real accident, or if any naturally timid fellow lost his presence of mind. While the "wreck," as the practice boat was called, was moving along over the waves, pulled by half a dozen boys, Cleats, without warning or notice of his intention, opened the aperture near her keel. Sometimes she was loaded with stones, so that she went to the bottom like a rock, though this part of the programme was always carried out on a beach, where the receding tide would enable the professor to recover the boat. The crew were then to save themselves by swimming ashore, or to another boat. Sometimes, also, the "wreck" was loaded with broken spars, pieces of board, and bits of rope; and the problem was for the crew to construct a raft in the water, often in a rough sea. All these exercises, and many others, were heartily enjoyed by the boys, and a ringing cheer always announced the safety of a crew, either on the shore, in a boat, or on the raft. Many persons, and even those who are tolerable swimmers, have been drowned simply by the loss of their presence of mind. The dashing of the waves, or the great distance of the land or other place of safety, intimidates them, and they are unable to use their powers. But the students of the squadron were gradually and carefully accustomed to the water, so that they could swim a reasonable distance without wearing themselves out, could rest their limbs by floating, and were taught to avail themselves of any expedient to secure their safety. If a boat was stove on the rocks in a surf, or was run down by a vessel, the fact of being in the water did not frighten them out of their wits, for they had been trained to feel quite at home, as in their native element. They were actually drilled to confront danger in every imaginable form. But a gentle and timid boy was not pitched into the water, even after he had learned to swim. His constitutional shrinking was slowly and skilfully overcome, so that even the most delicate--though but few such ever found their way into the ranks of the squadron--took to the water as a pastime. Of course the degree of proficiency in the art of swimming, and of the acquired ability to meet danger in the water, differed very widely in different boys; but all were accustomed to the waves, and, in a measure, to leading the life of a duck or a fish. The crews of the several boats piped over the side, and took their places, the rest of the students being distributed in the barges and cutters, till only the adult officers remained in the ship. Each one, as it was loaded, pulled off, and took its station in the order in which the boat squadron usually moved. The commodore's barge and the ship's first cutter, each twelve oars, led the van, while the other boats came in four ranks of three each. All the boats carried the American flag at the stern, and each one had its number at the bow. All the Young America's boats had their numbers on a white, the Josephine's on a green, and the Tritonia's on a blue flag. The tactics of the boat squadron were many and various, which had been adopted more to give interest to the exercise than for any inherent utility. These movements were regulated by signals from the commodore's barge. Mr. Lowington had decided to make an excursion among the islands in the Fjord before dinner, and visit the town in the afternoon. A pilot was put in the commodore's barge, and Captain Cumberland, as acting flag officer, was in command of the squadron. The principal and Professor Badois were passengers in his barge. The cutters were formed in their usual array, and the two boats from the yachts brought up the rear. The signal officer, who was a quartermaster from the ship, at the order of the captain, elevated the white flag crossed with red, with which all the signals were made. The coxswains of the several boats could see this flag, while the oarsmen could not, being back to the barge, and not allowed to look behind them. "Oars!" said each coxswain, as soon as the signal appeared. At this command the several crews, who had been laying on their oars, prepared for the stroke. The signal officer dropped the flag to the port side of the barge. "Give way!" added each coxswain; and the boat squadron moved off. In order to keep the lines full, the larger quarter boat of the Grace had been borrowed and manned, and now took the place of the second cutter, which had been stove, and upon which the three carpenters of the squadron were now at work, making the necessary repairs. The fleet made a splendid appearance, with the flags flying, and with the officers and crews in their best uniforms. The people on the shore, and on board of the various vessels in the harbor, gathered to see the brilliant array. The crew of an English steamer cheered lustily, and the lady passengers waved their handkerchiefs. Suddenly the signal on the commodore's barge went up again. "Stand by to toss!" said the several coxswains, as the fleet of boats came abreast of the steamer, which was the Orlando, bound from Hull to Christiania. The signal went down to the port side. "Toss!" continued the coxswains, only loud enough to be heard by the crews, for they had been taught that the unnecessary screaming of orders makes an officer seem ridiculous, and injures the effect of the manoeuvre. At the word every oar went up, and was held perpendicularly in the air with the left hand. A bugle blast from the barge at this moment brought every student to his feet, with his right hand to his cap. "One!" said the coxswain of each boat, at a dip of the signal flag. A rousing cheer, accompanied by a swing of the cap, followed, and was twice repeated, making up the complement of the three cheers, in return for the salutations of the steamer's people. Her crew returned the compliment in like manner. At another blast of the bugle, the crews were seated with their oars still up. Again the signal in the barge was elevated. "Stand by!" said the coxswains, which was only a warning to be ready. The flag dropped to port. "Let fall!" added the coxswain; and all the oars dropped into the water together, while the flag was again elevated. "Give way!" and the stroke was resumed. The passengers of the Orlando clapped their hands vigorously, as they witnessed the perfection of the movements. The fleet proceeded up the bay towards the west front of the town, where a considerable collection of people had assembled to witness the novel parade. The barge led the way to the extreme west of the bay, where the signal flag was again exhibited, and then swung first to the port and then to the starboard. This was the signal for coming into single line, and the coxswain of each boat gave the orders necessary to bring it into range. It was so managed that each boat came into the new order as it turned to pass in front of the town; so that they proceeded in a single line before the people, but not more than twenty feet apart. Once more the signal flag appeared, with a double motion upwards. "Stand by to lay on your oars!" said the coxswains. "Oars!" they continued, as the flag swung down to starboard. "Hold water!" These orders soon brought the boats to a stand. The signal flag moved in a horizontal circle. "Pull, starboard; back, port. Give way!" continued the coxswains; and the effect of this evolution was to turn the boats as on a pivot. "Oars!" and the crew ceased pulling, with their oars all on a level, and the blades feathered. The boats had been turned half round, and each coxswain aligned his own by the barge on the right. In this position three cheers were given in compliment to the people on the shore, though the Norwegians seemed to be too dull and heavy to comprehend the nature of the movement. The boats swung again, and continued on their way, in single line, through the narrow passage between Odderö and the main land. Under the direction of the native pilot, the barge led the way among the islands, affording the students an opportunity to see the shores. When the fleet came into the broad channel, the order was resumed, as at first, and after various manoeuvres, it was dismissed, each boat returning to the vessel to which it belonged. The appearance of the fleet, including the two beautiful yachts, and the evolutions of the boats, had created a decided sensation on board of the Orlando, which was crowded with passengers, most of them tourists on their way to the interior of Norway. The crews of the several vessels piped to dinner as soon as they returned from the excursion; but the meal was hardly finished before visitors from the steamer began to arrive, and the boatmen in the harbor made a good harvest on the occasion. Among those who came to the ship was an elegantly dressed lady, with her son and daughter, attended by a servant man in livery. Mrs. Garberry Blacklock was duly presented to the principal by one of the gentlemen who had introduced himself. She was evidently a very fine lady; for she was "distinguished" in her manners as well as in her dress. And her son, Clyde Blacklock, was as evidently a very fine young gentleman, though he was only fourteen years of age. It is doubtful whether Miss Celia Blacklock could be regarded as a very fine young lady, for she appeared to be very pretty, and very modest and retiring, with but a very moderate estimate of her own importance. For the tenth time Mr. Lowington briefly explained the nature of the institution over which he presided; and the fine lady listened with languishing _ennui_. "But it is a very rough life for young gentlemen," suggested Mrs. Blacklock. "I should fancy they would become very, _very_ rude." "Not necessarily," replied the principal. "We intend that the students shall behave like gentlemen, and we think the discipline of the ship has a tendency to promote good manners." "They must live like sailors, and sailors are very, _very_ rude." "Not necessarily, madam. There is nothing in the occupation itself that--" "But I wish to know what the fellows do," interposed Mr. Clyde Blacklock. "There is nothing in the occupation itself that begets rudeness," added Mr. Lowington, giving no attention to the young gentleman, who had so impolitely broken in upon the conversation of his elders. "I see no reason why a young man cannot be a gentleman in a ship as well as on shore." "I dare say you have sailors to do the dirty work." "No, madam; our students do all the work." "Do they put their own fingers into the pitch and the tar?" inquired the lady, with a curl of the lip which indicated her horror. "Certainly; but we think pitch and tar are not half so defiling as evil thoughts and bad manners." "They are very, _very_ disagreeable. The odor of tar and pitch is intolerable." "We do not find it so, for--" "I say, I wish to know what the fellows do." "We are accustomed to the odor of them," continued the principal. "To some people the scent of musk, and even otto of roses, is not pleasant; and, for my part, I rather enjoy that of tar and pitch." "That is very, _very_ singular. But Clyde desires to know what the young gentlemen do," added the lady, glancing at her son, behind whom stood the man in livery, as though he were the boy's exclusive property. "They have a regular routine of study," replied Mr. Lowington, addressing the lady, and declining even to glance at the original inquirer, for the rudeness of Mr. Clyde in interrupting the conversation seemed to merit a rebuke. "They attend to the studies usually pursued in the highest class of academies, including the modern languages and navigation, the latter being a speciality in the course." "I don't care what they study," said Clyde. "What do they do in the ship?" "We prepare boys for college, and beyond that pursue a regular college course, so far as our facilities will permit. Our students have the advantage of travel; for, in the present cruise, we shall visit all the principal nations of Europe." "What do they do in the ship?" "Clyde desires to know what the boys do in the ship," added the lady. "They learn good manners, for the first thing, madam. There are fifteen officers in this vessel, and nine in each of the others. They are all students, who take their rank according to their merit. The best scholar in each is the captain, and so on." "Does the captain manage the ship?" asked Clyde. "Certainly." "I should like to be the captain," exclaimed the young gentleman. "Do you think you could manage the ship?" asked his mother, with a smile which expressed the pride she felt in the towering ambition of her son. "I could, if any fellow could." "Clyde is very fond of the sea; indeed, he worries me sadly by his adventurous spirit," said his mother. "I think it would do him good to go to sea," added the principal, rather dryly. "The students made a beautiful appearance in their boats to-day," continued Mrs. Blacklock. "It was really very, _very_ wonderful." "They handle the boats very well indeed, but their skill was only acquired by long and careful training. As we have a considerable number of visitors on board, madam, we will show you a little seamanship. Captain Cumberland," he added, turning to the young commander, who had been making himself agreeable to Miss Celia Blacklock. The captain asked the young lady to excuse him, and stepping up to the principal, bowed gracefully, and raised his cap. "He's a regular swell," said Clyde to his man. "He's a young gentleman as is highly polished, which these naval officers is generally," replied Jeems. Mr. Lowington directed the captain to call all hands, and go through the evolutions of loosing and furling, for the gratification of the guests of the ship. Captain Cumberland bowed and raised his cap again as he retired, and the principal hoped that Clyde would take a lesson in good manners from him. "Will you walk to the quarter-deck, Miss Blacklock," said the captain, touching his cap to the young lady, to whom he had been formally introduced by the principal. "We are going to loose and furl, and you can see better there than here." "With pleasure," replied Miss Celia. "But what did you say you were going to do?" "Loose and furl the sails," replied the captain, as he conducted the fair miss to the quarter-deck, where they were followed by Mr. Lowington and the rest of the party. "Mr. Judson," said the commander. "Here, sir," replied the first lieutenant. "Call all hands to loose and furl." "All hands, sir," responded Judson, touching his cap to his superior, as all on board were required to do. "They are all swells," said Clyde to his man. "All hands, loose sails!" shouted the boatswain, as he blew the proper blast on his whistle. In a few moments every officer and seaman was at his station for the manoeuvre indicated by the call. The students, aware that they were simply to "show off," were fully determined to astonish the wondering crowd on the decks. "Stand by to lay aloft, the ready-men!" shouted the first lieutenant, as he received the order from the captain. It was repeated by the second lieutenant on the forecastle, the third in the waist, and the fourth on the quarter-deck. "All ready, sir!" reported the several officers. "Lay aloft!" At the command those whose duty it was to prepare the sails and rigging for the manoeuvre sprang up the rigging, and in three minutes the midshipman aloft reported that all was ready. "Lay aloft, sail-loosers!" continued the first lieutenant. The seamen, who were arranged in proper order on deck, the royal yard men first, then those who belonged on the top-gallant yards, the topsail, and the lower yards, placed in succession, so that each could reach his station without passing others, leaped into the rigging, and went up like so many cats. "Man the boom tricing-lines!" These are ropes by which the studding-sail booms, which lie on the yards, are hauled up out of the way. "Trice up!" The studding-sail booms were drawn up. "Lay out! Loose sails!" The hands jumped upon the foot-ropes, and worked themselves out to their places on the yards, where they loosed the sails, overhauled the rigging, and made everything ready for the final evolution. The midshipman in the tops reported to the officers on deck when the preparations were completed, and the lieutenants on deck, in their turn, reported to the first lieutenant. "Let fall!" said the executive officer; and all, as one, the sails dropped from the yards. The precision of the movement called forth a demonstration of applause from the visitors. Mr. Clyde Blacklock stood with his mouth open, looking up at the students on the yards, but occasionally glancing at the "swellish" first lieutenant, who seemed to be the master-spirit of the occasion, because he spoke in a loud voice, while the captain, who really controlled the evolutions, could hardly be heard, except by the executive officer, to whom alone his order was given. "Lay in! Lay down from aloft!" said the first lieutenant; and in a moment more all hands were on deck again. "Do you ever man the yards, sir?" asked a gentleman of the principal. "Occasionally, sir--not often. You are aware that it requires some preparation, for we are obliged to extend life-lines over the yards," replied Mr. Lowington. "We are not in condition to do it now. If we should happen to be visited by the king at Copenhagen or Stockholm, and had previous notice, we should certainly do it." The crew were then required to go through the manoeuvre of furling sails, which was performed with the same precision as the first evolution, and to the great satisfaction of the guests, who were then invited to visit the cabins and steerage of the ship. "Mother, I like this thing," said Mr. Clyde Blacklock. "It's all very, _very_ fine, Clyde," replied the tender mother. "And the ship's going up the Baltic, and then up the Mediterranean." "Yes, Clyde." "And I want to go in her." "You, Clyde!" "Yes, that's what I say." "And be a sailor?" "I always told you I wanted to be a sailor. Didn't that head master, or whatever he is, say it would do me good to go to sea?" "Perhaps he did, but I can't go with you, my dear." "I don't want you to go with me. I'm not a baby!" protested the indignant youth. "But you are my only son, dear." "If you had forty only sons, it would be all the same to me. I say I want to go in this ship, and be a sailor." Mrs. Blacklock was appalled, and was sorely disturbed by the announcement of her son. The young gentleman insisted that he should be entered at once as a member of the ship's company. He suggested to his anxious mother that she could travel by land while he went by sea, and that she could see him every time the ship went into port. The lady appeared to see no alternative, but evidently felt compelled to yield to her son's demand. It was plain enough, even to a casual observer, that Clyde was the head of the family. Mrs. Blacklock promised to speak to the principal, but she hoped he would not be able to take her son. Before she had an opportunity to make the application, the Orlando's bell rang for her passengers to return. The sound seemed to be a relief to the lady; but Mr. Clyde put his foot down just there, and upset all her hopes. "Come, Clyde; the Orlando is ready to go," said she. "Let her go," replied the hopeful son. "But we must go on board." "You may go. I'm off to sea in this ship." "Not now, my dear," pleaded Mrs. Blacklock. "Now's the time. If you don't speak to that head master yourself, I shall do so." "Not now, my dearest boy. This ship is going to Christiania, and we will speak to the gentleman on the subject when she arrives. Come, Clyde; the boat is waiting for us, and all the other passengers have gone." "You can't fool me, mother. I'm going to sea now. I like this ship, and I rather like those swells of officers." Clyde positively refused to leave the ship, though his mother, almost in tears, begged him to accompany her. "My son won't go with me," said she, as Mr. Lowington came towards her to ascertain the cause of their delay. "If you desire, madam, the boatswain will put him into the boat for you," replied the principal. "Put me into the boat!" exclaimed the indignant youth. "I should be glad to see him do it!" "Should you? Peaks!" "On deck, sir," replied the big boatswain, touching his cap to the principal. "Pray, don't, sir--don't!" begged the lady. "Clyde wants to go to sea in your ship." "O, does he, indeed!" exclaimed the principal. "We have a vacant place, and he can be accommodated." The fond mother's heart sank at this announcement. Mr. Lowington, though his experience with students of this description had been far from satisfactory, felt that his duty to humanity required him to take this boy, who was evidently on the high road to ruin through the weak indulgence of his mother. CHAPTER VI. A DAY AT CHRISTIANSAND. "But, madam, your steamer seems to be on the point of starting," suggested Mr. Lowington, as the Orlando rang her bell, and whistled violently. "I cannot help it," replied the lady, apparently taking no notice of the steamer. "I came over here on a pleasure excursion, and now I feel as though I had lost my son." "Lost him, madam! We intend to save him," laughed Mr. Lowington. "But we have no claim upon him. If you desire to leave in the steamer, the boatswain shall put the boy on board whether he is willing or not." "No, no; that would be very, _very_ harsh. Let the steamer go. This matter is of vastly more consequence than going to Christiania. James," she added, turning to the man in livery, "you will take the boat, get our baggage from the steamer, and take it to the hotel on shore." "Yes, mem," replied James, as he very deliberately went over the side into the boat. "This will be a sad day to me, sir," continued Mrs. Blacklock, as she glanced at her son, who was whistling an air from the last opera, as indifferent as though his mother had been at peace in her own drawing-room. "I beg to repeat, madam, that I have not the slightest wish to take your son into this institution." "But Clyde insists upon joining the ship, and what can I do?" "You can say no, if you please." "You had better not say it, mother; if you do, I will run away, and go to sea in a merchant ship," added Clyde, shaking his head. "You hear, sir, what he says," replied Mrs. Blacklock, with a long and deep sigh. "That would be the very best thing in the world for a boy troubled with his complaint," answered Mr. Lowington. "I have no complaint; I'm not sick," growled Clyde. "I'm afraid you are, my boy, though you don't know it. The most dangerous maladies often make great progress even before their existence is suspected." "Nothing ails me," added Clyde. "This seems to be a very nice ship, and you say the students are all gentlemen," continued the lady, glancing around her at the ship and the crew. "If Clyde must go to sea--" "I must, mother," interposed the young gentleman, very decidedly. "If he must go to sea, he had better go with you, sir." "If you will walk into the cabin, madam, I will show you our regulations," said the principal, leading the way down the steps. Clyde followed, apparently unwilling that a word should be said which he could not hear. "I want to speak with your mother alone," interposed Mr. Lowington. "I'm going too," persisted Clyde, after Mrs. Blacklock had descended the stairs. "I prefer to see your mother alone," added the principal, firmly. "You are going to talk about me, and I want to hear what is said," replied the youth, rudely. "Peaks, remain here," said the principal to the big boatswain, who had followed them to the companionway. Mr. Lowington descended the steps, and Peaks slipped in behind him, fully understanding his duty without any explanations. Clyde attempted to follow, but the entrance was effectually blockaded by the stalwart forward officer. "Get out of my way; I want to go down there," said Clyde, in no gentle tones. "It can't be done, my hearty," replied Peaks. "I'm going down, any way." "I think not, my little gentleman." "Yes, I am! Get out of my way." "Ease off, my hearty. Don't get up a squall." "I want to see my mother," growled Clyde. "You were not invited to the cabin, and your mother was," answered Peaks, very mildly. "I don't care if I wasn't; I'm going down." "So you said before;" and the boatswain tried to pacify the youngster, and to induce him to be reasonable; but Clyde had always had his own way, and was ready to fight for it now, even though he had nothing to gain by it. Captain Cumberland was still walking with Miss Celia, explaining to her the nature of the discipline on board, and giving her an account of the voyage across the Atlantic. A group of the officers had collected on the quarter-deck, and, much amused at the scene, were observing the conduct of Clyde. As he became more violent, his sister tried to quiet him, and induce him to behave like a gentleman; but he replied to her in a tone and with words which made the captain's cheeks tinge with indignation. Finally, when he found that abuse had no effect upon the stout boatswain, he drew back, and made a desperate plunge at his heavy opponent. Peaks caught him by the shoulders, and lifted him off his feet like a baby. Taking him in his arms, with one hand over his mouth, to smother his cries, he bore him to the waist, where his yells could not be heard by his mother. "Be quiet, little one," said Peaks, as he seated himself on the main-hatch, and twined his long legs around those of the prisoner, so that he was held as fast as though he had been in the folds of an anaconda. "Hold still, now, and I'll spin you a sea-yarn. Once on a time there was a little boy that wanted to go to sea--" "Let me go, or I'll kill you!" sputtered Clyde; but the boatswain covered his mouth again, and silenced him. "Kill me! That would be wicked. But I'm not a mosquito, to be cracked in the fingers of such a dear little boy as you are. But you snapped off my yarn; and if you don't hold still, I can't spin it ship-shape." Clyde had well nigh exhausted his breath in his fruitless struggle, and before his sister went far enough forward to see him, he was tolerably calm, because he had no more strength to resist. Then the boatswain told his story of a boy that wanted to go to sea, but found that he could not have his own way on board the ship. In the cabin, Mrs. Blacklock told a pitiful story of the wilfulness of her son; that she was obliged to do just as he said, and if he wanted anything, however absurd it might be, she was obliged to give it to him, or he made the house too "hot" for her. Her husband had died when the children were small, and the whole care of them had devolved on her. Clyde had made her miserable for several years. She had sent him to several celebrated schools; but he had got into trouble immediately, and she had been compelled to take him away, to prevent him from killing himself and her, as she expressed it. Her husband had left her a handsome property, but she was afraid her son would spend it all, or compel her to do so, before he became of age. Mr. Lowington repeated only what most of her friends had told her before--that her weak indulgence would be the ruin of the boy; that he needed a strong arm. He was willing to take him into the Academy ship, but he must obey all the rules and follow all the regulations. The perplexed mother realized the truth of all he said. "You will take him as an officer--won't you, sir?" she asked, when she had in a measure reconciled herself to the discipline proposed. "Certainly not, madam," replied the principal. "If he ever becomes an officer, he must work himself up to that position, as the other students do." "But you could let him have one of the rooms in the cabin. I am willing to pay extra for his tuition." "No, madam; he must go with the other students, and do precisely as they do." "Where will his servant lodge?" "His servant?" "Yes, James. He will want a servant, for I don't know that he ever dressed himself alone." "He can have no servant, except those of the ship." "That's very, _very_ hard." "Perhaps it is, but if the boy can't dress himself alone, he must lie in his berth till he acquires the art by hard thinking. I wish you to understand the matter thoroughly before you leave him, madam." Mrs. Blacklock struggled with the hard terms; but even to her the case seemed like a desperate one, and she was willing at last to try the experiment, though she intended to follow the ship wherever she went, to save him from suicide when his situation became absolutely hopeless. The terms arranged, she followed Mr. Lowington on deck, where Clyde was discovered in the loving embrace of the big boatswain, who released him as soon as he saw the lady. "Now, Clyde, my dear, we have arranged it all," said Mrs. Blacklock; and it ought to be added that such a result would have been utterly impossible if the subject of the negotiations had been present. "I don't care if you have," replied Clyde, bestowing a fiery glance upon the boatswain, who was smiling as blandly as though earth had no naughty boys. "Why, what's the matter, Clyde!" demanded the anxious mother. "I've had enough of this ship," howled the little gentleman, as he glanced again at the stout forward officer. The complacent face of Peaks maddened him, and Clyde felt that, perhaps for the first time in his life, he had lost a battle. He could not bear the sight of the boatswain's placid features, unruffled by anything like anger or malice. He felt that he had not even provoked his powerful adversary. He howled in his anger, and then he cried in his desperation. Suddenly he seized a wooden belaying-pin from the rail, and shied it at the boatswain's head. Peaks caught it in his hand, as though he had been playing toss-ball with his victim; but the next instant his anaconda fold encircled the youth again. Mrs. Blacklock screamed with terror. "There is no harm done, madam," interposed the principal. "We don't allow boys to throw things here." "You are very, _very_ harsh with the poor boy." "And the poor boy is very, very harsh with us. He throws belaying-pins at our heads." "He did not mean any harm." "Perhaps not; but that's an unpleasant way of manifesting his regard." "I've had enough of this ship! I won't go in her!" howled Clyde, struggling to escape from the grasp of the officer. "Do you hear that, sir? Poor boy!" "He will soon learn better than to behave in this violent manner. We can cure him in ten minutes after you have left the ship." "What! whip him?" exclaimed the mother, with horror. "No, madam; we never strike a student under any circumstances, unless it be in self-defence; but if a boy won't go when ordered, we carry him. We always have force enough to do this without injury to the person." "But see the poor boy struggle!" "It will do him no harm." "He says now that he will not go in the ship." "If I were his parent, it would be as I said, not as he said, after he had ceased to be reasonable. I would consult the wishes and opinions of a boy of mine, as long as he behaved properly--no longer. You have only to leave him, and I assure you he shall be treated as kindly as he will permit us to treat him. I do not wish to influence you, but I am confident that ruin lies in that boy's path, unless he is reformed." Mrs. Blacklock actually wept. She loved the boy with a blind affection in spite of the disrespect and even abuse that he heaped upon her. It was a terrible struggle to her, but she finally decided to leave him on board of the ship, perhaps satisfied that nothing else could ever save him from himself, and her from the misery his reckless conduct constantly occasioned her. "You wished to go to sea, Clyde, and I have decided to leave you in this ship," said the poor mother, trembling with emotion. "But I tell you I won't stay in this ship," roared Clyde, as Peaks, at a signal from the principal, released his prisoner. "I can do nothing with you, my dear boy. You won't obey me, and I must leave you to those who can control you. I am going on shore now, but I shall see you again at Christiania." "I won't stay!" howled Clyde. "Good by, Clyde," said Mrs. Blacklock, desperately, as she folded her son in her arms, and kissed him on both cheeks. "I tell you I won't stay!" cried the angry youth, breaking away from his mother's embrace. "Make it short, madam," suggested Mr. Lowington. "Do try to be good, Clyde, and then you can come home very, _very_ soon," added Mrs. Blacklock, as the principal conducted her to the accommodation ladder, where the first cutter had been manned to put her on shore. "I tell you again, I won't stay! If you leave me, I'll jump overboard." "O!" groaned the weak mother. "If you do, young man, we will pick you up with the greatest pleasure," said Mr. Lowington, as he hurried the lady to the side. "O, if he should!" gasped she. "There is not a particle of danger, madam; Mr. Peaks will take excellent care of him," replied her comforter. The boatswain, at a nod from Mr. Lowington, again embraced Clyde, but did not injure him, nor permit him to injure himself. The lady was handed into the boat, and Captain Cumberland politely performed this service for Miss Blacklock. Of course the poor mother was in an agony of doubt and anxiety, but the students in the cutter seemed to be so cheerful, contented and gentlemanly, that she hoped for the best. Clyde was appalled at the situation, and one of the stern realities of life seemed suddenly to dawn upon him. As soon as his mother disappeared over the side, he ceased to struggle, for he gained nothing by it, and the students appeared to be amused by his sufferings. Peaks released him, and the victim of wholesome discipline looked about him with a wondering stare; but there was no mother to cajole or intimidate, and he was thrown entirely upon his own resources for the means of resistance, if he purposed to resist. He appeared to be stupefied by the situation, and Mr. Lowington, taking advantage of his bewilderment, invited him into the main cabin, where he kindly but firmly "laid down the law" to him. Clyde was by no means conquered, but was rather considering how he should escape from this trying position. At the close of the interview, the principal handed the patient over to one of the stewards, and requested him to see the new comer clothed in the uniform of the ship. Peaks was directed to keep an eye on the victim while the crew were on shore. All hands were soon seated in the boats, and in half an hour all the students in the squadron were turned loose in the streets of Christiansand. Though the instructors were of the party, they were not required to exercise any particular supervision over their pupils. There was hardly anything to be seen, and as a large number of the students had never crossed the Atlantic before, they wanted to know if they had come so far to see such a town. Most of the houses were of wood, but they were neat and well kept. As the capital of the province of Christiansand, the town was the residence of the Stift Amtmand, or governor, and of the bishop of the diocese. It was founded in 1641, and having an excellent harbor, it is a place of considerable commercial importance, having a population of about ten thousand. The boys visited the cathedral, which is a fine building of gray stone, and being the first which most of them had seen, it had a considerable interest to them. They observed the people, and their manners and customs, so far as they could, with more interest than the buildings, which differed in no important respect from those in the United States. Passing across the water front of the town, they came to the Torrisdal River, over which there is an excellent bridge. They crossed the stream, and walked to an antiquated church. Some of the houses on the way were very neat, pretty structures, not unlike the one-story dwellings seen all over New England. "Here's a Runic stone," said Dr. Winstock, as the captain and several of the officers followed him into the burying-ground connected with the ancient church. "What is a Runic stone?" asked Lincoln, the third lieutenant. "A stone with Runic characters upon it." "I haven't the least idea what the word means, though Poe sings, in the 'Bells,'---- 'Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme!' Runic is derived from a word which means secret; and a Runic stone is any memorial, table, or column, on which Runic characters are inscribed, as a tombstone, a boundary mark. There are sixteen of these characters, forming an alphabet, which were used by the ancient Scandinavians, and were thought by them to possess magical properties, and willow wands inscribed with them were used by the pagans of the north in their magic rites. Sticks were used as almanacs, to keep the account of the days and months, and also constituted the day-books and ledgers of the ancients. In Germany, in modern times, the baker, for example, and the purchaser of bread, each had a stick, and the number of loaves delivered was notched upon both. Scarcely less primitive was the custom of some of our American farmers, who kept their accounts on the barn door; and I have heard a story of one who, when required to produce his books in court at a lawsuit, carried in the barn door, and held it up before the judge and jury. In Denmark and Sweden you will see more Runic writings, especially in the museum at Copenhagen." "They seem to bury people here, in about the same manner as with us," said Captain Cumberland. "There is not half so much difference between things here and those at home as I expected to find," added Judson. "The houses are almost the same, and so are the people," continued Norwood. "People coming to Europe are often disappointed because they find almost everything so near like what they have been accustomed to," replied the doctor. "You will find Norway and Sweden more like New England than any other countries on the continent. But I think you will find differences enough to excite your interest and attention before you return." The students walked back to Christiansand, and having exhausted the town, went on board the vessels of the squadron, ready and even anxious to continue the voyage. The pilots were on deck, Paul Kendall and lady had returned to the Grace, and the principal only waited the arrival of the steamer Moss, from Frederiksværn, to give the order to get under way. The boats were all hoisted up except the first cutter, which was to bring off the unfortunate crew of the professor's barge, as soon as they arrived. At eight o'clock the steamer came in, and the first cutter, with the principal on board, hastened to her landing-place, to meet Sanford and his companions. To his great astonishment and regret, they were not on board of the Moss. The captain, who spoke English very well, knew nothing about the absentees, and was quite confident they were not on board of the Foldin, the boat which had picked them up. Captain Hoell had said nothing to him about the accident, but then the Foldin had arrived only that morning, instead of the night before, when she was due, and their interview had been very hurried. "Did any person in the Moss know anything about the unfortunates?" the captain was kind enough to inquire; and a passenger was found who heard some one say that a party of young men had been landed by the Foldin at Lillesand. But the Moss had left Lillesand at six o'clock, and her captain had not seen or heard of the persons described. Mr. Lowington was very anxious about the fate of the second cutter's crew, and feared that some of them had been injured by the collision, so that they were unable to take the steamer back to Christiansand. He returned to the cutter and pulled off to the Tritonia, and directed Mr. Tompion, the second vice-principal, in charge of her, to run into Lillesand, and ascertain what had become of the absentees. Without waiting for the signal, the Tritonia got under way, and under full sail, with a fresh breeze, stood out of the harbor. The other vessels followed her soon after, the principal intending to lay off and on till the Tritonia reported. The ship had been searched from keel to truck for Ole Amundsen on the day before. Of course he was not found, and the conclusion was that he had dropped into the water and swam ashore, though it was difficult to understand how he had accomplished the feat without detection. Inquiries in regard to him were made on shore, but if any one knew him, application was not made to the right persons. Mr. Clyde Blacklock had not yet jumped overboard, and during the busy scene of getting under way, he stood with his mouth agape, watching the proceedings with wondering interest. He was not quite sure, after his anger had subsided, that he had made a bad bargain. There was something rather pleasant in the motion of the ship, and the zeal and precision with which the students worked, showed that they enjoyed their occupation. No one noticed Clyde, or even seemed to be aware of his presence. Before, when he behaved in an extravagant and unreasonable manner, the boys only laughed at him. They did not beg him to be pacified, as his mother and James always did; on the contrary they seemed to enjoy his chagrin. As soon as the ship was under way, the new student was informed that he belonged to the port watch, second part, and the silver star, which designated his watch, was affixed to his left arm. He was told that he would be called with the others to take his turn on deck during the night. "What am I to do?" he asked, rather blankly. "Just the same as the others do?" replied De Forrest, the fourth lieutenant, who had the deck with the second part of the port watch. "I have your station bill." "What's that?" "It is a card on which all your duties are explained. Here it is," added De Forrest, producing the station bill. "You are No. 71; all the even numbers belong to the starboard watch, and all the odd numbers to the port." These cards were all printed; for among the various amusements provided for the students, a couple of octavo Novelty presses, with a sufficient supply of type and other printing material had been furnished. All the blanks for use in the ship were printed on board, and the Oceanic Enterprise, a weekly Journal, had been regularly issued during the voyage across the Atlantic, though a gale of wind, which disturbed the equilibrium of the press and the printers, had delayed its publication a couple of days on one occasion. Clyde read the station bill which was handed to him by the officer, but it would have been just as intelligible to him if it had been in Runic character. "'Reefing, main-topsail, and main-topsail halyards,'" said Clyde, reading from the card. "What does all that mean?" "You mind only what you have to do yourself, and not trouble your head about orders that have nothing to do with your work; for the orders come as thick as snow flakes at Christmas. When all hands are called to reef topsails, you are one of them, of course. When any thing is said about topsails, or topsail-halyards, you are the man." "Good; I understand that, and I shall make a sailor, I know," added Clyde. "I hope you will. The order will come to 'settle away the topsail halyards.' Be ready to help then." "But I don't know the topsail halyards from a pint of soup." "Here they are," added the lieutenant, conducting his pupil to the rail, and pointing out the main-topsail halyards. "Then, when the officer says, 'Aloft, top-men,' you will run up the main rigging here, and the midshipman in the top will tell you what to do. At the word, you will lay out on the yard, and do as the others do. At the words, 'Lay down from aloft,' you will come on deck, and hoist up the main-topsail. Nearly all your duty is connected with the main-topsail. In tacking, you will go to the clew-garnets." "What are they?" "These ropes, by which the corners of the mainsail are hauled up," answered De Forrest, pointing out the clew-garnets. "You will also let go the main tack. In getting under way, you will help loose the main-topsail. In anchoring, you are at the main clew-lines, and the main brace. Here they are. In loosing and furling you are on the main-topsail. In boat service, you are attached to the third cutter. You sleep in berth No. 71, your ship's number, and eat with mess No. 6." De Forrest, as instructed by the principal, carefully explained the duties of the new comer, indicating every rope as he mentioned it, and describing its use. He was prudent in his manner, and tried to give the proud youth no offence by making him feel the superiority of an officer. The lieutenant then conducted him to his mess room, and pointed out his berth. The wind was still from the southward, and quite fresh; and though the squadron went under short sail, it was off Lillesand in a couple of hours. The Tritonia, which was a fast vessel, did not detain her consorts more than a couple of hours. Mr. Tompion boarded the ship, and reported that the crew of the second cutter had landed at Lillesand, and fearing that they should miss the ship if they returned to Christiansand, had taken carioles, and left early in the morning for Christiania. There were ten of the party, and one of them was a Norwegian, though he was dressed like the others. Mr. Lowington could not imagine who the Norwegian was that wore the Academy's uniform, for it did not occur to him that Ole could have joined them. He was glad to hear that all of them were well, and able to travel; and had no doubt they would arrive in safety at Christiania. He was aware that the crew of the second cutter were rather wild boys; but as there were no large towns in the interior, he had no fear that they would be led astray among the simple Norwegians. The fleet filled away again, and at eight bells the following morning was off Frederiksværn. CHAPTER VII. UP THE CHRISTIANIA FJORD. "I should like to know where this place is," said Ryder, the second master, as he appeared upon the quarter-deck of the ship, with one of the forty bound volumes of Harper's Magazine, which were contained in the library. "What place?" asked Lincoln, the third lieutenant, as he glanced at the volume. "That's more than I know; but here is a picture of a steamer between two high bluffs of rock, and under it, she is said to be entering the fjord." "We are just at the mouth of the fjord now, and if there are any such rocks as those here, I should like to see them. Why, you see they rise above the steamer's main-topmast." Lincoln took the book, and read the description; but he was none the wiser for his labor, for the narrow strait through which the steamer in the picture was passing was not particularly described. The book was shown to the pilot, who did not know just where the place was; but after he had been told that the steamer came from Gottenburg, and was on her way to Christiania, he thought that the bold rocks must be in the vicinity of Frederiksværn. He offered to take the ship through the pass, as the wind was fair, and Mr. Lowington consented that he should do so, for in order to enable the students to see the fine scenery on the fjord, the studies were to be laid aside for the day. "I don't see where there can be anything like this," said Ryder, as he surveyed the shores. "There are plenty of islands here, but certainly none of them rise to any such heights as those in the picture," replied Lincoln. "They are bare rocks out at sea, but some of them are a little green farther in. It don't begin to be so wild as I supposed it was in these parts. Why, I have read and heard so much about the Christiania Fjord, that I supposed it was the grandest scenery in the world." "It don't look much like the picture--does it?" laughed Ryder. In a short time the ship was approaching the narrow pass. The cliffs on each side were very bold and rugged, and if the students had not been feasting themselves with grand anticipations, they would have appreciated the scenery much better. Ryder and Lincoln laughed when they compared the reality with the pictures they had. The scenery could not be called grand, though it was certainly very fine. The strait was very narrow, and on each side of it rings were fastened in the rocks, which were painted white around them, for the convenience of vessels warping out in a calm or against the wind. On the high rock,--it could not have been a hundred feet high,--at the right, was a small fort, which looked grim and terrible in its way, but which any well-ordered man of war, with modern ordnance, could have battered down in half an hour. Passing through the strait, the ship came in sight of the small village of Frederiksværn, which is a naval station, where a number of gunboats are housed in a series of uniform buildings. The town itself is only a hamlet, but as the vessels proceeded, those on board saw Laurvig at the head of the bay, which is a place of considerable importance. "Little Foerder," said the pilot, an hour later, as he pointed to a tall, red light-house, at the entrance of the fjord. "Then the land we see beyond must be Sweden," added Ryder. "_Sverige_," nodded the pilot. "I suppose that is Sweden, but I don't see the use of having half a dozen names to a country." "And this is _Norge_," added the second master, pointing to the other side. "Yes, _Norge_," answered the pilot, pleased to hear the young officer apply the Norwegian name. On the port hand of the ship was a vast sea of rocky islands, of all shapes and sizes. Those farthest from the mainland were entirely destitute of soil or verdure; but in the distance a few pines, and the fresh tints of the early grass, could be seen. "Keep her north-north-east," said the pilot. "Man the weather and stand by the lee braces!" shouted the first lieutenant. Clyde Blacklock took out his station card, and looked to see whether the order applied to him. "You are on the main brace," said Scott, a good-natured young tar, who happened to be near the new student. "There you are, on the weather side." "Who spoke to you?" demanded Clyde, dropping his card, and looking Scott in the face. "I haven't been introduced to you, I know; but I thought you wanted to know your duty," laughed Scott. "You take care of yourself, and I'll mind my own duty," growled Clyde. "All right, my lad," replied the good-natured student, whose station was at the weather fore brace. Clyde walked aft, and placed himself in the line of those who were to haul on the weather main brace. "Slack the lee, and haul on the weather braces," said the first lieutenant, and the other officers repeated the order. "Walk away with it!" shouted the fourth lieutenant to those at the main brace. Clyde took hold, and tugged with all his might; but the brace would not come away. To tell the exact truth, there was a disposition among the students to haze the new comer, and the main brace men had agreed among themselves to let him do the whole of the work. They pretended to haul, but not one of them bore a pound upon the brace. "Pull!" shouted Clyde, at the top of his lungs, as he strained at the rope. "Why don't you pull, boys?" "Silence on the quarter-deck!" cried the executive officer--for all work was required to be performed in silence. "Walk away with the main brace." "Come, boys, why don't you pull?" roared Clyde, who was blest with a pair of hearty lungs. "Silence, Blacklock! You mustn't hollo like that when you are on duty," interposed De Forrest. "Who says I mustn't?" demanded Clyde, dropping his hold upon the brace, and walking up to the officer who had dared to give him these words of counsel, which were uttered in a mild and pleading tone, rather than in those of authority. "Starboard the helm," said the executive officer. "Starboard, sir," repeated the quartermaster at the wheel. "Walk away with that main brace!" added the first lieutenant. The main brace men, finding that Clyde was at issue with the fourth lieutenant, applied themselves to their work, and the main yard swung round. "Steady!" said the executive officer. "Steady, sir." "Avast hauling! Belay, all." By these manoeuvres the ship had been kept away, and was now headed directly up the fjord. "I don't allow any fellow to speak to me like that," blustered Clyde. "I want you to understand that I am a gentleman." "Go forward, Blacklock, and don't make a row on the quarter-deck," replied De Forrest, mildly. "I'll not go forward!" "Then I must report you to the first lieutenant." "I'm willing to do my work, but I won't be fagged by any nob in gold lace." "You are making a mistake, Blacklock," said De Forrest, in a low tone, as he walked towards the angry Briton, with the intention of reasoning with him upon the absurdity of his conduct. Mr. Lowington had cautioned him and other officers to be very prudent in dealing with the new student till he had become accustomed to his duty, and certainly De Forrest was prudent in the extreme. Perhaps Clyde misunderstood the purpose of this officer when approaching him, and suspected that he intended to use violence, for, drawing back, he made a pass at De Forrest with his fist. But the latter detected the nature of the demonstration in season to ward off the blow, and, still in the exercise of the extreme prudence which had before characterized his conduct, retreated to the other side of the quarter-deck. "Enough of that," said Judson, the first lieutenant, as he stepped between Clyde and De Forrest. Clyde was very angry. Though he had made up his mind to perform his duty in the beginning, he fancied that no one had the right to command him to be silent. In his wrath he pulled off his blue jacket, tossed it upon the deck with a flourish, and intimated that if the first lieutenant wanted to fight, he was ready for him. Happily the first lieutenant did not wish to fight, though he was fully prepared to defend himself. At this crisis, the principal observed the hostile attitude of the young Briton, and quietly ordered Peaks to interfere. "Go forward, Blacklock," said Judson, calmly. "I won't go forward! I have been insulted, and I'll break the sconce of the fellow that did it," added Clyde, glancing at the fourth lieutenant. "Come, my hearty, let us go forward, as we are ordered," interposed Peaks, as he picked up Clyde in his arms, and in spite of his struggles, carried him into the waist. It was useless to resist the big boatswain, and the pressure of Peaks's arms soon crushed out Clyde's anger, and like a little child, he was set down upon the deck, amid the laughter of his companions. He felt that he was not getting ahead at all; and though he reserved the expression of his anger, he determined at the first convenient opportunity to thrash both Judson and De Forrest. He had also decided to run away at the first chance, even if he had to camp on a desolate island in doing so. He regarded Peaks as a horrible ogre, whose only mission in the ship was to persecute and circumvent him. "I'll have it out with those nobs yet," said Clyde, as Peaks left him, restored to his senses, so far as outward appearances were concerned. "Have it out! Have what out?" asked Scott, the good-natured. "I'll whip that nob who told me to be silent." "Don't you do it, my jolly Briton," laughed Scott. "I can do it." "Do you mean the first lieutenant?" "Yes, that I do; and I'll teach him better manners." "I wouldn't hurt him; Judson's a good fellow." "I don't care if he is; he'll catch it; and De Forrest, too. They insulted me." "I dare say they didn't mean to." "If they didn't, I'll give them a chance to apologize," added Clyde, a little mollified by the mild words of his companion. "That's very kind of you; but officers don't often apologize to seamen for telling them of it when they disobey the rules of the ship." "Rules or not, I'll hammer them both if they don't apologize." "Don't be cruel with them," laughed Scott. "And that big boatswain--I'll be even with him yet," blustered Clyde, as he shook his head menacingly. "Are you going to thrash him too?" asked Scott, opening his eyes. "I'll take care of him. He don't toss me round in that way without suffering for it." "Well, don't hurt him," suggested the good-natured seaman. "He'll get a broken head before he grows much older," added Clyde, drawing out a belaying-pin from the fife-rail. "I shall not be in this ship a great while longer; but I mean to stay long enough to settle my accounts with the big boatswain and the two nobs on the quarter-deck." "How are you going to do it, my dear Albion?" "Leave that to me. No man can insult me without suffering for it." "Perhaps the officers will apologize, but I don't believe Peaks will. He's an obstinate fellow, and would do just what the principal told him to do, even if it was to swallow you and me, and half a dozen other fellows. You don't mean to lick the principal too--do you?" "I haven't had any trouble with him." "But he is at the bottom of it all. He told Peaks to persecute you. I'm not sure that the principal isn't more to blame than all the others put together." "No matter for him; he has done very well." "Then you mean to let him off?" "I say I've nothing against the head master." "Don't be too hard on Peaks," added Scott, as he climbed upon the rail to see the scenery of the fjord. "I suppose all these islands, points, bays, and channels have names, just as they do on the other side of the ocean," said Laybold, at whose side the good-natured tar seated himself. "Of course," nodded Scott. "I wonder what they are." "Don't you know?" "Certainly not--how should I?" "I didn't know but you might have seen the chart," added Scott, gravely. "There's a town!" exclaimed the enthusiastic Laybold, as the progress of the ship opened a channel, at the head of which was a village, with a church. "I see; that's Bossenboggenberg," said Scott. "O, is it? Is that a river?" "Not at all. That's only a channel, called the Hoppenboggen, which extends around the Island of Toppenboggen. That channel is navigable for small vessels." "Where did you learn all those names?" demanded Laybold, amazed at the astonishing words which his companion rolled off so glibly. "My father had to send me to sea to keep me from learning too much. My hair all fell off, and the schoolmasters were afraid of me." "There's another town ahead on the port hand," said Laybold, a little later. "That is Aggerhousenboggen, I think. Let me see; here's Cape Tingumboggen, and that must be the opening to the Stoppenboggen Fjord. Yes, that must be Aggerhousenboggen." "Where did you learn to pronounce Norwegian so well, Scott?" "O, I learned Norwegian when I was an infant. I could speak it first rate before I learned to utter my mother tongue." "Go 'way!" protested Laybold. "Do you know what island that is on the starboard hand." "To be sure I do. Do you think my education has been neglected to that extent? That's Steppenfetchenboggen. A very fine island it is, too," continued Scott, rattling off the long names so that they had a decidedly foreign ring. "I don't see how you can pronounce those words," added Laybold. "They would choke me to death." "I don't believe they would," laughed Scott. The squadron passed through several narrow passages, and then came to a broad expanse of water at the mouth of the Drammen River. The students were perched on the rail and in the rigging of the various vessels, observing with great interest the development of the panorama, which seemed to be unrolled before them. "It is rather fine scenery," said Lincoln, who still carried the book in his hand, and occasionally glanced at the pictures; "but I think the artist here must have multiplied the height of the cliffs by two, and divided the height of houses, men, and masts by the same number." "It certainly looks like an exaggeration," replied Ryder. "Look at this," added Lincoln, pointing to a scene on the coast of Norway. "There's a large steamer carrying a top-gallant yard on the foremast. That mast is probably a hundred and fifty feet high, and there are hills and bluffs beyond it--which would lose by the perspective--five times as high." "Still it is very fine scenery." "So it is; but no finer than we have on the coast of Maine. You remember last summer we went through the Reach, down by Machias? That was something like this, and quite as pleasant." "We mustn't be too critical, Lincoln," laughed Ryder. "I don't intend to be critical; but I had an idea, from the pictures I have seen, that Christiania Fjord was something like the Saguenay River, where the cliffs rise perpendicularly four or five hundred feet high. These pictures would certainly lead one to expect such sights." "Horton," said the pilot, pointing to a town which now came into view, as the vessel passed beyond a point of land. It was a small place, in appearance not unlike a New England village. At the wharf were a couple of small steamers, one of which had come down the Drammen, and the entire population of the town seemed to have turned out on the occasion, for the shore was covered with people. They were all neatly dressed. On the opposite side of the fjord was the town of Moss, where the convention by which Norway and Sweden were united was drawn up and agreed upon. The fleet sailed rapidly before the fresh breeze across the broad expanse, and then entered a narrow passage. There was a gentle declivity on each side of the fjord, which was covered, as far as the eye could see, with pines. Dröbak, on the right, is a village of one street, on the side of the hill. The houses are mostly of one story, painted yellow, with roofs covered with red tile. Before noon the passage began to widen, and the fleet entered another broad expanse of water, filled with rocky islands, at the head of which stood the city of Christiania. Some of the islets were pretty and picturesque, in some instances having a single cottage upon them, with a little garden. The rocks were often of curious formation, and the shore of one island was as regular and smooth as though it had been a piece of masonry. After rounding a point of rocks, the fleet came into full view of Christiania. The city and its environs are spread out on the southern slope of a series of hills, and presents a beautiful landscape to the eye. On the left the country was covered with villas, prominent among which was Oscarshal, a summer palace of the late king. On the right was the castle of Agershuus, rising abruptly from the water. At a little distance from the town was a kind of hotel, built on a picturesque island, with its pretty landing-place, not unlike some similar establishments near the head of Narragansett Bay. At the wharf in front of the city, and lying in the bay, was a considerable number of steamers, some of them quite large. The fleet ran up to the front of the city and anchored. "This is the end of my voyage," said Clyde Blacklock, when everything had been put in order on board of the ship. "You are not going yet--are you?" laughed Scott. "Very soon." "I thought you were going to stop, and whip Peaks and the two lieutenants." "Time enough for that. I suppose the ship will stay here two or three days--won't she?" "Perhaps a week. I suppose we shall go on shore this afternoon, and see the sights." "I say, Scott, if you tell those officers what I've been saying to you, I'll serve you in the same way," added Clyde, as for the first time it occurred to him that he had been imprudent in developing his plans to another. "No! You won't lick me, too--will you?" "Not if you behave like a man, and don't peach," answered Clyde, in a patronizing tone. "I will try to be a good boy, then," laughed Scott. "I only want to catch them on shore, where I can have fair play. I'm not to be fagged by any fellow that ever was born." Clyde walked uneasily about the deck till the crew were piped to dinner, evidently thinking how he should carry his big intentions into execution. To one less moved by fancied insults and indignities the case would have looked hopeless. He devoured his dinner in a much shorter period than is usually allotted by well-bred Englishmen to that pleasing diversion, and hastened on deck again. Peaks was there, acting as ship-keeper, while the carpenter was painting the second cutter, the repairs upon which had been completed. The big boatswain was seated on one of the cat-heads, where he could see the entire deck of the ship, and observe every craft that approached her. The new student observed his position, and thought he was seated in a very careless manner. A very wicked thought took possession of the Briton's mind, and he ascended to the top-gallant forecastle. The boatswain sat very composedly on the cat-head, with his feet hanging over the water, and was just then studying the beauties of the landscape. A very slight exercise of force would displace him, and drop him into the water. "Well, my hearty, you stowed your grub in a hurry," said Peaks, when he discovered the new pupil. "I was not very hungry, and thought I would take another look at the town," replied Clyde. "What's that big building off there, near the hills?" "That may be the county jail, the court-house, or the lunatic asylum. I haven't the least idea what it is," answered Peaks, indifferently. "The professors can tell you all about those things." "I wonder where that ship came from?" added Clyde, pointing to a vessel which was standing in ahead of the Young America. "That isn't a ship," replied Peaks, as he turned partly round, so that he could see the craft. "That's a 'mofferdite brig; or, as bookish people would say, an hermaphrodite brig--half brig and half schooner. You must call things, especially vessels, by their right names, or you will fall in the opinion of--" At that instant the big boatswain dropped into the deep waters of the fjord. "And you will fall, in my opinion," said Clyde, as, taking advantage of his antagonist's attention to the brig, he gave him a smart push, which displaced him from the cat-head. But Peaks, who was half man and half fish, was as much at home in the water as on the deck, and struck out for the cable, by which the ship was anchored, as the nearest point of support. Clyde walked along the rail till he came to the swinging-boom, where the boats which had been lowered for use after dinner were fastened. Climbing out on the boom, he dropped down by the painter into the third cutter, one of the four-oar boats. Bitts, the carpenter, who had been the only person on board except the boatswain, was in the waist busily at work upon the boat, and did not observe that anything unusual had transpired. Clyde had practised gymnastics a great deal, and was an active, agile fellow. Casting off the painter of the third cutter, he worked her astern, so as to avoid Peaks. Then, shipping a pair of oars, he pulled for the shore. In the mean time, the boatswain, disdaining to call for assistance, and not having observed the movements of Clyde, climbed up the cable to the hawse-hole, and then, by the bowsprit guys, made his way to the top-gallant forecastle, where he discovered the Briton in the cutter, pulling with all his might for the shore. Shaking the water from his clothes, he hastened to the main cabin, and informed the principal that the new scholar had left the ship. "Left the ship!" exclaimed Mr. Lowington. "Were you not on deck while the students were at dinner?" "Yes, sir, most of the time; but just at the moment when the young sculpin left the ship, I happened to be in the water," answered Peaks, shrugging his shoulders like a Frenchman, and glancing at his wet garments. "How came you in the water?" "The little Britisher pushed me overboard, when I was sitting on the cat-head." "I see," added the principal. "We must get him back before his mother arrives." By this time most of the students had come up from the steerage, and the order was given to pipe away the first cutter. Peaks was directed to change his clothes, and go in her. He was ready by the time the crew were in their seats, for, as he was not a fashionable man, his toilet was soon made. The boats from the other vessels of the fleet, including those of the yachts, were already on their way to the town. The first cutter pulled to the shore; but Clyde had already landed, and disappeared in the city. As at Christiansand, Paul Kendall and lady decided to remain on shore during the stay of the fleet. They had several pieces of baggage, and the custom-house officers on the wharf were obliged to examine them, after which they followed a porter to the Victoria Hotel, which was said to be the best in the place. Peaks found a man who could speak English, and immediately applied himself to the business of finding the runaway. Clyde had been seen going up one of the streets, but no one knew anything about him. The fugitive felt that he had achieved a victory. He had "paid off" the big boatswain, and no fellow on board of the ship could believe that he had not kept his word. He walked up the street till he came to Dronningensgaden. People looked at him as though he were a stranger, and he became aware that his uniform was exciting attention. In the Kirkegade he found a clothing store, in which the shop-keeper spoke English. In changing his dress on board of the ship, he had retained the contents of his pockets, including a well-filled purse. He selected a suit of clothes which pleased him, and immediately put it on. At another store he bought a hat, and then he appeared like a new being. With the bundle containing his uniform, he walked till he found a carriage, in which he seated himself, and ordered the driver to leave him at the Victoria Hotel. He thought it would only be necessary for him to keep out of sight till evening, when his mother would probably arrive in the Foldin, and he was confident he could induce her to withdraw him from the Academy. He would stay in his room the rest of the day, and by that time the search for him, if any was made, would be ended. "I want a nice room for myself, another for my mother and sister, who will arrive this evening, and a place for the man," said Clyde, as the porter of the hotel touched his cap, and helped him out of the carriage. The young man was evidently a person of some importance. The porter, the clerk, and the head waiter, who came out to receive him, bowed low. A man took his bundle, and he was ushered to a room on the ground floor. As he crossed the court, he discovered several of the Orlando's passengers in the reading-room. He had not entered his chamber before there was another arrival,--Paul Kendall and lady,--who were assigned to the next room. CHAPTER VIII. THE SIGHTS OF CHRISTIANIA AND OTHER MATTERS. As there was in Christiania much to be seen that needed explanation, the students were required to keep together, and several guides from the hotel were obtained, to conduct the party to the various objects of interest in the city. A walk through some of the principal streets brought them to the new Parliament house, which is called the _Storthingsbyggningen_. It is a fine building, but with nothing remarkable about it. In the lower house, the students seated themselves in the chairs of the members, and Mr. Mapps took the speaker's desk. "Christiania was founded in 1624, on the site of the ancient city of Osloe, which was destroyed by fire. It is the residence of the king during his sojourn in Norway, and the new palace, which you saw on the hill, was completed for his use in 1848. The city, as you have seen, is regularly laid out, and the buildings are either of brick or stone. Formerly the dwellings were of wood, but the frequent fires caused the adoption of a law that no more wooden buildings should be erected within the precincts of the city. The place has considerable commerce, and now contains nearly sixty thousand inhabitants. "A street here is called a _gade_, and you observe that the street and its name form one word, as Carl-Johansgade, or Charles John Street; Kongensgade, or King Street; Kirkegaden, or Church Street. The same word is used in German. "The money of Norway is different from that of Sweden or Denmark. The specie dollar, which is generally called a 'specie,' is the unit, and contains five marks of twenty-four skillings each. A specie, or _specie-daler_, as it is written, is worth about one dollar and eight cents of our money. It is near enough for our purpose to say that a mark is twenty-two cents, and a skilling one cent. The coins in circulation are the mark, the two, the four, and the twelve skilling piece. Species and half species are coined, but paper money is generally used for large sums, each denomination being printed on a particular colored paper. "It is probable that the French system of weights and measures will soon be introduced in Sweden and Norway; but now a Norwegian _pund_ is one and one tenth pounds avoirdupois; a _fod_ is twelve and two hundredths inches; and a _kande_ is three and three tenths pints." Mr. Mapps descended from the rostrum, and after the party had looked at the chamber of the upper house, and other apartments, they walked to the king's palace--the first royal dwelling which most of the students ever saw. They passed through the throne room, the court saloon, the dining room, and other rooms, and some of them concluded that royalty was not half so splendid as they had supposed. But Norway is a poor country compared with many others in Europe, and it is a pity that she ever thought it necessary to spend a million and a half of dollars in a weak attempt to imitate the grandeur of other realms. There was nothing in the palace to astonish even our young republicans, though the rooms of the queen, on the first floor, were pretty and prettily furnished. The building, which is a great, overgrown structure, without symmetry or elegance, is in a beautiful situation, and surrounded by pleasant grounds, well laid out, from which a fine view of the city and fjord is obtained. Connected with the university are several museums and cabinets, which are open to the public, and well worth a visit, though they do not compare with those of the great cities of Europe. The party walked through all these rooms, one of which contained a small collection of northern antiquities. From the university the students went to a kind of garden, which is a weak imitation of "Tivoli," in Copenhagen, containing promenades, concert room, a small opera house, and a drinking saloon. The castle of Agershuus, on a hill at the southern side of the city, was next visited. Its guns command the harbor, and it is regarded as a place of great strength, for it has successfully resisted several sieges. Climbing a long flight of steps, the party reached the ramparts, which are laid out in walks, and are much resorted to by the citizens, as they command a lovely view of the fjord and the surrounding country. A portion of the castle is used as a prison, and the convicts work in gangs about the premises. "This was Robin Hood's prison--wasn't it, Mr. Mapps?" asked Lincoln, who had an inquiring mind, after he had enjoyed the prospect from the ramparts for a while. "I think not," replied the instructor. "Höyland, sometimes called the Robin Hood, but, I think, more properly the Baron Trenck, of Norway, was sentenced to imprisonment for life in this castle." "What for?" inquired Norwood. "For robbery and other crimes. Like Robin Hood and Mike Martin, he robbed the rich and gave to the poor, which none of you should believe makes the crime any less wicked; especially as he did not scruple to use violence in accomplishing his purpose. For some small theft he was shut up in this prison; but while the overseer was at church, Höyland broke into his room, stole some of his clothes, and quietly walked out of the castle and out of the town. He was recaptured, but repeatedly made his escape. Though he was heavily ironed, this precaution was found to be useless, and he was placed in solitary confinement in the lowest room of the citadel, where he was kept securely for several years. One evening his jailer told him that he could never get out of this room, and that he might as well promise not to attempt such an impossible feat; but Höyland replied that it was the turnkey's duty to keep him in prison if he could, and his to get out if it were possible. The next day the prisoner was missing, and the means of his escape were not at first apparent; but on further examination it was found that he had cut through the thick plank flooring of his cell, under the bed, and tunnelled under the wall into the yard of the prison. He had replaced the planks when he left, and passing over the ramparts without difficulty, dropped into the ditch, and departed without bidding any one good by. All attempts to find him were unsuccessful, and it was believed that he had left the country. "A year afterwards the National Bank of Norway was robbed of sixty thousand _specie-dalers_, in the most adroit and skilful manner, even without leaving any marks of violence on the iron box in which the money was kept. Not long after this occurrence, in the person of a prisoner who had been committed to the castle for a petty theft, the officers recognized Höyland. He was considerate enough to inform the authorities that his late escape had been effected, after three years of patient labor, with no other tool than a nail, while others slept. As a portion of his ill-gotten wealth was concealed in the mountains, he had the means of making friends in Christiania, where he had hidden himself. Making the acquaintance of the bank watchman, he cunningly obtained wax impressions of the key-holes of the locks on the money-chest, by which he made keys, opened the box, took the money, and locked it after him. But, like all other evil-doers, he came to grief at last. Though he was a skilful carver in wood and stone, he was not allowed to have tools, of which he made a bad use, and he was compelled to amuse himself by knitting socks on wooden pins. Unable to escape again, and not having the patience to exist without something to do, in utter despair he committed suicide in his prison." After the visit to the fortress, the boys were allowed to walk about the city at their own pleasure; and a few of the officers went with Mr. Lowington and the doctor to the establishment of Mr. Bennett, an Englishman, who fitted out travellers intending to journey in the interior with carioles and all the other requisites. His rooms were stored with books and Norwegian curiosities and antiquities. In the court-yard of the house was a large number of second-hand carioles, which are the sole vehicles used for crossing the country. A traveller, wishing to go to Trondhjem or Bergen, would purchase the cariole in Christiania, and when he had done with it, dispose of it at the other end of his route, horses between being supplied according to law at the post stations on the road. Travellers coming from Trondhjem or Bergen sell their vehicles to Mr. Bennett. In his rooms are miniature models of the cariole for sale, which visitors purchase as a memento of their tour; as those who climb Pilatus and Rhigi, in Switzerland, buy an alpenstock on which are printed the names of the mountains they have ascended with its help. The principal and his companions walked up to the Victoria Hotel, and inquired for Captain Kendall. He had just returned from a ride, and while the waiter was taking Mr. Lowington's card to him, Peaks presented himself in the court-yard. "Can't find him, sir," said the boatswain, touching his hat. "He must be somewhere in the city." "This man has toted me all over the town, but we can't hear a word of him. He wore the uniform of the ship, and people can't tell one student from another." "I am confident he has not left the city." "Perhaps he has," replied Peaks, as the servant returned, followed by Captain Kendall. "Have you lost anything or anybody?" asked Paul, laughing, after he had saluted the principal. "Yes, we have lost a student; an English boy we shipped at Christiansand. Have you seen him?" "Yes, sir; his room is No. 32--next to mine," replied Paul, still laughing, as though he were much amused. He was much amused; and that others may sympathize with him, let the reader return to Clyde Blacklock, who had shut himself up in his room to await the arrival of his mother. He had not been in the house ten minutes before he began to be impatient and disgusted with his self-imposed confinement. He examined himself carefully in the looking-glass, and was satisfied that his new clothes disguised him from his late shipmates, and also from those whom he had met on board of the Orlando. Certainly they had wrought a very great change in his appearance, and with the round-top hat on, which was entirely different from anything he had worn before, even his mother would not recognize him, unless they came near enough together to enable her to scrutinize his features. Of course none of the people from the squadron would come to the hotel, and he had not yet been called upon to register his name. He unlocked his door, and went into the long entry which opened into the court-yard. It was stupid to stay alone in his chamber. It was some relief even to promenade the hall, for one so nervous as he was at this time. If any of the Orlando's passengers came near him, he could retreat into his room. He walked up and down several times, but this soon became stale amusement. "Who's in the next room to mine?" he asked, as one of the waiters passed him in his promenade. "Gentleman and lady from America, sir," replied the man; "an uncommon handsome young woman, sir." Before the waiter could further express his opinion of the guests in No. 31, Paul Kendall came out of the room, and, seeing the servant, ordered a carriage to be ready in half an hour. "Is there much to see in this place, sir?" asked Clyde, politely. "Not much, I think," replied Paul. "I dare say you are going into the interior, sir." "Not far." "There is fine fishing there," persisted Clyde. "So I am told; but I haven't much time to spend in such sport, and I am afraid my wife would not enjoy it as well as I should. Do you go to the interior?" "Yes, sir; I intend to do so when my mother and sister arrive. My mother goes a-fishing with me." "Does she, indeed? You are from England, I suppose," added Paul, who suspected that the young man was one of those lonesome travellers eager to make a friend, and actually suffering from the want of one. "Yes; Mockhill Manor, New Forest, Hampshire." "Are you travelling alone?" asked Paul, who was full of sympathy for the apparent loneliness of the young man. "I am alone just now, but I expect my mother and sister from Christiansand to-night," replied Clyde. "Can I do anything for you?" inquired Paul, who, after this explanation, did not regard the young gentleman's situation as so hopeless. In his own travels he had himself experienced that sense of loneliness which is a decided misery, and had met others afflicted with it. From the manner of Clyde, he concluded he had an attack of it, and he desired to alleviate his sufferings; but if the young man's friends were coming that night, his case could not be desperate. "No, sir; I don't know that you can. I thought, as your room is next to mine, we might make it jolly for each other. You are an American, sir, the waiter says." "Yes, I am," laughed Paul. "But you don't talk through the nose." "Don't I? Well, I don't perceive that you do, either." "I'm not a Jonathan," protested Clyde. "I dare say you are a fine gentleman, but I can't say that of all the Americans." "Can't you? Well, I'm sorry for them. Can you say it of all the Englishmen?" "Yes, sir; I think I can of all we meet travelling. The Americans are big bullies. I settled accounts with one of them this very day," chuckled Clyde. "Ah! did you, indeed?" "I think some of them know what it is to bully and insult an Englishman by this time," added Clyde, rubbing his hands, as he thought of poor Peaks, floundering in the waters of the Fjord. "Perhaps you've heard of that American Academy ship that came into Christiania to-day." "Yes, I have heard of her," answered Paul, curiously. "I saw her first at Christiansand, and went on board of her with my mother and sister. I liked the looks of her, and fancied the young chaps on board of her were having a nice time. I wanted to ship in her, and I did so; but I was never among such a set of tyrants in the whole course of my life." "Then you joined the ship," replied Paul, who had heard of the new addition to the Young America's crew, but had not seen him. "I'm blamed if I didn't; but before my mother left the ship, a big bully of a boatswain insulted me, and I changed my mind. Yet the head master persuaded my mother to let him keep me in the ship, and I'm blamed if she didn't leave me there." "Left you there," added Paul, when Clyde paused, apparently to give his auditor the opportunity to express his sympathy for his unfortunate situation. "Yes, sir; she left me there, and she won't hear the last of it for one year," replied Clyde, shaking his head. "It was a mean trick, and I'll pay her for it." "Probably she did it for the best," suggested Paul, disgusted with the assurance, and especially with the want of respect for his mother which the youth manifested, though he was anxious to hear the conclusion of his story. "I don't care what she did it for; it was a scurvy trick. I told her I wouldn't stay in the ship, any how, and she permitted the big boatswain to hold me while she went ashore in a boat. But I knew myself, if my mother didn't know me, and I determined not to stay in her three days; and I didn't," chuckled Clyde, as he thought of what he called his own cleverness. "What did you do?" asked Paul, deeply interested. "I was willing to bide my time, and so I hauled sheets, and luffed, and tacked, and all that sort of thing, till we got to Christiania. When I was pulling the main boom, or something of that kind,--I don't just know what it was now,--one of the fellows in gold bands insulted me." "What did he say to you?" "He ordered me to be silent, and another nob did the same thing. I offered to fight them both, and I would have liked to show them what an English boy's fist is made of; but the cowards set the boatswain on me again. I would have licked him if he had fought fair; but he caught me foul, and I could do nothing. I meant to be even with that big boatswain, and I think I am," said Clyde, rubbing his hands again with delight, and laughing heartily when he thought of his brilliant achievement. "Well, what did you do?" "I just waited till the ship got to Christiania; and then, when all the students were at dinner, I found the big boatswain sitting on a beam that runs out over the water--I forget what they call the beam, but it's at the bow of the ship." "The bowsprit," suggested Paul. "No; I know the bowsprit. It wasn't that. There was another beam like it on the other side." "O, the cat-head!" "That's just it. Well, I went up to the big boatswain, and asked him to look at a ship,--or a 'mofferdite brig, he called it. He looked, and I just gave him a push, which dropped him off the cat's head into the bay," continued Clyde, who told his story with many a chuckle and many a laugh, seeming to enjoy it hugely himself, in spite of the want of sympathy on the part of his listener. "You pushed him overboard!" exclaimed Paul. "That I did, and did it handsomely, too. He never knew what hurt him till he struck the water. He swam for the bow, and I dropped into a boat, and came ashore. I saw him climb up to the deck, but I was out of his way then. Wasn't that cleverly done?" "Rather," replied Paul, concealing his indignation. "I think it was very cleverly done," added Clyde, annoyed at the coolness of his companion. "You couldn't have done it better yourself, sir." "I don't think I could," replied Paul, dryly. "And you expect your mother this evening." "Yes; and she shall take my name off the books of the ship." "Perhaps she will not." "O, but she will. Then the two nobs that insulted me on the ship shall hear from me." "What do you intend to do with them?" "I'll whip them both; if I don't my name isn't Clyde Blacklock!" "But they will take you back to the ship before your mother arrives." "I dare say they will, if they see me; but I don't intend to go out of the hotel till my mother comes. I shall stay in my room, or near it, the rest of the day." The conversation was interrupted by the appearance of Mrs. Kendall, who had been preparing for a ride about the city. Paul conducted her to the carriage, satisfied that the new scholar could be found when wanted. During their excursion he told his wife the adventures of Clyde. "But what a simpleton he was to tell you these things!" added Grace. "He did not suspect me of knowing anything about the ship. He is one of those fellows, who, having done what he regards as a good thing, cannot help boasting of it. He considers himself a first-class hero." When Paul returned from the ride, he found Clyde still walking about the hall, as uneasy as a fish out of water. "Did you see anything of the Academy ship, sir?" asked he, after Mrs. Kendall had gone to her room. "I saw her at anchor in the harbor, and all her people are walking about the town," replied Paul. "I've kept clear of them so far; but I want to catch the two fellows with the gold bands." "Perhaps some of them will catch you." "Not they! I'm too cunning for clumsy fellows like them." "I see you are," laughed Paul, amused at the assurance of the young Briton. "If I see them, I'll settle the Alabama claims with them on my own account. But you ought to have seen the big boatswain floundering in the water, sir." "No doubt it was very funny." "It was, indeed," added Clyde, as the waiter appeared, and handed a card to Captain Kendall. "In the court yard, sir," said the servant; and Paul followed the man to the place where the visitors were waiting. Peaks, as dry, clean, and good-natured as ever, was talking to Mr. Lowington. Paul could not help laughing as he thought of the confidence which Clyde had reposed in him, and that the fugitive had voluntarily, and without any precautions, told his adventures to one who really belonged to the fleet. "He has told me all about it," said Paul. "Told you?" exclaimed Mr. Lowington. "Yes, sir; how he pushed Peaks overboard, and then ran away," laughed Paul. "I don't often wear my uniform on shore, for my wife thinks it attracts too much attention; so that he did not suspect me of any connection with the fleet." "But where is he now?" asked the principal. "I left him in the hall only a moment since." "Show me his room, my hearty," said Peaks to the waiter. "Call a carriage," added Mr. Lowington. "He will make a disturbance in the streets." The servant led the way to the room of Clyde, followed by the rest of the party. All were rather anxious to see the clever Briton, who had done such wonders of valor and cunning, captured. But Clyde had a pair of eyes, and, withal, a pair of ears. From the hall where he promenaded were several doors opening into the court-yard. Perhaps the youth had a Yankee's curiosity to see who called upon his new acquaintance, and he went to one of these doors. He saw Paul walk up to the principal, and shake hands with him. There was the big boatswain too, and there were two of the nobs with the gold bands. It was evident enough to Clyde, then, that he had made a blunder in relating his exploits to a stranger. But the battle was not lost yet. His chamber was on the ground floor, and had a window which opened into Dronningensgaden. Without losing another instant, he opened the window, and dropped out into the street. He did not even wait to take the bundle which contained his ship's uniform. When Peaks entered the chamber, the bird had flown, and the open window indicated the means by which he had escaped; but Clyde had several minutes the start of his pursuers, and had made good use of his time. The boatswain dropped out of the window, followed by Norwood and Lincoln, while the principal and the doctor went round by the doors as the more dignified means of egress. Peaks went one way, and the two lieutenants the other way. Clyde, fearful that haste might look suspicious, walked a short distance, till he came to a building on which was a sign, _Hôtel du Nord_, and which appeared to be under repairs. He stepped in at the open door, and went up stairs. Men were at work in some of the rooms; but he avoided them, and appeared to be looking over the building. At last he came to an open window on the street from which he had entered. He looked out, and in the distance saw his pursuers running rapidly in opposite directions. After he had remained in the hotel about an hour, he ventured to leave, and walked very cautiously up the street. Feeling the need of an overcoat, he entered a store, and purchased one, which still further disguised him, so that if he met any of his late shipmates, they would be still less likely to recognize him. He walked till he came to a carriage stand; where, entering a vehicle, he pointed in the direction he wished to go, which was towards the king's palace. When the driver stopped at the gate, he pointed towards the hills in the rear of the city. The Norwegian looked astonished, and could not understand him. "I want to go out of town." The driver drove his horse to the other side of the street, and hailed a short, stout man, who was passing at the time. "Do you want a guide, sir?" asked the stranger. "Yes," promptly replied Clyde. "Where do wish to go?" "Over there," replied Clyde, pointing again in the direction he wished to go. "To Sandviken?" "Yes; that's the place," added the youth, who did not care where he went, if he could only get out of the city. "It is more than eight miles," suggested the guide. "I don't care if it is eighty; that's where I want to go. Are you a _commissionaire_?" "Yes. I belong to the Victoria Hotel." "All right; jump in." The man made a bargain with the driver, and in a few moments Clyde was on his way to Sandviken, confident that he had escaped any further pursuit. He had already come to the conclusion not to see his mother until after the Young America had left Christiania. In the mean time, Peaks had given up the chase. Paul assured the principal that Clyde would come back as soon as his mother arrived. Mr. Lowington did not care to have the new scholar see his mother again if he was to be a student in the Academy; but as Clyde could not be found, there appeared to be no alternative. In a couple of hours, the fugitive reached Sandviken, where he informed his astonished guide that he intended to proceed to Christiansand by land. His courier was willing to go with him so long as he was paid; and as Clyde had plenty of money, and disbursed it freely, there was no difficulty. Though the next day was Sunday, the young traveller continued his journey, and on Monday afternoon arrived at Apalstö, at the head of one of the inland lakes, where he intended to sleep; but the station-house was full. Clyde was tired, and did not feel like going any farther. While he was sending his courier to look up a bed for him, about a dozen boys wearing the uniform of the Academy ship flashed upon his view. He was astonished and alarmed. He suspected that this party had been sent to the interior to head him off. He was determined not to be an easy victim. One of the party had a good-sized salmon in his hand, which indicated that they had been a-fishing. They took no notice of him, though they could not help seeing him, and Clyde took courage from this circumstance. The fishing squad was composed of the crew of the second cutter--the unfortunates who had been run down by the steamer. CHAPTER IX. THE EXCURSION WITHOUT RUNNING AWAY. The second cutter was a wreck on the water, and the crew saved themselves by climbing up the bow of the steamer which had run down the boat. They received prompt assistance from those on board, and, as the cutter did not sink, and would not have done so, having no ballast, even if she had been cut in two, the crew were so well trained that not one of them was guilty of the absurdity of jumping overboard, and therefore no one was even very wet. It appeared to be one of those cases where both parties had struggled to avoid the catastrophe, but the more they struggled the worse was the situation. If the cutter, on the one hand, had continued on her course, she would have escaped. If the steamer, on the other hand, had not changed her course when the calamity was threatened, the boat could have avoided her. The change of purpose in each had confused the other, and rendered unavailing the attempt to avoid the collision. The boat would have gone clear of the steamer if the latter had not put her helm to starboard. But the catastrophe was accomplished so quickly that there was not much time to philosophize; and as nothing worse than a stove boat had resulted from it, there was not much reason to complain. We are not aware that any one did complain; and we only state the appearances, not the facts. The steamer started her wheels again after the cutter had been secured and made fast astern. The captain spoke only a few words of English, and Sanford found it quite impossible to hold a conversation with him. But Ole Amundsen was at hand in this emergency. "Tell him he needn't stop for us, Ole," said the coxswain. "Don't you want to return to the ship?" asked the astonished waif. "No, no," replied Sanford, in a low tone, so that some of the doubtful members of his crew might not hear him. "Where is the steamer going, Ole?" "To Christiania, stopping at all the ports on the coast," answered Ole, when he had obtained the information from the captain. "All right; we will go to the first place where she stops," added Sanford. "Don't say a word to the rest of the fellows, Ole." "The first port she stops at is Lillesand," said Ole. "Very well; we will go there." Ole explained to the captain that the boys he had picked up wished to go to Lillesand, where they could join their ship. This plan exactly suited the young Norwegian, for he did not like the idea of being landed at Christiansand, or taken back to the ship. "Where are we going? Why don't he put us on shore, or on board of the ship?" demanded Burchmore. "It's a mail steamer; she is very late," replied Ole. "But is she going to carry us off, because she is in a hurry?" "Only to a port up here a little ways. We can come right back in another steamer," Ole explained; and Burchmore was satisfied. Now, the captain had certainly declared that he was in a great hurry, and was not willing to wait for the boat which had put off from the ship; but he proposed to hail a boat which was passing, and send his involuntary passengers to the town in her. Ole assured him his companions wished to go to Lillesand, and he was too glad to avoid any delay. As the first cutter followed the steamer, it was decided, after consultation with the captain, to turn the stove boat adrift, so that it could be towed back to the ship by the first cutters. Sanford cast off the painter, and the pliant master of the steamer was glad to get rid of this check upon the speed of his boat. The boys watched the water-logged craft till it was picked up by the first cutter, and then passing behind an island, the squadron was out of view. "How came you here, Ole?" asked Rodman. "Came in the boat; but I didn't think you were going to smash her. I thought I was killed that time, sure," laughed the waif. "But how came you in the boat?" inquired Wilde. "I got in, of course; nobody put me in." "When?" "When it hung at the davits in the ship, just before the pilot came on board." "What do you get in there for?" "My education has been neglected, and I have to do a great deal of thinking to make up for it. I don't like to be disturbed when I'm thinking; so I got into the boat, and covered myself with the sail." "Tell that to the fishes," snuffed Wilde. "You can, if you wish; I don't speak their language," laughed Ole. "But really, Norway, what did you get into the second cutter for?" said Sanford. "The pilot was a first cousin of mine, and I was afraid he would whip me for making faces at him when I was a baby. He never forgets anything." "Nonsense!" "Well, if you know better than I, don't ask me any more about it." Ole was no more inclined to explain how he came in the second cutter than he had been to solve the mystery of being in a water-logged bateau, out of sight of land. It only appeared that while the students covered the rail and crowded the rigging to see the land, he had put himself into the boat. When the hands were called to man the braces, he, having no duty to perform, had not answered the call, and was left alone in the cutter. At sea, every precaution was taken to provide for the safety of the crew in case of any calamity. Each boat was provided with a sail, a mast, a compass, and several breakers of water, and a quantity of provisions was ready to be put in when needed. Ole stowed himself beneath the sail, which lay under the middle board, extending fore and aft. Before De Forrest took his place in the stern-sheets, Stockwell had discovered the absentee, and communicated the fact of his presence to those near him. The crew of the second cutter were entirely willing to keep his secret, as they were that of any one who needed their help. Among such boys it was regarded as dishonorable in the highest degree to betray any one; and, indeed, the principal discountenanced anything like "tale-bearing," to which the students gave a very liberal construction. Sanford had proposed that De Forrest should take a walk on shore, in order to give Ole an opportunity to escape from his confinement, which, on account of the singular obstinacy and suspicion of that officer, had threatened to be indefinitely continued, till the collision came to his aid. "How's this?" said Stockwell, as he seated himself by the side of the coxswain, on one of the settees on the quarter-deck of the steamer. "How's what?" asked Sanford. "It seems to me that we are clear of the ship, and without running away." "Don't say a word. We got spilled out the boat, and it was not our doing. We obeyed De Forrest's orders to the very letter, so that no fault can be found with us." "Of course not." "If De Forrest had not ordered me to shove off, I shouldn't have done so." "Then the boat might have been ground up on the rocks." "Do you see anything green in my eye?" replied Sanford, suggestively. "You don't mean to say that you smashed the boat on purpose?" "Certainly I don't mean to _say_ anything of the sort. I obey orders if I break owners, or boats either, for that matter." "What are you going to do next?" "I don't know. The programme is to go back in the steamer that returns to Christiansand to-morrow night." "O, then you mean to go back." "Your head's as thick as the broadside of an iron-clad. Of course I mean to go back." "Immediately?" "In the next boat." Stockwell did not exactly like the sharp way with which Sanford dealt with his innocence. Certainly the coxswain and himself had talked about an excursion to the interior of Norway without running away; but now, though the circumstances favored the plan, his friend plainly announced his intention to return to Christiansand and join the ship. But it could be said of the coxswain that his ways were dark, and Stockwell was more inclined to wait than to question him. In two hours the steamer arrived at Lillesand, and the party went on shore. The place was only a small village, but they found accommodations for the night. "What time does the steamer for Christiansand leave this place?" asked Sanford, as the party gathered at the station-house, which is the hotel, post-office, and establishment for furnishing horses to travellers. "To-morrow evening," replied Ole. "To-morrow evening!" exclaimed the coxswain. "That will never do! What time?" "About eight o'clock," answered the waif, whose devotion to the truth did not prevent him from stating the time two hours later than the fact warranted. "She may be two or three hours later." "The squadron sails for Christiania to-morrow afternoon," added Sanford. "The ship will be gone before we can get there." "She will not go without us," suggested Burchmore. "Yes, she will," said Stockwell, who was beginning to fathom the dark ways of the coxswain. "The principal will suppose we have gone on to Christiania." "That's so." "But what are we to do?" demanded Tinckner. "That's the question," added Sanford, with a blank look, as though he considered the situation as utterly hopeless. "We are not so badly off as we might be," said Boyden. "I don't see how it could be any worse," replied Sanford. "But I don't know that it is our fault. The captain of the steamer would not stop, after he had picked us up; at least, I don't know anything about it; but Ole said he wouldn't stop." "He could not stop," protested the waif, vehemently. "He had only just time enough to reach Frederiksværn in season for the other steamer. If he lost her, he would be turned off. He wouldn't stop for love or money." "No matter, for that; here we are, and what are we going to do? It's no use to cry for spilled milk," continued Stockwell. "The ship will go to Christiania, and won't come near this place. Mr. Lowington will expect to find us there when he arrives, and all we have to do is to make good his calculation. We have plenty of money, and we can get there somehow or other." Involuntarily, every fellow put his hands into his pocket; and then, if not before, they recalled the suggestion of the coxswain, made before they took their places in the cutter, that they should bring their money and their pea-jackets; but then, it seemed simply absurd that the boat had been smashed by his contrivance. "Was it for this, Sanford, that you told us to bring our money?" said Burchmore. "I should say a fellow ought always to carry his money with him. No one can tell what will happen to him when he goes away from the ship," replied the coxswain. "You can see that it's lucky you have it with you. We might have to spend the summer here if we had no money. When will a steamer go from here to Christiania, Norway?" "Next Friday--just a week from to-day," replied the Norwegian, very seriously. "A week!" exclaimed Burchmore. "That is not long; a week is soon gone." "But we can't stay here a week," protested Tinckner. "I don't want to do it," added Sanford; "but if we have to do it, I suppose I can stand it as well as the rest of you." "We can't any of us stand it," said Wilde. "Who's going to stay a week in such a place as this? I'm not, for one. I'll swim up to Christiansand first." "Can't we hire a boat, and go back to Christiansand?" Burchmore proposed. "It is not more than twenty miles, and it would be a fine sail among these beautiful islands." "All right; look up a boat, Norway," replied Sanford, as though entirely willing to adopt this plan. Ole walked about the place for half an hour, accompanied by three of the boys. Perhaps he was careful not to find what he wanted; at any rate, no boat seemed to be available for the purpose desired, and when the excursionists met again, it was reported that no boat suitable for the accommodation of the party could be found. "Then can't we engage horses, and go round to Christiansand by land?" inquired Burchmore. "In carioles?" queried Ole, with an odd smile. "Carioles or wagons; anything we can find." "You can, but it will take you a day and a half," replied Ole. "A day and a half to go twenty miles." "About seventy miles by land," added Ole. "You must go almost up to the north pole before you can cross the river." "O, nonsense!" exclaimed Burchmore, who could not help feeling that Ole was not altogether reliable on his figures and facts. "If you don't believe it, go and ask the postmaster, or any one in the town," continued the waif. "That's all very well to talk about asking any one, when no one speaks a syllable of English." "I will do the talking for you." "Of course you will; you have done it all thus far." "I don't mean to say that you must really double the north pole, or that it is just seventy miles by land; but it's a long distance," Ole explained. "No matter how far it is; we will go," added the pliant coxswain. "I'm willing to do whatever the fellows wish. It shall not be said that I was mulish." "But if it is seventy miles, or anything like it, we couldn't get to Christiansand before the ship left." "That's just what I was thinking," answered Sanford, with a puzzled expression on his face. "Ole says it is a long way, and I have been told that these Norwegians are very honest, and will not lie; so I suppose he has told the truth." It was barely possible that the waif had learned to lie in England, where he had acquired his English. "I suppose we must give up the idea of going in a boat, or going by land. We can only wait till the steamer comes," continued Burchmore, putting on a very long face. "We can't stand that," protested Wilde. "Well, what are you going to do?" demanded Burchmore. "Can't you tell us, Norway?" said Tinckner. "I know what I should do if I were in your situation, and wanted to make a sure thing of it." "Well, what?" asked Burchmore, gathering a hope from the words of the waif. "I should go to Christiania." "But how?" "By land, of course." "It's up by the north pole." "It is about a hundred and fifty miles from here by water, and it can't be any more by land," said Sanford. "But I don't care what you do; I will do as the others say." "I like the idea," added Stockwell. "It is the only safe thing we can do. If we go back to Christiansand, we shall be too late for the ship. If we wait for a steamer to Christiania, she will be gone when we get there." "How much will it cost to go to Christiania in this way?" inquired Wilde, who did not feel quite sure that his funds would stand such a drain. "Here are the prices in the post-house," said Ole, as he led the way to a partition on which the posting was put up. "For one mile, one mark six skillings." "We know all about it now," laughed Rodman. "What's a mark, and what's a skilling?" "Twenty-four skillings make a mark, and a skilling is about a halfpenny English," Ole explained. "About a cent of our money," continued Rodman. "One mark and six skillings would be thirty skillings, or about thirty cents." "That will never do," interposed Wilde, shaking his head. "One hundred and fifty miles, at thirty cents a mile, would be forty-five dollars; and I suppose we have to pay for our grub besides." "It would come to ten or twelve pounds, and Wilde has only ten pounds," added Rodman. "No, no; you are all wrong. That means a Norwegian mile--about seven of ours. It would be only four and two sevenths cents a mile; say, six or seven dollars to Christiania; and the grub would cost as much more," said Stockwell. "Three pounds will cover the whole expense, and that won't break any body." After considerable discussion, it was agreed to adopt the plan proposed, and Ole was instructed to make the necessary arrangements with the station-master. The party went out to the stable to examine the carioles. They were a kind of gig, without any hood or top, with a small board behind, on which stands or sits the boy who drives the team back to the station after it has left the passenger. Tourists generally purchase the carioles in which they ride, and are not bothered with the boys. The students were not very nice about their accommodations; and finding that when two persons went in the same vehicle only half a fare extra was charged, they decided to engage but five carioles. As the law did not require the station-master to keep this number of horses in waiting, it was necessary to send "forbud" before the party started. This was an order to all the stations on the road to have five horses ready, and may be forwarded by mail or by special messenger, the expense of which was paid by the young tourists. It was solemnly agreed that the expense should be equally divided, and Burchmore was elected cashier and paymaster. With the assistance of Ole, he changed twelve pounds into Norwegian money, and found himself heavily loaded with the small coins of the country, which would be needed in making change at the stations. After all this important business had been disposed of, the party walked all over the town and its suburbs, and were duly stared at by the astonished people. "We ought to write a letter to Mr. Lowington, and tell him how we are situated," suggested Churchill, as they were returning to the station. "Exactly so; and carry it to him ourselves," replied Stockwell. "I move you that Burchmore be appointed bearer of despatches." "I mean to have the letter sent by mail," added Churchill. "We shall be in Christiania as soon as any mail, if there is no steamer for a week," said Sanford. "True; I didn't think of that," continued the proposer of this precaution. "The principal will be worried about us." "Let him worry," replied the coxswain; "that is, we can't do anything to relieve his mind." "I don't see that we can," added Churchill. For the want of something better to do, the students turned in at an early hour in the evening, and turned out at an early hour in the morning. They all slept in the same room, some of them in beds, and the rest on the floor; but those who slept on the floor were just as well satisfied as those who slept in the beds. After a breakfast consisting mainly of fish, they piled into the carioles. They were all in exceedingly jolly humor, and seated themselves in and on the vehicles in various uncouth postures. One boy in each cariole was to drive the horse, and he was carefully instructed to do nothing but simply hold the reins, and let the well-informed animal have his own way. The horses were rather small, and very shaggy beasts; but they went off at a lively pace. At the first hill they insisted upon walking up, and most of the boys followed their example. Behind three of the carioles were the small boys who were to bring the teams back. These juvenile Norwegians were as sober and dignified as though they had been members of the Storthing, refusing to laugh at any of the wild tantrums of the crazy students. At the first station, where the road from Lillesand joins that from Christiansand to the north, the horses ordered by "forbud" were in readiness, and the party had only to pass from one set of carioles to another. The grim post-boys did smile faintly when they received their perquisites, and others, just as immovable, took their places for the next post. The road now lay along the banks of a considerable river, and the scenery was rather interesting, though by no means grand. They passed an occasional farm; but generally the buildings were of the rudest and shabbiest description, though occasionally there was a neat residence, painted white or yellow, with roof of red tile. The boys walked up all the hills, leaving the sagacious horses to take care of themselves. All the students voted that it was jolly to travel in this manner, and there was no end to the sky-larking and racing on the road. At noon, they stopped long enough to dine, and at night found themselves at Tvetsund, at the foot of Nisser Lake, where they lodged. As this was as far as they had sent their "forbud," they decided to proceed by boat through the lake, a distance of about twenty miles. The next day was Sunday, which was always observed with great strictness on board of the ship, no play and no unnecessary work being permitted. There was a little church in the village, but none but Ole could understand a word of the preacher's prayer or sermon; so that the students voted it would be useless for them to go there. Four of the party, still controlled by the influences which prevailed on board of the ship, did not wish to travel on Sunday; but when it was represented that the ship might leave Christiania before the party arrived, they yielded to the wishes of the other five, and procuring boats, they proceeded on their way. At the head of the lake they took the road, and walked about seven miles to Apalstö. "We are stuck here," said Sanford, after they had taken supper at the station-house. "This posting is a first-class fraud." "Why, what's the matter?" demanded Burchmore, alarmed by the manner of the coxswain. "No horses to be had till Tuesday morning." "That's a fraud." "Well, it can't be helped," added Sanford, philosophically. "I'm willing to walk, if the rest of the fellows say so." "We can't walk to Christiania." "That's so; and we should not find any more horses at the next station than here. Norway says we didn't send 'forbud,' which must be done when more than three horses are wanted." "Why didn't Ole send 'forbud,' then?" "He said we had better go by boat part of the way; it would be easier. But part of us can take the three horses that are ready, and go on with them." "I don't believe in separating." "We are only a day and a half from Christiania, and we shall arrive by Wednesday noon. The ship won't leave before that time." So Burchmore was persuaded to submit to his fate like a philosopher, which, however, was not considered very hard, when it was announced that there was excellent fishing in the vicinity. It is to be feared that Ole and the coxswain had created this hinderance themselves, for the law of the country allows only three hours' delay in the furnishing of horses. The farmers are compelled to supply them, and doubtless twenty could have been provided in the time allowed, though the young tourists were able to give twelve hours' notice. This, however, did not suit the coxswain's purposes, and as he and Ole had occupied the same cariole, there was no want of concert in their words and actions. On Monday the students went a-fishing, paying a small sum for a license to do so, though this is not necessary in all parts of Norway. The united catch of the whole party was one salmon, taken by Burchmore, and weighing about eight pounds. It was voted by the party, before this result was reached, in the middle of the afternoon, that fishing in Norway was "a first-class fraud." We heard of a party of three, who fished two weeks, and caught eight salmon, though this want of luck is the exception, rather than the rule, in the north. As the party returned from their excursion, bearing the single trophy of their patience, Clyde Blacklock discovered them. He was alarmed at first, but when he recognized no one among them whom he had seen on board of the ship, he concluded they did not belong to her. "Good evening, sir," said he, addressing Sanford, who seemed to be the chief of the excursionists. "You have been a-fishing?" "Yes; and ten of us have one fish to show for a whole day's work," laughed the coxswain. "Poor luck; but you seem to be sailors," continued the Briton. "We belong to the ship Young America." "Ah, indeed!" "That's so." In half an hour Clyde and Sanford were on excellent terms. The former, when he learned that his new acquaintance had not been sent after him, was quite communicative, and even told the story of his experience on board of the ship, and of his escape from bondage. Sanford laughed, and seemed to enjoy the narrative; but straightway the coxswain began to tremble when he learned that Clyde had with him a Norwegian who spoke English. It was necessary to get rid of so dangerous a person without any delay. The Briton liked Sanford so well that he was not willing to leave him; and, indeed, the whole party were so jolly that he desired to join his fortunes with theirs. Sanford wrote a brief letter to Mr. Lowington, stating the misfortunes of the party, and that they expected to arrive in Christiania on Wednesday or Thursday. "Now, Mr. ----, I don't know your name," said Sanford, when he found Clyde, after he had written the epistle. "Blacklock," replied the Briton--"Clyde Blacklock." "Well, Blacklock, if you want an up-and-down good time, come with us." "Where? To Christiania? into the lion's den?" "Not yet, but--don't open your mouth; don't let on for the world," whispered the coxswain, glancing at his companions. "Not a word," added Clyde, satisfied he had found the right friend. "We are going to the Rjukanfos to-morrow, but only one or two of us know it yet. Your man will spoil all. Send him back to Christiania this very afternoon. Here's a blind for him; let him take this letter." Clyde liked plotting and mischief, and as soon as his guide had eaten his supper, he was started for his home in the capital, glad enough to go, for he had been paid for all the time agreed upon; and Sanford ceased to tremble lest he should expose to his companions the mistake in regard to horses, or another blunder which was to be made the next morning. CHAPTER X. GOTTENBURG AND FINKEL. On Saturday night, as Clyde had anticipated, his mother arrived at Christiania; and the people at the Victoria informed her of the disappearance of her son. The next morning she hastened on board of the ship, and heard the principal's story. Mrs. Blacklock wept bitterly, and was fearful that her darling boy was forever lost; but Mr. Lowington assured her that no serious harm could befall him. He spoke very plainly to her in regard to Clyde's character and his ungovernable passions, assuring her that he must certainly come to an evil end within a few years, if he was not restrained and controlled. The poor mother felt the truth of all he said, and was willing that he should continue the beneficent work upon which he had commenced. She spent the forenoon on board, and was introduced to Kendall and Shuffles and their ladies. The principal illustrated what he had said about Clyde by relating the history of the present captain and owner of the Feodora, and Mrs. Blacklock went away even hopeful that her boy might yet be saved to her. On Monday, the first secular day of the month, the new list of officers was announced in each vessel of the squadron. The changes on board of the ship were not very violent, though the third lieutenant became captain, while Cumberland became the commodore. "I congratulate you, Captain Lincoln," said Dr. Winstock to the new commander, when he appeared in the uniform of his new rank. "Thank you, sir," replied Lincoln. "I have been satisfied for some time that you would attain this position." "I am only sorry to be promoted over Judson and Norwood, for they have always been good friends of mine." "If they are good and true friends they will rejoice at your success, though it places you over them. You have worked very hard, and you are fully entitled to your rank." "Thank you, sir. I have tried to do my duty," replied Lincoln, modestly. "When I see a young gentleman use the library as freely as you do, I am always tolerably confident that he will attain a high rank. We go on shore this forenoon, I believe." "I heard we were to make an excursion to-day, and another to-morrow." "You will see something of the interior of Norway, after all, though it is not quite possible to transport two hundred boys over a country where the facilities for travel are so meagre," added the surgeon. "For my part, I should like to walk, even a hundred miles." "That is not practicable. How could such a crowd be lodged and fed, in some of the small villages where you would be compelled to pass the night?" "I suppose it would not be possible, and I shall be satisfied with whatever the principal thinks best," replied the captain. The students were called to muster, and Mr. Lowington explained that he proposed to spend the day, in picnic style, at Frogner Sæter, and that the party would walk. The boats were then prepared, and the crews of the several vessels went on shore. Captains Kendall and Shuffles procured carriages, for the ladies were not able to walk so far. Passing out of the more densely settled portions of the city, the excursionists came to a delightful region, abounding in pleasant residences, some of which were grand and lofty. For a time the landscape was covered with small cottages, painted white or yellow; but as they proceeded they came to a country very sparsely settled, and very similar to that of New England. The road lay through woods of pine and fir, and had been constructed by Mr. Heftye, a public-spirited citizen, who owned a large estate at the summit of the hill. "This looks just like Maine," said Captain Lincoln, who walked at the side of Dr. Winstock. "Exactly like it. There is a house, however, which is hardly so good as those you see in Maine," replied the doctor. "It isn't any better than a shanty, and the barn is as good as the house. I wonder what that is for;" and Lincoln pointed to a bunch of straw, on the top of a pole, at the entrance of the barn. "I have seen two or three of those here, and near Christiansand." "It was grain placed there for the birds during the winter." "That's very kind of the people, I must say." "They are very kind to all their animals." Near the summit of the hill, the party came to the summer-house of Mr. Heftye, a very neat structure of wood, with a piazza, from which is obtained a beautiful view of the surrounding country. Another half hour brought them to the top of the hill, where the proprietor had erected a wooden tower, or observatory. It was some sixty or seventy feet high, and was stayed with rope guys, extending to the trees on four sides, to prevent it from being blown over. Only twenty of the boys were permitted to go up at one time, for the wind was tolerably fresh, and the structure swayed to and fro like the mast of a ship in a sea. From the top, mountains fifty miles distant could be seen. Christiania Fjord lay like a panorama in the distance, stretching as far as the eye could reach. To the west the country looked wild and desolate, and was covered with wood-crowned mountains, though none of any considerable height could be seen. It was a magnificent view, and some of the most enthusiastic of the students declared that it was worth a voyage to Norway; but boys are proverbially extravagant. A couple of hours were spent on the hill, the lunch was eaten, and the boys declared that they were well rested. The return walk was not so pleasant, for the novelties of the region had been exhausted. The road passed through private property, where there were at least a dozen gates across it in different places; and as the party approached, a woman, a boy, or a girl appeared, to open them. Kendall or Shuffles rewarded each of them with a few skillings for the service. When their two and four skilling pieces were exhausted, they were obliged to use larger coins, rather than be mean; but it was observed that the Norwegians themselves, though able to ride in a carriage, never gave anything. It was amusing to see the astonishment of the boys and girls when they received an eight skilling piece, and the haste with which they ran to their parents to exhibit the prize. The party reached the vessels at five o'clock, and after supper the boats were again in demand for a visit to Oscarshal, the white summer palace, which could be seen from the ship. Mr. Bennett had provided the necessary tickets, and made the arrangements for the excursion. It is certainly a very pretty place, but there are a hundred country residences in the vicinity of New York, Boston, or any other large city of the United States, which excel it in beauty and elegance, as well as in the expense lavished upon them. Before returning to the anchorage, the boat squadron pulled about for a couple of hours among the beautiful islands, and when the students returned to the fleet, they felt that they had about exhausted Christiania and its environs. The next day they went by the railroad train to Eidsvold, and there embarked in the steamer Kong Oscar for a voyage of sixty-five miles up the Mjosen Lake to Lillehammer, where they arrived at half past five in the afternoon. The scenery of the lake is pleasant, but not grand, the slope of the hills being covered with farms. Near the upper end, the hills are higher, and the aspect is more picturesque. Some of the western boys thought it looked like the shores of the Ohio River, others compared it with the Delaware, and a New Hampshire youth considered it more like Lake Winnipiseogee. Lillehammer is a small town of seventeen hundred inhabitants. M. Hammer's and Madame Ormsrud's hotel were not large enough to accommodate the party, and they began to experience some of the difficulties of travelling in such large numbers; but Mr. Bennett had done his work well, and sleeping-rooms were provided in other houses for the rest. The tourists rambled all over the town and its vicinity, looked into the saw-mills, visited the farms, and compared the agriculture with that of their own country; and it must be added that Norway suffered very much in the comparison, for the people are slow to adopt innovations upon the methods of their fathers. Early in the morning--for steamers in Norway and Sweden have a villanous practice of starting at unseemly hours--the students embarked for Eidsvold, and were on board the vessels long before the late sunset. On the quarter, waiting for the principal, was Clyde's courier, who had arrived that morning, after the departure of the excursionists. He evidently had not hurried his journey, though he had been told to do so. He delivered Sanford's brief note, which was written in pencil, and Mr. Lowington read it. The absentees were safe and well, and would arrive by Thursday. He was glad to hear of their safety, but as the squadron was now ready to sail, he regretted the delay. "Where did you leave the boys?" asked the principal of the courier. "At Apalstö," replied the guide, whose name was Poulsen. "Do you belong there?" "No, sir; I live in Christiania. I went down there with a young gentleman last Saturday." "Who was he?" "Mr. Blacklock, sir; a young English gentleman." "Ah! did you? And where is Mr. Blacklock now?" "I left him at Apalstö with a party of young gentlemen who were dressed like the people here; and he sent me back with this letter," replied Poulsen, who proceeded to explain that Clyde had engaged him as courier for Christiansand, but had changed his mind when he met the party belonging to the ship, and had concluded to return to Christiania with them. This was precisely what he had been told to say by the young Briton, and probably he believed that it was a correct statement. The principal saw no reason to doubt the truth of it, for Clyde must be satisfied that his mother was in Christiania by this time, and would naturally wish to join her. Anxious to console Mrs. Blacklock, Mr. Lowington called for a boat, and hastened on shore to see her. He found her, her daughter, and Paul Kendall and lady, in the reading-room at the Victoria--a unique apartment, with a fountain in the centre, a glass gallery over the court-yard, and lighted with many-colored lamps. The principal communicated the intelligence he had received of her son to Mrs. Blacklock, whose face lighted up at the news. "Then you have heard from the absentees, Mr. Lowington," said Paul Kendall. "Yes; they are on their way to Christiania, and Sanford says they will arrive to-morrow, at farthest; but they may be delayed," replied the principal. "No one need worry about them if they are safe and well," added Paul, glancing at Clyde's mother. "They are safe and well, but I intended to sail for Gottenburg to-morrow morning. I have almost concluded to do so, and leave some one to accompany the boys to Gottenburg in the steamer. I do not like to delay the whole fleet for them." "It would take a long time to beat out of the fjord against a head wind," added Paul. "If the wind is fair to-morrow morning, I shall sail, whether they arrive or not." "A steamer leaves for Gottenburg on Saturday morning, and she may arrive as soon as your ship," added Paul. "Very true. I think I will leave Peaks to look out for the absentees. Are you sure the steamer goes on Saturday?" "Yes, sir; here is the time table," replied Paul, producing a paper he had obtained at Mr. Bennett's. "Dampskibet Kronprindsesse Louise." "That's Norwegian, Paul. Can you read it?" laughed Mr. Lowington. "A little. 'Hver Löverday;' that means on Saturday; 'at 6 fm.,' which is early in the morning. She arrives at Gottenburg about midnight." "That will answer our purpose very well. We shall get under way early in the morning, Paul." "Then I will go on board of the yacht to-night, sir; but you need not wait for me, for I think I can catch you if you should get two or three hours the start of me. I haven't used my balloon jib yet, and am rather anxious to do so." "I shall not wait for you, then, Paul." After a long conversation with Mrs. Blacklock, in which he assured her again that nothing but firmness on her part could save her son from ruin, the principal left the hotel, and returned to the ship. In the evening Mr. and Mrs. Kendall went on board of the Grace. On the following morning, the wind being a little north of west, the signal for sailing was displayed on board of the Young America, and at six o'clock the fleet were under way. The weather was beautiful, and the fresh breeze enabled all the vessels to log eight knots an hour, which brought them fairly into the Skager Rack early in the afternoon. "I suppose we are off the coast of Sweden now," said Norwood, as he glanced at the distant hills on the left. "The pilot said Frederikshald was in this direction," replied Captain Lincoln, pointing to the shore. "It is at the head of a small fjord, and is near the line between Norway and Sweden." "Charles XII. was killed there--wasn't he?" "That's the place. The fortress of Frederiksteen is there, on a perpendicular rock four hundred feet high." "I wish we went nearer to the Swedish coast," added Norwood. "We shall see enough of it before we leave the Baltic," said Lincoln. "Probably we shall not care to see it after we have been looking at it a week." "According to the chart, this part of the coast is fringed with islands, but they don't look so bare and desolate as those of Norway. I had an idea that everything on this side of the ocean was entirely different from what we see on our side," added the captain. "That was just my idea." "But it isn't so. It is almost the same thing here as the coast of Maine. The shore here is hilly, and through the glass it looks as though it was covered with pine forests." "I expect to see something different before we return." "Not in the Baltic; for I fancy most of the southern coast looks like that of our Middle and Southern States." "Up here, even the houses look just as they do at home." "I don't believe we shall find it so in Denmark." As there was little to be seen, the regular routine of the squadron was followed, and those who were in the steerage, attending to their recitations, did not feel that they were losing anything. Later in the day, the wind was light, and the vessels made very little progress, though the course brought them nearer to the coast, where on the port bow appeared a high promontory, extending far out into the sea. The wind died out entirely just before sunset, and the sails hung motionless from the spars; for there was no swell to make them thrash about, as at sea. It was utter silence, and it was hard to believe that very ugly storms often made sad havoc in this channel. When the sun rose the next morning it brought with it a light breeze from the west, and the fleet again skimmed merrily along over the water. Its course was near the town of Marstrand, a noted Swedish watering-place, situated on an island. Soon after, pilots were taken, and the vessels stood into the harbor of Gottenburg, which is formed by the mouth of Göta River. Along the sides of the channel were posts set in the water, for the convenience of vessels hauling in or out of the harbor. The fleet came to anchor in a convenient part of the port, and those on board proceeded to take a leisurely survey of the city. The portion of the town nearest to them was built on low, flat land, and they could see the entrances of various canals. Farther back was a series of rugged hills, which were covered with pleasant residences and beautiful gardens. After dinner the students were mustered on deck, to listen to a few particulars in regard to the city, though it was understood that the general lecture on Sweden would be reserved until the arrival of the squadron at Stockholm. "What city is this?" asked Mr. Mapps. "Gottenburg," replied a hundred of the students. "That is plain English. What do the Swedes call it?" "G-ö-t-e-b-o-r-g," answered Captain Lincoln, spelling the word. "Perhaps I had better call on Professor Badois to pronounce it for you." "Y[=a]t-a-borg," said the instructor in languages, repeating the pronunciation several times, which, however, cannot be very accurately expressed with English characters. "And the river here is Ya-tah." "The French call the city _Gothembourg_. It is five miles from the sea, and is connected with Stockholm by the Göta Canal, which is a wonderful piece of engineering. Steamboats ply regularly between Gottenburg and the capital through this canal, the voyage occupying three or four days." "I intend to make a trip up this canal as far as the Wenern Lake, with the students," said Mr. Lowington. A cheer greeted this announcement, and then the professor described the canal minutely. "The principal street of Gottenburg," he continued, "is on the canal, extending through the centre of the city. There are no remarkable buildings, however, for the city is a commercial place. It was founded by Gustavus Adolphus, and, like many other cities of the north, being built of wood, it has several times been nearly destroyed by fire. The buildings now are mostly of stone, or of brick covered with plaster. The environs of the city, as you may see from the ship, are very pleasant. Now a word about the money of Sweden. The government has adopted a decimal system, of which the unit is the _riksdaler_, containing one hundred _öre_. The currency in circulation is almost entirely paper, though no bills smaller than one riksdaler are issued. The silver coins in use are the half and the quarter riksdaler, and the ten-öre piece; the latter being a very small coin. On the coppers, the value in öre is marked. A riksdaler is worth about twenty-seven cents of our money. Sweden is a cheap country." The signal was made for embarking in the boats, and in a few moments the Gottenburgers, as well as the people on board of the foreign vessels in the harbor, were astonished by the evolutions of the squadron. The students landed, and dividing into parties, explored the city. Their first care was to examine the canal, and the various craft that floated upon it; but the latter, consisting mainly of schooners, were not different from those they saw at home. They visited the exchange, the cathedral, the residence of the governor of the province, and other principal edifices. "How do you feel, Scott?" asked Laybold, after they had walked till they were tired out, and it was nearly time to go to the landing-place. "Tired and hungry," replied the wag. "I wonder if these Swedishers have anything to eat." "Probably they do; here's a place which looks like a restaurant." "I feel as though I hadn't tasted food for four months. Let's go in." They entered the store, which was near the _Bourse_. A neatly-dressed waiter bowed to them, and Scott intimated that they wanted a lunch. The man who understood English, conducted them to a table, on which a variety of eatables was displayed, some of which had a familiar look, and others were utterly new and strange. The waiter filled a couple of wine-glasses from a decanter containing a light-colored fluid, and placed them before the boys. "What's that?" asked Scott, glancing suspiciously at the wine-glass. "_Finkel_," replied the man. "Exactly so; that's what I thought it was," replied Scott, who had never heard of the stuff before. "Is it strong?" "No," answered the waiter, shaking his head with a laugh. "Everybody drinks it in Sweden." "Then we must, Laybold, for we are somebody." Scott raised the glass. The fluid had the odor of anise-seed, and was not at all disagreeable. The taste, too, was rather pleasant at first, and Scott drank it off. Laybold followed his example. We must do them the justice to say that neither of them knew what "finkel" was. Something like strangulation followed the swallowing of the fluid. "That's not bad," said Scott, trying to make the best of it. "No, not bad, Scott; but what are you crying about?" replied the other, when he recovered the use of his tongue. "I happened to think of an old aunt of mine, who died and left me all her money," added Scott, wiping his eyes. "But you needn't cry; she didn't leave any of the money to you." "What are you going to eat?" "I generally eat victuals," replied Scott, picking up a slice of bread on which was laid a very thin slice of smoked salmon. "That's not bad." The waiter passed to Laybold a small plate of sandwiches, filled with a kind of fish-spawn, black and shining. The student took a huge bite of one of them, but a moment elapsed before he realized the taste of the interior of the sandwich; then, with the ugliest face a boy could assume, he rushed to the door, and violently ejected the contents of his mouth into the street. "What's the matter?" demanded the waiter, struggling to keep from laughing. "What abominably nasty stuff!" exclaimed Laybold. "It's just like fish slime." "Don't you like it, Laybold?" asked Scott, coolly. "Like it? I don't like it." "Everybody in Sweden eats it," said the waiter. "What's the matter with it? Is it like defunct cat?" asked Scott. "More like defunct fish. Try it." "I will, my lad," added Scott, taking a liberal bite of one of the sandwiches. "How is it?" inquired Laybold. "First rate; that's the diet for me." "Very good," said the waiter. "You don't mean to say you like that stuff, Scott." "The proof of the pudding is the eating of the bag. I do like it, even better than 'finkel.'" "I don't believe it. No one with a Christian stomach could eat such stuff." "You judge by your own experience. I say it is good. Yours isn't a Christian stomach, and that's the reason you don't like it." "You are a heathen, Scott." "Heathen enough to know what's good." "Some more finkel, sir?" suggested the waiter. "No more finkel for me," replied Scott, whose head was beginning to whirl like a top. "Better take some more," laughed Laybold, who was in the same condition. "I can't stop to take any more; I'm hungry," replied Scott, who continued to devour the various viands on the table, till his companion's patience was exhausted. "Come, Scott, we shall be late at the landing." "We won't go home till morning," chanted the boozy student. "I will go now;" and Laybold stood up, and tried to walk to the door--a feat which he accomplished with no little difficulty. "Don't be in a hurry, my boy. Come and take some finkel." "I don't want any finkel." "Then come and pay the bill. I shall clean out this concern if I stay any longer." "How much, waiter?" stammered Laybold. "One riksdaler." "Cheap enough. I should have been broken if they charged by the pound for what I ate." "That's so," added Laybold, as he gave the waiter an English sovereign, and received his change in paper. "Now, my boy, we'll go to sea again," said Scott, as he staggered towards the door. "See here, Laybold." "Well, what do you want?" snarled the latter. "I'll tell you something, if you won't say anything about it to any one." "I won't." "Don't tell the principal." "No." "Well, then, we're drunk," added Scott, with a tipsy grin. "You are." "I am, my boy; I don't know a bob-stay from a bowling hitch. And you are as drunk as I am, Laybold." "I know what I am about." "So do I know what you are about. You are making a fool of yourself. Hold on a minute," added Scott, as he seated himself on a bench before a shop. "Come along, Scott." "Not for Joseph." "We shall be left." "That's just what I want. I'm not going to present myself before the principal in this condition--not if I know it." Laybold, finding that it was not convenient to stand, seated himself by the side of his companion. Presently they discovered a party of officers on their way to the boats, and they staggered into a lane to escape observation. The two students, utterly vanquished by "finkel," did not appear at the landing, and the boats left without them. CHAPTER XI. ON THE WAY TO THE RJUKANFOS. "What may the Rjukanfos be?" asked Clyde Blacklock, after his courier had started on his return to Christiania. "O, it's a big thing," replied Sanford. "You can bet high on it." "Doubtless I can; but is it a mountain, a river, or a lake?" "'Pon my word, I don't know. Here, Norway!" he shouted to Ole, who was with the rest of the party. "I'm here, Mr. Coxswain," replied the waif. "What's the Rjukanfos? You told me we ought to go there; but I'll be hanged if I know whether it's a lake or a river." "Neither a lake nor a river," replied Ole. "It's a big waterfall. _Fos_, on the end of a word, always makes a waterfall of it. There's another, the Vöringfos; but that's too far away." "How far is it?" "I don't know; but it's a long distance," added Ole. "All the other fellows think we are going to Christiania in the morning." "All but Stockwell and Rodman," answered Sanford, who had told Ole about the new recruit. "So you are going to play it upon them--are you?" laughed Clyde. "Just a little. We don't want to leave Norway without seeing something of the country, and the rest of the fellows won't go. So we are going to take them along with us." "Excellent! That will be a magnificent joke," exclaimed Clyde. "I'm with you. I suppose you all ran away from the ship when you found the tyranny was too much for you." "O, no! We didn't run away. We wouldn't do that. Somehow, by an accident, our boat was stove, and we were carried off by a steamer. Then we couldn't get back to Christiansand before the ship sailed, and we were obliged to come across the country to Christiania, you see." "I see," replied Clyde, knowingly. "But you don't mean to go back to the ship--do you?" "Certainly we do," protested Sanford. "Then you are bigger spoonies than I thought you were." "But we are afraid the ship will be gone before we can reach Christiania." "O, you are afraid of it." "Very much afraid of it." "You wouldn't cry if you found she had gone--would you?" "Well, perhaps we should not cry, for we think we ought to be manly, and not be babies; but, of course, we should feel very bad about it." "O, you would!" "Certainly we should; for if we were caught running away, staying away longer than is necessary, or anything of that sort, our liberty would be stopped, and we should not be allowed to go on shore with the rest of the fellows." "You are a deep one, Mr. Coxswain," added Clyde. "O, no! I'm only a simple-minded young man, that always strives to do his duty as well as he knows how." "I dare say you think it is your duty to visit the--what-ye-call-it?--the waterfall." "You see it is just as near to go that way as the other." "Is it?" "Well, if it isn't, we shall not know the fact till after we have been there." "I think I understand you perfectly, Mr. Coxswain; but I don't intend to return to the ship under any circumstances." "You can do as you please, but if we should happen to miss the ship, why, we shall be obliged to travel till we find her." "Exactly so," laughed Clyde. "But don't understand me that we mean to run away, or to keep away from the ship any longer than is absolutely necessary; for we are all good boys, and always mean to obey our officers." "I don't mean to do any such thing. After I hear that the ship has left Christiania, I shall go there, find my mother, and travel where I please." The next morning the party started on their journey, and by the middle of the afternoon arrived at a station between Lysthus and Tinoset, where the road to the Rjukanfos branched off from that to the capital. They were compelled to wait an hour here for a change of horses. Rogues rarely believe that they are suspected, and Sanford was confident that his companions, with the exception of Rodman and Stockwell, had no idea of his intentions. Burchmore had not failed to notice the repeated conferences between those who were plotting the mischief. He was not quite satisfied with the delay which had enabled the party to catch that solitary salmon at Apalstö. He was one of the first to enter the station-house where the carioles stopped. On the table he found "The Hand-book of Norway," which contained a large map. He was anxious to possess this book. "_Hvor_?" said he, using a word he had learned of Ole, which meant "how much," at the same time holding up the book, and exhibiting his money. "_Tre_," replied the woman in the room; by which he understood her to mean three marks, for at the same time she laughingly held up three fingers. Burchmore paid the money, and put the book into his pocket. Retreating behind the stable with Churchill, who rode in the cariole with him, he produced the volume, and spread out the map. Without much difficulty he found the road by which the party had come. Everything was right so far, and he was satisfied that they should arrive at Kongsberg that night. "Can you make out what's up, Burchmore?" asked Churchill, with whom the former had discussed his doubts and fears. "No; everything is right. Here we are, at the branching off of these two roads," replied Burchmore, indicating the locality with the point of his knife. "But Sanford is up to something. He, and Ole, and Stockwell are whispering together half the time. Perhaps they mean to leave us somewhere on the road." "They can, if they like," added Burchmore. "I am cashier, you know. Each fellow has paid me seven pounds, which I have changed into species and marks. No other one has any Norwegian money, or, at least, not more than a specie or two. They won't leave me." "They wouldn't make anything by it." "And Sanford runs with that English fellow, who seems to be a little fast." "He's a hard one," added Churchill, shaking his head. "Let them go it; I can keep the run of them now," said Burchmore, as he folded up the map, and put the Hand-book in his pocket. "Don't say anything about this book, Churchy." "Not a word." "I know where we are now, and I think I shall know better than to wait a whole day for horses again. That was a sell." "Do you think so?" "I thought so at the time, but I didn't want to make a fuss. I changed a sovereign for Ole yesterday, and I believe Sanford has bought him up. Never mind; we take the right hand road here, and as long as we keep moving I haven't a word to say." In less than an hour the horses were ready, and the procession of carioles moved off. Ole and Sanford led the way, and turned to the left, instead of the right. "That's wrong," said Burchmore, very much excited. "But what do they mean by going this way?" added Churchill. "I don't know, and I don't care; I only know it is the wrong way. Hallo!" he shouted to Sanford, and stopped his pony, which compelled three others behind him to stop also. "What's the matter?" called Sanford. "You are going the wrong way," replied the cashier. "No, this is right; come along;" and the coxswain started his team again. But Burchmore refused to follow him, and continued to block the way against those behind him. "Out of the way!" cried Clyde, who was in the rear. "This is not the right way to Kongsberg," said Burchmore. "Out of the way, or I'll smash you!" added the imperious Briton. The cashier was a peaceable young gentleman, and turned his horse out of the road. The cariole of Sanford was now out of sight. "Why don't you go ahead?" demanded Tinckner. "How do you know it is the wrong road?" "I am certain of it. Those fellows are up to some trick." As a portion of the procession did not follow its leader, Sanford and his companions turned back. "What's the matter, Burchmore? Why don't you come along?" cried the coxswain, angrily. "This is not the right road." "Isn't it, Ole?" added the coxswain, turning to his companion in the cariole. "Certainly it is." "I know it isn't," protested the cashier, vehemently. "You are up to some trick." "What trick?" asked Sanford, mildly, as he put on his look of injured innocence. "I don't know what; but I know this is not the right road to Kongsberg." "Who said anything about Kongsberg? We intend to go by the shortest way. Don't we, Ole?" "To be sure we do," replied the ready waif. "We are not going way round by Kongsberg." "You can't bluff me." "Don't want to bluff you. Go whichever way you like; and the one who gets to Christiania first is the best fellow. That's all I have to say." Sanford turned his pony, and drove off again, followed by Clyde, Stockwell, and Rodman. "How do you know this isn't the right way?" inquired Tinckner. "I'll tell you," replied the cashier, jumping out of the cariole, and taking the Hand-book from his pocket. The others soon joined him, and exhibiting the map, he explained his position to his friends. "Here's another road to Kongsberg," said Summers, indicating its direction on the map. "They may be going that way." "It is possible," added Burchmore, puzzled by this discovery. "It is farther that way than by Lysthus." "Not much; there's hardly any difference. I'm in favor of following Sanford." So were nearly all of them, and the cashier finally yielded. The tourists resumed their seats, and soon overtook the coxswain, who had evidently expected to be followed. Burchmore was annoyed by the discovery he had made, but as the pony attached to the cariole slowly climbed the hills, he studied the map and the text of the book he had bought. "We can't go much farther on this tack," said he, as he folded up his map. "What's to prevent us from keeping on to the north pole?" asked Churchill. "It is almost night, in the first place, and in the second, we shall come to a lake in the course of an hour, where we must take boats." "I don't believe anything is wrong about the matter." "Don't you? Then what are we doing up here?" "Never mind; we shall soon come to that other road, and then we shall know whether Sanford means to go to Kongsberg or not." "He has stopped ahead of us. He is waiting for us to come up," added Burchmore. "Yes; and there is the road which turns off to the right." "Why don't he go ahead?" Sanford and those who had arrived with him left the carioles, and gathered at the junction of the two roads. Burchmore followed their example. "What's the matter? What are you stopping here for?" demanded Clyde Blacklock, rather imperiously. "Some of the fellows think we are going to play them a trick," said Sanford, with his sweet and innocent smile. "Who thinks so?" asked Clyde. "Burchmore." "Which is Burchmore?" "That's my name," replied the cashier, rather indifferently. "Are you the fellow that wants to break up the party?" blustered Clyde. "No, I'm not. I'm the fellow that wants to go to Christiania. We ought to have kept to the right at the last station." "I insist on going this way." "I don't object; you can go whichever way you please," added the cashier, very gently. "But we mean to keep the party together; and we might as well fight it out here as in any other place." Clyde threw off his overcoat, as though he intended to give a literal demonstration of his remark. "I don't consider you as one of the party," added Burchmore. "Don't you?" "No, I do not. You don't belong to our ship, and I don't pay your bills." "No matter for that. If you are not willing to go the way the rest of us wish to go, I'll pound you till you are willing." "No, no, Old England; we don't want anything of that sort. Burchmore is a first-rate fellow," interposed the politic Sanford. "You leave this fellow to me; I'll take care of him. I can whip him out of his boots." "I shall stick to my boots for the present," replied Burchmore, who did not seem to be intimidated by the sharp conduct of the Briton. "I am willing to listen to reason, but I shall not be bullied into anything." "What do you mean by bullied? Do you call me a bully?" foamed Clyde. "You can draw your own inferences." "Do you call me a bully?" demanded Clyde, doubling his fists, and walking up to the cashier. "Enough of this," said Sanford, stepping between the Briton and his intended victim. "We shall not allow anybody to lick Burchmore, for he is a good fellow, and always means right." "I don't allow any fellow to call me a bully," replied Clyde. "He didn't call you a bully. He only said he would not be bullied into anything." "It's the same thing." "No matter if it is, Old England. You volunteered to pound him if he wouldn't go with us; and it strikes me that this is something like bullying," added the coxswain, with a cheerful smile. "I shall thrash him for his impudence, at any rate." "It isn't exactly civil to tell a fellow you will pound him if he won't go with us; and who shall thrash you for your impudence, eh, Old England?" "I mean what I say." "We shall allow no fight on this question, my gentle Britisher. If you should happen to hit Burchmore, I have no doubt he would wallop you soundly for your impudence." "I should like to see him do it," cried Clyde, pulling off his coat, and throwing himself into the attitude of the pugilist. "No, you wouldn't, Albion; and if you would you can't have that pleasure. There will be no fight to-day." "Yes, there will," shouted Clyde. "Not much;" and Sanford, Rodman, and Stockwell placed themselves between Burchmore and Clyde. "Dry up, Great Britain!" added Wilde. "We have a point to settle here," continued Sanford, taking no further notice of the belligerent Briton. "The right hand road goes to Kongsberg; but there is no hotel in that direction where we could sleep to-night. I propose, therefore, that we go on to--what's the name of the place, Norway?" "Tinoset," replied Ole. "To Tinoset, where there is a big hotel." "How far is it?" asked Churchill. "Only two or three miles. Then to-morrow we can go on to Kongsberg, unless you prefer to go a better way. I'm always ready to do just what the rest of the fellows say," added Sanford. The matter was discussed in all its bearings, and even Burchmore thought it better to sleep at Tinoset. "All right," said Sanford, as he moved off towards his cariole. "Not yet," interposed Clyde, who still stood with his coat off. "I haven't settled my affair with this spoony." Burchmore and Churchill walked leisurely towards their vehicle, while Rodman and Stockwell covered the retreat. "If you thrash him, you thrash the whole of us, Great Britain," said Rodman. "What kind of a way is that?" demanded the disgusted Briton. "We won't have any fight over this matter," added Stockwell. "Jump in, and let us be off." "We'll settle it when we get to that place," replied Clyde, seeing that this opportunity was lost. The procession resumed its journey, and in half an hour arrived at Tinoset. As it was early in the season, the hotel was not crowded, as it sometimes is. The town is at the foot of Lake Tins, upon which the little steamer Rjukan made three trips a week each way. The boat was to depart the next morning for Ornæs, which is only a few miles from the Rjukanfos. Sanford declared that the most direct route to Christiania was by steamer through this lake, and then by cariole the rest of the journey. Ole, of course, backed up all he said, and most of the boys wished to go that way. For some reason or other, Burchmore kept still, though he did not assent to the coxswain's plan, and the question was still open when the tourists were called to supper. "Ole, I want to see you alone," said the cashier, after the meal was finished. "What for?" asked Ole. "I have some money for you." "For me?" "Come along." Burchmore led the way to the lake, where they found a retired place. "What money have you for me?" demanded the astonished Norwegian. "How much did Sanford give you for humbugging us?" "For what?" "For playing this trick on us?" "I don't know what you mean." "The coxswain gave you a sovereign for fooling us. I'll give you five species, which is more than a sovereign, if you do what I want." "I will," replied Ole, promptly. "In the first place, where are you taking us?" "To Christiania." "Nonsense!" exclaimed the cashier, producing his book. "I know all about it. You ought to have gone to Lysthus, instead of taking the left hand road. We are two Norwegian miles out of our way now. Sanford has paid you a sovereign to lead us to some place he wishes to visit. Where is it?" "I only do what's right," protested Ole. "Bah! I know better! The story that no horses could be had at Apalstö was a humbug. I'll give you five species if you will do as I tell you." Ole looked complacent, and held out his hand for the money. "I don't pay till the work is done; but my word is as good as my bond." The waif had an "itching palm," and, after considerable discussion, the terms of payment were settled. "Now, where are we going?" asked the cashier. "To the Rjukanfos. It is a big waterfall, with high mountains--one of the finest places in Norway." "Exactly so; but we are not going there," added Burchmore, decidedly. "You will engage the carioles for to-morrow morning, and we must be in Kongsberg by noon, and near Christiania by night." "Sanford will kill me," replied Ole. "No, he won't; we will take care of him." "I can manage it, first rate. I will tell Sanford that we can go up quicker on the other side of the lake, and then cross over." "Tell him what you please, but my plan must be carried out," answered Burchmore, who, perhaps, believed that he should be justified in fighting the coxswain with his own weapons. "Here you are; I've been looking for you," said Clyde, presenting himself sooner than he was wanted. "You thought you would keep out of my way--did you?" "I have not given that subject any attention," replied Burchmore, coolly. "Yes, you have; you sneaked off here to keep out of my way." "As you please," replied Burchmore, who began to walk slowly towards the road. "You don't escape me this time," added Clyde, placing himself in front of the cashier. "I have no wish to escape you." "Yes, you have; you are a Yankee coward!" "Perhaps I am; but I'm not afraid of a British bully." "Do you call me a bully?" "Most distinctly I do, and I can prove my words." Clyde was rather startled by this exhibition of pluck, which he had not expected. "You call me a bully--do you?" "I do." "Then we'll settle it here. Off with your coat," blustered Clyde, as he divested himself. "I never fight if I can help it; but I always defend myself," replied Burchmore, resuming his walk towards the road. "Do you mean to run away?" demanded Clyde. "No; I mean to walk very leisurely back to the station-house." "No, you don't!" said the Briton, again placing himself before the cashier. Ole, who did not care, under the circumstances, to be seen with Burchmore by any one of the party, had disappeared by this time; but meeting Sanford near the lake, he had informed him what Clyde was doing. The coxswain hastened to the spot, with Stockwell and two or three others. But they were a little too late; for Clyde, feeling that he had gone too far to recede with honor, had struck Burchmore. When Sanford and the rest of the party reached the place, the belligerent Briton lay on the ground, where, after a sharp set-to and a black eye, he had been thrown by his cool opponent. He picked himself up, and was preparing for another onslaught, when the coxswain stepped between the combatants. "Enough of that, Albion," said he. Clyde made a rush towards Burchmore, but the others interfered, and held him back. In vain he struggled in his wrath, but the stout coxswain and his companions threw him upon the ground, and held him there till his anger had in a measure subsided. "Be off, Burchmore," said Sanford. "We will take care of him." "I am not afraid of him," replied the cashier. "Of course you are not; but clear out, and let us have peace." "He is afraid of me!" roared Clyde. "Nonsense, Great Britain! He would have mauled you to death if we hadn't interfered. He can whip his weight in wildcats." Burchmore walked away, and soon disappeared beyond the houses. Clyde foamed in his wrath for a while, but finally consented to be pacified, promising, very faithfully, to whip the cashier the next time he caught him alone. "Don't you do it, Albion. You never will see your mother again if you attempt it. Wait a few days, and then, if you insist upon it, we will let Burchmore thrash you all you want," replied Sanford, as they walked back to the station-house. Clyde had a bad-looking eye, and perhaps believed that he had had a narrow escape; but he still maintained his credit as a bully. At the hotel, the question of the route for the next day came up. Burchmore insisted upon going to Christiania by the way of Kongsberg, and Sanford, who had consulted Ole again, assented. The waif had assured him that they could reach the Rjukanfos quicker and better by the road than by the lake. The next morning the carioles were ready, and the tourists renewed their journey, and went back on the road by which they had come, till they came to that which led to Kongsberg. The "forbud" had been duly forwarded, and there were no delays or interruptions. "Where's the lake?" asked Sanford, when they had been riding about two hours. "O, the road don't go near the lake, till we get to the place where we cross," replied Ole, who was carrying out in good faith the arrangement he had made with the cashier. "How shall we cross the lake?" "In a steamer which goes at seven o'clock in the morning." "All right," replied the unsuspecting Sanford. "We shall come to a large town at noon; and we musn't stop a minute there, or those fellows will find where they are. We can tell them it is Kongsberg, you know," added the wily waif. "Just so," laughed Sanford; "we'll tell them it is Kongsberg, and they won't know the difference." "I don't think they will." At noon, agreeably to the promise of Ole, the travellers arrived at the large town, where they were obliged to change horses. "This is Kongsberg, Burchmore," said the coxswain. "Is it, really? or are you playing some trick upon us?" replied the cashier. "'Pon my word this is Kongsberg. Isn't it, Ole?" "Yes, certainly," answered the waif, winking slyly to Burchmore. "All right, Sanford; if you are satisfied, I am." "I know it is Kongsberg. I have been here before," added Clyde, wishing to give his testimony in carrying out the deception. It was quite true that he had been in Kongsberg, but Ole took care that he should not go to the part of the town he had visited before. The road looked familiar to him; but as he rode alone, he had no opportunity to state the fact to others. Before night the party arrived at Drammen, where a regular line of steamers runs to Christiania. "That's the lake--is it?" said Sanford, pointing to the Drammen River, which, below the town, is nearly two miles wide. "That's it." "What does Burchmore say? Does he know where he is?" "Not yet; I shall tell him this is Drammen, and he will believe me." "Good! and we will all stick to it that this is Drammen," added Sanford. "But suppose we should meet some one here who knows about the ship? This is a large town--bigger than that other which we called Kongsberg." "Whom can we meet?" "I don't know." "I should hate to have any one tell the principal that we have been to the Rjukanfos." "Some of the officers may come up here." "We must keep out of sight, then." Others thought this would be good policy in a large town. As they were fatigued, they retired early, and did not come down the next morning till it was nearly time to leave in the steamer. They all went on board, and were soon moving down the river. "Are we going across the lake, Ole?" asked Sanford. "This is a kind of arm of the lake, about a dozen miles long. We shall come to the lake in a couple of hours," replied the waif. "All right; but it must be a very large lake." "The biggest in Norway." In a couple of hours the steamer arrived at Holmsbo, on the Christiania Fjord. "Now you can see that this is a large lake," said Ole. "But where are we?" demanded Burchmore. "Is this the way to Christiania?" "Certainly it is," replied Sanford, who did not yet recognize the fjord, though the truth could not be much longer concealed. "Don't you know this water?" "No, I don't." "This is Christiania Fjord." "Is it, really?" "Yes, it is; you can bet your life upon it." "I am satisfied then." In another hour the steamer was fairly in the fjord; Sanford and Stockwell began to rub their eyes; for the scenery looked strangely familiar, though they could not fully identify anything. "What place is that ahead?" asked Sanford. "I am almost sure I have seen it before." "So am I," replied Stockwell. "That place?" added the cashier. "Yes; what is it?" "If this is Christiania Fjord, that must be Dröbak. I have a map here," said Burchmore, producing his book, and displaying the map. "Here we are; there's Holmsbo, and this must be Dröbak." "I don't understand it," replied the perplexed coxswain. "Don't you? Why, I think it is as clear as mud," laughed Burchmore. "We shall be in Christiania in a couple of hours. I thought you were playing some trick upon us, Sanford; but I see now that you were all right. There's the captain; he speaks English." "What town is that, captain?" asked the coxswain. "Dröbak; we shall be in Christiania in about two hours," answered the master. "Where's Ole?" demanded the coxswain, much excited. "What does it mean?" said Clyde. "I don't know. Where's Ole?" The waif evidently considered discretion the better part of valor, for he could not be found; and the coxswain and those in his confidence realized that they had been "sold" in their own coin. CHAPTER XII. THE BOATSWAIN AND THE BRITON. "Where's Ole? I don't understand it," repeated Sanford, after he had made another ineffectual search for the missing waif. "We have been sold, instead of selling those fellows," added Stockwell. "That's so; and I should rather like to know how it was done. Ole has sold us out." "Is this your Rjukanfos?" demanded Clyde Blacklock, who had been looking for some one upon whom to pour out his wrath. "Not exactly," answered Sanford, indifferently, for he did not particularly enjoy the airs of the Briton. "But what do you mean by bringing me here?" added Clyde. "I didn't bring you here. You came of your own free will and accord." "No, I didn't; you said we were going to the waterfall." "We thought so ourselves; but we have been deceived. Ole has sold out and made fools of us. You are no worse off than the rest of us." "To whom did he sell out?" asked Clyde, appeased when he learned that he was not the only sufferer. "I don't know. I don't understand it at all. We have been cheated out of the Rjukanfos, and brought to Christiania." "Well, what are you going to do about it?" inquired Stockwell. "We can't do anything about it. I suppose we shall be on board of the ship in an hour or two, telling the principal how hard we tried to be here before." "But I'm not going back to Christiania," protested Clyde. "I don't see how you can help yourself. This boat don't stop again till she arrives there." "I will not go to the ship again, at any rate," added Clyde. "Do as you like about that; it isn't our business." Clyde was much disturbed by the situation. As he always regarded himself as the central figure of the group, he began to suspect that the apparent miscarriage of the plan was a trick to lure him back to the ship; but Sanford seemed to be honest, and to be entirely discomfited by the discovery. Burchmore and Churchill were highly elated at the success attending their scheme, which had, indeed, exceeded their expectations; but they were as much mystified by the disappearance of Ole as the victims of the trick. Being unable to speak the language, they could not inquire for the absentee; but they made a very diligent search for him. They were more successful than Sanford's party had been, for, in going forward, they heard some high words in the quarters of the steamer's crew, in the forecastle. Listening for a moment, they heard the voice of Ole, who appeared to have concealed himself in that part of the vessel, and was properly regarded as an intruder by the rightful occupants thereof. "Come out here, Ole," shouted Burchmore. "We want you." Ole turned from the Norwegian sailors, who were scolding at him for taking possession of their quarters, to his friends and allies. "Where's Sanford?" he asked, rather timidly. "On deck." "He'll kill me." "Nonsense! We will take care of you against any odds," said the cashier, laughing heartily at the fears of the waif. "They have only just ascertained where they are. Come up, Ole." Thus assured, the young Norwegian climbed up the ladder, much to the satisfaction of the sailors. Burchmore was too well pleased with the trick he had played upon the conspirators to confine the knowledge of it to Churchill and himself, and had explained it to all who were not actually in the confidence of the coxswain. A majority of the party were thus arrayed on his side, though two or three of them would as readily have chosen the other side. The cashier was evidently the safer leader. "Sanford and that Englishman will pound me for the trick," repeated Ole, as he glanced at the quarter-deck, where his victims were considering the situation. "No, they won't; we are able and willing to protect you," replied Burchmore. "Come, we will go aft, and hear what they have to say." The cashier led the way, and the waif reluctantly followed him. "I believe you wanted to see Ole," said Burchmore, who could hardly look sober, he was so pleased with the result of his operations. "Yes; I did wish to see him," answered Sanford, rather coldly. "I will see him some other time." "O, I thought you wanted him now," laughed Burchmore. "I am satisfied that this is really Christiania Fjord." "So am I," added the coxswain, with a sickly smile. "And you were quite right, too, in saying that large place was Drammen," chuckled Burchmore. "Certainly I was." "Neither were you mistaken in regard to Kongsberg." "I find that I was not." "I suppose you remember the Irishman's turtle, that swallowed his own head, Sanford?" "Of course." "I don't mean to say that you swallowed your own head; but you found it just where you didn't expect to find it. Isn't that so?" "We are going to talk the matter over with Ole by and by." "Do it now. I know all about it. You and Ole arranged the first part of our journey, including the day's fishing we had at Apalstö; and Ole and I arranged the last part of it. It is an even thing now, and if you won't complain of the last part, I won't say a word about the first." "I don't understand it." "Don't you! Well, you gave Ole a sovereign to arrange things for you in the beginning, and I gave him five species to arrange them for me afterwards. You can't complain of a fellow, who sells himself at all, for making as much money as he can. Ole only did that." "He sold us out," growled Sanford. "Of course he did; if you buy a man, you mustn't grumble when he does a second time what you encouraged him to do in the first instance. But you were going to take us off to the Rjukanfos, fifty or sixty miles out of our way, without our knowledge or consent. I smelt a mice, and turned the tables," laughed the cashier. "Yes, and you cheated me," interposed Clyde. "I had nothing whatever to do with you," answered Burchmore, mildly. "You led me here when I wanted to go another way." "You went where you pleased, so far as I was concerned. I never invited you to come with me, or even consented to your doing so." "Did you say the place we came to yesterday was Kongsberg?" "I did, and so it was. But I think it was Sanford who first proclaimed the fact, and I cheerfully assented to its correctness," chuckled Burchmore. "But you deceived me, and I'll have it out with you," continued Clyde. "Just as you please about that; but you had better let that black eye bleach out before you begin again." "I can whip you!" blustered Clyde. "I'll meet you anywhere." "No, I thank you. If we meet for any such purpose as you suggest, it will be by accident." "See here, Great Britain; you needn't make another row," said Sanford. "I'm going to whip this fellow for what he has done, and for calling me a bully." "You are a bully," added Sanford. "That's so," exclaimed Stockwell. "Now you can lick the whole of us, if you insist upon it," continued the coxswain. "Perhaps I will," retorted Clyde, shaking his head fiercely. "You have got me into a pretty scrape." "You are in the same boat as the rest of us." "The squadron isn't here," shouted Wilde; for the steamer had by this time arrived within sight of the harbor. "Can the ship have sailed?" asked Sanford, after the party had satisfied themselves that not one of the vessels of the little fleet was there. "I suppose she has," replied Burchmore. "To-day is Friday, and she didn't intend to lie here all summer." "Good!" exclaimed Clyde. "That makes everything all right for me. I'm satisfied now." Indeed, he was so delighted with the discovery that the ship had sailed, as to be even willing to forego the pleasure of thrashing his companions. The steamer went up to the wharf, and the party landed. Sanford and his friends appeared to be willing to take a reasonable view of the situation, and to accept it without grumbling, satisfied that they had been beaten with their own weapons. They were not sorry that the squadron had departed, for this circumstance gave them a new respite from the discipline of the ship, and enabled them to prolong "the trip without running away." "What are you going to do now?" asked Clyde, as they landed. "We shall follow the ship, and try to join her," replied Sanford. "That's what we've been trying to do ever since we left Christiansand--isn't it, Burchmore?" "Certainly it is," replied the cashier; "though we were detained one day at Apalstö, and narrowly escaped being carried by accident to the Rjukanfos." "Are you going to blow upon us, Burch?" demanded Stockwell, warmly. "Am I? Did you ever know me to do such a thing?" added Burchmore, earnestly. "No! no!" replied the whole party. "I don't think it was just the thing to cheat some of us as you did; but I believe we are about even on that now." "Of course we all want to get back to the ship as soon as possible," added Sanford, rubbing his chin, significantly. "Certainly. She has gone to Gottenburg, and all we have to do is to follow her," said Churchill. "But if you want to go there by the way of the Cape of Good Hope, Sanford, it will be better to have the matter understood so in the beginning," added Burchmore. "I, for one, don't like to be bamboozled." "I won't try it on again," said Sanford. "All right, then; if you do, you may fetch up at Cape Horn." "Where shall we go now?" asked Sanford. "To the Victoria Hotel. It is the best in the place," replied Clyde. "That's the very reason why we don't want to go there. We are not made of money, and we may run out before we are able, with our utmost exertions, to reach the ship," added the cashier. "But my mother is there," continued Clyde. "Go to your mother, Great Britain, if you like. We shall stay at some cheap hotel," added Sanford. Clyde protested in vain against this arrangement, and the Americans, with the aid of Ole, found a small hotel, suited to their views of economy. The Briton went with them; but when they were installed in their new quarters, he left them to find his mother, at the Victoria. After dinner, the coxswain and his party wandered all over the city. At the Castle of Agerhaus, they saw an English steamer receiving freight. They ascertained that she was bound to Gottenburg, and would sail at seven o'clock that evening. They immediately decided, as they had seen enough of Christiania, to take passage in her. The arrangement was speedily made, and they went on board, without troubling themselves to inform Clyde of what they intended to do. When the sun went down that evening the party were far down the fjord. Sanford had ascertained that the ship sailed early on Thursday morning, and the steamer on which they had taken passage could not arrive at Gottenburg till nearly noon on Saturday. It was understood that the squadron would remain but a short time at this port, and it was possible that it would have departed for Copenhagen before the steamer arrived. He hoped this would prove to be the case; but he studied a plan by which the excursion of the party could be prolonged, if the hope should not be realized. He did not wish to return to the ship, because he thought it was pleasanter to travel without the restraints of discipline. Perhaps most of his party sympathized with him, and thought they could have a better time by themselves. Sanford desired to inform Clyde of the intention of the party to leave in the English steamer, and to take him along with them; but his companions overruled him unanimously, for they were too glad to get rid of an impudent, overbearing, and conceited puppy, as he had proved himself to be. The coxswain had no better opinion of him than his friends; but as Clyde was a runaway, according to his own confession, it might smooth their own way, in returning to their duty, if they could deliver him up to the principal. He was even willing to resort to strategy to accomplish this end; but Clyde was so disagreeable that he was saved from this trap. The ship had gone, and every vessel of the squadron had departed with her. Clyde felt that all his trials were ended, and he had nothing more to fear from the big boatswain. He walked confidently to the Victoria Hotel, where he was sure to find his mother. He had even arranged in his mind the reproaches with which he intended to greet her for delivering him over to the savage discipline of the Young America, as he regarded it, and as, doubtless, it was for evil-doers. He passed into the passage-way which led to the court-yard. As he entered the office on the right to inquire for Mrs. Blacklock, he encountered Peaks, who no sooner saw him than he laid violent hands upon him. "Let me alone!" shouted Clyde, struggling to escape from the grasp of his powerful antagonist. "Not yet, my beauty," replied the boatswain, as he dragged his victim into his own room, which was near the office. "I've been looking for you." "I want to see my mother," growled Clyde, when he had exhausted his strength in the fruitless struggle to escape. "I dare say you do; babies always want to see their mothers." "I'm not a baby." "Then behave like a man." Peaks deposited him on a chair, and permitted him to recover his breath. "Where is my mother?" demanded Clyde. "She is safe and well, and you needn't bother your head to know anything more about her," answered Peaks. "She has turned over a new leaf, so far as you are concerned, youngster, and is going to have us make a man of you." "Where is she?" "No matter where she is." "Can't I see her?" "No, sir." "I must see her." "Perhaps you must, my hearty; but I don't think she wants to see you till you are a decent young gentleman. She told me to be sure and put you on board of the ship, and I'm going to do it." "Where is the ship?" "She sailed for Gottenburg yesterday morning; but we shall find her in good time," replied Peaks, taking a bundle from the bureau, which contained the young Briton's uniform. "Now, my bantam, you don't look like a gentleman in that rig you've got on. Here's your gear; put it on, and look like a man again, whether you are one or not. Those long togs don't become you." The boatswain unfolded the uniform of Clyde, which he had left in his chamber when he leaped out of the window. "I'm not going to put on those clothes," protested the unhappy youth. "No?" "I'm not!" "Then I'm going to put them on for you." "I'll cry murder." "If you cry anything, I shall put a dirty handkerchief in your mouth. Look here, my chicken; don't you know that you are making a fool of yourself? You mean to strain your own timbers for nothing. You'll put this rig on anyhow, and it depends on yourself whether you will do it with or without a broken head." Clyde looked at the clothes and then at the brawny boatswain. It was foolish to resist, and he yielded to the force of circumstances. He put on the ship's uniform, and threw himself into a chair to await the further pleasure of his tyrant. "Now you look like a respectable young gentleman, my lad," said Peaks. "What are you going to do with me?" demanded Clyde, in a surly tone. "I'm going to keep my eye on you every moment of the time till you are on board of the ship again." "I want to see my mother before I go." "It can't be done." Clyde relapsed into silence. He had never before been subjected to such unheard-of tyranny. It was useless to resist, and the future looked as dark as the present. Probably his mother was in the hotel, but he was not permitted even to see her. Though the boatswain seemed to have it all his own way, he was not at all satisfied with the situation. Mrs. Blacklock and her daughter had gone to ride, but in the course of an hour or two they would return. The waiters would inform her that Clyde had arrived, and she would insist on seeing him. Though she had fully given up the control of him to the ship, the weakness of the mother might induce her to change her mind. Peaks only desired to discharge the duty with which he had been intrusted. The crew of the second cutter had not yet arrived, and he could not depart with his prisoner before they came. He was perplexed; but being a man of expedients, he decided upon his course in a short time. It was absolutely necessary to seek another hotel, where the dangerous proximity of Mrs. Blacklock might be avoided. The boatswain rang his bell, and sent for the _commissionnaire_ whom he had employed while prosecuting his search for the runaway. When this man came, he ordered a carriage, and paid his bill. "Now, youngster, we are going to take a ride," said Peaks to his victim. "Where are you going?" "That's my affair. If you make a row in the street, I shall just hand you over to the police, who will lock you up in that stone castle over there. You must understand that you are a deserter from your ship, and will be treated so, if you don't behave like a man. Now come with me." As a deserter from his ship! The boatswain certainly had the weather-gage of him, and the idea of being thrown into prison was absolutely startling to Clyde. He had no doubt the savage boatswain would do all he threatened, and, almost for the first time in his life, he felt no inclination to bully. He stepped quietly into the carriage with Peaks and the _commissionnaire_. The driver was directed to convey the party to the landing-place. The steamer would sail the next morning; but unless the absent crew of the cutter arrived before that time, he could not go in her. Remaining in Christiania, he feared to encounter Mrs. Blacklock, for the honest tar dreaded a lady's power more than the whole battery of a ship of the line. He was fully resolved, if he passed through fire and water in doing it, to discharge the duty intrusted to him by the principal. The lady was in the city, and the problem was to keep his charge out of sight of her during the rest of his stay. He might meet her; some one at the hotel might, and probably would, inform her of the arrival of Clyde. After deliberating for some time, he directed his _commissionnaire_ to procure a boat, in which he embarked with his prisoner and interpreter. By his order the two oarsmen pulled over to the hotel which was located so picturesquely on the island. Taking a room, he ordered dinner for his little party, and contrived to pass away the afternoon till sunset, when he returned to the city. His man, at his request, conducted him to an obscure hotel, which happened to be the one which Sanford and his friends had just left, to depart by the English steamer. The landlord recognized the uniform which Clyde wore. "We had more of the young gentleman here," said he, in broken English. "More of them!" exclaimed Peaks, interested in the intelligence. "Yes; more as ten of them," added the landlord. "Arn't they here now?" asked Clyde, who had felt a ray of hope when Peaks brought him to the hotel where he had left his late companions. "All gone; no more here." "Where have they gone?" asked the boatswain. "To Gottenburg. They eat some dinner in my hotel, and at seven o'clock they go in the steamer." "I saw that steamer go out, but I didn't think the cutter's crew were in her. I'm sorry I didn't know it before," said Peaks, chagrined by this tardy discovery. "How many were there of them?" "Ten." "That couldn't be; there were only nine of the crew." "There was more as ten, but one of them went away." "I went away," said Clyde. "You! Were you with them?" demanded Peaks. "I was." "Why didn't you say so before?" "You didn't ask me; and as you were not remarkably civil to me, I didn't feel obliged to tell you the news." "But there were not ten of them." "Yes, ten," said Clyde. "There were only nine when they left the ship." "I know there were ten with me. One of them was a Norwegian, and a rascal; but he wore the same uniform as the rest of them." "What was his name?" "Ole." "Ole! Why, he's the fellow we picked up out at sea," exclaimed the astonished boatswain. "Where have they been all this time?" But Clyde suddenly bethought himself that he was altogether too communicative, considering the relations that subsisted between himself and his great enemy and persecutor, and he decided to answer no more questions. "All right, my hearty," laughed the boatswain, when the Briton declined to answer. "They are on their way to the ship, and you will be very soon." Peaks was cunning enough to detain his interpreter so that he should not return to the Victoria and inform Mrs. Blacklock where her son was. The way was clear now, for he had no further responsibility in regard to the cutter's crew, and his spirits rose accordingly. He sent his man to engage a "hütte," or state-room, in the steamer, and then, at a late hour in the evening, paid and discharged him. He compelled Clyde to sleep in the same chamber with him, for it contained three beds, and it is probable that the boatswain kept one eye open during the night, for every time the prisoner moved, his tyrant was on his feet. The Kronprindsesse Louise sailed at six o'clock in the morning, and Peaks and his victim were betimes on board. The boatswain was a happy man when the boat was clear of the wharf, and on her way to Gottenburg. He flattered himself that he had managed the affair very well indeed, for he was not above the vanities of the flesh. It was midnight when the Kronprindsesse arrived at her destination. Peaks had kept one eye on Clyde all the time, and brought him in safety to his journey's end. Late as was the hour, the first person he saw at the landing was Mr. Blaine, the chief steward of the ship. "I'm glad to see you, Blaine," shouted the boatswain when he identified his shipmate, and grasped his hand. "Shiver my timbers if I'm not rejoiced to see a man that speaks plain English! Where's the ship?" "She sailed for Copenhagen this evening." "No; you don't say so!" "It's a fact. The students went up the canal as far as the falls, and returned about dark. The squadron got under way at once. I suppose you have the cutter's crew with you, Peaks?" "No; arn't they on board yet?" "I haven't seen them." "But they came down on an English steamer that left Christiania last night." "An English steamer came in this forenoon, but we haven't seen the cutter's crew." "That's strange. I shouldn't wonder if those fellows were cutting up a little." "But we lost two students yesterday, Scott and Laybold. I suppose they ran away." "There's a screw loose somewhere. These boys have too much money," added Peaks. "But what are you going to do, and what am I to do?" "I was left here to look out for Scott and Laybold, and meet you when you came. Now, it seems that about a dozen of the rascals are missing." "I have the Briton here." "If I were you, Peaks, I should go right on to Copenhagen in this steamer, and you can report the facts to the principal." The boatswain decided to do this, while the head steward remained to search for the absentees; and in due time Peaks delivered his prisoner on board of the ship in the harbor of Copenhagen. CHAPTER XIII. THE MEETING OF THE ABSENTEES. Scott and Laybold, after imbibing a single glass of "finkel" each, which proved to be more than they could carry, retreated into a narrow lane, to escape the observation of a party of officers who were on their way to the landing. Neither of them had any inclination for intoxicating drinks, and had taken the stuff without knowing what it was. But they were conscious that everything was not right with them. They found it quite impossible to walk in a straight line, and even the problem of standing up was not demonstrated to the entire satisfaction of either of them. Talking was not without its difficulties, for their tongues seemed to be double their ordinary thickness, and their lips and other organs of speech were not as manageable as usual. For a time the effects of the potent liquor increased upon them, and as they had taken it in a hungry condition, they realized its full power. They staggered up the lane, conscious that they were making a ridiculous figure, though the solemn Swedes hardly smiled as they observed the effects of the national beverage. They dreaded an encounter with any of the officers, or others connected with the squadron; but in this unfrequented lane they were not likely to meet any of their shipmates. As there is more power in four legs than in two, however weak in detail they may be, the tipsy students locked arms, and leaned on each other, one attempting to counteract the obliquities of the other. They wandered along without knowing whither they were going, till they came to a small public house, which had a bench in front of it for the accommodation of the topers who frequented the bar-room. By mutual consent, and without argument, the unfortunate couple aimed for this seat as soon as they saw it, for it promised a grateful respite from the perils of locomotion. The "finkel" was now doing its utmost upon them. Their heads were dizzy, and everything was wofully uncertain; still they knew what they were about, and had sense enough left to dread the consequences of their indiscretion. After they had seated themselves, they glanced at each other, as if to ascertain the condition one of the other. "Lay--bold," said Scott. "Well, old fellow," replied the other, with a desperate attempt to stiffen his muscles. "We're zrunk," added Scott, trying to laugh. "I know that." "We're very zrunk." "I'm not zbad zyou." "I don't zknow." The conversation extended no further then, for speech required an effort they were incapable of making. Scott gaped violently, and seemed to be sick; but his contortions ended in his falling asleep, with his head tipped back against the wall. Laybold, more nice in the disposition of his helpless body, stretched himself on the bench, and was soon lost to all consciousness of the outer world. The publican who kept the house came out and looked at the juvenile tipplers. Doubtless he had seen too many drunken sailors to misapprehend their condition. He understood the matter perfectly, and being a thrifty Swede, he was disposed to turn their condition to his own emolument. He had sundry vacant chambers in his hotel, whose revenues swelled the sum total of his annual profits, and it hurt his feelings to have them remain unoccupied. Besides, the air was chilly, and the young strangers might take cold, and contract a severe illness by such exposure. But whether he was a publican or a Samaritan in his intentions, he decided to remove the strangers to the rooms beneath his hospitable roof. Summoning the porter to his aid, they jointly bore Laybold to his apartment, and laid him on the bed, which, in spite of the low character of the house, was a model of Swedish neatness. When Scott's turn came, he offered some resistance to the good intentions of the publican; but his head was too thoroughly muddled for successful opposition. Between the effects of sleep and "finkel" he could not obtain a very clear idea of what was going on. He was placed on another bed in the room with his shipmate. They were both comfortably disposed on their clean couches, the pillows nicely adjusted beneath their heads, and their bodies covered with blankets. The two students were very tired as well as very tipsy, and their slumbers were deep and heavy. It was after nine o'clock, though it was still light in the chamber, and the young tars usually retired, when not on watch, before this seemly hour. "Finkel" and fatigue did the rest, and they slept, without rocking, till long after the early sun broke into the windows of their apartment. We have seen the effect of "finkel" upon one unaccustomed to the use of liquor, and upon boys of fifteen or sixteen it could not but be entirely overpowering. It is a dangerous fluid, and is taken by the Swedes at all times, being the first thing at meals, and especially at the inevitable "snack" that precedes a regular dinner. There is, doubtless, good ground for the fear which has been expressed that the people of Sweden are in danger of becoming "a nation of drunkards." Scott was the first to open his eyes and come to his senses. He raised himself in the bed, shook off the blanket, and then jumped out upon the floor. He did not comprehend the situation, and was unable, in his own words, to "figure up how he happened to be in that room." "Laybold, ahoy!" shouted he, after he had examined the apartment, and mentally confessed his inability to solve the problem. "Laybold! All hands on deck!" "What is the matter?" cried Laybold, springing up, only half awake. "I'll be muzzled if I know what the matter is, but I believe that the Norway god--what's his name?--Odin, came aboard the ship last night, and turned her into a country tavern," replied Scott, going to the window, and looking down into the lane below. "How came we here?" asked Laybold, rubbing his eyes. "That's more than I know; but I think we have been transplanted by the spirits." "The spirits?" gaped Laybold. "Yes; I believe they call them 'finkel.' We were tight last night, my boy." "I remember all about it now. I dreamed that somebody lugged me in here." "You didn't exactly dream it, for here we are. We are in a pretty scrape." "That's so," added Laybold, shaking his head. "We didn't mean to run away, but that's just what we have done." "We didn't run a great way; for, if I remember rightly, running wasn't our _forte_ last evening. Who runs may reel, if he can't read, and I reckon we did more reeling than running. But what's to be done?" "I don't know." "In the first place, where are we? It's no use to lay out a course till we know the ship's position." They were utterly unable to determine this question. Each of them had a tolerably vivid recollection of their unfortunate condition on the preceding evening, and even that he had been carried by a couple of men; but they had no idea of time or locality. They washed themselves at the sink in the room, combed their hair with their pocket-combs, and looked then as though nothing had happened. Their heads were a little light, but they did not absolutely ache, and they realized but a small portion of the after effects of a regular "spree." Having made their simple toilet, they decided to explore the premises, and make their way back to the ship. Leaving the chamber, they descended a flight of steps, and, in the hall below, encountered the Samaritan landlord. "_God morgon_," said the latter, with a jolly smile on his face; and it was probable that he had taken his morning dose of "finkel." "_Hur star det till?_" (How are you?) "Nix," replied Scott, shrugging his shoulders. "You are English," added the landlord, a large portion of whose customers were foreign sailors. "No; Americans." "I'm glad to see you." "I'm glad to see you, too, if you can tell us how we happen to be here." "Too much 'finkel,'" laughed the publican, as he proceeded to explain the situation, and to enlarge upon the fatherly interest which had induced him to take them in for the night. "All right, my hearty. I see you can keep a hotel," added Scott. "How much have we to pay?" "Two rigsdalers; but you want some breakfast." "I do, for one," replied Scott. "So do I," said Laybold. "We only had a little lunch last night, and that 'finkel' spoiled my appetite--or the fish spawn. I don't know which." About five o'clock they sat down to breakfast, which consisted of a great variety of little things, such as the small fishes, herrings, smoked salmon, sausages. The coffee was magnificent, as it generally is in Sweden, even on board of steamers, where, in our own country, it is least expected to be good. "What is this?" said Scott, taking up half a great brown biscuit. "That's Swedish bread. We bake it once in six months," replied the landlord. "Not bad," added Scott, as he tasted the article. "This is Graham bread, I suppose," said Laybold, as he took a slice of the coarse brown bread. "Bah! it's sour." It always is; and both the students rejected it, though they ate a hearty meal of white bread, herring, salmon, and sausage. "Now, how much?" asked Scott, when they were ready to go. "One rigsdaler and fifty öre each--three rigsdalers in all." "Cheap enough," said Scott. "Two lodgings and two breakfasts for eighty-one cents." The students walked through the lane in which they had made their devious way the night before, to the main street on the canal. At the landing-place there were no boats belonging to the squadron, and everything looked exceedingly quiet on board of the ship. Seating themselves on the pier, with their legs hanging over the water, they decided to wait till a boat came to the shore. "We shall catch it for this," said Laybold. "No more liberty for a month at least," said Scott, shrugging his shoulders after his fashion. "I don't think it's fair. We didn't mean to get drunk, and didn't know what 'finkel' was," added Laybold. "I don't half like to go on board again." "Nor I; but I suppose we must face the music," answered Scott, dubiously. "I'm glad we didn't go on board while we were boozy. The fellows would have laughed at us for a year, if we had." "That's so; and Lowington would have put us in the brig." "I don't exactly like to explain the reason why we didn't go on board last night; I always was a bashful fellow." "You didn't go with the others," said a man, coming up to them at this moment, and speaking in broken English. "What others? Where?" replied Scott. "The other students. They took the steamer up the canal at two o'clock this morning." "Whew!" whistled Scott. "We have lost Göta Canal and the falls." "They will return to-night by the railroad from Wenersberg," added the man, who was an agent of the canal steamers. "That's too bad!" exclaimed Laybold, as the man walked away. "I don't know that it is too bad. Our leave would have been stopped if we had gone on board," laughed Scott, who generally took the most cheerful view of any disagreeable subject. "Why can't we go on our own hook?" "I like that idea," added Laybold. But inquiring of the agent, they learned that the canal steamers left only at two o'clock in the morning. "There's a railroad, or the fellows couldn't come back that way," suggested Laybold. "That's so; you have more wisdom than a Duxbury clam." They ascertained that a train left Gottenburg at noon, by which they could reach Wenersberg the same day. They knew nothing of the plan of the principal, which included a special train from the canal to the main line of railway; but they desired to see more of the interior of Sweden, and they were confident they should see the excursionists either at Wenersberg or on the way. It suited them better to make a trip even for a few hours, than to wander about a city which they had already exhausted. But they were obliged to wait some time for the train, and, after a couple of hours of "heavy loafing" about the streets, they returned to the pier. An English steamer had just arrived, and a boat was landing her passengers. "Who are those fellows?" said Laybold, pointing to the steamer's boat. "They wear the ship's uniform." "Right; they do, and they came from that steamer," replied Scott. "There's Sanford! I should know him a mile off. They are the second cutters, or I am a Dutchman." "Right again," added Scott, as the passengers landed. The steamer was the one in which Sanford and his companions had taken passage at Christiania the evening before. The absentees, "on a cruise without running away," were sorry to see the ship at anchor in the harbor, for some of them had hoped to be too late for her. When they landed, the first persons they encountered were Scott and Laybold, who gave them a very cordial greeting. Each party had a story to tell of its own adventures, and Scott knew Sanford and his associates too well to think it necessary to conceal from them the fact that he and Laybold had been the sad victims of "finkel." "But why don't you go on board?" asked Burchmore. "What's the use? All the fellows have gone up to Wobblewopkins, or some other place, to see the falls, and take an inside view of Sweden," replied Scott. "We intend to go and do likewise." "Won't you go with us?" added Laybold. The intentions of the two were explained to the others, and they all decided to join the party. Sanford was not without a hope that something would occur to prolong the "independent trip without running away." "How are you off for stamps?" asked Burchmore of the two who were by this arrangement added to his party, for which he had thus far done the financiering. "We have a little Swedish money, and some sovereigns," replied Scott. "But how many sovereigns? We may be prevented from joining the ship for a few days, and we want to know where we are in money matters," interposed Sanford. "We have enough to buy out one or two of these one-horse kingdoms, like Denmark and Sweden. I have twenty sovereigns, and Laybold has about a thousand," answered Scott. "No I haven't," protested Laybold, laughing at the extravagance of his friend. "I have only twenty-five sovereigns." "And a letter of credit for a thousand more; so it's the same thing." "No, no; knock off one cipher, Scott." "Well, seeing it's you, I'll knock off just one; but not another to please any fellow, even if he were my grandmother's first cousin," added Scott. "There's some difference between a hundred and a thousand pounds," suggested Sanford. "A slight difference," said Laybold. "I don't expect any of us will live long enough to spend a hundred pounds in this country, which is about eighteen hundred of these tricks-bunker dollars, to say nothing of a thousand. Why, we paid only three bunkers for two lodgings and two breakfasts. How's a fellow ever to spend eighteen hundred bunkers? For my part, I think I'm lucky in having less than four hundred of the things to get rid of." "But you needn't feel under the necessity of spending all your money in this country," laughed the cashier. "My father promised to send me some more; but I hope he won't do it till I get out of Sweden. If he does I shall be ruined. Here's poor Laybold, with a letter of credit for a hundred pounds, besides twenty-five in cash. I pity the poor fellow. It wouldn't be so bad in London, where it costs a fellow from ten to twenty shillings a day to breathe." "I think I shall be able to survive," added Laybold. "I hope so; but you ought to hear him talk about his bankers. Topsails and topping-lifts! His bankers! Messrs. Pitchers Brothers & Co." "No! Bowles Brothers & Co," interposed Laybold. "It's all the same thing; there isn't much difference between bowls and pitchers. One breaks as easy as the other." "But my bankers don't break." "His bankers! Do you hear that? Well, I don't believe they'll break, for all my folks, when they travel in Europe, carry the same letter of credit in their trousers pocket. I had to write to my paternal parent all last year, care of Bowles Brothers & Co., 449 Strand, Charing Cross, W. C. London, England. You see I've learned my lesson." "My letters from home come through the same house," said Laybold, "and so do those of fifty other fellows." "About the money matters," interposed Burchmore. "Shall I act for the crowd, as I did in Norway?" "For me, yes; and I hope you'll help Laybold out on the big financial job he has on his hands," said Scott. "All right," added Laybold. "I have settled up for the fellows on the Norway trip. Now, each of you give me a couple of sovereigns, which I will change into Swedish money." This arrangement was made to the satisfaction of all, and the cashier went to an exchange office, where he procured Swedish paper for the gold. "Scott, I shouldn't wonder if the principal saved you the trouble of spending your twenty pounds before we go much farther," said Sanford. "I shall thank him with tears in my eyes if he does," replied Scott, with a solemn look. "I don't believe you will. When the ship came over before, every fellow had to give up his money, and the purser doled it out to the fellows in shillings or sixpences when they went ashore." "I'm sure it was very kind of him to take so much trouble." "You don't think so." "Of course I do. Only think of poor Laybold, with a letter of credit for a hundred pounds on his hands! I'm thankful I haven't the responsibility of spending so much money on my conscience. I should apply for admission to the first lunatic asylum, if I had to spend so much." "Nonsense! I made up my mind not to give up my money," said the coxswain. "That rule made plenty of rows on the other cruise, and I expect the fellows on this cruise will be called upon to give up their stamps very soon." "I was going to say we could get even with the principal by spending it all before we go on board again; but we are in Sweden, and it is quite impossible. They won't let you pay more than seventy-five cents or a dollar for a day's board in this country." "You went to a sailor's boarding-house, Scott. When you are at a first-class hotel, you will find that they bleed you enough." "I hope they do better than the landlord where we staid last night; if they don't I shall make money in Sweden. Why, they wouldn't even pick our pockets when we were boozy on 'finkel.' I'm sure they are a great deal more accommodating at sailors' boarding-houses in Boston and New York." "Come, be serious, Scott. Shall you give up your money when you return to the ship?" "Cheerfully, for there is no chance to get rid of it in this country." "But you will want some in Russia, where everything is dear." "I'm afraid my letter of credit will arrive by that time, and I shall be burdened with new trials." "Poor fellow!" The old rule of the ship had not been enforced on the present cruise, and the principal did not intend to renew it until it was absolutely necessary. It had caused much complaint among the wealthy parents of the former students, while it had wonderfully improved the discipline; but Mr. Lowington consented to make the experiment of permitting every boy to manage his own finances. At noon the party took their places in a second-class compartment of the carriage on the railway, and started for Wenersberg. Ole spoke Swedish as well as Norwegian, and acted as interpreter. Sanford had made peace with the waif, who was now as popular as ever with all the party. Each of them, in turn, had tried to induce Ole to tell how he happened to be in that boat at sea; but he still refused to explain. The train moved off, and the tourists observed the country through which it passed; but Scott could not help grumbling because the fare was only about a dollar and a quarter for fifty miles, declaring that he should never be able to get rid of his twenty sovereigns at this rate, and that he was threatened with a letter of credit for a hundred more at St. Petersburg. At Herrljunga, the junction of the branch to Wenersberg and the main line, the guard insisted that the tourists should leave the carriage. "How's this, Ole?" asked Sanford. "Change for Wenersberg; but the train don't start till five o'clock. We must wait two hours." "But what time does it get to Wenersberg?" "About half past eight." "That's a pretty go!" exclaimed the coxswain. "You made a beautiful arrangement for this trip, Scott." "What's the matter now?" "We cannot get to Wenersberg till half past eight; and of course that will be too late to join the ship's company there." "It isn't necessary to join them there. We shall meet them on the way, and go back with them. They will be at this place some time this afternoon." "What did we come up here for?" asked Sanford. "In the first place, to get rid of four or five rix-bunkers; and in the second, to see something of this part of Sweden. We have done both, and ought to be satisfied." "O, I'm satisfied!" "You ought to be; you have four and a half bunkers less to spend. We will loaf about this place till the principal comes with the crowd, and when he sees what good boys we have been to look him up, and see that he didn't get lost, he'll forgive Laybold and me for drinking 'finkel.'" "All right. What time does the train leave for Gottenburg, Ole?" added the coxswain, turning to the interpreter. "Half past five," replied the waif. No one took the trouble to examine the time-table in the station-house, which, though in Swedish, was perfectly intelligible so far as it related to hours and towns. The tourists decided to improve the time they were obliged to wait by taking a walk about the country, examining Swedish houses and investigating Swedish agriculture. Doubtless this was a very interesting amusement; but at quarter past five, the party returned to the station. A long train was just departing in the direction of Gottenburg. "What train's that?" demanded Sanford. "I don't know," replied Ole, with a look of alarm. "Inquire, then," added the excited coxswain. The party hastened into the little station. It was the regular train for Gottenburg. "But how's that?" cried Sanford. "You said it left at half past five." "Yes; I looked at the time-table in Gottenburg, and it said half past five," replied Ole. "Here is one, and I will look again." "Better wait till morning before you look again," said Scott. "Here it is; five--" "That's all, Norway." "I'm sure it was half past five in Gottenburg," pleaded Ole, whom the coxswain had privately requested to make this blunder. "What sort of chowder do you call this, son of Odin?" demanded Scott. "He has made a blunder; that's all," laughed Burchmore, who, though not in the confidence of the coxswain, at once suspected the trick, and, to tell the truth, was not sorry for the mistake. The mishap was discussed for an hour, and poor Ole was severely blamed, especially by Sanford, for his carelessness; but he bore the censure with becoming meekness. "What's to be done?" inquired Scott, at last. "Here's another train at 8.56," replied Ole, pointing to the time-table. "We can return to Gottenburg in that." "Right, Norway," added Scott. They found a small hotel in the place, where they obtained a supper, and at the time indicated returned to Gottenburg, where they arrived at about one in the morning. It was too late to go on board of the ship, and they went directly to the little hotel in the lane, where Scott and Laybold had passed the preceding night. It was closed, but they easily roused the landlord. "So you have again come," said the good-natured host. "Yes; we have again come. It is too late to go on board of the ship," replied Scott. "Your ship have sail to-night to Copenhagen." "No! Impossible!" "I have seen her sail," persisted the landlord. "I have make no mistake." "We are dished!" exclaimed Sanford. "The young gentleman come down at seven o'clock, and the ship have sail at nine o'clock. I know it so well as I know how to speak the English." "It must be so, then," laughed Scott; "for you have spoke the English more better as nice." "What shall we do?" continued Sanford, who seemed to be positively distressed at the unfortunate circumstance. "Do? Go to bed, and go to sleep. What else can we do? You are too big a boy to cry over your misfortunes," replied Scott. "I don't intend to cry; but I feel very bad about it." "Dry your tears," said Burchmore. "We may as well take a biscuit, turn in, and call it half a day." "But when will there be a steamer to Copenhagen?" asked Sanford. "The Najaden must go Monday afternoon," answered the landlord, who, for some reason best known to himself, did not deem it prudent to mention the fact that the Kronprindsesse Louise would sail within half an hour. "This will never do," interposed Rodman. "We have been chasing the ship now for a week, and by the time we get to Copenhagen she will be gone. I move we go to Stockholm. We shall be sure to catch her there." "Good!" exclaimed Wilde. The proposition was fully discussed, and when a majority favored the movement, the others, among whom was Sanford, yielded an apparently reluctant assent. The Wadstena would start at two o'clock, and there was not a moment to lose. The landlord was astonished at the decision, and his hotel was not filled that night, as he intended it should be. Just as the canal steamer was starting, the young tourists hurried on board, and were soon on their way to Stockholm. Not a quarter of a mile distant at this moment were Peaks and his prisoner, and Blaine, the head steward, who was on the lookout for them. CHAPTER XIV. THROUGH THE SOUND TO COPENHAGEN. Mr. Lowington was almost forced to the conclusion that the experiment of permitting the students to manage their own finances was a failure. If it could be a success anywhere, it must be in the northern countries, where none of the boys spoke the language, and where the lighter intoxicants were not so common as in the more southern portions of Europe. Though he was not aware that any pupils had made an improper use of their money, the non-arrival of the crew of the second cutter, and the disappearance of Scott and Laybold in Gottenburg, seemed to have some relation to the condition of their funds. But he was willing to carry the experiment as far as practicable, and to restore the obnoxious rule only when it was absolutely necessary to do so. Two thirds of the students could be safely trusted to manage their money matters, and it was not pleasant to restrain the whole for the benefit of the minority. After the boys had walked all over Gottenburg, they were weary enough to retire at eight bells in the evening, especially as they were to turn out at two o'clock the next morning, for the trip up the Göta Canal. At the appointed time, the steamer came alongside the ship, where she took the excursionists on board, the boats of the other vessels conveying their crews to the Young America. As it was still dark, not a few of the boys finished their nap in the little steamer. About eight o'clock, she reached the long series of locks by which the canal passes the Falls of Trollhätten, and the excursionists walked for a couple of hours through the beautiful scenery, and embarking again in the steamer, arrived at Wenersberg, where they obtained a view of the Wenern Lake, and proceeded by special train to Herrljunga, and thence, by regular train, to Gottenburg, where they arrived before eight in the evening. The wind was fair, and the squadron immediately sailed to the southward. The principal was annoyed by the absence of not less than a dozen of the students; but he had every confidence in the zeal and discretion of Peaks, who was to take charge of the cutter's crew, and he left the head steward at Gottenburg to find Scott and Laybold. He feared that the success of these wanderers would encourage others to follow their example, and increased vigilance seemed to be necessary on the part of the instructors. The next day was Sunday, and it was doubly a season of rest. The breeze was fair, but very light, so that the squadron made only about four knots an hour; but on Monday morning she was fairly in the Sound, which is about three miles in width. On the left was the town of Helsingborg, in Sweden, and on the right Kronberg Castle, with Elsinore, on a kind of land-locked basin, behind it. The vessels continued on their course, keeping within a short distance of the shore, so that those on board could distinctly see the towns and villages. The houses were neat, with red roofs, each one having its little garden. There were plenty of groves and forests, and the trees were oaks and beeches, instead of pines and firs which the voyagers had seen in Norway and Sweden. The country was flat, with nothing like a hill to be seen. The breeze freshening, the squadron hastened its pace, and in the middle of the forenoon the spires of Copenhagen were in plain sight. Off in the water were several detached forts, built on small islands. The Young America led the way, and soon dropped her anchor off the citadel of Frederikshavn, and near the landing-place, where a crowd of small steamers were lying at the wharf. "Have you been here before, Dr. Winstock?" asked Captain Lincoln, as he saw the surgeon examining the aspect of the city. "Yes; several years ago. I have been in every country in Europe." "Copenhagen don't look just as I expected it would," added the commander. "I thought it must be a very old, black, and musty-looking place." "You see that it is not,--at least not from the water; but you will find plenty of dismal and gloomy-looking buildings in it. The fact is, Denmark is too small a kingdom to support all the show and expense of royalty: its palaces are too large and costly to be retained as such, and many of them have been permitted to fall into partial decay. But I will not anticipate Mr. Mapps' lecture, for I see the signal is flying." "She makes a tremendous display of forts and guns," added Lincoln, glancing from the batteries of Trekroner and Lynetten to the bristling guns of Frederikshavn. "Doubtless it is a strong place, but the English have twice captured the city. Here are the boats from the other vessels. I suppose we shall go ashore after dinner." The steerage was soon crowded with students, and Mr. Mapps took his usual position at the foremast, on which appeared the map of Denmark. "In English this country is called Denmark," said the professor; "but it has this name in no other language. The Danes call it _Danmark_, the adjective of which is _Danske_; and the country is also called the _Danske Stat_, or Danish States. In German it is _Dänemark_; in French, _Danemark_; in Italian, _Danimarca_. It is bounded on the north by the Skager Rack, or Sleeve; on the east by the Cattegat, the Sound, and the Baltic Sea; on the south by the Duchy of Schleswig and the Baltic; and on the west by the North Sea. When this ship was in Europe before, Schleswig-Holstein and Lauenburg belonged to Denmark; but now they belong to Prussia, and Jutland is all that remains of continental Denmark. This peninsula has an area of nine thousand six hundred square miles, or about the size of the State of New Hampshire. With the several islands, the entire area of Denmark is fourteen thousand five hundred square miles. Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and several small islands in the West Indies, belong to her. The population is nearly one million eight hundred thousand--about equal to that of Massachusetts and New Hampshire united. "The country is flat, or gently undulating, and the highest hill is only five hundred and fifty feet high. The soil is sandy on the peninsula, and not very fertile, but very rich on some of the islands. It is indented to a remarkable degree with bays and inlets, and the whole interior is dotted with small lakes, usually connected by a river, like a number of eggs on a string. The Lim Fjord, which you see in the north, formerly only extended to within a short distance of the North Sea; but in 1825 a tempest broke through the narrow neck of land, and opened a passage for small vessels. These inland lakes are full of fish, and salmon was once so plenty that householders were forbidden by law to feed their servants with this food more than once a week. "The two largest islands are Fünen and Seeland, which are separated by the Great Belt, and the former from the main land by the Little Belt. In winter these are frozen over, as is the Sound in the severer seasons, and have been crossed by armies engaged in military operations. The country is well wooded, and you will find plenty of large oaks and beeches. This morning you passed Elsinore, where Shakespeare locates Hamlet; but you cannot find where 'the morn walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill,' for there are no hills there; nor 'the dreadful summit of the cliff, that beetles o'er his base into the sea.' It is a flat region, with only a low cliff to border the sea; certainly with no such tremendous steeps as the poet describes. Besides, Hamlet lived and died in Jutland. But Shakespeare used the poet's license. "Nearly all of Denmark lies between latitude fifty-five and fifty-eight; but, though the thermometer sometimes falls to twenty-two degrees below zero in winter, the average temperature is mild. The climate does not materially differ from the eastern coast of Massachusetts. The air is so humid that the grass and trees have a livelier green than the countries farther south, and droughts are almost unknown. When France and Germany are parched and dry, Denmark is fresh and green. The people are engaged principally in agriculture and commerce. The chief exports are grain, cattle, and horses. "The government is a constitutional monarchy. The king is assisted in the executive department by a 'Royal Privy Council' of seven ministers. The legislature is called the Rigsdag, and consists of the Landsthing, or upper house, and the Folkething, or lower house. Of the former, twelve are nominated for life, by the king, from the present or past members of the lower house, and the remaining fifty-four are elected, in four classes, by the largest tax-payers in country districts, in towns, in cities, and by deputies representing the ordinary voters. The members of the lower house are chosen directly by the people. All male citizens of twenty-five, except paupers, and servants who are not householders, are voters. "The established religion of the state is Lutheran, and the king must be of this church. He nominates the bishops, who have no political power, as in England. They have the general supervision and management of all the affairs of the church in the kingdom. Although there are only about thirteen thousand non-Lutherans in Denmark, entire religious toleration prevails, and no man can be deprived of his civil and political rights on account of his creed. "Free education is provided by the government for all children whose parents cannot afford to pay for tuition, and attendance at school, between the ages of seven and fourteen, is compulsory. All the people, therefore, are instructed in the elementary branches; and, besides the University of Copenhagen, there is a system of high and middle schools, available for the children of merchants, mechanics, and the more prosperous of the laboring classes. "Every able-bodied man in Denmark, who has attained the age of twenty-one, is liable to serve as a soldier for eight years in the regular army, and eight more in the army of the reserve. In preparation for this duty, every man is enrolled, and required to drill for a period of from four to six months, according to the arm of the service in which he is placed; and those who do not become proficient in this time are required to drill for another and longer period. The kingdom is divided into military districts, and all the soldiers are required to drill from thirty to forty-five days every year. The navy of Denmark consists of thirty-one steamers of all classes, six of which are iron-clads, carrying three hundred and twelve guns, and manned by nine hundred men. "Little is known of the history of this country before the eighth century, but the Cimbri occupied it before the time of Christ. The Danes conquered portions of England, and in the eleventh century, Canute, who introduced Christianity into his realm, completed the conquest. Norway was also included in his kingdom, and under him and his successors, during the next two hundred years, Denmark attained the summit of her power and glory. Holstein, Lauenburg, and several other of the northern provinces of Germany, and even a portion of Prussia, were subjected to her sway. Waldemar II., a successor of Canute, with his eldest son, was daringly captured, while resting from the fatigues of the chase, one evening, by Count Schwerin, whom the king had provoked to wrath by some flagrant injustice. This bold act of retaliation was carried to a successful issue, and the king and his son were transported by water to Castle Schwerin, in Mecklenburg, where they were kept as prisoners for three years--a most remarkable instance of retribution, if we consider that Waldemar was the most powerful sovereign of the north. By threats and bribes his release was procured; but during his confinement the conquered provinces had revolted, and the king was unable to recover his lost possessions. Denmark was thus reduced from her lofty position by the injustice of her king. "Towards the close of the fourteenth century, Margaret--the Semiramis of the North--succeeded to the thrones of Norway and Denmark, and added Sweden to her dominions by conquest, in the compact of Calmar. The Swedes, under Gustavus Vasa, established their independence after the union had existed for one hundred and twenty-five years. At the death of the last of Margaret's line, in 1439, the states of Denmark elected the count of Oldenburg their king, who reigned as Christian I. He was made duke of Schleswig and count of Holstein, and thus the sovereign of Denmark became the ruler of these duchies, about which there has been so much trouble within the last ten years, and which caused the war of 1866 between Prussia and Austria. He was followed by his son Hans, or John, whose heir was Christian II., deposed in 1523. This prince was a tyrant, and was kept a prisoner for twenty-seven years. His crown was given to Frederick, Duke of Schleswig and Holstein, in whose reign Sweden established her independence. His son Christian III. succeeded him. In the great wars which followed the Reformation, the kings of Denmark took the Protestant side. In repeated conflicts with the Swedes, Denmark lost much of her territory. After Christian III. came Frederick II., and then Christian IV., who was followed by Frederick III., in whose reign the crown, which had been nominally elective, was made hereditary in the Oldenburg line. Under Christian V. the country was at peace; but Frederick IV., who came after him, brought on a war with Sweden by invading the territory of the Duke of Holstein, an ally of the King of Sweden, which continued till 1718. Under Christian VI. and Frederick V. the country was at peace. Christian VII. married the sister of George III. of England, and was followed, in 1808, by Frederick VI., their son. "In 1780, Russia, Sweden, and Denmark, under the influence of France, established a new code of maritime laws, which operated against the interests of England. This action in convention was called 'Armed Neutrality,' and in 1800, during the reign of Christian VII., its principles were revived, and a new agreement was signed by Russia, Prussia, Denmark, and Sweden. It declared that arms and ammunition alone were contraband of war, that merchandise of belligerents, except contraband of war, was to be protected by a neutral flag, and that 'paper blockades' should be regarded as ineffectual. England immediately laid an embargo on the vessels of the powers signing it. In 1801, a British fleet under Sir Hyde Parker, with Nelson as second in command, bombarded Copenhagen. Again, in 1807, England, fearing that Denmark would be compelled by Napoleon to take part against her, bombarded Copenhagen, and compelled the government to give up its entire fleet, which was sent to England. This ended the armed neutrality. At the final treaty of peace, in 1814, Norway was ceded to Sweden, which, in return, gave to Denmark Pomerania, and the Island of Rügen; but the next year Pomerania was passed over to Prussia, in exchange for the Duchy of Lauenburg. "Frederick VI. reigned till 1839, when he was followed by Christian VIII. The two Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein were still subjects of dispute. The king claimed them, but the people of Holstein were German in sentiment, and objected to the incorporation of their country in the Kingdom of Denmark, to which the continued efforts of the latter were directed. The Danish language was required to be used to the exclusion of the German. In 1848, Frederick VII. came to the throne, and was more energetic in pushing his claims to the duchies than some of his predecessors had been. The people of Holstein, which was a member of the German Confederation, were in a state of insurrection, when the King of Denmark virtually annexed both duchies to his kingdom. War ensued, and continued for three years. The interference of some of the great powers restored peace, but left the question in dispute unsettled." "What was the question in dispute?" asked Captain Lincoln. "I will explain it, though there are so many complications to it, that only a general view of the subject can be given. For four hundred years the line of Oldenburg has occupied the throne of Denmark. Schleswig and Holstein were governed by the same rulers, though each country was separately organized. But the law of succession was different. In Denmark a female could rule, while in the duchies the line was limited to males. Frederick VII. had no children, and it was seen that the direct line of the house of Oldenburg would be extinct at his death. A treaty made by the several powers interested gave the succession to Prince Christian, whose wife was entitled to the throne by right of her descent from Christian III., who died in 1559; but she yielded her right to her husband, who ascended the throne in 1863, as Christian IX., and is the present king. At the death of Frederick VII., the Duke of Augustenburg claimed the duchies. Germany desired to separate Schleswig-Holstein from Denmark. The German troops entered Holstein, which was a member of the Confederation, and entitled to its protection. Denmark refused to yield her title to the duchies, and war ensued. The Danes were overwhelmed, and repeatedly defeated. England declined to assist Denmark, as had been expected by the latter, and Denmark was compelled to renounce all her claims to Schleswig-Holstein and Lauenburg, in favor of Prussia and Austria. The main question in regard to the final disposition of the duchies was left open for future adjustment, and Prussia took temporary possession of Schleswig, and Austria of Holstein. The Duke of Augustenburg was permitted to remain in the latter, but forbidden to get up any demonstration in aid of his own claims. "Austria favored the claim of the duke, while Prussia denied it, and accused her then powerful rival of encouraging revolutionary movements in Holstein dangerous to the thrones of Europe. Then followed the great war of 1866, which resulted in the utter humiliation of Austria, and the annexation of all the disputed territories to Prussia. Denmark, thus shorn of her territories and her power, has become an insignificant kingdom. With less than two million inhabitants, she supports all the costly trappings of royalty, and keeps an army and navy. The king has a civil list of nearly three hundred thousand dollars, and the heir apparent has an allowance exceeding the salary of the President of the United States, while the entire revenue of the nation is only about thirteen million dollars. Prince Frederick, the king's oldest son, who succeeds to the throne, married the daughter of the King of Sweden and Norway. The princess Alexandra, the oldest daughter, is the wife of the Prince of Wales. Prince Wilhelm, the second son, was elected King of Greece, under the title of Georgios I. in 1863. The Princess Dagmar is the wife of the Grand Duke Alexander, of Russia, heir of the throne. By their connections two of the sons are, or will be, kings, one daughter Queen of England, and another Empress of Russia. "In 1348, the King of Denmark levied duties on all vessels passing through the Sound, at the Fortress of Kronberg, which were applied to the expenses of the light-houses, and the protection of shipping from pirates. The United States first objected to the payment of this tax, and called the attention of the commercial nations of Europe to the annoyance. All vessels were obliged to anchor, and submit to vexatious delays; but none doubted the right to levy the dues, which had been formally regulated by treaties. Denmark consented to abandon her claims on the payment of about fifteen millions of dollars by the nations of Europe, and about four hundred thousand on the part of the United States." The professor completed his lecture, and the students separated. Most of them climbed into the rigging, or seated themselves on the rail, where they could see the city and the various objects of interest in the harbor. The view shoreward from the ship was very unsatisfactory, for the city, built on a dead level, presented but little to challenge the attention of the voyager. While they were observing the surroundings, a shore boat approached the vessel, in which were two persons wearing the uniform of the squadron. One of them was a stout man, in whom the students soon recognized Peaks. "But who is that with him?" asked Norwood. "It's one of the second cutter's crew, I suppose," replied De Forrest. "I didn't think, when I went ashore with them, that I shouldn't see any of them again for so long a time. I wonder where the rest of them are." "That's not one of the second cutters," added Judson. "It is the English fellow." "So it is." Peaks came alongside, and directed Clyde Blacklock to mount the accommodation ladder, which he did without making any objection. They had arrived the day before. The prisoner seemed to have lost some portion of his stubborn spirit. The boatswain followed him to the deck, and touching his cap to the captain and other officers on the quarter-deck, went aft, where the principal was talking with the surgeon. "We have come on board, sir," said the boatswain, as he took off his cap and pointed to Clyde. "I see you have," replied Mr. Lowington. "I'm glad to see you again, Clyde." The young Briton nodded his head with a jerk, but made no reply. "Have you seen Mr. Blaine, Peaks?" asked the principal. "Yes, sir; I met him on the wharf night before last at Gottenburg." "But where are the crew of the second cutter? I expected you to bring them." "They came back to Christiania on Friday, and took the steamer for Gottenburg the same evening; but Mr. Blaine had not seen them. Their steamer arrived in the forenoon, and the ship did not sail till night." "I am afraid there is something wrong about it." "I left Mr. Blaine in Gottenburg. I suppose he will find them." Peaks reported in detail the result of his mission on shore. So far as Clyde was concerned it was entirely satisfactory; but the continued absence of the second cutter's crew was very annoying to the principal. "How do you feel, Clyde?" asked Mr. Lowington, turning to the new student. "I feel well enough," replied the runaway, roughly. "I am glad you do. I hope you feel better than when you left the ship." "I don't." "While you were on board before, I neglected to explain to you the consequences of leaving the ship without permission." "It wouldn't have made any difference. I should have gone just the same," answered Clyde, doggedly. "The less trouble you make, the better it will be for you." "Perhaps it will; but I don't intend to stay in this ship a great while." "I intend that you shall stay here; and since you avow your purpose to run away again, I must see that you are put in a safe place. Peaks, the brig." "The brig? What's that?" demanded Clyde, who was very suspicious of the calm, unmoved tones of the principal. "Come with me, my lad, and I will show you," replied the boatswain. The Briton knew by sad experience how useless it was to contend against this tyrant, who, however, always used him well when he behaved in a reasonable manner. He followed the boatswain into the steerage, and the door of the brig, which was a small prison formed of plank slats, set upright under the steps, about three inches apart, was opened. "That's the brig, my boy," said Peaks. "It's a regular institution on board a man-of-war; but this one has not been opened for months." "Well, what's it for?" asked Clyde, who even yet did not seem to comprehend its use. "Walk in, and I will make it all plain to you in a moment." "I don't know what you mean." "Sail in!" shouted a student, who, with others, was observing the treatment. "On deck, sir!" said the boatswain, sternly, to the speaker. "Report yourself." It was a principle in the discipline of the ship that no person should say or do anything to irritate a student undergoing punishment, and no one was permitted, on such occasions, to take part on either side, unless called upon by the officer or instructor to do so. In ordinary cases no boy was required, or permitted, to be a "tell-tale," and all were expected to remain neutral. The student who had spoken left the steerage, and went on deck, before Clyde had time to "open upon him," as he intended to do. "Step in, my lad," added Peaks. "What for?" asked the Briton, as he obeyed the order, but not without a suspicion that he was to step upon a red-hot gridiron, or be precipitated through some opening in the deck into the dark depths beneath. No such calamity happened to him, and he was rather astonished to find that no harsher punishment was used for the flagrant offence he had committed. He had pushed the boatswain overboard, and then run away. Peaks had never manifested any resentment towards him on account of his cowardly trick; but he anticipated some severe discipline on board of the ship. The boatswain closed and locked the door of the brig, and then looked in at the prisoner through the slats. "Do you understand what the brig is for now?" asked Peaks. "You have locked me in--that's all." "That's all, my lad." "How long am I to stay here?" "Till you make up your mind not to run away." "This isn't a bad place, and I shall stay here till I grow gray before I promise not to be off when I get a chance." "All right, my hearty. Think of it a few weeks." To one who had expected some horrible punishment for his misdemeanors, the brig seemed like very mild discipline. Clyde seated himself on the stool in his prison, and leisurely surveyed the surroundings. He was an enterprising youth, and the bars of his cage looked small and weak. At dinner time, the meal was handed in to him, and he ate with an excellent appetite. Soon after, he heard the call for all hands, and then the waiter in the steerage told him they had gone on shore to see the city. Everything was quiet and still, and he devoted himself to a more particular examination of the bars of the brig. They were two inches thick, but the case looked hopeful. Pursuing his investigations still farther, he found, under the steps, a saw, a hammer, a chisel, and some other tools, which Bitts, the carpenter, had placed there a few days before, and forgotten to remove. Clyde took up the saw; but just then, Peaks, with a book in his hand, seated himself at a table near the brig, and began to read. CHAPTER XV. COPENHAGEN AND TIVOLI. All the boats of the squadron came into line, each with the flag in the bow and stern. They pulled along the water front of the city, around a couple of Danish men-of-war, and of course created a sensation. One by one the boats rowed up to the landing, and the students went on shore, each crew securing its cutter at the wharf, near the steps. The custom-house officers were on the alert; but as no one had parcels of any kind, the students were not detained. Mr. and Mrs. Kendall landed, and as they intended to spend a few days in the city, they had a couple of valises, which the porters, who are always in waiting at all the ports in Europe, conveyed into the custom-house. The Toldbod, as this edifice is called by the Danes, is surrounded by a high wall, which also encloses the entire landing-place, so that none can visit the city from the sea without passing through its gates. One of the officers spoke English very well, and evidently took pride in doing so, for he asked a great many questions so pleasantly, that it was impossible to explain his object in any other way. He wished to know whether the travellers had any clothing they had not worn, and whether Mrs. Kendall had any tobacco or liquor. She protested that she did not use tobacco or liquor; and the actual examination of the baggage was a mere form. The man was so polite, that Paul at once concluded he was only practising his English. A carriage was procured, and Dr. Winstock and Captain Lincoln were invited to join the party. The inquiring students deemed it a great privilege to be permitted to go with the surgeon, for he was a walking encyclopædia of every city and country in Europe. As Paul Kendall had been before, Captain Lincoln was now, the favorite of the doctor, and the little party were to see the city together. The carriage went out at the gate, and passed into Amaliegade. The houses were plain and substantial, without much ornament. They were of brick, but most of them were covered with stucco. "What's this?" asked Paul, as the carriage entered an open space, with an equestrian statue in the centre. "Frederiksplads," replied the doctor; "and that is the statue of Frederik V., who came to the throne in 1746, and in whose reign this palace was erected." The place was an octagon, surrounded on all sides by public buildings. "This is the residence of the king on the left. On the other side is the palace of the crown prince. There is the foreign office, and on the other side lives the queen dowager." "They are not very elegant buildings," said Captain Lincoln. "No; there are no very fine buildings in Copenhagen, though the Exchange is a very curious structure, and some are very large and unwieldy. There's the Casino," added the doctor. "What's a casino?" inquired the captain. "Here it is a building for dancing, concerts, theatrical performances, and similar amusements in the winter season. Everything is cheap here, and the price of admission to the Casino, where one joins the dance or sees a play, is two or three marks." "How much is that? I haven't looked up the money yet," said Paul. "A rigsbank dollar is the unit, worth about fifty-four cents of our money. It is divided into six marks, of nine cents each, and a mark into sixteen skillings, of about half a cent each. When the Italian opera is at the Casino, the prices are only three or four marks. This is Gothersgade," added Dr. Winstock, as the carriage turned into another street. "In plain English, Gothic street." "There's another equestrian statue," added Captain Lincoln, pointing to a large, irregular space, surrounded by public buildings. "The statue of Christian V. This is Kongens, or King's Square. There are the Academy of Arts, the Royal Theatre, the Guard House, the New Market--none of them very fine, as you can see for yourselves." The carriage crossed this square, and came out at a canal, on the other side of which was the vast palace of Christiansborg. A short distance farther brought the party to the Royal Hotel. The carriage stopped at the door in the arch, and the two landlords, the porter, the waiters, and the clerk, half a score strong, turned out to receive its occupants. All of them bowed low, and all of them led the way up stairs. Paul took a parlor and chamber for himself and lady. "Now, where's Joseph?" asked Dr. Winstock. "Who's Joseph?" inquired the captain. "He is the guide at this hotel, if he is still living." Joseph was sent for, and soon made his appearance. He was an elderly man, with gray hair and whiskers, neatly dressed in black. His manners were very agreeable, and he exhibited a lively zeal to serve the tourists. Mr. Lowington had been courteously waited upon by an officer of the government, who had volunteered to have the various palaces, museums, and other places of interest, opened during the afternoon and the next day. Joseph had procured a two-horse carriage, and the party at the hotel seated themselves in it, with the guide on the box with the driver. "That's the Slot," said Joseph, pointing across the canal. "The what?" exclaimed Captain Lincoln. "The Slot, or Palace of Christiansborg." "Slot! What a name!" "But not any worse than the German word _Schloss_," added Joseph, laughing. "Do you speak German, sir?" "Not much." The guide uttered a few sentences in German, evidently for the purpose of demonstrating that he spoke the language. "The palace is on an island called Slotsholm, and is as big as it is ugly. Shall we go there now?" "No; we want a general view of the city first," replied Dr. Winstock. "I think we had better ascend to the top of the Round Tower." Joseph gave the order, and the carriage proceeded to the tower. The canal in front of the hotel was filled with small craft, which had brought pottery and various wares from other parts of Denmark, to sell. The goods were arranged on the decks and on the shore of the canal. Near were groups of women, who were selling fish, vegetables, and other articles, around whom was a crowd of purchasers. "I suppose you have heard of Andersen?" said Joseph to the captain. "Heard of him! I have read all his books which have been translated into English," replied Captain Lincoln. "He has rooms in that building some of the time. Do you see that sign--Melchoir?" "Yes." "This Melchoir is a very dear friend of Andersen, who lives with him a portion of the time." "Is it possible to see Hans Christian Andersen?" asked Mrs. Kendall. "Quite possible, madam. I will see about it to-day. He is a very agreeable man, and willing to meet all who wish to see him," answered Joseph. "There's the Town Hall," he added, as the carriage passed a large building, with an extensive colonnade in front. "'_Med Lov skal man Land bygge_,'" said Lincoln, reading an inscription on the front. "Those are my sentiments exactly." "'With law must the land be built' is the English of that," laughed Joseph. "All the Jutland laws begin with this phrase, which was spoken by Waldemar II. We Danes believe in law, and everything that is good. Copenhagen is a very fine city, and everything is remarkably cheap here." "What do you call your city in your own lingo, Joseph?" "Kjöbenhavn; pronounce it Chép-en-ahn." "Chepenahn," repeated Lincoln. "Speak it a little quicker, and you will have it right. It was first called simply the Haven; then in Danish, when many merchants carried on business here, _Kaupmannahöfn_, or merchants' haven, from which it was shortened into _chepenahn_. Here is the Round Tower," added Joseph, as the carriage stopped. The party alighted and entered the structure, which was the tower of the Church of the Trinity. "This used to be the watch tower, where men were kept to give the alarm in case of fire; but the observatory has been moved to the tower of St. Nicholas, and now we have a telegraphic fire alarm. Won't you walk up to the top of this tower, where you can have a fine view of the whole city? The ascent is very easy," continued Joseph. There were no stairs, but an inclined plane, gradual in its rise, permitted the tourists to ascend to the summit with very little labor. "We might have driven up in the carriage," said Captain Lincoln. "There would be no difficulty at all in doing so. In fact, Peter the Great, when he was in Copenhagen, in 1716, drove to the top with the Empress Catharine, in a coach and four." "Is that so?" asked the captain. "I can't remember so far back myself," chuckled Joseph, "for I'm not much over a hundred years old; but everybody says it is true, and I see no reason to doubt the story. Peter the Great liked to do strange things, and you can see for yourself that a carriage would run very well here." "If he went up with a coach and four, of course he must have come down, unless the carriage and horses are up there now. How did he turn his team?" "It is easier to ask some questions than to answer them," replied Joseph. "History does not say that he drove down, only that he drove up." "Perhaps he backed down, which kings and emperors are sometimes obliged to do, as well as common people," suggested Paul Kendall. "Very likely he did; I don't see any other way for the team to descend," added Joseph. "This tower was begun in 1639." At the top of the structure the travellers took a general survey of the city, and then proceeded to examine it in detail. "Do you remember the latitude of Copenhagen, Captain Lincoln?" asked Dr. Winstock. "About fifty-five and a half." "The same as the middle of Labrador. Quebec is about forty-seven, and this is a long way farther north. What is the population of this city, Joseph?" asked the doctor. "One hundred and eighty-one thousand," replied the guide, giving the census of 1870. "Formerly the city was a walled town, with ramparts and moats. It was built partly on Seeland, and partly on the small island of Amager. The channel between them is the harbor. You can see where the old line of fortifications was. The old town lies nearest to the sea, but the city is now spreading rapidly out into the country." "What is that broad sheet of water, with two bridges over it?" asked Lincoln, pointing to the land side. "That is the reservoir. Formerly the water in the city was bad, but now it has an excellent system of water-works. The water comes in from the country, and is pumped up by steam before it is distributed. Beyond that, for miles, the country is covered with beautiful villas and country residences. You must ride out there, for the environs of Copenhagen are as fine as anything in Europe." "You are right, Joseph," added the doctor. "Some parts of the city are not unlike Holland, you see. The Slotsholm canal gives that part of the town a decidedly Dutch look." "The part on Amager, called Christianshavn, is all cut up by canals," added the guide. "Now, we will take a ride around the city," said Paul Kendall. The party descended, and having driven through some of the principal streets, and obtained a very good idea of the city, returned to the hotel. "Now you can dismiss the carriage, and we will go to some of the museums and churches," suggested Joseph. "We don't care to walk far; we will retain the carriage," replied Paul. "It will be much cheaper to walk, as you have to pay four marks an hour for the carriage," pleaded the economical guide. "Thorwaldsen's Museum and the Northern Antiquities are only a few steps from here." "Very well; we will walk, then, if you insist upon it," laughed Paul. "I thought these guides made you spend as much money as possible," said Captain Lincoln to the surgeon. "I never found it so. I think they are a very useful class of men. They charge here about two rigsdalers a day, and I remember that Joseph would not let me throw away a single mark. They know the prices for carriages and everything else, and it is for their interest not to let any one cheat their employers. Perhaps it is not well to make purchases with them, for they compel the merchant to pay them a commission, which increases the price charged for the articles. But I think, in many places, I have done better with a _commissionnaire_ than without one, in making purchases." Joseph led the way across the bridge to Slotsholm, which was nearly covered by the immense palace of Christiansborg and its dependencies. The first building was Thorwaldsen's Museum, the outer walls of which were covered with an Etruscan fresco of the arrival and debarkation of the great sculptor and his goods, mostly works of art. The figures are about life size, and the situation in which the pictures are placed is novel and quaint. The work was done by inlaying cement of different colors in the wall. Joseph described the various scenes. Thorwaldsen is still held in the highest regard and veneration by all Denmark, and especially by all Copenhagen; indeed, he seems to be the great genius of the country. He was born in 1770, near the city. His father was an Icelander, and a carver in wood--a calling in which the son assisted him when he was only a dozen years old. At seventeen he received the prize of a silver medal from the Academy of Arts, and at twenty-three the grand prize, which carried with it a royal pension, that enabled him to go abroad for the study of his art. He went to Rome in 1796, where he had but little success, and was reduced almost to despair, when his model of Jason and the Golden Fleece attracted the attention of an English gentleman, who commissioned him to complete the work in marble. This event was the dawn of success, and orders continued to pour in upon him from the rich and the powerful, including kings and emperors, until his fortune was made. His works adorn many of the great cities of Europe, and Canova was his only actual rival. His fame extended to every nation, and a visit to his native land in 1819 was a triumphal progress through Italy and Germany. In 1838 he returned to Copenhagen, to pass the remainder of his days, in a frigate sent to Italy for his use by the Danish government. On one side of his museum are depicted his arrival in this ship, and his reception by the citizens; and on the other side, the conveyance of his works from the ship to their final destination. Thorwaldsen went to Rome again on a visit for his health, and died in Copenhagen in 1844. He was a modest, generous, and amiable man. The museum was erected by subscription, though the sculptor gave a fourth part of the sum necessary for its erection, and in his will bequeathed to it the works of art from his cunning brain, of which its contents are almost entirely composed. His biography has been written by Hans Christian Andersen. After examining the frescoes on the outer wall, the party entered the building. It is an oblong structure, with a court-yard in the middle. It is two stories in height, with connected rooms extending entirely around it. The works of art, and memorials of the sculptor, are classified in these apartments, forty-two in number. "That is the grave of Thorwaldsen," said Joseph, leading the way into the court-yard. "His body lies there, surrounded by his works, as he requested." The grave is an oblong enclosure of polished granite, raised a few inches above the ground, and covered over with ivy. At the foot of it is a black cross, with the date of his death inscribed upon it. The tourists walked through the various rooms, and examined the works of the immortal genius, most of which were in plaster, being the models of all his great achievements set up in marble in various parts of Europe. His pictures, his library, his collections of coins, vases, and antiquities, are placed in the museum. One room is fitted up with his furniture, precisely as he used it, and various interesting mementos of the man are to be seen there. Among the pictures are some mere daubs, which are preserved only because they belonged to Thorwaldsen; but they have an interest as an illustration of the benevolent character of the great sculptor, who ordered many of them merely to save the artists from starvation. "Did you ever see Thorwaldsen?" asked Lincoln, as Joseph conducted his charge from the building. "Often," replied the guide. "He was a venerable-looking old man, with long, white hair. He made a statue of himself, which is very like him. He died suddenly in the theatre, and the king and royal family followed his remains to the church." The Museum of Northern Antiquities was in the old palace of a prince, on the other side of the canal. On the front of the building were some quaint carvings, which gave it a picturesque appearance. Joseph seemed to be in his element at this museum. He spoke glibly and learnedly of "the stone age," "the bronze age," and "the iron age," each designated by the material of which the implements used for domestic purposes, in war and agriculture, were composed. Numberless utensils of all kinds are contained in the cabinets, classified with rare skill, and arranged with excellent taste. All these objects were found below ground, in various parts of Scandinavia. In Denmark the law requires that all antiquities of metal shall belong to the government, which, however, pays the full value of the articles to the finder. In 1847 a pair of solid gold bracelets, very heavy, and elegantly wrought, were dug up from the earth, and added to this collection. There is a great variety of ornaments, in gold and silver, consisting of necklaces, rings, bracelets, and similar trinkets. One necklace contains three pounds of pure gold. There are plenty of knives, arrow-heads, hatchets, hammers, chisels, and other implements, skilfully made of stone. Runic writings, the most valuable in the world, are collected here. Joseph said that certain long pieces of wood, with signs carved upon them, were Icelandic Calendars. The remains of a warrior, who had fought and died in the ancient time, with the iron mail of his day, were examined with interest, as were also a number of altars, coffers containing relics, and some gold crosses, one of which is said to contain a splinter from the true cross, which were exhibited as specimens of the Catholic form of worship in remote times. Recrossing the bridge over the canal, the party entered the great, barn-like palace of Christiansborg. It consists of several connected buildings, containing a theatre, riding-school, stables, coach-houses, bake-house, and the usual royal apartments. In 1168 a castle was erected on this spot, as a protection against pirates, which was repeatedly demolished, rebuilt, altered, and enlarged, till it was levelled to the ground in 1732, and a new palace erected, but was destroyed by fire in 1784. It was rebuilt, in its present cumbrous proportions, in 1828. The visitors entered the large court-yard, passed through the picture gallery, the "Hall of the Knights," the throne-room, looked into the riding-school,--which is a large, oblong room, with an earth floor, where the royal family may practise equestrianism,--the arsenal, the legislative chambers, and other rooms, none of which were very striking to those who had visited the palaces of Paris, London, Berlin, and St. Petersburg. In front of the palace is a beautiful green, beyond which is the Exchange, or Börsen, built by Christian IV. It is the most picturesque edifice in the city, though the interior is entirely commonplace. It is long and very narrow, and ornamented with a vast number of figures cut in the stone, with elegantly-wrought portals at the entrances. But the spire is the most remarkable portion of the building, and consists of four dragons, the heads at the apex looking towards the four points of the compass. From the Exchange the party walked to the Fruekirke, or Church of our Lady, which is interesting only on account of the works of Thorwaldsen which it contains. Behind the altar is the majestic and beautiful statue of Christ, which stretches out its wounded hands, as if he were saying, "Come unto me, ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." On each side of the church are the figures of the twelve apostles, placed against the walls at equal distances, so as to include the whole extent. In the middle of the choir, in front of the altar, is the figure of an angel, holding a baptismal font, in the shape of a shell, which some call Thorwaldsen's masterpiece. In the sacristy of the church are several other works of the great sculptor, who was first interred in this place, before the museum was ready to receive his remains. Mrs. Kendall declared she had seen enough for one day, for sight-seeing is the hardest work one can do when it is overdone. After supper, when the lady was rested, she consented to visit Tivoli, where the students were to spend the evening. This celebrated resort of the Copenhageners is situated just outside of the old walls of the city, near the arm of the sea which divides Amager from Seeland. One of the two horse-railways, which the people in Europe generally persist in calling "tramways," extends through the city, passing the gates of this garden. Several of the officers and seamen of the ship came by the cars, which hardly differ from those in use in the principal cities of the United States; but all of them have accommodations for passengers on the top. Captain Lincoln--who had been on board of the ship since he left the party with whom he had spent the afternoon--and Norwood were passengers in a car; but though they could not speak a word of Norsk, they were not disturbed by the situation. Presently the conductor presented himself, which caused a general sounding of pockets among the occupants of the car. He had a tin box, suspended by a strap, which passed around his neck, to contain the money he received. In his hand he held a compact little roll of yellow paper, an inch and a half in width, across which was printed a succession of little tickets, each with a number. The fare was four skillings, or two and one fourth cents, and, as each person paid, the conductor handed him one of these papers, torn from the roll. Captain Lincoln gave him a piece of money, and held up two fingers, pointing to his companion at the same time, to indicate that he paid for both. The man gave him his change, and two of the yellow tickets. [Illustration: Kjobenhavns Sporvei. 4 Skilling. 904] "What are these for?" asked Lincoln, glancing at the little papers. "They are tickets, of course," replied Norwood. "I don't think so," added the captain. "All the people seem to throw them away, and the floor of the car is covered with them." "O, I know now what they are!" exclaimed Norwood. "I have heard of such things." "I never did." "I suppose you know what 'knocking down' means--don't you?" laughed the second lieutenant. "It means stealing." "Precisely so. It is said that conductors and omnibus drivers at home 'knock down' a good deal, which is the technical name for taking a portion of the fares. They use 'spotters' in our country to keep the conductors and drivers honest." "Spotters?" "Yes, that's the name of them. They are men and women, whom the conductors cannot distinguish from other passengers, employed by the railway companies to ride in the cars, and report the number of passengers on certain trips, so that the agents can tell whether the fares are all paid over. These tickets are used for the same purpose." "I don't see what good they do. They certainly can't keep the men honest, for almost everybody throws away his ticket." "They are called control-marks," said a gentleman next to the captain, who had been listening with interest to the conversation, and who spoke good English. "The man has to tear one of them off every time a passenger pays him." "They are all numbered, I see; mine is nine hundred and four," added Lincoln. "When the man gives up this roll at night, the next number will show how many he has torn off. If he began at No. 200 this morning, he has taken seven hundred and four fares." "But he might neglect to tear off fifty or a hundred in the course of a day," suggested Lincoln, "and put the money for them in his pocket." "If he does so, everybody is watching him, and anybody may report him to the agent. I am a share-owner of the company, and for aught the conductor knows, there may be one in every car. If the man neglects his duty, my interest would prompt me to look after him." "I see; thank you, sir." "Here is Tivoli," added the gentleman. "I suppose you are going there." "Yes, sir." "It is a fine garden, and very cheap." The young officers left the car, and bought tickets at the gate, for which they paid one mark, or nine cents, each. Near the entrance they found a man selling programmes of the evening's entertainment, at two skillings each. Captain Lincoln bought one, for he carefully preserved every handbill, ticket, or programme for future reference. He could read a little of it. The performances were varied, and covered the time from six o'clock till midnight. But the young officers preferred to take a general view of the premises. It was an extensive garden, prettily and tastefully laid out, with accommodations for concerts, circus, and theatrical performances. In the centre was a "beer garden," with table and seats, for little parties, who drank their beer and chatted, while a band played in a kiosk. Near it was a bazaar, where all kinds of fancy articles were arranged for sale, with the attendant raffles and lotteries. Farther removed from the centre was a theatre, consisting, however, of only the stage, the audience seating themselves in the open air. The performance, from six to seven, as the captain read in his programme, was R1. 6. Entrée gymnastique af Brodrene Hermann. Or, in plain English, a gymnastic exhibition by the brothers Hermann. In the circus there was a performance at half past seven, such as one sees in the United States, and "Hr. Wallet" was clown. At half past nine o'clock, another exhibition was given in an enclosed building, to which an extra admission fee was charged. At the theatre, dancing by some "celebrated sisters" was in progress at nine o'clock. A Russian mountain was in operation during the whole evening. It was a railroad down one inclined plane, and up another, and back over the same track, a ride costing a few skillings. The concert was continued at intervals during the entire evening. The "_café chantant_" was in full blast after nine o'clock, in two places, one of which was a small hall, with a bar, and the other the interior of a Swiss cottage, with a gallery surrounding it. In each of these were tables, where the audience seated themselves, and drank brandy, wine, beer, and milder beverages. The singers, who are all females, stood upon a stage, and were accompanied by a piano. After one or two songs had been sung, one of the singers passed around among the audience with a plate to receive their contributions, each person generally giving a small copper coin. This order was continually repeated, and the money thus received is the only salary of the performers, whose singing is villanously vile, and whose character is worse than their singing. A canal, extending from the sea, comes up to Tivoli, and passes around an island. Boats are to let here; and, indeed, there is no end to the variety of amusements, and "all for nine cents," as Joseph had said half a dozen times during the afternoon to his party, and a dozen times more during the evening. At half past ten the students returned to the squadron, for by that time they had seen all they desired. CHAPTER XVI. AN EXCURSION TO KLAMPENBORG AND ELSINORE. Peaks sat near the brig and read his book, which he had procured from the librarian in anticipation of a dull and heavy afternoon. Clyde sat in his cage, watching the boatswain. The book was evidently a very interesting one, for the reader hardly raised his eyes from it for a full hour, and then only to bestow a single glance upon the occupant of the ship's prison. The volume was Peter Simple, and the boatswain relished the adventures of the hero. Once in a while his stalwart frame was shaken by an earthquake of laughter, for he had a certain sense of dignity which did not permit him to laugh outright all alone by himself, and so the shock was diffused through all his members, and his body quaked like that of a man in the incipient throes of a fever and ague fit. The magnanimous conduct of O'Brien, who flogged Peter for seasickness, simply because he loved him, proved to be almost too much for the settled plan of the boatswain, and it was with the utmost difficulty that he restrained an outbreak of laughter. For a full quarter of an hour Clyde convinced himself that he was entirely satisfied with the situation. The brig was not a bad place, or, at least, it would not be, if the boatswain would only leave the steerage and allow the prisoner to be by himself. He wished very much to try the carpenter's saw upon the slats of his prison. At the end of the second quarter of an hour, the Briton was slightly nervous; the close of the third found him rather impatient, and at the expiration of an hour, he was decidedly provoked with Peaks for staying where he was so long. When the stout sentinel glanced at him, he flattered himself with a transitory hope; but the boatswain only changed his position slightly, and still appeared to be as deeply absorbed as ever in the book. Clyde was disgusted, and emphatically angry at the end of another half hour. The brig was a vile place, and putting a free-born Briton into such a den was the greatest indignity which had yet been offered to him. It was even worse than ordering him to be silent, or to go forward. It was an insult which required both redress and vengeance. He rose from his seat, and walked to the door of his prison, but with his gaze still fixed upon his jailer. He had come to the conclusion that, if he moved, Peaks would, at least, look at him; but that worthy did not raise his eyes from his book. Clyde took hold of the barred door and began to shake it, making considerable noise by the act. Peaks took no notice whatever of him, and it seemed just as though the boatswain intended to insult him by thus disregarding him. He shook the door again with more violence, but did not succeed in attracting the attention of his custodian. Then he began to kick the door. Making a run of the length of the brig, he threw himself against it with all the force he could, hoping to break it down; but he might as well have butted against the side of the ship. It yielded a little, and rattled a great deal; but it was too strong to be knocked down in any such manner. The prisoner was boiling over with wrath, as much because Peaks did not notice him, as on account of the indignity of his confinement. He kicked, wrenched, and twisted at the door, till he had nearly exhausted his own strength, apparently without affecting that of the door. The boatswain still read, and still shook with suppressed laughter at the funny blunders and situations of Peter Simple. He had seen just such fellows as Clyde in the brig; had seen them behave just as the present prisoner did; and he had learned that it was better to let them have their own way till they were satisfied, for boys are always better satisfied when they solve such problems for themselves. "I'm not going to stay in this place!" howled Clyde, when he had wasted all his powers upon the obstinate door. "No?" The boatswain happened to be at the end of a chapter in his book, and he closed the volume, uttering only the single negative participle, with the interrogative inflection, as he glanced at his charge in the brig. "No, I'm not!" roared Clyde, rousing from his seat, upon which he had dropped in sheer exhaustion, and throwing himself desperately against the unyielding door. "I won't stay in here any longer!" "Well, now, I thought you would," added Peaks, with the most provoking calmness. "I won't!" "But it seems to me that you do stay there." "I won't any longer." "Well?" "I'll send for the British minister." "Do." "I won't stand it any longer." "Sit down, then." Clyde dashed himself against the door again with all the remaining force he had; but the boatswain, apparently unmoved, opened his book again. It was terribly lacerating to the feelings of the Briton to be so coolly disregarded and ignored. Clyde had the saw, but he had sense enough left to know that any attempt to use it would attract the attention of his jailer, and end in the loss of the implement, with which he could remove a couple of the slats when left alone, or when all hands were asleep at night. Finding that violence accomplished nothing, he seated himself on his stool,--which, however, was far from being the stool of repentance,--and considered the situation more calmly. He was in a profuse perspiration from the energy of his useless exertions. Perhaps he was conscious that he had made a fool of himself, and that his violence was as impolitic as it was useless. In a few moments he was as quiet as a lamb, and remained so for half an hour, though his bondage was no less galling than before. "Mr. Peaks," said he, in the gentlest of tones. "Well, my lad, what shall I do for you?" replied the boatswain, closing his book, and going to the door of the brig. "I'm very thirsty, and want a glass of water. Will you give me one?" "Certainly, my boy." The boatswain passed a mug of water through the bars, and Clyde drank as though he was really thirsty. "You have worked hard, and it makes you dry," said Peaks. "You can keep a mug of water in the brig if you like." "I will," replied Clyde, as he placed the mug on the deck, after the boatswain had filled it. "Can't you let me out, Mr. Peaks?" "Certainly I can." "You will--won't you?" "With all my heart." "Do, if you please." "On certain conditions, you know." "What conditions?" "That you won't attempt to run away. But, my lad, it is only a few hours since you said the brig was a very nice place, and you would grow gray in it before you would promise not to leave when you got a good chance." "I hadn't tried it, then. But I think it is an insult to a fellow to put him in here. I would rather be flogged outright." "We don't flog the boys." "I would rather take a flogging, and have it done with." "That's one of the reasons why we don't do it. We don't want to have it done with till the boy means to do about right. You are a smart boy, my lad; but you have got a heap of bad blood in your veins, which ought to be worked off. If you would only do your duty like a man, you would be comfortable and happy." "I never can stay in this ship." "Why not?" "I don't understand the duty." "You will soon learn all the ropes in the ship, and they will all come as handy to you as the key of your own watch." Clyde pulled out his watch, and glanced at the boatswain. "That's a nice time-keeper you have, my lad; gold, I suppose." "Yes; it cost thirty pounds. Wouldn't you like it?" "I?" "Yes." "Well, I have a pretty good silver one, which answers my purpose very well," replied Peaks, smiling. "I'll give it to you, if you will let me out, and permit me to go on shore," added Clyde, in an insinuating tone. "Thank you, my lad, I don't want it bad enough to do that." "You can sell it, you know. Or I will give you thirty pounds in cash, if you prefer." "I can't afford to do it for that," laughed the boatswain. "I'll give you fifty pounds then," persisted Clyde. "Can't afford to do it for that, either." "Say sixty, then." "Say a hundred, if you like, my lad; and then say a thousand. I can't afford to do it for all the money your mother is worth. You are on the wrong tack, my lad. I can't be bought at any price." "I won't ask you to let me out. If you will only go on deck, and keep out of the way, I will manage it all myself." "No, no; sheer off, my hearty. When I have a duty to do, I always mean to do it; and if it isn't done, it isn't my fault. You can't leave the ship with my consent." "I can't stay here, I say. I should die in a month." "Very well, die like a man, then," said Peaks, good-naturedly; for, though he could not be bought at any price, he did not indulge in any righteous indignation against his victim. "Learn your duty, and then do it. There is plenty of fun going on in the ship, and you will enjoy yourself as soon as you get on the right tack. That's the up and down of the whole matter." "I can't take off my cap to these young squirts of officers, and be ordered around by them. It isn't in an Englishman to do anything of the sort." "Upon my word, I think it is in them. They make first-rate sailors, and always obey their officers." "Common sailors do; but I'm a gentleman." "So am I; but I always obey orders," replied the democratic Peaks, warmly. "The officers of this ship are required to behave like gentlemen, and give their orders in a gentlemanly manner. If they don't do it, they are liable to be reduced. Do your duty, and you may be an officer yourself." Peaks continued for some time to give the prisoner good advice, assuring him that he was no better than the rest of the crew, and that it would not hurt him any more than others to obey the orders of the officers. But it was sowing seed in stony ground, and Clyde, finding he could make nothing out of the honest boatswain, decided to await his time with what patience he could command, which, however, was not much. Peaks was permitted to follow Peter Simple in his stirring career during the rest of the afternoon. The crew returned from Tivoli at eleven in the evening, and soon the ship was quiet, with only an anchor watch, consisting of an officer on the quarter-deck, and two seamen on the forecastle. Clyde's supper was given to him in his prison, and a bed made up for his use. He kept awake till all the students came on board, and while he was waiting for the crew to slumber, he dropped asleep himself, and did not wake till all hands were called in the morning. He was vexed with himself for his neglect, and afraid that the carpenter would miss the saw, and remember where he had left it. He was determined to keep awake the next night, and make his escape, even if he was obliged to swim to the land. After breakfast, all the students went on shore for an excursion to Klampenborg and Elsinore. In the custom-house enclosure, a procession of four in a rank was formed, to march to the railroad station, which was near the Tivoli Garden. The students were generally rather fond of processions, not at home, but in the streets of foreign cities. The parade was quite imposing, when every officer and seaman wore his best uniform. They had been carefully taught to march, and Professor Badois had organized a band of eight pieces, which performed a few tunes very well. Unfortunately, on the present occasion, the band was not available, for Stockwell, the cornet player, and Boyden, the bass drummer, belonged to the absent crew of the second cutter, and the procession moved to the sterling notes of the drum and fife. On parades of this kind, the first and second pursers acted as the fleet staff of the commodore, who would otherwise have been "alone in his glory," and these two useful officers seemed like "odds and ends" in any other position. As this procession was frequently formed, and marched through the streets of various cities, the order is given to satisfy the reasonable curiosity of the reader. Music. The Commodore, And Staff of the Fleet. The Captain of the Young America. The Four Masters. The Four Midshipmen. The First Lieutenant. The First Part of the Starboard Watch, Consisting of Eighteen Seamen. The Second Lieutenant. The Second Part of the Starboard Watch. The Third Lieutenant. The First Part of the Port Watch. The Fourth Lieutenant. The Second Part of the Port Watch. The Captain of the Josephine. The Four Masters. The First Lieutenant. The First Part of the Starboard Watch, Consisting of Eight Seamen. The Second Lieutenant. The Second Part of the Starboard Watch. The Third Lieutenant. The First Part of the Port Watch. The Fourth Lieutenant. The Second Part of the Port Watch. The Captain of the Tritonia. The Four Masters. The First Lieutenant. The First Part of the Starboard Watch, Consisting of Eight Seamen. The Second Lieutenant. The Second Part of the Starboard Watch. The Third Lieutenant. The First Part of the Port Watch. The Fourth Lieutenant. The Second Part of the Port Watch. Sometimes the order was varied by placing all the officers at the head of the procession, except the lieutenants in command of sections, as,-- The Commodore and Staff. The three Captains. Three ranks of Masters. One rank of Midshipmen. But keeping all the officers and seamen of each vessel together, as in the first order, was generally preferred. Of course the ranks were not always full, as on the present occasion; but even when the full band was at the head of the column, there were enough for four full ranks in each half-watch of the ship, and two ranks in those of the other vessels. The students had practised so much that they marched exceedingly well, and being aligned according to their height, the effect was very fine. The Copenhageners left their occupations, and hastened to the doors and windows of their houses and shops to see the procession; and even the king and royal family were spectators at the palace windows, as the column moved through Frederiksplads. As it passed the Royal Hotel, Mr. and Mrs. Kendall, with Dr. Winstock and Joseph, were entering a carriage, in which they intended to ride to Klampenborg, in order to see more of the country. At the railroad station, the officers and seamen took seats in the third-class carriages, which were two stories high, the upper as well as the lower one having a roof. The distance to Klampenborg is eight and a half English miles, and the fare is sixteen skillings, or nine cents, third class; twenty-four skillings, or thirteen and a half cents, second class; and thirty-two skillings, or eighteen cents, first class. The third-class compartments are clean and neat, but there are no cushions on the seats. An aisle extends through the middle of them, but the seats are placed in pairs, on each side, so that half the passengers are compelled to ride backwards. In about half an hour the train arrived at Klampenborg. Paul Kendall's party drove first to the summer residence of Mr. Melchoir, which was in the suburbs of the city, near the sea-shore. The house was a very pretty one, with a neat garden, not unlike the little country places one sees in the vicinity of the large cities of the United States. Joseph rang the bell, and stated the errand of the party to the servant. They were shown up one flight of stairs, where the girl knocked at the door, which was immediately opened by Hans Christian Andersen, and the tourists were ushered into a plainly-furnished room, with a few engravings on the walls. On a table were the writing-materials of the great author, and Paul looked with interest at the little pile of letter sheets, closely written over, and the unfinished one, on which the ink was not yet dry. Mr. Andersen's face was covered with a smile as he greeted the party. Dr. Winstock had met him before, and stated the fact. "O, I'm very glad to see you again," said the author, grasping the doctor's hand with both of his own. "My young friend here, and his lady, have both read all your books, and desired to see you even more than to look upon the beautiful works of your great sculptor." "Ah, you are very kind," added Mr. Andersen, again grasping the doctor's hand with both of his own. Then, darting nervously to Paul, he seized his hand in the same manner. "This is Captain Paul Kendall, commander of the yacht Grace," added Dr. Winstock. "I am so pleased to see you!" said Mr. Andersen. "I have read all your books with the most intense pleasure." "O, you are too kind, Captain Kendall," replied the genial author, smiling all over his face, and once more grasping his hand as before. "Mrs. Kendall," added Paul, presenting Grace. "I am so pleased to see you! You are very kind to take so much trouble to visit me." "Indeed, sir, you are very kind to permit us to trouble you, when you are so busy," continued Paul. "O, I have plenty of time to see my good friends." "In America we love your books, and they are in all our libraries and most of our houses." "You are so kind to speak so pleasantly of my works!" replied Mr. Andersen, grasping Paul's hand again. "We value them very highly." The conversation continued for a few moments, in which Paul and the doctor expressed the high appreciation of the reading public of the great writer's works. At least a dozen times more he grasped the hand of the speaker with both his. Mr. Andersen is a tall gentleman, with a thin face,--the features of which are far from handsome,--and iron-gray hair. His countenance is always covered with smiles when he speaks, and his whole manner is child-like and simple. He is full of the love of God and of man, which seems to shine out in his face, and to be the interpretation of his ever-present smile. His dress was scrupulously neat and nice in every detail. The doctor told him about the Academy squadron, of which he had read a brief notice in the newspapers, and invited him to visit the ship, which he promised to do, on the following day. The party took their leave of him, and continued on the way to Klampenborg. The road was on the margin of the sea, and was lined with small country houses, with pleasant gardens. It was a lovely region, with an occasional large villa, and even a summer palace or two. All along this road, called the Strandway, are small and large houses of entertainment, on the sea-side, each one of which has a bathing establishment on a very small and simple scale. "Here is Charlottelund Castle, in this park," said Joseph, as they passed what seemed to be merely a grove, with a rather dilapidated fence. "It was formerly the country-seat of the Landgrave of Hesse, I believe," added Dr. Winstock. "Yes, sir; but it is now the summer residence of the crown prince. He comes out here in June." "These carriages are called 'privateers,'" continued the guide, pointing to several vehicles like a small omnibus with no top. "They formerly went by the name of 'coffee-mills,' because they made a noise like those machines." Constantia Tea-Garden, where the Copenhageners go to spend the evening in hot weather, and several fishing villages, were passed, and then the carriage reached the Deer Park, where the students had already arrived, which is a very extensive enclosure, with a few roads extending through it. A portion of it is covered with groves, and it contains about a thousand deer, which are quite tame, and may be seen grazing in herds on the gentle slopes. There is nothing very attractive in the park, though it is much frequented by the people from the city. Neither the roads nor the grounds are well kept, and the government "turns an honest penny" by the letting of it out for the pasturage of horses. On some rising ground, which Denmarkers call a hill, is a large, square, barn-like building, known as the "Hermitage," which was built by Christian VI. for a hunting lodge. This park and that at Charlottelund contain thousands of acres of excellent land, which is almost useless, and which the government cannot afford to keep in condition as pleasure-grounds. They would make thousands of farms, and thus increase the productive industry and the revenues of the nation, if they could be cut up and sold. Royalty is an expensive luxury, which a small kingdom like Denmark cannot afford to support. Near the entrance to the park is the garden proper of Klampenborg, where music is provided on summer evenings, and refreshments sold. What is called a Norwegian house is erected in the middle of the grounds, which contains a bar and private rooms, and is surrounded by tables and chairs, where the pleasure-seekers may sit and enjoy their beer and the music. A small fee for admission is paid at the gate, where the ticket-seller is kept honest by the aid of the "control-mark." Near this garden is a hotel built for a water-cure establishment, though it is now mainly used as a summer boarding-house. Close by it is a village of small cottages, devoted to the same use, with concert-rooms and bathing-houses in abundance. This place is a favorite resort of the Copenhageners in summer,--in fact, their Newport or Long Branch. For a couple of hours the students wandered through the park and gardens. The railroad station is very near the entrance, where, indeed, the whole beauty of the place is concentrated. The railway to Klampenborg is a branch of the one which extends from Copenhagen to Elsinore, and in another hour the entire party were transported to the latter place. This town has nine or ten thousand inhabitants, and is located on a basin of the Sound, nearly land-locked by natural and artificial dikes. The Danish name of the place is Helsingör, and is the scene of Shakespeare's tragedy of Hamlet. The excursionists visited the cathedral, which is the principal object of interest in Elsinore, and contains several very old tombs. Near the town, and on the shore of the Sound, is the Castle of Kronberg, erected in 1580. It is a large, oblong, Gothic structure, built of a whitish stone. It contains a chapel and other apartments. Those occupied by the commandant were the prison of Caroline Matilda, who was confined here for a high crime, of which she is now universally believed to be innocent. Under the castle are casemates for a thousand men, one of which is said to be the abode of _Holger Danske_, who was the Cid Campeador of Denmark, and the hero of a thousand legends. When the state is in peril, he is supposed to march at the head of the armies, but never shows himself at any other time. A farmer, says the story, happened into his gloomy retreat by accident, and found him seated at a stone table, to which his long white beard had grown. The mystic hero demanded the hand of his visitor, who was afraid to trust flesh and blood in the grasp of one so mighty, and offered the iron bar used to fasten the door. Holger Danske seized it, and squeezed it so hard that he left the print of his fingers on the iron. "Ha, I see there are still _men_ in Denmark!" said he, with a grim smile of satisfaction. Near the castle are a couple of natural ponds, small and round, which are called "Holger Danske's Spectacles." "This is where Hamlet lived, I suppose," said Captain Lincoln. "Where Shakespeare says he lived," replied Dr. Winstock. "But I was told his grave was here." "Perhaps Hamlet divided himself up, and occupied a dozen graves, for I think you may find a dozen of them here," laughed the doctor. "A resident of this vicinity had what was called the grave of Hamlet in his grounds, which proved to be a nuisance to him, on account of the great number of visitors who came to see it. In order to relieve himself of this injury to his garden, he got up another 'grave of Hamlet,' in another place, which he proved to be the authentic one." "It is too bad to trifle with history in that manner," protested the captain. "There is no history about it, Lincoln. His residence in this part of Denmark is all a fiction. Shakespeare makes terrible blunders in his allusions to this place; for there is no 'eastern hill,' no 'dreadful summit of the cliff,' or anything of the sort. Hamlet lived in Jutland, not in Seeland, about four centuries before Christ, and was the son of a pirate chief, instead of a king, who, with his brother, was governor of the province. He married the daughter of the king, who was Hamlet's mother. The chief was murdered by his brother, who married the widow, and was then the sole governor. Hamlet, in order to avenge his father's death, feigned madness; but his uncle, suspecting the trick, sent him to England, with a message carved in wood, requesting the king to destroy him. During the voyage, he obtained the wooden letter, and altered it so as to make it ask for the killing of the two men, creatures of his uncle, who had charge of him, which was done on their arrival. According to the style of romances, he married the king's daughter, and afterwards returned to Jutland, where, still pretending insanity, he contrived to surprise and slay his uncle. He succeeded his victim as governor, and married a second time, to a queen of Scotland, and was finally killed in battle. The main features of the tragedy correspond with the incidents of the story, but the locality is not correct." The party walked to Marienlyst, a pleasant watering-place, which contains a small royal chateau. The view from this place, as from the tower of Kronberg, is very beautiful. At four o'clock the party took the steamer, and arrived at Copenhagen before dark. CHAPTER XVII. TO STOCKHOLM BY GÖTA CANAL. The Wadstena, in which the absentees had taken passage at Gottenburg, was a small steamer, but very well fitted up for one of her size. Forward was the saloon, in which meals were taken, and saloon passengers slept. Aft was the cabin, on each side of which were state-rooms, called "hütte." They were not made with regular berths, but had a sofa on each side of the door, on which the beds were made up at night, with a wash-stand between them. Between this cabin and the forward saloon the main deck was raised about three feet, so as to cover the engine and boilers. On each side of this higher deck were more "hütte," which were the best rooms on board. The hurricane-deck, over the after cabin, was the favorite resort of the passengers. It was two o'clock in the morning, and the independent excursionists were tired and sleepy. They had taken first-class tickets, and two of them had been assigned to each "hütte." As soon as they went on board, therefore, they retired, and most of them slept, in spite of the fleas and other vermin that revelled in their banquet of blood. None but very tired boys could have slumbered under such unfavorable circumstances, and it is a great pity that a steamer otherwise so neat and comfortable should be given up to the dominion of these sleep-destroying insects. At seven the party turned out, anxious to see the scenery on the banks of the canal. The steamer was still in the river, a stream not more than a hundred and fifty feet wide, with occasional rapids, which are passed by canals, with locks in them. The scenery was pleasant, with rocky hills on each side. Schooners and other craft were continually met, loaded with lumber and other articles from the lakes. The scene was novel and interesting, and though the boys gaped fearfully, they enjoyed the view. Presently one of the women, who do all the work of stewards and waiters, appeared with coffee on deck, passing the cups to the passengers first, and then filling them. The coffee was delicious, served with the whitest of sugar and the richest of cream, with some little biscuits. It waked the boys up, and seemed to make new beings of them. "How's this, Sanford?" said Scott. "First rate! That's the best coffee I ever drank in my life," replied the coxswain. "Is it a free blow?" "I don't know. How is it, Ole?" "No; you pay at the end of the trip for all you have had," replied the waif. "But who keeps the account?" asked Scott. "Nobody," laughed Ole. "On the boats from Christiania every passenger tells what he has had, and pays for it." "Do they think everybody is honest?" "Certainly; everybody is honest." "Not much," added Sanford, shaking his head. "Of course you don't pretend to be honest, Norway." "But I do." "You didn't take a sovereign from me, and another from Burchmore--did you?" "I take what you give me." "It may be honest, but I don't see it in that light, Norway." "Never mind that now, Sanford," interposed Burchmore. "He sold out the last time for the public good." "Do you expect to find the ship in Stockholm when we get there?" asked Scott. "Of course I do," replied Sanford. "We shall not get there till Tuesday." "Then our cruise is almost ended." "I suppose so. I have been trying hard to join the ship ever since we left her at Christiansand," continued the coxswain, solemnly. "Over the left," chuckled Scott. "Honor bright! I don't believe in running away." "Nor I; but Laybold and I have put our foot into it. I suppose we shall have to spend a week in the brig, and make love to Peaks while the rest of the fellows are seeing Russia." "You will find some way to get out of the scrape." "I don't know. We have lost Copenhagen and Denmark already, and I suppose we shall not see much of Russia." "We will help you out." "I don't think you can do it," added Scott, who had evidently come to the conclusion that running away "did not pay." The steamer stopped, and the captain informed the party that passengers usually walked three miles around the series of locks, by which they were enabled to see the Falls of Trollhätten. The carrying of the canal around these falls was the most difficult problem in engineering in the construction of the work. It is cut through the solid rock, and contains sixteen locks. The passage of the steamer occupies an hour and a half, which affords ample time for the voyagers to see the falls. The party immediately landed, and were promptly beset by a dozen ragged boys, who desired to act as guides, where no such persons are needed. Not one of them spoke a word of English; but they led the way to the path, each one selecting his own victims, and trusting to the magnanimity of the passengers for their pay. A walk, covered with saw-dust, has been made by some public-spirited persons, and the excursion is a very pleasant one. The entire fall of the river is one hundred and twelve feet; but it is made in four principal cataracts, and three smaller ones. The scenery in the vicinity is rather picturesque, and at one point the path goes through a grove, on the banks of a rivulet, where the water dashes over large cobble-stones, with an occasional pretty cascade. The walk leads to various eligible spots for examining the falls and the rapids. On the way, the tourist passes _Kungsgrottan_, or King's Grotto. It is a hole in the solid rock, in the shape of half a globe, on the sides of which are inscribed the names of the various sovereigns of Sweden, and other distinguished persons who have visited the spot. Near the village of Trollhätten, which contains several founderies and saw-mills, the finest part of the falls is seen by crossing an iron foot-bridge, at the gate of which stands a woman, who collects a toll of fifty öre for the passage to the little island. "I don't think much of these falls," said Scott, as he returned from the island. "I think they are rather fine," replied Laybold. "You could cut up the rapids of Niagara into about two hundred just such falls, to say nothing of the big cataract itself," added Scott. "It is pleasant, this walk along the river, but you can't call the Falls of Trollhätten a big thing." "Of course they don't compare with Niagara." "Certainly not." The party walked through the yards of the manufactories, and came to a small hotel on the bank of the canal. The place looked very much like many American villages. The canal steamer did not appear for half an hour, and some of the boys strolled about the place. The regiment of ragged boys who had followed the tourists, or led the way, pointing out the various falls and other points of interest in an unknown tongue, begged lustily for the payment for their services. One of them, who had taken Scott and Laybold under his protection, was particularly urgent in his demands. "Not a red, my hearty," replied Scott. "I didn't engage you, and I shall not pay you." The boy still held out his hand, and said something which no one of the party could understand. "Exactly so," replied Scott. "You told me the names of all the places, but I did not understand a word you said. I say, my lad, when did you escape from the rag-bag?" The boy uttered a few words in Swedish. "Is that so?" The boy spoke again. "Stick to it, my hearty; but I don't believe a word of it." "What does he say, Scott?" "He says the moon is made of green cheese. Didn't you, my lad?" The boy nodded, and spoke again. "It is a hard case, Young Sweden; but I can't do anything for you." "What's a hard case, Scott?" asked Laybold. "Why, he says he has six fathers and five mothers, and he has to support them all by guiding tourists round the falls." "Get out!" "I am afraid they don't have roast beef for dinner every day." "Here's the steamer," added Laybold. The boy became more importunate as the time came to go on board, but Scott was obstinate. "Now, out of my way, my lad. Give my regards to your six fathers and five mothers, and I'll remember you in my will; but I won't give you a solitary red now, because I don't like the principle of the thing. I didn't employ you, and I didn't want you. I told you so, and shook my head at you, and told you to get behind me, Satan, and all that sort of thing; and now I'm not going to pay you for making a nuisance of yourself. On the naked question of charity, I could do something for you, on account of your numerous fathers and mothers. As it is, good by, Sweden;" and Scott went on board of the steamer. The boat started again, and soon the bell rang for breakfast. The boys hastened to the forward saloon, where they found two tables spread. At a sideboard was the Swedish lunch, or snack, of herring, sliced salmon, various little fishes, sausage, and similar delicacies, with the universal decanter of "finkel," flanked with a circle of wine glasses. The tourists partook of the eatables, but most of them were wise enough to avoid the drinkable. The Swedish bread, which is a great brown cracker, about seven inches in diameter, was considered very palatable. Ordinary white bread is served on steamers and at hotels, and also a dark-colored bread, which looks like rye, and is generally too sour for the taste of a foreigner. The breakfast at the tables consisted of fried veal, and fish, with vegetables, and all the elements of the snack. When the boys had finished, one of the women handed Scott a long narrow blank book. "Thank you, marm; I am much obliged to you," said he. "Will you have the kindness to inform me what this is for?" The woman laughed, and answered him in her native tongue. "Precisely so," added Scott. "What does she say?" asked Sanford. "She wants me to write a love letter in this book to her; but as she is rather ancient, I shall decline in your favor, Sanford." "Don't do it, old fellow! Face the music." "Not for Joseph!" "What did she say, Ole?" inquired Sanford. "She said you were to keep your account in that book," replied the interpreter. "Are we to keep our own reckoning?" "Yes; every one puts down in this book what he has had." "That means you, Burchmore. You are the cashier for the party." "How many fellows had coffee this morning?" asked the cashier, as he took the book. "All of them, of course." Burchmore made the entries for the coffee and the breakfasts of the whole party. "Well, that's one way to do the thing," said Scott. "Every man his own book-keeper. I'll bet everybody doesn't charge what he has had." Ole was requested to ask the woman about the matter. She said the Swedes were honest, but the waiters were required to see that everybody paid for what he had had before leaving the steamer. The having of this book is certainly a better plan than that of the Norwegian steamers, by which the passenger, if he means to be honest, is compelled to recollect all he has had in a passage of thirty hours. The Wadstena continued on her course through a rather flat country, just coming into the greenness and beauty of the spring time, till she came to Wenersberg, a town of five thousand inhabitants, which is largely engaged in the lumber and iron trade. The boat stopped there a short time, and the party had an opportunity to examine the lake craft at the wharves; but, after seeing them, it was difficult to believe they were not in some New England coast town. The steamers, however, were very different, all of them being very short, to enable them to pass through the locks in the canal, and most of them having the hurricane deck forward and aft, to afford sufficient space for the cabins. All of them were propellers. The Wadstena started again, the bridges opening to permit her passage. The great Wenern Lake lay before them, which is the third in size in Europe, Onega and Ladoga alone exceeding it in extent. It is about a hundred miles long by fifty in breadth, very irregular in shape, and portions of it are densely crowded with islands. Its greatest depth is three hundred and sixty feet near the Island of Lurö, but a considerable part of it is very shallow, and difficult of navigation. It is one hundred and forty-five feet above the level of the Baltic. Thirty rivers flow into it, and sometimes cause it to rise ten feet above its ordinary level. But the Göta River is its only outlet, and is always supplied with an abundant volume of water. The wind was fresh when the Wadstena steamed out upon the broad expanse, and the lake had a decidedly stormy aspect. "Will you be seasick?" asked the captain, as the little steamer began to bob up and down with a very uncomfortable jerk. "Seasick!" laughed Scott. "We are all sailors, sir, and we don't intend to cave in on a fresh-water pond." "But the lake is very rough to-day." "If your little tub can stand it, captain, we can." "I am very glad, for some people are very sick on this part of the passage. It is sometimes very bad, the worst we have in the whole trip." "How long are we on the lake?" asked Scott. "About seven hours; but not all of it is so bad as this. We go among the islands by and by." Doubtless the Wenern Lake fully maintained its reputation on the present occasion, though none of the young salts were sick. The boat stood to the northward, and the short steamer and the short chop sea would have made the passage very trying to landsmen. Nothing but the distant shores were to be seen, and the monotony of the passage was the only disagreeable circumstance to our tourists. For the want of something better to do, they went below, and, lying down on the sofas in their state-rooms, went to sleep without much difficulty, for the red-backs and fleas kept shady in the daytime. The boys were accustomed to being "rocked in the cradle of the deep;" but at the expiration of three hours, the heavy motion ceased, and the change waked them. Going on the hurricane deck again, they found the steamer was among the islands, which were generally low, rocky, and covered with firs and pines. A crooked channel was carefully buoyed off, and the boat was threading its tortuous way with no little difficulty. Presently the Wadstena made a landing at a rude pier on an island where only a rough shanty was in sight. Several row-boats at the wharf indicated that passengers came to this station from other islands. Again the steamer went out upon the open lake, and soon after entered another group of islands, among which she made a landing at a small town. Passing over another open space, the entrance to the canal was discovered, marked by two low light-houses, in the form of the frustum of a pyramid. As the Wadstena entered a lock, the captain told the party they might take a walk if they pleased, as there were several locks to pass in the next three miles. This was a grateful relief to the voyagers, and they gladly availed themselves of the opportunity. The country was a dead level, with an occasional small farm-house, and with many groves and forests. But the walk was interesting, and the boys would gladly have continued it longer; but at the last lock of the series, the gate-man told them, through Ole, that they must wait here in order to go on board, for the steamer could not make a landing again for several miles. The party remained on the hurricane deck till the cold and the darkness drove them below. Turning in at an early hour, they slept as well as the vermin would allow, until six o'clock the next morning, when the steamer was approaching the Wettern Lake, the second in size in Sweden. The boat was on a broad arm of the lake, called the Viken, for the canal is built only across the narrowest section of country, between two natural bodies of water. The Wettern Lake is ninety miles long and fifteen miles wide, surrounded by hills, from which sudden gusts of wind come, producing violent squalls on the water. This lake is noted for big trout. After crossing the Wettern, the steamer approached Wadstena, which contains an ancient church and convent, and a castle built by Gustavus Vasa, and often occupied by his family. Ten miles farther brought the steamer to Motala, which contains several iron founderies and manufactories. Many iron steamers and steam engines are built at this place. The scenery on this portion of the canal is very beautiful, though not grand. Going through another portion of the artificial canal, the boat enters the Roxen Lake, perhaps the most beautiful in Sweden, and makes a landing at Linköping. There are half a dozen towns with this termination in the country, as Norrköping, Söderköping, Jönköping, the last two syllables being pronounced like _chepping_; as, Lin-chep-ping. Leaving the Roxen Lake, the steamer passes through more canals into an arm of the Baltic, and then into the sea itself, voyaging among a thousand small islands, stopping at Söderköping and Nyköping, important commercial and manufacturing towns. Night came, and our tourists did not stay up to see the lights on the way. The steamer leaves the Baltic, and passing another piece of canal, enters the waters of the Mäler Lake, seventy-five miles long, and containing fourteen hundred islands. The boys were up in season to see the beauties of this lake. Many of the islands rise to a considerable height above the water, and are so thick that one hardly believes he is sailing on a large lake. For quiet beauty and "eternal stillness," the Mäler can hardly be surpassed. In the middle of the forenoon, the spires of Stockholm were to be seen, and the tourists were all attention. From the lake the city presents a fine appearance. Indeed, Stockholm, seen from either of its water approaches, is hardly excelled in beauty by any city in Europe. The Wadstena made her landing at the Island of Riddarholm. As the party were not burdened with any baggage, they decided to walk to the hotel. Ole inquired the way to the Hotel Rydberg, where they had agreed to go; and crossing a bridge to the largest of the three islands of the city, called Stadeholm, they arrived at the palace, beyond which is the quay. Between this island and the main land, on which the greater portion of the town is built, is the passage from the Baltic to the Mäler Lake, and in the middle of it is the Island of Helgeandsholm, or Holy Ghost's Island, with two bridges connecting it with either side. On it are the king's stables, and a semicircular garden, improved as a _café_, with a handsome face wall on the water side. "This isn't bad," said Scott, as the party paused to look down into the garden. "Not at all," replied Sanford. "I suppose they have music here in the evening, and it would be a capital place to loaf." "See the steamers!" exclaimed Laybold, as a couple of the miniature craft, which abound in the waters of Stockholm, whisked up to the quay. "A fellow could put half a dozen of them into his trousers pocket," laughed Scott. "We must go on a cruise in some of them, as soon as we get settled." "Well, where's the hotel?" asked Sanford. It was in plain sight from the bridge, which they crossed to the Square of Gustavus Adolphus, on which the hotel faced. "Good morning, young gentlemen. I am happy to see you," said Mr. Blaine, the head steward of the ship, who was the first person to greet them as they entered the hotel. "Ah, Mr. Blaine!" exclaimed Sanford, his face glowing with apparent satisfaction. "I am delighted to see you; for I was afraid we should never find the ship." "Were you, indeed? Well, I had the same fear myself. I have been looking for you ever since the ship sailed." "We have done our best to find the ship, Mr. Blaine," added Sanford. "O, of course you have; but of course, as you didn't find her, you were not so babyish as to sit down and cry about it." "Certainly not; still we were very anxious to find her." "Mr. Peaks says you came down from Christiania before he did." "Yes, sir." "And you were so anxious to find the ship, that you took a train to the interior of the country, expecting, no doubt, to come across her on some hill, or possibly on some of these inland lakes," continued Mr. Blaine. "We were looking for the ship's company. We met Scott and Laybold, who were going into the interior, and we concluded to join them, as they wanted to find their shipmates," replied Sanford, who was now not entirely confident that "the independent excursion without running away" was a success. "Ah! so you have picked up those two young gentlemen, who ran away," added the head steward, glancing at Scott and Laybold. "Not exactly, sir; they picked us up," answered the coxswain. "I think it was a mutual picking up, and we picked each other up," laughed Scott. "We knew that Sanford and his crew were extremely anxious to find the ship's company, and if we joined them we should be sure to come out right." "Exactly so," laughed Mr. Blaine. "Let me see; after our first day's run on shore, by some mistake you neglected to come on board at night, with the others." "That was the case exactly. The fact is, we were too drunk to go on board with the others." "Drunk!" exclaimed Mr. Blaine. "Such was our melancholy condition, sir," added Scott, shaking his head. "We were invited, in a restaurant, to drink 'finkel,' and not knowing what finkel was, we did drink; and it boozed us exceedingly." "You are very honest about it, Scott." "We are about everything, sir. We slept at a hotel, and when we went down to the wharf to go on board, we learned that the ship's company had gone to Trolldoldiddledy Falls. As we felt pretty well, we thought we would take a train, see a little of the inside of Sweden, and meet the ship's company at Squozzlebogchepping." "Where's that?" asked Mr. Blaine. "I can't give you the latitude and longitude of the jaw-breaker, but it was at the junction of the two railways, where the party came down from the canal. We were sure we should find our fellows there, but the Swedish figures bothered us, and we made a mistake in the hour the train was due." "But the Swedish figures are the same as ours," suggested the head steward. "Are they? Well, I don't know what the matter was, except that we were five minutes too late for the train. That's what's the matter." "How very unfortunate it was you lost that train!" "It was, indeed; I couldn't have felt any worse if I had lost my great-grandmother, who died fifty years before I was born. These honest fellows felt bad, too." "Of course they did." "We took the next train to Gottenburg; but when we arrived, the ship had sailed for Copenhagen, which I was more anxious to see than any other place in Northern Europe." "And for that reason you came on to Stockholm." "No, sir; you are too fast, Mr. Blaine. Your consequent does not agree with the antecedent. There was no steamer for Copenhagen for a couple of days." "There was a steamer within an hour after you reached Gottenburg in that train, and an hour before the sailing of the canal steamer; and Mr. Peaks went down in her," said Mr. Blaine. "We didn't know it." "Certainly you did not." "We knew of no steamer till Monday, and we were afraid, if we went in her, that we should be too late to join the ship in Copenhagen; and with heroic self-denial, we abandoned our fondly-cherished hope of seeing the capital of Denmark, and hastened on to Stockholm, so as to be sure and not miss the ship again. These honest fellows," said Scott, pointing to Sanford and his companions, "agreed with us that this was the only safe course to take." "I see that you struggled very violently to join your ship, and I only wonder that such superhuman efforts should have failed." "They have not failed, sir," protested Scott. "The ship will come here, and we will join her then, or perish in the attempt." "Are you not afraid some untoward event will defeat your honest intentions?" "If they are defeated it will not be our fault." "No, I suppose not; but whom have you there?" inquired the head steward, for the first time observing Ole, who had pressed forward to hear Scott's remarks. "Ole?" "Yes, sir; that's the valiant Ole, of Norway," replied the joker. His presence was satisfactorily explained by the coxswain. "Why did you desire to leave the ship, Ole? Didn't we use you well?" asked Mr. Blaine. "Very well indeed, sir; but I was bashful, and did not wish to see some people in Christiansand," replied the waif. "What people?" Ole evaded all inquiries, as he had a dozen times before, and declined to explain anything relating to his past history. Mr. Blaine said he had heard the party had taken the canal steamer, and he immediately proceeded to Stockholm by railroad. He at once telegraphed to Mr. Lowington at Copenhagen, that he had found all the absentees, and asked for instructions. "Here's a go, and the game is up," said Sanford, in a whisper, when he met Stockwell alone. "That's so; what will he do with us?" "I don't know; I rather like this mode of travelling. But we are caught now." "Perhaps not; we may find some way out of it. According to Blaine's cue we are to be regarded as runaways. If that is the case, I don't join the ship this summer," said Stockwell, very decidedly. "Nor I either," added Sanford. Before dark, Mr. Blaine received a despatch from the principal, directing him to take the next train to Malmö, which is the town in Sweden opposite Copenhagen. The head steward did not communicate its contents to his charge that night, but he called all of them at four o'clock the next morning, and by good management on his part, they were on the train which left Stockholm at six o'clock. At Katherineholm, where the party ate an excellent breakfast, Mr. Blaine unhappily missed three of his company. CHAPTER XVIII. UP THE BALTIC. The excursionists of the squadron slept soundly after their trip to Elsinore, and Clyde Blacklock, true to the promise he had made to himself, kept awake to watch his chances to escape. Not a sound was to be heard in the ship, and the intense silence was even more trying to the prisoner in the brig than the noise and bustle of the whole crew when awake. Ryder, the fourth lieutenant, and two seamen had the anchor watch on deck. Each officer served two hours, and was required at the stroke of the bell, every half hour, to walk through the steerage, where no light was permitted after nine o'clock. Clyde took the saw from its hiding-place under the stairs, and commenced work on one of the slats. The instrument was very sharp, but the noise it made promised to betray him, and he was obliged to use it with extreme caution. Bracing the slat with one shoulder, he worked the saw very slowly, so that the wood should not vibrate. The process was very slow, and twice he was obliged to conceal his saw and lie down on the bed at the approach of the officer of the watch. After working more than an hour, he succeeded in cutting off one of the slats, just far enough above the deck to avoid the nails with which it was secured. But it was fastened at the top as well as at the bottom, and when he pulled it in to wrench it from its position, it creaked horribly, and he was obliged to labor with it another half hour, before he could pull it in far enough to permit his exit. In the middle of the operation he was obliged to restore it partly to its position, and lie down again, to escape the observation of the officer of the anchor watch. His care and patience were finally successful, though, if the sleepers around him had not been very tired, some of them must have been disturbed even by the little noise he made. The removal of the single slat gave him an opening of about nine inches, which was narrow even for him; but he contrived to work himself through it. Putting the slat back into its original position, and wedging it down with a copper, so that the means of his escape might not readily be seen, he crept carefully forward to the ladder under the forecastle, where he paused to consider the means by which he should escape from the vessel. He began to realize that this was a more difficult matter than getting out of the brig. He knew that the anchor watch consisted of an officer and two seamen. While he was thinking of the matter, eight bells struck; and he was aware that the watch was changed at this hour. Retiring to the kitchen to wait for a more favorable moment, he heard the two seamen come down the ladder to call the relief. As they entered one of the mess-rooms, he ran up the ladder, and concealed himself under the top-gallant forecastle. In a few moments he heard the relief on deck, and from his hiding-place saw the officer on the quarter-deck with a lantern in his hand. The two seamen took their places on the top-gallant forecastle, where they could see the entire deck, and any boat or vessel that approached the ship. Clyde did not regard the situation as very hopeful. The night was chilly, and he did not feel at all inclined to swim ashore, which he had intended to do, as a last resort. The boats were all hoisted up at the davits, as if to provide for just such cases as his own. He listened with interest to the conversation of the watch above him; but he could not identify their voices, and was unable to determine whether it was safe for him to address them. In fact he was unable to determine upon anything, and bell after bell struck without finding him any better prepared to make a move. At four bells, or two o'clock in the morning, the watch was relieved again, and Clyde remained in the same unsettled state of mind. But when the two seamen went below to call the relief, he changed his position, crawling into the waist, where he disposed himself under the lee of the rail. Over his head was the fourth cutter, one of the smallest of the boats. Clyde could see the dark form of the officer walking to and fro on the quarter-deck, and his presence was not favorable to any movement. He found the cleats where the falls of the boat were made fast, and he was considering the practicability of casting them off, letting the cutter drop into the water, and then sliding down on a rope. The officer of the anchor watch seemed to be the only obstacle in his way. He began to experiment with the falls. Casting off one of them, he carefully let the rope slip over the cleat till he had lowered the bow of the cutter about two feet. He repeated the operation upon the stern fall. He let off the rope so gradually that the noise did not attract the attention of any of the watch. Five bells struck, and the officer descended to the steerage. While he was absent, Clyde dropped each end of the boat about four feet more, and then coiled himself away until the officer had returned to his station. But it was nearly daylight, and he was compelled to hurry on with his work. Little by little he let out the falls, till the fourth cutter floated in the water. When the officer went below, at six bells, he climbed upon the rail, and slid down on the bow fall into the boat. Casting off the falls, he pushed the cutter astern of the ship, and for the first time began to feel as though he were free. He was afraid to use an oar, lest the noise should attract the attention of the watch on deck. He felt that he had managed his escape with exceeding cleverness, and was unwilling to risk anything now in the moment of success. The wind carried the boat clear of the ship, and he lay down in the stern sheets, so that if the officer on the quarter-deck discovered the cutter, he might suppose no one was in her. He had occupied this position but a moment before he heard a rushing noise near him, and, raising his head, discovered a small schooner, under full sail, headed directly upon him. He had hardly time to stand up before the bow of the vessel was within his reach. "Hallo!" shouted he, in terror, for the thought of being carried under the keel of the schooner was appalling. But the cutter was crowded aside by the vessel, and Clyde sprang upon her deck, while his boat went astern of her. Too late, the schooner luffed up, and Clyde seated himself on the rail to catch his breath. Two men came to him, and spoke in Norwegian. "I speak English," replied Clyde. "You are English?" said the captain. "Yes; I don't speak anything else." "I speak English," replied the skipper, as he went back to the helm, and Clyde followed him. "Where are you bound?" asked the runaway. "To Stockholm." "You are Danish, I suppose." "No, Norwegian." "All the same." "What shall I do with you?" "I will go to Stockholm with you, and pay my passage, if you like," added Clyde, who wished to get as far as possible from the ship. "You shall, if you like; or you shall work, if you please. I lose a young sailor, and I want another, to work in his place." "No; I will go as a passenger, or not at all," replied Clyde, very decidedly. "What you do in a boat so late in the night?" asked the skipper. "I was going on shore to find a steamer for Stockholm. I will pay you twenty species for my passage," added the runaway. "You are very kind to pay so much. You shall have my berth; but it will be long time to Stockholm in my vessel." "No matter; I am satisfied." "I shall pick up the boat you lose?" "No; never mind the boat," answered Clyde, impatiently, as he glanced at the ship. The captain questioned him about the boat more particularly; but the fugitive gave such answers as he pleased. Though the skipper was very rough and savage to the two men who formed his crew, he treated his passenger at first with much consideration. The little cabin of the schooner was a nasty hole, and if Clyde had not been very sleepy, he could hardly have closed his eyes there; but before the vessel was out of sight of Copenhagen, his slumber was deep and heavy. The shout of the fugitive when he was in danger of being run down had been heard by the officer on the quarter-deck of the Young America. He saw the collision, and discovered the cutter when it went astern of the vessel; but he did not suspect that it belonged to the ship. The schooner filled away on her course again, after she had luffed up, and the boat was adrift. He deemed it his duty to secure it before it was stove by some early steamer from Malmö, or elsewhere, and calling the two seamen, he directed them to lower the fourth cutter. But the fourth cutter was already lowered, and the officer began to think that the boat adrift was the missing one. The third cutter, therefore, was used, and when the two seamen had pulled off in her, the officer went below and called Peaks. The boatswain took his lantern, and went to the brig, as soon as he was told that the fourth cutter was adrift. The bird had flown. The door was secure, and all the slats were apparently in their place; but the appearance of a small quantity of saw-dust indicated where the breach had been made. A little pressure forced in the sawn slat, and Peaks understood why the prisoner had only desired to be left alone. "Were you all asleep on deck?" asked Peaks of the officer. "No, sir; I have not been asleep on duty," replied Beckwith, the officer. "Didn't you see him lower the boat?" "Of course I did not." "I don't see how it was done, then," added Peaks. "But where is the prisoner?" "I don't know. I suppose he went on board that small schooner that run down the cutter." "Where is she?" Beckwith pointed to a sail headed to the south-east, which was just visible in the faint light of the early morning. "He is out of our reach for the present," said Peaks, in utter disgust, as he descended the steps to the main cabin. Mr. Lowington was informed of the escape of Clyde, but no steamer could be obtained at that early hour to chase the schooner, and the matter was permitted to rest as it was. When all hands turned out in the morning, a strict investigation was made; but no one who had served on the anchor watch was able to give any information. No one had seen the boat lowered, and no one had heard the saw. Peaks went on shore, and ascertained that the Norwegian schooner Rensdyr had sailed at an early hour. She had cleared for Stockholm, and was doubtless on her way there. The principal was so much interested in the fate of Clyde, or rather in his reformation, that he determined to follow up the fugitive. The English steamer Newsky, from London to Stockholm, was then in port, and when she sailed that day, Peaks was sent in her to intercept the runaway on his arrival at Stockholm. After breakfast, Mr. Andersen came on board, inspected the ship, and witnessed some of the evolutions in seamanship, which included the manning of the yards in honor of his visit. At the invitation of Paul Kendall he went on board of the Grace, and took a sail up the Sound, dining on board, and returning in the afternoon. The students again went on shore, and visited the Rosenberg Palace, an irregular structure of red brick, with a high peaked roof and four towers. Connected with it is an extensive and beautiful garden, adorned with statues. The palace was built for Christian IV., in 1604, but is no longer a royal residence, being filled with various national collections of arms, medals, and antiquities, including many historical mementos of kings and other great men of Denmark. Among them are the saddle, bridle, and caparisons, the sword and pistols, presented by King Christian IV. to his eldest son at his marriage. They are adorned with diamonds, pearls, and gold, and cost a million francs in Paris. In the afternoon the students marched to the Palace of Frederiksberg, whose park is a favorite resort of the people of the city. The building contains nothing worth seeing; indeed, portions of it have been rented for the use of private families; but the garden is beautifully laid out with kiosks, bridges over the winding canal, on which float a great number of white swans, with little islands, studded with groves and pleasant grassy slopes. The palace stands on the only eminence near Copenhagen. On pleasant days, especially on Sundays, this park is filled with family picnics, little parties bringing their own lunch, and spending the day in these delightful groves. During the remainder of the day the students wandered over the city, each seeking what pleased him most. When they went on board the vessels, they were entirely satisfied with what they had seen of Copenhagen, and were ready to visit some other city. Very early the next morning, Mr. Blaine, with all but three of the absentees, came on board. The head steward told his story, and Scott and Laybold told their story; the former, as usual, being the spokesman. The wag told the whole truth, exactly as it was; that they were ashamed to come on board while so tipsy, and had missed the train at the junction. "Have you drank any finkel since?" asked the principal. "No, sir; not a drop. One glass was enough for me," replied Scott. "And you, Laybold?" "No, sir." "You may both return to your duty," added the principal. Both were astonished at being let off so easily; but Mr. Lowington was satisfied that they spoke the truth, and had not intended to run away. The others were also ordered to attend to their duty, but with the intimation that their conduct would be investigated at the return of Sanford and Stockwell, who, with Ole, had left the party at Katherineholm. The signal for sailing was flying on board of the Young America, and at seven o'clock the squadron was under way, continuing the voyage "up the Baltic." No notice seemed to be taken of the absence of Sanford and Stockwell, but everybody believed that the principal knew what he was about. The wind was tolerably fresh from the west-south-west, and the squadron made rapid progress through the water, logging ten knots all day. The students watched with interest the villages on the coast of Denmark, with their sharp, red roofs, and the swarms of fishing-boats moored in front of them. The shores of Sweden were in sight all the time, and at three o'clock in the afternoon land was also seen on the starboard bow. But the masters, who were constantly watching the chart, were not at all astonished, though the seamen were. "What land is that, Scott?" asked Laybold. "That? Why, don't you know?" "I'm sure I don't. I know Germany is over there somewhere, but I didn't expect to run into it so near Sweden." "That's Gabogginholm." "Is it in Germany?" "No; it's an island, at least a hundred and fifty miles from Germany. The Baltic is rather a big thing out here." "How do you remember those long names, Scott?" "What long names?" "Such as the name of that island. I couldn't recollect such a word ten minutes." "Nor I either. I know them by instinct." "What did you say the name of the island is?" "Gastringumboggin." "That isn't what you said before." "I've forgotten what I did say it was. You musn't ask me twice about a name, for I say I can't remember," laughed Scott. "You are selling me." "Of course I am; and you go off cheaper than any fellow I ever saw before. I haven't the least idea what the land is, except that it must be an island not less than a hundred and fifty miles from Prussia." "That's Bornholm," said Walker, a seamen, who had heard the name from the officers. "It's an island twenty-six miles long and fifteen wide, belongs to Denmark, and has thirty-two thousand inhabitants, and a lot of round churches on it. That's what the fellows on the quarter-deck say." "Precisely so," replied Scott. "You have learned your lesson well. What is the principal town on that island?" "I don't know," answered Walker. "Stubbenboggin," said Scott. "Who told you so?" "My grandmother," laughed the wag, as he turned on his heel, and walked away. Towards night the wind subsided, and the squadron was almost becalmed; but a light breeze sprang up after dark, and in the morning the ship was off the southern point of Oland, an island ninety miles long by ten wide, and well covered with forests. On the narrow strait which separates it from the main land is Calmar, a town of historic interest, in Sweden. At noon the southern point of Gottland was seen, and Scott insisted upon calling it "Gabungenboggin," though the real name was soon circulated. It is eighty miles long by thirty-three wide, and contains fifty-four thousand inhabitants. Wisby is the only town. The island is noted for its beautiful climate, which makes it a pleasant resort for summer tourists. At sunrise on the following morning, the ship leading the squadron was approaching the islands which cover the entrance to the harbor of Stockholm. Pilots were taken by the several vessels, and the fleet entered the archipelago, through which it was to sail for thirty miles. At first the openings were very wide, and not much of the shore could be seen; but soon the distances grew less, and the shores were studded with villages and fine residences. The little steamers--some of them not so large as the ship's first cutter--began to appear; and at eight o'clock the Young America let go her anchor between Staden and Skeppsholm, off the quay near the palace, which was crowded with steamers. "Here we are, Laybold," said Scott, when the sails had been furled, and every rope coiled away in its place. "That's so. What's that big building on the shore?" "That's the Slottenboggin," laughed Scott. "No, you don't! You can't sell me again with your boggins." "I'll bet half a pint of salt water it is the king's palace." "Very likely it is; and here is a fine building on the other side." "That must be the Wobbleboggin." "No, it isn't." "Perhaps it isn't; but twig these little steamers," added Scott, pointing to one of the snorting miniature boats that plied across the arm of the sea opposite the quay. "The pilot and engineer, and a boy to take the fares, seem to be the officers, crew, and all hands." "And in some of them all hands are boys." The boats seemed to contain nothing but the engine and boiler, which were in a compact mass, without covering. All around them were seats. Forward of the engine was a little steering-wheel, hardly more than a foot in diameter, at which the pilot--often a boy--was seated. "I want a complete view of the city," said Captain Lincoln, at this moment coming into the waist with the surgeon and Norwood. "I think I can get it from the main cross-trees." "I am too stiff to go aloft," replied Dr. Winstock; "but I commend your plan." "I'm with you," added Norwood, as he followed the captain up the main rigging. From this lofty position on the cross-trees the two officers obtained a good idea of the situation of the city. The three islands which form the central portion of the city lay in the strait leading to the Mäler Lake. The north and south suburbs were on each side of it. Skeppsholm, Castellholm, and the Djurg[)a]rden--Deer Garden--were other islands, lying nearer the Baltic. The finest portion of the city seemed to be the northern suburbs. While they were studying the panorama of the place, all hands were called to lecture, and they hastened to their places in the steerage. Professor Mapps was at his post, with the map on the foremast. "Sweden is called _Sverige_ by the natives; La_ Suède_ by the French; _Schweden_ by the Germans; _La Svezia_ by the Italians; and _Suecia_ by the Spaniards. It contains one hundred and sixty-eight thousand square miles--a territory equal in extent to the six New England States, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware united. Its population is a little over four millions--about the same as that of the State of New York. It is nearly a thousand miles long from north to south, with an average breadth of two hundred miles. By far the greater portion of it is very sparsely settled, for it extends from fifty-five degrees of north latitude up to the arctic regions. It contains no important rivers, though its large lakes and arms of the sea are valuable as avenues of navigation. Over eighty lakes are mentioned." The instructer described the Wenern and Wettern Lakes, and the Göta Canal, which passes through them. "Sweden is an agricultural country, and its principal manufactures are lumber and iron. It has six hundred and thirty-eight miles of railway, and the steamers which you see at the quay, mostly of iron, and built in Sweden, ply to all parts of the country. "The average of the temperature in Stockholm is forty-two degrees, or twenty-five degrees for winter, and sixty-two degrees for summer. From what you have already seen of Sweden, I think you will consider it very like New England. The interior has about the same physical features, and you will see there similar houses, barns, and fences. "The government is a limited monarchy, based on the constitution of 1809, and since amended. The king must be a Lutheran. He has an absolute veto on the acts of the legislature. The Diet, or Parliament, consists of two houses, the upper of which is composed of one hundred and twenty-seven members, or one for every thirty thousand inhabitants. The lower house consists of one hundred and eighty-eight members, fifty-five of whom are elected by the towns, and the rest by the rural districts, at the rate of one for every forty thousand people. Property qualifications are required for either house, and all members must be Protestants. They are paid a salary of three hundred and thirty-five dollars of our money, and their travelling expenses, for the session of four months. "I have incidentally spoken of the history of Sweden in connection with that of Norway and Denmark. The kingdom was founded by Odin, and for a long period the history of the country is a record of the wars with Norway and Denmark, and it was finally conquered by Margaret, and by the Union of Calmar the three kingdoms were consolidated in 1397. It became a Christian nation early in the eleventh century. Sweden was doubtless the first anti-slavery power; for, during the reign of Birger II., about 1300, a law against the sale of slaves was enacted, with the declaration that it was 'in the highest degree criminal for Christians to sell men whom Christ had redeemed by his blood.' "In 1520 Gustavus Ericsson excited a rebellion against Christian II., of Denmark, who had murdered his father and many other Swedes. This revolution was successful three years later, and its leader made king, under the title of Gustaf I., often called Gustavus Vasa, or Wasa. He was succeeded by his son, and the throne continued in his family; but the next notable sovereign was Gustaf II., or Gustavus Adolphus. His grandfather, Gustavus Vasa, had established the Protestant religion in Sweden; but his nephew, Sigismond, who had been elected king of Poland, and had become a Catholic, succeeded to the throne. Endeavoring to change the established religion, he was deposed, and the succession changed. This caused a war between Sweden, and Russia, and Poland. Gustavus was only eighteen when he came to the throne, with this war bequeathed to him. He was full of energy, and defeated his enemies on all sides. Austria was the leader of the Catholic party in Europe, which was striving to restore the papal supremacy. Gustavus Adolphus held a similar relation to the Protestant party. He was engaged in the Thirty Years' War, and won many decisive victories. He captured Munich, and overran Bavaria, but was finally killed in the battle of Lützen, in 1632. By his prowess and skill he raised Sweden to the rank of one of the first kingdoms of Europe. "He was succeeded by his daughter, Christina, then only six years old. She reigned but seven years after she became of age, abdicating in favor of her cousin Charles X. She died in Rome, after a dissolute and shameful life, and was interred in St. Peter's Church. Charles was at war with the Danes during his brief reign, and achieved the daring military feat of crossing the Great and Little Belts on the ice, which enabled him to dictate his own terms of peace with the Danes. The Swedes consider him one of their greatest kings. His son, Charles XI., followed him, and ruled for thirty-seven years. After a brief period of peace, another war with Denmark ensued, which resulted to the ultimate advantage of Sweden. This king contrived to obtain from the Diet the gift of absolute power, which, in the hands of his son and successor, Charles XII., nearly ruined the nation. Russia, Poland, and Denmark combined to rob him of a considerable portion of his kingdom, and Charles XII., at the age of sixteen, displayed an energy and a skill far beyond his years. He conquered a peace with Denmark first, and then turned his attention to the rest of his enemies, whom he overwhelmed and subdued. With nine thousand men he defeated a Russian army of forty thousand, under Peter the Great, at Narva. He vanquished the armies of Poland and Saxony, and attempted the conquest of Russia, but was utterly defeated in the battle of Pultowa, and escaped into Turkish territory, where he remained for five years. Here he brought about a war between Turkey and Russia, and the army of the former shut up that of Peter the Great in the Crimea. The lady who was afterwards Catharine I. bribed the grand vizier with all her jewels to allow the Russians to escape, and this event utterly ruined the hopes of the monarch of Sweden. Finally the Turks drove him from their country, and, after various vicissitudes, he arrived in his own, and was killed, in 1718, at Frederikhald, in Norway. While he was away, his enemies had been appropriating his territory, and Sweden was reduced to a second-class power. "The Diet elected Ulrica Eleonora, sister of Charles, queen, who resigned in favor of her husband, Fredrik I. Another war with Russia followed, and Sweden lost more of her territory. Adolf Fredrik succeeded to the throne in 1751, who was elected by the Diet. Still another war with Russia was carried on during his reign. His son, Gustaf III., with the aid of his soldiers, increased the powers of the crown; but he was assassinated at a ball, in 1792, and his son, Gustaf Adolf IV., came to the throne. His policy involved the nation in a war with the allies, and he lost Finland and Pomerania. He was so unpopular that he was compelled to abdicate, and his uncle, Charles XIII., was raised to the throne in 1809. He had no children, and the Prince of Holstein-Augustenburg was elected as his successor; but he was assassinated, and one of Napoleon's generals, Bernadotte, was chosen crown prince, and in 1818 he succeeded to the throne as Charles XIV. His reign was a successful one, and his efforts to secure Norway to his adopted country made him popular even before he was king. He espoused the cause of the allies against Napoleon, and was well cared for by them when the affairs of Europe were finally settled. "His son Oscar was his heir, and came to the throne at the death of his father in 1844. He was followed by his son, Charles XV., the present king, in 1859. "The army organization is similar to that of Denmark, and about one hundred and fifty thousand men are available for service. The navy contains four monitors on the American plan, which were invented by John Ericsson, a Swede, two iron-clad gunboats, twenty-one steamers, and sixteen sailing vessels, besides a great number of floating batteries, and other stationary craft. Although only about six thousand sailors are actually in the navy, nearly thirty thousand can be had in case of war." The professor finished his lecture, and the students hastened on deck, to see more of the sights which surrounded them. CHAPTER XIX. THE CRUISE IN THE LITTLE STEAMER. "What's the use, Stockwell?" said Sanford, as the absentees seated themselves on the train for Malmö, under the charge of the head steward. "Blaine got his despatch from the principal last night, but he didn't say a word to us till this morning. He's playing a sharp game." "That's so," replied Stockwell. "He don't mean to trust us out of sight again." "Don't say a word to any fellow," whispered the coxswain. "You and I will fight it out on our own hook." "I understand. It is plain enough that Blaine regards us as runaways, and I suppose the principal will do the same." "Very likely; and when we get to Russia, all we shall have to do will be to count our fingers in the steerage, while the rest of the fellows are seeing the Russians," continued Sanford, who now appeared to regard "the independent excursion without running away" as a failure. "We shall not even see anything more of Stockholm. I don't like the idea." "Well, what are you going to do about it?" asked Stockwell. "At the first chance we will leave this train, and make our way back to Stockholm," whispered Sanford. "There is a steamer to St. Petersburg twice a week, and we have money enough to carry us through." "Right; I am with you." "We will take Ole, if you like, to do the talking for us." "I don't object." The train stopped at Katherineholm about half past nine. The boys had taken nothing but the Swedish early breakfast of coffee and a biscuit, and the head steward allowed them to have a more substantial meal, each paying for himself. They entered the restaurant, where, on a large table in the centre of the room, were great dishes of broiled salmon and veal cutlets, with high piles of plates near them. Each passenger helped himself at these dishes, and then seated himself at one of the little tables. When he had finished his salmon, he helped himself to veal cutlets; beer and coffee were served by the waiters. Sanford and Stockwell hurried through the meal, and went to the counter where the woman received payment. She asked them some question and they were obliged to call Ole, to know what she said. She asked if they had had beer or coffee, which was extra, the meal being one and a half rix dalers. She gave them a tin check; for at this place they seemed to be sharper than the Swedes usually are, and the check was to enable them to get out of the restaurant. A man at the door received it, and no one was allowed to pass without it; and thus none could leave without paying for the meal. "Finished your breakfast, Ole?" said Sanford, carelessly. "Yes; and that salmon was very good." "First rate. Come with us, Ole," added the coxswain, as he led the way out of the restaurant. The trio entered the station, and as no one followed them, they left by the front door. Dodging behind the buildings, they soon cleared the station. Taking the public road, they walked for half an hour at a rapid pace, and then halted to consider the situation. The train had gone, for they had heard its departure; but whether Mr. Blaine had gone or not was an open question. "What next?" said Sanford, as he seated himself at the side of the road. "Take the train back to Stockholm," replied Stockwell. "Perhaps Blaine did not go on, after he missed us." "Of course he did. But whether he did or not, the train has gone, and he cannot take us to Copenhagen. If we find him at the station, why, we took a little walk, and lost the train, you know." "That's played out," replied Sanford. "We have missed the train too many times, already. What time does the next one return to Stockholm?" "I don't know. Let's go back to the station." This course was adopted, and on their arrival they learned that they could return to Stockholm at half past two in the afternoon. The man in charge said that the gentleman with the young men had been looking for them. Sanford replied, through Ole, that they had lost the train, but would return to Stockholm, and start again the next morning. After dining in the restaurant, the runaways--as they certainly were now, if not before--departed, and arrived at their destination in about three hours. They immediately went to the office on the quay, and learned that a steamer would leave for St. Petersburg at two o'clock on Friday morning. "Can we engage places now?" asked Sanford,--for the clerk in charge spoke English. "Certainly." "We will take three places in one room," added the coxswain. "Have you passports?" asked the clerk. "No, sir." "We cannot sell you tickets then." "Not without passports?" exclaimed Sanford, appalled at this new difficulty. "No; and passports must be _visé_ by the Russian consul before we can issue a ticket." "We are down then," added the coxswain. "My passport is on board of the ship." "So is mine," added Stockwell. "And I never had any," said Ole. The party left the steamer's office, and were unable to devise any means of overcoming the obstacle. They went to the Hotel Rydberg again, and consulted the porter, who had been very kind to them before. This functionary is entirely different in European hotels from those of the same name in the United States. He stands at the entrance, usually dressed in uniform, to answer all inquiries of guests, and to do all that is required of the clerks in American hotels. He assured the anxious inquirers that, even if they got into Russia, their passports would be immediately demanded, and that no one could remain in any city there over night without one. The American minister in Stockholm would give them the required documents. "But Ole, here, is a Norwegian," suggested Sanford. "No matter. Have him put into your passport as your courier or servant." "All right; we will see him to-morrow," replied the coxswain; and the problem seemed to be solved. The next day they went to the American legation, but the minister had gone to Upsala for a week, and the secretary declined to issue the passports, because the boys could not prove that they were citizens of the United States. Vexed and discouraged, they wandered about the city till Friday noon, when an English steamer came into port. They stood on the quay, watching the movements of the passengers as they landed. They had almost concluded to take a steamer to Stettin, Lübeck, or some other port in Germany; but Russia was a strange land, and they were not willing to abandon the idea of seeing its sights. "I wonder whether this steamer goes any farther," said Stockwell. "I don't know," added Sanford. "Perhaps she goes to St. Petersburg. It may be her officers are not so particular about the confounded passports." "But you can't stay in Russia over night without one, even if you get there." "The American minister will fit us out with them. I expect to find a letter of credit in St. Petersburg, and that will prove that I am an American." "Let us go on board of the steamer and ascertain where she is going," continued Sanford, as he led the way across the plank, which had been extended from the deck to the stone pier. The boys went upon the hurricane deck, where they had seen an officer who looked as though he might be the captain. "Do you go to St. Petersburg, captain?" asked the coxswain. "No; we return to London, touching only at Copenhagen," replied the officer. "That's too bad!" exclaimed Stockwell. "So it is," said a tall man, who had followed the runaways up the steps from the lower deck. "But you are not going to St. Petersburg without the rest of us--are you?" Sanford was startled, and turning sharp around, saw Peaks, who had come out of the cabin as the boys stepped on board. He had followed them to the hurricane deck, and suspecting that something was wrong, he had waited till the coxswain's question betrayed their intention. "No, we are not going to St. Petersburg; we are waiting for the ship," replied Sanford, recovering his self-possession in an instant. "O, you are? All right, then. But the last I heard of you was, that you were all on your way to Copenhagen to join the ship," added the boatswain. "So we were, Mr. Peaks; but after we had taken breakfast at a station on the railroad, we went to have a little walk, and see something of the country. We thought we had time enough, but the train--confound it!--went off without us. We were terribly provoked, but we couldn't help ourselves, you know; so we made our way back to this city." "I think you must have been very badly provoked," said Peaks. "O, we were,--honor bright." "But you thought you would go over to St. Petersburg before the ship arrived?" "Certainly not; we had no idea of going to St. Petersburg." "And that's the reason you asked whether this steamer was going there,--because you hadn't any idea of going." "We know very well that we can't go to St. Petersburg without our passports, which are on board of the ship," protested Sanford. "Yes, I understand; but who is this?" asked Peaks, as he glanced at Ole. "That's Ole Amundsen; don't you remember him?" "I think I do. And he is on a lark with you." "We are not on a lark. We have been trying with all our might to find the ship, for the last fortnight; and we are bound to do so, or die in the attempt," said Stockwell. "And Ole has been with you all the time?" "Yes, sir; we couldn't have done anything without him." "And would have been on board the ship long ago, if you hadn't had him to speak the lingo for you." "When we tell you our story, you will see that we have done our best to find the ship." "I don't know that I care to hear any more of your story; it's too much story for me, and you can tell it to Mr. Lowington, who will be here by to-morrow, I think. Very likely you can take me to a good hotel." "Yes, sir; we are staying at the Hotel Rydberg, which is the best in Stockholm." "Heave ahead, then." The runaways led the way. "Do you talk the Swedish lingo, Ole?" asked the boatswain. "Yes, sir." "Where did you stow yourself, when we went into Christiansand?" "In the second cutter, sir," replied the waif, laughing. "Exactly so; you were to go with her crew when they left." "No, sir; I didn't know a single one of them." "What did you hide for, then?" "Because I didn't want the pilot to see me." "Why not?" asked the boatswain. But this was as far as Ole would go in that direction. Neither man nor boy could extort from him the secret he so persistently retained. A short walk brought the party to the Hotel Rydberg. "This gentleman wants a room," said Sanford to the porter. "No. 29," said the man, calling a servant. "Did you get your passports, young men?" Sanford drew back, and made energetic signs to the porter to keep still; but the official failed to understand him. "No; they haven't got them yet," replied Peaks. "The fact is, all the passports are on board the ship." "But the young gentlemen were very anxious to obtain new ones, so that they could go to St. Petersburg. They intended to leave by this morning's steamer, but no tickets can be had without passports." Both Sanford and Stockwell shook their heads to the stupid porter, who was remarkably intelligent on all other points; but somehow he did not see them, or could not comprehend them. "It's too bad about those passports--isn't it, my lads?" laughed Peaks, turning to the runaways. "Here's more proof that you hadn't the least idea of going to St. Petersburg." "I was very sorry for the young gentlemen, and did the best I could for them," added the gentlemanly porter. "No doubt you did; and I'm very much obliged to you for the trouble you took," replied the good-natured boatswain. "No. 29, sir?" interposed the servant, with the key in his hand. "Ay, ay, my hearty. But, young gentlemen, I want to save you from any more terrible disappointments and awful vexations in finding the ship. I'm going up to my bunk, and if I don't find you here when I come down, I shall call on the American consul, and ask him to put the police on your track. You shall find the ship this time, or perish in the attempt, sure." "Here's a go!" exclaimed Stockwell, as the servant conducted the boatswain up the stairs to his chamber. "What did you say anything to him about the passports for?" snapped Sanford to the porter. The official in uniform by this time understood the matter, and apologized, promising to make it all right with the tall gentleman, and to swear that not a word had been said to him or any one else about passports. It was his business to please everybody, and his perquisites depended upon his skill in doing so. "What did Peaks mean about police?" said Sanford, as the trio seated themselves near the front door of the hotel. "He means what he says; confound him, he always does!" replied Stockwell. "He intends to treat us as runaway seamen, and have us arrested if we attempt to leave." "We are trapped," muttered Sanford. "What's Peaks doing up here?" "I don't know, unless he is looking for us." "It makes no difference now. We are caught, and we may as well make the best of it." "It's all up with us," added the coxswain. "Peaks knows what he is about, and there isn't much chance of getting the weather-gage of him." The boatswain came down in a short time. He was cool and good-natured, and knew exactly how to deal with the parties in hand. "Now, young gentlemen, if you are going to Russia, don't let me detain you. If you wish to go any where else, I shall not meddle myself. I shall let the American consul attend to the matter. I have business here, and I can't keep an eye on you. But if you want to be fair and square, and not break your hearts because you can't find the ship, just be in sight when I want to know where you are." "We shall be right on your heels all the time, Mr. Peaks. If you don't object, we will go with you. We know the way round Stockholm, and will help you all we can," said Stockwell. "That's sensible." "We will show you out to the Djurgarden," added Sanford. "Never mind the shows. I want Ole to talk for me, and I don't object to your company," replied the boatswain. "I beg your pardon, sir," said the porter, presenting himself to Peaks at this moment. "I made a bad mistake. It was not these young gentlemen who wanted the passports. It was another party." "Exactly. I understand," replied the boatswain, turning to the boys with a significant smile on his bronzed face. "They were waiting for you, and were very anxious to join their ship." "It was very kind of them to wait for me, when they hadn't the least idea I was coming. All right, my hearty; you needn't trouble yourself to smooth it over. How much did you pay him for those lies, Sanford?" "Not a cent, sir!" "Never mind; don't bother your heads any more about it. I understand the matter now as well as I shall after you have explained it for a week," answered Peaks, as he left the hotel, followed by the discomfited trio. The boatswain did not deem it expedient to explain to them his business in Stockholm. He found people enough who spoke English, so that he was able to dispense with the services of Ole as interpreter. He ascertained that no such vessel as the Rensdyr had yet arrived, and satisfied with this information, he went out to the Djurgarden with his charge, dined at Hasselbacken, and made himself quite comfortable. After breakfast the next morning, with Ole's assistance, he chartered one of the little steamers, which was about the size of the ship's second cutter, and, taking the trio with him, sailed out towards the Baltic. "Where are you going, Mr. Peaks?" asked Sanford, deeply mystified by the movements of the boatswain. "I'm going to make a trip down to the Baltic, to see what I can see," replied Peaks. "Are you going for the fun of it?" "Well, that depends upon how you view it. I suppose you are going for the fun of it, whether I am or not." "But we would like to know what is up," added Sanford. "Young gentlemen should not be inquisitive," laughed the old salt. "Because, if you are going out to meet the ship, in order to put us on board--" "I'm not going for any such purpose," interposed the boatswain. "I shouldn't take all that trouble on your account." "But where are you going?" "That's my affair, my lad." "We don't mean to give you any trouble on our account," said Sanford, who could not readily dispossess himself of the belief that the expedition was to put his party on board of the ship when she hove in sight. "Of course you don't, my tender lambs. You have been so anxious to find the ship, and get on board, it would be cruel to suspect you of any mischief," laughed Peaks. "But, honor bright, Mr. Peaks, whatever we intended, we are ready now to do just what you say, and return to the ship as soon as we can." "You are all nice boys. You have had a good time, and I think you ought to be satisfied." "We are satisfied; but I suppose we shall have no liberty again, after we go on board." "Perhaps you will; the principal isn't hard with the boys when they come right square up to the mark; but you can't humbug him." "But, honestly, Mr. Peaks, we tried to find the ship, and--" "There, there, lads," interposed the boatswain, "I don't believe you will have any liberty." "Why not?" "Because you want to humbug the principal; and me, too--but that's no account. If you want to make the best of it, toe the mark. Don't have any lies in your heart or on your tongue. Tell the whole truth, and you will make more by it; but tell the truth whether you make anything or not." "You won't believe anything we say," protested Sanford. "Of course I won't, when you are lying. I call things by their right names." "We didn't stave the boat at Christiansand." "Yes, you did," replied Peaks, plumply. "If you think so, it's no use talking." "Certainly not; don't talk, then." Sanford was not prepared for so grave a charge as that of causing the accident to the second cutter; and if the principal was of the same mind as the boatswain, the case would go hard with the runaways. The coxswain and Stockwell went into the bow of the little steamer to discuss their situation, which they did very earnestly for a couple of hours. "There's the ship!" exclaimed Sanford, as he identified the Young America, half a mile distant, leading the squadron into the harbor of Stockholm. "So it is; now we are in for it. Peaks has come out here with us to make sure that we don't get away from him," added Stockwell. "If I had known as much last night as I know now, I would have cleared out, in spite of consul and police. If we are to be charged with smashing the second cutter, we shall not go on shore again this summer." "That's so. But this boat is not headed for the ship. Peaks don't see her." "Yes, he does; there isn't a craft of any sort within five miles of us that he don't see." "There's the ship, Mr. Peaks," shouted Stockwell. "I see her." But the boatswain continued on his course, paying no attention to the ship. The squadron disappeared among the islands, and the steamer went out into the Baltic, keeping well in towards the shore. When any small schooner appeared, he ran up and examined her very carefully, overhauling three in this manner in the course of the forenoon. At noon the boatswain piped all hands to dinner, for he had procured a supply of provisions at the hotel. Though he had chartered the steamer with Ole acting as an interpreter, he gave no hint of his plans or purposes. He made signs to the helmsman where to go, and occasionally gave directions through Ole. The fourth small schooner that he examined proved to be the Rensdyr, and Peaks identified her by seeing Clyde Blacklock, who stood on the forecastle, looking out for the approaches to Stockholm. Possibly he had seen the Young America, which passed the schooner, though a mile distant. "Lay her alongside that small vessel," said Peaks to Ole. "That one!" exclaimed Ole, whose brown face seemed to grow pale, as he looked at the Rensdyr. "That's what I say, my lad." The waif actually trembled; but he spoke to the helmsman, who immediately put the boat about, and headed her towards Stockholm. "No," said Peaks, sternly. "That vessel." He pointed to her, and Ole spoke again to the steersman, but without any better result. The boatswain was not to be thwarted. Going forward, he took the little wheel into his own hands, and headed the steamer towards the Rensdyr. Indicating by his signs what he wanted, the man at the helm seemed to be quite willing to obey orders when he knew what was wanted. "Don't go to that vessel, Mr. Peaks," cried Ole, in an agony of terror. "Why, my lad, what's the matter with you?" "That's the Rensdyr!" "I know it." "He will kill me," groaned Ole. "Who will?" "Captain Olaf." "Well, who's he?" "He is the captain of the Rensdyr. He will kill me." "No, he won't, my hearty. You shall have fair play. Who is he?" "My step-father, Olaf Petersen. He beat me and starved me, and I ran away from the Rensdyr in the boat." "O, ho! The story is out--is it?" "That's the whole truth, sir; it is, Mr. Peaks," protested Ole. "Don't go to her!" "Don't you be alarmed. You shall have fair play," added the stout boatswain, as the steamer ran alongside the schooner, and the man at the bow made her fast. [Illustration: BOARDING THE RENSDYR. Page 344.] Peaks was on her deck in another instant, and had Clyde by the collar. "I want you, my lad," said he. "Let me alone!" cried the Briton, who had not recognized his tyrant till he was in his grasp, for the simple reason that he did not expect to see him at that time and place. "No use to kick or yell, my jolly Briton. I never let go," added the boatswain. At this moment there was a yell from the steamer. Captain Olaf no sooner discovered his lost step-son, than he sprang upon him like a tiger. Ole howled in his terror. Peaks dragged Clyde on board the steamer, and tossing him on the seat at the stern, turned his attention to the skipper of the schooner. "Steady! hold up, my hearty," said he, pulling the old Norwegian from his prey. "My boy! My son! He steal my boat, and leave me," said Olaf, furiously. "He says you didn't treat him well; that you starved and beat him." "I'll bet Ole told the truth," interposed Clyde, who seemed suddenly to have laid aside his wrath. "Captain Olaf is a brute." "How's that, my lad? Do you know anything about it?" asked Peaks. "I know the skipper is the ugliest man I ever met in my life," answered Clyde. "Won't you except me, my bold Briton?" "No; I paid my passage, and haven't had enough to eat to keep soul and body together. Besides that, he tried to make me work, and I did do some things. If I had been obliged to stay on board another day, I should have jumped overboard," continued Clyde. "I begin to think I was a fool for leaving the ship." "I began to think so at the first of it," added Peaks. "Ole is my son; I must have him," growled the skipper. "I have nothing to do with Ole; he may go where he pleases," said the boatswain. Olaf spoke to his step-son in his own language, and for a few moments the dialogue between them was very violent. "Cast off, forward, there; give them the Swedish of that, Ole," shouted Peaks. "Must I go on board of the Rensdyr?" asked the trembling waif. "Do just as you please." "Then I shall stay, and go to the ship." "No, he shall not; he shall come with me," said Olaf, making a spring at Ole. But Peaks, who had promised to see fair play, interfered, and with no more force than was necessary, compelled the skipper to return to the schooner. The steamer shoved off, and amid the fierce yells of Olaf, steamed towards Stockholm. As she went on her way, Ole told his story. At the death of his father, who was the master of a small vessel, he had gone to England with a gentleman who had taken a fancy to him, and worked there a year. The next summer he had accompanied his employer in an excursion through Norway, and found his mother had married Olaf Petersen. She prevailed upon him to leave his master, and he went to sea with her husband. Then his mother died, and the skipper abused him to such a degree, that he determined to leave the vessel. Olaf had twice brought him back, and then watched him so closely, that he could find no opportunity to repeat the attempt when the Rensdyr was in port. On the day before the ship had picked him up, Olaf had thrashed him soundly, and had refused to let him have his supper. Olaf and his man drank too much finkel that night, and left Ole at the helm. Early in the evening, he lashed the tiller, and taking to the boat, with the north star for his guide, pulled towards the coast of Norway. Before morning he was exhausted with hunger and fatigue. He had lost one oar while asleep, and the other was a broken one. At daylight he saw nothing of the Rensdyr, and feeling tolerably safe, had gone to sleep again, when he was awakened by the hail from the ship. "But why did you leave the ship?" asked Peaks. "Because I was afraid of the pilot. I thought he and other people would make me go back to Olaf." "Olaf has no claim upon you. He is neither your father nor your guardian." "I was afraid." "Where was your vessel bound?" "To Bremen, where she expected to get a cargo for Copenhagen. I suppose she found another cargo there for Stockholm." "I don't blame you, Ole, for leaving him," said Clyde. "Olaf is the worst man I ever saw. When he got drunk, he abused me and the men. I had to keep out of his way, or I believe he would have killed me, though I was a passenger, and paid my fare." At three o'clock in the afternoon, the little steamer ran alongside the ship, and the party went on board, though the principal and all the officers and crew were on shore. CHAPTER XX. STOCKHOLM AND ITS SURROUNDINGS. After the professor's lecture on board of the ship, the students were piped to dinner. According to his usual custom, Paul Kendall, with his lady, took rooms at the hotel, and in this instance his example was followed by Shuffles. Dr. Winstock and Captain Lincoln had already accepted an invitation from Paul to spend the afternoon with him in a ride through the city; and as soon as the boats landed at the quay, they hastened to keep the appointment, while the students scattered all over the city to take a general view. "Well, Paul, how do you find the hotel?" asked the doctor, when the party were seated in the carriage. "Very good; it is one of the best hotels I have seen in Europe." "It has an excellent location, but I think there was no such hotel when I was here before, and I staid at the Hötel Kung Carl." "This is a bath-house," said the _commissionnaire_, as the carriage turned the corner at the hotel, and he pointed to a large, square building, with a court-yard in the middle. "That looks well for the cleanliness of the people, if they support such fine establishments as that." "Three classes of baths, sir," added Möller, the guide. "In the first class you have a dressing-room, and an attendant to scrub you, and showers, douches, and everything of the sort. This is Drottninggatan, the principal street of the city," added the man, as the carriage turned into another street. "In other words, Queen Street," explained the surgeon. "It is rather a narrow street for the principal one," said Paul. "All the streets of Stockholm are narrow, or nearly all; and very few of them have sidewalks." "This street looks very much like the streets at home. The shops are about the same thing. There's a woman in a queer dress," added Captain Lincoln. "That's a Dalecarlian woman. They used to row the boats about the waters of the city, coming down from Dalecarlia to spend the summer here; but the little steamers have taken the business all away from them. They hired a boat for the season, and paid the owner one half of the fares." "Their costume is rather picturesque," added Paul. "But that woman is far from handsome," laughed Mrs. Kendall. "None of them are pretty," replied the doctor. The dress was a rather short petticoat, with a fanciful bodice, in which red predominated. Quite a number of them were seen by the party during their stay in Stockholm, but all of them had coarse features and clumsy forms. The carriage returned to the centre of the city by another street, passing through Carl XIII. Torg, or square, where stands the statue of that king. "There is the Café Blanche, where they have music every afternoon in summer, with beer, coffee, and other refreshments. The Swedes are very fond of these gardens," said Möller. "Here is the Hotel Rydberg. This is Gustaf Adolf Torget, and that is his statue." Crossing the bridge to the little island in the stream, the carriage stopped, to enable the party to look down into the garden, which is called Strömparterren, where a band plays, and refreshments are dispensed in the warm evenings of summer. Passing the immense palace, the tourists drove along the Skeppsbron, or quay, which is the principal landing-place of the steamers. Crossing another bridge over the south stream, or outlet of Lake Mäler, they entered the southern suburb of the city, called Södermalm. Ascending to the highest point of land, the party were conducted to the roof of a house, where a magnificent view of the city and its surroundings was obtained. "We will sit down here and rest a while," said the doctor, suiting the action to the words. "This promontory, or some other one near it, was formerly called Agne's Rock, and there is a story connected with it. Agne was the king of Sweden about 220 B.C. In a war with the Finns, he killed their king, and captured his daughter Skiolfa. The princess, according to the custom of those days, became the wife, but practically the slave, of her captor. She was brought to Sweden, where Agne and his retainers got beastly drunk on the occasion of celebrating the memorial rites of her father. Skiolfa, with the assistance of her Finnish companions, passed a rope through the massive gold chain on the neck of the king, and hung him to a tree, beneath which their tent was pitched. Having avenged the death of her father, the princess and her friends embarked in their boats, and escaped to Finland." "They finished him, then," laughed Captain Lincoln. "But what sort of boats had they?" "I don't know," replied Dr. Winstock. "Could they cross the Baltic in boats?" "Yes. When you go to Finland you will find that the course will be through islands nearly all the way. There is no difficulty in crossing in an open boat." "What is the population of Stockholm?" asked Paul. "One hundred and thirty-five thousand," replied Möller. "It was founded by King Birger in 1250." "There is a monitor," said Paul, pointing to the waters near Castelholmen, not far from the anchorage of the squadron. "We have four in the Swedish navy, and Russia has plenty of them. Ericsson, who invented them, was a Swede, you know." After the tourists had surveyed the panorama to their satisfaction, they descended, and entering the carriage, drove over to the Riddarholm, where the guide pointed out the church, the statue of Gustavus Vasa, the house of the Nobles, and other objects of interest. Returning to the quay, they stopped to look at the little steamers which were whisking about in every direction. "That is the National Museum," said Möller, pointing to a large and elegant building across the stream. "I should like to sail in one of those little boats," said Mrs. Kendall. "We can go over and back in ten minutes, if you like," added the guide. "Let us go." The party alighted from the carriage, and entered the little boat. "How much did you pay, Paul?" asked Grace. "The fare is no larger than the boat. It is three öre each person." "How much is that?" "Let me see; eight tenths of a cent, or less than a halfpenny, English." The excursionists returned without landing. "I should like to go again," said Grace. "It is delightful sailing in such dear little steamers." "If you please, we will ride over to the Djurgarden, and return by the steamer, which will land us at the Strömparterre," said the guide. This proposition was accepted, and by a circuitous route they reached the place indicated, which, in English, is the Deer Garden. It is on an island, separated from the main land by a channel. The southern portion of it is a thickly-populated village, but the principal part of the island is laid out as a park, of which the people of Stockholm are justly proud. It was originally a sterile tract of land: the first improvements converted it into a deer park for the royal use; but Gustaf III. and Charles (XIV.) John, as Bernadotte was styled, turned it into a public park. It is laid out in walks and avenues beautifully shaded with oaks and other trees. The land is undulating, and parts of it command splendid views of the islands and watercourses in the vicinity. On the outskirts is an asylum for the blind and for deaf mutes. Rosendahl, a country house, built by Charles John in 1830, and often occupied by him, is quite near the park. The party drove through the principal avenues of the garden, and stopped at the bust of Bellman, the great poet of Sweden, whose birthday is annually celebrated here with music and festivities. Around the park are various tea-gardens, cafés, and other places of amusement, including a theatre, circus, and opera-house for summer use. There is an Alhambra, with a restaurant; a Tivoli, with a concert-room; a Novilla, with a winter garden, and a concert hall for summer. The tourists stopped at Hasselbacken, which is celebrated for its good dinners at moderate prices. The visitors seated themselves in a broad veranda, overlooking a garden filled with little tables, in the centre of which was a kiosk for the music. The viands, especially the salmon, were very nice, and the coffee, as usual, was excellent. After dinner a short walk brought the party to the landing-place of the little steamers, where, paying eight öre, or about two cents, each, they embarked. The boat flew along at great speed for such a small craft, whisked under the Skeppsholm bridge, and in a few moments landed the tourists at the circular stone quay, which surrounds the Strömparterre. Paul and his lady walked to the hotel, and the doctor and the captain went to the Skeppsbron, where a boat soon conveyed them to the ship. Sanford and Stockwell had been on board several hours, and had had time to make up their minds in regard to their future course. They had considered the advice of the boatswain, and finally concluded to adopt it. Clyde Blacklock was as tame as a parlor poodle. His experience in running away, especially after his three days on board of the Rensdyr, was far from satisfactory. "I suppose I must go into that cage again," said he, when he went on board. "That depends on yourself," replied Peaks. "If you say that you don't intend to run away again, we shall not put you in the brig." "I think I won't," added Clyde. "You think?" "Well, I know I won't. I will try to do the best I can." "That's all we ask," said Peaks. "You can say all this to the principal." Mr. Lowington returned earlier than most of the ship's company, and Peaks reported to him immediately. The coxswain and his associate were called up first. "We have come on board, sir," said Sanford, touching his cap. "I see you have. You have been gone a long time, and I have been told that you had some difficulty in finding the ship," added the principal. "We have concluded to tell the whole truth, sir," said Sanford, hanging his head. "I am very glad to hear that." "We didn't wish to find the ship." "Can you explain the accident by which the second cutter was stove at Christiansand?" "I did it on purpose; but no other fellow was to blame, or knew anything about it." "I am astonished to think you should expose the lives of your crew, by pushing your boat right into the path of a steamer." "I didn't do it, sir, till the steamer had stopped her wheels. I wanted to get on board of her, and leave the ship. In Norway, I cheated the rest of the party, and led them out of the way." "How could you do that?" "I told Ole what to say." "Then you wished to travel alone?" "Yes, sir." Sanford and Stockwell made a clean breast of it, explaining how they had lost trains and steamers, and thus avoided returning to the ship. "Then Ole is a rogue as well as the rest of you, it seems." "He did what I told him to do, and paid him for doing," replied Sanford. "He is a runaway, too," interposed the boatswain, who proceeded to tell the story of the waif. "The boy has suffered a good deal from the ill-treatment of his step-father." "I am sorry for him; but his character does not seem to be up to the average of that of his countrymen. I don't think we want him on board," replied Mr. Lowington. "As you say this Olaf has no claim for his services, we will see about him." The Rensdyr had by this time arrived at the quay, and it was not believed that Captain Olaf would permit his step-son, whose services seemed to be of so much value to him, to escape without making an effort to reclaim him. After all hands had returned from the shore, he put in an appearance, and seeing Peaks in the waist, directed his steps towards him. The profusion of fine uniforms, the order and discipline that reigned on deck, and the dignified mien of the instructors who were walking back and forth, seemed to produce an impression upon the mind of the rough skipper, for he took off his hat, and appeared to be as timid as though he had come into the presence of the king. "Good evening, Captain Olaf," said the boatswain. "I want the boy Ole," replied the skipper, bowing, and returning the salutation. "You must talk with the principal about that." "I don't understand." Peaks conducted Olaf to the quarter-deck, where Mr. Lowington was conversing with Mr. and Mrs. Kendall, who had come on board to visit their old friends. "This is the man that claims Ole," said the boatswain. "I want the boy, sir," added Captain Olaf, bowing as gracefully as he knew how. "If Ole chooses to go with you, he may go," replied the principal. "He does not choose to go." "I certainly shall not compel him to go," continued Mr. Lowington. "I will make him go." "I shall allow no violence on board of this ship." "But he is my boy; the son of my wife that is dead." "He is not your son, and you have no more claim on him than I have. The boy is an orphan. Have you been appointed his guardian?" This question was out of Olaf's depth in the English language; but it was translated into Danish by Professor Badois, and the skipper did not pretend that he had any legal authority over the boy. "But I have fed and clothed him, and he must work for me," said he. "Ole says you did not feed him, and he had nothing but a few dirty rags on when we picked him up. I have nothing to do with the matter. Ole is free to go or stay, just as he pleases," replied the principal, turning away from the skipper, to intimate that he wished to say nothing more about the matter. "The boy is here, and I shall make him go with me," said Olaf, looking ugly enough to do anything. Mr. Lowington glanced at Peaks, and appeared to be satisfied that no harm would come to Ole. Olaf walked back into the waist, and then to the forecastle, glancing at every student he met, in order to identify his boy. "See here, Norway; there comes your guardian genius," said Scott, who, with a dozen others, had gathered around the trembling waif, determined to protect him if their services were needed. "Bear a hand, and tumble down the fore-hatch. Herr Skippenboggin is after you." Ole heeded this good advice, and followed by his supporters, he descended to the steerage. Olaf saw him, and was about to descend the ladder, when Peaks interfered. "You can't go down there," said he, decidedly. "I want the boy," replied Olaf. "No visitors in the steerage without an invitation." "I will have Ole;" and the skipper began to descend. "Avast, my hearty," interposed the boatswain, laying violent hands on Olaf, and dragging him to the deck. Bitts, the carpenter, and Leach, the sailmaker, placed themselves beside the boatswain, as the Norwegian picked himself up. "You may leave the ship, now," said Peaks, pointing to the accommodation stairs. Olaf looked at the three stout men before him, and prudence triumphed over his angry passions. "I will have the boy yet," said he, as he walked to the stairs, closely attended by the three forward officers. He went down into his boat, declaring that he would seize upon Ole the first time he caught him on shore. "Where is Clyde?" asked Mr. Lowington, as soon as the savage skipper had gone. "He is forward, sir; he behaves like a new man, and says he will not run away," replied Peaks. "Send him aft." "Ay, ay, sir." Clyde went aft. He was a boy of quick impulses and violent temper. He had been accustomed to have his own way; and this had done more to spoil him than anything else. He had to learn that there was a power greater than himself, to which he must submit. He had twice run away, and failed both times. Three days of fear and absolute misery on board of the Rensdyr had given him time to think. He determined, when he reached Stockholm, to return to his mother, and try to be a better boy. Peaks, in the little steamer, had come upon him like a ghost. He had expected never again to see the ship, or his particular tormentor; and to have the latter appear to him in such an extraordinary manner was very impressive, to say the least. He realized that he must submit; but this thought, like that of resistance before, was only an impulse. Clyde submitted, and was even candid enough to say so to the principal, who talked to him very gently and kindly for an hour, pointing out to him the ruin which he was seeking. "We will try you again, Clyde," said Mr. Lowington. "We will wipe out the past, and begin again. You may go forward." The next day was Sunday, and for a change, the officers and crews of the several vessels were permitted to land, and march to the English church in Stockholm. The neat and pleasant little church was crowded to its utmost capacity by the attendance of such a large number. Mr. Agneau, the chaplain, was invited to take a part in the service, and as Mrs. Kendall, Mrs. Shuffles, and many of the ship's company were good singers, the vocal music was better than usual. On Monday morning commenced the serious business of sight-seeing in Stockholm. The royal palace, one of the largest and finest in Europe, and the most prominent building in the city, was the first place to be visited. It is four hundred and eighteen feet long, by three hundred and ninety-one wide, with a large court-yard in the middle, from which are the principal entrances. The lower story is of granite; the rest of brick, covered with stucco. The students walked through the vast number of apartments it contains; through red chambers, green chambers, blue chambers, and yellow chambers, as they are designated, through the royal chapel, which is as large as a good-sized church, and through the throne-room, where the king opens the sessions of the Diet. Several were devoted to the Swedish orders of knighthood. The ceilings and walls of the state apartments are beautifully adorned with allegorical and mythological paintings. The chamber of Bernadotte, or Charles John, remains just as it was during his last sickness. On the bed lies his military cloak, which he wore in his great campaigns. His cane, the gift of Charles XIII., stands in the room. The walls are covered with green silk, and adorned with portraits of the royal family. The apartments actually occupied by the present king were found to be far inferior in elegance to many republican rooms. His chamber has a pine floor, with no carpet; but it looked more home-like than the great barn-like state-rooms. In a series of small and rather low apartments are several collections of curious and antique articles, such as a collection of arms, including a pair of pistols presented to the king by President Lincoln; and of pipes, containing every variety in use, in the smoking-room. The king's library looks like business, for its volumes seemed to be for use rather than ornament. The billiard-room is quite cosy, and his chamber contains photographs of various royal personages, as the Prince of Wales, the Queen of England, and others, which look as though the king had friends, and valued them like common people. His majesty paints very well for a king, and the red cabinet contains pictures by him, and by Oscar I. The queen's apartments, as well as the king's, seemed to the boys like a mockery of royalty, for they were quite plain and comfortable. The entire palace contains five hundred and eighty-three rooms. The whole forenoon was employed in visiting the palace, and the students went on board the vessels to dinner. As the day was pleasant, a boat excursion to Drottningholm was planned, and the fourteen boats of the squadron were soon in line. A pilot was in the commodore's barge, to indicate the course. Passing under the North Bridge, the excursion entered the waters of the Mäler Lake. A pull of two hours among beautiful islands, covered with the fresh green of spring, through narrow and romantic passages, brought them to their destination. In some places, within five miles of Stockholm, the scene was so quiet, and nature so primitive, that the excursionists could have believed they were hundreds of miles from the homes of civilization. Two or three of the islands had a house or two upon them; but generally they seemed to be unimproved. The boats varied their order at the command of Commodore Cumberland, and when there were any spectators, nothing could exceed their astonishment at the display. At Drottningholm, or Queen's Island, there is a fine palace, built by the widow of Charles X., and afterwards improved and embellished by the kings of Sweden. Attached to it is a beautiful garden, adorned with fountains and statues. The party went through the palace, which contains a great many historical paintings, and some rooms fitted up in Chinese style. As the students were about to embark, a char-a-banc, a kind of open omnibus, drawn by four horses, drove up to the palace, and a plainly-dressed lady alighted. She stood on the portico, looking at the students; and the pilot said she was the Queen Dowager, wife of Oscar I. Of course the boys looked at her with quite as much interest as she regarded them. The commodore called for three cheers for the royal lady, who was the daughter of Eugene Beauharnais, and granddaughter of the Empress Josephine. She waved her handkerchief in return for the salute, and the students were soon pulling down the lake towards Stockholm. The next forenoon was devoted to the Royal Museum, which has been recently erected. It contains a vast quantity of Swedish antiquities and curiosities, with illustrations of national manners and customs. It contains specimens of the various implements used in the ages of wood, stone, bronze, and iron, collections of coins and medals, armor, engravings, sculptures, and paintings, including a few works of the great masters of every school in Europe. The students were particularly interested in what Scott irreverently called the "Old Clothes Room," in which were deposited in glass cases the garments and other articles belonging to the Swedish kings and queens, such as the cradle and toys of Charles XII., and the huge sword with which he defended himself against the Turks at Bender; the sword of Gustavus Vasa; the costume of Gustaf III., which he wore when he was shot in the opera-house by Ankarström; the baton of Gustaf Adolf, and the watch of Queen Christina. In the afternoon the students made an excursion by steamer to Ulriksdal, the summer residence of Bernadotte, Oscar I., and of the present king. It is a beautiful place, and is filled with objects of historical interest. The furniture is neat, pretty, and comfortable. The chamber of the king is the plainest of all, but the bed was used by Gustaf II. in Germany. Every chair, table, and mirror has its history. There is a collection of beer mugs in one chamber, and of pipes in another. The place is full of interest to the curious. In the water in front of the palace were several gilded pleasure-boats, and a fanciful steamer for the use of the royal family. The steamer in which the party had gone to Ulriksdal was one of the larger class, though the company was all she could carry. She made her way through the several arms of the sea, between the islands, passing through two drawbridges. For the return trip four of the smaller steamers had been engaged, each of which would carry about fifty boys. A short distance from the palace, the boats turned into a narrow stream, passing under bridges, in places so contracted that the engine had to be stopped, and the banks were thoroughly washed. Then they entered a lagoon, bordered with villas, and surrounded by pleasant scenery. Landing at a point in the northern suburb, most of the students walked through the city to the quay, though several omnibuses ply between this point and the centre of the city. The next day opened with a visit to Riddarholm. The church, or Riddarholmskyrkan, on this island, was formerly a convent, but is now the mausoleum of the most celebrated kings of Sweden. It was once a Gothic structure; but the addition of several chapels on the sides, for monuments, has completely changed the appearance of the structure. It is remarkable for nothing except the tombs within it. Formerly it contained a number of equestrian figures, clothed in armor, which was valued as relics of the ancient time, including that of Birger Jarl, the founder of the city, and of Charles IX.; but all these have been removed to the National Museum, which is certainly a more appropriate place for them. On each side of the church are the sepulchral chapels of Gustavus Adolphus, Charles XII., Bernadotte, and Oscar I. The Queen Désirée, wife of Bernadotte, and sister-in-law of Joseph Bonaparte, with others of the royal family, and some of the great captains of the Thirty Years' War, are buried here. In the chapels of Gustavus and Charles XII. are placed many of the trophies of their victories, such as flags, drums, swords, and keys. The party then visited the Riddarhus, where the nobles meet, which is the scene of several great historical events, and contains the shields of three thousand Swedish nobles. From this point the tourists went to Mosebacke, a celebrated tea garden, on the high land in the southern suburb, where they ascended to the roof of the theatre in order to obtain a view of the city and its surroundings. On Thursday, the students made an excursion to Upsala, the ancient capital of Sweden, which contains a fine old cathedral, where Gustavus Vasa and two of his wives are buried. His tomb was hardly more interesting to the Americans than that of Linnæus, the great botanist, who was born in Upsala, and buried in this church. Other Swedish kings are also buried here. The party visited the university, which contains some curious old books and manuscripts, such as an old Icelandic Edda; the Bible, with written notes by Luther and Melanchthon; the Journal of Linnæus, and the first book ever printed in Sweden, in 1483. The house of the great botanist and the botanical garden were not neglected. The tourists returned to Stockholm in a special steamer, through an arm of Lake Mäler, and landed at the Riddarholm. On Friday some of the students went to the Navy Yard, and on board of a monitor, while others wandered about the city and its suburbs. After spending a week in the harbor, the voyagers felt that they had seen enough of Sweden; and early on Saturday morning, with a pilot on board of each vessel, the squadron sailed for the Aland Islands, in the Baltic, where the principal decided to pass a week. The vessels lay in the channels between the islands, and the students attended to the regular routine of study and seamanship. Occasional excursions were made on shore, mostly at the uninhabited islands. Journals of what had been seen in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden were written up; but the students were very anxious to visit Russia. Ole Amundsen was very careful to avoid his step-father while he remained in Stockholm. He hardly went on shore, so great was his dread of the cruel skipper of the Rensdyr; and no one rejoiced more heartily than he to leave the Swedish waters. Mr. Lowington did not desire to retain him on board; but the waif begged so hard to remain, and the students liked him so well, that he was finally engaged as an assistant steward in the steerage, at twelve dollars a month; but he made double this sum, besides, out of the boys, by the exercise of his genius in mending clothes, cleaning shoes, and similar services, which the students preferred to pay for, rather than do themselves. Clyde Blacklock kept his promise as well as he could, and soon learned his duty as a seaman. Though he certainly improved, his violent temper and imperious manners kept him continually in hot water. He could not forget his old grudge against Burchmore, and during an excursion on one of the Aland Islands, he attacked him, but was soundly thrashed for his trouble, and punished on board when his black eye betrayed him. While he is improving there is hope for him. The runaways promised so much and behaved so well, that none of them were punished as yet, though Sanford was deprived of his position as coxswain of the second cutter; but whether they were to be allowed any liberty in Russia, they were not informed. At the close of the week among the islands, the squadron was headed for Abo, in Finland, which is now a province of Russia; and what they saw and did there, and in other parts of the vast empire, will be related in NORTHERN LANDS, OR YOUNG AMERICA IN RUSSIA AND PRUSSIA. 
20549	----	Transcriber's note: Ten minor typographical errors have been corrected in this text version. Édition d'Élite Historical Tales The Romance of Reality By CHARLES MORRIS _Author of "Half-Hours with the Best American Authors," "Tales from the Dramatists," etc._ IN FIFTEEN VOLUMES Volume IX Scandinavian J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON Copyright, 1908, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. [Illustration: From Stereograph Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y. OLD BRIDGE AT OEREBRO.] _CONTENTS_ PAGE HOW KING ROLF WON HIS BRIDE 9 RAGNAR LODBROK AND HIS WIVES AND SONS 19 HAROLD FAIR-HAIRED FOUNDS THE KINGDOM OF NORWAY 31 GORM THE OLD, DENMARK'S FIRST KING 42 ERIK BLOOD-AXE AND EGIL THE ICELANDER 49 THE SEA-KINGS AND THEIR DARING FEATS 60 HAAKON THE GOOD AND THE SONS OF GUNHILD 69 EARL HAAKON AND THE JOMSVIKINGS 78 HOW OLAF, THE SLAVE-BOY, WON THE THRONE 89 OLAF DETHRONES ODIN AND DIES A HERO 98 OLAF THE SAINT AND HIS WORK FOR CHRIST 108 CANUTE THE GREAT, KING OF SIX NATIONS 121 MAGNUS THE GOOD AND HAROLD HARDRULER 132 SVERRE, THE COOK'S SON, AND THE BIRCHLEGS 145 THE FRIENDS AND FOES OF A BOY PRINCE 160 KING VALDEMAR I. AND BISHOP ABSOLON 169 THE FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES OF VALDEMAR II 176 BIRGER JARL AND THE CONQUEST OF FINLAND 186 THE FIRST WAR BETWEEN SWEDEN AND RUSSIA 196 THE CRIME AND PUNISHMENT OF KING BIRGER 202 QUEEN MARGARET AND THE CALMAR UNION 211 HOW SIR TORD FOUGHT FOR CHARLES OF SWEDEN 217 STEN STURE'S GREAT VICTORY OVER THE DANES 226 HOW THE DITMARSHERS KEPT THEIR FREEDOM 236 THE BLOOD-BATH OF STOCKHOLM 241 THE ADVENTURES OF GUSTAVUS VASA 252 THE FALL OF CHRISTIAN II. THE TYRANT 271 THE WEST GOTHLAND INSURRECTION 283 THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF KING ERIK 296 GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS ON THE FIELD OF LEIPSIC 310 CHARLES X. AND THE INVASION OF DENMARK 319 CHARLES XII. THE FIREBRAND OF SWEDEN 326 THE ENGLISH INVADERS AND THE DANISH FLEET 343 A FRENCH SOLDIER BECOMES KING OF SWEDEN AND NORWAY 349 THE DISMEMBERMENT OF DENMARK 358 BREAKING THE BOND BETWEEN NORWAY AND SWEDEN 362 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. SCANDINAVIAN. PAGE THE OLD BRIDGE AT OEREBRO, ONE OF THE MOST ANCIENT TOWNS OF SWEDEN. _Frontispiece._ HOUSE OF PARLIAMENT, NORWAY 35 HOME OF PEASANTS, NORWAY 50 BUSY FARMERS IN A HILLSIDE FIELD ABOVE ARE, SWEDEN 80 A NORDFJORD BRIDE AND GROOM WITH GUESTS AND PARENTS. BRIGSDAL, NORWAY 95 NORWEGIAN PEASANTS 115 NORWEGIAN FARM BUILDINGS 135 LINKOPING FROM TANNEFORS 165 VILLAGE LIFE AND HOMES IN SWEDEN 190 MORNING GREETINGS OF NEIGHBORS, SWEDEN 210 GRIPSHOLM CASTLE, MARI 220 SKURUSUND, STOCKHOLM 230 SKANSEN RIVER 242 THE FAMOUS XVI. CENTURY CASTLE AT UPSALA, SWEDEN 256 NORWEGIAN CARRIAGE CALLED STOLKJAEM 285 ARMORY AND COSTUME HALL OF THE ROYAL MUSEUM, SWEDEN 300 STATUE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS 312 THE RETURN OF CHARLES XII. OF SWEDEN 340 KRONBERG CASTLE ON THE SOUND, DENMARK 348 THE BOURSE, COPENHAGEN, DENMARK 360 _HOW KING ROLF WON HIS BRIDE._ At one time very many centuries ago, we cannot say just when, for this was in the days of the early legends, there reigned over Upsala in Sweden a king named Erik. He had no son and only one daughter, but this girl was worth a dozen sons and daughters of some kings. Torborg she was named, and there were few women so wise and beautiful and few men so strong and valiant. She cared nothing for women's work, but was the equal of any man of the court in riding, fighting with sword and shield, and other athletic sports. This troubled King Erik very much, for he thought that the princess should sit in her maiden chamber like other kings' daughters; but she told him that when she came to succeed him on the throne she would need to know how to defend her kingdom, and now was the time for her to learn. That she might become the better fitted to rule, she asked him to give her some province to govern, and this he did, making her queen of a third of his kingdom, and giving her an army of stout and bold warriors. Her court was held at Ulleraker in Upland, and here she would not let any one treat her as a woman, dressing always in men's clothing and bidding her men to call her King Torborg. To fail in this would be at risk of their heads. As her fame spread abroad, there were many who came to court her, for she was at once very beautiful and the heiress of a great kingdom. But she treated all such with laughter and contempt. It is even said that she put out the eyes of some, and cut off the hands and feet of others, but this we do not like to believe. At any rate, she drove away those who troubled her too much with lance and spear. So it was plain that only a strong and bold man could win this warlike maiden for his wife. At that time King Götrik who ruled in Gothland, a country in southern Sweden, had sent his younger son Rolf to be brought up at the court of his foster-brother King Ring of Denmark. His elder son Kettil he kept at home, but did not love him much on account of his pride and obstinacy. So it happened that when Götrik was very old and like to die, he decided that Rolf, who was very tall and strong, and very fit and able, should succeed him, though he was the younger son. All agreed to this, even Kettil, so Rolf was sent for and made king of Gothland, which he ruled with skill and valor. One day Rolf and Kettil, who loved each other as brothers should, were talking together, and Kettil said that one thing was wanting to the glory and honor of Rolf's rule, and that was a queen of noble birth and goodly presence. "And whom have you in mind?" asked Rolf. "There is Torborg, the king of Upsala's daughter. If you can win her for wife it will be the greatest marriage in the north." To this advice Rolf would not listen. He had heard of how the shrewish Torborg treated her suitors, and felt that wooing her would be like taking a wild wolf by the ears. So he stayed unmarried for several years more, though Kettil often spoke of the matter, and one day said to him contemptuously: "Many a man has a large body with little courage, and I fear you are such a one; for though you stand as a man, you do not dare to speak to a woman." "I will show you that I am a man," said Rolf, very angry at these words. He sent to Denmark for his foster-brother Ingiald, son of King Ring, and when he came the two set out with sixty armed men for the court of King Erik in Upsala. One morning, about this time, Queen Ingerd of Upsala awoke and told King Erik of a strange dream she had dreamed. She had seen in her sleep a troop of wolves running from Gothland towards Sweden, a great lion and a little bear leading them; but these, instead of being fierce and shaggy, were smooth-haired and gentle. "What do you think it means?" asked the king. "I think that the lion is the ghost of a king, and that the white bear is some king's son, the wolves being their followers. I fancy it means that Rolf of Gothland and Ingiald of Denmark are coming hither, bent on a mission of peace, since they appear so tame. Do you think that King Rolf is coming to woo our daughter, Torborg?" "Nonsense, woman; the king of so small a realm would show great assurance to seek for wife so great a princess as our daughter." So when Rolf and his followers came to Upsala King Erik showed his displeasure, inviting him to his table but giving him no seat of honor at the feast. Rolf sat silent and angry at this treatment, but when Erik asked him why he had come, he told him courteously enough the reason of his visit. "I know how fond you Goths are of a joke," said Erik, with a laugh. "You have a way of saying one thing when you mean another. But I can guess what brings you. Gothland is little and its revenues are small and you have many people to keep and feed. Food is now scarce in Gothland, and you have come here that you may not suffer from hunger. It was a good thought for you to come to Upsala for help, and you are welcome to go about my kingdom with your men for a month; then you can return home plump and well fed." This jesting speech made Rolf very angry, though he said little in reply. But when the king told Queen Ingerd that evening what he had said she was much displeased. "King Rolf may have a small kingdom," she said, "but he has gained fame by his courage and ability, and is as powerful as many kings with a wider rule. You did not well to mock him." The next day Erik, thus admonished, begged Rolf's pardon, saying that the ale had made him speak foolishly, and thus he became reconciled with his guest. As for Rolf's desire to win his daughter, he would first have to gain Torborg's consent, which would be no easy matter. The king promised not to interfere but would do no more. Soon after this Rolf and his men arrived at Ulleraker, reaching there when the whole of Torborg's court were assembled in the great hall. Fearing a hostile reception, Rolf took wary precautions. He choose twelve of his stoutest men, with himself and Ingiald at their head, to enter the court with drawn swords in their hands. If they were attacked, they were to go out backward fighting, but they were bidden to conduct themselves like men and let nothing alarm them. The others remained outside, keeping the horses in readiness to mount. When the party entered the hall, Rolf at their head, all there were struck with his great size and noble aspect. No one assailed them and he walked up the hall, on whose high seat at the front he saw what seemed a tall and finely formed man, dressed in royal robes. Knowing that this must be the haughty princess whose hand he had come to seek, he took off his helmet, bowed low before her, and began to tell what brought him to her court. He had scarcely begun when she stopped him. She said that he must be joking; that she knew his real errand was to get food and that this she would give him; but he must apply for it to the chief of the kitchen, not to her. Rolf had not come so far to be laughed out of the court, and he sturdily went on with what he had to say, speaking to her as a woman, and demanding her hand in marriage. At this she changed her jesting manner, her cheeks grew red with anger, and springing up, she seized her weapons and called upon her men to lay hold upon and bind the fool that had dared affront their monarch. Shouting and confusion followed and a sharp attack was made on the intruders, but Rolf put on his helmet and bade his men to retire, which they did in good order. He walked backward through the whole hall, shield on arm and sword in hand, parrying and dealing blows, so that when he left the room, though no blade had touched him, a dozen of the courtiers lay bleeding. But being greatly overmatched, he ordered his men to mount, and they rode away unscathed. Back to West Gothland they went and told Kettil how poorly they had fared. "You have suffered a sore insult and affront at a woman's hand," said Kettil, "and my advice is that it be speedily avenged," but Rolf replied that he was not yet ready to act. Torborg had not taken the trouble to ask the name of her wooer, but when she learned who it was she knew very well that the matter had not reached its end and that her would-be lover would return stronger than before. As she did not want him or any man for husband she made great preparations for an attack, gathering a large body of warriors and having a wall of great strength and the finest workmanship built round the town. It was so high and thick that no battering ram could shake it, while water-cisterns were built into it to put out the fire if any one sought to burn it. From this we may judge that the wall was of wood. This done, Torborg made merry with her court, thinking that no lover in the wide world would now venture to annoy her. She did not know the kind of man she had to deal with in King Rolf. He had fought with men and fancied he was fit to conquer a woman. The next summer he had a battle with Asmund, son of the king of Scotland, and when it was over they became friends and foster-brothers and went on viking cruises together. Next spring Rolf armed and manned six ships and, taking Kettil and Ingiald and Asmund with him, set sail for Upsala. He proposed now to woo the warrior princess in another fashion. Queen Ingerd about this time dreamed again, her dream being the same as before, except that this time there were two white bears, and a hog which was small but spiteful, its bristles pointing forward and its mouth snarling as if ready to bite anything that came before it. And the bears did not look as gentle as before, but seemed irritated. She interpreted this dream to mean that Rolf was coming again to avenge the affront he had received, and that the fierce hog must stand for Kettil, of whose character she had been told. When Rolf now arrived King Erik received him with honor, and again agreed to remain his friend, no matter how stormy a courtship he might have. From Upsala he set out for Ulleraker and sent a herald to Princess Torborg, asking speech with her. She presented herself at the top of the wall, surrounded by armed men. King Rolf renewed his suit, and told her plainly that if she did not accept his proposal he had come to burn the town and slay every man within its walls. "You shall first serve as a goatherd in West Gothland before you get any power over me and mine," answered Torborg haughtily. Rolf lost no time in assailing the walls, but found them stoutly defended. The Swedes within poured boiling water and hot pitch on their assailants, threw down stones and beams, and hurled spears and arrows from the wall. For fourteen days the siege continued without effect, until the Goths, weary of their hard fighting and the mockery of the defenders, began to complain and wanted to return home. The townspeople derided them by showing costly goods from the ramparts and bidding them come and take them, and ridiculed them in many other ways. King Rolf now saw that he must take other measures. He had a cover constructed of boards and brushwood and supported by stout beams, making a strong roof which was set against the wall and defied all the boiling water and missiles of the Swedes. Under its shelter a hole was dug through the wall and soon the Goths were in the queen's citadel. To their surprise they found it empty. Not a soul was to be seen, but in every room they found well-cooked food and many articles of value. "This is a fine capture," said Kettil. "Let us enjoy ourselves and divide the spoil." "Not so," said Rolf. "It is a lure to draw us off. I will not rest till I have the princess in my power." They sought the palace through and through, but no one was there. Finally a secret passage was discovered, leading underground, and the king entered it, the others following. They emerged in a forest where they found Torborg and all her men and where a sharp battle began. No warrior could have fought more bravely than the man-like princess, and her men stood up for her boldly, but they gradually gave way before the onset of Rolf and his tried warriors. Rolf now bade Kettil to take Torborg prisoner, but not to wound her, saying that it would be shameful to use arms against a woman. Kettil sprang forward and gave the princess a sharp blow with the flat of his sword, reviling her at the same time with rude words. In return, Torborg gave him so hard a blow on the ear with her battle-axe that he fell prostrate, with his heels in the air. "That is the way we treat our dogs when they bark too loud," she said. Kettil sprang up, burning with anger, but at the same moment Rolf rushed forward and grasped the warlike princess in his powerful arms, so that she was forced to surrender. He told her that she was his prisoner, but that he did not wish to win a wife in the viking manner and that he would leave it to her father to judge what should be done. Taken captive in his arms, there was nothing else for her to do, and she went with him to Upsala, where King Erik was delighted at Rolf's success. As for the warlike princess, she laid down her arms at her father's feet, put on a woman's garments, and seemed glad enough to have been won as a bride in so warlike a manner and by so heroic a wooer. Soon after this the marriage took place, the festivities being the grandest the court could afford and lasting for fourteen days, after which Rolf and his followers returned home, his new queen with him. The sagas say, as we can well believe after so strenuous a wooing, that afterwards King Rolf and Queen Torborg lived a long and happy life. _RAGNAR LODBROK AND HIS WIVES AND SONS._ The old sagas, or hero tales of the north, are full of stories of enchantment and strange marvels. We have told one of these tales in the record of King Rolf and Princess Torborg. We have now to tell that of Ragnar Lodbrok, a hero king of the early days, whose story is full of magical incidents. That this king reigned and was a famous man in his days there is no reason to doubt, but around his career gathered many fables, as was apt to be the case with the legends of great men in those days. To show what these tales were like we take from the sagas the marvellous record of Ragnar and his wives. In East Gothland in the ancient days there lived a mighty jarl, or earl, named Herröd, who was descended from the gods. He had a daughter named Tora, who was famed for her beauty and virtue, but proved as hard to win for a wife as Princess Torborg had been. She dwelt in a high room which had a wall built around it like a castle, and was called Castle Deer, because she surpassed all other women in beauty as much as the deer surpasses all other animals. Her father, who was very fond of her, gave her as a toy a small and wonderfully beautiful snake which he had received in a charmed egg in Bjarmaland. It proved to be an unwelcome gift. The snake was at first coiled in a little box, but soon grew until the box would not hold it, and in time was so big that the room would not hold it. So huge did it become in the end that it lay coiled in a ring around the outer walls, being so long that its head and tail touched. It got to be so vicious that no one dared come near it except the maiden and the man who fed it, and his task was no light one, for it devoured an ox at a single meal. The jarl was sorry enough now that he had given his daughter such a present. It was one not easy to get rid of, dread of the snake having spread far and wide, and though he offered his daughter with a great dower to the man who should kill it, no one for a long time ventured to strive for the reward. The venom which it spat out was enough to destroy any warrior. At length a suitor for the hand of the lovely princess was found in Ragnar, the young son of Sigurd Ring, then one of the greatest monarchs of the age, with all Sweden and Norway under his sway, as the sagas tell. Ragnar, though still a boy, had gained fame as a dauntless warrior, and was a fit man to dare the venture with the great snake, though for a long time he seemed to pay no heed to the princess. But meanwhile he had made for himself a strange coat. It was wrought out of a hairy hide, which he boiled in pitch, drew through sand, and then dried and hardened in the sun. The next summer he sailed to East Gothland, hid his ships in a small bay, and at dawn of the next day proceeded toward the maiden's bower, spear in hand and wearing his strange coat. There lay the dreaded serpent, coiled in a ring round the wall. Ragnar, nothing daunted, struck it boldly with his spear, and before it could move in defence struck it a second blow, pressing the spear until it pierced through the monster's body. So fiercely did the snake struggle that the spear broke in two, and it would have destroyed Ragnar with the venom it poured out if he had not worn his invulnerable coat. The noise of the struggle and the fierceness of the snake's convulsions, which shook the whole tower, roused Tora and her maids, and she looked from her window to see what it meant. She saw there a tall man, but could not distinguish his features in the grey dawn. The serpent was now in its death throes, though this she did not know, and she called out: "Who are you, and what do you want?" Ragnar answered in this verse: "For the maid fair and wise I would venture my life. The scale-fish got its death wound From a youth of fifteen!" Then he went away, taking the broken handle of the spear with him. Tora listened in surprise, for she learned from the verse that a boy of fifteen had slain the great monster, and she marvelled at his great size for his years, wondering if he were man or wizard. When day came she told her father of the strange event, and the jarl drew out the broken spear from the snake, finding it to be so heavy that few men could have lifted it. Who had killed the serpent and earned the reward? The jarl sent a mandate throughout his kingdom, calling all men together, and when they came he told them the story of the snake's death, and bade him who possessed the handle of the spear to present it, as he would keep his word with any one, high or low. Ragnar and his men stood on the edge of the throng as the broken head of the spear was passed round, no one being able to present the handle fitting it. At length it came to Ragnar, and he drew forth the handle from his cloak, showing that the broken ends fitted exactly. A great feast for the victor was now given by Jarl Herröd, and when Ragnar saw the loveliness of Tora, he was glad to ask her for his queen, while she was equally glad to have such a hero for her spouse. A splendid bridal followed and the victor took his beautiful bride home. This exploit gave Ragnar great fame and he received the surname of Lodbrok, on account of the strange coat he had worn. Ragnar and Tora lived happily together but not to old age, for after some years she took sick and died, leaving two sons, Erik and Agnar, who grew up to be strong and beautiful youths. Ragnar had loved her greatly and after her death said he would marry no other woman. Nor could he comfort himself at home but began to wander abroad on warlike voyages, that he might drive away his sorrow. Leaving Ragnar Lodbrok to his travels, let us take up the strange story of another fair maiden, who was to have much to do with his future life. She was named Aslög and was the daughter of King Sigurd Fafnisbane, of Germany. Soon after she was born enemies of her father killed him and her mother and all of his race they could find. Her life was saved by Heimer, foster-father to her mother, who to get her away from the murderers had a large harp made with a hollow frame, in which he hid the child and all the treasure he could find. Then he wandered far as a travelling harper, letting the child out when they came to solitary woods, and when she wept and moaned silencing her by striking the strings of the harp. After long journeying he came to a cottage in Norway called Spangerhed, where lived a beggar and his wife. Seeing a gold bracelet under Heimer's rags, and some rich embroidery sticking from the harp, the beggar and his wife killed him during the night and broke open the harp. They found in it the wealth they sought, but the discovery of the pretty little girl troubled them. "What shall we do with this child?" he asked. "We will bring her up as our own, and name her Kraka, after my mother," said his wife. "But no one will believe that ugly old people like us can have so fair a daughter." "Let me manage it," said the wife. "I will put tar on her head so that her hair will not be too long, and keep her in ragged clothes and at the hardest work." This they did and little Aslög grew up as a beggar's child. And as she kept strangely silent, never speaking, all people thought her dumb. One day, when Aslög was well grown, Ragnar Lorbrok came that way, cruising along the Norway coast. The crew was out of bread and men were sent ashore to bake some at a house they saw in the distance. This house was Spangerhed, where Kraka dwelt. She had seen the ships come up and the men land, and was ashamed to be seen by strangers as she was, so she washed herself and combed her hair, though she had been bidden never to do so. So long and thick had her hair grown that it reached to the ground and covered her completely. When the cooks came to bake their bread they were so surprised at the beauty of the maiden that they let the loaves burn while looking at her, and on being blamed for this carelessness on their return to the ship said they could not help it, for they had been bewitched by the face of the loveliest maiden they had ever gazed upon. "She cannot be as lovely as Tora was," said Ragnar. "There was never a lovelier woman," they declared, and Ragnar was so struck by their story that he sent messengers ashore to learn if they were telling the truth. If it were so, he said, if Kraka were as beautiful as Tora, they were bidden to bring her to him neither dressed nor undressed, neither fasting nor satisfied, neither alone nor in company. The messengers found the maiden as fair as the cooks had said and repeated the king's demand. "Your king must be out of his mind, to send such a message," said the beggar's wife; but Kraka told them that she would come as their king wished, but not until the next morning. The next day she came to the shore where the ship lay. She was completely covered with her splendid hair, worn like a net around her. She had eaten an onion before coming, and had with her the old beggar's sheep dog; so that she had fulfilled Ragnar's three demands. Her wit highly pleased Ragnar and he asked her to come on board, but she would not do so until she had been promised peace and safety. When she was taken to the cabin Ragnar looked at her in delight. He thought that she surpassed Tora in beauty, and offered a prayer to Odin, asking for the love of the maiden. Then he took the gold-embroidered dress which Tora had worn and offered it to Kraka, saying in verse, in the fashion of those times: "Will you have Tora's robe? It suits you well. Her white hands have played upon it. Lovely and kind was she to me until death." Kraka answered, also in verse: "I dare not take the gold-embroidered robe which adorned Tora the fair. It suits not me. Kraka am I called in coal-black baize. I have ever herded goats on the stones by the sea-shore." "And now I will go home," she added. "If the king's mind does not change he can send for me when he will." Then she went back to the beggar's cottage and Ragnar sailed in his ship away. Of course every one knows without telling what came from such an invitation. It was not long before Ragnar was back with his ship and he found Kraka quite ready to go with him. And when they reached his home a splendid entertainment was given, during which the marriage between Ragnar and Kraka took place, everything being rich and brilliant and all the great lords of the kingdom being present. It will be seen that, though the Princess Aslög pretended to be dumb during her years of youthful life in the beggar's cottage, she found her voice and her wits with full effect when the time came to use them. She was now the queen of a great kingdom, and lived for many years happily with her husband Ragnar. And among her children were two sons who were very different from other men. The oldest was called Iwar. He grew up to be tall and strong, though there were no bones in his body, but only gristle, so that he could not stand, but had to be carried everywhere on a litter. Yet he was very wise and prudent. The second gained the name of Ironside, and was so tough of skin that he wore no armor in war, but fought with his bare body without being wounded. To the people this seemed the work of magic. There were two others who were like other men. Since the older brothers, the sons of Tora, had long been notable as warriors, the younger brothers, when they grew up, became eager to win fame and fortune also, and they went abroad on warlike expeditions, fighting many battles, winning many victories, and gaining much riches. But Iwar, the boneless one, was not satisfied with this common fighting, but wanted to perform some great exploit, that would give them a reputation everywhere for courage. There was the town of Hvitaby (now Whitby, in Yorkshire, England), which many great warriors had attacked, their father among them, but all had been driven back by the power of magic or necromancy. If they could take this stronghold it would give them infinite honor, said Iwar, and to this his brothers agreed. To Hvitaby they sailed, and leaving their younger brother Ragnwald in charge of the ships, because they thought him too young to take part in so hard a battle, they marched against the town. The place was ably defended, not only by men but by two magical heifers, their charm being that no man could stand before them or even listen to their lowing. When these beasts were loosed and ran out towards the troops, the men were so scared by the terrible sound of their voices that Ironside had all he could do to keep them from a panic flight, and many of them fell prostrate. But Iwar, who could not stand, but was carried into battle upon shields, took his bow and sent his arrows with such skill and strength that both the magic heifers were slain. Then courage came back to the troops and the townsmen were filled with terror. And in the midst of the fighting Ragnwald came up with the men left to guard the ships. He was determined to win some of the glory of the exploit and attacked the townsmen with fury, rushing into their ranks until he was cut down. But in the end the townsmen were defeated and the valiant brothers returned with great honor and spoil, after destroying the castle. Thus it was that the sons of Kraka gained reputation as valiant warriors. But meanwhile Kraka herself was like to lose her queenly station, for Ragnar visited King Osten of Upsala who had a beautiful daughter named Ingeborg. On seeing her, his men began to say that it would be more fitting for their king to have this lovely princess for his wife, instead of a beggar's daughter like Kraka. Ragnar heard this evil counsel, and was so affected by it that he became betrothed to Ingeborg. When he went home he bade his men to say nothing about this betrothal, yet in some way Kraka came to know of it. That night she asked Ragnar for news and he said he had none to tell. "If you do not care to tell me news," said Kraka, "I will tell you some. It is not well done for a king to affiance himself to one woman when he already has another for his wife. And, since your men chose to speak of me as a beggar's daughter, let me tell you that I am no such thing, but a king's daughter and of much higher birth than your new love Ingeborg." "What fable is this you tell me?" said Ragnar. "Who, then, were your parents?" "My father was King Sigurd Fafnisbane and my mother was the Amazon Brynhilda, daughter of King Budle." "Do you ask me to believe that the daughter of these great people was named Kraka and brought up in a peasant's hut?" The queen now told him that her real name was Aslög and related all the events of her early life. And as a sign that she spoke the truth, she said that her next child, soon to be born, would be a son and would have a snake in his eye. It came out as she said, the boy, when born, having the strange sign of which she had spoken, so that he was given a name that meant Sigurd Snake-in-Eye. So rejoiced was Ragnar at this that he ceased to think of Ingeborg and all his old love for Kraka, or Aslög as she was now called, came back. The remainder of the lives of Ragnar and Aslög and of their warlike sons is full of valiant deeds and magic arts, far too long to be told here, but which gave them a high place in the legendary lore of the north, in which Ragnar Lodbrok is one of the chief heroes. At length Ragnar was taken prisoner by King Ethelred of England and thrown into a pit full of serpents, where he died. Afterwards Iwar and his brothers invaded England, conquered that country, and avenged their father by putting Ethelred to death by torture. Iwar took England for his kingdom and the realms of the north were divided among his brothers, and many more were the wars they had, until death ended the career of these heroes of northern legend. _HAROLD FAIR-HAIRED FOUNDS THE KINGDOM OF NORWAY._ To the far-off island of Iceland we must go for the story of the early days of Norway. In that frosty isle, not torn by war or rent by tumult, the people, sitting before their winter fires, had much time to think and write, and it is to Iceland we owe the story of the gods of the north and of the Scandinavian kings of heathen times. One of these writers, Snorri Sturlasson by name, has left us a famous book, "The Sagas of the Kings of Norway," in which he tells of a long line of ancient kings, who were descended from the gods. Here are some of their names, Aun the Old, Ingjald Ill-Ruler, Olaf the Wood-Cutter, Halfdan Whiteleg, and Halfdan the Swarthy. There were others whom we need not name, and of these mentioned the names must suffice, for all we know of them is legend, not truth. In those times there was no kingdom of Norway, but a number of petty provinces, ruled over by warriors who are spoken of as kings, but whose rule was not very wide. Most powerful among them was Halfdan the Swarthy, who was only a year old in 810 when his father was killed in battle. He lived for many years, and he and his wife Ragnhild had strange dreams. The queen dreamed that a thorn which she took out of her clothes grew in her hands until one end of it took root in the ground and the other shot up into the air. It kept on growing until it was a great tree, so high that she could barely see its top. The lower part of it was blood-red, higher up it was bright green, and the spreading branches were white as snow. So widely they spread that they seemed to shade the whole country of Norway. King Halfdan did not like it that his wife had such strange dreams and he had none. He asked a sage why this was so, and was told that if he wanted to have dreams as strange he must sleep in a pig-sty. A queer recipe for dreams, one would think, but the king tried it, and dreamed that his hair grew long and beautiful and hung in bright locks over his shoulders, some of them down to his waist, and one, the brightest and most beautiful of all, still farther down. When he told the sage of this dream, the wise man said it meant that from him was to come a mighty race of kings, one of whom should be the greatest and most glorious of them all. This great hero, Snorri tells us, was supposed to be Olaf the Saint, who reigned two hundred years later, and under whom Christianity first flourished in Norway. Soon after these dreams a son was born to the queen, who was named Harold. A bright, handsome lad he grew to be, wise of mind and strong of body and winning the favor of all who knew him. Many tales which we cannot believe are told of his boyhood. Here is one of them. Once when the king was seated at the Yuletide feast all the meats and the ale disappeared from the table, leaving an empty board for the monarch and his guests. There was present a Finn who was said to be a sorceror, and him the king put to the torture, to find out who had done this thing. Young Harold, displeased with his father's act, rescued the Finn from his tormentors and went with him to the mountains. On they went, miles and leagues away, until they came to a place where a Finnish chief was holding a great feast. Harold stayed there until spring, when he told his host that he must return to his father's halls. Then the chief said: "King Halfdan was very angry when I took his meat and ale from him last winter, and now I will reward you with good tidings for what you did. Your father is dead and his kingdom waits for you to inherit. And some day you will rule over all Norway." Harold found it to be as the Finn had said, and thus in 860, when he was only ten years old, he came to the throne. He was young to be at the head of a turbulent people and some ambitious men there were who sought to take advantage of his youth, but his uncle guardian fought for him and put them all down. Harold was now the greatest among the petty kings of Norway and a wish to be ruler of the whole land grew up in his soul. Here comes in a story which may not be all true, but is pretty enough to tell. It is to the effect that love drove Harold to strive for the kingdom. Old Snorri tells the story, which runs this way. King Erik of Hördaland had a fair daughter named Gyda, the fame of whose beauty reached Harold's ears and he sent messengers to win her for himself. But the maid was proud and haughty and sent back word: "Tell your master that I will not yield myself to any man who has only a few districts for his kingdom. Is there no king in the land who can conquer all Norway, as King Erik has conquered Sweden and King Gorm Denmark?" This was all the answer she had for the heralds, though they pleaded for a better answer, saying that King Harold was surely great enough for any maid in the land. "This is my answer to King Harold," she said. "I will promise to become his wife if for my sake he shall conquer all Norway and rule it as freely as King Erik and King Gorm rule their kingdoms. Only when he has done this can he be called the king of a people." When the heralds returned they told the king of their ill success and advised him to take the girl by force. "Not so," Harold replied. "The girl has spoken well and deserves thanks instead of injury. She has put a new thought into my mind which had not come to me before. This I now solemnly vow and call God to witness, that I will not cut or comb my hair until the day when I shall have made myself king of all Norway. If I fail in this, I shall die in the attempt." [Illustration: HOUSE OF PARLIAMENT, NORWAY.] Such is the legend of Gyda and the vow. What history tells us is that the young king set out to bring all Norway under his rule and prospered in the great enterprise. One after another, the small kings yielded to his power, and were made earls or governors under him. They collected taxes and administered justice in his name. All the land of the peasants was declared to be the property of the king, and those who had been free proprietors were now made the king's tenants and were obliged to pay taxes if they wished to hold their lands. These changes angered many and there were frequent rebellions against the king, but he put them all down, and year after year came nearer the goal of his ambition. And his hair continued to grow uncut and uncombed, and got to be such a tangled mass that men called him Harold Lufa, or Frowsy-Head. There was one great and proud family, the Rafnistas, who were not easily to be won. To one of them, Kveld-Ulf, or Night-Wolf, Harold sent envoys, asking him to enter his service, but the chief sent back word that he was too old to change. Then he offered Bald Grim, old Night-Wolf's son, high honors if he would become his vassal. Bald Grim replied that he would take no honors that would give him rank over his father. Harold grew angry at this, and was ready to use force where good words would not prevail, but in the end the old chief agreed that his second son Thorolf might be the king's man if he saw fit. This he agreed to do, and as he was handsome, intelligent and courtly the king set much store by him. Not only with the Norway chiefs, but with the king of Sweden, Harold had trouble. While he was busy in the south King Erik invaded the north, and Harold had to march in haste to regain his dominions. But the greatest danger in his career came in 872, when a number of chiefs combined against him and gathered a great fleet, which attacked Harold's fleet in Halfrs-Fjord. Then came the greatest and hottest fight known to that day in Norway. Loudly the war-horns sounded and the ships were driven fiercely to the fray, Harold's ship being in the front wherever the fight waxed hottest. Thorolf, the son of Night-Wolf, stood in its prow, fighting with viking fury, and beside him stood two of his brothers, matching him blow with blow. Yet the opposing chiefs and their men were stout fighters and the contest long seemed doubtful, many brave and able men falling on both sides. Arrows hissed in swift flight through the air, spears hurtled after them, stones were hurled by strong hands, and those who came hand to hand fought like giants. At length Harold's berserkers--men who fought without armor, replacing it with fury of onslaught--rushed forward and boarded the hostile ships, cutting down all who opposed them. Blood ran like water and the chieftains and their men fell or fled before this wild assault. The day was won for Harold, and with it the kingdom, for after that fatal fray none dared to stand up before him. His vow accomplished, all Norway now his, Harold at last consented to the cutting of his hair, this being done by Ragnvald, the earl of Möre. The tangled strands being cut and the hair deftly combed, those who saw it marvelled at its beauty, and from that day the king was known as Harold the Fair-Haired. As for Gyda, the maid, the great task she set having been accomplished, she gave her hand to Harold, a splendid marriage completing the love romance of their lives. This romance, however, is somewhat spoiled by the fact that Harold already had a wife, Aasa, the daughter of Earl Haakon, and that he afterwards married other wives. He had his faults and weaknesses, one of these being that he was not faithful to women and he was jealous of men who were growing in greatness. One of the men whom he began to fear or hate was Thorolf, who had aided him so mightily in battle and long stood highest in his favor. Thorolf married a rich wife and grew very wealthy, living like a prince, and becoming profuse in his hospitality. He was gracious and liberal and won hosts of friends, while he aided the king greatly in collecting taxes from the Finns, who were not very willing to part with their money. Despite this service Harold grew to distrust Thorolf, or to hate him for other reasons, and the time came when this feeling led to a tragedy. Thorolf had been made bailiff of Haalogaland, and when Harold came to this province his bailiff entertained him with a splendid feast, to which eight hundred guests were invited, three hundred of them being the king's attendants. Yet, through all the hilarity of the feast, Harold sat dark and brooding, much to his host's surprise. He unbent a little at the end and seemed well pleased when Thorolf presented him with a large dragon ship, fully equipped. Yet not long afterwards he took from him his office of bailiff, and soon showed himself his deadly foe, slandering him as a pretext for attacking him on his estate. The assailants set fire to Thorolf's house and met him with a shower of spears when he broke out from the burning mansion. Seeing the king among them Thorolf rushed furiously towards him, cut down his banner-bearer with a sword blow, and was almost within touch of the king when he fell from his many wounds, crying: "By three steps only I failed." It is said that Harold himself gave the death blow, yet he looked sadly on the warrior as he lay dead at his feet, saying, as he saw a man bandaging a slight wound: "That wound Thorolf did not give. Differently did weapons bite in his hand. It is a pity that such men must die." This would indicate that King Harold had other reasons than appears from the narrative for the slaughter of his former friend. It must be borne in mind that he was engaged in founding a state, and had many disorderly and turbulent elements with which to deal, and that before he had ended his work he was forced to banish from the kingdom many of those who stood in his way. We do not know what secret peril to his plans led him to remove Thorolf from his path. However that be, the killing of the chief sent his father to his bed sick with grief, and he grew content only when he heard that the king's hand had slain him and that he had fallen on his face at his slayer's feet. For when a dying man fell thus it was a sign that he would be avenged. But the old man was far too weak to attack Harold openly, and was not willing to dwell in the same kingdom with him; so he, with his son Bald Grim and all his family and wealth, took ship and set sail for Iceland. But long he lingered on Norway's coast, hoping for revenge on some of Harold's blood, and chance threw in his way a ship containing two cousins of the king. This he attacked, killed the king's cousins, and captured the ship. Then Bald Grim, full of exultation, sang a song of triumph on the ship's prow, beginning with: "Now is the Hersir's vengeance On the king fulfilled; Wolf and eagle tread on Yngling's children." There were other chieftains who sought refuge abroad from Harold's rule, men who were bitterly opposed to the new government he founded, with its system of taxation and its strict laws. They could not see why the old system of robbing and plundering within Norway's confines should be interfered with or their other ancient privileges curtailed, and several thousand sailed away to found new homes in the Orkneys, the Hebrides, and Iceland. One of the chief of these, Rolf, or Rollo, son of the king's friend, Ragnvald of Möre, defied Harold's laws and was declared an outlaw. His high birth made the king more determined to punish him, as an example to others, and no influence could win forgiveness for Rolf the Walker, as men called him, saying that he was so tall and heavy that no horse could carry him. We must follow the outlaw in his journey, for it was one destined to lead to great events. Setting sail with a fleet and a large number of followers, he made his way to the coast of France, and fixed himself there, plundering the people for several years. Charles the Simple, king of France, finding that he could not drive the bold Norseman off, at length gave him a large province on condition that he would become a Christian, and hold his land as a vassal of the king. The province was given the name of Normandy, and from Rollo descended that sturdy race of kings one of whom conquered England in the following century. Thus the exile of Rollo led to events of world-wide importance. When the proud Norseman was asked to kiss King Charles's foot in token of fealty to him, he answered: "I will never bend my knee before any man, nor will I kiss any man's foot." He could hardly be persuaded to let one of his men kiss the king's foot as a proxy for him. The man chosen strode sturdily forward, seized the foot of the king, who was on horseback, and lifted it to his lips so roughly that the poor king turned a somersault from his horse. The Norsemen laughed in derision while the king's followers stood by grim and silent. But despite his unruliness at home, Rollo, when he got a kingdom of his own, ruled it with all the sternness of King Harold, hanging all robbers that fell into his hands, and making his kingdom so secure that the peasants could leave their tools in the fields at night without fear of loss. Five generations after him came to the throne William the Conqueror, who won himself the kingdom of England. To go back to Harold, the builder of the kingdom of Norway, we shall only say in conclusion that he built his rule on sure foundations and kept a court of high splendor, and died without a rebel in his realm in 933, seventy-three years after he succeeded his father as ruler of a province. _GORM THE OLD, DENMARK'S FIRST KING._ In ancient times Denmark was not a kingdom, but a multitude of small provinces ruled over by warlike chiefs who called themselves kings. It was not until the ninth century that these little king-ships were combined into one kingdom, this being done by a famous chieftain, known by the Danes as Gorm den Gamle, or Gorm the Old. A great warrior he was, a viking of the vikings, and southern Europe felt his heavy hand. A famous story of barbarian life is that of Gorm, which well deserves to be told. He was the son of a fierce pagan of Norway, Hardegon, who was of royal blood, being a grandson of the half-fabulous Ragnar Lodbrok. A prince with only his sword for kingdom, Hardegon looked around for a piece of land to be won by fighting, and fixed upon Lejre, in the fruitful Danish island of Sjölland, which was just then in a very inviting state for the soldier of fortune. Some time before it had fallen into the hands of a Swedish fortune-seeker named Olaf, who left it to his two sons. These in turn had just been driven out by Siegric, the rightful king, when Hardegon descended upon it and seized it for himself. Dying, he left it to his son Gorm. It was a small kingdom that Gorm had fallen heir to. A lord's estate we would call it to-day. But while small in size, it stood high in rank, for it was here that the great sacrifices to Odin, the chief Scandinavian deity, were held, and it was looked upon as one of the most sacred of spots. Hither at Yuletide came the devotees of Odin from all quarters to worship at his shrine, and offer gifts of gold and silver, precious stones and costly robes, to the twelve high priests of whom the king of Lejre was the chief. And every worshipper, whether rich or poor, was expected to bring a horse, a dog, or a cock, these animals being sacred to Odin and sacrificed in large numbers annually at his shrine. In the special nine-year services, people came in great numbers, and it is probable that on these occasions human sacrifices were made, captives taken in war or piratical excursions being saved for this purpose. As one may see, the king of Lejre had excellent opportunity to acquire wealth, and young Gorm, being brave, clever, and ambitious, used his riches to increase his landed possessions. At least, the Danish historians tell us that he began by buying one bit of land, getting another by barter, seizing on one district, having another given him, and so on. But all this is guess-work, and all we actually know is that Gorm, the son of a poor though nobly-born sea-rover, before his death gained control of all Denmark, then much larger than the Denmark of to-day, and changed the small state with which he began into a powerful kingdom, bringing all the small kings under his sway. The ambitious chief did not content himself with this. Long before his kingdom was rounded and complete he had become known as one of the most daring and successful of the viking adventurers who in those days made all Europe their prey. Early in his reign he made a plundering cruise along the shores of the Baltic and joined in a piratical invasion of Russia, penetrating far inward and pillaging as he went. We hear of him again in 882 as one of the chiefs of a daring band which made a conquering raid into Germany, intrenched itself on the river Maas, sallied forth on plundering excursions whose track was marked by ruined fields and burnt homesteads, villages and towns, and even assailed and took Aix-la-Chapelle, one of the chief cities of the empire of Charlemagne and the seat of his tomb. The reckless freebooters stalled their horses in the beautiful chapel in which the great emperor lay buried and stripped from his tomb its gilded and silvered railings and everything of value which the monks had not hidden. The whole surrounding country was similarly ravaged and desolated by the ruthless heathens, monasteries were burned, monks were killed or captured, and the emperor, Charles the Fat, was boldly defied. When Charles brought against the plunderers an army large enough to devour them, he was afraid to strike a blow against them, and preferred to buy them off with a ransom of two thousand pounds of gold and silver, all he got in return being their promise to be baptized. Finding that they had a timid foe to deal with, the rapacious Norsemen asked for more, and when they finally took to their ships two hundred transports were needed to carry away their plunder. The cowardly Charles, indeed, was so wrought upon by fear of the pagan Danes that he even passed the incredible law that any one who killed a Norseman should have his eyes put out and in some cases should lose his life. All this was sure to invite new invasions. A wave of joy passed through the north when the news spread of the poltroonery of the emperor and the vast spoil awaiting the daring hand. Back they came, demanding and receiving new ransom, and in 885 there began a great siege of Paris by forty thousand Danes. King Gorm was one of the chiefs who took part in this, and when Henry of Neustria, whom the emperor had sent with an army against them, was routed and driven back, it was Gorm who pursued the fugitives into the town of Soissons, where many captives and a great booty were taken. The dastard emperor again bought them off with money and freedom to ravage Burgundy, Paris being finally rescued by Count Eudes. In 891 they were so thoroughly beaten by King Arnulf, of Germany, that their great leaders fell on the field and only a remnant of the Norsemen escaped alive, the waters of the river Dyle running red with the blood of slain thousands. Gorm was one of the chiefs who took part in this disastrous battle of Louvaine and was one of the fortunate few who lived to return to their native land. Apparently it was not the last of his expeditions, his wife, Queen Thyra, taking care of the kingdom in his many long absences. Thyra needed ability and resolution to fitly perform this duty, for those were restless and turbulent times, and the Germans made many incursions into Sleswick and Jutland and turned the borderlands on the Eyder into a desert. This grew so hard to bear that the wise queen devised a plan to prevent it. Gathering a great body of workmen from all parts of Denmark, she set them to building a wall of defense from forty-five to seventy-five feet high and eight miles long, crossing from water to water on the east and west. This great wall, since known as the Dannevirke, took three years to build. There were strong watch-towers at intervals and only one gate, and this was well protected by a wide and deep ditch, crossed by a bridge that could readily be removed. For ages afterwards the Danes were grateful to Queen Thyra for this splendid wall of defense and sang her praises in their national hymns, while they told wonderful tales of her cleverness in ruling the land while her husband was far away. Fragments of Thyra's rampart still remain and its remains formed the groundwork of all the later border bulwarks of Denmark. Queen Thyra, while a worshipper of the northern gods, showed much favor to the Christians and caused some of her children to be signed with the cross. But King Gorm was a fierce pagan and treated his Christian subjects so cruelly that he gained the name of the "Church's worm," being regarded as one who was constantly gnawing at the supports of the Church. Henry I. the Fowler, the great German emperor of that age, angry at this treatment of the Christians, sent word to Gorm that it must cease, and when he found that no heed was paid to his words he marched a large army to the Eyder, giving Gorm to understand that he must mend his ways or his kingdom would be overrun. Gorm evidently feared the loss of his dominion, for from that time on he allowed the Archbishop of Bremen to preach in his dominions and to rebuild the churches which had been destroyed, while he permitted his son Harald, who favored the Christians, to be signed with the cross. But he kept to the faith of his forefathers, as did his son Knud, known as "Dan-Ast," or the "Danes'-joy." The ancient sagas tell us that there was little love between Knud and Harald; and that Gorm, fearing ill results from this, swore an oath that he would put to death any one who attempted to kill his first-born son, or who should even tell him that Knud had died. While Harald remained at home and aided his mother, Knud was of his father's fierce spirit and for years attended him on his viking expeditions. On one of these he was drowned, or rather was killed while bathing, by an arrow shot from one of his own ships. Gorm was absent at the time, and Thyra scarcely knew how the news could be told him without incurring the sworn penalty of death. Finally she put herself and her attendants into deep mourning and hung the chief hall of the palace with the ashy-grey hangings used at the grave-feasts of Northmen of noble birth. Then, seating herself, she awaited Gorm's return. On entering the hall he was struck by these signs of mourning and by the silence and dejection of the queen, and broke out in an exclamation of dismay: "My son, Knud, is dead!" "Thou hast said it, and not I, King Gorm," was the queen's reply. The news of the death had thus been conveyed to him without any one incurring the sworn penalty. Soon after that--in 936--King Gorm died, and the throne of Denmark was left to his son Harald, a cruel and crafty man whom many of the people believed to have caused the murder of his brother. _ERIK BLOOD-AXE AND EGIL THE ICELANDER._ In the year 900 Harold the Fair-Haired, the famous monarch who made a kingdom of Norway, passed a law which was to work mischief for centuries to come. Erik, his favorite son, was named overlord of the kingdom, but with the proviso that his other sons should bear the kingly title and rule over provinces, while the sons of his daughters were to be made earls. Had the wise Harold dreamed of the trouble this unwise law was to make he would have cut off his right hand before signing it. It was to give rise to endless rebellions and civil wars which filled the kingdom with ruin and slaughter for many reigns and at last led to its overthrow and long disappearance from among the separate nations of the earth. A bold and daring prince was Erik, with the old viking blood in his veins. When only twelve years of age his father gave him five ships, each with a sturdy crew of Norsemen, and sent him out to ravage the southern lands, in the manner of the sea-kings of those days. Many were the perilous exploits of the young viking admiral and when he came back to his father's halls and told him of his daring deeds, the old king listened with delight. So fierce and fatal were many of his fights that he won the name of Blood-Axe, but for this his father loved him all the more and chose him to be his successor on the throne. [Illustration: HOME OF PEASANTS. NORWAY.] Before his father died Erik had shown what was in him, by attacking and killing two of his brothers. But despite all that, when the old king was eighty years of age he led Erik to the throne and named him as his successor. Three years later Harold died and Norway fell under the young sea-king's hand--a brave, handsome, stately ruler; but haughty, cruel, and pitiless in his wrath, and with the old viking wildness in his blood. He had married a woman whom men called a witch--cruel, treacherous, loving money and power, and with such influence over him that she killed all the good in his soul and spurred him on to evil deeds. Strange stories are told of the wicked Queen Gunhild. It was said that she had been sent to Finland to learn the arts of sorcery, in which the Finns of those days were well versed. Here Erik met her in one of his wanderings, and was taken captive by her bold beauty. She dwelt with two sorcerers, both bent on marrying her, while she would have neither of them. Prince Erik was a suitor more to her liking and she hid him in her tent, begging him to rescue her from her troublesome lovers. This was no easy task, for sorcerers have arts of their own, but Erik proved equal to it, cut his way through all the difficulties in his path and carried Gunhild away to his ships, where he made her his wife. In her he had wed a dragon of mischief, as his people were to learn. She was of small size but of wonderful beauty, and with sly, insinuating ways that fitted her well to gain the mastery over strong men. But all her arts were used for evil, and she won the hatred of the people by speaking words of ill counsel in her husband's ears. The treachery and violence he showed were said to be the work of Gunhild the witch, and the nobles and people soon grew to hate Erik Blood-Axe and his cruel wife, and often broke out in rebellion against them. His brothers, who had been made kings of provinces, were not ready to submit to his harsh rule, and barely was old King Harold dead before Halfdan the Swarthy--who bore the name of his grandfather--claimed to be monarch in Tröndelag, and Olaf, another brother, in Viken. Death came suddenly to Halfdan--men whispered that he had been poisoned by the queen--but his brother Sigfrid took his place and soon the flame of rebellion rose north and south. Erik proved equal to the difficulty. Sigfrid and Olaf were in Tunsberg, where they had met to lay plans to join their forces, when Erik, whose spies told him of their movements, took the town by surprise and killed them both. Thus, so far, Erik Blood-Axe was triumphant. He had killed four of his brothers--men said five--and every one thought that Gunhild would not be content until all King Harold's brood except her own husband were in the grave. Trouble next came from a region far away, the frost-king's land of Iceland in the northern seas, which had been settled from Norway in the early reign of Harold the Fair-Haired, some sixty years before. Here lived a handsome and noble man named Thorolf, who had met Erik in his viking days. He was the son of the stern old Icelander Bald Grim, and nephew of the noble Thorolf who had been basely slain by King Harold. Bald Grim hated Harold and all his race, but Thorolf grew to admire Erik for his daring and made him a present of a large and beautiful ship. Thus Erik became his friend, and when Thorolf came to Norway the young prince begged his father to let him dwell there in peace. When he at length went home to Iceland he took with him an axe with a richly carved handle, which Erik had sent as a present to his father. Old Bald Grim was not the man to be bought over by a present. The hate he felt for Harold he transferred to his son, and when Thorolf set sail again for Norway his father bade him take back the axe to the king and sang an insulting song which he bade him repeat to Erik. Thorolf did not like his errand. He thought it best to let the blood-feud die, so he threw the axe into the sea and when he met the king gave him his father's thanks for the fine gift. If Thorolf had had his way the trouble would have been at an end, but with him came Egil, his younger brother, a man of different character. Stern old Bald Grim seemed born again in his son Egil. A man of great size, swarthy face, harsh of aspect, and of fierce temper, in him was the old, tameless spirit of the Norse sea-kings, turbulent, passionate, owning no man master, he bent his strong soul to no man's rule. Rash and adventurous, he had a long and stormy career, while nature had endowed him with a rich gift of song, which added to his fame. Such was the type of men who in those days made all Europe tremble before the Norsemen's wrath, and won dominion for the viking warriors in many lands. Thorold when in Norway before had gained powerful friends in the great nobles, Thore Herse and Björn the Yeoman. On this visit the brothers became Thore's guests, and Egil and Arinbjörn, Thore's son, became warm friends. The young Icelander's hot temper soon brewed trouble. Sickness kept him from going with Thorolf to the house of Björn the Yeoman, whose daughter, Aasgard, he was to marry; but he soon got well and went on a visit to Baard, a steward of the king. As fortune decreed he met there King Erik and Queen Gunhild. Egil was not the man to play the courtier and his hot blood was under little control. When Baard neglected him in favor of his royal visitor, he broke into such a rage that the queen, to quiet him, tried one of her underhand arts. She bade Baard to mix sleeping herbs with his beer. Suspecting treachery from the taste of the beer Egil flung his flagon to the floor, struck Baard dead in his fury, and, fleeing for his life, swam to an island in the neighboring stream. When men were sent to search the island and capture him he killed some of them, seized their boat, and made his escape. King Erik was furious, but Thore Herse got him to accept a money payment for Baard's death--as was then the custom of the land--and he agreed to let Egil dwell in Norway unharmed. This was not to the queen's liking. She was fond of Baard and was deeply incensed at Egil for his murderous act, and she stormed at the king for his mildness of temper till he broke out: "You are forever egging me on to acts of violence; but now you must hold your peace, for I have given my kingly word and cannot break it." Gunhild, thus repulsed, sought other means of revenge. A great feast of sacrifice to the old heathen gods was to be held at the temple of Gaule, and at her instigation her brother, Eyvind Skreyja, agreed to kill one of Bald Grim's sons. Finding no opportunity for this, he killed one of Thorolf's men, for which act Erik outlawed him. The remainder of the story of Egil's career is largely that of a viking, that is, a piratical rover, bent on spoil and plunder and the harrying of sea-coast lands. With Thorolf he took to the sea and cruised about in quest of wealth and glory, finally landing in England and fighting in a great battle under the banner of King Athelstan. He made his mark here, but Thorolf was slain, so Egil went back to Norway, married his brother's widow, and sailed for his old home in Iceland, which he had not seen for twelve years. Iceland was too quiet a land to hold the stirring sea-king long and news from Norway soon made him take ship again. Björn the Yeoman, his wife's father, had died, and Queen Gunhild had given his estate to Berg-Anund, one of her favorites. Storming with rage, he reached Norway and hotly pleaded his claim to the estate before the assembly or _thing_ at Gula, Erik and Gunhild being present. He failed in his purpose, the _thing_ breaking up in disorder; and Egil, probably finding Norway too hot to hold him, went back to Iceland. If King Erik now fancied he was rid of the turbulent Icelander he was mistaken. Rankling with a sense of injury and borne onward by his impetuous temper, Egil was soon in Norway again, sought the Björn estate, surprised and killed Berg-Anund, and went so far in his daring as to kill Ragnvald, the king's son, who was visiting Berg. Carried to extremes by his unruly temper he raised what was called a shame-pole, or pole of dishonor, on a cliff top, to the king and queen. On it he thrust the head of a dead horse, crying out: "I turn this dishonor against all the land-spirits of this land, that they may all stray bewildered and none of them find his home until they have driven King Erik and Queen Gunhild out of this land." This message of defiance he cut in runes--the letters of the Northland--into the pole, that all might read it, and then sailed back to Iceland. Egil had not long to wait for his curse to take effect, for Erik's reign was soon threatened from a new source. He had not killed all his brothers. In the old days of King Harold, when near seventy years old, he had married a new wife, who bore him a son whom he named Haakon,--destined in later life to reign with the popular title of Haakon the Good. This boy, perhaps for his safety, had been sent to England and given over to King Athelstan, who brought him up almost as his own son. Erik had been four years on the throne when Haakon came back to Norway, a handsome, noble youth, kind of heart and gentle in disposition, and on all sides hailed with joy, for Erik and his evil-minded wife had not won the love of the people. Great nobles and many of the people gathered around Haakon, men saying that he was like King Harold come back again, gentler and nobler than of old and with all his old stately beauty and charm. The next year he was crowned king. Erik tried to raise an army, but none of the people were willing to fight for him, and he was forced to flee with his wife and children. Only a few of his old friends went with him, but among them was Arinbjörn, Egil's former friend. Sudden had been King Erik's fall. Lately lord of a kingdom, he had now not a foot of land he could call his own, and he sailed about as a sea-robber, landing and plundering in Scotland and England. At length, to rid himself of this stinging hornet of the seas, King Athelstan made him lord of a province in Northumberland, with the promise that he would fight for it against other vikings like himself. He was also required to be baptized and become a Christian. Meanwhile Egil dwelt in Iceland, but in bitter discontent. He roamed about the strand, looking for sails at sea and seeming to care little for his wife and children. Men said that Gunhild had bewitched him, but more likely it was his own unquiet spirit. At any rate the time came when he could bear a quiet life no longer and he took ship and sailed away to the south. Misfortune now went with him. A storm drove his ship ashore on the English coast at the mouth of the Humber, the ship being lost but he and his thirty men reaching shore. Inquiring in whose land he was, people told him that Erik Blood-Axe ruled that region. Egil's case was a desperate one. He was in the domain of his deadly foe, with little hope of escape. With his usual impetuous spirit, he made no attempt to flee, but rode boldly into York, where he found his old friend Arinbjörn. With him he went straight to Erik, like the reckless fellow he was. "What do you expect from me?" asked Erik. "You deserve nothing but death at my hands." "Death let it be, then," said the bold viking, in his reckless manner. Gunhild on seeing him was eager for his blood. She had hated him so long that she hotly demanded that he should be killed on the spot. Erik, less bloodthirsty, gave him his life for one night more, and Arinbjörn begged him to spend the night in composing a song in Erik's honor, hoping that in this way he might win his life. Egil promised to do so and his friend brought him food and drink, bidding him do his best. Anxious to know how he was progressing Arinbjörn visited him in the night. "How goes the song?" he asked. "Not a line of it is ready," answered Egil. "A swallow has been sitting in the window all the night, screaming and disturbing me, and do what I would I could not drive it away." At that Arinbjörn darted into the hall, where he saw in the dim light a woman running hastily away. Going back he found that the swallow had flown. He was sure now that Queen Gunhild had changed herself into a swallow by sorcery, and for the remainder of the night he kept watch outside that the bird should not return. When morning broke he found that Egil had finished his song. Determined to save his friend's life if he could, he armed himself and his men and went with Egil to the palace of the king, where he asked Erik for Egil's life as a reward for his devotion to him when others had deserted him. Erik made no reply, and then Arinbjörn cried out: "This I will say. Egil shall not die while I or one of my men remain alive." "Egil has well deserved death," replied Erik, "but I cannot buy his death at that price." As he stopped speaking Egil began to sing, chanting his ode in tones that rang loudly through the hall. Famed as a poet, his death song was one of the best he had ever composed, and it praised Erik's valor in all the full, wild strains of the northern verse. Erik heard the song through with unmoved face. When it was done he said: "Your song is a noble one, and your friend's demand for your life is nobler still. Nor can I be the dastard to kill a man who puts himself of his own will into my hands. You shall depart unharmed. But do not think that I or my sons forgive you, and from the moment you leave this hall never come again under my eyes or the eyes of my sons." Egil thus won his life by his song, which became known as the "Ransom of the Head." Another of his songs, called "The Loss of the Son," is held to be the most beautiful in all the literature of Iceland. He afterwards lived long and had many more adventures, and in the end died in his bed in Iceland when he was over ninety years of age. Erik died in battle many years earlier, and Gunhild then went to Denmark with her sons. She was to make more trouble for Norway before she died. _THE SEA-KINGS AND THEIR DARING FEATS._ From the word _vik_, or bay, comes the word viking, long used to designate the sea-rovers of the Northland, the bold Norse wanderers who for centuries made their way to the rich lands of the south on plundering raids. Beginning by darting out suddenly from hiding places in bays or river mouths to attack passing craft, they in the end became daring scourers of the seas and won for themselves kingdoms and dominions in the settled realms of the south. Nothing was known of them in the early days. The people of southern Europe in the first Christian centuries hardly knew of the existence of the race of fair-skinned and light-haired barbarians who dwelt in the great peninsula of the north. It was not until near the year 800 B.C. that these bold brigands learned that riches awaited those who dared seize it on the shores of France, England, and more southern lands. Then they came in fleets and spread terror wherever they appeared. For several centuries the realms of civilization trembled before their very name. "From the fury of the Northmen, Good Lord deliver us!" prayed the priests, and the people joined fervently in the prayer. Long before this period the sea was the favorite hunting ground of the daring sons of the north, but the small chiefs of that period preyed upon each other, harrying their neighbors and letting distant lands alone. But as the power of the chiefs, and their ability to protect themselves increased, this mode of gaining wealth and fame lost its ease and attraction and the rovers began to rove farther afield. Sea-kings they called themselves. On land the ruler of a province might be called either earl or king, but the earl who went abroad with his followers on warlike excursions was content with no less name than king, and the chiefs who set out on plundering cruises became from the first known as sea-kings. Pirates and freebooters we would call them to-day, but they were held in high distinction in their native land, and some of the most cruel of them, on their return home, became men of influence, with all the morality and sense of honor known in those early days. Their lives of ravage and outrage won them esteem at home and the daring and successful sea-king ranked in fame with the noblest of the home-staying chiefs. We have seen how King Erik began his career as a viking and ended it in the same pursuit; how Rollo, a king's son, adopted the same profession; and from this it may be seen that the term was one of honor instead of disgrace. From all the lands of the north they came, these dreaded sons of the sea, from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark alike, fierce heathens they who cared nought for church or priest, but liked best to rob chapels and monasteries, for there the greatest stores of gold and silver could be found. When the churches were plundered they often left them in flames, as they also did the strong cities they captured and sacked. The small, light boats with which they dared the sea in its wrath were able to go far up the rivers, and wherever these fierce and bloodthirsty rovers appeared wild panic spread far around. So fond were they of sword-thrust and battle that one viking crew would often challenge another for the pure delight of fighting. A torment and scourge they were wherever they appeared. The first we hear in history of the sea-kings is in the year 787, when a small party of them landed on the English coast. In 794 came another flock of these vultures of the sea, who robbed a church and a monastery, plundering and killing, and being killed in their turn when a storm wrecked their ships and threw them on shore. As a good monk writes of them: "The heathen came from the northern countries to Britain like stinging wasps, roamed about like savage wolves, robbing, biting, killing not only horses, sheep, and cattle, but also priests, acolytes, monks, and nuns." The Norsemen had found a gold mine in the south and from this time on they worked it with fierce hands. Few dared face them, and even in the days of the great Charlemagne they ravaged the coast lands of France. Once, when the great emperor was in one of his cities on the Mediterranean coast, a fleet of the swift viking ships, known by their square sails, entered the harbor. Soon word was brought that they had landed and were plundering. Who they were the people knew not, some saying that they were Jews, others Africans, and others that they were British merchants. "No merchants they," said the emperor. "Those ships do not bring us goods, but fierce foes, bloody fighters from the north." The warriors around him at once seized their weapons and hurried to the shore, but the vikings had learned that the great emperor was in the city and, not daring to face him, had sought their ships and spread their sails again. Tears came to the eyes of Charlemagne as he watched them in their outward flight. He said to those around him: "It is not for fear that these brigands can do me any harm that I weep, but for their daring to show themselves on this coast while I am alive. Their coming makes me foresee and fear the harm they may do to my descendants." This story may be one of those legends which the monks were fond of telling, but it serves to show how the dread Norsemen were feared. France was one of their chief fields of ravage and slaughter. First coming in single ships, to rob and flee, they soon began to come in fleets and grew daring enough to attack and sack cities. Hastings, one of the most renowned of them all, did not hesitate to attack the greatest cities of the south. In 841 this bold freebooter sailed up the Loire with a large fleet, took and burned the city of Amboise, and laid siege to Tours. But here the inhabitants, aided, it is said, by the bones of their patron saint, drove him off. Four years later he made an attack on Paris, and as fortune followed his flag he grew so daring that he sought to capture the city of Rome and force the Pope to crown him emperor. For an account of this remarkable adventure of the bold Hastings see the article, "The Raids of the Sea-Rovers," in the German volume of "Historical Tales." In that account are also given the chief exploits of the vikings in France and Germany. We shall therefore confine ourselves in the remainder of this article to their operations in other lands, and especially in Ireland. This country was a common field for the depredations of the Norse rovers. For some reason not very clear to us the early vikings did not trouble England greatly, but for many years they spread terror through the sister isle, and in the year 838 Thorgisl, one of their boldest leaders, came with a fleet of one hundred and twenty ships, with which he attacked and captured the city of Dublin, and afterwards, as an old author tells us, he conquered all Ireland, securing his conquest with stone forts surrounded with deep moats. But the Irish at length got rid of their conqueror by a stratagem. It was through love that the sea-king was lost. Bewitched with the charms of the fair daughter of Maelsechnail, one of the petty kings of the land, he bade this chieftain to send her to him, with fifteen young maidens in her train. He agreed to meet her on an island in Loch Erne with as many Norsemen of high degree. Maelsechnail obeyed, but his maidens were beardless young men, dressed like women but armed with sharp daggers. Thorgisl and his men, taken by surprise, were attacked and slain. The Irish chief had once before asked Thorgisl how he should rid himself of some troublesome birds that had invaded the island. "Destroy their nests," said the Norseman. It was wise advice, and Maelsechnail put it in effect against the nests of the conquerors, destroying their stone strongholds, and killing or driving them away, with the aid of his fellow chieftains. Thus for a time Ireland was freed. It was conquered again by Olaf the White, who in 852 defeated some Danes who had taken Dublin, and then, like Thorgisl, began to build castles and tax the people. Two other viking leaders won kingdoms in Ireland, but Olaf was the most powerful of them all, and the kingdom founded by him lasted for three hundred and fifty years. From Dublin Olaf sailed to Scotland and England, the booty he won filling two hundred ships. The sea-rovers did not confine their voyages to settled lands. Bold ocean wanderers, fearless of man on shore and tempest on the waves, they visited all the islands of the north and dared the perils of the unknown sea. They rounded the North Cape and made their way into the White Sea as early as 750. The Faroe, the Orkney and the Shetland Islands were often visited by them after 825, and in 874 they discovered Iceland, which had been reached and settled by Irishmen or Scots about 800. The Norsemen found here only some Irish hermits and monks, and these, disturbed in their peaceful retreat by the turbulent newcomers, made their way back to Ireland and left the Norsemen lords of the land. From Iceland the rovers reached Greenland, which was settled in 986, and about the year 1000 they discovered North America, at a place they named Vinland. Such is, briefly told, the story of the early Norse wanderers. They had a later tale, of which we have told part in their conquest of Ireland. Though at first they came with a few ships, and were content to attack a town or a monastery, they soon grew more daring and their forces larger. A number of them would now fortify themselves on some coast elevation and make it a centre for plundering raids into the surrounding country. At a later date many of them ceased to pose as pirates and took the rôle of invaders and conquerors, storming and taking cities and founding governments in the invaded land. Such was the work of Thorgisl and Olaf in Ireland and of Rollo in Normandy. England was a frequent field of invasion after 833, which continued until 851, when King Ethelwulf defeated them with great slaughter. Fifteen years later they came again, these new invaders being almost all Danes. During all his reign Alfred the Great fought with them, but in spite of his efforts they gained a footing in the island, becoming its masters in the north and east. A century later, in 1016, Canute, the king of Denmark, completed the conquest and became king of all England. This is not the whole story of the sea-kings, whose daring voyages and raids made up much of the history of those centuries. One of the most important events in viking history took place in 862, when three brother chiefs, probably from Sweden, who had won fame in the Baltic Sea, were invited by the Russian tribes south of Lake Ladoga to come and rule over them. They did so, making Novgorod their capital. From this grew the empire of Russia, which was ruled over by the descendants of Rurik, the principal of these chiefs, until 1598. Other vikings made their way southward through Russia and, sailing down the Dnieper, put Constantinople in peril. Only a storm which scattered their fleet saved the great city from capture. Three times later they appeared before Constantinople, twice (in 904 and 945) being bought off by the emperors with large sums of money. Later on the emperors had a picked body-guard of Varangians, as they called the Northmen, and kept these till the fall of the city in 1453. It was deemed a great honor in the north to serve in this choice cohort at Myklegaard (Great City), and those who returned from there doubtless carried many of the elements of civilization to the Scandinavian shores. To some of these Varangians was due the conquest of Sicily by the Northmen. They were in the army sent from Constantinople to conquer that island, and seeing how goodly a land it was they aided in its final conquest, which was made by Robert Guiscard, a noble of Normandy, whose son Roger took the title of "King of Sicily and Italy." Thus it was that the viking voyages led within a few centuries to the founding of kingdoms under Norse rulers in England, Ireland, Sicily, Russia, and Normandy in France. _HAAKON THE GOOD AND THE SONS OF GUNHILD._ We have told how King Haakon succeeded his brother, Erik Blood-Axe, on the throne, and how, from his kindly and gentle nature, people called him Haakon the Good. There were other sons and several grandsons of Harold the Fair-Haired in the kingdom, but the new king treated them with friendliness and let them rule as minor kings under him. He dealt with the peasants also in the same kindly spirit, giving them back their lands and relieving them of the tax which Harold had laid. But he taxed them all in another way, dividing the country into marine districts, each of which was required to supply the king, on his demand, with a fully equipped warship. Yet as this was for the defence of the country, the people did not look on it as oppressive. And as Norway had a long mountainous coast, and important events were often long in becoming known, he gave orders that the approach of an enemy should be made known by signal fires lighted all along the coast. Haakon made other wise laws, in which he took the advice of the ablest men of the kingdom. But now we have to speak of the most striking event in the new king's career. Norway at that time was a haunt of idolatry. Men worshipped Odin and a host of other gods, and there was not a Christian in the whole land except the king himself, who had been brought up in the new faith by his foster-father, King Athelstan of England. An earnest Christian, he looked with sorrow on the rude worship and heathen belief of his people, but not until he had been many years on the throne did he venture to interfere with it. Then, about 950, when he had won the love of them all, he took steps to carry out his long-cherished desire. Sending to England for a bishop and a number of priests, the king issued a decree in which the people were forbidden to make sacrifices to the old gods and ordered to accept the Christian faith. This came like a thunderbolt to the worshippers of the old gods. To bid a whole nation to give up at a word the religion which they had cherished from childhood and which their fathers had held for generations before them was too much to demand. The king brought together a concourse of the people and spoke to them of his wish and purpose, but they had no answer to make except that the matter must be settled by their legal assembly. When the _thing_, or assembly, was called into session, a great body of the people were present, for never had so important a question been laid before them. Earnest and imploring was the speech made by the king, in which he warmly asked them to accept the God of the Christians and give up their heathen idols of wood and stone. These words were followed by an angry murmur from the multitude, and many dark looks were bent upon the rash monarch. Then a peasant leader, Aasbjörn of Medalhus, stepped out from the throng and spoke: "When you, King Haakon, first called us here before you and we took you for our king, it was with deep gladness, as if heaven had opened to us. But was it liberty we gained, or do you wish to make thralls of us once more, that you ask us to give up the faith of our fathers and forefathers for the new and unknown one you offer? Sturdy men they were, and their faith did well for them and has done well for us. We have learned to love you well and have always kept and will always keep the laws made by you and accepted by us. But in this thing which you now demand we cannot follow. If you are so resolved upon it that your mind cannot be changed, then we shall be forced to part from you and choose a new chief who will support us in worshipping our fathers' gods. Choose, O king, what you will do, before this assembly has dispersed." So loud were the shouts of approval with which this speech was greeted that not a word could be heard. Then, when quiet reigned again, Earl Sigurd, who had spoken aside with Haakon, rose and said that the king had no wish to lose their friendship and would yield to their wishes. This was not enough to overcome the distrust of the peasants. They next demanded that he should take part in the sacrifices to be given and in the feast to follow. This he felt obliged to do, though he quieted his conscience by making the sign of the cross. When the next Yuletide sacrifice came Haakon was required to eat horse-flesh at the feast and this time was forbidden to make the sign of the cross when he drank the usual toasts to the ancient gods of Norway. This was a humiliation that cut the proud monarch deeply and it was with an angry soul he left, saying to his attendants that when he came back it would be with an army to punish those who had thus insulted his faith. Back he did not come, for new troubles were gathering around him. To learn the source of these troubles we must return to the story of Erik Blood-Axe and Gunhild, his wicked wife. After Erik's death that mischief-loving woman sought Denmark with her sons, who grew up to become brave warriors and daring viking rovers, infesting the coast of Norway and giving its king and earls all the trouble they could. At length, backed by Harold Bluetooth, the king of Denmark, their piratical raids changed to open war, and they invaded Norway, hoping to win their father's old kingdom for themselves. A crisis came in 955. In that year the sons of Erik appeared so suddenly with a large fleet that they took King Haakon by surprise. He had with him only a small force, the signal fires had not been lighted, and the enemy were close at hand before he could prepare to meet them. "What shall we do?" he asked his men. "Shall we stay and fight, or draw back and gather men?" The answer came from an old peasant, Egil Woolsack: "Often have I fought, King Haakon, with King Harold, your father. Whether the foe was stronger or weaker the victory was always his. Never did he ask his friends if he should run; nor need you, for we are ready to fight and think that we have a brave chieftain for our leader." "You speak well and wisely, Egil," said the king. "It is not my wish to run, and with your aid I am ready to face the foe." "Good words those!" cried Egil joyously. "It has been so long since I saw the flash of sword that I feared I would die in my bed of old age, though it has been my hope to fall in battle at my chieftain's back. Now will my wish be gained." To land came the sons of Erik, having six men to Haakon's one. Seeing how great were the odds, old Egil tried strategy, leading ten standard-bearers to a hidden spot in the rear of the hostile army and leaving them there in ambush. When the armies had met and the fighting was under way, he led these men up a sloping hill until the tops of their standards could be seen above its summit. He had placed them far apart, so that when the Danes saw the waving banners it looked like a long line of new troops coming upon them. With sudden alarm and a cry of terror they fled towards their ships. Gamle, their leader, was quick to discover the stratagem, and called on them to stop, that it was all a trick; but nothing could check their panic flight, and he was swept along with them to the beach. Here a stand was made, but Haakon rushed upon them in a furious attack in which old Egil had his wish, for he fell in the storm of sword blows, winning the death he craved. Victory rested on the king's banners and his foes fled to their ships, Gamle, their leader, being drowned in the flight. For six years after this the land lay at peace. King Haakon continued a Christian and many of his friends joined him in the new faith. But he was too wise and gentle to attempt again to force his belief upon his people and the worship of the heathen gods went on. All the people, nobles and peasants alike, loved their king dearly and he would have ended his reign in a peaceful old age but for his foes without the kingdom. This is the way in which the end came. In the summer of the year 961, when Haakon had been twenty-six years on the throne, he with many guests was at feast in the royal mansion of Fitje, in Hördaland. While at table a sentinel brought in the alarming news that a large fleet of ships was sailing up the fiord. By the king's side sat Eyvnid, his nephew, who was a famous scald, or bard. They rose and looked out on the fiord. "What ships are they, of friends or of foes?" asked the king. The scald replied in a verse, in which he sang that the sons of Erik were coming again. "Once more they take us unawares," said Haakon to his men. "They are many and we are few. Never yet have we faced such odds. The danger lies before you. Are you ready to meet it? I am loath to flee before any force, but I leave it to the wise among you to decide." Eyvnid sang another verse, to the effect that it would be ill counsel to advise a man like King Haakon to flee from the sons of Gunhild the sorceress. "That is a man's song," cried the king, "and what you say is what I wish." All around him the warriors shouted their war-cry, and while they ran for their weapons he put on his armor, seized his sword and shield, and placed on his head a golden helmet that shone brightly in the sun. Never had he looked more like a born king, with his noble and inspired countenance and the bright hair streaming down from under his helmet. The battle that followed was fierce and bloody. Harold, Gunhild's third son, commanded the invaders, who far outnumbered Haakon's small force. And now there was no Egil to defeat the foe by stratagem, but the battle was hand to hand and face to face, with stroke of sword and thrust of spear, the war-shout of the fighters and the death-wail of the fallen. King Haakon that day showed himself a true and heroic warrior. As the battle grew fiercer his spirit rose higher, and when Eyvnid the scald greeted him with a warlike verse, he answered with another. But the midsummer heat growing hard to bear, he flung off his armor and fought with only his strong right arm for shield. The arrows had now been all shot, the spears all hurled, and the ranks met hand to hand and sword to sword, in desperate affray. In the front rank stood the king, his golden helmet making him a shining mark for the warriors of the foe. "Your helmet makes you a target for the Danish spears," cried Eyvnid, and he drew a hood over it to hide its gleam. Skreyja, Harold's uncle, who was storming onward towards the king, now lost sight of him and cried out: "Where is the Norse king? Has he drawn back in fear? Is he of the golden helmet a craven?" "Keep on as you are coming, if you wish to meet the Norsemen's king," shouted Haakon, throwing down his shield and grasping his sword with both hands, as he sprang out before them all. Skreyja bounded towards him and struck a furious blow, but it was turned aside by a Norse warrior and at the same instant Haakon's sword cleft the foeman's head down to the shoulders. This kingly stroke gave new spirit to the Norsemen and they rushed with double fury upon the foe, whom the fall of their best warrior filled with fear. Back to the beach they were pressed, many being slain, many drowned, a few only, Harold among them, reaching the ships by swimming. The Norsemen had won against fearful odds, but their king was in deadly peril. In the pursuit he had been struck in the right arm by an arrow with an oddly-shaped head, and do what they would, the flow of blood could not be stopped. It was afterwards said that Gunhild the sorceress had bewitched the arrow and sent it with orders to use it only against King Haakon. In those days it was easy to have men believe tales like that, but, witchcraft or not, the blood still ran and the king grew weaker. As night came death seemed at hand and one of his friends offered to take his body to England, after his death, that he might be laid in Christian soil. "Not so," said Haakon. "Heathen are my people and I have lived among them like a heathen. See then that I am laid in the grave like a heathen." Thus he died, and he was buried as he wished, while all men mourned his death, even his foes; for before breathing his last he bade his men to send a ship after the sons of Gunhild; asking them to come back and rule the kingdom. He had no sons, he said, and his daughter could not take the throne. Thus death claimed the noblest of the Norsemen, at once heathen and Christian, but in his life and deeds as in his death a great and good man. _EARL HAAKON AND THE JOMSVIKINGS._ Chief among the nobles of Haakon the Good, of Norway, was Earl Sigurd of Hlade; and first among those who followed him was Earl Haakon, Sigurd's son. After the death of Haakon the Good, the sons of Gunhild became the masters of Norway, where they ruled like tyrants, murdering Sigurd, whom they most feared. This made the young Earl Haakon their bitter foe. A young man then, of twenty-five, handsome, able in mind and body, kindly in disposition, and a daring warrior, he was just the man to contend with the tyrant murderers. When he was born Haakon the Good had poured water on his head and named him after himself and he was destined to live to the level of the honor thus given him. It is not our purpose to tell how, with the aid of the king of Denmark, he drove the sons of Gunhild from the realm, and how, as the sagas tell, the wicked old queen was enticed to Denmark by the king, under promise of marriage, and by his orders was drowned in a swamp. Her powers of sorcery did not avail her then, if this story is true. Haakon ruled Norway as a vassal of Harald Bluetooth, king of Denmark, to whom he agreed to pay tribute. He also consented to be baptized as a Christian and to introduce the Christian faith into Norway. But a heathen at heart and a Norseman in spirit, he did not intend to keep this promise. After a meeting with the Danish king in which his baptism took place, he sailed for his native land with his ship well laden with priests. But the heathen in him now broke out. With bold disdain of King Harald, he put the priests on shore, and sought to counteract the effect of his baptism by a great feast to the old gods, praying for their favor and their aid in the war that was sure to follow. He looked for an omen, and it came in the shape of two ravens, which followed his ships with loud clucking cries. These were the birds sacred to Odin and he hailed their coming with delight. The great deity of the Norsemen seemed to promise him favor and success. Turning against the king to whom he had promised to act as a vassal, he savagely ravaged the Danish coast lands. Then he landed on the shores of Sweden, burnt his ships, and left a track of fire and blood as he marched through that land. Even Viken, a province of Norway, was devastated by him, on the plea of its being under a Danish ruler. Then, having done his utmost to show defiance to Denmark and its king, he marched northward to Drontheim, where he ruled like a king, though still styling himself Earl Haakon. Harald Bluetooth was not the man to be defied with impunity, and though he was too old to take the field himself, he sought means to punish his defiant vassal. Men were to be had ready and able to fight, if the prize offered them was worth the risk, and men of this kind Harald knew where to seek. [Illustration: From stereograph, copyright by Underwood and Underwood, N.Y. BUSY FARMERS IN A HILLSIDE FIELD, ABOVE ARE. SWEDEN.] In the town of Jomsborg, on the island of Wollin, near the mouth of the Oder, dwelt a daring band of piratical warriors known as the Jomsvikings, who were famed for their indomitable courage. War was their trade, rapine their means of livelihood, and they were sworn to obey the orders of their chief, to aid each other to the utmost, to bear pain unflinchingly, dare the extremity of danger, and face death like heroes. They kept all women out of their community, lest their devotion to war might be weakened, and stood ready to sell their swords to the highest bidder. To this band of plunderers Harald appealed and found them ready for the task. Their chief, Earl Sigvalde, brought together a great host of warriors at a funeral feast to his father, and there, while ale and mead flowed abundantly, he vowed, flagon in hand, that he would drive Earl Haakon from the Norse realm or perish in the attempt. His viking followers joined him in the vow. The strong liquor was in their veins and there was no enterprise they were not ready to undertake. When their sober senses returned with the next morning, they measured better the weight of the enterprise; but they had sworn to it and were not the men to retreat from a vow they had taken. Erik, an unruly son of Earl Haakon, had fled from his father's court in disgrace and was now in Viken, and here the rumor of the vikings' oath reached his ears. At once, forgetting his quarrel with his father, he hastened north with all the men he could gather to Earl Haakon's aid, preceding the Jomsvikings, who were sailing slowly up the shores of Norway, plundering as they went in their usual fashion. They had a fleet of sixty ships and a force of over seven thousand well-trained warriors. Haakon, warned by his son, met them with three times their number of ships, though these were smaller and lighter craft. On board were about ten thousand men. Such were the forces that met in what the sagas call the greatest battle that had ever been fought in Norway. Soon the embattled ships met and the conflict grew fast and furious, hurtling weapons filling the air and men falling on all sides. Great was the carnage and blood flowed in streams on the fighting ships. Earl Haakon stood in the prow of his ship in the heat of the fight, arrows and spears whirling around him in such numbers that his shirt of mail became so torn and rent that he threw it off as useless. The high ships of the vikings gave them an advantage which told heavily against their antagonists, spears and arrows being poured down from their sides. In the height of the battle Earl Haakon disappeared. As the legends tell he went ashore with his youngest son Erling, whom he sacrificed to the heathen gods to win their aid in the battle. Hardly had he done this deed of blood when a dense black cloud arose and a violent hail-storm broke over the ships, the hail-stones weighing each two ounces and beating so fiercely in the faces of the Jomsvikings as nearly to blind them. Some say that the Valkyries, the daughters of Odin, were seen in the prow of the earl's ship, filling the air with their death-dealing arrows. Despite the storm and the supernatural terrors that they conjured up, the Jomsvikings continued to fight, though their decks were slippery with blood and melting hail. Only one coward appeared among them, their chief Earl Sigvalde, who suddenly turned his ship and fled. When Vagn Aakesson, the most daring of the Jomsvikings, saw this recreant act he was frantic with rage. "You ill-born hound," he cried, "why do you fly and leave your men in the lurch? Shame on you, and may shame cling to you to your death!" A spear hurtled from his hand and pierced the man at the helm, where Sigvalde had stood a moment before. But the ship of the dastard earl kept on and a general panic succeeded, all the ships in the fleeing earl's line following his standard. Only Vagn Aakesson and Bue the Big were left to keep up the fight. Yet they kept it up in a way to win them fame. When Earl Haakon's ship drew up beside that of Bue, two of the viking champions, Haavard the Hewer and Aslak Rock-skull, leaped on deck and made terrible havoc. In the end an Icelander picked up an anvil that was used to sharpen their spears and hurled it at Aslak, splitting his skull, while Haavard had both legs cut off. Yet the indomitable viking fought on, standing on his knees. The onset of the Jomsvikings was so terrific in this last fierce fight that the earl's men gave back, and might have been all slain had not his son Erik boarded Bue's ship at this crisis and made an irresistible charge. A terrible cut across the face severed Bue's nose. "Now," he cried, "the Danish maidens will kiss me no more." Seeing that all was at an end, he seized two chests of gold to prevent their capture by the victors, and sprang with them into the sea, shouting: "Overboard all Bue's men!" On Vagn's ship a similar fierce fight was taking place, ending only when all but thirty of the vikings were slain. Then a savage scene was enacted, one worthy only of those barbarous times. The captives were taken ashore and seated on a long log, their feet bound, their hands free. At the funeral feast in Sigvalde's hall Vagn had boasted that he would kill Thorkill Laiva, one of Erik's chief warriors, and this threatened man was now chosen as executioner. At the captives he rushed, with uplifted axe, and savagely struck off their heads, one after another. Vagn was to be left to the last, that he might suffer from fear, but instead of this he sat joking and laughing with his men. One of them sang and laughed so loudly that Erik asked him if he would like to live. "That depends on who it is that asks me." "He who offers has the power to grant. I am Earl Erik." "Then I gladly accept." Another made a pun which so pleased the earl that he, too, was set free. One of the captives had long, beautiful hair, and as Thorkill came near him on his bloody errand he twisted his hair into a coil and asked the executioner not to soil it with his blood. To humor him Thorkill asked one of the bystanders to hold the coil while he struck. The man did so, but as the axe came down the captive jerked his head aside so that the axe fell on the wrists of the coil-holder, both his hands being cut off. "Some of the Jomsvikings are still alive," laughed the captive. "Who are you?" asked Erik. "I am said to be a son of Bue." "Do you wish to live?" "What other choice have I?" At Erik's command he, too, was released. Angry at being thus robbed of his prey, Thorkill now sprang towards Vagn, determined that at least his special enemy should fall. As he came near, however, one of the men on the log threw himself forward in such a way that Thorkill stumbled over him and dropped his axe. In an instant Vagn was on his feet, seized the axe, and dealt Thorkill a deadly blow. His boast was kept; Thorkill had fallen by his hand. Erik saw the bold feat with such admiration that he ordered Vagn to be freed, and the prisoners who remained alive were also set free at his order. While this was going on Earl Haakon sat apart conversing with his chieftains. As they did so they heard a bow-string twang, and before a hand could be raised a keen-pointed arrow pierced the body of Gissur the White, one of the chiefs, and he fell over dead. The arrow had come from the ship of Bue the Big, and thither men ran in haste. What they saw was Haavard the Hewer, still standing on his knees, though his blood flowed freely. "Tell me," he cried, "did any one fall at the tree yonder?" "Yes; Gissur the White." "Then luck failed me, for that arrow was aimed for Earl Haakon." And he fell over on the deck, with death at his heart-strings. The viking had sent a herald on before, to announce his coming at Odin's court. It was Haakon who had ordered the murder of the captives, and Erik his son who gave life to so many of them. The time was near at hand when the earl was to meet the bloody fate which he had dealt out to others. Though Erik had done so much to help him in the battle, he was furious with his son for sparing the life of Vagn Aakesson. As a result they parted in anger, Erik going south again. Here Vagn joined him and from that day forward the two were warm friends and comrades. But Haakon fell into ways of vice as he grew older, and at length he did a deed that led him to a shameful death. He had his men bring by force to his palace the wife of a rich peasant, and sent them for another, who was famed for her beauty. Orm, her husband, refused to let her go and sent news of the outrage to all the peasants in the valley. From farm to farm flew the tidings, and the peasants, furious at the shameful deeds of the earl, seized their arms and gathered in a great band, which marched upon him at Medalhus. Earl Haakon was taken by surprise. He had not dreamed of a revolt and only a few men were with him. These he dismissed and fled for safety, only one man, his old servant Kark, going with him. Reaching the Gaul River in his flight, he rode his horse into a deep hole and left his cloak on the ice, so that his pursuers, finding the dead horse and the cloak, might think he was drowned. From there he sought the nearby home of Thora of Rimul, a faithful woman friend, told her of the hot pursuit and begged her to hide him from his furious enemies. The only hiding place she could provide was a deep ditch under her pig-sty, and in this filthy hole the great earl was hidden, with food, candles, and bedding. Then boards were laid over the ditch and covered with earth and upon this the pigs were driven. To Rimul the peasants soon came, filled with fury, and with them came a man of note who had just landed and was seeking to win the throne. This was Olaf, a great-grandson of Harold the Fair-Haired, whose claim to the crown of Norway was far better than that of Haakon. Thinking that Thora had hidden the fleeing earl the pursuers searched the whole place. The fugitive not being found, Olaf stood on a large stone near the pig-sty and called the peasants around him, loudly announcing that any man who should find and slay Earl Haakon would be given a large reward. His words were plainly heard in the damp and unpleasant underground den where Haakon sat shivering. He looked at Kark, the thrall, whose face showed that he, too, had heard the promise of reward. "What ails you?" asked the earl. "Your face changes from pale to dark and gloomy. Do you propose to betray me?" "No," said Kark. "We were born on the same night, and if one of us dies the other will soon follow," said the earl warningly. For a long time they sat, listening to the sounds above. At length all grew still and they felt that the night had come. Kark fell asleep, but the earl sat awake, watching him in deep distrust. The slumbering thrall tossed about as if in pain and the earl wakened him, asking of what he had dreamt. "I dreamed that you and I were on shipboard and that I was at the helm." "That means that you rule over both our lives. Therefore, Kark, you must be true and faithful to me, as duty bids you. Better days will soon come to us both and then you shall be richly rewarded." Again the thrall fell asleep and again he seemed to dream. The earl woke him again. "Of what did you dream?" he asked. "I dreamed that I was at Hlade and that Olaf Tryggvesson put a golden ring around my neck." "That means," said the earl, "that if you seek Olaf he will put a red ring [a ring of blood] around your neck. Beware of him, Kark, and trust in me. Be faithful to me and you will find in me a faithful friend." The night dragged slowly on. The earl dared not let himself sleep, but sat staring at Kark, who stared back at him. When morning was near at hand weariness lay so heavily on the earl that he could no longer keep awake. But his sleep was sorely disturbed by the terrors of that dreadful night. He tossed about and screamed out in distress and at length rose on his knees with the horrors of nightmare in his face. Then Kark, who had all night been meditating treachery, killed him with a thrust of his knife. Cutting off his head, he broke out of the dark den and sought Olaf, with the grisly trophy in his hand. Olaf heard his story with lowering face. It was not to traitors like this that he had offered reward. In the end, burning with indignation at the base deed, he ordered the thrall's head to be struck off. Thus Kark's dream, as interpreted by Haakon, came true. The ring put by Olaf around his neck was not one of gold, but one of blood. _HOW OLAF, THE SLAVE-BOY, WON THE THRONE._ Many sons had Harold the Fair-Haired, and of some of them the story has been told. One of them, Olaf by name, left a son named Tryggve, who in turn had a son to whom he gave his father's name of Olaf. Wonderful was the story of this Olaf in his youth and renowned was it in his age, for he it was who drove the heathen gods from Norway and put Christ in their place. But it is the strange and striking adventures of his earlier days with which this tale has to deal. Prince Tryggve had his enemies and by them was foully murdered. Then they sought his dwelling, proposing to destroy his whole race. But Aastrid, his wife, was warned in time, and fled from her home with Thorold, her foster-father. She hid on a little island in the Rand fiord, and here was born the son who was afterwards to become one of Norway's most famous kings. The perils of Aastrid were not yet at an end. Gunhild, the sorceress queen, was her chief enemy, and when her spies brought her word that Aastrid had borne a son, the wicked old woman sought to destroy the child. The summer through Aastrid remained on the little isle, hiding in the weedy bushes by day and venturing abroad only at night. Everywhere Gunhild's spies sought her, and when autumn came with its long nights, she left the isle and journeyed with her attendants through the land, still hiding by day and travelling only under the shades of night. In this way she reached the estate of her father, Erik Ofrestad. The poor mother was not left in peace here, the evil-minded sorceress still pursuing her. A body of murderers was sent to seek for her and her son on her father's estate, but Ofrestad heard of their mission in time to send the fugitives away. Dressed as beggars, Aastrid and her child and Thorolf, her foster-father, travelled on foot from the farm, stopping at evening to beg food and shelter from a peasant named Björn. The surly fellow drove them away, but they were given shelter farther on by a peasant named Thorstein. Meanwhile the murderers were hot on their track. Not finding Aastrid at her father's house, they traced her to Björn's farm, where they were told that a handsome but poorly dressed woman, carrying a young child, had asked for help that evening. It chanced that a servant of Thorstein overheard this and when he reached home he told it to his master. Suspecting the rank and peril of his guests, Thorstein roused them from sleep with a great show of anger and drove them out into the night. This was done to deceive the servants, but Thorstein followed the weary fugitives and told them the reason of his act. He had driven them out to save them, he said, and he gave them a trusty guide who could show them the best hiding places in the forest. They found shelter for that night amid the tall rushes by the side of a small lake. When the troop of murderers reached Thorstein's house he set them astray on the wrong scent and he fed the fugitives in the forest until the murderous gang had given up the search. In the end he aided them to make their way to Sweden, where they took refuge with a friend of Prince Tryggve named Haakon the Old. Still the wicked queen did not let them rest in peace. Learning where they were, she sent two embassies to King Erik of Sweden, demanding the surrender of the mother and child. Each time Erik gave them permission to capture the fugitives if they could, saying that he would not interfere. But Haakon the Old was not the man to surrender his guests. In vain Gunhild's ambassador came to him with promises and threats. The dispute at length grew so hot that a half-witted servant seized a dung-fork and rushed at the ambassador, who took to his heels, fearing to have his fine clothes soiled. The angry thrall pursued him till he was driven off the estate, Haakon looking on with grim mirth. Such were the early days of little Olaf, whose life began in a series of adventures which were the prologue to a most stirring and active life. Few men have had a more adventurous career than he, his whole life being one of romance, activity and peril. He became a leading hero of the saga writers, who have left us many striking stories of his young life and adventures. Aastrid and her son remained with Haakon the Old until Earl Haakon came into power in Norway. As he was not of royal blood, she feared that he might seek to destroy all the descendants of old King Harold, and, in doubt if her present protector was strong enough to defend her, she decided to seek refuge in Russia, where her brother Sigurd had risen to a place of power. With this voyage young Olaf's later series of adventures began. The merchant ship in which they set sail was taken by a viking pirate craft, some of the passengers being killed and others sold as slaves. Thorolf and his young son Thorgills, with the boy Olaf, were sold to a viking named Klerkon, who killed Thorolf because he was too old to bring any price as a slave, but kept the boys, whom he soon traded away in Esthonia for a big ram. As for Aastrid, she was offered for sale at the slave-market, and here, despite her ragged and miserable plight, she was recognized by a rich merchant named Lodin. He offered to pay her ransom if she would become his wife. The poor woman, not knowing what had become of her son, was glad to accept his offer and returned with him to his home in Norway. To return to the story of the boy slaves, the man who had bought them for a ram, soon sold them for a coat and cape to a man named Reas. The new master put Thorgills to hard labor, but took a fancy to Olaf and treated him much more kindly, the young prince remaining with him for six years and growing up to be a handsome and sturdy youth. Sigurd Eriksson, Aastrid's brother, and the uncle of Olaf, was a man of prominence in Esthonia, and one day rode on business of King Vladimir through the town in which Reas lived. Here he saw some boys playing, one of whom attracted him by his manly and handsome face. Calling him to his horse's side, he asked his name. "Olaf," said the boy. Olaf! The name was significant to Sigurd, and a few words more taught him that the lad was his lost nephew. Seeking Reas, he offered him a good price for his two young slaves and took them home with him, bidding Olaf not to tell any one else who he was. The boy was now well-grown, active, and strong for his years. Walking one day about the town he saw before him the viking Klerkon who had killed old Thorolf, his foster-father. He had at the moment an axe in his hand and, with no thought but that of revenge on the murderer, he struck him a blow that split his skull and stretched him dead on the ground. The boy was in peril of his life for this impulsive deed. Death was its legal penalty, and a crowd quickly gathered who demanded that the boy murderer should be killed. His uncle heard of the act and ran in haste to his rescue, taking him to Olga, the queen, and telling her who he was, what he had done, and why he had done it. The queen looked at the beautiful and bright-faced lad and took a great fancy to him at sight. She took him under her protection, and gave him a training in the use of arms and warlike sports, such as beseemed the scion of a royal race. When twelve years of age King Vladimir, who esteemed the boy highly, gave him some armed ships and sent him out to try his hand in real war, and for some years he roved abroad as a viking. He also served the king well by conquering for him a rebel province. Olaf might have won high rank in Russia but for the enemies who envied him and who made the king fear that he would yet find a rival for the throne in the ambitious boy. Fearing trouble for her protege, Queen Olga advised him to leave the kingdom and he sailed for the land of the Wends, on the Baltic shores, where King Burislav received him as a distinguished young warrior. He did not tell who he really was, but went under the name of Ole the Russian, and as such married the daughter of the king, who fell in love with him for his valor and beauty. Many were the valiant deeds he did for King Burislav, with whom he stayed until the death of his wife, he being then twenty-one years of age. The young warrior now grew eager for new adventures, and in response to a dream determined to go to Greece and become a Christian. His dream served the cause of Christianity better than this, if the story is true that he sent a missionary bishop to Russia who converted both King Vladimir and Queen Olga to the Christian faith. [Illustration: From stereograph, copyright by Underwood and Underwood, N.Y. A NORDFJORD BRIDE AND GROOM WITH GUESTS AND PARENTS. BRIGSDAL. NORWAY.] From Greece Olaf wandered to many countries, including France, Denmark, Scotland, and Northumberland, and his adventures were very numerous. He was twenty-five years of age when he reached England and here he met with an adventure of a new type. The Princess Gyda, sister of an Irish king, was a widow, but was still young and beautiful and had so many suitors that it was hard for her to choose between them. Among the most importunate was a warrior named Alfvine, a great slayer of men. So many were they and so much did they annoy the fair widow that at last she fixed a day when she would choose a husband from among them, and numbers of them came before her, all in their most splendid attire. It was a championship that attracted many lookers on and among them came Olaf with some of his companions. He was plainly dressed, and wore a fur hood and cape. Gyda stood forth and looked over her throng of lovers with listless eyes until at length she saw among the spectators the tall stranger with the hood of fur. She walked up to him, lifted the hood, and gazed long into his eyes. What she saw there riveted her fancy. "I do not know you," she said; "but if you will have me for a wife, then you are my choice." Olaf must have seen as much in her eyes as she had in his, for he warmly replied: "I know no woman who equals you, and gladly will I accept you." At once their betrothal was published, but Alfvine, burning with wrath, challenged the fortunate stranger to mortal combat. Fierce and long was the fight, but Norse blood and valor conquered and Gyda was enraptured with the courage and skill of her spouse. They were duly wedded and Olaf spent several years in England and Ireland, winning fame there as a doughty champion and growing ever more earnest in the Christian faith. In the chronicles of the time we are told much of the doings of the doughty Olaf, who won fame as the chieftain of a viking fleet, which in 994 made many descents upon the English coast. In the end he landed in Southampton and fixed his winter quarters there, living upon the country. He was finally bought off by King Ethelred with £10,000, which he divided among his men. He received confirmation in the Christian faith the same year, King Ethelred being present, and took a solemn vow, which he never broke, that he would never again molest England and her people. Olaf's name was no longer concealed and the fame of his deeds reached Norway, where they gave no small trouble of mind to Earl Haakon, who dreaded this young adventurer of royal descent, knowing well how much the people loved King Harold and his race. Haakon went so far as to try to compass his death, sending his friend Thore Klakka to Dublin, where Olaf then was, to kill him if he could, otherwise to entice him to Norway when he would himself destroy him. The latter Thore did, finding Olaf ready for any new adventure, and under Thore's treacherous advice he sailed with five ships and landed in Hördaland, where Haakon's power was the greatest, and thence sailed northward to Tröndelag where the earl was and where he hoped to take him by surprise. Thore had represented that Olaf would find friends in plenty there, and much to his own surprise found that he had told more truth than he knew; for, as told in the last tale, the peasants were then in arms and in pursuit of the recreant earl. They gladly accepted Olaf as their leader, on learning who he was, and helped him in the quick and sudden downfall and death of Haakon, as already described. All the chiefs and peasants of the district were now summoned to meet in assembly and with one voice they chose Olaf Tryggvesson, great-grandson of the renowned Harold, as their king. All Norway confirmed their action and thus easily did the adventurer prince, who had once been a slave-boy, sold for half a fat ram, rise to the throne of Norway. _OLAF DETHRONES ODIN AND DIES A HERO._ Earl Haakon was the last heathen king of Norway. Olaf, the new king, was a zealous Christian and was determined to introduce the new faith. And this was done not in the mild and gentle way in which Haakon the Good had attempted it, but with all the fierce fury of the viking spirit. Christ the White the Northmen called the new deity, but it was rather Christ the Red in Olaf's hands, for, while Christian in faith, he was a son of the old gods, Odin and Thor, in spirit. It is not the Christianizing of Norway that we have set out to tell, but as this is a matter of great importance some space must be given to it. Olaf, high spirited and impetuous, did by storm what he might not have been able to do by milder measures. He had little trouble in the south of Norway, where the Christian faith had been making its way for years, but in the north the old heathen spirit was strong, sacrifices to the gods were common, and the rude and cruel barbarism which the old doctrines favored everywhere prevailed. Here it was that Olaf had a strong fortress of heathenism to take by storm. In Tröndelag was the temple of Hlade, ancient and grand, the stronghold of the Norse gods. Fierce and impulsive in his zeal, Olaf broke into this old temple, destroyed the altar, burned the idols, and carried away the treasure. At once the people were in arms, but the resolute king began to build a Christian church where the temple had stood and also a fortress-like residence for himself. In the end the peasants grew so fierce and warlike and were so backed up by a lusty chieftain named Ironbeard, that Olaf found himself obliged to promise to take part with them in the feast and sacrifices of the coming Yuletide. But before this time arrived he appeared again at Hlade and he now brought with him a strong fleet and numerous armed warriors. Many guests had been invited to meet him, and these were entertained until they were all royally drunk. Then the king said to them: "I have promised to sacrifice with you, and am here to keep my word. I propose to make a royal sacrifice, not of thralls and criminals, but of lords and chieftains, for thus we can best do honor to Odin." He then selected six of his most powerful opponents and said that he intended to sacrifice them to Odin and Frey, that the people might have good crops. The dismayed chiefs were instantly seized and were offered the alternative of being sacrificed or baptized. Taken by surprise, they were not long in deciding upon the latter, the king making them give hostages for their good faith. Soon after came the Yuletide and Olaf was present with a strong force at Möre, where the sacrifices were to be made. The peasants also came in force, all armed, with the burly Ironbeard as their leader. They were rude and noisy and it was some time before the king could make himself heard. Then he called on them all to accept baptism and acknowledge Christ the White in place of their bloodthirsty gods. Ironbeard haughtily replied that they were supporters of the old laws and that the king must make the sacrifices as all the kings before him had done. Olaf heard him through and said that he was there to keep his promise. Then, with many men, he entered the temple, leaving his arms outside as the law required. All he carried was a stout, gold-headed stick. Stopping before the statue of the god Thor, around which were rings of gold and iron, he raised the stick and gave the idol a blow so fierce and strong that it tumbled in pieces from its pedestal. At the same moment his followers struck down the other idols. The peasants, thunderstruck at the sacrilege, looked for support to Ironbeard, but the doughty warrior lay dead. He had shared the fate of the idols he worshipped, being struck down at the same moment with them. What to do the peasants knew not, and when Olaf told them they must either be baptized or fight they chose the former as the safest. The province of Haalogaland, still farther north, was dealt with in the same arbitrary fashion, those of the chiefs who refused baptism being put to death with torture. And in this fierce and bloody way the dominion of Christ the White was established in the land of the vikings. It was but a substitute for the heathen gods that was given them in such a fashion, and years had to pass before they would become true Christians. Much more might be said about King Olaf, his kindliness and winning manners in peace, his love of show and splendor, his prowess in battle and his wonderful skill with weapons. He could use both hands with equal effect in fighting, could handle three spears at once, keeping one always in the air, and when his men were rowing could run from prow to stern of the ship on their oars. But what we have chiefly to tell is the last adventure of the viking king and how death came to him in the heat of the fray. What became of his wife Gyda, the Irish princess, we are not told, but he had now a new wife, Thyra, sister of King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark, and it was to this queen he owed his death. She had large estates in Wendland and Denmark, from which she now received no revenues, and she fretted Olaf so by appeals, prayers, and tears to win back for her this property that he had no peace in his palace. The annoyance went on until the hot-tempered king could bear it no longer and he began to prepare for war abroad that he might gain peace at home. Word was sent out to the chiefs of the land, bidding them to join the king with the ships required by the laws of the kingdom. Among his own ships was one called the Short Serpent, and he had just finished another of great size and beauty which he named the Long Serpent. Never had so noble a ship been seen in the north. It was 112 feet long and had 104 oars, while it could carry six hundred warriors, none being over sixty or under twenty years of age except the great bowman Thambarkskelver, who was but eighteen, yet was so skilful with the bow that he could shoot a blunt arrow through a hanging raw ox-hide. With sixty ships and as many transports Olaf sailed south to Wendland, where he was well received by his old friend King Burislav, whose daughter Geira had been his first wife. The Wend king royally entertained him and made a just settlement of Queen Thyra's estates, and Olaf prepared to sail homeward again. But dark clouds of war were gathering on his path. Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark was hostile both to Burislav and Olaf and the king of Sweden was leagued with the Danish king. To detain Olaf while they gathered their fleets, these kings employed Sigvalde, the cowardly chief of the Jomsvikings, who had fled from the battle with Earl Haakon, to visit and lure him into blind confidence. The treacherous viking succeeded. His smooth, soft ways won Olaf's heart and the open-minded king put complete trust in him. Sigvalde finally, after bringing about much delay by his false arts, engaged to pilot Olaf with his own fleet through the dangerous waters of the coast, and even induced him to divide his ships by sending part of them in advance. The traitor meanwhile kept in communication with King Sweyn and promised to lure Olaf away from his main force and lead him into the snare they were laying for him. Chief among the enemies of the Norse king was Earl Erik, the son of Earl Haakon, whom he was eager to avenge, and King Olaf the Swede, who was present with a fleet. With sixty or seventy ships of war these foes of Norway's king lay hidden behind the little island of Svolder, in Olaf's track. For a number of days they awaited him with impatience. At last Olaf's transports appeared within view of the leaders of the hostile fleet, who were posted at an elevated point on the land. The day was fair, the wind gentle and favorable, and the foremost ships sailed onward, seeing nothing of the foes. When King Sweyn saw among them a large and handsome ship he was sure it must be the Long Serpent, and said: "Olaf of Norway is afraid to-day, for he carries no dragon-head on his ship." "That is not the king's ship," said Earl Erik, "but that of Erling of Sole. I know it by its striped sails. Let it pass, for it will be better for us to have Erling out of the fray." On, one by one, came the Norse ships, sweeping proudly by, and at length Sigvalde's eleven ships came in sight. These, signalled from the shore, suddenly turned inward round the island, to the surprise of Thorkill Dyrdill, captain of the Crane, which followed in their wake. Seeing this fine ship, Sweyn grew eager for the fight and ordered his men on board in spite of Erik's warning that the time had not yet arrived. "Are you afraid of them?" sneered the Dane. "Have you lost all desire to avenge your father?" "Wait and you will see," retorted Erik. "Before the sun sets you will find who is most eager for battle, I, or you and your men." When Thorkill saw the treacherous act of Sigvalde and caught sight of the ambushed fleet, he let fall the sails of the Crane and awaited the coming of the king. Soon the Short Serpent came up, its gilded dragon-head shining brightly in the sunlight. Not long after the Long Serpent appeared, its golden prow glittering brilliantly as the sunbeams fell upon it. Those who saw it marvelled at its size and beauty and many beheld with dread the glittering array of swords and shields as it came sweeping onward. But the great body of King Olaf's ships had gone on without thought of a foeman and were now out of sight. Only eleven of them remained, and some of his captains advised him not to fight against such odds. "Down with the sails," he cried cheerily. "Bind the ships together. Never yet have I fled from battle and I will not do so now. God is my shield and I will flee from no foe. He is no king who lets fear put him to flight before his enemies." Yet his peril was deadly, as was evident when the fleet of more than sixty ships rowed out from its ambush against Olaf's eleven. "Who is the leader here before us?" he asked. "That is King Sweyn with his Danes," said one of the men. "Let them come on. Danes have never yet beaten Norsemen, and they will not to-day. But whose standards are those on the right?" "They are those of Olaf of Sweden." "The heathen Swedes had better have stayed at home to lick their sacrificial bowls. We need not fear these horse-eaters. Yonder to the left; whose ships are those?" "They belong to Earl Erik, the son of Earl Haakon." "Then we may look for hard blows from them. Erik and his men are Norsemen like ourselves, and he has reason not to love me and mine." While he spoke Queen Thyra, who was with him, came on deck. When she saw the desperate odds she burst into tears. "Do not weep," said Olaf. "You have got what was due in Wendland; and to-day I will do my best to win your rights from your brother Sweyn." King Sweyn came first into the fray, but after a stubborn fight was driven off with great carnage. Then the Swedes swarmed to the rescue, and a second hard battle ensued, in which the Norsemen were outnumbered ten to one. Yet Olaf, with shining helmet and shield and a tunic of scarlet silk over his armor, directed the defence, and gave his men such courage by his fierce valor that the victory would have been his but for Earl Erik. When Erik's great galley, the Iron Ram, came into the fight and Norse met Norse, the onset was terrific. Greatly outnumbered, worn out with their exertions, and many of them bleeding from wounds, the men in ship after ship were overpowered and these cut adrift, their defenders being slain. At length only the Long Serpent remained, and against it was driven the Iron Ram. There was little wind and the damage was not great, and soon the storm of spears and arrows was resumed. Einer Thambarkskelver, the famous bowman, saw Earl Erik in the prow of his ship screened by the shields of his men, and soon Einer's arrows were hurtling around him. "Shoot that tall bowman," said Erik to one of his own archers. An arrow sped and hit Einer's bow in the middle, breaking it in twain. "What is broke?" asked Olaf, hearing the sound. "Norway broke then from your hands, my king," said Einer. "Not so bad as that; take my bow and try what it is worth." Einer caught the bow, bent it double, and threw it back. "It is too weak," he said. Desperate was now the strait and no escape was possible. Olaf sent his spears hurtling on Erik's crowded deck, but he saw that his men were scarce able to hold their own. "Your swords bite poorly," he said. "Have your arms lost their strength?" "No," was the reply, "but our blades are dull and notched." The king ran forward, opened a chest, and flung out armfulls of bright, sharp swords. "Here is what will bite deeply," he said. But victory was now hopeless; the earl's men swept back the tired warriors; blood flowed from under the king's armor; all hands were bent against him, for he loomed above his men. Kolbjörn, a man who resembled the king, sprang to his side and helped him shrewdly in the fray. Still the stern combat went on, still the weapons flew, still men fell groaning, and as the king looked along his deck he saw that only eight men kept their feet besides himself and his companion. All was lost. Raising the shield above his head, he leaped over the ship's side. Kolbjörn followed and was picked up by the earl's men, who took him to be the king. As for Olaf, the hungry sea swallowed his form. Legend tells us, indeed, that he was rescued by a ship sent to his aid by Aastrid, Earl Sigvalde's wife, and that he made a pilgrimage to Rome and long afterwards lived as a hermit in the Holy Land. But that is one of the stories based on good wishes rather than sound facts. It was in the year 1000, when King Olaf was thirty-six years old, that this famous sea-fight took place. Queen Thyra felt that she had caused his death and could not be consoled. Erik treated her kindly and promised her the honors due to her high estate, but her heart was broken by her loss, and nine days afterwards she died. _OLAF THE SAINT AND HIS WORK FOR CHRIST._ The story of Olaf the Saint, the Norse king who comes next into our view, illustrates the barbarous character of the heathen people with whom we are dealing. Few warriors in those days died in their beds, death coming to them in some more violent form. Olaf's grandfather, a son of Harold the Fair-Haired, was killed by his brother, Erik Blood-Axe, and his father was burned alive by a royal widow whom he sought to marry. Many wooers came to seek her hand and she got rid of them by setting on fire the hall in which they slept. "I'll teach these little kings the risk of proposing to me," said this viking widow. A proud little fellow was Olaf, hot of temper and bearing no opposition. He knew that he was of kingly birth, and despised his step-father Sigurd Syr, also a descendant of King Harold, but caring more for his crops than for the dreams of ambition. Once, when Olaf was ten years old, Sigurd sent him to the stable to saddle and bring out his horse. When he came out he led a big goat, on which he had placed the saddle. "Why do you do that?" he was asked. "Oh, the goat is good enough for him, for he is as much like a king as a goat is like a war-horse." The boy was only twelve when he began to take part in the cruises of the vikings, and in these quickly showed himself brave and daring. When he grew to a ripe age and found that the rule of Norway was divided between two young men, successors of the Olaf whose story we have last told, he determined to strike for the throne. The story of how he won the throne is interesting, but must be dealt with here very briefly, as we have rather to do with the story of how he lost it. Olaf was fortunate at the start, for he captured a ship on which Earl Erik, one of these boy kings, was sailing along the coast. A beautiful youth he was, tall and shapely, with silky golden hair which fell in long curls over his shoulders. Proud he was too, and answered his captor's questions with manly resolution. "Your luck has left you and you are in my power," said Olaf; "what shall I do with you?" "That depends on you," answered the fearless young earl. "What will you do if I let you go unharmed?" "What do you wish me to do?" "Only this, that you leave your country and renounce your claim of kingship, and that you swear never to make war on me." To this young Erik agreed and sailed away to England to join his uncle, Canute the Dane, who was then king of both Denmark and England. With the other young king, Earl Sweyn, Olaf did not find his task so easy, since Sweyn fought for his rights in a naval battle in which he had forty-five ships and three thousand men, while Olaf had less than half that number of men and ships. Olaf won the battle by a shrewd stratagem. He told his men to act at first only on the defensive, holding back their weapons until the enemy had thrown away theirs. On came Earl Sweyn's fleet, fiercely attacking that of Olaf, a cloud of spears and arrows filling the air. As none came back from Olaf's men, their opponents fancied they were afraid, and rushed on them eagerly. But by this time their spears and arrows had grown scarce, and when a storm of these came from the opposite side they were taken by surprise and many of them killed. Wild with fear, they now sought to escape, and in the end their whole fleet broke and fled, leaving victory to the new king. Sweyn fled to Sweden, whose king promised him help to regain his kingdom. But he died before his plans were ripe and Olaf was left without a rival except the king of Sweden, who had won a part of Norway in a former battle and now held it. This source of trouble was settled by the Swedes themselves, who had no fancy for fighting to help their king's ambition, and forced him to agree to yield his claim and give his daughter Ingegerd to Olaf for wife. So by a marriage Olaf won the remainder of his kingdom and became ruler over all Norway; but not by marrying Ingegerd, for he chose instead her sister Aastrid. There is a pretty story told just here in the sagas, or historical tales of the Icelanders. Thus it reads: Sigurd Syr, who had married Olaf's mother Aasta, died in 1018, and Olaf came to her house to help in settling her affairs. She had three boys, Guttorm, Halfdan, and Harold, whom she brought into the hall to introduce to their half-brother, the king. Olaf put the two older ones on his knees and made so fierce a face at them that they ran away sadly scared. Then he took up little Harold and stared at him in the same way. The brave youngster was not so easily frightened as his brothers and stared back at the king. Then Olaf pulled his hair, but the daring youngster pulled his beard in exchange. "He will do," said Olaf, setting him down with a laugh. The next day the king and his mother watched the boys at their play. The older two amused themselves by building barns, in which they put toy cows and sheep; but Harold launched mock boats on a pond and watched them drift away. "What do you call them?" asked Olaf. "Ships of war," said the boy. "Good lad," answered the king; "the day will come when you will command real ships." Calling the boys to him, he asked Guttorm, the oldest, what he most wished for. "Land," said the boy. "How much?" "Enough to sow as much grain every summer as would cover the headland yonder." Ten large farms covered the headland in question. "And what do you most desire?" the king asked Halfdan. "Enough cows to cover the shores of the headland when they went to the water to drink." "So; one wants land and the other cattle; and what do you want, Harold?" "Men," said the boy. "How many?" "Enough to eat up in a single dinner all brother Halfdan's cows." "Come, mother," said Olaf, laughing; "you have here a chap in training to make himself a king." So it proved, for in later days Harold rose to be king of Norway. But now we have to tell from what the king gained his title of Olaf the Saint. It came from his warm endeavors to make Norway a Christian land. The former King Olaf had forced his people to be baptized, but the most of them were heathens at heart still and after his death many began to worship the old gods again. It was the second Olaf that made the Christian secure in the land, and this still more by his death than by his life. When he was still an infant the former King Olaf had baptized him and given him his own name, and the time came when his little namesake took up and finished his work. What most troubled the kings of Norway in that age was the power held by the tribal chiefs, who were difficult to control and ready to rebel; and this power came from the fact that they were not only chiefs, but were the priests of the old religion. As priest-kings their people followed them blindly, and no king could be sure of his crown while this system prevailed. Olaf, who had been brought up in the new faith, set himself earnestly to spread the true principles of Christ's teachings through the land and for years he worked at it earnestly. But he had hard metal to deal with. It is said that one chief, when about to be baptized, turned to the priest and asked him where were his brave forefathers who had died without being baptized. "They are in hell," said the priest. "Then hell is the place for me," answered the chief. "I would rather be there with Odin and my hard fighting and noble fathers than in heaven with cowardly Christians and shaven monks." This was the spirit of the chiefs. A heaven in which there would be no fighting and mead-drinking had no charms for them, and to live forever with the souls of men who had never drawn sword and struck blow was too dreary a prospect for their turbulent tastes. But Olaf was ardent in the new faith and persistent in his endeavors, travelling from end to end of the land in his efforts to break up the old idolatry. Here is one of the stories told of this missionary work of the king. He was then in Nidaros, whose peasantry, called Trönders, were said to be celebrating in secret the old pagan festivals and offering sacrifices to Odin and Frey for bountiful crops. When King Olaf came among them they took arms against him, but afterwards agreed to hold a public assembly and deal in that way with the religious question that was troubling the kingdom. On the day they met it was raining hard. When the king asked them to believe in the God of the Christians and be baptized, Dale Guldbrand, their leader, replied: "We know nothing of the being you speak of; a god whom neither you nor any one else can see. Now we have a god whom you can see every day, except a rainy day like this. If your god is so powerful, then let him arrange that to-morrow we shall have clouds but no rain." When they met again the next day the weather was what they had asked for, clouds but no rain. Bishop Sigurd now celebrated mass and preached to the people about the miracles which Christ had wrought when on earth. On the third day it was still cloudy. The people had brought with them a great wooden image of the god Thor, and their chief spoke as follows: "Where is your god now, King Olaf? You do not look so bold as you did yesterday, for our god, who rules over all things, is here now and scaring you with his fierce eyes. You scarce dare look at him, but you would be wiser to believe in the god that holds in his hand your destiny." "Your god does not frighten me," answered the king. "He is blind and deaf and cannot move from the spot where you have set him without he is carried. He will soon meet his fate. Look yonder to the east. There in the flood of light comes our God." [Illustration: NORWEGIAN PEASANTS.] To the east all eyes were turned, and at that moment the sunlight burst from the clouds and spread over the scene. As it did so a sturdy warrior, at a signal from the king, sprang forwards and struck the idol so fierce a blow with his club that it was shattered to pieces. Out from its hollow interior sprang great rats, snakes, and lizards, which had grown fat on the food with which the idol had been fed daily. On seeing these loathsome things squirm from the interior of their god the peasants fled from the spot in a panic of fear, rushing to the river where their boats lay. But King Olaf, forecasting this, had sent men to bore holes in the boats so that they would not float. Unable to escape, the frightened peasants came back, quite downcast in spirit. "You see what your god is worth," said the king. "Has he eaten the bread and meat you fed him, or has it gone to fatten rats and snakes? As for the gold and silver you gave him, there it lies scattered. Take up your golden ornaments and hang them no more on worthless logs. Now I give you your choice: you shall accept the faith I bring you, or you shall fight for your own. He will win to whom his god gives the victory." The peasants were not prepared to fight, and therefore were obliged to accept baptism. Priests were sent to teach them the tenets of the new faith they had accepted, and Dale Guldbrand signified his honesty by building a church to the Christian deity. Other provinces were also won over to Christ, but there was one great and bold chieftain, Erling by name, and a sturdy heathen in his faith, who remained hostile to the king and a war between them became inevitable. While the king and the earl were making busy preparations to fight for their faiths, a warrior king and conqueror stepped in to take advantage for himself of the quarrel. This was King Canute, monarch of Denmark and England, who was eager to add Norway and Sweden to his dominions and make himself one of the most powerful of kings. He secretly sent presents to the discontented Norse chiefs and took other means to win them to his cause. It was not long before Olaf learned of these underhand doings, and he at once made an alliance with King Anund of Sweden, whose sister he had married, and whom he told that Canute would attack him if he should win Norway. In his turn, Canute sent ambassadors to King Anund, with splendid presents, hoping to win him over. Two candlesticks of gold were placed before him by the ambassadors. "Pretty toys those," said Anund, "but not worth enough to break me from my good friend Olaf." Then they brought forth a golden platter, of artistic finish and adorned with jewels. King Anund gazed at it with covetous eyes. "A handsome bit of work," he said; "but I will not sell King Olaf for a dish." Finally two magnificent rings were offered. King Anund laughed when he saw them. "Keen and shrewd is King Canute," he remarked. "He knows I love golden toys, but he does not know that I love honor better. I have known King Olaf since he was a boy; he is my friend and my sister is his queen. I will not forsake him to please your king." On hearing this, King Canute laid aside his plots and made a pilgrimage to Rome. During his absence his brother-in-law, Earl Ulf, rebelled against him and allied himself with Kings Olaf and Anund, who sent fleets to his aid. As it proved, King Canute was not the man to be caught napping. Back from his pilgrimage he travelled in haste and came near to capturing both the kings. They fled with all speed, pursued by him with a more powerful fleet, and went up a little river in southern Sweden, which they closed by a dam against their strong foe. Canute came soon after and found the harbor deserted and the river closed against him. That night orders were given by the kings to break the dam and the heaped-up water ran down in an immense flood on the Danish ships, doing them great damage and drowning many of the people on board. But no attack was made on the disabled fleet, for Earl Ulf now turned traitor to his allies and joined Canute with his ships, making him too strong to attack. This ended the war for the time, Canute returning to England. But he had won over many of the Norse chiefs by his bribes and the next year came again, sailing north to Nidaros, where the assembled chiefs, whom he had gained to his side, proclaimed him king of Norway. He appointed Earl Haakon, grandson of the famous Earl Haakon of a former tale, regent in his stead, and sailed away again. In this manner Olaf lost his kingdom, for with all the powerful chiefs sold to the great King Canute and supported by him, little hope remained. He kept up the struggle for a short time, but was soon forced to flee to Sweden, whence he made his way to Russia and to the court of King Jaroslov, who was his brother-in-law, for he had married Princess Ingegerd of Sweden, once affianced to Olaf. Thus easily had Norway been conquered by Canute, but it was not long to remain under Danish rule at this time. Olaf, it is true, never won the throne again, though he made a strong effort to regain it. In Russia he grew more and more given to religious thoughts, until he became looked upon as a holy man. This made him open to believe in visions, and when in a dream he saw the former King Olaf, who bade him to go back to Norway and conquer it or die, he did not hesitate. Word had been brought him that Earl Haakon was dead and Norway with no immediate ruler, and against the advice of Jaroslov he set out for his late kingdom, leaving his son Magnus at the Russian court. In Sweden the king gave him permission to gather recruits, but now his religious fanaticism stood in the way of his success. He would have none but baptized men in his army, and thus rejected many brave warriors while taking some known to be outlaws and thieves. On reaching Norway he showed the same unwisdom. He had but four thousand men under his command, while the army he was soon to meet numbered ten thousand. Yet Olaf rejected five hundred of his men because they were heathens and, thus weakened, marched to the unequal fray. "Forward, Christ's men, king's men!" was the battle-cry of Olaf's army as it rushed upon the foe. "Forward, peasant men!" cried the opposite army, charging under its chiefs. The king's men had the best of it at the opening, but the peasants held their ground stubbornly, and as the battle went on Olaf's ranks thinned and wavered. Finding the day going against him, he dashed forward with a small band of devoted men. One by one they fell. The standard changed hands again and again as its bearer was struck down. Olaf, severely wounded, stood leaning against a rock, when he was cut down by spear and sword. And strangely, at that moment, the sun began to grow blood-red and a dusky hue fell over the field. Darker and darker it grew till the sun was blotted out and terror filled the souls of the peasants, who saw in this strange darkness a token of the wrath of Olaf's God. But the eclipse came too late to save the king, who lay dead where he had fallen. Olaf was gone but tradition built a halo around his name. It was reported that miracles were wrought by his blood and by the touch of his lifeless hand. Tales of marvel and magic grew up about him, and he became a wonder-worker for the superstitious people. In time he grew to be the national hero and the national saint, and lives in history as Olaf the Saint, while his tragic death and his enthusiasm for the cause of Christ gave him a strong hold on the people's hearts and aided greatly in making Norway truly a Christian land. _CANUTE THE GREAT, KING OF SIX NATIONS._ A famous old king of Denmark, known as Harald Blaatand or Bluetooth, had many sons, of whom only one, Svend or Sweyn, outlived him. While Harald was a Christian, Sweyn was a pagan, having been brought up in the old faith by a noble warrior Palnatoke, to whom his father had sent the boy to teach him the use of arms. When the king found that the boy was being made a pagan he tried to withdraw him from Palnatoke, but Sweyn would not leave his friend, whereupon the crafty king sought to destroy the warrior. We speak of this, for there is a very interesting story connected with it. Every one has read of how the Austrian governor Gessler condemned the Swiss peasant William Tell to shoot with an arrow an apple from his son's head, but few know that a like story is told of a Danish king and warrior four hundred years earlier. This is the story, as told for us by an old historian. One day, while Palnatoke was boasting in the king's presence of his skill as an archer, Harald told him that, in spite of his boasts, there was one shot he would not dare to try. He replied that there was no shot he was afraid to attempt, and the king then challenged him to shoot an apple from the head of his son. Palnatoke obeyed, and the apple fell, pierced by the arrow. This cruel act made Palnatoke the bitter foe of King Harald, and gathering around him a band of fierce vikings he founded a brotherhood of sea-rovers at Jomsborg, and for long years afterwards the Jomsborgers, or Jomsborg vikings, were a frightful scourge to all Christian lands on the Baltic Sea. In former tales we have told some of their exploits. It is said that Sweyn himself, in a later war, killed his father on the battlefield, while Palnatoke stood by approving, though in after years the two were bitter foes. All we need say further of these personages is that Sweyn invaded England with a powerful force in the time of Ethelred the Unready and drove this weak king from the island, making himself master of great part of the kingdom. He died at Gainsborough, England, in 1014, leaving his son Knud, then a boy of fourteen, to complete the conquest. It is this son, known in England as Canute the Great, and the mightiest of all the Danish kings, with whose career we have to deal. England did not fall lightly into Canute's hands; he had to win it by force of arms. Encouraged by the death of Sweyn and the youth of Canute, the English recalled Ethelred and for a time the Danes lost the kingdom which their king Sweyn had won. Canute did not find a throne awaiting him in Denmark. His younger brother Harald had been chosen king by the Danes and when Canute asked him for a share in the government, Harald told him that if he wished to be a king he could go back and win England for himself. He would give him a few ships and men, but the throne of Denmark he proposed to keep. Nothing loth, Canute accepted the offer and the next year returned to England with a large and well appointed force, whose work of conquest was rapidly performed. Ethelred died and great part of England was surrendered without resistance to the Danes. But Edmond, Ethelred's son, took the field with an army and in three months won three victories over the invaders. A fourth battle was attempted and lost and Edmond retreated to the Severn, swiftly followed by Canute. The two armies here faced each other, with the fate of England in the balance, when a proposal in close accord with the spirit of the times was made. This was to settle the matter by single combat between the kings. Both were willing. While Edmond had the advantage in strength, Canute was his superior in shrewdness. For when the champions met in deadly fray and Canute was disarmed by his opponent, the wily Dane proposed a parley, and succeeded in persuading Edmond to divide the kingdom between them. The agreement was accepted by the armies and the two kings parted as friends--but the death of Edmond soon after had in it a suspicious appearance of murder by poison. On the death of Edmond, Canute called a meeting of the popular assembly of the nation and was acknowledged king of all England. Not long afterwards Harald of Denmark died and the Danes chose him, under his home name of Knud, as their king also. But he stayed in Denmark only long enough to settle the affairs of the Church in that realm. He ordered that Christianity should be made the religion of the kingdom and the worship of Odin should cease; and put English bishops over the Danish clergy. He also brought in English workmen to teach the uncivilized Danes. Thus, Dane as Canute was, he preferred the religion and conditions of his conquered to those of his native kingdom, feeling that it was superior in all the arts and customs of civilization. A great king was Canute, well deserving the title long given him of Canute the Great. Having won England by valor and policy, he held it by justice and clemency. He patronized the poets and minstrels and wrote verses in Anglo-Saxon himself, which were sung by the people and added greatly to his popularity. Of the poems written by him one was long a favorite in England, though only one verse of it now remains. This was preserved by the monks of Ely, since they were its theme. Thus it runs, in literal translation: "Merrily sung the monks within Ely When Canute King rowed by; Row, knights, near the land, And hear we these monks' song." It is said that the verse was suggested to the king when rowing with his chiefs one day in the river Nene, near Ely Minster, by the sweet and solemn music of the monastery choir that floated out to them over the tranquil water. The monks of Ely, to whom we owe much of our knowledge of King Canute, tell us that he had a strong affection for the fen country and for their church, and gave the following story in that connection. It is at once picturesque and humorous. One year, at the festival of the Purification, when King Canute proposed to pay his usual visit to Ely, the weather was very severe and all the streams and other waters were frozen. The courtiers advised the king to keep the holy festival in some other godly house, which he might reach without danger of drowning under broken ice, but such was his love for the abbot and monks of Ely that he would not take this advice. Canute proposed to cross the ice by way of Soham Mere, then an immense body of water, saying that if any one would go before and show him the way he would be the first to follow. The soldiers and courtiers hesitated at this suggestion, and looked at one another with doubt and dread. But standing among the crowd was one Brithmar, a churl or serf, who was nicknamed Budde, or Pudding, from his stoutness. He was a native of the island of Ely and doubtless familiar with its waters, and when the courtiers held back he stepped forward and said he would go before and show the way. "Go on then, in the name of our Lady," said Canute, "and I will follow; for if the ice on Soham Mere can bear a man so large and fat as thou art, it will not break under the weight of a small thin man like me." So the churl went forward, and Canute the Great followed him, and after the king came the courtiers, one by one, with spaces between; and they all got safely over the frozen mere, with no mishaps other than a few slips and falls on the smooth ice; and Canute, as he had proposed, kept the festival of the Purification with the monks of Ely. As a reward to the fat churl Brithmar for his service, he was made a freeman and his little property was also made free. "And so," the chronicle concludes, "Brithmar's posterity continued in our days to be freemen and to enjoy their possessions as free by virtue of the grant made by the king to their forefather." There is another and more famous story told of King Canute, one showing that his great Danish majesty had an abundant share of sound sense. Often as this story has been told it will bear retelling. The incident occurred after his pilgrimage to Rome in the year 1030; made, it is said, to obtain pardon for the crimes and bloodshed which paved his way to the English throne. After his return and when his power was at its height, the courtiers wearied him by their fulsome flatteries. Disgusted with their extravagant adulations he determined to teach them a lesson. They had spoken of him as a ruler before whom all the powers of nature must bend in obedience, and one day he caused his golden throne to be set on the verge of the sea-shore sands as the tide was rolling in with its resistless might. Seating himself on the throne, with his jewelled crown on his head, he thus addressed the ocean: "O thou Ocean! Know that the land on which I sit is mine and that thou art a part of my dominion; therefore rise not, but obey my commands, and do not presume to wet the edge of my royal robe." He sat as if awaiting the sea to obey his commands, while the courtiers stood by in stupefaction. Onward rolled the advancing breakers, each moment coming nearer to his feet, until the spray flew into his face, and finally the waters bathed his knees and wet the skirts of his robe. Then, rising and turning to the dismayed flatterers, he sternly said: "Confess now how vain and frivolous is the might of an earthly king compared with that Great Power who rules the elements and says unto the ocean, 'Thus far shalt thou go and no farther!'" The monks who tell this story, conclude it by saying that Canute thereupon took off his crown and deposited it within the cathedral of Winchester, never wearing it again. After his visit to Rome, Canute ruled with greater mildness and justice than ever before, while his armies kept the turbulent Scotch and Welsh and the unquiet peoples of the north in order. In the latter part of his reign he could boast that the English, the Scotch, the Welsh, the Danes, the Swedes, and the Norwegians were his subjects, and he was called in consequence "The King of the Six Nations," and looked upon throughout Europe as the greatest of sovereigns; none of the kings and emperors of that continent being equal in power, wealth and width of dominion to King Canute, a descendant of the vikings of Denmark. Canute spent the most of his life in England, but now and then visited his northern realm, and there are some interesting anecdotes of his life there. Though a devout Christian and usually a self-controlled man, the wild passions of his viking ancestry would at times break out, and at such times he spared neither friend nor foe and would take counsel from no man, churchman or layman. But when his anger died out his remorse was apt to be great and he would submit to any penance laid upon him by the Church. Thus when he had killed one of his house servants for some slight offense, he made public confession of his crime and paid the same blood-fine as would have been claimed from a man of lower rank. The most notable instance of these outbursts of uncontrollable anger was that in which he murdered his old friend and brother-in-law Ulf, who, after rebelling against him, had saved him from complete defeat by the Swedes, by coming to his rescue just as the royal fleet was nearly swamped by the opening of the sluices which held back the waters of the Swedish river Helge-aae. Ulf took Canute on board his own ship and brought him in safety to a Danish island, while leaving his men to aid those of Canute in their escape from the Swedes. Yet the king bore a grudge against the earl, and this was its cause. At one time Ulf ruled over Denmark as Canute's regent and made himself greatly beloved by the people from his just rule. Queen Emma, Canute's wife, wished to have her little son Harthaknud--or Hardicanute, as he was afterwards called in England--made king of Denmark, but could not persuade her husband King Canute to accede to her wishes. She therefore sent letters privately to Ulf, saying that the king wished to see the young prince on the throne, but did not wish to do anything the people might not like. Ulf, deceived by her story, had the boy crowned king, and thereby won Canute's ill-will. The king, however, showed no signs of this, nor of resentment against Ulf for his rebellion, but, after his escape from the Swedes, asked the earl to go with him to his palace at Roeskilde, and on the evening of their arrival offered to play chess with him. During the game Canute made a false move so that Ulf was able to take one of his knights, and when the king refused to let this move count and wanted his man back again the earl jumped up and said he would not go on with the game. Canute, in a burst of anger, cried out: "The coward Norwegian Ulf Jarl is running away." "You and your coward Danes would have run away still faster at the Helge-aae if I and my Norwegians had not saved you from the Swedes, who were making ready to beat you all like a pack of craven hounds!" ejaculated the angry earl. Those hasty words cost Ulf his life. Canute, furious at the insult, brooded over it all night, and the next morning, still in a rage, called to one of the guards at the door of his bed-chamber: "Go and kill Ulf Jarl." "My Lord King, I dare not," answered the man. "Ulf Jarl is at prayer before the altar of the church of St. Lucius." The king, after a moment's pause, turned to a young man-at-arms who had been in his service since his boyhood and cried angrily: "I command you, Olaf, to go to the church and thrust your sword through the Jarl's body." Olaf obeyed, and Ulf was slain while kneeling before the altar rails of St. Lucius' church. Then, as usual with King Canute, his passion cooled and he deeply lamented his crime, showing signs of bitter remorse. In way of expiation he paid to his sister Estrid, Ulf's widow, a large sum as blood-fine, and gave her two villages which she left at her death to the church in which her husband had been slain. He also brought up Ulf's eldest son as one of his own children. The widowed Estrid afterwards married Robert, Duke of Normandy, father of William the Conqueror, who in 1066 became master of England. King Canute died in 1035, at thirty-six years of age, and his son Harald reigned after him in England for four years, and afterwards his son Harthaknud, or Hardicanute, for three years, when England again came under an Anglo-Saxon king--to fall under the power of William of Normandy, a conqueror of Norwegian descent, twenty-four years later. _MAGNUS THE GOOD AND HAROLD HARDRULER._ After the death of King Olaf the Saint, and after the Danes had for some years ruled over Norway, Olaf's son Magnus, who had been left in Russia, was brought to Norway and proclaimed king. The Danes had oppressed the people, and had put over them a woman and her son, and it was this that made the chiefs drive out the tyrants and put young Magnus, then a boy of ten years of age, on the throne. A curious thing then took place, one of those strange political somersaults which at times come in the history of nations. For as the Danes had lately ruled over Norway, now a Norseman came to rule over Denmark. Thus it was that this odd change came about. The great King Canute was dead and his son Hardicanute had succeeded him on the throne. This new king claimed Norway as his and prepared to fight for it. But the chief men in the two countries succeeded in making peace, with the agreement that if either of the kings should die without heirs the other should take his throne. A few years later Hardicanute died and Magnus was proclaimed king of Denmark. Thus, in the year 1042, the two kingdoms became united under a Norse king, a descendant of Harold the Fair-Haired. Magnus, as he grew up, showed an ugly and revengeful temper. Very likely some of those around him told the boy that he should avenge his father upon those who had rebelled against and killed him. One of these men was slain by his orders, others fled from the country, and many were made poor by the loss of their cattle. This made the people very angry, and they were ready to fight for just treatment when peace was brought about in another way, the hot-tempered Magnus being subdued by the power of song. One of the poets of the land--scalds they were called--made a song called the Lay of Candor, which he sang before the king. In it he warned him of the evil results of a revengeful spirit and told him of the duties he owed the people who had brought him to Norway and made him king. Magnus, who had now nearly reached the years of manhood, listened quietly to this song and afterwards sat long in deep thought. It had a wonderful effect on him, for it opened his eyes to the injustice of his course, and from that day he was a new man. All his plans of vengeance fled, he became kind and gentle and so mild and sweet in manner that he grew to be one of the best loved of kings. This may be seen in the name the people gave him, which was that of Magnus the Good. Now we must tell the rest of his story very rapidly. As the heir of Hardicanute he claimed to be king of England as well as of Norway and Denmark, and he might have tried to win the crown of England, then worn by Edward the Confessor, had he not been kept busy at home. In fact, he had to fight hard to keep the crown of Denmark, for Sweyn, a nephew of the great Canute, claimed it and a fierce war followed. Magnus was victorious in this war, and in one great battle, in which ten thousand soldiers were slain, it was his skill and courage that won the field. This display of personal bravery gave him a great name in the north. Now we must leave the story of Magnus for a time to take up that of another hero of the north. Those who have read the tale of Olaf the Saint will remember his amusing talk with his three little half-brothers, and how while the two elder had an ambition only for land and cows, Harold, the youngest, wanted men and ships, and Olaf prophesied that the boy would one day be a king. When Harold grew up the spirit of the boy was shown in the man. When only fifteen years old he fought in the battle in which King Olaf was killed, and received a severe wound. Then he became a wanderer, going first to Russia and then to Constantinople, where he became the captain of the Varangians, the body-guard of Norsemen kept by the Greek emperors. A large, bold, strong, and reckless champion, Harold gained a great name in the south. He fought against the Saracens and won much treasure; he fought in Sicily and captured many cities; he had adventures in love and war and many wonderful stories are told of his exploits. Then he came back to Russia and married Elizabeth, the daughter of King Jaroslov, love for whom had sent him abroad to win fame and riches. [Illustration: NORWEGIAN FARM BUILDINGS.] Not long after this King Magnus, as he was sailing one day along the coast of Denmark, saw gliding along the most magnificent ship he had ever beheld. He at once sent men aboard to learn to whom the beautiful galley belonged, and they were met by a tall and handsome man, who said that he had been sent by Harold Sigurdsson, the uncle of King Magnus, to learn how the king would receive him. Magnus, who was then nineteen years old, sent word that he would gladly welcome his uncle and hoped to find in him a good friend. When they met the tall man proved to be Harold himself and Magnus was highly pleased with him. He was not so well pleased when Harold asked to be made king also, laying claim to half the kingdom. And Harold himself was not well pleased when one of the Norse chiefs said that if Magnus was to share the kingdom with him, he should divide his great treasure with Magnus. Harold replied hastily and haughtily that he had not dared death and won wealth that he might make his nephew's men rich. The chief answered that he and his friends had not won Norway from the Danes for the purpose of giving half of it to a stranger, and all the other earls and warriors agreed with him, so that Harold found that the apple which he wished to divide was not so easily to be cut. After that there was war and plundering and the cruel deeds that take place when the sword is drawn, and a year or two later Harold called an assembly of the people of one district of Norway and had himself proclaimed king. Magnus, who did not want to fight his father's brother, finally yielded to Harold's claim and agreed that they should both be kings; not to divide the realm, but both to rule over the whole country together. Thus it was that Harold won the prize which he had craved as a young child. Every one would say that a compact of this kind could not work well. A gentle, kindly, generous-hearted man like King Magnus was ill matched with a haughty, wealth-loving, tyrannical man like Harold. No doubt many bitter words passed between them, and the peasants were so incensed by Harold's oppression and extortion of money from them that they would have broken into open rebellion only for the love they bore King Magnus. The latter was often so incensed that he was tempted to put an end to the double kingship even if he had to remove his troublesome partner by violence. But this was not to be. One day, while out riding, his horse took fright and threw him, his head striking a stump. He was at first stunned, but seemed to recover. Soon afterwards he was taken sick with a violent fever and gradually sank, so that it became apparent that he would die. On his death-bed he decided that Sweyn, who had fought so hard to win from him the crown of Denmark, had a better right to that kingdom than Harold, and men were sent to inform him of his succession to the Danish throne. But he had barely closed his eyes in death when Harold sent other men to intercept these messengers. He proposed to keep Denmark for himself. The death of King Magnus without an heir left Harold the undisputed successor to the throne, as the only living descendant in the male line of Harold the Fair-Haired. Yet the people were far from pleased, for he had already shown a disposition to treat them harshly and they feared that a tyrant had succeeded to the throne. By his stern rule he gained several uncomplimentary titles, the English calling him Harold the Haughty, the Germans Harold the Inflexible, and the Northmen Harold the Hardruler. Yet he was able to hold his own over his people, for he was strong and daring, skilled in the art of war, and a man of unusual intellect. He was also a poet and won fame by his verses. He would sit up half the night with the blind scald Stuf Katson, to hear him recite his stirring songs. But if absolute ruler over Norway, Harold found Denmark slipping away from him. Sweyn had in him the blood of the race of Canute, and was no weakling to be swept aside at a king's will. Magnus had left him the kingdom and he was bent on having it, if his good sword could win and hold it. In this he was supported by the Danes, and Harold found that the most he could do was to make descents on the Danish coast and plunder and murder the innocent people. After this idle kind of warfare had gone on for a number of years and Harold found that all he had gained by it was the hatred of the Danes, he made an agreement with Sweyn to fight it out between them. They were to meet at the mouth of the Götha Elv and whoever won in the battle was to be the king of Denmark. It was a kind of duel for a crown. But Sweyn tried to gain his end by stratagem. When Harold appeared with his fleet at the appointed place Sweyn and his ships were not to be seen. Harold waited a while, fuming and fretting, and then sailed south to Jutland, where he ravaged the coast, took and burned the city of Heidaby, carried away a number of women of high rank, and filled his ships with plunder. Then he turned homeward, with so little fear of the Danes that he let his ships widely scatter. The winds were adverse, the weather was foggy, and one morning while they lay at anchor by an island shore, the lookout saw a bright flash through the fog. The king was hastily called, and on seeing it cried: "What you see is the flash of the morning sun on the golden dragon-heads of warships. The Danish fleet is upon us!" The peril was imminent. It was hopeless to fight with the few ships at command. Only flight remained and that was almost as hopeless. The oars were got out in haste, but the ships, soaked and heavy from their long cruise, were hard to move, and as the fog lifted under the sun rays, the Danish fleet, several hundred strong, bore down swiftly upon them. The emergency was one that needed all the wit and skill of the king to meet. To distract the enemy Harold bade his men nail bright garments and other showy spoil to logs and cast them overboard. As these floated through the Danish ships many of them stopped to pick up the alluring prizes. He also was obliged to throw overboard casks of beer and pork to lighten his ships and these also were picked up. Yet in spite of all he could do the Danes gained on him, and his own ship, which brought up the rear, was in danger of capture. As a last resort the shrewd king had rafts made of boards and barrels and put on these the high-born women he held as captives. These rafts were set afloat one after another, and the pursuers, on seeing these hapless fair ones and hearing their wild appeals for rescue, were obliged to stop and take them up. This final stratagem succeeded and Harold escaped, leaving Sweyn, who had felt sure of capturing his enemy, furious at his failure. At another time, ten years and more later, Harold again fell into peril and again escaped through his fertility in resources. Having beaten his rival in a naval battle, he entered the long and narrow Lim fiord to plunder the land, fancying that Sweyn was in no condition to disturb him. He reckoned too hastily. Sweyn, learning where his foe was, gathered what ships he could and took post at Hals, the fiord being there so narrow that a few ships could fight with advantage against a much greater number. Though caught in a trap Harold was not dismayed, but gave orders to sail to the inner end of the fiord. He knew that it ended near the North Sea, only a narrow isthmus dividing them. Then, with great trouble and labor, he managed to have his ships dragged across the isthmus and launched on the sea waters, and away he sailed in triumph, leaving Sweyn awaiting him in vain. Finally, with the desire to bring this useless strife to an end, if possible, a new compact was made to meet with their fleets in the Götha Elv and fight once more for the kingdom of Denmark. It was now 1062, thirteen years after the former battle. As before, on reaching the place designated, no Danish ship was visible. But it is difficult to credit what we are told, that Harold, after a vain wait, made the same error as before, dividing his fleet and sending the greater part of it home. With the remainder, one hundred and eighty ships strong, he sailed along the coast, and suddenly found himself in the presence of the Danes, with two ships to his one. This time Harold did not flee, but joined battle bravely with his enemy, the contest lasting through a whole night and ending in a complete victory over the Danes. It was a great victory, yet it brought Harold no advantage, for Sweyn did not keep to his compact--if he had made one--to surrender his throne, and the Danes hated Harold so thoroughly for his cruel raids on their land that they had no idea of submitting to him. Two years more passed on, and then Harold, finding that the conquest of Denmark was hopeless, consented against his will to make peace. In this way Sweyn, after many years of battling for his throne, forced his powerful antagonist to give up the contest and promise never to disturb him again. Two years after this peace was made, in the year 1066, King Harold took part in another adventure which brought his tyranny and his life to an end. It is worth telling for another reason, for it was connected with a great historical event, the conquest of England by William the Conqueror. For these two reasons it is very fitting that it should be told. King Harold of England, who was soon to fall on the fatal field of Hastings, had a brother, Earl Tostig, who, fired by ambition, set out to conquer that kingdom for himself. He went first to Denmark and tried to get King Sweyn to join him in the enterprise, but the prudent Sweyn told him that he had no desire to follow in the footsteps of his uncle Canute, but was quite content to dwell at home and rule his own kingdom. Then Tostig sought Norway, where he found King Harold far more ready to listen to him. So in September of that year, Harold sailed from Norway with the most powerful fleet and army that had ever left its shores. Counting what was added in the Orkneys and the force under Earl Tostig, it numbered about three hundred and fifty ships and thirty thousand men. Landing in Northumberland, a victory was won and the city of York taken. Then, leaving about one-third of the army to guard the ships, Harold and Tostig encamped at Stamford Bridge, seven miles from York. It was a warm day, there was no reason to fear danger, and the men lounged about without their arms. In this unwary state they found themselves suddenly face to face with a large army, led by the English King Harold, who had marched north in furious haste. Tostig, finding that they had been taken by surprise, advised a retreat to the ships, but Harold was not the man to turn his back to his foe, and decided to stand and fight, ordering the men to arm and prepare for battle. While they were gathering in ranks for the fray, a party of English horsemen rode up and asked if Earl Tostig was there. "You see him before you," said Tostig. "Your brother Harold sends you greeting and offers you peace and the rule of Northumberland. If he cannot gain your friendship for less, he will grant you one-third his kingdom." "Last year he had only scorn and disdain to offer me," replied Tostig. "But if I should accept his proposal, what has he to offer my ally, the king of Norway?" "He will grant him seven feet of English soil; or more if his length of body needs it." "If that is your best offer," said Tostig, "ride back and bid Harold to begin the battle." Harold of Norway had heard this brief colloquy, and as the English horsemen rode away asked Tostig who was the speaker. "That was my brother, Harold himself," answered Tostig. "I learn that too late," said Harold grimly. The battle that followed was hotly contested. It began with a charge of the English cavalry, which was repulsed, and was followed up fiercely by the Norsemen, who fancied the flight of the English to mean a general rout. In this way they broke their ranks, which the king wished to preserve until reinforcements could reach him from the ships. Forward rushed the impatient Norsemen, King Harold throwing himself into their midst and fighting with savage fury. His men seconded him, the English ranks wavered and broke before the fierce onset, and victory seemed within the grasp of the invaders, when an arrow pierced King Harold's throat and he fell in a dying state from his horse. His fall checked the onset, and the English king, hearing of his death, offered his brother an armistice. Tostig refused this and led his men back to the fray, which was resumed with all its old fury. But Tostig, too, was slain, and the king's brother-in-law, who arrived with reinforcements from the ships, met with the same fate. By this time the battlefield was covered with the bodies of the dead, and the Norsemen, dispirited by the loss of their leaders, gave way and retreated towards the ships, hotly pursued by their victorious foes. Of their great host only a small remnant succeeded in reaching the ships. Thus ended the great fight at Stamford Bridge, and with it the reign and life of Harold Hardruler, who fell a victim to his ambition and love of strife. For years thereafter the bones of men lay scattered widely over that field, for none stayed to bury the dead, the Norsemen fleeing in their ships, while news of the landing of William of Normandy called Harold hastily to the south--where he fell in the midst of the fighting at Hastings as Harold of Norway had fallen on Stamford Field. Harold's invasion of England was the last great exploit of the vikings of the north, and though Ireland was invaded later by a Norseland fleet, no foreign foe after the fatal days at Stamford and Hastings ever landed on England's shores. _SVERRE, THE COOK'S SON, AND THE BIRCHLEGS._ In the year 1177 those people in Norway who loved a joke must have laughed to their hearts' content, when the tidings reached them that the son of a cook, followed by seventy ragged and half armed men, had set out to win the throne of the kingdom. Surely a more extraordinary and laughable enterprise was never undertaken, and the most remarkable thing about it was that it succeeded. A few years of desperate adventures and hard fighting raised the cook's son to the throne, and those who had laughed at his temerity were now glad to hail him as their king. How Sverre the adventurer won the crown is a tale full of adventure and amply worth the telling. No common man was Sverre and no common woman was his mother Gunhild, a cook in the kitchen of King Sigurd Mouth. Not handsome was she, but quick of wit and bright of brain. If the king had had his way the boy would have had a very short life, for he bade the mother to kill her child as soon as it should be born. Instead of consenting to this cruel mandate, she fled from the palace to a ship, which took her to the Faroe Islands, and here her son was born. She was then serving as milkmaid to Bishop Mathias. The little Sverre began his life with an adventure. When he was a few months old a man named Unas came from Norway to the islands, a smith or comb-maker by profession. But Gunhild suspected him of being a spy sent by King Sigurd to kill her son, and she hid the boy in a cavern, which is still called Sverre's Cave. He acted like a spy, for he followed her to the cave, found where she had hidden the child, and threatened to kill it unless she would marry him. Gunhild had no love for this dangerous stranger, but she dearly loved her little son, and with much reluctance she consented to marry Unas to save the babe's life. Such was the first event in the life of the later King Sverre. The new-married pair went back to Norway, for King Sigurd had died, but when the boy was five years old they returned to the Faroes, for Bishop Mathias was now dead, and Roe, the brother of Unas, had been made bishop in his stead. The little fellow was made to believe that he was the son of Unas, and as he grew up Bishop Roe took a great fancy to him, for he showed himself to be very bright and intelligent. There was no boy in the island his equal, so the good bishop had him educated for the priesthood and when he was old enough had him ordained in the lowest priestly grade. This was much against the wish of Gunhild, his mother, who had higher hopes for his future, and when he proudly told her that he was now a priest, and hoped some day to become a bishop, or even a cardinal, she burst into tears. "Why do you weep, mother?" he asked in surprise. "I do not know why you should hear of my honor with sorrow." "Oh, my son," she cried, "this is but a small honor compared to that to which you were born. I have not told you of the great station that is yours by right, but must now say that you are not the son of my husband Unas, but of King Sigurd of Norway, and you have as good a claim as any man living to the throne." This surprising revelation destroyed Sverre's peace of mind. All his ambition to rise in the priesthood was gone, the crown of a kingdom seemed to float in the air before him, and his thoughts by day and his dreams by night were fixed on that shining goal. The great hopes in his mind kept sleep from his eyes and after days of mental unrest he felt that life was worthless to him if his high ambition were not fulfilled. "Since I am born heir to the crown," he said to his mother, "I have as much right to it as any man, and I will strive at any cost to win it. I stake my life on this cast, for without it life to me has lost all its joy." Magnus, the king then on the throne, was not of royal birth. He was the son of Erling Skakke, a great and ambitious nobleman, who had killed every descendant of the royal house he could find to make his own son king. Of the boy who was destined to dispute his claim, the cook's son on the Faroes, he knew nothing, and when the bright youth landed in Norway, whether he had gone in spite of the protests of Bishop Roe, not a soul in the kingdom dreamed that a new claimant for the throne was in the realm. No one was likely to learn from Sverre until his plans were ripe. He was too shrewd and cautious for that. He wanted to feel the sentiment of the people, and was disappointed to find them all well satisfied with their king. Full of humor and a good talker, everybody he met was pleased with him, and when he talked with the men-at-arms of Erling Skakke they told him all they knew about the state of affairs. They were quite won over by this lively priest from the Faroes. He even made the acquaintance of Erling Skakke himself and got a thorough idea of his character. The cunning adventurer was feeling his way and found things not at all to his liking. To attempt, alone and with an empty pocket, to drive a favorite monarch from the throne, seemed the act of madness. But the ambitious youth had dreamed his dream of royal state and had no fancy for returning to a humble priesthood on the bleak Faroes. In Sweden, across the border, dwelt Earl Birger, who had married a sister of King Sigurd Mouth. To him Sverre went, told who he was, and begged for aid. The earl looked on him as an imposter and would have nothing to do with him. Then he sought Folkvid the Lawman, with whom lived his half-sister Cecilia, and told him the same story. Folkvid received him more graciously, but he had no power to make him king. But the rumor that a son of the late King Sigurd was in the land got abroad, and soon made its way to the ears of a band of rebels who hated the king. Here we must go back a step. All the people of Norway were not content with the new king. From time to time pretenders to the throne arose, hornets whom Magnus and his father Erling had some trouble in destroying. They had their following, and the malcontents gathered at last around Eystein Meyla (Little Girl), who professed to be the grandson of a former king. But all this last of the pretenders was able to do was to roam about in the wilderness, keeping himself and his followers from starving by robbing the people. They were in so desperate a state that they had to use birch-bark for shoes, and the peasants in derision called them Birkebeiner, or Birchlegs. Though little better than highwaymen, they were sturdy and daring and had some success, but finally were badly beaten by the king and their leader slain. They might have never been heard of again had not the greatest of the pretenders just then came to Norway. The rumor that a son of King Sigurd Mouth was in the land reached the ears of the handful of Birchlegs remaining and, learning where Sverre was, they sought him and begged him to be their chief. He looked at them, and seeing what dirty and ragged vagabonds they were, he told them that he had no fancy for being their leader, that there was no link of connection between them and him but poverty, and advised them, if they wanted a chief, to seek one of Earl Birger's sons, who, like himself, were of royal descent. The beggarly troop took his advice, but the earl's son would have nothing to do with them. By way of a joke he told them to go back to Sverre and threaten to kill him if he would not be their leader. They did so, using persuasions and possibly threats, and Sverre, seeing no hope of success among the great, finally consented to become the leader of this ragged band of brigands. Such was his first definite step on the road to the throne. In this humble fashion, the ambitious young prince, then about twenty-four years old, with empty hands and pockets and seventy ragged followers, began his desperate strife for the throne of Norway. From Vermeland, where his enterprise began, he led his forlorn seventy southward toward Viken, his party rolling on like a snowball and growing in size on its way, until it swelled to four hundred and twenty men. In spite of his protest, these vagabonds proclaimed him king and touched his sword to indicate their allegiance. But their devotion to his cause was not great, for when he forbade them to rob and plunder the peasants most of them left him. To test the remainder, he ordered them back to Vermeland and before they reached that region only the original seventy remained. Desperate was now the position of the youthful adventurer. He had declared himself a claimant for the throne and any one had the right to kill him. The peasants hated his robber band and he could get none to join him. They would rather have killed them all and thus earned the king's favor. Had young Sverre been a man of common mind his enterprise must now have reached its end. But he was a man of wonderful mental resources, daring, indefatigable, capable of bearing the most extreme reverses and rescuing himself from the most perilous situations. Followed by his faithful seventy, he wandered through the pathless mountain wilderness, hopeful and resourceful. His courage was unfailing. Often they had to live on bark and frozen berries, which were dug up from under the snow. At times some of his men, worn out with hunger and exposure, would drop lifeless on their barren paths; at times he had to sleep under his shield, as his only protection from the falling snow; but his heart kept stout through it all, and he chided those who talked of ending their misfortunes by suicide. As an example of his courage and endurance and his care of his men, we may tell the following anecdote. Once in his wanderings he came to a large mountain lake which had to be crossed. It could only be done on rafts, and the men were so exhausted that it proved desperate work to fell trees and build the necessary rafts. In time they were all despatched, Sverre boarding the last, which was so heavily laden that the water rose above his ankles. One man was still on the shore, so utterly worn out that he had to crawl to the water's edge and beg to be taken on, lest he should perish. The others grumbled, but Sverre would not listen to their complaints but bade them to take the man on. With his extra weight the raft sank till the water reached their knees. Though the raft threatened to go to the bottom Sverre kept a resolute face. A great fallen pine on the other side made a bridge up which the men clambered to safety, Sverre being the last to leave the raft. Scarcely had he done so when the watersoaked logs sank. The men looked on this as a miracle and believed more fully than ever that he would win. Now came the first success in his marvellous career. He had one hundred and twenty men on reaching the goal of his terrible journey, but here eighty men more joined him and with these two hundred followers he successfully faced a force of fourteen hundred which had been sent against him. With a native genius for warfare he baffled his enemies at every point, avoiding their onset, falling upon them at unexpected points, forcing them to scatter into separate detachments in the pursuit, then falling on and beating these detachments in succession. While he kept aware of their plans and movements, they never knew where to look for him, and in a short time the peasant army was beaten and dispersed. This striking success gave new courage and hope to the Birchlegs and they came in numbers to the place to which Sverre had summoned a body of twelve representatives from the province of Tröndelag. These met and proclaimed him king of Norway. It was now the summer of 1177. The Birchlegs were hasty in supposing the beating of fourteen hundred peasants would bring success to their cause. Erling Skakke was still alive and active, and on hearing of the exploits of this new leader of rebels in the north, he got together a large fleet and sailed northward to deal with him. The new-proclaimed king was too wary to meet this powerful force and he sought refuge in the mountains again, leaving to Erling the dominion of the coast. And now, for two years, Sverre and his men led a precarious life, wandering hither and thither through the mountain wilderness and suffering the severest privations. He was like a Robin Hood of the Norwegian mountains, loving to play practical jokes on the peasants, such as appearing with his hungry horde at their Yuletide feasts and making way with the good cheer they had provided for themselves. He was obliged to forage in the valleys, but he took pity on the poor and more than once made the great suffer for acts of oppression. Everywhere he was hated as a desperate brigand; some believed him to be the devil himself. Naughty children were scared with the threat that the terrible Sverre would take them, and laundresses, beating their clothes at the river's brink, devoutly wished that Sverre's head was under the stone. Yet his undaunted resolution, his fights with the king's soldiers, his skirmishes with the peasants, and his boldness and daring in all situations, won him a degree of admiration even among those who feared and hated him. Thus for two years his adventurous career went on. Then came an event that turned the tide in his favor. Erling was still pursuing him and in June, 1179, was in the coast town of Nidaros, his son, Magnus, with him. In the harbor lay the fleet. The earl and the king were feasting with their followers when word was brought them that the Birchlegs were approaching. "I wish it was true," said the earl. "I should like nothing better than to meet that hound Sverre. But there will be no such good luck to-night, for I am told that the rascals have gone back to the mountains. You can go to bed in safety, for Sverre will not dare to trouble us when we are on the watch for him." To bed they went, sleeping heavily from their potations, and down on them came Sverre, who, as usual, was well informed about their situation. "Now is your time to fight bravely, and repay yourselves for your sufferings," he said to his men. "A fine victory lies before us. I shall promise you this. Any one of you who can prove that he has slain a liegeman shall be made a liegeman himself, and each of you shall be given the title and dignity of the man you have slain." Thus encouraged, the poorly-armed adventurers rushed down the hills into the town. One sturdy fellow who carried only a club was asked where his weapons were. "They are down in the town," he said. "The earl's men have them now. We are going there to get them." This they did. As they came on the warriors, hastily alarmed and heavy with their drunken sleep, flocked staggering into the streets, to be met with sword and lance. The confusion was great and the king had much trouble in rallying his men. Many chieftains advised flight to the ships, but the stout-hearted Erling was not ready for that. "It might be best," he said, "but I can't bear the thought of that brigand priest putting himself in my son's place." Leading his men outside the city, he awaited the attack. It came in haste, the Birchlegs falling furiously upon the much greater force before them. In the onset the earl was killed and his men were put to flight. The king, as he fled by, saw the bloody face of his father lying under the stars. He stooped and kissed him, saying: "We shall meet again, father, in the day of joy." Then he was borne away in the stream of flight. This decisive victory turned the tide of the war. The death of Erling removed Sverre's greatest opponent. King Magnus was no match for the priest-king, and the rebel force grew until the contest assumed the shape of civil war. Sverre no longer led a band of wanderers, but was the leader of an army. This was not the ordinary army recruited from the settled classes of society, but an army made up of the lower stratum of the people, now first demanding their share of the good things of life. Fierce and unruly as they were, Sverre knew how to control and discipline them. He kept his promise, as far as was possible, to reward his men with the honors of those they had slain, but charged them with the maintenance of law and order, punishing all who disobeyed his commands. This he could safely do, for they worshipped him. They had shared peril and suffering together, had lived as comrades, but through it all he had kept his authority intact and demanded obedience. Birchlegs they still called themselves, for they had grown proud of the title, and they named their opponents Heklungs, from the story that some of them had robbed a beggar woman whose money was wrapped in a cloak (_hekl_). For six years afterwards the war for dominion in Norway continued, the star of King Sverre steadily rising. In 1180 Magnus attacked his opponent with an army much larger than that of Sverre, but was utterly routed; and an army of peasants that came on afterwards, to kill the "devil's priest," met with the same ill success. Magnus now took refuge in Denmark, abandoning Norway to his rival, and from there he came year after year to continue the contest. In a naval battle in 1181, in which Sverre had less than half the number of ships of his opponent, his star seemed likely to set. The Birchlegs were not good at sea fighting and the Heklungs were pressing them steadily back, when Sverre sprang into the hottest of the fight, without a shield and with darts and javelins hurtling around him, and in stirring tones sang the Latin hymn, "Alma chorus domini." This hymn seemed to turn the tide of victory. Magnus, storming furiously forward at that moment, was wounded in the wrist as he was boarding a hostile ship. The pain caused him to pause and, his feet slipping on the blood-stained deck, he fell headlong backward, a glad shout of victory coming from the Birchlegs who saw him fall. Orm, one of King Magnus's captains, demanded what had happened. "The king is killed," he was told. "Then the fate of the realm is decided," he cried. Cutting the ropes that held the ships together, he took to flight, followed by others and breaking the line of battle. Leaping to his feet, Magnus called out that he was not hurt and implored them not to flee from certain victory. But the terror and confusion were too great, and Sverre took quick advantage of the opportunity, capturing a number of ships and putting the others to flight. The final battle in this contest for a throne came in 1184. It was one in which Sverre was in imminent danger of a fatal end to his career. Usually not easily surprised, he was now taken unawares. He had sailed up the Nore fiord with a few ships and a small force of men, to punish some parties who had killed his prefect. Magnus, afloat with twenty-six ships and over three thousand men, learned of this and pursued his enemy into the fiord. Sverre was caught in a trap. Not until he saw the hostile ships bearing down upon him had he a suspicion of danger. Escape was impossible. Great cliffs bounded the watery cañon. He had but fourteen ships and not half his opponent's force of men. The Heklungs were sure that victory was in their hands. But when Sverre and his Birchlegs dashed forward and attacked them with berseker fury their confidence turned to doubt. Soon it began to appear that victory was to be on the other side. Before the furious onset the Heklungs fell in numbers. Many in panic leaped into the sea and were drowned, King Magnus among them. Till mid-night the hot contest continued, by which hour half the king's force were slain and all the ships captured. The drowned corpse of King Magnus was not found until two days after the battle, when it was taken to Bergen and buried with royal ceremony. His death ended the contest and Sverre was unquestioned king of the whole land. Shall we briefly conclude the story of King Sverre's reign? For twenty years it continued, the most of these years of war, for rebellion broke out in a dozen quarters and only the incessant vigilance and activity of a great king and great soldier enabled him to keep his throne and his life. After all his wars and perils, he died in his bed, March 9, 1202, worn out by his long life of toil and strain. Never before had Norway so noble and able a king; never since has it seen his equal. A man was he of small frame but indomitable soul, of marvellous presence of mind and fertility in resources; a man firm but kindly and humane; a king with a clear-sighted policy and an admirable power of controlling men and winning their attachment. Never through all its history has Norway known another monarch so admirable in many ways as Sverre, the cook's son. _THE FRIENDS AND FOES OF A BOY PRINCE._ After the death of the great King Sverre tumult and trouble reigned in Norway. Several kings came to the throne, but none of them lived long, and there was constant fighting between the Birchlegs and the opposing party who called themselves Baglers. Year after year they kept their swords out and their spears in hand, killing one another, but neither party growing strong enough to put an end to the other. All this time the people were suffering and the country growing poorer, and a strong hand was needed at the helm of the ship-of-state. It was when King Inge, who was not of royal blood, and whose hand was not the strong hand needed, was on the throne, that new hope came to the people, for it was made known that they had among them a boy of kingly descent, a grandson of the noble Sverre. Men thought that King Sverre's line had died out, and there was great joy in their hearts when they learned that his son Haakon had left a son. This boy was born in 1203, son of the beautiful Inga of Varteig, whom King Haakon had warmly loved though she was not his wife. The little prince was named Haakon, after his father, but he was born in the midst of the Baglers, his father's foes, and the priest who baptized him bade Inga to keep his birth a strict secret, letting none outside her own family know that a new prince had come to the land. The secret was well kept for a time, but whispers got abroad, and Thrond, the priest, at length told the story to Erland of Huseby, whom he knew to be on the right side. Erland heard the news with joy, but feared peril for the little prince, thus born in the land of his enemies. Rumors were growing, danger might at any moment come, and though it was mid-winter, a season of deep snows and biting winds, he advised the priest to send the boy and his mother to the court of King Inge, offering himself to take them across the pathless mountains. The difficult journey was made in safety and the boy and his mother were kindly welcomed by the king, and joyfully greeted by the Birchlegs, who were strong in that district. Little Haakon was then less than two years old, and it is said that the old loyalists, who were eager to have a king of the royal blood, used in playfulness to pull him between them by the arms and legs, to make him grow faster. The Birchlegs were in fear of Haakon Galen, the king's brother, who was ambitious to succeed to the throne. Yet Earl Haakon took a great fancy to the helpless little child and seemed to love him as much as any of them. Thus the child prince, though in the midst of plotters for the throne, who would naturally be likely to act as his enemies, seemed protected by the good angels and brought safely through all his perils. Even when he was captured by the Baglers, when four years of age, they did not harm him, being possibly so taken by his infantile beauty and winning ways that they could not bring themselves to injure their little captive. In the end, after many fights and flights, in which neither party made any gains, the Birchlegs and Baglers grew tired of the useless strife and a treaty of peace was made between them, the king of the Baglers swearing allegiance to King Inge and becoming one of his earls. But new trouble was brewing for the youthful prince, for in 1212, when he was eight years old, a compact was made that none but those of legitimate birth should succeed to the throne. As his mother had not been a legal wife, this threatened to rob little Haakon of his royal rights. In doing this the plotters were like some politicians of the present day, who lay plans without consulting the people. They did not know how strong the sentiment was in favor of the old royal line. One of the old Birchlegs, on hearing of this compact, was bitterly angry. He had made frequent visits to the young prince, whom he loved and admired, but on his next visit he pushed away the playful lad, roughly bidding him begone. Haakon reproachfully asked, "What have I done to make you so angry?" "Go away from me," cried Helge, the veteran; "to-day you have been robbed of your right to the crown and I have ceased to love you." "Who did that and where was it done?" "It was done at the _Oere-thing_ [the Assembly at Oere], and those who did it were King Inge and his brother Earl Haakon." "Then you should not be angry with me, my kind Helge, nor be troubled about this. What they did cannot be lawful, for my guardian was not there to speak on my side." "Your guardian! Who is he?" asked Helge. "I have three guardians, God, the Blessed Virgin, and St. Olaf," said the boy solemnly. "To their keeping I give my cause, and they will guard me against all wrong." The old man, at this declaration, caught the boy in his arms and kissed him. "Thanks for your wise words, my prince," he said. "Words like those are better spoken than unspoken." These words show that the little fellow was coming to think for himself and had an active and earnest mind. In fact, he was so precocious and said such droll things as greatly to amuse the king and those around him. Here is one of his sayings, spoken in a spell of cold weather when the butter could not be spread on the bread. The prince bent a piece of bread around the butter, saying: "Let us tie the butter to the bread, Birchlegs." This was thought so smart that it became a proverb among the Birchlegs. Soon after this Earl Haakon died and the little fellow, who had hitherto lived in his house, was taken to the king's court, where he was treated like a prince. The king was growing feeble from sickness and he loved to have the boy with him, finding his talk very amusing and entertaining. Soon after this he also died, Prince Haakon then being fourteen years old. Though Earl Haakon, the king's brother, who had hoped to be king, died, as we have said, before him, there was another brother named Skule who was quite as ambitious and of whom the Birchlegs were much afraid. A body-guard of these faithful warriors took charge of the boy as soon as King Inge was dead, with orders to follow him day and night. Earl Skule at once began to plan and plot to seize the throne, and in this he was supported by the archbishop, but in spite of them the Birchlegs proclaimed Haakon king and Skule had to yield to the strong sentiment in his favor. As for the noble then called king by the Baglers, he too died just at this time and left no children, so that the way was clear for the boy king, and Haakon soon sailed to the south with a large fleet and took possession of Viken and the Uplands, the chief dominions of the Baglers. By the wise policy of the young king and his advisers the Baglers were made his friends and the next year they were fighting with the Birchlegs against the Slittungs or Ragamuffins, who were made up of robbers, tramps, and wandering vagabonds of all kinds, thousands of whom had been set adrift by the civil war. But Haakon's worst foe was Earl Skule, who continued his plots and intrigues, and who was supported by the clergy, these saying they had doubts if the boy was really the son of the elder Haakon and grandson of King Sverre. Such things were not in those days usually settled in courts of law, but by what was called the ordeal, one form of which was to walk barefoot over red-hot irons. If not burned the accused was thought to have proved the justice of his cause. [Illustration: LINKOPING FROM TANNEFORS.] For a king already in possession of the throne to submit to such a demand and humble himself by thus trying to prove who he was, was a thing never done before and an old peasant gave vent to the general sentiment in these words: "Who can show in history a case of the sons of peasants prescribing terms like these to an absolute king? It would be wiser and more manly to bear another kind of iron--cold steel--against the king's foes, and let God judge between them in that way." But Inga, the king's mother, declared that she was ready to endure the ordeal and Haakon consented to it. Earl Skule now felt sure of succeeding, not dreaming that the ordeal could be gone through without burning, but to make more sure, he bribed a man to approach Inga and offer her an herb which he said would heal burns. The plot was discovered by the faithful Birchlegs and Inga warned of it; for to use such herbs would make the test invalid and subject Inga and her son to opprobrium. But all that Skule and his fellow-plotters could do proved of no avail, for Inga passed through the ordeal unhurt and triumphantly proved, in the legal system of that day, the justice of her cause. How red-hot iron was prevented from burning is a matter which we cannot discuss, and can only say that this ordeal was common and many are said to have gone through it unscathed. We set out in this story to tell how the child Haakon passed through all the perils that surrounded him and grew up to become Norway's king. Here then we should end, but for years new perils surrounded him and of these it is well to speak. They were due to the ambitious Earl Skule, who made plot after plot against the king's life, and was forgiven again and again by the noble-minded monarch. King Haakon's friends sought to put an end to this secret plotting by arranging a marriage between the young monarch and Earl Skule's still younger daughter Margaret. But this did not check him in his plots, and he finally set sail for Denmark to try and get aid from King Valdemar. He was ready to agree if the kingdom were won to reign as a vassal of the Danish king; but when he got there no such king was to be found. He had been captured in battle five days before, and was now with his son in a prison at Mecklenburg. The disappointed plotter had to sail home and pretend to be the king's friend as before. For years Skule's plots went on. He took the field against a new horde of rebels called the Ribbungs, but he took care never to press them too closely, and they long gave the king trouble. For more than twenty years Skule thus continued to plot and plan, the king discovering his schemes and pardoning him more than once, but nothing could cure him of his ambitious dream. In the end, when he was nearly fifty years old, he succeeded in having himself proclaimed king and in sending out bands of warriors who killed many faithful friends of King Haakon. He tried to conceal his purpose until he had gathered a large force, but one man escaped the vigilance of his guards and brought word of the treachery to Haakon. The latter, seeing that he must check this rebellion if he wished to sit safely on his throne, at once took to his fleet, sailed southward with the utmost speed, and rowed, under cover of a fog, up the Folden fiord to Oslo, where the rebel was. He had been carousing with his followers the night before and the wassailers were roused from their drunken sleep by the war-horns and ran out to see the king's ships driving in towards the piers. The rebels were quickly scattered, but Skule escaped, and at length was traced to the woods, where he was wandering with a few friends. The friars of a monastery took pity on them and hid them in a tower, disguised with monkish cowls. Despite their disguise they were traced to their hiding place, and when the friars refused to give them up the pursuers set fire to the tower. Driven out by the smoke and heat, Skule stepped from the gate, holding his shield above his head and saying: "Strike me not in the face; for it is not right to treat warriors thus." In a minute more he lay dead, slain by Birchleg swords. The next act in King Haakon's reign was to have himself crowned king, and thus to rid himself of the blot on his claim to the throne. After some negotiations with the Pope, a cardinal was sent from Rome, the ceremony being performed with much pomp and ceremony, and followed with the most magnificent feasts and festivities Norway had ever seen. From this time on King Haakon ruled as a wise, noble and powerful monarch, making his strength felt by his great fleet and setting Norway high among the nations of the north. He died at length in 1263, loved by his people and respected by all outside his realm. _KING VALDEMAR I. AND BISHOP ABSOLON._ The most brilliant period in the history of Denmark was that of the reigns of the Valdemars, and especially of Valdemar I. and his sons, whose names and memories are still cherished in that kingdom, the Danes regarding them as the greatest and best monarchs they ever had. There were wretched times in Denmark before 1157, when Valdemar came to the throne, and his early years were passed in the midst of civil wars and all kinds of sorrows and troubles. When the new king was crowned and began the business of governing, he found little to govern with. There were no money, no soldiers, no trade, no order in the kingdom, everything being at so low an ebb that he found it necessary, as some writers state, to secure support from Germany by recognizing the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa as his suzerain and doing homage to him as a vassal in 1162. But this ceremony did not entail upon him any of the usual duties of a vassal, and was more of an ordinary alliance than a formal act of submission. Yet poor as was the state of Denmark when Valdemar came to it as king, when he died he left it a flourishing, busy and peaceful country, to which he had added great tracts of land on the pagan shores of the Baltic, whose people he forced to give up their heathen practices. During his reign Valdemar made as many as twenty expeditions against these piratical peoples, gradually subduing them. At first, indeed, he showed very little courage, and found so many reasons for turning back before meeting the foe, that the sailors looked upon him as a coward, and once he overheard one of them say with a laugh, that the king was "a knight who wore his spurs upon his toes, only to help him to run away the faster." This made him very angry, but on speaking of it to his foster-brother, Axel Hvide,--afterwards Bishop Absolon,--he found that the feeling that he lacked the courage of a warrior was general. This contempt made him so ashamed that from that time on he faced danger bravely and was never again known to turn back from any risk. Though Axel became a bishop, he had begun life as a soldier and was throughout life bold and daring, a man who loved nothing better than to command a ship or to lead his men in an assault against some fierce band of sea robbers. From his castle Axelborg, on the site of the later city of Copenhagen, he kept a keen lookout for these pirates and sought manfully to put an end to their plundering raids. The war against the Baltic heathens continued until 1168, when it ended in the capture of the town of Arcona, on the island of Rygen, and the destruction of the great temple of the Slavic god Svanteveit, whose monstrous four-headed image was torn down from its pedestal and burned in the presence of its dismayed worshippers. The taking of this temple is an event of much interest, for it was due to the shrewdness of a young Danish soldier, who circumvented the heathens by a clever stratagem. While the army lay encamped on the island beach, below the town of Arcona, this man noticed that the high cliffs on which the temple was built were honeycombed by many deep holes, which could not be seen from the ramparts above, but were quite visible from the beach below. One day it occurred to him that by making use of these holes he could roast the pagan worshippers out of their nests, and he arranged with some of his fellows to carry out his plan. Gathering such dry straw and small sticks as they could collect, the soldiers pretended to be playing at a game of pitch and toss, which if seen by the sentinels on the ramparts above would not seem suspicious to them. In this way they caused much of the straw and sticks to lodge in the holes in the steep cliff. Then, by using spears and stones for a ladder, one of them climbed for a distance up the steep rock wall and set fire to some of the inflammable rubbish in the holes. The effect was stupendous. The flames spread from hole to hole, creeping up the face of the rock until the wooden spikes and palings at its summit were in a blaze. This took place unseen by the pagans, who first took the alarm when they saw flames circling round the great mast from which floated the banner of their god. Before they could take any steps to extinguish the flames, and while they stood in a panic of apprehension, the Danes, headed by Bishop Absolon, rushed to the assault and succeeded in taking the town. There was nothing left for them but to accept baptism, on which their lives depended, and the worthy bishop and his monks were kept busy at this work for the next two days and nights, the bishop desisting only when, half blind from want of sleep, he dropped down before the altar that had been set up beside the fonts, where the converts were received and signed with the cross. The work of baptism done, King Valdemar caused the huge wooden idol of the god to be dragged amid martial music to the open plain beyond the town, where the army servants chopped it up into firewood. In this work the new converts could not be induced to take part, for, Christians as yet only in name, they feared some dread revenge from the great Svanteveit, such as lightning from heaven to destroy the Danes. The Christians of that age were quite as superstitious, for they declared that when the image was being carried out of the temple gates, a horrible monster, spitting fire and brimstone, burst from the roof and leaped with howls of wrath into the sea below, which opened to receive it, and closed over its head with billows of smoke and flame. Valdemar died in 1182, after making such friends of his people and doing so much for them, that when the funeral procession, headed by Bishop Absolon, drew near the church of Ringsted, where the burial was to take place, it was met by a throng of peasants, weeping and lamenting, who begged the privilege of carrying the body of their beloved king to his last resting place. When the bishop began to read the service for the dead his voice failed him and he wept and trembled so much that he had to be held up by some of the assistant monks. After all was over the people went away in deep grief, saying that Denmark's shield and the pagans' scourge had been taken from them and that the country would soon be overrun again by the heathen Wends. But Absolon kept a firm hand upon the reins of state, and when the young Prince Knud, Valdemar's son, was proclaimed king at the age of twenty everything was in order. Knud proved as good and gallant as his father, holding Denmark bravely against all foes, and when the Emperor Barbarossa sent to him to appear before the imperial court at Ratisbon and do homage for his crown, he returned a defiant answer. The position of Denmark had greatly changed since Valdemar had obeyed such a summons, and when the envoy of the emperor brought him the imperial command, he sent back the following proud reply: "Tell your master that I am as much monarch in my own realm as the kaiser is in his, and if he has a fancy for giving away my throne, he had better first find the prince bold enough to come and take it from me." This ended all question of the vassalage of Denmark, but the emperor never forgot nor forgave the insult and took every opportunity in after years to stir up strife against Denmark. In 1184 he incited the pagan princes of Pomerania to invade the Danish islands with a fleet of five hundred ships. But they had old Bishop Absolon to deal with, and they were so utterly routed that when the fog, which had enabled the Danes to approach them unseen, cleared away, only thirty-five of their ships were able to keep the sea. This victory made Knud ruler over all Pomerania and part of the kingdom later known as Prussia, and he added to his title that of "King of the Wends and other Slavs." He went on adding to his home kingdom until the dominion of Denmark grew very wide. That is all we need say about King Knud, but it must be said of Bishop Absolon that he was a wise patron of knightly arts and historical learning and encouraged the great scholar Saxo Grammaticus to write his famous "History of Denmark," in which were gathered all the old Danish tales that could be learned from the skalds and poets and found in the monasteries of the age. Absolon, who had loved and cared for the princes Knud and Valdemar since their childhood, died in the year 1201 and King Knud followed him a few years later, leaving the throne to his brother Valdemar. _THE FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES OF VALDEMAR II._ Prosperous and glorious was the kingdom of Denmark under Valdemar II. in the early part of his reign, though misery was his lot during many years of his life. By his victories he won the title of "Sejr," or "the conqueror," and his skill and goodness as a ruler won him the love of his people, while the Danes of to-day look upon him as one of the best and noblest of their kings. He was long regarded by them as the perfect model of a noble knight and royal hero, and his first queen, Margrete of Bohemia, was called by the people "Dagmar," or "Day's Maiden," from their admiration of her gentleness and beauty. In many of their national songs she is represented as a fair, fragile, golden-haired princess, mild and pure as a saint, the only sin she could think of to confess on her death-bed being that she had put on her best dress and plaited her hair with bright ribbons before going to mass. While the Danes thus regard the memory of Queen Dagmar, they have no words too bad to use in speaking of Valdemar's second queen, the black-haired Berangaria, whose name became with them a by-word for a vile woman. But Valdemar's tale is largely one of sorrow and suffering and rarely has monarch had to bear so cruel a fate as was his during many unhappy years of his life. Valdemar was the son of Valdemar I., and brother of King Knud, for whom as a prince he fought bravely, putting down the Sleswick rebels, who had been stirred to rebellion by the German emperor, and conquering his enemy, Count Adolf of Holstein. Succeeding his brother Knud in 1202, his first exploit was the conquest of Pomerania, which Knud had won before him. This was now added to the Danish dominions, and in 1217 the German emperor of that date granted to him and the future kings of Denmark all the territories north of the Elbe and the Elde. Thus Valdemar was made master of a great part of northern Germany and ruled over a wider dominion to the south than any Danish king before or after. His success in the south led him to attempt the conquest of the north, and armies were sent to Norway and Sweden with the hope of winning these kingdoms for the Danish crown. In this effort he failed, but in 1219 his zeal for the Church and love of adventure led him to undertake a great expedition, a crusade against the heathens of Esthonia. Gathering an army of sixty thousand men and a fleet of fourteen hundred ships, a mighty force even for the small craft of that day, he quickly made himself master of that stronghold of paganism, great numbers of the people consenting to be baptized. But here he found a new and unexpected enemy and had to fight fiercely for the privilege of carrying the cross of Christ to the heathen Esthonians. His new enemies were the Knights of the Sword, of Livonia, who declared that the duty of converting the pagans in that region belonged to them, and that no other Christians had the right to interfere. And from this ensued a war in which fierce battles were fought and much blood was shed, for the purpose of deciding who should have the privilege of converting the heathen. It is doubtful if ever before or since a war has been fought for such a purpose, and the heathens themselves must have looked on with grim satisfaction to see their enemies cutting each other's throats to settle the question as to who had the best right to baptize them. In one of the battles with the heathens, while Bishop Andreas, the successor to Bishop Absolon, was praying on a high hill with uplifted hands for victory, there suddenly fell down from heaven the Danneborg, the national standard of Denmark. At least, that is what legend tells us of its appearance. It is held to be much more probable that this banner, bearing a white cross on a blood-red field, was sent by the Pope to Valdemar as a token of his favor and support, and that its sudden appearance, when the Danes were beginning to waver before the pagan assaults, gave them the spirit that led to victory. The result, in those days of superstition, naturally gave rise to the legend. When Valdemar returned a victor from Esthonia, having beaten alike the pagans and the Livonian knights, and bearing with him the victorious Danneborg, he was at the height of his glory, and none dreamed of the terrible disaster that awaited him. He had made enemies among the German princes, and they conspired against him, but they were forced to submit to his rule. Some of those whose lands he had seized did not hesitate to express openly their hatred for him; but others, while secretly plotting against him, pretended to be his friends, shared in his wars and his courtly ceremonies, and were glad to accept favors from his hands. One of those who hated him most bitterly, yet who seemed most attached to him, was the Count-Duke of Schwerin, a man who, alike from his dark complexion and his evil disposition, was known in his own country as "Black Henry." The king had often been warned to beware of this man, but, frank and open by nature and slow to suspect guile, he disregarded these warnings and went on treating him as a trusty friend. This enabled Count Henry to make himself familiar with Valdemar's habits and mode of life. He secretly aided certain traitors who cherished evil designs against the king; but when he found that all these plots failed he devised one of his own which the king's trust in him aided him in carrying out. In the spring of the year 1233 Valdemar invited his seeming friend to a two days' hunt which he proposed to enjoy in the woods of Lyö, but the count sent word that he regretted his inability to join him, as he had been hurt by a fall and could not leave his bed. His bed just then was his horse's saddle. The opportunity which he awaited had come, and he spent the night scouring the country in search of aid for the plot he had in view, which was no less than to seize and hold prisoner his trusting royal friend. He knew the island well, and when his spies told him that the king and his son Valdemar had landed at Lyö with a small following of huntsmen and servants, Black Henry prepared to carry out his plot. The king's first day's hunt was a hard one and he and his son slept soundly that night in the rude hut that had been put up for their use. No one thought of any need of guarding it and the few attendants of the king were scattered about, sleeping under the shelter of rocks and trees. Late that night Count Henry and his men landed and made their way silently and cautiously through the tired sleepers to the royal hut, which he well knew where to find. Quietly entering, they deftly gagged the king and prince before they could awake, and before either of them could raise a hand in resistance sacks of wool and straw were drawn over their heads, so closely as nearly to choke them, and strong bonds were tied round their legs and arms. Thus thoroughly disabled, the strong king and his youthful son were carried through the midst of their own people to the strand and laid helplessly in the bottom of the waiting boat, which was rowed away with muffled oars, gliding across the narrow sound to the shore of Fyen. Here waited a fast-sailing yacht to which the captives were transferred, sail being set before a favoring wind for the German coast. The next morning, when the king's attendants were searching for the missing king, he and his son, still bound and gagged, were landed on a lonely part of the sea-shore, placed on awaiting horses, and tightly secured to the saddles, after which they were hurried on at full gallop, stopping only at intervals to change the armed escort, until the castle of Danneberg, in Hanover, was reached. This castle had been loaned by its owner to Count Henry, he having no stronghold of his own deemed secure enough to hold such important captives. So roughly had they been treated that when the bonds were removed from Prince Valdemar, who resembled his mother Dagmar alike in his beauty and her feebleness, the blood flowed from every part of his body. Yet, without regard to his youth and sufferings, the cruel captor shut up him and his royal father in a cold and dark dungeon, where they were left without a change of clothing and fed on the poorest and coarsest food. This, many might say, was a just retribution on King Valdemar, for years before, when as a prince he had put down the rebellion in Sleswick, he had seized its chief leader, his namesake Bishop Valdemar, and kept him for many years in chains and close confinement in the dungeon of Söborg Castle, and had later subjected Count Adolf of Holstein to the same fate. Bishop Valdemar had been released after fourteen years' imprisonment at the entreaty of Queen Dagmar, and was ever after one of the most bitter enemies of the Danish king. But though a bishop and count might be thus held captive, it is difficult to conceive of a powerful monarch being kept prisoner by a minor noble for three long years, despite all that could be done for his release. Nothing could give a clearer idea of the lawless state of those times. King Valdemar and his son lay wearing the bonds of felons and suffering from cold and hunger while the emperor and the Pope sought in vain for their release, threatening Black Henry with all the penalties decreed by empire and church for those who raised their hands against a prince. The shrewd captor readily promised all that was asked of him. He would release his captives without delay. Yet he had no intention to keep his word, for he knew that Rome and Ratisbon were too far from Danneberg to give him serious cause for alarm, especially as the other nobles of northern Germany were prepared to help him in keeping their common enemy in prison. As for Denmark itself, the people were infuriated and eagerly demanded to be led to the rescue of their beloved king; yet Valdemar's sons were still young, all the kinsmen of the royal family had been banished or were dead, and there was no one with the power and right to take control of public affairs. For some time, indeed, the fate of the king remained unknown to the people. Valdemar's nephew Albert, Count of Orlamunde, was on his way to Rome when the news of the king's capture reached him. He immediately turned back, collected an army, and gave battle to the German princes who were helping Count Henry to defend Danneberg. But his hasty levies were defeated and he taken prisoner, to be thrown into the same dungeon as the royal captive. Finally King Valdemar, seeing no other hope of release, agreed to the terms offered by Black Henry, which were that he should pay a ransom of 45,000 silver marks, give him all the jewels of the late Queen Berangaria not already bestowed on churches and monasteries, and send him a hundred men-at-arms, with horses and arms for their use. For assurance of this he was to send his three younger sons to Danneberg to be kept in prison with Count Albert until the money was paid. These terms agreed to, the king and prince were set free. Valdemar at once hastened to Denmark, which he found in a fearful state from its having been three years without a head. Humbled and crushed in spirit, finding all his dominions in Germany set free from their allegiance and all the kingdoms won by his valor lost to Denmark, he scarcely knew what steps to take. The ransom demanded he was unable to pay and he grieved at the thought of subjecting his young sons to the fate from which he had escaped. In his misery he wrote to the Pope, asking to be released from the oath which had been exacted from him to let his children go into captivity. The Pope, full of pity for him, sent a bishop to Count Henry, telling him that if he tried to enforce the demand exacted under durance from the king of Denmark, he should be deprived of the services of religion and be heavily fined by the papal power for his cruel and unrighteous act. Thus called to account for his treachery and wickedness, Black Henry was forced to forego the final cruel exaction of his traitor soul. Misfortune, however, pursued Valdemar. When in 1227 the peasants of Ditmarsh refused to pay the tribute they had long paid the Danish crown, the insult to his weakness was more than the king could endure. He marched an army into their lands, but only to find himself defeated and four thousand of his men killed by the rebels, who were strongly aided by the German princes of Holstein, and especially by Count Adolf, his former captive. He himself was wounded in the eye by an arrow which struck him to the ground, and would have been captured a second time but for the aid of a friendly German knight. This foeman had been formerly in Valdemar's service, and when he saw his old royal master helpless and bleeding, he lifted him to his saddle and carried him to Kiel, where his wounds were healed, means being then found to send him back to his kingdom. Valdemar remained on the throne for fourteen years afterwards, but these were years of peace. War no longer had charms for him and he devoted himself to the duties of government and to preparing codes of law for the provinces of his kingdom. In that age there were no general laws for the whole country. The laws of Valdemar continued in force for four hundred and fifty years, and in 1687, when Christian V. framed a new code of laws, some of the old ones of Valdemar were retained. In them the old custom of the ordeal was set aside, being replaced by the system of the jury, one form of which consisted of "eight good men and true" chosen by the king, and another of twelve men chosen by the people. The laws were lenient, for most crimes could be atoned for by money or other fines. Three days after the last of these codes was approved Valdemar died, at the age of seventy-one, leaving three sons all of whom in turn ruled after him. His son Valdemar, who shared his imprisonment, had died long before. _BIRGER JARL AND THE CONQUEST OF FINLAND._ Birger Jarl, who became one of the great men of Sweden about 1250, rose to such importance in the early history of that kingdom that one cannot pass him by without saying something about his career. Sweden was then a Christian kingdom and had been for many years, for the religion of Christ had been preached there, as the sagas tell, four centuries earlier. But heathenism prevailed until long afterwards, and it was not until the days of King Stenkil, who came to the throne in 1061, that an earnest effort was made to introduce the Christian worship. Finally paganism completely died out, and when Birger came to the throne Sweden had long been a Christian realm. But paganism still had a stronghold in Finland, and when Bishop Thomas, a zealous churchman, of English birth, proclaimed that the Christians should have no intercourse with the pagans in Finland or even sell them food, the Finlanders became so incensed that they invaded the Christian country and put the people to death with frightful tortures. Their cruelties created terror everywhere and Bishop Thomas fled to Gothland where, crazed with horror at the result of his proclamation, he soon died. King Erik was then on the throne of Sweden, but Birger, the son of a great earl of Gothland, became a famous warrior, and as the king had no sons he made Birger a jarl, or earl, and chose him as his heir. One of the exploits by which Birger had won fame was the following. The town of Lübeck, in North Germany, was closely besieged by the king of Denmark, who had cut it off from the sea by stretching strong iron chains across the river Trave, on which the town is situated. He thus hoped to starve the people into surrender, and would have done so had not Birger come to their rescue. He had the keels of some large ships plated with iron, loaded them with provisions, and sailed up the river towards the beleaguered city. Hoisting all sail before a strong wind, he steered squarely on to the great chains, and struck them with so mighty a force that they snapped asunder and the ships reached the town with their supplies, whereupon the Danish king abandoned the siege. This story is of interest, as these are the first iron-plated ships spoken of in history. By this and other exploits Birger grew in esteem, and when the Finns began their terrible work in the north he and the king summoned the people to arms, and the old warlike spirit, which had long been at rest, was reawakened in the hearts of the Swedes. The Pope at Rome had proclaimed a crusade against the Finns, promising the same privileges to all who took part in it as were enjoyed by those then taking part in the crusades to the Holy Land, and on all sides the people grew eager to engage in this sacred war. Then there was brushing and furbishing on all sides; ancestral swords, which had long hung rusting on the walls, were taken down and sharpened anew; helmets and cuirasses were burnished until they shone like silver or gold; tight-closed purses were opened by those who wished to aid the cause of Christ; and old ships were made ready for the waves and new ones launched. Rosy lips were kissed by lovers who would never kiss them again, and loud was the weeping of the maidens and mothers who saw those they loved setting out for the war, but they consoled themselves as best they could by the thought that it was all for the glory of God. Men of Sweden had gone to the crusades in Palestine, but here was a crusade of their own at home, and all were eager to take part in it. A great fleet was got together and set sail under the command of Birger Jarl. Its course lay up the Gulf of Bothnia, and where it came to land Birger erected a great wooden cross as a sign that he had come for the spread of the Christian faith. From this the place was called Korsholm. The heathen Finns knew of his coming and had gathered in great numbers to defend their country against its invaders, but nothing could stay the fury of the crusaders, who were incensed with the cruelties these barbarians had committed, and drove them back in dismay wherever they met them, Birger Jarl showing the greatest skill as a leader. He made public a law that all who became Christians should be protected in life and property, and within two years he succeeded in introducing Christianity into that country--perhaps more in appearance than reality. At any rate he built forts, and settled a colony of Swedes in East Bothnia, and thus did much towards making Finland a province of Sweden. While this was going on King Erik the Lame died (in 1250). As he left no heir there were many pretenders to the crown. The fact that Birger had been named by the king two years before was lost sight of, and it looked as if there would be civil war between the many claimants. To prevent any such result a powerful noble named Iwar hastily summoned an assembly and through his influence Valdemar, Birger Jarl's son, was chosen as king. This was all done so quickly that it was completed in fourteen days after Erik's death. When the news of this hasty action reached Birger in Finland he was very angry, and hastened home with all speed, bringing with him the greater part of his army. He was highly displeased that he had not himself been named king, as had been promised, instead of a boy, even if the boy was his son. Calling together those who had made the choice of Valdemar, he hotly asked them: "Who among you was so bold as to order an election during my absence, though you knew that King Erik named me Jarl and chose me for his heir? And why did you choose a child for your king?" Iwar answered that it was he that ordered the election and said: [Illustration: From stereograph, copyright by Underwood and Underwood, N.Y. VILLAGE LIFE AND HOMES IN SWEDEN.] "Though you are indeed most worthy to wear the crown, you are advanced in years and cannot live to rule us as long as your son." This answer brought another angry outbreak from Birger and Iwar again said: "If you do not like this, do with your son what you please. There is no fear but we shall be able to find another king." For a time Birger sat in moody silence, and then asked: "Who then would you take for your king?" "I also can shake out a king from under my cloak," was Iwar's haughty answer. This threw the Jarl into a dilemma. The faces of the people present showed their approval of what Iwar had said, and at length, fearing that if he resisted their action the crown might be lost both to himself and his son, he gave in to their decision. To give dignity to the occasion, he took steps to have his son crowned with much magnificence, and shortly after sent his daughter Rikissa with great pomp and a rich dower to the frontier of Norway, where she was met by the king of that country and was married with stately ceremony to his son. The next year Birger's mother died, and as there was a prophecy that her family would remain in power as long as her head was up, he had her buried upright, being walled up in a pillar in Bjelbo Church so that her head should never droop. Birger Jarl belonged to a great family called the Folkungers, who long held all the power in Sweden, and many of whom had been aspirants for the throne. These were so angry at being deprived of what they had hoped for that they determined to take the throne by force, and their leaders went to Denmark and Germany, where they collected a large army. When they landed in Sweden many of the people of that country joined them, and though Birger had also a large force he began to fear the result. He therefore sent his chancellor, Bishop Kol, to ask for a personal interview with the leaders of the opposite force, with solemn promises of safety. Yielding to the bishop's persuasions, the chiefs accompanied him across the river that separated the two armies. Then Birger did a dastardly act. No sooner had the chiefs come within his power than he had them seized and beheaded on the spot as rebels. Thus fell a number of the leading men of Sweden, and, the leaders fallen, Birger attacked and easily dispersed their army, sparing the Swedes, but cutting to pieces all the Germans that could be overtaken. Thus he added greatly to the power of his family, but by an act of treachery and perjury for which Archbishop Lars laid upon him a heavy penance. As for Bishop Kol, who had been made the innocent agent in this shameful deed, he never read mass again, and finally resigned his office and left his country, journeying as a pilgrim to the Holy Land in expiation for his involuntary crime. He never found peace and rest until he found them in the grave. Birger Jarl by these means rose to be the mightiest man in the north. His son was king of Norway, his daughter was queen of Sweden, and his daughter-in-law was a princess of Denmark, for when Valdemar became twenty years of age he sought and won for his bride the beautiful Danish Princess Sophia. The marriage was one of great pomp, a great hall being built for the occasion, where the courtiers appeared in new-fashioned dresses of rich stuffs, and there were plenty of banquets, games, dances, and even tilts and tournaments, all conducted according to the noblest custom of the times. Birger himself had a queen for his wife, having married the dowager Queen Mechthild of Denmark, and to increase his importance he assumed the title of duke, never before borne in Sweden. But many of the peasants called him king, since he governed the kingdom and was married to a queen. But meanwhile poor Bishop Kol was dying of grief for the deed of shame into which this proud lord had led him. Shall we here tell an interesting and romantic story about one of Birger's brothers? He was a judge in East Gothland, his name being Bengt, and had fallen deeply in love with a damsel named Sigrid, whose family was not rich nor great, though she herself was so beautiful that she was widely known as Sigrid the Fair. Duke Birger was not pleased with the idea of such a match, thinking the girl, though of noble birth, of far too lowly rank to mate with a member of his family. But in such things Judge Bengt had a will of his own and he married Sigrid without Birger's consent. This so displeased the proud jarl that he sent Bengt a cloak, half of which was made of gold brocade and the other of coarse and common baize. This was in token of the difference in rank of the families of Bengt and Sigrid and a significant hint that he should separate from his new wife. But Bengt was equal to the situation. He covered the coarse half of the cloak with gold, pearls and precious stones so as to make it more valuable than the other, and this he sent to his brother with no other answer. This only irritated Birger the more, and he sent back the message, "that he would speak with his brother face to face about this affair," adding some harsh words which were also repeated to Bengt. Then, soon after this, the angry jarl saddled his horse and rode with a large company to Ulfasa, where Bengt lived. When the judge saw the jarl's train near at hand he fled from his house to the woods, leaving his wife, whom he had carefully instructed how to act, to meet his irritated brother. When the angry jarl rode into the court, fully prepared to call his erring brother severely to account, he was surprised to see the fairest woman he had ever beheld come forward to meet him. She was adorned with the most costly robes and precious ornaments she could command and everything had been done to enhance the charm of her beauty. Stepping forth before the jarl, who gazed at her with astonishment, she bowed low and welcomed him with all honor and courtesy. So astonished was Birger with the charming vision that he sprang from his horse and seized Sigrid in his arms, saying, "Had my brother not done this I should have done it myself." Leading him to the house, she entertained him with the best cheer, and Bengt being sent for to the wood, the two brothers were fully reconciled. Such an effect have the charms of a fair woman over the pride and passion of men. A few words must serve to finish the story of Birger Jarl. The greatest and most valuable service of his reign lay in the new laws he gave the country and his doing away with many of the old barbarian customs to replace them with the customs of civilization. Before this time it was the common practice for the relatives of a murdered man to avenge him on the family of the murderer, thus giving rise to long and bloody feuds. This custom Birger forbade, ordering every one to seek redress for injury at the courts of justice. He also passed four Laws of Peace, viz.: for the Peace of the Church, of Women, of House, and of Assize. Every one was forbidden to assault another in the church or the churchyard or on the way to or from church. Whoever did so was declared outlawed, and if the assailed man killed his assailant he was held free from blame or revenge. This was the Peace of the Church. Another ancient custom was to carry away a desired bride by force, without her consent or that of her parents, a fight often arising in which the bride's father and brothers were killed. Or on the way of an affianced pair to church the same outrage might take place, the bridegroom being often killed. This, too, was forbidden under penalty of outlawry, the new law being that of Peace for Women. To promote general security he forbade, under the same penalty, the attacking of any man, his wife, children, or servants, within his house or on his property. This was the Law of Home-peace or House-peace. All violence was in like manner forbidden to any one going to or attending an assembly of the people, this being the Peace of Assize. Birger Jarl improved the laws in many other ways and made Sweden a far more civilized country than it had been before his time. Another of his useful acts was the founding of the city of Stockholm, which before his day was a mere village on an island, but which he made a stronghold and city, inviting that commerce to which its situation so excellently adapted it. This was one of the most important acts of Birger Jarl, who died soon afterwards, not living to see the rapid growth in importance of his new city. _THE FIRST WAR BETWEEN SWEDEN AND RUSSIA._ In the last tale it was told how Birger Jarl subdued the Finns and brought then to give up their heathen practices and accept Christianity. But this refers only to the section of Finland bordering on the Baltic Sea. Farther east the Finns were pagans still, worshipping idols and living a savage life in their vast forests, and bitterly hating the Christians. At times they would come in hordes out of their wild woodlands and attack the settled people, killing them in the most cruel way their distorted fancies could contrive. They had two chief deities, Jumal, the great good one, and Perkel, the great evil one, and these were supposed to meet in fierce encounters in which they would throw each other over high mountains. The people kept wooden images of these deities in their huts, and had also open places in the forest, with a stone on the centre of each, on which they made sacrifices to their divinities. When a Karelian, as these people were called, came to within a fixed distance of the sacrificial stone, he took off his cap and crawled up to it silently, making sacrifices there of the bones and horns of elk and reindeer. In case of danger they would sacrifice goats, cats and cocks, sprinkling their idols with the blood of these animals. At that time, shortly before the year 1300, Birger, heir to the throne of Sweden, was very young, and the country was under the rule of Torkel Knutson, regent of the kingdom and a wise and energetic man. Exasperated by the cruelties committed by the Karelians on the Christians, he determined to put a stop to them and sailed to Finland with a strong army. Against this force the pagan foresters could not make head and they were soon obliged to submit. A fort with a strong garrison was built at Wiborg to keep them in order, and the churchmen who went with the expedition strove to convert them. It is not with these savage woodsmen, however, that we are concerned, but with the Russians, with which people the Swedes now first came into warlike contact. The forest Russians of that day were as savage as the Finns and as hard to deal with. They came to the help of the Karelians in this war, and to punish them the regent took Castle Kexholm, their chief stronghold, and left in it a garrison under Sigge Lake. It was this that brought on the first war between the Swedes and the Russians, some of the events of which are so interesting that it is worth telling about. After the Swedes had held Kexholm for some time their food supply ran very low, and as no aid came from home many of them wished to abandon the fort. This Sigge Lake would not listen to. He had been left there to hold the place and did not intend to give it up. But only the bravest of his men remained with him, the others leaving under pretext of sending food and reinforcements from home. Neither men nor supplies arrived and the Russians, learning of the state of affairs, gathered in multitudes around the fort, laying close siege to it. In the end, after a brave resistance lasting many days, food became so scarce that the Swedes dared not stay any longer and they determined to try and cut their way through the besiegers. The gates were thrown open and Sigge rushed out at the head of his company, with such force and fury that for a time it seemed as if they would succeed. But they were weakened by semi-starvation and in the end the swarming Russians killed them all but two, who alone made their escape and carried the news of the disaster back to Sweden. The regent was greatly distressed at the loss of the brave men whom he had left so long without support. It was too late to save their lives but he felt it his duty to avenge them. To do so he set sail with another army, making his way up the river Neva, the stream on which the city of St. Petersburg was afterwards built. No enemy was seen and the regent landed on an island in the river, where he built a strong fort which he named Landscrona, furnishing it plentifully with provisions. The Russians, when they found what was being done, were infuriated. A great multitude of them, thirty thousand in number, gathered on the Neva and made a vigorous effort to burn the Swedish fleet, sending rafts down the stream on which were great heaps of blazing wood. But the regent caught these by iron chains which he stretched across the stream, holding the fire-floats until they burned out. This effort failing, the Russians made a fierce attack on the fortress, with such savage violence that though many of them fell the others would not give up the assault. But so strong and so well defended was the place that they failed in this also, and in the end were obliged to retreat, leaving great numbers of dead behind them. Then a young and brave knight in the garrison, named Matts Kettilmundson, made a sortie against the Russians and drove them back in panic flight, many more of them being killed. Shortly after this a party of Russian cavalry, one thousand strong, appeared in the edge of a wood, not far from the fort, their armor gleaming brightly in the sunlight. While the garrison were looking at them from the walls, the brave knight Matts Kettilmundson asked permission of the regent to ride out against them, saying that "he would venture a brush with the bravest among them." The regent having consented, the daring fellow put on his armor and had his horse led through the gate. Leaping on it he rode out, and when he had passed the moat, turned back to his friends who lined the wall. "Strive to live happily," he said, "and do not be troubled about me, for it depends on God in heaven whether I shall return with a captive foe or fail to return at all." He then rode boldly on and sent an interpreter to the Russian lines, challenging the bravest of the Russians to fight with him for life, goods and freedom. It must be borne in mind that those were the days of chivalry and knight-errantry, when such adventures and challenges were common things and good faith was kept with those who made them. So no force or treachery was attempted against the daring knight, although we should hardly have looked for knightly deeds and chivalrous ways in the Russia of that day. However, as the story goes on to say, the Russian king appealed in vain for a knight to try conclusions with the Swedish champion. Not a man in the troop was ready to make the venture, and Sir Matts sat his horse there all day long waiting in vain for an antagonist. As evening approached he rode back to the fortress, where every one congratulated and praised him for his courage. The next morning the Russians had disappeared. Soon after this, the army growing weary and longing for home, the regent set sail down stream, leaving three hundred men and abundant supplies in the fort, under a knight named Swen. But as contrary winds detained the fleet Sir Matts landed with a strong party of horsemen and made long raids into the country, gathering much booty, with which he returned to the ships. Then the army continued its way home, where it was received with much joy. But the garrison in Landscrona did not find their lot much better than had the former garrison in Kexholm. The new walls were damp and the advancing summer brought hot weather, so that their provisions began to spoil. As a consequence scurvy and other diseases broke out and many of the men died. Some of those who remained wished to send home for help, but others objected to this, saying that "they preferred waiting for help from heaven and did not wish to trouble the regent, who had enough to attend to at home." When the Russians gathered around the fort to attack it, as they soon did, only twenty men in the garrison were fit to bear arms in defence. These could not properly guard the walls and the Russians steadily advanced, all losses being made up from their great numbers, until in no great time the walls were taken. The Swedes retired to their houses, continuing to fight, but as the Russians set fire to these, the governor and some others threw down their arms, offering to surrender. They were at once cut down by the assailants. The few who remained alive now took refuge in a stone cellar, where they defended themselves manfully; and refused to submit until the enemy had offered them their lives. Then they yielded and were carried as captives into the country, the fortress being razed to the ground. Thus, in the year 1300, ended the first war between Russia and Sweden. The Swedes fought well and died nobly, but they lost their lives through the neglect of their countrymen and rulers. _THE CRIME AND PUNISHMENT OF KING BIRGER._ When the events narrated in the last tale took place, there were three young princes in the kingdom, Birger, Erik and Valdemar, Torkel, the regent, ruling in their name. But when the princes grew up Birger, the oldest, was crowned king, the other two becoming dukes. But very early in Birger's reign there arose many complaints about the conduct of his brothers, who showed themselves haughty and insubordinate. The ill-blood in time grew to such an extent that the king dismissed his brothers from his presence, giving them until sunset to leave. "After that," he said, "if you shall fall into my hands, it will go ill with you." This gave rise to bitter enmity and the two dukes gave King Birger no end of trouble, there being war between them three times in succession, bringing the country into a miserable state. During the second war King Birger was taken prisoner by his brothers, but he was afterwards set free under the promise that he would no more disturb Sweden, a third part of which was left under his rule. He did not intend to keep his word, but was no sooner set free than he sought aid from his brother-in-law, the king of Denmark, and invaded the kingdom with a Danish army. This was the third war above spoken of. It ended without the king gaining anything but the third of the kingdom, which had already been promised to him. After each of these wars the brothers became reconciled, and lived for a time peacefully in their dominions, but they laid such heavy taxes on the people to support their extravagant courts that great misery prevailed. After the last outbreak all remained quiet for nearly ten years, and the dukes thought that their brother was friendly towards them, not dreaming that his heart was full of hate and treachery. In 1317, when Duke Valdemar made a journey to Stockholm, which was in his section of the kingdom, he stopped at Nyköping to visit his brother Birger, whom he had not seen for a long time. Birger met him with a great show of friendliness, making him welcome in every way. Queen Martha was equally kind, and Valdemar was highly pleased with these tokens of regard. Before he left the queen complained to him that it gave her great pain that Duke Erik avoided his brother, saying that God knew she loved him as much as if he were her own brother. After spending the night with them Valdemar rode away very well pleased. His men were equally pleased, for they had been well entertained. On leaving Stockholm he went to Erik's home in Westmoreland, who told him that he had just been invited to visit Birger's court, and asked if he thought it safe to make such a visit. Valdemar said he had no doubt of it, telling of what a pleasant visit he had made. Erik, however, had doubts, being distrustful of the queen and Chancellor Brunke, whom he looked upon as his enemies. But in the end the brothers decided to accept the invitation and rode away towards Nyköping. When six miles distant they met a knight who advised them to go no farther, saying: "You will cause yourselves and your friends much sorrow if both of you trust yourselves in the king's hands at the same time." Valdemar indignantly replied to this that "there are too many who seek to breed disunion between the king and his brothers." The knight then rode off, saying no more, and the dukes rode into Swärta, where they proposed to spend the night. To their surprise no preparations had been made for them, but a knight met them and saluted them in the king's name, adding that he earnestly requested them not to repose until they reached Nyköping, as his longing to meet them was so great that he could not rest until they arrived. On receiving this warm request they rode on, reaching Nyköping in the evening. The king advanced from the castle gate to meet them, greeting them in an affectionate manner, and taking each of them by the hands as he led them into the castle. They found a rich feast prepared for them, at which neither mead, wine, nor fair words were wanting. At length Duke Valdemar grew suspicious and said to his brother that they were drinking too much wine. But this was soon forgotten and the feast went on, Queen Martha showing herself very gay and lively and every one being full of the spirit of enjoyment. It was late at night before the merrymaking ended and the dukes went to their rooms. The queen then said to their men, who had also been well taken care of: "Lodging has been prepared for you in the town, as there is not room enough for you in the castle." As they went out Chancellor Brunke stood at the gate, making sure that they had all gone, when he shut the castle gates behind them. Then he armed the servants and led them to the king. Birger, who seemed in some doubt, bade them to retire and turned to Sir Knut Johanson, asking if he would assist in making prisoners of the dukes. "I will not, my lord," said Sir Knut. "Whoever has counselled you to do this is leading you into a great treachery. What, would you deceive and murder your brothers who came here trusting in your good faith? The devil himself must be your tempter. Let who will be angry on this account, I will never help you in it." "Small care you have for my honor," said the king angrily. "Little honor can accrue to you from such an act," answered Sir Knut sturdily. "If you should carry out this design your honor will be less here-after." Two other knights warned the king against so treacherous a deed, but he was so displeased with their words that he ordered them to prison. Then he led his armed servants to the sleeping apartment of the dukes and broke open the door, the noise awakening the sleepers. Valdemar sprang up, and seeing armed men entering the room, he seized one of them and threw him down, calling on his brother for help. "There is no use in resisting, brother," said Erik, seeing the room filling with armed men. The king now rushed in and called out savagely: "Do you remember Hatuna? It will not be better for you here than it was for me there, for you shall have the same fate, though it has tarried so long." Hatuna was the place where the king had previously been taken prisoner by his brothers, in somewhat the same treacherous manner. But they had not treated him with the same shameful cruelty with which he now treated them. They were taken barefooted deep into the tower and fastened in a dungeon, with a great chain on their legs, while their servants in the town were taken prisoners and locked up in one ward to the number of twenty, all their possessions being divided among their captors. This being done, the king clapped his hands, saying: "The Holy Ghost bless my queen! Now I have all Sweden in my hand!" When he set out soon afterwards on an errand of conquest, he left his brothers in the charge of a Livonian knight, who had evidently been bidden to treat them harshly, for he removed them to the lowest dungeon and placed a beam upon their legs. They were fastened to the wall by thick iron round the throat and chains weighing one hundred and forty pounds were riveted on their wrists, the other end being fastened to the beam. When the chain was fastened upon Erik it was done with such violence that a piece of iron broke out, cutting him on the eye so that blood ran down his cheek. Their dungeon was at the bottom of the tower, where they lay on the bare rock, a pool of water lying between them. Their food was wretched, their clothing was wretched, and there was every indication that their wicked brother did not wish to have them leave that prison alive. But the cruel and treacherous king did not find it so easy to bring all Sweden under his rule. The news of his wicked act got abroad and spread through the land, exciting general horror and detestation. When he rode up to Stockholm to take possession he found it closed against him and the burghers made a sally against him, putting his forces to flight. It was the same way everywhere, the whole country rising against him. The wicked king now began to learn that the way of the transgressor is hard, and in his fury of disappointment he locked the door of the dungeon in which his brothers lay and threw the key into the stream, leaving them to die of starvation. But the poor victims were to be thoroughly avenged, for the people were implacable in their wrath, and in a short time had so environed the king that the fortresses of Nyköping and Stegeborg were alone left to him, and both of these were besieged. Nyköping was soon so severely pressed that the garrison brought up the dead bodies of the dukes and laid them under a dais outside the castle, saying to the besiegers: "Your siege will now answer no purpose, for the dukes are dead and King Birger is heir to all the kingdom." "No one can hope to win an inheritance by murder," they replied. "We now serve as our ruler, Lord Magnus, Duke Erik's son." The bodies of the murdered dukes were carried to Stockholm, where they were buried with much ceremony. But the siege of the castle was continued until the garrison was forced to surrender. On obtaining possession of it the enraged people razed it to the ground. Stegeborg, where Prince Magnus, King Birger's son, was in command, held out much longer. The king and queen, with Brunke, their confederate, were in Gothland, which province alone they held, and from which they sent a number of ships to Stegeborg with provisions and troops. These had no sooner appeared in the river Skares, however, than they were attacked and taken, leaving Prince Magnus as bad off as ever. When this news was brought to the king and queen they exclaimed in despair: "Where shall we turn now, since God has sent us such a misfortune?" Brunke, the cruel chancellor, volunteered to lead an expedition himself, saying that he would no more spare the dukes' people than they had spared the king's. Gathering some vessels, he had them strongly planked all around, and loading these with provisions and the remainder of the king's forces, he set out for Stegeborg. On entering the Skares the people attacked him with stones and other missiles, but he and his men protected themselves behind the planks. Seeing this, fire-rafts were sent off from the shore against the ships, and despite all that could be done to keep them off they drifted upon the vessels, setting three of them on fire, from which the flames spread to the others. Brunke and his men leaped overboard, hoping to escape by swimming, but they were all taken and Brunke and three of his chiefs sent to Stockholm, where they were soon afterwards beheaded. Stegeborg was now in a desperate state and was soon forced to surrender, on the condition that the life of Prince Magnus should be spared. This condition was not kept, notwithstanding the fact that he was innocent of his father's crime. The indignant people were not willing to leave any scion of their wicked king alive and the poor boy's head was cut off. Thus the unholy treachery of King Birger met with retribution. Sir Matts Kettilmundson, the brave knight who had shown such courage in Russia, was made Administrator of the kingdom and soon defeated a Danish army which had been sent to King Birger's aid. Then Birger and his wicked queen were obliged to flee to Sweden, where grief soon brought him to his death-bed. Queen Martha lived long, but it was a life made bitter by memory of her crimes and Heaven's retribution. [Illustration: From stereograph, copyright by Underwood and Underwood, N.Y. MORNING GREETINGS OF NEIGHBORS, SWEDEN.] _QUEEN MARGARET AND THE CALMAR UNION._ We have next to tell how the three kingdoms of Scandinavia, between which rivalry and hostility had often prevailed, became united into one great Scandinavian realm, under the rule of a woman, the great Queen Margaret. This was a very important event, as its results continued until our own day, the subjection of Norway, which was then achieved, not being broken until the early days of the present century. It is important to describe the various steps by which this union was brought about. From 930, when Harold Fair-Haired, the maker of Norway, died, until 1319, when a king known by the odd title of Haakon Longlegs followed him to the grave, the throne of Norway had been nearly always filled by some one of Harold's many descendants. But with the death of Haakon the male line of King Harold's descendants was finally broken, and only a woman remained to represent that great royal stock, Princess Ingeborg, the daughter of King Haakon. This fair maiden was promised in marriage while still a child to Duke Erik, son of the late king of Sweden. They were married in 1312, and on the same day Duke Valdemar, Erik's brother, married another princess of Norway, also named Ingeborg. About four years later a son was born to each of these happy couples, and King Haakon was full of joy, for he now felt that the old royal line was restored. One person was not pleased by the birth of these princes. This was King Birger of Sweden, who had long been at sword's point with his ambitious brothers and wanted the throne of Norway as well as that of Sweden to descend to his own son Magnus. He pretended to be pleased, however, for he had in mind a treacherous plot to destroy his brothers and their children and thus leave the way clear for his ambitious schemes. The steps he took to bring this about and their fatal end to his brothers and his son we have told in the previous tale. After the indignant people had driven King Birger from the throne the kingdoms of Sweden and Norway were left in a strange plight. Magnus, the son of Duke Erik and Ingeborg, was only three years old when his grandfather, the king of Norway, died. This left him the successor to the Norse realm. But the deposition of King Birger and the execution of his son left this royal infant the king of Sweden also, so that these two kingdoms became for the first time united, and this under the rule of a three-year-old child, with regents to govern in his name. But the two countries remained separate in everything except that they had now but one king. When King Magnus became old enough to act as monarch in reality, he took the government of both countries into his hands. But he proved unfit to govern either of them, being a weak and good-natured man, so anxious to please everybody that he pleased nobody. Born and brought up in Sweden, he knew little and cared less about affairs in Norway and the people of that country grew much incensed at his neglect of their interests. They made him promise, at a public meeting, to divide the two kingdoms between his two sons; Erik, the elder, to succeed him in Sweden, and Haakon, the younger, to be given the crown of Norway when he came of age. Events happened, as will be seen, to prevent this taking place and to combine all Scandinavia under one great queen. This is how it came about. King Magnus made a visit to Denmark, where it was arranged to marry Prince Haakon to Margaret, daughter and heir of the Danish king, Valdemar. This marriage took place in due time, and not very long afterwards both King Magnus and Prince Haakon died and Prince Erik was poisoned by his mother, who was a wicked woman and was angry because he opposed her in one of her base schemes. Thus as the death of King Birger had left the crowns of Sweden and Norway to a boy of three, the deaths here named left these crowns and that of Denmark also to another child, the son of Haakon and Margaret. This little fellow, Olaf by name, too young to appreciate how great he had become, did not live to enjoy his greatness. He died at the age of seventeen, leaving his royal rights to his mother Margaret. It is interesting to learn that the turbulent kingdoms named, the land of the sea-kings and the warlike barbarians of the north, each of which had needed the hand of a strong man to control them, all now fell under the sceptre of a woman, who at first reigned over Denmark and Norway and soon added Sweden to her dominion. But Queen Margaret was no weakling. She was a woman born to command, strong in mind and body, and more like a man than a woman. In Sweden, to which she quickly turned her attention, she had a bitter enemy in Duke Albrecht of Mecklenburg, who had been declared king of that country after the death of King Magnus, and who also claimed the crown of Norway, being remotely related to its royal house. He bitterly hated Margaret, whom he called "Queen Breechless," and by other satirical and insulting names. Finally he took the bold step to call himself king of Denmark and Norway, a baseless claim which he proposed to enforce. He made a vow never to use a hat until he had driven out Margaret, and sent her a whetstone several yards long, advising her to use it to sharpen her scissors and needles instead of using a sceptre. He was much too hasty, as he had only a weak hold upon Sweden even, whose nobles did not like his habit of bringing in Germans to fill the posts of honor and were anxious to get rid of him. Therefore it came about that he found himself confronted by an army of Danes, Norsemen, and Swedes, and a battle followed in which Albrecht riding with his heavy cavalry upon a frozen marsh, broke through the ice and was taken prisoner. He was now in the power of Queen Margaret, who had at length the opportunity to repay him for his insults. To replace the crowns of Norway and Denmark, which he had sought to wear, she put upon his head a fool's cap, with a tail twenty-eight feet long, and repaid him for his insults and jests in other ways. After she had done her best to make him an object of laughter and ridicule she locked him up in a strong prison cell, where he was given six years to reflect on his folly. It took these six years for Margaret's army to subdue the city of Stockholm, which held out stoutly for Albrecht. She won it at last by setting him free with the proviso that he should pay a ransom of sixty thousand marks. In ease he could not provide it within three years he was to return to prison or surrender Stockholm. He did the latter and Margaret became mistress of Sweden. This able woman had now won a proud position, reached by none of the kings before her. She was ruler of the whole of Scandinavia, with its three ancient kingdoms. The triple crown was hers for the lifting, but she was not ambitious to wear it, and preferred to put it on the head of her grand-nephew, Erik of Pomerania, though she retained the power in her hands until her death in 1412. Representatives of the three kingdoms were summoned by her to a meeting at Calmar, where, in July, 1397, a compact uniting the three kingdoms under one ruler was drawn up and signed. This was the famous Calmar Union, which held Norway captive for more than four hundred years. From that time until the present century Norway had no separate history, though her people vigorously resisted any measures of oppression. In 1536 this ancient kingdom was declared to be a province of Denmark, being treated like a conquered land; yet there was not a man to protest against the humiliation. The loss of national standing had come on so gradually that the people, widely scattered over their mountain land and absorbed in their occupations, scarcely noticed it, though they were quick enough to resent any encroachment upon their personal liberty and rights. There were outbreaks, indeed, from time to time, but these were soon put down and the Danish rule held good. This was not the case with Sweden, a more thickly settled and civilized land. The struggle of the Swedes for freedom continued for some seventy-five years and was finally accomplished in 1523. How this was done will be told in other tales. As for Norway, it was ceded by Denmark to Sweden in 1814, and the people of that mountain land regained their national rights, with a free constitution, though ruled by the Swedish king. This union held good until 1905, when it was peacefully broken and Norway gained a king of its own again, after being kingless for more than five hundred years. _HOW SIR TORD FOUGHT FOR CHARLES OF SWEDEN._ In the year 1450 and the succeeding period there was great disorder in the Scandinavian kingdoms. The Calmar Union was no longer satisfactory to the people of Sweden, who were bitterly opposed to being ruled by a Danish king. There were wars and intrigues and plots and plans, with plenty of murder and outrage, as there is sure to be in such troublous times. There was king after king, none of them pleasing to the people. King Erik behaved so badly that neither Sweden nor Denmark would have anything to do with him, and he became a pirate, living by plunder. Then Duke Christopher of Bavaria was elected king of Scandinavia, but he also acted in a way that made every one glad when he died. In those days there was a great nobleman in Sweden, named Karl Knutsson, who had a hand in everything that was going on. One thing especially made him very popular at that time, when a new king was to be elected. The spring had been very dry and there was danger of a complete failure of the crops, but on the day when Karl landed in Stockholm, May 23, 1450, there came plentiful rains and the people rejoiced, fancying that in some way he had brought about the change of weather. So, when the lords assembled to elect a new king, Karl received sixty-two out of seventy votes, while the people shouted that they would have no other king. He was then crowned king as Charles VIII. There had been only one Charles before him, but somehow the mistake was made of calling him Charles VIII., and in later years came Charles IX., X., etc., the mistake never being rectified. All this is in introduction to a tale we have to tell, that of a bold champion of King Charles. For the new king had many troubles to contend with. The king of Denmark in especial gave him much trouble, and the southern province of West Gothland was in danger of seceding from his rule. In this dilemma he chose his cousin, Sir Tord Bonde, a young but daring and experienced warrior, as the captain of his forces in that province. He could not have made a better choice, and the stirring career of Sir Tord was so full of strange and exciting events that we must devote this tale to his exploits. Lödöse, a stronghold of Gothland, was still held by the Danes, and Sir Tord's first adventure had to do with this place. On a dark, rainy, and stormy night he led a party of shivering horsemen towards the town, galloping onward at headlong speed over the muddy road and reaching the place before day-dawn. Utterly unexpectant of such a coming, the Danes were taken by surprise and all made prisoners, Sir Tord's men feeding luxuriously on the enemy's meat and wine as some recompense for their wet night's journey. Master of the place without a blow, Sir Tord found there a bag of letters, containing some that had to do with plots against the king. These letters he sent to King Charles, but they put him upon a new adventure of his own. One of the traitors was Ture Bjelke, master of Axewalla Castle, and Sir Tord, fancying that the traitor would be as welcome a present to the king as his letters, set out for the castle with thirty men. On arriving there Ture, not dreaming that his treason had been discovered, admitted his visitor without hesitation. The troopers were also permitted to enter, Sir Tord having told them to come in groups of five or six only, so as not to excite suspicion by their numbers. That night, while they sat at table, and just as the cabbage was being carried in, Sir Tord sprang up and seized Ture firmly by the collar, calling out that he arrested him as a traitor to the king. The knight's men sprang up to defend him, but Sir Tord's men attacked them with sword and fist, the matter ending in the men as well as their master being taken prisoners, and the castle falling into Sir Tord's hands. On receiving the letters, Charles laid them before the senate at Stockholm, but the traitors were men of such power and note, and there was so much envy and jealousy of Charles among the lords, that he dared not attempt to punish the plotters as they deserved, but was obliged to pardon them. As for Ture and his men, they managed to escape from the place where they had been left for safe keeping, and made their way to Denmark. [Illustration: From stereograph, copyright by Underwood and Underwood, N.Y. GRIPSHOLM CASTLE, MARI.] Meanwhile Sir Tord Bonde was kept busy, for King Christian of Denmark several times invaded the land. On each occasion he was met by the valiant defender of West Gothland and driven out with loss. On his final retreat he built a fortress in Smaland, which he called Danaborg, or Danes' castle, leaving in it a Danish garrison; but it was quickly attacked by Sir Tord with his men-at-arms and a force of armed peasantry and the castle taken by storm, the Danes suffering so severe a defeat that the place was afterwards known as Danasorg, or Danes' sorrow. Sir Tord, to complete his chain of defences, had built several fortresses in Norway, then claimed by King Christian as part of his dominions. He had with him in this work about four hundred men, so small a force that Kolbjörn Gast, one of Christian's generals, proceeded against him with an army three thousand strong, proposing to drive the daring invader out of the kingdom. Weak as he felt himself, Sir Tord determined to try conclusions with the Danes and Norsemen, proposing to use strategy to atone for his weakness. One hundred of his men were placed in ambush in a clump of woodland, and with the remaining three hundred the Swedish leader marched boldly on the enemy, who were entrenched behind a line of wagons. Finding that he could not break through their defences, Sir Tord and his men turned in a pretended flight and were hotly pursued by the enemy, who abandoned their lines to follow the flying Swedes. Suddenly Sir Tord turned and led his men in a fierce attack upon the disordered pursuers, falling upon them with such bold fury that he had two horses killed under him. At the same time the hundred men broke from their ambush, sounding their war-horns loudly, and fell on the flank of the foe, though they were so badly armed that they had no iron points on their lances. Confused and frightened by the double attack and the blare of the trumpets, the Norsemen broke and fled, crying out that "all the might of Sweden was in arms against them"; but they were pursued so closely that the leader and all his men were taken by the brave four hundred. Thus the bold and skilful Sir Tord defended the king's cause in those quarters, winning victories by stratagem where force was lacking and keeping off the attacks of the Danes by his watchfulness, bravery, and sound judgment; until men came to say, that his brave cousin was the king's chief support and that his secret enemies dared not undertake anything against him while he had so skilful and courageous a defender. There are two ways of disposing of a troublesome foe, one by fair and open warfare, one by treachery. As Sir Tord could not be got rid of in the former manner, his enemies tried the latter. Jösse Bosson, one of his officers, though born a Dane, had proved so faithful and won his confidence to such an extent that the valiant Swede trusted him completely, and made him governor of the fortress of Karlborg. He did not dream that he was nourishing a traitor and one capable of the basest deeds. During the warfare in Norway Sir Tord reached Karlborg one afternoon, proposing to spend the night there. He was received with much show of joy by Jösse, who begged him to take the repose he needed, promising to keep strict watch in the fortress during his stay there. Without a thought of danger Sir Tord went to the chamber provided for him. Jösse said the same to the followers of his guest, and as they were weary they were glad to go to their beds. Having thus disposed of his visitors, Jösse got his boats ready, loaded them with his most-prized effects, and then turned the key on the followers of his trusting guest, hid their swords, and even cut their bowstrings, so much was he afraid of the heroic soldier who had been his best friend. Then, axe in hand, he entered the room of Sir Tord. The sleeper, awakened by his entrance, raised himself a little in the bed and asked what he wanted. For answer the murderous wretch brought down his axe with so heavy a blow that the head of Sir Tord was cleft in twain to the shoulders. Then, taking to his boats, the assassin made his escape to the Danes, by whom his bloody act was probably instigated. With the death by treason and murder of the brave Sir Tord, the chief bulkwark of the realm of King Charles, this tale should end, but the later career of Charles VIII. is so curious a one that it will be of interest to make some brief mention of it. Never has king had a more diversified career. With the death of his brave defender, enemies on all sides rose against him, his great wealth and proud ostentation having displeased nobles and people alike. Chief among his enemies was the archbishop of Upsala, who nailed a letter to the door of the cathedral in which he renounced all loyalty and obedience to King Charles, took off his episcopal robes before the shrine of St. Erik, and vowed that he would not wear that dress again until law and right were brought back to the land. It was a semi-civilized age and land in which churchmen did not hesitate to appeal to the sword, and the archbishop clad himself in armor, and with helmet on head and sword by side, set out on a crusade of his own against the man he deemed an unworthy and oppressive king. He found many to sustain him, and Charles, taken utterly by surprise, barely escaped to Stockholm, wounded, on a miserable old horse, and with a single servant. Besieged there and unable to defend the town, he hid part of his treasures, put the rest on board a vessel, and while going on board himself was accosted by one of the archbishop's friends, who asked him: "Have you forgotten anything?" "Nothing except to hang you and your comrades," was the bitter reply of the fugitive king. King Christian of Denmark was called in by the archbishop to take the vacant throne, Charles was pronounced a traitor by his enemies, and for some years Christian ruled over Sweden. Then his avarice and the heavy taxes he laid on the people aroused such dissatisfaction that an insurrection broke out, Christian's army was thoroughly defeated, and he was forced to take ship for Denmark, while Charles was recalled to the throne and landed in Stockholm in 1464, a second time king of Sweden. This reign was not a long one. Christian, who had imprisoned the archbishop because he opposed the heavy taxation of the peasants, now sought his aid again and sent him with an army to Sweden. As a result Charles found himself once more shut up in Stockholm and was again forced by his enemies to resign the crown, being given instead of his kingdom the government of Raseborg Castle in Finland. And instead of having treasures to take with him, as before, he was now so poor that he could not pay a debt of fifty marks he owed in Stockholm. He expressed his state of poverty in the following verse: "While I was Lord of Fogelwich, I was a mighty man and rich; But since I'm King of Swedish ground A poorer man was never found." But his career was not yet ended. He was again to sit on the throne. Friends arose in his favor, the people again grew dissatisfied with Danish rule, and the archbishop, his greatest enemy, died. Charles was recalled and returned from Finland, a third time standing on Swedish ground as king. He had still a hard fight before him. A Swedish nobleman, Erik Wase, sought to win the throne for himself, and Christian of Denmark sent a new army to Sweden; but by the aid of a brave young knight, Sten Sture, Nils Sture, his cousin, and some other valiant friends, all his enemies were overcome and thus, after years of struggle and a remarkably diversified career, he was at length firmly seated on the throne. But the unfortunate monarch was not long to enjoy the quiet which he had so hardly won. He fell seriously ill in May, 1470, and feeling that death was near, he sent for Sten Sture and made him administrator of the kingdom, with control of the castle of Stockholm. But he earnestly warned him never to seek for the royal power, saying: "That ambition has ruined my happiness and cost me my life." _STEN STURE'S GREAT VICTORY OVER THE DANES._ Historical tales have much to do with war and bloodshed, with rides and raids, with schemes and stratagems, with plunder and piracy, and with outrage and oppression. These are the things to which historians give the most space in their pages and which many readers find fullest of interest and excitement. In the present tale we have to do wholly with scenes of war, for we propose to tell the story of one of the most remarkable battles ever fought on Swedish soil. This is what led to it. After the death of Charles VIII. and the appointment of Sten Sture as administrator of the kingdom, Christian I. of Denmark, whom the brave Sture had driven away with his army, fancied that the way was open to him again, and that Sweden, without a king, was a ripe plum ready to drop into his mouth. He was to find it a sour plum, for in Sten Sture he had to deal with a man of notable ability, just and upright in his dealings, wise and prudent in government, and brave and skilful in war. He was a man who did not swear to keep his word, but who never broke it. "I promise by my three water-lilies" (the arms of the Stures) was his form of affirmation, but this simple promise was more to be trusted than the solemn oaths of many kings and potentates. The people loved and trusted him, and on the 1st of May, 1471, the late king's appointment was confirmed at a general diet of the people, which accepted him by acclamation as the administrator and captain-general of the realm. He soon had work cut out for him. Christian of Denmark equipped a great fleet and sailed to Stockholm, where he anchored in the harbor and opened negotiations with the Swedish senate, then the great source of power in the land. He promised to govern the kingdom in the way they might decide upon and be to them a mild and merciful father. While some of them were seduced by his specious promises, the majority had no fancy to make him their "father." But they made a truce with him until the matter could be decided, the Danes being allowed to buy provisions in the town, and on their side selling salt to the citizens, this being at that time very scarce in Stockholm. Thus matters went on for seven weeks, at the end of which time Christian concluded that the Swedes were playing with him, seeking to spin out the time until all his provisions would be consumed and winter with its storms would be at hand to destroy his fleet. As it began to appear that nothing was to be gained by peace, he resolved to try the effect of war, and on the 1st of September landed his army and laid his plans to besiege the city. His camp was pitched on the hill of Brunkenberg, near the city, connection being made with the fleet by a strong bridge built from the shore to an island in the harbor. Bulwarks and ramparts of earth were thrown up on the side next the town, and were mounted with cannon, with which he soon opened a bombardment. He enticed some of the Swedish peasants into his camp by promise of an abundance of salt, but his main army consisted of the Danish nobles and their troops and of German and Scottish soldiers of fortune, brave, stout, able warriors who exercised themselves daily in military sports and led a merry and careless life in camp, heedless of everything except pay and plunder. When the proud Danish king was told that Sture was collecting an army of peasants with which to fight him, he sneeringly said: "Herr Sten sneaks along ditches and dikes, but I shall punish my little gentleman with the rod like a child, and teach him to keep himself quiet." Threats were also made by the foreign mercenaries against the citizens, but these only served to rouse their anger and make them more resolute in the defence of the city. As for Herr Sten, he went on raising troops and driving out the Danes whom he found infesting the seaboard lands, not marching towards the city until he had got rid of all hostility in his rear. On his march he was met by his brave cousin, Nils Sture, with an army of the bold Dalmen of the north, and the united armies marched on to Jerfva, in the vicinity of the beleaguered city. From this point Sture wrote to King Christian, offering him safe passage home, if he would leave Sweden without the need of blows; but he only roused the wrath of the king, who loudly swore: "By God's five wounds, I have not gone to so much trouble and expense to go home without finishing what I came for." All that could be done in the cause of peace had been done without avail, and events had reached a point in which the affair could be settled only at sword's point and cannon's mouth. It was the 10th of October, 1470. Long before the sun rose on that memorable day the Swedes of Sture's army were awake and busy preparing their arms for the coming fray, in which the mastery of their kingdom was to be decided. At an early hour the whole army was called to the solemn service of the mass, after which holy and impressive ceremony they refreshed themselves with a hasty meal and returned to their ranks ready for battle. Nils Sture was already on the march with a third of the army, secretly leading them around a clump of woodland with the purpose of attacking the Danish camp at Brunkenberg from the east. As the ranks of the main army formed for the attack, their brave leader was gratified to see a body of gallant horsemen, in shining armor, riding to join him. They were thirteen hundred in number, and had been sent from the town of Kungsholm. Advancing before his people, Sture spoke to them with few but telling words: "If you ever desire to enjoy peace and security in Sweden stand by me this day and cling one to another. I shall do my part. I fear not the king nor his Danes and mercenaries, but gladly venture life and blood and all that I possess on the event of this battle. If you will do the same, lift up your hands." [Illustration: SKURUSUND, STOCKHOLM.] "That will we do with God's help," came the roar of response, followed by a great shout and wild clanging of arms. Immediately the advance began, the men singing the verse of a psalm written for the occasion. It was now the hour of eleven. King Christian and his army boldly awaited the assault, looking down from their commanding position on the Swedes, who came on heedless of the roar of guns and flight of arrows. Reaching the foot of the hill, they began its ascent, met as they did so by the Danes, who rushed down upon them with lance and sword. In a moment more the hostile lines met and the bloody work of war began. On the summit of the hill proudly waved the Danneborg, the sacred standard of Denmark. In the midst of the Swedes fluttered their country's flag, borne resolutely up the hill. Around these banners gathered the bravest of the champions, fighting with heroic fury--the Danes, under their ambitious king, fighting for glory and riches; the Swedes, under their patriot leader, striking for peace and freedom from foreign rule. While the battle was thus raging outside the town, Knut Posse, its governor, a skilful soldier, was not idle. He was not content to rest within the walls while his countrymen were fighting so vigorously for his relief. The heat of the fight had left the bridge leading from the shore to the ships without a guard, and he sent some men in boats to row towards it and with saws and axes to sever the supports beneath it. This was successfully done and the men returned unseen. While this was being accomplished the warlike governor, seeing that the Swedes had been checked in their ascent of the hill, made a sally from the town with two thousand of the garrison, taking possession of the Danish fortifications in that quarter and setting them on fire. His position, however, could not long be held, for Sten Sture's troops had been driven down the hill and Christian was free to lead a heavy column against him, forcing him back with his handful of men. In the struggle, however, the bold governor advanced so vigorously upon the king, that he received a wound from Christian's own hand. While Knut Posse was thus being driven back into the town Sten Sture was seeking to infuse new spirit into his defeated people, telling them that "it would be to their eternal shame if they suffered themselves thus to be repulsed." Marshalling them into orderly ranks as quickly as possible he led them again towards the hill, and the battle recommenced with its old fire and vigor. Sture rode valiantly at their head, encouraging them with a display of heroic valor. While he fought on horseback, by his side ran a peasant named Björn the Strong, who kept pace with the horse and at times ran before it, swinging his broad battle-axe with such strength that he opened a road for his leader to ride through. Though surrounded by enemies, the two held their own with the fiery energy of the berserkers of an earlier day, dispensing death while not receiving a wound. King Christian, on the other hand, showed himself not wanting in valor, keeping well in the front rank of his men. In the midst of the fight a ball struck him in the mouth, knocking out three of his teeth and so disabling him that he was carried fainting from the field. In the end the Swedes, who had borne their banner to the summit of the hill, where they looked in vain for the expected aid from Nils Sture and his men, were driven back again and a second time forced down the hill, the victorious Danes driving them well into the plain at its foot. Three hours of hard fighting had now passed and both armies were wearied. Trotte Karlsson, a Swedish renegade who had been fighting against his country in the ranks of its foes, seated himself on a stone to rest, taking off his helmet that he might breathe the fresh air. As he did so a ball from the Swedish ranks struck him between the eyes and he fell dead--a traitor fighting with strangers against his native land. Though twice beaten Sten Sture had no thought of giving up the fight. For some reason Nils Sture, who with the large force under his command had been depended upon to make a diversion in their favor, had not appeared. Bad roads had detained him and he was still struggling onward towards his assigned position. Looking around him, and satisfied that it was hopeless to dislodge the enemy from their post of vantage, Sten now attempted a diversion by sending a force to attack the troops stationed at the convent of St. Claire. The Danes on the hill, seeing the danger of this detachment, and thinking that they had thoroughly beaten off the Swedes, rushed down to the aid of those at the convent, and Sten, with the skill of an able commander, took advantage of this movement and at once marshalled his men for a third attack. They did not need much encouragement. Though twice beaten they were not dispirited, but rushed forward shouting: "Now the Danes come to us on equal ground! Let us at them and swing our swords freely!" Some bright streaks appearing on the sky, the cry ran through the ranks: "St. Erik is waving his sword over his people to aid them and point the way to victory." On the enemy they rushed, with a valor not weakened by their previous repulses, and Knut Posse, who had been watching the fight with keen eyes, made a fresh sally from the town. Soon the battle was on again with all its former fury, the Danes fighting at first for victory, then, as they were forced to give way, striking resolutely to defend their standard, the Danneborg. Knut Posse made a fierce onset upon the proud banner, but was not able to reach it until five hundred noble Danes, who gathered around it as a guard of honor, had fallen under the swords of the Swedes. When the Danes saw their great standard fall they gave way, but only with the intention to regain the height and defend themselves on its summit. It was at this critical juncture that Nils Sture appeared with his long-delayed troops and attacked the enemy from a fresh side. Before this unlooked-for and powerful force the Danes gave way in a panic, their ranks being broken and the fugitives rushing in wild flight down the hill to take refuge in their ships. Now the stratagem of Knut Posse became effective, the weakened bridge swaying and sinking under the multitude of fugitives who crowded it, plunging them by hundreds into the water. Others leaped into boats to row to the vessels, but these were so crowded that many of them sank, their occupants being drowned. In all, nine hundred men were drowned in the flight, while as many more who were not able to escape threw down their arms and surrendered. Christian succeeded in escaping with that portion of his army which had reached the ships, while Sten Sture marched in triumph into Stockholm with his victorious troops, there to be received with shouts of gladness, and with tears of joy by his wife Fra Ingeborg, who had been in the city and with the noble ladies of the place had prayed earnestly for victory while their friends and husbands fought. For four hours the battle had lasted. It was one of vast importance for Sweden, since it brought to that country many years of peace and repose. King Christian dared not attack the Swedes again and the country got on prosperously without a king under the able government of Sten Sture. _HOW THE DITMARSHERS KEPT THEIR FREEDOM._ The name of Ditmarshers was given to the inhabitants of a broad, marshy region adjoining the district of Holstein on the Baltic shores of Germany. They were not pure Germans, however, but descendants of the ancient Frisian tribes who had long occupied the northwest parts of Germany and Holland and were known as far back as the times of the Romans for their courage and love of liberty. For age after age this people had shown the same bold spirit and made many a gallant stand against the princes who sought to subdue them. Geert the Great and other princes of Sleswick and Holstein had suffered defeat at their hands, and the warlike Valdemar III. of Denmark had been sadly beaten by them. At a much later date the Emperor Frederick had formally given the lands of the Ditmarshers to Christian I. of Denmark, to be joined to Holstein, but the marshmen declared that they were not subjects of Denmark and would not be given and taken at its king's will. It was in the year 1500 that the most striking event in the history of the Ditmarshers took place. King Hans, the son of Christian I., then ruled over Denmark and Norway and five years before had been crowned king of Sweden. It was due to his dealings with the bold sons of the marshes that he lost the latter throne. This is the story of this interesting event. When Hans was made king of Denmark his ambitious brother Frederick, who had sought to obtain the throne, was made duke of Sleswick-Holstein, and called upon the Ditmarshers to pay him taxes and render homage to him for their lands. This they declined to do, not recognizing the right of the Emperor Frederick to hand them over to Denmark and to decide that the country which had belonged to their fathers for so many centuries was part of Holstein. Finding that he had tough metal to deal with in the brave marshmen, Frederick induced his brother Hans to invade their country and seek to bring them to terms. King Valdemar had done the same thing three centuries before, with the result of losing four thousand men and getting an arrow wound in his eye, but undeterred by this, if they knew anything about it, the nobles and knights, who were very numerous in the army led by Frederick and Hans, went to the war as lightly as if it were an excursion of pleasure. Disdaining to wear their ordinary armor in dealing with peasant foes, they sought to show their contempt for such an enemy by going in their ordinary hunting costume and carrying only light arms. It was a piece of folly, as they were to learn. The marshmen fought like their fathers of old for their much-valued liberty, and the knights found they had no cravens to deal with. It is true that the royal troops took and sacked Meldorf, the chief town of the Ditmarshers, cruelly killing its inhabitants, but it was their only victory. It proved a lighter thing to get to Meldorf than to get away from it, and of the Danes and Germans who had taken part in the assault few escaped with their lives. It was the depth of winter, cold, bitter weather, and as the army was on its march from Meldorf to Hejde the advance guard suddenly found itself in face of a line of earthworks which the marshmen had thrown up in front of a dike. This was defended by five hundred Ditmarshers under their leader, Wolf Isebrand. The German guards rushed to the attack, shouting: "Back, churls, the guards are coming!" Three times they forced the marshmen to retreat, but as often these bold fellows rallied and came back to their works. In the midst of the struggle the wind changed, bringing a thaw with it, and as the troops struggled on, blinded with the sleet and snow that now fell heavily, and benumbed with the cold, the men of the marshes opened the sluices in the dike. Through the openings poured the waters of the rising tide, quickly flooding the marshes and sweeping everything before them. The soldiers soon found themselves wading in mud and water, and at this critical juncture the Ditmarshers, accustomed to make their way through their watery habitat by the aid of poles and stilts, fell upon the dismayed invaders, cutting them down in their helpless dilemma or piercing them through with their long lances. The victory of the peasants was utter and complete. Six thousand of the invaders, nobles and men-at-arms alike, perished on that fatal day, and the victors fell heir to an immense booty, including seven banners. Among these was the great Danish standard, the famous Danneborg, which was carried in triumph to Oldenwörden and hung up in the church as the proudest trophy of the victory. As for King Hans and his brother Duke Frederick, they barely escaped falling into the hands of the marshmen, while the estimate of the losses in money, stores, and ammunition in that dread afternoon's work was 200,000 florins. King Hans lost more than money by it, for he lost the kingship of Sweden. The nobles of that country, when the news of the disastrous defeat reached them, rose in revolt, under the leadership of Sten Sture, drove the Danes out of Stockholm, and kept his queen, Christina of Saxony, prisoner for three years. Hans had no more armies to send to Sweden and he was obliged to renounce its crown. Norway also rose against him under a brave leader, and his power over that country was threatened also. It was finally saved for him by his son Prince Christian, who used his power so cruelly after order was restored that he nearly routed out all the old Norwegian nobles. Thus, from his attempt to make the Ditmarshers pay taxes against their will, King Hans lost one kingdom and came near losing another. The only successful war of his reign was one against the traders of Lübeck, who had treated him with great insolence. In a war which followed, the fleet of the Lübeckers was so thoroughly beaten that the proud merchant princes were glad to pay 30,000 gulden to obtain peace. Then, having this one success to offset his defeat by the Ditmarshers, King Hans died. _THE BLOOD-BATH OF STOCKHOLM._ The most cruel tyrant the northern lands ever knew was Christian II. of Denmark, grandson of Christian I., whose utter defeat at Stockholm has been told. For twenty-seven years Sweden remained without a king, under the wise rule of Sten Sture. Then Hans of Denmark, son of Christian I., was chosen as king, in the belief that he would keep his promises of good government. As he failed to keep them he was driven out after a four years' rule, as we have told in the last tale, and Sten Sture became practically king again. How Christian, who succeeded Hans as king of Denmark, and had shown himself a master of ferocity and bloodthirsty cruelty in Norway and Denmark, overcame the Swedes and made himself king of Sweden, is a story of the type of others which we have told of that unhappy land. It must suffice to say here that by force, fraud, and treachery he succeeded in this ambitious effort and was crowned king of Sweden on the 4th of November, 1520. He had reached the throne by dint of promises, confirmed by the most sacred oaths, not one of which he had any intention of keeping, and the Swedes might as well have set a wolf on their throne as given it to this human tiger. One thing he knew, which was that the mischief and disquiet in Sweden were due to the ambition of the great lords, and he mentally proposed to ensure for himself a quiet reign by murdering all those whom he feared. [Illustration: SKANSEN RIVER.] Under what pretence of legality it could be done, and leave to him the appearance of innocence in the matter, was a difficult question. To attempt the bloody work with no ostensible motive might lose for him the crown which he had striven so hard to win, and in the dilemma he consulted with his confidential advisers as to what should be done. Some of them proposed that a quarrel and uproar between the Danes and Swedes in the town should be fomented, which the lords might be accused of bringing about. But there was danger that such a pretended quarrel might become a real one, and endanger his throne. Others advised that gun-powder should be laid under the castle and the lords be accused of seeking to blow up the king. But this was dismissed as too clumsy a device. Finally it was proposed to proceed against the lords as heretics, they having some years previously been excommunicated by the Pope for heretical practices. The king, indeed, had solemnly sworn to forget and forgive the past, but his cunning advisers told him that while he might speak for himself, he had no warrant to speak for the Church, the laws and rights of which had been violated. This pretext was seized upon by Christian with joy and he proceeded to make use of it in a way that every churchman in the land would have condemned with horror. On the 7th of November, the day after the coronation festivities ended, the king proceeded to put his treacherous plot into effect. A number of noble Swedes who had attended the festivities were brought to the castle under various pretences, and were there ushered into a large and spacious hall. With alarm they saw that the doors were closed behind them so that none could leave, though others might enter. When all were gathered Christian entered and took his seat on the throne, with his council and chief lords about him. Archbishop Trolle was also present as representative of the Church, but without knowledge or suspicion of the secret purpose of the king, who had brought him there to sanction by his presence the intended massacre. The charge which it was proposed to bring against the senators and lords was that of trespass against the archiepiscopal dignity and to demand retribution for the same, and this charge was accordingly brought in the name of the Church. The king then turned to the archbishop and asked: "My Lord Archbishop, do you intend to have this matter brought to peace and friendship according to the counsel of good men or will you have it judged by the law?" Archbishop Trolle answered, "The offence being one against the Church, the cause of the accused should be judged by the Pope." This was a mode of settling the matter which by no means conformed with the king's intention, and he answered: "This is a matter not to be referred to the Pope, but to be terminated at home in the kingdom, without troubling his Holiness." In this decision he was not to be shaken, knowing well that if the archbishop's proposal to refer the matter to the Pope were carried out his secret sanguinary purpose would be defeated. What he proposed was the murder of the lords, and he had no intention of letting the matter escape from his control. Lord Sten Sture, against whom the accusation had been chiefly directed, was dead, but his widow, the Lady Christina, was present, and was asked what defence she had to offer for herself and her husband. She replied that the offences against the archbishop were not due to Lord Sten alone, but were done with the approbation of the senate and the kingdom and she produced a parchment in proof of her words, signed by many of the persons present. Christian eagerly seized upon the incriminating document, as giving him a warrant for his proceedings and evidence against those whom he most hated and feared. All whose names were attached to it were brought up, one after another, there being among them several bishops, who had taken part in the matter on patriotic and political grounds, and a number of senators. Every one tried to excuse himself, but of the whole number Bishop Otto was the only one whose excuse was accepted. At the end of the examination all those accused were seized and taken from the hall, the whole number, senators, prelates, noblemen, priests and burghers, being locked up together in a tower, the two bishops among them being alone given a better prison. The true reason for proceeding against the churchmen was that they had been the friends of Sten Sture and might prefer their country to the king. The wicked tyrant, who in this illegal manner had sought to make the Church responsible for his bloodthirsty schemes, hesitated not to condemn clergy and laity alike, and ended the session by the arbitrary decision that all the accused were heretics and as such should die. Irreligious, illegal, and ruthless as had been this whole proceeding, into which the artful king had dragged the archbishop and sought to make him a consenting party to his plot, Christian had gained his purpose of providing a pretext for ridding himself of his political enemies, actual or possible, and proceeded to put it into execution in the arbitrary manner in which it had been so far conducted, regardless of protests from any quarter. The next day the city gates were closed, so that no one could enter or leave. Trumpeters rode round the streets in the early morning, proclaiming that no citizen, on peril of life, must leave his house, unless granted permission to do so. On the chief squares Danish soldiers were marshalled in large numbers, and on the Great Square a battery of loaded cannon was placed, commanding the principal streets. A dread sense of terrible events to come pervaded the whole city. At noon the castle gates were thrown open and a great body of armed soldiers marched out, placing themselves in two long lines which reached from the castle to the town hall. Between these lines the accused lords were led, until the Great Square was reached, where they were halted and surrounded by a strong force of Danish soldiers. Around these gathered a great body of the people, now permitted to leave their houses. Alarm and anguish filled their faces as they saw the preparations for a frightful event. On the balcony of the town hall now appeared Sir Nils Lycke, a knight newly created by the king, who thus addressed the agitated multitude: "You good people are not to wonder at what you now behold, for all these men have proved themselves to be base heretics, who have sought to destroy the holy Church; and moreover traitors to his Majesty the King, since they had laid powder under the castle to kill him." At this point he was interrupted by Bishop Vincent from the square below, who called out indignantly to the people: "Do not believe this man, for all he tells you is falsehood and nonsense. It is as Swedish patriots that we are brought here, and God will yet punish Christian's cruelty and treachery." Two of the condemned lords also called out to the people, beseeching them "never in future to let themselves be deceived by false promises, but one day to avenge this day's terrible treachery and tyranny." Fearing an outbreak by the indignant people, if this appeal should continue, the soldiers now made a great noise, under order of their officers, and the king, who is said to have gloatingly witnessed the whole proceedings from a window in the town hall, ordered the execution to proceed, Klas Bille, an official, placing himself to receive the golden chain and ring of each knight before he was beheaded. The prisoners implored that they might confess and receive the Holy Sacrament before they were slain, but even this was refused, and Bishop Matthew was led forth first. While he was kneeling, with clasped and uplifted hands, two horrified men, one of them his secretary, rushed impulsively towards him, but before they could reach the spot the fatal sword had descended and the good bishop's head rolled to their feet on the ground. They cried out in horror that this was a frightful and inhuman act, and were at once seized and dragged within the circle, where they would have suffered the fate of the victimized bishop had they not been rescued by some German soldiers, who believed them to be Germans. Bishop Vincent next fell beneath the encrimsoned sword, and after him the senators, seven in number, and thirteen nobles and knights of the senate. These were followed by the three burgomasters of Stockholm and thirteen members of the town council, with fifteen of the leading citizens, some of them having been dragged from their houses, without the least warning, and led to execution. One citizen, Lars Hausson by name, burst into tears as he beheld this terrible scene, and at once was seized by the soldiers, dragged within the fearful circle, and made to pay by death for his compassion. With this final murder the executions for that day ended, the heads being set on poles and the dead bodies left lying where they had fallen. A violent rain that came on bore a bloody witness of the sanguinary scene into the streets, in the stream of red-dyed water which ran down on every side from the Great Square. On the next day Christian said that many had hid themselves who deserved death, but that they might now freely show themselves for he did not intend to punish any more. Deceived by this trick some of the hidden leaders made their appearance and were immediately seized and haled to the square, where the work of execution was resumed. Six or eight of these were beheaded, many were hung, and the servants of the slaughtered lords, who happened to come to the town in ignorance of the frightful work, were dragged from their horses and, booted and spurred as they had come, were haled to the gallows. The king's soldiers and followers, excited by the slaughter and given full license, now broke into many houses of the suspected, murdering the men, maltreating the women, and carrying away all the treasure they could find, and for some hours Stockholm seemed to be in the hands of an army that had taken the city by storm. For a day and night the corpses lay festering in the street, their bodies torn by vagrant dogs, and not until a pestilent exhalation began to rise from them were they gathered up and hauled by cartloads to a place in the southern suburbs, where a great funeral pyre was erected and the bodies were burned to ashes. As for the tyrant himself, his bloody work seemed to excite him to a sort of madness of fury. He ordered the body of Sten Sture the Younger to be dug from its grave in Riddarholm Church, and it is said that in his fury he bit at the half-consumed remains. The body of Sten's young son was also disinterred, and the two were carried to the great funeral pile to be burnt with the others. The quarter of the town where this took place is still named Sture, in memory of the dead, and on the spot where the great pyre was kindled stands St. Christopher's Church. Such was the famous, or rather the infamous, "blood-bath of Stockholm," which still remains as a frightful memory to the land. It did not end here. The dreadful work he had done seemed to fill the monster with an insatiable lust for blood. His next act was to call Christina, the widow of Sten Sture, to his presence. When, overwhelmed with grief and despair, she appeared, he sneeringly asked her whether she would choose to be burned, drowned, or buried alive. The noble lady fell fainting at his feet. Her beauty and suffering and the entreaties of those present at length softened the tyrant, but her mother was enclosed in a bag and thrown into the stream, though she was permitted to be drawn out by the people on their promise to the tyrant that he should have her great wealth. But she, with her daughter Christina and many other women of noble descent, were carried as hostages to Copenhagen and shut up in a dreadful prison called the Blue Tower, where numbers of them died of hunger, thirst and cold. The massacre was not confined to Stockholm; from there the executions spread throughout the country, and the old law of 1153 was revived that no peasant should bear arms, Danish soldiers being sent through the country to rob the people of their weapons. The story is told that some of them, enraged by this act of tyranny, said: "Swords shall not be wanting to punish the tyrant so long as we retain our feet to pursue and our hands to revenge." To this the reply was that "a hand and a foot might well be cut from the Swedish peasant; for one hand and a wooden leg would be enough for him to guide his plough." This report, improbable as it was, spread widely and caused a general panic, for so terrified were the people by the reports of Christian's cruelty that nothing seemed too monstrous for him to undertake. In December the tyrant prepared to return to Denmark, leaving Sweden under chosen governors, with an army of Danes. But his outgoing from the country was marked by the same sanguinary scenes. He caused even his own favorite, Klas Hoist, to be hung, and two friends of Sten Sture being betrayed to him, he had them quartered and exposed upon the wheel. Sir Lindorm Ribbing was seized and beheaded, together with his servants. And, most pitiable of all, Sir Lindorm's two little boys, six and eight years of age, were ordered by the tyrant to be slain, lest they should grow up to avenge their murdered father. The scene, as related, is pathetic to the highest degree. The older boy was beheaded, and when the younger saw the streaming blood and the red stains on his brother's clothes, he said with childish innocence to the executioner: "Dear man, don't stain my shirt like my brother's, for then mamma will whip me." At these words the executioner, his heart softened, threw down the sword, crying: "I would rather blood my own shirt than yours." But the pathos of the scene had no effect on the heart of the tyrant, who witnessed it unsoftened, and called for a more savage follower to complete the work, ending it by striking off the head of the compassionate executioner. With this and other deeds of blood Christian left the land where he had sown deeply the seeds of hate, and the terrible "blood-bath" ended. _THE ADVENTURES OF GUSTAVUS VASA._ In the parish of Orkesta, in Upland, Sweden, there may be seen the remains of an old tower, now a mere heap of stones, but once the centre of the proud manor-seat of Lindholm. It was a noble and lordly castle, built of red bricks and grey granite, seated on a high hill between two lakes, and commanding a wide prospect over mountain, wood, and water. Here, in the year 1490, was born Gustavus Vasa, the son of Sir Erik and Lady Cecilia Vasa, and destined to win future fame as one of the greatest heroes of Sweden and the liberator of his native land. At the age of six the boy was sent to be educated at the court of Sten Sture, then the administrator and virtual king of Sweden. Here he was not spoiled by indulgence, his mode of life and his food were alike simple and homely, and he grew up with a cheerful spirit and a strong body, his chief pleasure being that of hunting among the rocks and forests with his companions, all of whom grew to love and admire him. King Hans, when monarch of Sweden in 1499, on a visit to Sten Sture noticed the boy playing about the hall and was much pleased by his fine and glowing countenance. Patting him on the head, he said: "You will certainly be a man in your day, if you live to see it." He afterwards, thinking of the high descent of the boy and that he might grow to be a future foe of Denmark, asked Sten Sture to let him take the lad to Copenhagen and bring him up in his court. The wise Lord Sten quickly fathomed the king's thoughts and answered that the boy was too young to be taken from his parents. He soon after sent him to his father, then in command at Aland. "The young wolf has slipped out of my net," said King Hans in later years, when he was told of the splendid development of the boy as he grew to manhood. At the age of twenty-four he left the academy at Upsala, where he had been educated in the arts and sciences, and repaired to the court of Sten Sture the Younger, where he was soon a general favorite, loved for his amiable character and admired for his wit and vivacity. At that time the war by which Christian II. made himself master of Denmark was going on and young Vasa aided by his courage in winning victory on more than one hard-fought field. In 1518, during a negotiation between Sten Sture and Christian, then in sore straits in his fleet, the latter agreed to go ashore to confer with the Swedish leader if six gentlemen were sent on board his fleet as hostages. This was done, but before the conference took place a favorable change of wind changed the treacherous king's intention and he sailed off for Denmark with his hostages, all of whom were imprisoned and held to secure the neutrality of their relatives in Sweden. Among these captives was young Gustavus Vasa, who, thus perfidiously taken, was cruelly confined. Finally, at the request of Herr Erik Baner, a distant relative of the Vasas, the young man was set free, Baner binding himself to pay a heavy penalty in money if he permitted him to escape. Thus it was that Vasa found a new home at Kallö Castle, in Jutland, where his deliverer lived, and where he was well treated and given much freedom. "I shall not cause you to be strictly guarded nor put you in confinement," said good old Baner. "You shall eat at my table and go where you please, if you faithfully promise not to make your escape or journey anywhere without letting me know." To this the young man bound himself verbally and by writing, and was given liberty by his generous warder to go where he pleased within six miles of Kallö. At first he was always accompanied by an attendant, but as he won the old man's love and confidence he was suffered to go alone. But he could not forget the perfidy by which he had been made prisoner, and in 1519, when King Christian was preparing a great expedition against Sweden, the boasts of the young Danish nobles of what they proposed to do chafed his proud soul. Day and night his bitterness of spirit grew, and finally, as the time came for the expedition to set sail, he could bear it no longer but resolved to break his parole and escape to his native land. It was in the summer of 1579 that he set out, having dressed himself in peasant clothing. Starting in the early morning and avoiding the open roads, he made his way by by-paths, and at noon of the following day reached the town of Flensburg, where he fortunately met some Saxon traders driving a herd of cattle from Jutland to Germany. He joined these, and on September 30 reached the free town of Lübeck. Here the authorities gave him permission to remain, with a warrant for his personal safety while in the town. Meanwhile Sir Erik Baner had been wrathfully seeking him, and appeared in Lübeck shortly after he reached there, complaining of his ingratitude for the good treatment given him, and threatening the senate of Lübeck with Christian's enmity if they should protect one of his foes. Gustavus boldly answered that he was no lawful prisoner, but a man seized by breaking a solemn compact, and therefore that he had the right to set himself free. As for the six thousand riks-thalers, which Sir Erik had bound himself to pay, he would return them with interest and gratitude when he got home. "I trust to this," he concluded, "that I am in a free town, on whose word, when once given, I should be able to depend." This appeal won his case with the senate, and Sir Erik was obliged to return without his ward. But to make his way to Sweden, then torn and distracted by war, and the seas held by hostile craft, was no easy matter and he was forced to remain eight months in Lübeck while his country was being rapidly subdued by its invaders. They were not idle months, for Gustavus learned much while there of political and industrial economy and the commerce and institutions of the Hanseatic League and its free towns, knowledge which became of much service to him in later years. In the end he succeeded in making his way to Sweden in a small trading vessel, and on the 31st of May, 1520, landed secretly on its shores, with nothing but his sword and his courage to sustain him against an enemy who had, step by step, subjugated nearly the whole land. [Illustration: From stereograph, copyright by Underwood and Underwood, N.Y. THE FAMOUS XVI. CENTURY CASTLE AT UPSALA, SWEDEN.] Of the cities, only Stockholm and Calmar remained in the hands of the Swedes, and the latter, in which he had landed, seemed full of cowards and traitors. The place was not safe for a declared patriot, and he left it, making his way up the country. Here he learned with indignation how envy, avarice, and private feuds had induced many Swedes to betray one another to the enemy, and his efforts to exhort the people to unity and resistance proved vain. Most of them were weary of the war, and Christian had won over many of the peasants. "He is a gracious master to us," they said, "and as long as we obey the king neither salt nor herring will fail us." When Gustavus sought to win them over to more patriotic views they became angry and threatening, and in the end they assailed him with arrows and lances, so that he was obliged to make his escape. His position, indeed, became so critical that he was forced to disguise himself and proceed through forests and unsettled lands. Finally he reached the manor-house in which resided his sister Margaret and her husband, Sir Joachim Brahe. They received him with the highest demonstrations of joy, as they had feared that they would never set eyes on him again; but their delight in his presence was turned into consternation when they learned that he was there with the purpose of seeking to foment an insurrection against Christian, who had then made himself complete master of Sweden and was on the point of being crowned king. Joachim Brahe and his wife were at that time preparing to attend Christian's coronation at Stockholm, and were deeply disturbed by what seemed to them the mad purpose of the young patriot. Joachim offered to do his utmost to reconcile Gustavus to the king, and Margaret threw herself in tears and distress on his neck, beseeching him to desist from an undertaking which she felt sure would bring death to him and ruin to his whole family. But Gustavus was not to be persuaded, and on the other hand he warned Joachim against trusting himself in Christian's hands, speaking of him as a base wretch whom no one could trust. Joachim proved equally hard to move, and the three soon parted, Joachim and his wife for Stockholm--where death awaited him at the hands of the traitor king--and Gustavus for a place of concealment where he could foment his plans. During this interval he met the old archbishop, Jacob Ulfsson, who earnestly advised him to go to Stockholm and warmly promised to plead his cause with the king. But the fugitive knew Christian far better than the aged churchman and had no idea of putting his head within the wolfs jaws. Little did the good archbishop dream of the terrible tragedy that was even then taking place in Stockholm. The news of it came to Gustavus in this way. One day while out hunting in the vicinity of his hiding-place, he unexpectedly met the faithful old steward of his brother-in-law Joachim, who was so choked with grief on seeing him that he found it impossible to speak and could answer the young lord's question only with tears and gestures. Finally he succeeded in telling the fearful tale of that bloody day at Stockholm, the death under the executioner's sword of the father and brother-in-law of the horror-stricken listener, the imprisonment of his mother and sisters, and the fact that he would soon become a hunted fugitive, a high price having been set upon his head. Who can describe the bitter grief of the son and brother at these terrible tidings, the hot wrath of the patriot, the indignation of a true and honest heart! On that fatal day the young fugitive had lost all he loved and cherished and was made a hunted, homeless, and almost penniless outlaw. But his courage did not fail him, he could foresee the indignation of the people at the dastardly act, and he determined to venture liberty and life against the ruthless tyrant. A series of striking adventures awaited him, which it needed his utmost resolution to endure. He was then concealed at Räfsnäs, one of his paternal estates, but felt it necessary at once to seek a safer refuge, and collecting what gold and silver he could, he set out with a single servant for Dalarna. They had not gone far before they reached the ferry at Kolsund, which he crossed, leaving his man to follow. But the fellow, who had no faith in his master's project, took the opportunity to mount his horse and flee, taking with him the gold and jewels which had been entrusted to his care. Seeing the act of treachery, Gustavus in all haste recrossed the ferry, and pursued the runaway so hotly that he leaped from his horse in alarm and hid himself in the woods. Recovering the horse and its valuable burden, the fugitive pursued his course, paying no further heed to the treacherous servant. It was late in November when Gustavus reached Dalarna. He was now completely disguised, having exchanged his ordinary dress for that of a peasant, cutting his hair round, wearing the round hat and short baize jacket of the countrymen, and carrying an axe on his shoulder in the fashion of peasant-lads seeking work. No one would have dreamed of his being the sole heir of the great house of the Vasas. His first service was with a rich miner named Anders Persson, in whose barn he threshed grain for several days. But his fellow threshers soon saw that he was not accustomed to the work and his general manner did not seem that of a common farm-hand, while one of the women caught the glimpse of a silk collar under his coarse jacket. These suspicious circumstances were told to the miner, who sent for Gustavus and quickly recognized him, for he had often seen him in former days at Upsala. Anders received him hospitably, but when he heard from him of the Stockholm massacre and his aid was requested in the liberation of the country, he grew alarmed. Fearing to entertain so dangerous a guest, he advised him to go farther north and to change his place of abode frequently. Accepting this advice, Gustavus set out for Ornäs, but on his way, while crossing a newly frozen stream, the thin ice broke under him and he was plunged into the chilling water. Light and active, he soon got out again, drying his clothes and passing the night at the house of the ferryman. Reaching Ornäs the next day, he went to the house of a former friend, but who now, unknown to him, had become connected by marriage with the Danes and was devoted to the interests of the new king. It was a critical situation for the friendless fugitive. His treacherous host craftily welcomed him and pretended to approve his purpose, in which he offered to assist him and to seek adherents to his cause among his neighbors. The guest was conducted to a garret at the top of the house and here, weary from his wanderings and gratified at having found a sympathizing friend, he lay confidingly down and was soon lost in slumber. Meanwhile Arendt, the treacherous host, sought a neighbor, Mans Nilsson, whom he told of the rich prize he had found and asked his aid in capturing him and gaining the high reward offered for him by the king. He was mistaken in his man. Mans hated treachery. But Arendt found others who were less scrupulous and in the early morning returned to his home heading twenty men, collected to aid him in the capture of his unsuspecting guest. To his utter surprise and dismay, on entering the garret to which Gustavus had been led he was nowhere to be found. He had unaccountably disappeared, and search as they could no trace of the fugitive was forthcoming. There was a woman concerned in this strange escape, which had happened thus. Barbara, Arendt's wife, though Danish in her sympathies, had a warm, romantic interest in Gustavus Vasa, and when she saw her husband, on his return from his visit to Mans Nilsson, drive past the house and in the direction of the house of the Danish steward, she suspected him of treachery and determined to save their too-confiding guest. Ordering Jacob, one of her men, to harness a sledge with all haste and secrecy and keep it in waiting behind the building, she sought the garret, woke Gustavus, and told him of his peril and of her desire to save him. Not venturing to bring him down into the house, she opened the window, and though it was eighteen feet from the ground, she aided him in his descent with a long towel, such as were then in common use. Gustavus then sprang into the sledge and was driven briskly off. Arendt, when he learned of how his expected victim had fled, was furiously angry with his wife, and, as we are told, never forgave her and refused ever to set eyes on her again. This was the most extreme danger that the fugitive patriot ever passed through, and at that interval his hope of freeing his country from the yoke of the foreigner seemed the sheerest madness. But other perils lay before him and only vigilance and good fortune saved him more than once from death or capture. Surrounded by foes and with scarce a friend who dared aid him in the whole district, his final escape seemed impossible. The friendly Barbara had advised him to seek Herr Jon, the priest of Svärdsjö, and his driver took the road over the frozen Lake Runn, they ascending its banks in the smoke coming down from the Fahun copper mines, and about sunrise reaching a village on the northeast end of the lake. Jacob was unacquainted with the country beyond this point and Gustavus went to a house to inquire the way. As he was on the point of entering he saw within a miner, Nils Haussen, whom he knew to be a Danish partisan and who would have recognized him at sight. Quickly and without being seen, he turned behind the door and went towards another village beyond. Here he met a friendly smelter who agreed to guide him on the way. When they parted Gustavus gave him a silver dagger, saying gratefully: "If God helps me, seek me, and I will richly repay you for your aid." As night came on he sought quarters in a road-side cottage, and as he sat before the fire in the evening the good-wife said to him: "Young man, make me some pudding skewers, since you have nothing else to do." Gustavus laughingly replied that he would be glad to do so if he only knew how. This adventure has an interesting resemblance to that of King Alfred, when, hidden from the Danes in the swine-herd's hut, he let the good woman's cakes burn on the fire. Reaching the parsonage of Herr Jon on the following day, he first went to the barn and helped the laborers to thresh, at the same time asking them what side their master took. Learning that he was no friend of the Danes, he made himself known to him and was graciously received, staying with him for three days. But this place soon became unsafe. One day Herr Jon's housekeeper entered a room where Gustavus was washing, the priest standing by, towel in hand. "Why are you holding the towel for this common fellow?" she asked. "That is none of your affairs," said the priest. But fearing that the woman would talk, he thought it best for his guest to seek a safer retreat, and sent him to Swen Elfsson, gamekeeper for the crown, who lived not far away. Meanwhile the Danish steward, who had been told by the treacherous Arendt of the character of his guest, had his agents out in search of the fugitive and some of them entered the cottage of the gamekeeper. At that moment the good-wife was about putting her bread in the fire, and Gustavus was standing by the hearth in his peasant's dress, warming himself. The men who entered inquired for the fugitive, but before answering the woman raised her bread shovel and struck Gustavus hastily on the back, exclaiming: "What are you doing here gaping at strangers? Have you never seen a man before? Pack yourself off to the barn and go on with your threshing." Never dreaming that the man who had been so angrily treated by a peasant's wife could be the young lord they sought, the steward's messengers left the house to continue their search elsewhere. But the incident warned the gamekeeper that his guest was not safe anywhere in that vicinity, and to get him away unobserved he hid him in a large load of hay and drove off towards the forest. On the way some of the Danish scouts were met, and these, having some suspicion of Swen, began poking their lances through the hay. One of these wounded Gustavus in the leg, but he lay silent and motionless and the scouts soon went their way. But the cut on the concealed man's leg bled so freely that blood soon began to run from the cart and tinge the snow. Seeing this, Swen, fearing that the trail of blood might betray him, opened his knife and thrust it into the leg of his horse, so that if any one should perceive the blood stains he could assign this as their cause. He finally delivered his charge to the care of some loyal gamekeepers on the edge of the forest; but these, not considering their houses safe as hiding-places, took him into the forest, where he lay hidden for three days under a great fallen fir tree, they bringing him food and drink. Finding even this place insecure, he went deeper into the woods and sought shelter under a lofty fir tree which stood on a hill in the midst of a marsh. The place has ever since been called "The King's Height." Finally the effort of the Danish agents to find him relaxed and his faithful friends conducted him through the vast forests to Rättwik's Church, at the eastern end of the great Lake Silja. His perils were yet by no means at an end. He spoke of his purpose at this place to an assembly of the peasants and was pleased to find that they listened to him with willing ears. Having thus sown his first seed in favorable soil, he proceeded to Mora on the northern end of the lake, where the priest received him in a friendly manner. But he was being sought by the Danes in that district and the priest did not dare to hide him in his own house, but committed him to the care of a peasant named Tomte Mattes. As the search was becoming active he was concealed in a vaulted cellar, reached by a trap-door in the floor. He had not been long there when the Danish scouts, who were searching the whole district, reached the peasant's house, where they found his wife in the midst of her brewing of Christmas ale. As they entered, the shrewd woman turned a great tub over the trap-door, so that they did not perceive it, and thus for the third time the future king of Sweden owed his liberty and life to a woman's wit. Shortly after that, at one of the Christmas festivals, as the men of Mora were leaving the church, Gustavus called them to him where he stood on a low mound beside the churchyard and addressed them in earnest tones, while they gazed with deep sympathy on the manly form of the young noble of whose sufferings and those of his family they were well aware. He spoke of the risk to his life that he ran in venturing to speak to them at all, but said that his unhappy country was dearer to him than life. He pointed out the persecution which Sweden had formerly endured from Danish kings, and of how they had robbed the country of its wealth. "The same times and the same misfortunes have now returned," he said. "Our land swims, so to say, in our own blood. Many hundred Swedish men have been made to suffer a disgraceful and unmerited death. Our bishops and senators have been cruelly murdered. I myself have lost father and brother-in-law," he continued, his eyes streaming with tears, "and the blood of all these martyrs cries for redress and retribution on the tyrant." The men of Dalarna, he said, had long been noted for their courage when their land was in danger. They were renowned for this in history, and all Sweden looked upon them as the firmest defenders of its liberties. "I will willingly join with you for our land's deliverance," he concluded, "and spare neither my blood nor my sword, for these are all the tyrant has left me to use in your cause." Many of the Dalmen heard him with cries of vengeance, but the most of them stood in doubt. They did not know Gustavus personally and had heard that Christian was cruel only to the great, but was kind and generous to the peasantry. They could not yet make up their minds what to do, and begged him to seek safer quarters for himself, since he was being everywhere diligently sought by his pursuers. In fact, his peril continued extreme and for some days he was forced to lie hidden under Morkarlely Bridge, near Mora Church, though it was in the dead of a Swedish winter. He was able at length to resume his journey, but it was with an almost despairing heart, for he could see no hope either for himself or for his country. His led way over mountains and through desolate valleys, his nights being spent in wayside sheds which had been built for the shelter of travellers. On he went, through forests filled with snow and along the side of mountain torrents, and finally came within view of the lofty mountains beyond which lay the sister kingdom of Norway. Never had patriot more reason to be disheartened than the unhappy and hunted fugitive, never had the hope of liberating an oppressed country seemed darker, and the fugitive would have been justified in abandoning his native land and seeking a refuge in the bleak hills of Norway. Yet the adage has often held good that it is the darkest hour before the dawn of day, and so it was to prove in his case. While he waited in that desolate quarter to which he had been driven, events were shaping themselves in his favor and the first rising took place against the Danes. The stirring speech of the young noble at Mora Church had not been made in vain. Many of those who heard it had been strongly taken by his manliness and his powerful language, and, strangely, the most deeply impressed of all was Rasmas Jute, a Dane who had served the Stures and was now settled in Dalarna. Hearing that a Danish steward had come to that quarter to seek the fugitive and was now at the house of the sergeant of Mora parish, he armed himself and his servants and fell on the steward unawares, the first to take arms for Gustavus being thus a man of Danish birth. Soon afterwards a troop of Danish horsemen, a full hundred in number, was seen marching over the frozen surface of Lake Silja. So numerous a body of soldiers was unusual in those parts, and suspecting that they were in search of Gustavus, and might do something to their own injury, the peasants began ringing the church bells, the usual summons to arms. The wind carried the sound far to the northward, and on hearing the warning peal the peasantry seized their arms and bodies of them were soon visible hasting down the hills towards Mora. The Danish troopers, on seeing this multitude of armed men, shut themselves in the priest's house. Here they were attacked by the furious Dalmen, who broke open the doors and rushed in. The terrified Danes now fled to the church and took refuge in its steeple, whither they were quickly followed. Only by dejected appeals and a promise not to injure Gustavus Vasa did they succeed in escaping from the tower, and the Dalmen, thinking that some of them might remain concealed in the narrow spire, shot their arrows at it from every side. For more than a hundred years after some of these arrows remained sticking in the old wooden spire. Dalarna being looked upon as a centre of Swedish patriotism, a number of the persecuted noblemen took refuge there, and those confirmed all that Gustavus had told the people. And when Lars Olssen, an old warrior well known to them, arrived and told them of the gallows which Christian had erected, of the new taxes he had laid on the peasantry, and of the report that he had threatened to cut a hand and a foot off each peasant, with other tales true and false, they were deeply stirred. When Lars learned that Gustavus had been there and what had passed, he reproached them for their folly in not supporting him. "Good men," he said, "I know that gentleman well, and tell you that if yourselves and all the people of the country are not to be oppressed and even exterminated Gustavus Vasa is the only one who has sense and knowledge enough to lead us and lay hand to so great a work." While they were talking another fugitive came from the forest, who confirmed all that Lars had said and gave them a full account of the blood-bath at Stockholm and of how the body of Sten Sture, their beloved leader, had been torn from the grave and dishonored. These stories filled their hearers with horror, terror, and fury; war and bloody retribution was their only cry; their hearts were filled with remorse that they had let Gustavus, their country's chief hope, depart unaided. Two of them, the fleetest snow-skaters of the region, were chosen to follow him and bring him back, and off they went through the forests, following his track, and at length finding him at Sälen, the last village in that section, and immediately at the foot of the lofty Norwegian mountains. A few words sufficed to tell him of the great change of feeling that had taken place, and with heart-felt joy Gustavus accompanied them back, to begin at length the great work of freeing his native land. _THE FALL OF CHRISTIAN II. THE TYRANT._ It was in November, 1520, that Christian II. of Denmark was crowned king of Sweden. Norway was his as well and he was monarch of the whole Scandinavian world. He had reached the highest point in his career, but so great had been his cruelty and treachery that all men feared and no man trusted him and he was on the brink of a sudden and complete overthrow. The man who had worn the crowns of three kingdoms was to spend years within the narrow walls of a dungeon, with none to pity him in his misery, but all to think that he deserved it all and more. Barely has tyranny met with such retribution on earth, and the "Fall of the Tyrant" will serve as a fitting title to an impressive tale. So sudden and successful was the rebellion of the Swedes under Gustavus Vasa, that in the summer of the year after the massacre in the Great Square of Stockholm the Danes held only that city and a few other strongholds in Sweden. One after another these fell, Calmar and Stockholm in 1523, and in June of that year Gustavus was chosen king of the land which his hand had freed. A young man still, he was at the beginning of a great and glorious reign. Before he became king, Christian, his great enemy, had ceased to reign. He had shown the same inhuman spirit in Denmark and Norway as in Sweden and had sown his whole dominion thick with enemies. This is the way his fall was brought about. In 1522 he issued a code of laws for Denmark of a wise and progressive character, especially in freeing the peasantry from the slavish condition in which they had been held, they before being open to purchase and sale like so many brute animals. Christian declared that every man should be his own master and took steps to limit the power and wealth of the clergy and to improve the commerce of the kingdom. These changes, while wise and important, were difficult to introduce against the opposition of the lords and the clergy and needed the hand of a prudent and judicious administrator. Such Christian was not. He undertook them rashly and endeavored to enforce them by violence. Even the people, whom the new laws so favored, were incensed by a great increase in their taxes. No one trusted him; every one hated and feared him. Even the monarchs of other countries detested him and would not aid him in his extremity. The details of the blood-bath in Stockholm had reached the ears of the Pope and he sent a legate to inquire into the atrocities committed under the implied sanction of the Church. As they were not to be concealed, Christian attempted to excuse them, and, driven to extremity, accused one of his chief favorites, Didrik Slaghök, as the originator of the massacre. Slaghök had just been named archbishop of Lund, but was brought to Copenhagen, examined under torture, condemned to death, and carried to the gallows and thence to a funeral pile on which he was burned alive, Christian leaving the town that he might not witness the cruel death of his late favorite. This cowardly sacrifice of his devoted friend and servant, instead of winning the favor of the people, redoubled their abhorrence of the bloodthirsty tyrant. Shortly afterwards the Lübeckers invaded the kingdom, and Christian, not trusting his people, called in foreign soldiers to repel them. Needing money for their pay, he called a diet to meet on December 10, 1522. Few attended it, and in anger he called a new meeting for the following January. Before the date arrived rumors were set afloat that he intended to butcher the Danish nobles as he had done those of Sweden, that chains were being provided to secure them, and that he would have disguised executioners among his guards; also that new and heavier taxes were to be laid on the peasants. These rumors, widely circulated, incensed and frightened the nobility and a meeting was held by the nobles of Jutland in which they determined to renounce their allegiance to Christian and offer the crown to his uncle, Frederick, duke of Holstein. Magnus Munk, one of these lords, was chosen to deliver their decision to Christian and sought him for this purpose. But it was far from safe to offer King Christian such a document openly, and Munk pretended to be making a friendly visit, conversing and drinking with the king until a late hour of the night. On rising to retire, he thrust into Christian's glove, which had been left on the table, the letter of renouncement of the Jutland nobles. Instead of going to bed, Munk hastened to the vessel in which he had come and sailed to Holstein, where he made to Frederick the offer of the crown. As may be imagined, there was little hesitation in accepting it. The next morning a page of the palace found the king's glove on the table and took it to him. On reading the letter which he found in it the tyrant was filled with fear and fury. He sent guards to seize Munk, but when told that he was not to be found, his terror grew intense. He knew not where to turn nor what to do. He might have gathered an army of the peasants, to whom he had just given freedom, to fight the nobles, but instead he wrote to the lords, abjectly acknowledging his faults and promising to act differently in the future. They were not to be won, no one trusting him. Then the terrified tyrant hurried to Copenhagen and rode round the streets, imploring the citizens with tears to aid him, confessing his errors and vowing to change his ways. Many of the people, unused to see a king in tears, were moved by his petitions, but no wise man trusted him, few came to his assistance, and the sedition rapidly gained strength. At length he took a desperate step. In the harbor lay twenty large warships, which he might have used for defence, but in his terror he thought only of flight. All the treasure he could lay hands on was carried to these vessels, even the gilt balls on top of the church spires being taken. Sigbrit, a detestable favorite, who had given him much evil counsel and dared not show herself to the enraged people, was carried on board in a chest and placed among his valuables. He, his wife and children, and a few faithful servants, followed, and on the 20th of April, 1523, he set sail from his native land in a passion of grief and despair. A violent storm scattered his ships, but the one that bore him reached Antwerp in safety. Sigbrit, who had crept from her trunk, sought to console him by saying that if he could no longer be king of Denmark he might at least become burgomaster of Amsterdam. Thus did this cruel and contemptible coward, who less than three years before had been unquestioned monarch of all Scandinavia, lose the crown he was so unfit to wear, and land, a despised fugitive, in a Dutch city, with but a handful of followers. His fall was thoroughly well deserved, for it was an immediate consequence of the detestation he had aroused by his deed of blood in Stockholm, and there was scarce a man in Europe to pity him in his degradation. It was a sad thing that the salutary laws he had promulgated in the last year of his reign came from so evil a source. Frederick was forced by the nobles to whom he owed his throne to abrogate them, and the code was even burned as "a dangerous book contrary to good morals." The peasants fell back into their former state of semi-slavery and for centuries afterwards failed to enjoy the freedom accorded to the people of their sister states of Norway and Sweden. In the years that followed the deposed king went from court to court of the German princes, seeking help to regain his throne, but meeting with scorn and contempt from some of them and refusal from all. He still retained much of the wealth of which he had robbed Copenhagen, and now, in despair of obtaining assistance, he took into his service a number of soldiers of fortune whom a treaty of peace had lately thrown out of employment. With these sons of adventure, twelve thousand in all, he ravaged Holland, which had recently afforded him refuge, doing so much mischief that he was at length bought off. The emperor, Charles V., then ruler over Holland and brother-in-law to the adventurer, paid him the fifty thousand gulden still due on his wife's dower and gave him twelve battle-ships in addition. The Dutch whom he was plundering helped in this as the easiest way to be quit of him, and, with a body of experienced troops, with funds and a fleet, the hope of winning back his old dominions arose in his soul. There were many malcontents then in Sweden, ready to aid him in an invasion, and the clergy and nobility of Norway, dissatisfied with Frederick's rule, subscribed large sums in money and plate for his aid. Finally, thus strengthened and encouraged, Christian set sail for the Northland with twenty-five ships and an army of eight thousand men. Unfortunately for him the elements proved adverse, a violent storm scattering the fleet and sending nearly half of it to the bottom. He had only fifteen ships and a reduced number of men when, in November, 1531, he landed at Obslo, Norway. The nobles and people, however, discontented with Frederick's government and eager for a king of their own choice, declared for him and at a diet held at Obslo proclaimed him king, only a few nobles dissenting. These, however, held the strongest fortresses in the kingdom. One of these was Magnus Gyllenstierna, governor of Aggerhus. Against this stronghold Christian led all his force and might easily have taken it, for it was lacking in provisions, but for a stratagem by which Magnus saved himself and his fortress. He sent word to Christian that the place was too weak for him to attempt to hold and that he had seen the king's success with pleasure; but, to save himself from the imputation of cowardice, he begged leave for time to ask King Frederick for assistance. If none came before the 1st of May he would willingly surrender the place. Adept in deceit as Christian was, he this time suffered himself to be tricked. At the suggestion of Magnus a thousand men were sent from Denmark, and led by secret paths over mountains and through forests in all haste, throwing themselves into Aggerhus while Christian was watching the seas to intercept them. In a rage he hurried back to renew the siege, but the shrewd commandant was now strong enough to defy him. Ture Jönsson, one of the Swedish nobles who had joined Christian, led a portion of his forces against the fortress of Bohus, writing to its commandant, Klass Bille, a letter in which he set forth the great change for good which had come upon King Christian and begging him to side with his Grace. He closed in the manner customary in those days: "Commending you, with your dear wife, children, and friends, hereby to God's protection." On the next day he received the following answer: "Greeting suited to the season. Learn, Ture Jönsson, that I yesterday received your writing with some of your loose words with which you sought to seduce me from my honor, soil my integrity and oath, and make me like yourself, which God, who preserves the consciences of all honest men, forbid. To the long and false talk which your letter contains, I confess myself, by God's providence to be too good to give you any other answer than this which my letter conveys. You have so often turned and worn your coat, and it is now so miserably thread-bare on both sides, that it is no longer fit to appear among the apparel of any honest man. No more this time, I commend you to him to whom God the Father commended that man who betrayed His only Son, _Ex Bohus._ Sunday next before Lady-day, 1531." Klass Bille proved as good with an answer by balls and blows as by pen, and the Castle of Bohus defied all attempts to take it. Meanwhile the Swedish exiles were writing to their friends at home, and, elated by the capture of a Swedish fort, Christian marched his army towards the frontier, and made ready to invade the kingdom from which he had been driven two years before. But Gustavus and Frederick were not idle. They recognized the danger of this invasion and prepared to meet it, renewing their treaties that they might work loyally together. Gustavus wrote to his officers not to fight with Christian unless they were from four to six times as strong, as he wished to give him a reception that would cure him of all future desire to return to Sweden. The forces of Christian and Gustavus first met at Kungelf, where Christian looked with disturbed eyes on his antagonists as he saw them marching across a frozen river, among them three thousand men in armor of polished steel. Turning to Ture Jönsson, who stood beside him, he said wrathfully: "You said that there was not a man-at-arms in Sweden. What see you yonder? Do you think those old women?" The next morning Ture Jönsson's body was found lying headless in the street, whether thus punished by Christian for his lies or by some Swede for his treason, is not known. The war began with equal fortune at first to each side, but later fortune turned in favor of the Swedes, while food grew scarce in Christian's army, his foragers being beaten back wherever they appeared. Soon, with an army dwindled to two thousand men, he was forced to march back to Obslo. So far Gustavus's army had been fighting alone, and it was not until March, 1532, that some Danish ships of war arrived. But their coming soon ended the war. They burned Christian's vessels and reinforced Aggerhus, and in May sailed towards Obslo. Christian's hopes of success were now at an end. He had made his final effort and had failed. His men were forsaking him in troops and resistance to his foes became impossible. As a last resort he tried a crafty expedient, contriving to get some forged letters distributed in the Danish camp to the effect that twenty Dutch men-of-war, with five thousand troops, were coming to his aid. The Danish commander, alarmed at this report, hastened to conclude peace with him, on condition that all who had taken part in the rebellion should be pardoned. Christian was to cross to Denmark, and if he could not agree with Frederick was to be free to go to Germany, on giving a solemn oath never again to make any attempt on the three Scandinavian kingdoms. Before this treaty was confirmed messengers arrived from Frederick who discovered the condition of Christian to be hopeless and insisted on an unconditional surrender. But Knut, the Danish admiral, who had been given full power to act, took Christian on his ships and sailed with him to Denmark, where he insisted that the conditions he had made should be observed. Frederick and his council were in a strait. To let this tiger loose again was too dangerous, and finally some pretext for breaking the treaty was made and Christian was sentenced to a life imprisonment in the Castle of Sanderberg on the island of Femern. Frederick and his son were obliged to confirm this sentence by a written promise to the Danish nobles that they would never release the detested prisoner. When Christian learned that the convention had been broken he wept bitterly, lamenting that "he had fallen into the hands of men who cared neither for oaths, promises, nor seals." These complaints no one heeded. He was taken deep into the dungeons of Sanderberg Castle, and locked up in a dark and narrow prison vault destitute of every convenience, his only companion being a half-witted dwarf who had long been in his service. With the harshness common in those days, and which in his case was well deserved, the door of the cell was walled up, only one small opening being left through which he could receive the scanty allowance of food brought him, and a little barred window through which some sparse light could make its way. In this dreadful prison the captive remained twelve years without the slightest amelioration of its conditions. Then the door was opened and fresh air and other conveniences were allowed him, but a strict watch was kept up. Finally in 1549, five years later, it being believed that no harm could possibly come from an old man sixty-eight years of age, he was taken to Kallendborg Castle, where he was permitted to entertain himself by hunting or in any other manner he pleased. He lived ten years later, ending in 1559 a life whose misfortunes were a just reward for his faithlessness and cruelty in his day of power. _THE WEST GOTHLAND INSURRECTION._ Sweden never had a wiser or more judicious ruler than King Gustavus Vasa, but in that land of turbulent lords and ambitious mischief-makers the noblest and most generous of kings could not reign without secret plotting and rebellious sentiments. So it fell out in Sweden in 1529, after Gustavus had been six years on the throne. The leader in this movement was one Ture Jönsson, a hoary old conspirator of great influence in West Gothland, where he and his ancestors had long been judges and where he was looked upon by the people as their lord and chief. By a decision of the court he was obliged to restore to the king certain property which he unjustly held, and he vented his feelings bitterly against the heretic and tyrant, as he called him. In fact, he hatched a conspiracy, which spread widely, through his influence, among the nobles of West Gothland. In Smaland there was much discontent with the teaching of the Lutheran doctrines and an outbreak took place, the king's sister and her husband being taken prisoners by the insurgents. These sent letters to Ture Jönsson in West Gothland, asking him to be their captain, and also wrote to East Gothland, inciting the people to rise and expel their monarch. Ture Jönsson had three sons, one of them a distinguished soldier in the king's service, while the second was a man high in the king's favor. The old rebel had high hopes of aid from these two, and wrote them letters inciting them to rebellion. But they were not to be drawn from their allegiance, and took the letters with unbroken seals to the king, promising to devote their lives to his cause. The third son, Herr Göran, dean in Upsala, was of different mold and sentiment. Opposed to the king on religious grounds, he gathered a body of peasant runaways, a hundred in number, and, afraid to stay in his house, he took them to a wood in the neighborhood, felled trees for barricades, and laid up a supply of provisions in his impromptu fort. From there he proceeded to Bollnäs, gathering more men and growing bolder, and fancying in his small soul that he was the destined leader of a great rebellion. But his valor vanished when a priest of the vicinity, named Erik, a man faithful to the king, called together a body of his parishioners and marched against the would-be insurgent. Dean Göran was standing at a garret window when he saw these men approaching. At once, with a most unsoldierlike panic, he rushed in terror down stairs and fled through a back door into the forest, without a word to his men of the coming danger. The house was surrounded and the men made prisoners, the king's steward, whom they held captive, being released. Erik spoke to them so severely of their disloyalty that they fell on their knees in prayer and petition, and when he told them that the best way to gain pardon for their act was to seek and deliver their fugitive leader, they gladly undertook the task. [Illustration: NORWEGIAN CARRIAGE CALLED STOLKJAEM.] The scared leader of rebels meanwhile was wandering in anguish and alarm through the wide wood, not knowing what to do. Coming at length to a large forest lake, he entered a little boat that he found and pushed off from land, thinking thus to be in greater safety. As he thus sat, lost in his unquiet thoughts, some of his late followers reached the lake and saw him. So absorbed was he in his bitter reflections that he failed to see other boats gliding out towards him, and they were close upon him before he perceived them. Then, leaping up in wild fright, he sought in his despair to jump into the water, but before he could do so some of the peasants had rowed up and seized him. In his bitterness of spirit he tore the gold chain from his neck and the rings from his fingers and flung them into the lake, resolved that they should not become the spoil of the king he hated. But Gustavus was not the man to trouble himself about such small fry of conspirators as this. The dean was taken to Upsala and thence to Stockholm, where he was kept in confinement, though with every comfort, until the rebellion incited by his father was quelled. Then the king, taking into account his brothers' loyalty and his own insignificance, freed him and restored him his property. He could well afford to be lenient to a rebel of his calibre. If this was all we had to tell, it would not be worth the telling, but the conspiracy in West Gothland went on and led to events of far greater interest. A born plotter, old Jönsson kept at his work, and to prevent any news of what was taking place from reaching the king, a guard of a thousand men was placed to watch the highway and stop all messengers. At the head of this guard was a priest called Nils of Hvalstad, a thorough hater of the king. To him the insurgents sent their letters, to be forwarded to those for whom they were intended. Such was the state of affairs, the designs of the plotters ripening while the king was in this way kept in ignorance of matters of such importance to him. Now we come to the dramatic means by which the king was advised of the plot. A scout was needed to pass the guards set by the rebels and bring word to Gustavus of what was going on in West Gothland, and for this purpose was chosen a young town-sergeant of Stockholm, so famed for boldness that the people called him Hans Hardy. He had been born in West Gothland and was familiar with the people and the roads of that province and was therefore well adapted for the work. He accomplished it in a manner much better than was expected. Making his way through forest paths and along little-frequented by-ways, he succeeded in crossing the river that bordered the province and passing the rebel outposts, making his way to his old home, where he spent several weeks with his relations, meanwhile secretly gathering the information needed. On his return he pursued a different course. Buying a quantity of West Gothland cheese, he went directly towards the ford of the Tiweden and so managed as to let himself fall into the hands of the guard, who brought him to their leader, Nils of Hvalstad. The rebel priest charged the seeming peasant roundly with being a spy, but the cunning fellow pretended to be very simple and bucolic, saying that it had been four years since he had been in Upland and he now wanted to go there and sell his cheese. Nils was not so easily to be hoodwinked, but bade his men take the supposed spy to the sergeant's house at Hofwa, where four men were set over him as guards. The pretended simpleton seemed well-enough pleased, eating and drinking freely, talking cheerfully of country affairs with his guards, and spending his money freely, so that the sergeant grew to like the jovial country lad. After a few days, however, Hans pretended to be sick, sighing and groaning as if in severe pain. Finally he took to his bed and seemed in such a sad state that they all pitied the poor cheesemonger and his guards often left him for hours alone, thinking his sickness was all the security that was needed. Hans Hardy had a purpose in this. He had discovered that Nils kept a box in a dark corner of the room and imagined that it might contain something of importance to him in his mission. In fact he had thrown himself in his hands for the purpose of fathoming his plots. One day, while left alone, he got up and examined the box, and to his joy found in it a number of letters from the chief conspirators, containing full evidence of their complication. Having read enough of them to gain an idea of their character, he put them back, shut the box, and pushed it again into its dark corner. Then he took to his bed once more and when his guards returned they found him moaning more sorely than before and seeming in such sad case that they thought him at the point of death. Pitying the poor fellow, they deemed it idle to watch him and went contentedly to their beds. The next morning, when they rose, the sick man had vanished and with him the box and its contents. Hans had got off with the precious burden into the forest, with whose paths he was thoroughly familiar, leaving his late guards his cheese for consolation. He reached Stockholm in safety with his budget of letters and took them to the king, who rewarded him liberally for his valuable service and bade him to keep it secret. This he did, and it was long before any one knew where Hans Hardy had been or what had become of the lost letters. King Gustavus kept his counsel and bided his time. Meanwhile the work of the conspirators went on, they going so far as to nominate a new king, their choice falling upon Mans Bryntesson, Ture Jönsson's brother-in-law, a handsome and eloquent young man, far more suitable in person than in mind for a king. He was soft, irresolute, and somewhat foolish, and when treated with royal honors by the conspirators, he began holding court with princely pomp, borrowing money from his friends for this purpose when his own was exhausted. Having gone so far with his plans, Ture called a convention of the people of the province to meet on Larfva Heath, saying that he had matters of the highest importance to lay before them. Here was a great plain, where the Gothlanders for ages had held their public meetings, and where Ture's summons brought together a goodly number. With the insurgent lords around him, and proud of his power and authority, Sir Ture now addressed the peasants, in full confidence of their support. His principal charge against the king was that he had accepted the Lutheran doctrines and wished to introduce a new faith into the country to the ruin of the common people. "Now," he continued, "I have always understood that the good West Gothlanders have no mind to become Lutherans, but prefer to retain the old faith which their fathers and forefathers have had before them. If you will from this day renounce King Gustavus I will give you a mild and gracious sovereign, who will preserve for you your good old customs." Bishop Magnus followed with a brief address, after which Sir Ture, convinced from the intent silence of the peasants that they were with him, said: "Let him who gives his consent to take a new king stretch up his hands." To his consternation not a hand was lifted, while a threatening murmur was heard among the peasants. Neither the lords nor the bishop knew what to make of this. They had gone on with their plots without a dream that the people would not be with them. As for the newly chosen king, who had been eagerly waiting to receive their homage, he fell back white and trembling. At length two young peasants stood forth to speak for the people, one of them loudly declaring: "We have nothing to charge against King Gustavus, but owe him deep gratitude for having freed us from the cruel and tyrannical rule of King Christian, and kept the land in law and right as well as in peace and quiet. What you, good sirs, say of the new faith, we peasants can neither judge nor understand; perhaps it may not be so bad as fame reports. Change of rulers generally costs the peasants and the land dear, and we might by these means draw upon ourselves and our children long disquiet and disorder. It seems, therefore, best for us to remain in the faith and allegiance which we have sworn and promised to our lawful lord and master Gustaf Eriksson." These words had evidently the full approval of the people, to judge from their upstretched hands and their loud acclamations, and at once the courage of the conspirators fell to the ground. What to say or to do they knew not. They had foolishly gone forward with their plots without consulting the people and now found themselves in a sore dilemma. Instead of coming to their aid, as they had expected, there was reason to fear that the peasants would seize them and hand them over to the king. In his utter dismay Ture Jönsson faltered out: "My very good friends, I only wished by this trial to test your fidelity. None of the lords have a thought of deserting the king. A fortnight hence we hope to meet you here again, to consult further on our mutual interests." This ended the meeting on Larfva Heath. The peasants returned to their homes and the lords in dismay sought their castles. The bottom had suddenly dropped out from the rebellion and the conspirators were in a perilous position. War against the king was impossible, and in haste they sent a message to Nils of Hvalstad ordering him to break up the camp on the Tiweden and bidding him to come to them without delay. When he came they asked him what he had done with the letters which had been put in his care. Not daring to tell that they had been stolen, he said that he had burnt them on hearing of the result of the Larfva meeting. Another custodian of letters was also sent for and asked the same question. He had really sent his letters to the king, but he produced a budget of papers which he now threw into the fire, telling them that they might be at rest about these perilous papers, which could now never appear against them. Somewhat relieved in their minds by this act, Mans Bryntesson, Ture Bjelke, and Nils Winge, three of the leading conspirators, decided to remain at home. To become wandering outlaws was too bitter a fate; they had not spoken at Larfva Heath, their letters were burnt, there was no evidence against them. But as for Ture Jönsson and Bishop Magnus, they had put themselves openly on record. The pretence that the meeting had been called to test the loyalty of the people would have no weight with a man like King Gustavus. To remain would be to risk their lives, and collecting their money and valuables they made all haste to set foot on Danish territory, Ture Jönsson finally to meet a tragical death in the invasion of Norway by the deposed King Christian, as described in the preceding tale. The embers of the rebellion were easily extinguished and the nation returned to its peaceful and satisfied condition, the officers of the king holding meetings with the malcontents and promising full pardon to those who would confess and renounce their disloyal acts. This offer of pardon was accepted by nearly the whole of the conspirators, the only ones who held out being Mans Bryntesson, the mock king, Nils Winge, and Ture Bjelke. Trusting to their letters having been destroyed they wrote to the king, saying that, as they felt entirely guiltless, they could not plead guilt and implore pardon, and thus put themselves under suspicion. They begged him to appoint a meeting at which their conduct could be investigated. This he agreed to, the 17th of June being fixed as the date. When the time came the three lords appeared before the appointed tribunal and were exhorted to confess their share in Ture Jönsson's rebellion. Mans Bryntesson answered for the three, boldly declaring: "We did not venture to set ourselves against Ture Jönsson on account of his great influence in the province; we often heard him speak disrespectfully of the king, but we bore with him in this for the sake of amusement, attributing it to his old age and childishness. But it can never be shown that we bore any share in his treason." "What will you venture that this cannot be proved against you?" asked the king. "Our neck to the sword and our bodies to the wheel, as the law exacts," they confidently replied. "Take care," said one of the counsellors. "Do not venture so much. Perhaps you may yet be found guilty." They replied by a haughty "No," and insisted on their innocence. Gustavus then spoke again, his gaze now stern and threatening: "Choose one of these two. Either to confess yourselves guilty and accept pardon, or to be tried and condemned according to law." "We choose to be judged according to the law," they replied; "and if we be found partakers in this rebellion we will willingly suffer and pay for it, as may be adjudged against us." These words, and the stern dignity of the king, impressed all in the hall. Complete silence reigned and all eyes were fixed on his face. He gave a signal to his servants and two boxes were carried in. These were opened and a number of letters were produced. The king asked the culprits if they recognized these letters. This they stoutly denied. Then a number of them were read aloud and complete proof of their complicity in the rebellion was shown, the judges recognizing the hand and seal of the defendants. Pale and thunderstruck, they listened tremblingly to the reading of the fatal letters; then fell upon their knees, weeping and imploring mercy. Their repentance came too late. The king bade the council to examine into the matter at once and pronounce sentence. This was that the three criminals should suffer the fate which they had declared themselves ready to bear; they were condemned as traitors and sentenced to loss of life and estate. The trembling culprits were taken to a room above the school-house, locked in and a strong guard set before the door. Here they were left to the contemplation of their coming fate. Despairingly they looked around for some means of escape, and a shade of hope returned when they fancied they had discovered one. There were no bars to their window, but it was far above the ground. But beneath it stood a pear tree, so near the building that they thought they might leap into its branches and climb down its trunk to the ground. Waiting until night had fallen, they prepared to make the effort, Mans Bryntesson being the first to try. He missed the tree and fell to the ground, breaking his leg in the fall. The others, seeing his ill fortune, did not venture to follow. In great pain he crept from the garden into an adjoining field. Here his strength gave out and he lay hidden in the half-grown rye. Missed the next morning, his trail through the grass was easily followed and he was found and carried back to prison. Soon after the prisoners were taken to Stockholm, where Mans Bryntesson and Nils Winge were beheaded and their bodies exposed on the wheel. Their estates, however, were restored to their widows and children. The third, Ture Bjelke, being less guilty, was pardoned, but was obliged to pay heavy penalties for his treasonable acts. And thus, with the death of these two criminals and the exile of two others, ended the West Gothland insurrection. _THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF KING ERIK._ We have written much of war and bloodshed; a chapter devoted to the lighter themes of courtship and marriage may here be of interest, especially as it has to do with the love affairs of princes and princesses, kings and queens, personages whose every movement are deemed by many worthy the world's attention. Prince Erik, the eldest son of King Gustavus, grew in due course of time to marriageable age and, as young men will, began to look about for a wife. His thoughts first turned towards the Princess Elizabeth, of England, then in the height of her youthful charms, of which exaggerated accounts were brought to the ardent young Swede. When Erik sought his father's consent to the suit, saying that it might bring him not only a lovely bride but the throne of two kingdoms, the prudent old monarch threw cold water on the project, saying: "Even if Erik should gain Elizabeth, which I do not think likely, in view of her many suitors, it would be more to the harm than the profit of both kingdoms." But Erik, a high-tempered and passionate youth, with a tendency to something like madness, became so violent and determined that his father at length gave way and a lover's embassy was sent to England to ask for the fair lady's hand. But Princess Elizabeth was too much beset with lovers to accept any of them easily, and the embassy returned with the answer that the royal English maiden was in no haste to marry and considered an unmarried life the happier. In 1558 Queen Mary died and Elizabeth mounted to the throne which she was long to adorn. This added to Erik's passionate desire to win her. One of his agents, Dionysius Beurreus, remained in London, where he lived in great display, keeping open table at Erik's expense, and sending in all haste to the ardent prince every kind word which the crafty Elizabeth let fall. Credulous in his ardent passion, Erik now felt sure of winning the queenly maiden's hand, and sent a second embassy to England, his brother John going with it. Prince John was sumptuously equipped for the journey, the expenses of the courtship eating deeply into the king's revenues, and being added to by Erik's lavishness, for he was now so sure of the success of his suit that he ordered a hundred dresses of the most expensive and splendid kind to be made for him at Antwerp. When John reached London he was courteously received by the queen, but he found it impossible to bring her to a definite answer. If she ever married, of course she would be happy to win so charming a spouse as Prince Erik, but it was hard to marry a man she had never seen, and the idea of marriage was not to her taste. In the end Elizabeth wrote to Gustavus begging him to seek another bride for his son, as she had decided to live unmarried. This should have ended the matter, but it did not. One of the lover's agents had said that the queen of England would never consent unless Erik in person were able to win her heart, and Prince John reported her as saying that, "though she had no desire for marriage, she could not answer what she might do if she saw Erik himself." Fired by the baits held out to his eager heart, Erik determined to go himself to England, but incognito, disguised as the servant of some foreign lord. Thus he would see and conquer the coy maiden queen. The warnings and expostulations of his friends failed to move him from this romantic project, but at length it reached the king's ears, and he strictly forbade the wild-goose project as hazardous and undignified. Erik, however, finally got his father's permission to visit England and make his suit to the queen in his own person. But there were many postponements of the journey, and when finally he left Stockholm to begin the voyage to England the shock of his departure threw the old king into a serious illness. That afternoon Gustavus went to bed, never to rise again, and before Erik had left the kingdom word was brought him that his father was dead. This definitely changed the situation and thus it came about that Erik never saw Elizabeth. The fact of his being king, indeed, did not put an end to his desire to possess the English queen. In 1561 he determined to visit her as a king, and on the 1st of September set sail. But the elements were not propitious to this love errand, a violent storm arising which forced the captains to run back to harbor. Then he decided to go overland, through Denmark, Holland, and France, but while he was laying his plans for this journey, an effort was made by certain love emissaries to turn his thoughts towards Mary Stuart, the widow of a French king and heiress of the throne of Scotland. He listened to these representatives and was so pleased with their description of Mary's charms that his single-minded devotion to Elizabeth was shaken. The loveliness of Mary Stuart was a strong inducement to the young king, but the high estate of Elizabeth was a greater one, and he did not cease his efforts to win her hand. Being told that the chief obstacle in his way was the handsome Earl of Leicester, he grew violently jealous of this favored courtier. He at first challenged him to mortal combat, but as this could not conveniently be carried out, he secretly bade his agent in London to hire an assassin to deal with the earl, promising protection and a rich reward to the murderer. This villainy the agent refused to perform, and Erik now, hoping to frighten Elizabeth to give him a favorable answer, spread a report in England that he was courting the Scottish queen. The effect was different from what he anticipated, for Elizabeth at once positively rejected his suit and all seemed at an end. [Illustration: ARMORY AND COSTUME HALL OF THE ROYAL MUSEUM, SWEDEN.] About this time a third lady fair came into the game. Erik was told of the charms and rare character of the Princess Renata of Lotringen, granddaughter of the late Christian of Denmark, and at once opened negotiations for the hand of this princess. At the same time the crafty Elizabeth pretended to relent and Erik was again on fire for her hand. Thus he had now three love projects under way, from two of which, those for Mary Stuart and Princess Renata, favorable answers were returned. But the volatile lover, before receiving these answers, had added a fourth string to his bow of courtships, having decided to propose for the Princess Christina of Hesse. By this time he had spent on his threefold courtship vast sums of money and had gone far towards making himself the laughing-stock of Europe. Erik's new course of love did not run smooth. The fates seemed against him in his marriage projects. His first proposal for Christina, indeed, received a favorable reply and it was decided that the selected bride should arrive at Stockholm in the following May, some eight months later. But other emissaries whom he sent in February were detained in Denmark, and on some weak pretence were seized and imprisoned, the whole being a ruse of King Frederick to prevent a marriage between Erik and the Princess of Hesse, of which for political reasons he did not approve. There was peace at that time with Denmark, but these events presaged war. May at length arrived and Erik equipped a fleet to meet the promised bride. There were twelve men-of-war, which were got ready for fighting if necessary, James Bagge, a famous seaman of those days, being admiral of the Elephant, with command of the fleet. The assigned purpose of the expedition was to bring the bride over from Lübeck, but it is said that Admiral Bagge had secret orders to seek and attack the Danish fleet, and thus punish King Frederick for his treachery. The two fleets met on May 30 off Bornholm, and the Danish ship Hercules immediately opened fire. This fire was at once returned and a fierce fight ensued that lasted five hours, and resulted in the capture of the Hercules and two other ships and the flight of the rest. The Swedes now sailed on to Lübeck, whence ambassadors were sent to Hesse to bring back the bride. They returned in two weeks without her, the excuse being that her trousseau was not ready. The truth was that the landgrave of Hesse was afraid to trust his daughter in the turbulent north, from which tidings of the naval battle had just come. This delay was fatal to Erik's hopes, mainly through his own fault. The first succeeding step was a request from the landgrave for a safe conduct for his daughter through Denmark. Frederick, who dreaded ill results from the marriage, refused this, and also refused to let ambassadors to Hesse pass through his kingdom. And now Erik spoiled all by his faithless versatility. On the 11th of October he sent an order to some agents of his in Germany to proceed to Hesse with a betrothal ring, worth six thousand thalers, for the princess. Four days later he wrote a letter to Queen Elizabeth, saying that his addresses at the court of Hesse had never been serious, and that he still loved and hoped to win her. Before this was sent actual war with Denmark had broken out, and to prevent the discovery of the letter, he concealed it in a stick and sent it by a secret messenger. This messenger was captured by a privateer and carried to Copenhagen; in some way his mission was suspected and the letter found; and the Danish king, in ecstasies at his discovery, despatched the incriminating love-missive immediately to the landgrave of Hesse. All was going well there when the letter arrived. The landgrave had favorably received Erik's emissaries and the prospects of their returning with the bride seemed fair, when the unlucky letter was put into his hands. It fell like a thunderbolt. In a rage at seeing himself and his daughter thus made sport of, the landgrave ordered the Swedes to leave the town before sunset, under peril of his high displeasure. This ended the suit for the fair maiden's hand, later ambassadors sent by Erik were dismissed with contempt, and through having too many irons in the fire at once the love-sick lord of Sweden found himself without a bride. His brother, Duke John, was more fortunate, though his courtship also led to war and his marriage brought him into dismal misfortune. Before completing the story of Erik's love affairs, the episode of John's matrimonial venture, with its dire results, may fitly be told. A marriage had long been arranged between Duke John and Princess Catharine, sister of King Sigismund of Poland. But obstacles arose and once more the course of true love did not run smooth. Sigismund had an older sister Anna, whom he wished married first; but this impediment was removed by an agreement that John's brother Magnus should marry Anna. Next the czar of Russia proposed for Catharine, but some dispute about the marriage contract brought about a refusal. The result was typical of the rudeness of the times. The Poles had always hated the Russians, and to show their contempt for them Sigismund had a white figure dressed in splendid garments and sent to the Russian court, in lieu of the looked-for bride. Mad with rage at this bitter insult, the czar invaded and cruelly ravaged Poland, the people, as is so often the case, being made to suffer for the quarrels and the folly of the kings. From that time forward the czar hated Sigismund and John, his fortunate rival. John also had difficulty in getting his brother's consent to go to Sigismund's court, and after he had set out an envoy was sent after him ordering him to return. But in disregard of this he went on, and was favorably received at the Polish court, being a handsome, courteous and cultivated prince. Catharine was highly pleased with him, but King Sigismund now repeated his demand that he should marry the elder sister. Finally, after many efforts to change the king's mind, he asked Catharine if she really desired to marry John. The princess blushed and was silent; but her sister spoke for her and implored their brother not to prevent her marriage with the man she loved. At this appeal he gave way and the marriage was quickly solemnized, for there was imminent peril of war between Sweden and Poland unless the affair was consummated. A body of Polish troops escorted the newly wedded couple into Livonia, lest the angry czar should seek to carry them off, and John reached Sweden with his bride. He was very ill received, by Erik's orders, and hastened to his own duchy, whence he sent an invitation to the king to attend his wedding banquet. The king came in another fashion. Angry at John for disobeying his orders, and fearing him as a possible aspirant for the throne, Erik cherished evil intentions against his brother. Suspicious and superstitious by nature, he had read in the stars the prediction that a light-haired man would deprive him of the throne, and this man he believed to be his newly married brother. He also fancied that John had secretly allied himself with Denmark and Poland, and there was soon open enmity between the brothers. The whole story of what followed is too long to be told here, but seeming evidence against John was obtained by the torture of some of his friends and he was attacked in his castle and taken prisoner after a two months' defence. Erik ordered his incarceration in a dungeon, but his wife was offered a residence with her ladies in one of the king's castles. If she wished to accompany him to prison she could take only two of her maids with her. When Catharine heard this she fervently exclaimed: "I would rather die than be separated from my husband," and fainted away. When she recovered she was asked what she intended to do. Taking her betrothal ring from her finger and holding it up, she said: "Read what stands there." They saw engraved on it, "_Nemo nisi mors"_ (none but death). "I will stand by it," said Catharine. And she did. The imprisoned dependents of John, all of whom had shared in his resistance to the king, were nearly all condemned to death and executed, more than a hundred bodies being exposed at once at the place of execution. That John would suffer the same fate was highly probable. His brothers, sisters, and other relatives implored Erik to let him live; his enemies advised his execution; the king hesitated, and postponed his decision, finally deciding that John might live, but in perpetual imprisonment. He was mildly and kindly treated, however, and four years later, during a spasm of fraternal feeling in Erik, was released. We shall not tell the remaining story of King Erik, of his wars, his temporary madness, his violence and cruelty to some of the noblest of the sons of Denmark, his ruthless persecution and final murder of the Stures, descendants of one of the most famous families of Sweden and men who had played a great part in its history. It was the story of his love episodes with which we set out and these were not yet ended. Erik finally got a wife and a queen, though not a queen or a princess for a wife. Love instead of policy lay at the basis of his final courtship. This is the story of the final and real love affair of this suitor of princesses and queens. A soldier named Magnus, of peasant birth, who rose to the rank of corporal in Erik's life-guard, had a daughter named Katrina or Catherine, shortened to Karin, who as a child sat selling nuts in the market-place at Stockholm. Here Erik one day saw her, then about thirteen, and was so struck by her great beauty that he had her placed among the maids-of-honor of his sister Elizabeth. The pretty little Karin was quick to learn her duties, and in deportment was modest and very loveable. Her beauty also grew with her age, until she became looked upon as the fairest of the fair. Erik thought her such and grew greatly attached to her, showing her much attention and winning her regard by his handsome face and kindly manner. In fact she grew to love him dearly and gave herself up entirely to him, a warm affection existing between them. Karin in time became everything to the king. He no longer sought for a bride in foreign courts, no other women had attraction for him, and at length, when the charming peasant girl had borne him a son, he determined to find a way to make her his queen. Those were days when it was not safe to meddle with the love affairs of a king. One unfortunate young man named Maximilian, who had loved Karin and sought her hand in marriage, one day intruded into the women's apartment of the palace, where he was seized. Erik, burning with jealousy, had him condemned on a false pretence, sewed up in a bag, and cast into the lake. After that no one dared interfere with the love episode of Erik and Karin. Men said she had bewitched him by a love-philter. Some of the courtiers who feared her influence upon the king sought to disgrace her, with the result that her intercession alone saved their lives from the incensed monarch. Erik's love for Karin never seemed to change. On beautiful summer afternoons, when he would sail with a merry party on Lake Malar, Karin was always of the party and the object of his tender attention. As they rowed home at night he would sit beside her, contemplating the beauty of the starry northern skies and listening to the songs from the shore or from distant boats. These were executed by his orders, the words and music often being his. One of these songs, in which he praises his "Shepherdess," promises to love her forever, and bids her a "thousand good-nights," is still extant. The time at length came--this was after the period of his foreign wars and his insanity--that he asked permission of the legislative body to marry whom he pleased, at home or abroad. After this was given he privately married Karin, and subsequently determined upon a public celebration of his marriage and her coronation as queen. The chief families of the country were invited to the ceremony, but they neither came nor sent excuses. The coronation went on, notwithstanding, and the peasant's daughter Karin became queen of Sweden as Queen Catherine. Not alone by this marriage, but in a dozen other ways King Erik had made enemies and he was now near the end of his career. A rebellion soon broke out against him, headed by Duke John, who had some time before been liberated, and by his younger brother Duke Charles. Though Erik fought with skill and courage, the insurrection was successful, he being taken prisoner and losing the throne. John was chosen to succeed him as king. Erik spent the remainder of his life in prison, where he was far more harshly treated than John had been by him, his greatest consolation being when his wife and children were permitted to visit him. After eight years of this close confinement John, fearful of an attempt at the release of the captive, had him poisoned in his cell. Thus ended the career of the elder son of Gustavus Vasa. It was a fate which he had brought upon himself by the cruelties of his career. A few well-deserved words may well be given to Queen Catherine. She had never interfered in Erik's government, except to restrain him from cruelty. Her mildness of disposition won her favor on all sides, which was increased by her loving devotion to him while in prison. After his death she was granted an estate in Finland, and there she lived, loved and esteemed by all who knew her and winning the warm devotion of her children and grandchildren. She survived to a good old age, withdrawn but happy, and the memory of her virtues and benevolence still lives among the peasantry of the neighborhood of her abode. _GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS ON THE FIELD OF LEIPSIC._ With the accession to the throne of Sweden in 1611 of Gustavus Adolphus, grandson of Gustavus Vasa, that country gained its ablest king, and the most famous with the exception of the firebrand of war, Charles XII., of later date. For courage, judgment, administrative ability, generous devotion to the good of his country, and military genius this great monarch was unequalled in his time and won a renown which has placed his name in the roll of the great rulers of mankind. The son of Charles IX., the third and ablest son of Gustavus Vasa to fill the throne, he was carefully educated in all the lore of his time and when a boy of sixteen won a brilliant victory over a Danish invading army. During the same year he ascended the throne, his father dying on November 30, 1611. During the preceding reigns Sweden had taken a prominent part in the affairs of northern Europe, having frequent wars with Russia, Poland, and Denmark, and the young king fell heir to these wars, all of which he prosecuted with striking ability. But a conflict soon broke out that threatened all Europe and brought Sweden into the field as the arbiter of continental destinies. This was the famous "Thirty Years' War," the greatest and most ferocious religious war known in history. Into it Sweden was drawn and the hand of Gustavus was potent in saving the Protestant cause from destruction. The final event in his career, in which he fell covered with glory on the fatal field of Lutzen, is dealt with in the German "Historical Tales." We shall here describe another equally famous battle of the war, that of Leipsic. It was in 1629, when Denmark was in peril from the great armies of Ferdinand II. of Austria, and Sweden also was threatened, that Gustavus consented to become the champion of the Protestants of northern Europe, and in June, 1630, he landed in Pomerania at the head of eight thousand men. Here six Scottish regiments joined him, under the Duke of Hamilton, and he marched onward, taking towns and fortresses in rapid succession and gaining large reinforcements from the German states. Three great leaders headed the Austrian armies, the famous Wallenstein, the able but ferocious Tilly, and the celebrated cavalry leader Pappenheim. All these skilled soldiers Gustavus had to face alone, but he did so with the support of the best-drilled army then in Europe, a body of soldiery which his able hands had formed into an almost irresistible engine of war. What spurred Gustavus to the great battle to be described was the capture by Tilly on May 20, 1631, of the city of Magdeburg, and the massacre of its thirty thousand citizens, men, women, and children. From this scene of frightful outrage and destruction Tilly failed to call off his men until the city lay in ruins and its people in death. A tall, haggard, grim warrior, hollow-cheeked, and wild-looking, with large bright eyes under his shaggy brows, Tilly looked capable of the deeds of ferocity with which the world credited him. [Illustration: STATUE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS.] While all Christendom shuddered with horror at the savage slaughter at Magdeburg, the triumphant Tilly marched upon and captured the city of Leipsic. Here he fixed his headquarters in the house of a grave-digger, where he grew pale at seeing the death's-head and cross-bones with which the owner had decorated his walls. These significant emblems may have had something to do with the unusual mildness with which he treated the citizens of that town. The cause of Protestantism in Germany was now in serious jeopardy and Gustavus felt that the time had come to strike a hard blow in its behalf. The elector of Saxony, who had hitherto stood aloof, now came to his aid with an army of eighteen thousand men, and it was resolved to attack Tilly at once, before the reinforcements on the way to join him could arrive. These statements are needful, to show the momentous import of the great battle of September 7, 1631. In the early morning of that day the two armies came face to face, Tilly having taken a strong and advantageous position not far from Leipsic, where he hoped to avoid a battle. But he was obliged, when the enemy began to move upon him, to alter his plans and move towards the hills on his left. At the foot of these his army was drawn up in a long line, with the artillery on the heights beyond, where it would sweep the extensive plain of Breitenfeld in his front. Over this plain the Swedes and Saxons advanced in two columns, towards a small stream named the Lober, which ran in Tilly's front. To prevent this crossing Pappenheim had early moved at the head of two thousand cuirassiers, a movement which Tilly reluctantly permitted, though strictly ordering him not to fight. Disregarding this order Pappenheim charged the vanguard of the Swedes, only to find that he had met an impregnable line and to be driven back in disorder. To check pursuit he set fire to a village at the crossing-point, but this had no effect upon the movement of the advancing troops nor his own disorderly retreat. The army of Gustavus was organized for the coming battle in the following manner. On the right the Swedes were drawn up in a double line; the infantry being in the centre, divided into small battalions that could be rapidly manoeuvred without breaking their order; the cavalry on the wings, similarly drawn up in small squadrons, with bodies of musketeers between; this being done to make a greater show of force and annoy the enemy's horse. On the left, at a considerable distance, were the Saxons. It was the defeat of Pappenheim which obliged Tilly to abandon his first strong position and draw up his army under the western heights, where it formed a single extended line, long enough to outflank the Swedish army; the infantry in large battalions, the cavalry in equally large and unwieldy squadrons; the artillery, as stated, on the slopes above. The position was one for defence rather than attack, for Tilly's army could not advance far without being exposed to the fire of its own artillery. Each army numbered about thirty-five thousand men. These forces were small in view of the momentous nature of the struggle before them and the fact that two great generals, both hitherto invincible, were now to be matched in a contest on which the fate of the whole war largely depended and to which the two parties battling for the mastery looked forward with fear and trembling. But of the two, while Gustavus was cool and collected, Tilly seemed to have lost his usual intrepidity. He was anxious to avoid battle, and had formed no regular plan to fight the enemy when forced into it by Pappenheim's impetuous charge. "Doubts which he had never before felt struggled in his bosom; gloomy forebodings clouded his ever-open brow; the shade of Magdeburg seemed to hover over him." The lines being ready for action, King Gustavus rode to the centre of his front, reined in his horse, took off his hat, and with the sword in his right hand lowered to the ground, offered in a loud voice the following prayer: "Almighty God, Thou who holdest victory and defeat in the hollow of Thine hand, turn Thine eye unto us Thy servants, who have come from our distant homes to fight for freedom and truth and for Thy gospel. Give us victory for the honor of Thy holy name. Amen!" Then, raising his sword and waving it over his head, he commanded: "Forward in the name of the Lord!" "God with us!" was the battle-cry as the Swedes, inspired by his words, prepared for the fatal fray. The battle, which had lulled after the defeat of Pappenheim, was now resumed with the thunder of the cannon, which continued for two hours, the west wind meanwhile blowing clouds of smoke and dust from ploughed and parched fields into the faces of the Swedes. To avoid this they were wheeled to face northwards, the movement being executed so rapidly and skilfully that the enemy had no time to prevent it. The cannonading ending, Tilly left the shelter of the heights and advanced upon the Swedes. But so hot was their fire that he filed off towards the right and fell impetuously upon the Saxons, whose ranks quickly broke and fled before the fierce charge. Of the whole force of the elector only a few regiments held their ground, but these did so in a noble manner that saved the honor of Saxony. So confident now was Tilly of victory that he sent off messengers in all haste to Munich and Vienna with word that the day was his. He was too hasty. The unbroken army of Sweden, the most thoroughly drilled body of soldiers then in Europe, was still to be dealt with. Pappenheim, who commanded the imperial left, charged with his whole force of cavalry upon the Swedish right, but it stood against him firm as a rock. Here the king commanded in person, and repulsed seven successive charges of the impetuous Pappenheim, driving him at last from the field with broken and decimated ranks. In the meantime Tilly, having routed the small remnant of the Saxons, turned upon the left wing of the Swedes with the prestige of victory to animate his troops. This wing Gustavus, on seeing the repulse of his allies, had reinforced with three regiments, covering the flank left exposed by the flight of the Saxons. Gustav Horn commanded here, and met the attack with a spirited resistance, materially aided by the musketeers who were interspersed among the squadrons of horse. While the contest went on and the vigor of the attack was showing signs of weakening, King Gustavus, having put Pappenheim to rout, wheeled to the left and by a sharp attack captured the heights on which the enemy's artillery was planted. A short struggle gave him possession of the guns and soon Tilly's army was being rent with the fire of its own cannon. This flank attack by artillery, coming in aid of the furious onset of the Swedes, quickly threw the imperial ranks into confusion. Hitherto deemed invincible, Tilly's whole army broke into wild disorder, a quick retreat being its only hope. The only portion of it yet standing firm was a battalion of four veteran regiments, which had never yet fled the field and were determined never to do so. Closing their ranks, they forced their way by a fierce charge through the opposing army and gained a small thicket, where they held their own against the Swedes until night, when only six hundred of them remained. With the retreat of this brave remnant the battle was at an end, the remainder of Tilly's army being then in full flight, actively pursued by the Swedish cavalry, which kept close upon their tracks until the darkness of night spread over the field. On all sides the bells of the villages pealed out the tidings of the victory, and the people poured forth in pursuit of the fleeing foe, giving short shrift to the unhappy fugitives who fell into their hands. Eleven thousand of Tilly's men had fallen and more than five thousand, including the wounded, were held as prisoners. On the other side the Saxons had lost about two thousand, but of the Swedes only about seven hundred had fallen. The camp and artillery of the enemy had fallen into the hands of Gustavus, and more than a hundred standards had been taken. The rout was so complete that Tilly had left with him only about six hundred men and Pappenheim less than fifteen hundred. Thus was destroyed that formidable army which had long been the terror of Germany. As for Tilly himself, chance alone left him his life. Exhausted by his wounds and summoned to surrender by a Swedish captain of horse, he refused. In an instant more he would have been cut down, when a pistol shot laid low the Swede. But though saved in body, he was lost in spirit, utterly depressed and shaken by the defeat which had wiped out, as he thought, the memory of all his past exploits. Though he recovered from his wounds, he never regained his former cheerfulness and good fortune seemed to desert him, and in a second battle with Gustavus on the Lech he was mortally wounded, dying a few days later. As for Gustavus, he had won imperishable renown as a military leader. All Germany seemed to lie open before him and it appeared as if nothing could prevent a triumphant march upon Vienna. He had proved himself the ablest captain and tactician of the age, his device of small, rapidly moving brigades and flexible squadrons being the death-blow of the solid and unwieldy columns of previous wars. And his victory formed an epoch in history as saving the cause of Protestantism in Germany. The emperor, in despair, called again into his service the disgraced and disgruntled Wallenstein, granting him extraordinary powers. But this great captain also was beaten by Gustavus on the field of Lutzen, where the career of the Swedish hero came to an untimely end. His renown as a great soldier will live long in history. _CHARLES X. AND THE INVASION OF DENMARK._ When Charles X., nephew of Gustavus Adolphus, succeeded Christina, the daughter of Gustavus, on the throne, the "Thirty Years' War" was at an end, but new wars awaited the new king. Sweden had won large possessions on the southern shores of the Baltic and had become one of the leading powers of Europe. But Charles found these southern provinces hard to hold, having to battle for them with Russia and Poland. A worthy successor of his great uncle, Charles showed his warlike ability by a rapid march into Poland and the overthrow of its army by a three days' battle at Warsaw. But his progress was checked by a new and dark cloud which appeared upon the sky. Suddenly and unexpectedly, on the 2d of May, 1657, Denmark declared war against Sweden, and at the same time an Austrian army invaded Poland with the purpose of aiding that kingdom and destroying the Swedish army. This double attack left Charles in a quandary. An able and experienced soldier, who had learned the trade of war in Germany during Queen Christina's reign, he was well fitted to deal with one foe, but could not readily cope with two widely separated ones. He therefore determined to abandon Poland, though leaving garrisons in its more important cities, and devote his attention to Denmark. This Danish war had much in it of interest, and showed that the new Swedish king had been taught in the best school of the military art. Frederick III. of Denmark had declared war without making preparations for it, fancying that Charles would be forced to remain with his army in Poland and that he would have abundant time to act. He quickly learned his mistake. With an army of eight thousand well-trained veterans Charles marched at all speed from Poland, and a few months after war was declared stood with his compact little army on Denmark's shores. Taken by surprise, the Danish general, Bilbe, retreated hastily northward and the whole peninsula of Jutland was quickly overrun by the Swedes. Bilbe had much the larger army, but they were mainly raw recruits, and he dared not face the veterans of the Thirty Years' War. The Danes had projected an invasion of Sweden, for which they had been deliberately preparing, and were overwhelmed to find their army in retreat and a force of six thousand men closely besieged in the Fredericia fortress. A night attack by General Vrangel won this stronghold for the Swedes, with its garrison and a large amount of arms and provisions. So far the movement of Charles had been brilliantly successful, but his position was very dangerous. Enemies were advancing on him from various sides, a Polish army having invaded Pomerania, an Austrian army having advanced into Prussia, while the elector of Brandenburg had joined his enemies. His ally, England, had promised to aid him with a fleet, but it failed to appear, and the situation was growing daily more critical. From his awkward position he was rescued by a combination of daring and the favoring influences of nature. The winter of 1658 proved extraordinarily cold. Never within the memory of man had such bitter weather been known. The sea that flowed between the Danish islands was tightly frozen, a natural bridge of ice connecting them with one another and the mainland. With bold resolution King Charles determined to cross to the island of Fyen. The enterprise was full of risk. The ice swayed perilously beneath the marching hosts. At places it broke. But the island shore was safely reached, the troops guarding it were beaten, and soon the whole island was in Charles's possession. But a more daring and perilous enterprise confronted the king. There was a broader arm of the sea to cross, the Great Belt, about twelve miles wide. The ice was examined and tested by the quartermaster-general, who said that he would answer with his life for its being strong enough to bear the army. King Charles heard this tidings with delight, clapping his hands energetically and exclaiming: "Now, Brother Frederick, we will converse with each other in good Swedish." Dahlberg, the quartermaster-general, testified to his confidence by riding at the head of the column over the wide field of ice, the army following in safety to the coast of Zealand. Meeting with no opposition, Charles and his army were soon near Copenhagen, whose fortifications were in bad condition, and the danger of losing his capital was so imminent that Frederick was glad to accept the severe terms of peace which Charles offered him. These included the surrender of half a dozen Danish provinces to Sweden and the independence of the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp from Danish control. Denmark had paid sorely for making a declaration of war with no preparation to carry it out. But Charles X. was so eager for war that in the end he lost most of what he had gained. He was full of schemes of conquest in Germany, but feared that Denmark might take advantage of his absence with his army to take revenge for her losses. The fleets of Holland were threatening the coasts of the Baltic Sea, and Charles sought to make a treaty with Denmark which would close this sea to foreign ships. Denmark refused to enter such an alliance and Charles thereupon determined to make a complete conquest of that kingdom. Breaking without warning the treaty of peace he had recently made, he suddenly landed with an army on the coast of Zealand. By this unwarranted and stealthy assault he filled the souls of the Danes with the courage of despair, changed Holland from a secret to an open enemy, and lost the most of his former gains. The Danish people, threatened with the loss of their independence, flew to arms, determined to defend their country to the last extremity. Charles, his army being small, delayed his attack upon Copenhagen, which might easily have been taken by an immediate assault. When he appeared before it he found all its people converted into armed soldiers, while King Frederick declared that he was ready to die in his capital like a bird in its nest. Every soul in the city burned with patriotism, and nobles, burghers, and laborers alike manned the walls, while even women could be seen wielding spade and axe in the repair of the neglected defences. When the siege began the citizens made several successful sallies against their foes and hope arose in their breasts. But their position soon grew critical, the Swedes seizing the castle of Cronberg and other points commanding the Sound and pushing forward their lines until they had possession of the outer works of the city. The great weakness of the citizens lay in the absence of provisions, which grew so scarce that they would have had to surrender from sheer stress of hunger but for the activity of their allies. The Dutch had enlisted in their cause, and a fleet sent from Holland under Admirals Opdam and DeWitte passed Cronberg and other fortifications held by the Swedes, met the Swedish fleet under Admiral Vrangel in the Sound and fought a bloody battle for the mastery. For six hours the thunder of cannon echoed from the neighboring shores, then the Swedes were put to flight and a favoring wind bore the Dutch ships triumphantly to the beleagured city, bringing food and help to the half-starved defenders. Their coming saved Copenhagen. Charles, baffled in his efforts, drew back, and threw up works of defence ten miles from the city. Suddenly the tide of fortune had turned and began to run strongly against him. Into Holstein pressed an invading army of Austrians, Poles, and Brandenburgers. The Swedes were forced to evacuate Jutland. The newly won provinces were ready to revolt. Part of those held in Norway were taken by the Danes, and the Swedish garrison in the island of Bornholm was annihilated by a sudden revolt of the inhabitants. When winter came and the waters were closed by ice against invading fleets, the Swedish king determined to make a vigorous effort to take the city by assault. The attack was made on the night of February 10, 1659, Generals Stenbock and Spane leading a storming party against the fortifications. Fortunately for the people, they had information of the coming assault and were fully prepared for defence, and a desperate struggle took place at the walls and in the frozen ditches. The fire of a multitude of cannon served to light up the scene, and the attacking Swedes found themselves met with the frantic courage of men and women fighting for their homes. A shower of bullets and stones burst upon them, many women taking part, throwing burning brands, and pouring boiling tar upon their heads. In the end the Swedes were forced to draw back, leaving two thousand dead and wounded in the hands of their foes. Relinquishing his attack upon the city, Charles now turned furiously upon the small islands of Laaland, Falster, Moen, and Langeland, which had offended him by supplying provisions for the city, and subjected them to all the horrors of invasion by troops to whom every excess of outrage was allowed. Yet new misfortunes gathered round him, the peninsula of Fyen being taken by the allies of Denmark, while the Swedish troops near Nyberg were attacked and taken prisoners, their commander alone escaping in a small boat. The intervention offered by the neighboring powers was refused by the proud Swedish king, who, surrounded by dangers on all sides, now issued a call for a meeting of the estates of the realm at Gothenburg, while at the same time preparing to invade Norway as a part of the Danish dominions. At this interval he was suddenly taken sick and died soon after reaching Gothenburg. A treaty followed with the widowed queen, regent of Sweden, and Frederick preserved his realm, though not without loss of territory. _CHARLES XII. THE FIREBRAND OF SWEDEN._ On the 27th of June, 1682, was born one of the most extraordinary of men, the Alexander of modern times, one of those meteors of conquest which have appeared at rare intervals in the history of the world. Grandson alike of Charles X. of Sweden and Frederick III. of Denmark, Charles XII. of Sweden united in himself all the soldierly qualities of his ancestors, his chief fault being that he possessed them in too intense a degree, being possessed by a sort of military madness, an overweaning passion for great exploits and wide-spread conquests. In his career Sweden reached its greatest height of power, and with his death it fell back into its original peninsular status. His daring activity began almost with his birth. At seven years of age he could manage a horse, and the violent exercises in which he delighted to indulge gave him the vigorous constitution necessary for the great fatigues of his later life, while he developed an obstinacy which made him a terror to his advisers in later years. Charles was extraordinary in the fact that he performed the most remarkable of his exploits before he reached the age of manhood, and in a just sense may be given the name of the boy conqueror. His mother died when he was eleven years of age and his father when he was fifteen, his grandmother being appointed regent of the kingdom, with a council of five nobles for her advisers. Sweden, when he came to the throne, had risen to a high rank among the powers of Europe. In addition to its original dominion, it possessed the whole of Finland, the finest part of Pomerania, on the southern shores of the Baltic, and also Livonia, Carelia, Ingria, Wismar, Viborg, the Duchies of Bremen and Verden, and other realms, all of long possession and secured by conquest and treaty. But it had dangerous enemies with whom to deal, especially Peter the Great of Russia, then bent on bringing his barbarian dominions into line with the great powers of the continent. Such was the inheritance of the fifteen-year-old king, who quickly showed the material of which he was composed. One day in the first year of his reign, after reviewing a number of regiments, he was seen by his special favorite, Charles Piper, in a spell of abstraction. "May I ask your Majesty," said Piper, "of what you are thinking so deeply?" "I am thinking," replied the boy monarch, "that I am capable of commanding those brave fellows; and I don't choose that either they or I shall receive orders from a woman." He referred in this irreverent and boastful speech to his grandmother, the regent. He was crowned on the 24th of December following his father's death, the ceremony being performed by the archbishop of Upsala. But when the prelate, having anointed the prince in the customary manner, held the crown in his hand ready to put it upon the new king's head, Charles took it from his hand and crowned himself, his eyes fixed sternly upon the dismayed churchman. This act of self-willed insubordination was applauded by the people, who also received him with loud acclamations when he rode into Stockholm on a horse shod with silver and with a sceptre in his hand and a crown on his head. The oath of fidelity to his people, usual on such occasions, was not taken, and in fact Charles had no thought of being faithful to anything but his own ambitious designs and his obstinate self-will. He soon showed his unfitness for the duties of quiet government. The money collected by his father was quickly squandered by him, and with the eagerness of an untutored boy he plunged into every kind of daring amusement that presented itself, risking his life in break-neck rides, mock fights, bear hunts, and other dangerous sports and exercises. He also gave much attention to military manoeuvres, his time being spent in all sorts of violent activities, with little thought to the duties of government, these being confided to his chief friend and confidant, Charles Piper. The tidings of the manner in which the new king of Sweden occupied himself spread to the neighboring monarchs, who, fancying that they had nothing to fear from a frivolous and pleasure-loving boy, deemed this a good opportunity to recover some of the lands conquered from them by the preceding Swedish kings. A secret understanding to this effect was entered into by Frederick IV. of Denmark, King Augustus of Poland, and Peter the Great, czar of Russia, and the ball was opened early in 1700 by an invasion of Livonia on the part of the Polish king, while the Danes attacked Holstein-Gottorp, ruled by Charles's brother-in-law, taking Gottorp and laying siege to Tonnigen. Peter of Russia was the most dangerous of the three confederates, he being then full of the idea of introducing western civilization among his rude subjects and making Russia a sea power. To accomplish this he was eager to gain a foothold on the Baltic by the conquest of Finland. The kingly conspirators, who had begun war against Sweden without a declaration, little dreamed of the hornet's nest they were arousing. Filled with consternation, some of the Swedish councillors of state proposed to avert the danger by negotiation. Charles, then a youth of eighteen and of whose real metal no one dreamed, listened to these words with a grave face, and then rose and spoke: "Gentlemen, I am resolved never to begin an unjust war, nor ever to end a just one but by the destruction of my enemies. My resolution is fixed. I will attack the first that shall declare war against me, and having conquered him, I hope I shall be able to strike terror into the rest." The old councillors were surprised by the resolute demeanor of the young king, who seemed suddenly transformed into a man before them. They little knew the boy. Familiar with the careers of Alexander and Cæsar, he was inspired with the ambition to attempt the rôle of a great conqueror and prove himself one of the world's ablest soldiers. Forsaking his favorite sports, he set himself with intense energy to prepare for the war which had been precipitated upon him, and sent word to the Duke of Holstein that he would speedily come to his assistance, eight thousand men being at once despatched to Pomerania for this purpose. Instantly the natives were stirred up, Central Germany sending troops to reinforce the Danes, while England and Holland sent fleets to aid Sweden and seek to preserve the balance of power in the north. Such were the preliminary steps to Charles's first great campaign, one of the most remarkable in the whole history of war. On the 8th of May, 1700, he left Stockholm, in which city he was never to set foot again. With a large fleet of Swedish, Dutch, and English vessels he proposed to attack Copenhagen, thus striking at the very citadel of Danish power. The assault began with a bombardment of the city, but, seeing that this was having little effect, Charles determined to attack it by land and sea, taking command of the land forces himself. A landing was made at the village of Humlebek, Charles, in his impatience to land, leaping into the water, which came nearly to his waist, and wading ashore. Others followed his example, the march through the waves being made amid a shower of bullets from the enemy. Springing to land, the young king waved his sword joyously above his head and asked Major Stuart, who reached the shore beside him, what was the whistling sound he heard. "It is the noise of the musket balls which they are firing at your Majesty," said the major. "That is the very best music I ever heard," he replied, "and I shall never care for any other as long as I live." As he spoke, a bullet struck the major in the shoulder and on his other side a lieutenant fell dead, but Charles escaped unscathed. The Danes were soon put to flight and Charles made the arrangements for the encamping of his troops with the skill and celerity of one trained in the art of warfare, instead of a boy on his first campaign and to whom the whistle of a musket ball was a sound unknown. He showed his ability and judgment also by the strict discipline he maintained, winning the good will of the peasantry by paying for all supplies, instead of taking them by force in the ordinary fashion of the times. While the camp was being made and redoubts thrown up towards the town, the fleet was sent back to Sweden and soon returned with a reinforcement of nine thousand men, who had marched in haste to the shore and were drawn up ready to embark. The Danish fleet looked on at this movement, but was not strong enough to interfere. The rapidity with which this invasion had been made struck the people of Copenhagen with terror and they sent an embassy to Charles, begging him not to bombard the city. He received them at the head of his guards, while they fell upon their knees before him. His ultimatum to the petitioners was that he would spare the city on the payment of four hundred thousand rix-dollars. They were also commanded to supply his camp with provisions, for which he promised they would be honestly paid. They did not dare refuse, and were very agreeably surprised when Charles kept his word and paid good prices for all he got. Charles now sent word to King Frederick that he had made war only to require him to make peace, and he must agree to act justly towards the Duke of Holstein or the city of Copenhagen would be destroyed and his dominions laid waste with fire and sword. Frederick, utterly taken aback by the warlike vigor of King Charles, was very glad to accept this proposal and thus to escape from the dangerous position in which he had placed himself, and the negotiations were driven through by Charles with the same abrupt energy he had shown in his military movements. In less than six weeks from the beginning of the war it was ended and the treaty made, a surprising achievement for the first campaign of an eighteen-year-old warrior. The treaty was favorable to Frederick, Charles exacting nothing for himself, but demanding that the Duke of Holstein should be repaid the expenses of the war. The boy king had reason for haste, for the town of Riga, in his dominions, was being invested by a combined army of Russians, Poles, and Saxons. The treaty was no sooner signed than he sailed in all haste to its relief. It had made a gallant and nearly desperate defence under General Dahlberg, but the besiegers did not wait for the impact of Charles's army, hastily retreating and leaving the field open to him for a great feat of arms, the most famous one in his career. The town of Narva, in Ingermanland, was then invested by a great Russian army, sixty thousand--some say eighty thousand--strong, the Czar Peter being in supreme command, the Duc de Croy commanding under him. But the unskilled Russians had not proved very successful in the art of besieging, having failed for six weeks to take a city that was very poorly fortified and whose governor, Baron Herre, had but a thousand regular troops in his garrison. It was in mid-November, 1700, that the czar heard that the Swedish king had landed an army of about thirty-two thousand men, and was coming to the relief of Narva. Not content with his great force, Peter hurried forward a second army of thirty thousand men, proposing to enclose King Charles between these two hordes and hoping thus to annihilate him. He reckoned without his host. Charles landed at Pernow and made a forced march to Reval, followed by his cavalry, fourteen thousand strong, but with only four thousand foot soldiers. Marching, in his usual ardent manner, in the van of his army, he did not wait for the rear, making his way onward by nearly impassable roads and coming before the outposts of the supplementary Russian army with only eight thousand men. With apparently utter indifference to the vast disproportion in numbers, the Swedish firebrand rushed forward, the Russians, not dreaming of such mad temerity, being sure that he had his whole army behind him. The advance guard of the Russians, five thousand strong, was posted in a rocky pass where a body of a hundred resolute men might have checked the progress of an army, yet it fled in dismay before the onset of the Swedes. The twenty thousand men behind them shared their panic and joined in their flight, terror and confusion pervading the whole army. In two days' time Charles carried all their posts, winning what might have been claimed as three distinct victories, yet not delaying an hour in his advance. Having thus disposed of the army sent to intercept him, Charles marched with all speed to Narva, leaving his main army still far in the rear. With his eight thousand men, exhausted with their long march and their hard fight, he suddenly appeared before the czar's great force of sixty or eighty thousand men and one hundred and fifty cannon. Giving his weary men scarcely any time for rest, Charles advanced against the Russians with the impetuosity which had so far marked his career. A general warned him that the danger was very great. "What!" he replied. "Do you not think that with my eight thousand brave Swedes I may easily beat eighty thousand Russians?" Whether the general believed so or not, he did not venture any further remonstrances, and, at the signal of two musket shots and the war-cry of "With the aid of God!" the king and his handful of men marched forwards. It was now about mid-day on the 20th of November, 1700. A breach being made with their cannon in the Russian works, Charles led his men on with fixed bayonets, a furious snow-fall behind them driving full in the face of the enemy and making their position a very difficult one. After an engagement of three hours the entrenchments were stormed on all sides, the right wing of the Russians fleeing to the Narva and crowding the bridge with its retreating hosts. So dense was the mass that the bridge gave way beneath them, precipitating them into the stream, in which eighteen thousand of the panic-stricken wretches were drowned. The left wing then broke and fled in utter confusion, so many prisoners being taken that the best the captor could do was to disarm them and let them disperse where they would. Thus ended this extraordinary battle, almost without a parallel in history and spreading the fame of the victor widely over Europe. For a boy little over eighteen years of age to achieve such a feat, defeating with eight thousand men an army of nearly a hundred thousand, raised him in men's minds to the level of the most famous conquerors. Unfortunately for himself, it redoubled his self-will and vanity, the adulation given him leading him into a course of wild and aimless invasion that brought upon him eventually misfortune and defeat and nearly ruined his kingdom. Having disposed of two of the enemies who had plotted his destruction, in the following year Charles advanced against the third, King Augustus of Poland, led his victorious army into that kingdom, took Warsaw, its capital city, by storm, and in the battles of Klissov and Pultusk so thoroughly overthrew the forces of Augustus that he was forced to give up the throne of Poland and retire into his native dominion of Saxony, a Polish noble being proclaimed king in his place. The Swedish conqueror even pursued Augustus into Saxony, defeated his armies wherever met, and forced him at last to beg humbly for peace. Such was the first era of the brilliant career of the young Swedish firebrand of war, who in four years had utterly overthrown his enemies and won a reputation for splendid military genius which placed him on a level, in the opinion of the military critics of the age, with Alexander the Great, whom he had taken as the model of his career. But Charles had two great enemies with whom to contend, and as a result his later history was one of decline and fall, in which he lost all that he had won and remained for years practically a prisoner in a foreign land. One of these enemies was himself. His faults of character--inordinate ambition, inflexible obstinacy, reckless daring--were such as in the end to negative his military genius and lead to the destruction of the great power he had so rapidly built up. The other was Czar Peter of Russia. It was unfortunate for the youthful warrior that fate had pitted him against a greater man than himself, Peter the Great, who, while lacking his military ability, had the other elements of a great character which were wanting in him, prudence, cool judgment, persistence in a fixed course of action. While the career of Charles was one of glitter and coruscation, dazzling to men's imaginations, that of Peter was one of cool political judgment, backed by the resources of a great country and the staying qualities of a great mind. What would have been the outcome of Charles's career if pitted against almost any other monarch of Russia that one could name it is difficult to imagine. But pitted against Peter the Great he was like a foaming billow hurling itself against an impregnable rock. While it is not our purpose to tell the whole story of the exploits of Charles XII., yet his life is so interesting from the point of view of military history that a brief epitome of its remainder may be given. After his great victories Charles remained in Saxony, entertaining the throng of princes that sought his friendship and alliance and the crowd of flatterers who came to shine in his reflected glory. For six years in all he remained in Poland and Saxony, fighting and entertaining, while Peter the Great was actively engaged in carrying out the important purpose he had in mind, that of extending the dominion of Russia to the shores of the Baltic and gaining an outlet on the northern seas. As an essential part of his purpose he began to build a new city on the banks of the Neva, to serve as a great port and centre of commerce. It was long before Charles awakened to the fact that Peter was coming threateningly near to the Swedish territories, and when he finally realized the purpose of his great enemy and set out to circumvent it, he did so without any definite plan. He decided, as Napoleon did a century later, to plunge into the heart of the country and attack its capital city, Moscow, trusting by doing so to bring his enemy to terms. In this he failed as signally as Napoleon did in his later invasion. In June, 1708, with an army of forty-three thousand men, Charles crossed the Beresina and soon after met and defeated the Russian army near Smolensko. He considered this his most brilliant victory, and, as we are told by Voltaire, Peter now made overtures for peace, to which Charles, with the arrogance of a victor, replied, "I will treat with the Czar at Moscow." He never reached Moscow, but was constrained to turn southward to the Ukraine, where he hoped to gain the aid of the Cossacks, under their chief, Mazeppa, a bitter enemy of the czar. In this march his men suffered terribly, more than half of them dying from hunger and cold. He had met that same enemy which Napoleon afterwards met in Russia, a winter of bitter severity. In the spring he had only about eighteen thousand Swedes and about as many Cossacks under his command, but he persisted in his designs. During the wintry cold he had shared in the privations of his men, eating the same coarse food, while his only means of warming his tent was to have heated cannon balls rolled along the floor. The crisis came in the summer of 1709. Peter, who was keenly on the alert, had succeeded in winning to his side the Cossack chiefs, leaving Mazeppa without any followers. Then he intercepted the Swedish general Levenhaupt, who was marching with a new army to the aid of his king, and overwhelmed him with an immense force of Russians. Losing all his baggage and stores and more than half his men, Levenhaupt succeeded in reaching the king's camp with only six thousand battered and worn soldiers. Charles had now only eighteen thousand men, and was in such sore need of food and clothing that he laid siege to the city of Pultowa, hoping to obtain supplies by its capture. Here he was met by Peter with an army three times his strength, and in the decisive battle that followed Charles was wounded and his army utterly defeated, only three thousand escaping death or capture. Charles himself narrowly escaped the latter, and only by a hazardous and adventurous flight over the steppes reached the town of Bender, in the Turkish realm. [Illustration: From stereograph, copyright by Underwood and Underwood, N.Y. THE RETURN OF CHARLES XII. OF SWEDEN.] Here the sultan, the bitter enemy of Russia, gave him refuge and treated him with much kindness, though he found the young Swede a very troublesome guest. In fact, at Charles's suggestion, the sultan went to war with Russia and got the czar into such a tight place that he only escaped by bribing the Turkish vizier. Infuriated at his enemy's escape, Charles became so violent and unruly that the sultan tried to get rid of him, giving him large sums of money to pay his debts and make preparations to leave. When Charles spent all this and asked for more the sultan grew so angry that he ordered the arrest of his troublesome guest. It needed an army of men to take him, for he locked himself in his house and fought furiously with the few hundred of men under his command. Many Turkish soldiers were killed and he was only captured by setting fire to his house and seizing him as he fled from the flames. The "Iron Head," as the Turks called him from his obstinacy, was guarded in a Turkish village for ten months by a force of Janizaries. Most of this time was spent in bed on pretence that he was dangerously ill. At the end of that time, finding that he could get no more help from the Turks, he resolved to escape. Accompanied by two persons only, he rode in the incredibly short period of fourteen days from Adrianople through Austria, Hungary, and Germany, reaching the Swedish post of Stralsund on November 7, 1713. Doubtless the sultan was glad to hear of his escape, since he had borne with his restless and unwelcome guest for more than four years. When he came to the gates of Stralsund he presented himself to the guard under the name of Captain Peter Frisch. The guard was long in recognizing him, for he was haggard and worn in face and ragged and dirty in person, having never changed his clothes and rarely left the saddle, except to change horses, during his long and weary ride. His long and needless absence in Turkey had left Sweden exposed to its enemies and it had severely suffered, the greater part of its territory south of the Baltic being seized, while Sweden itself had been attacked by the Danes and Saxons and only saved by an army of peasants, so poorly equipped and clothed that they were nicknamed the "Wooden Shoes." As for Charles, his era of brilliant invasion was over and he was obliged to fight in self-defence. When he reached Stralsund it was under siege by an army of Russians, Saxons, and Danes. Taking command here, he defended it obstinately until the walls were blown up and the outworks reduced to ashes, when he went on board a small yacht and crossed the Baltic safely to Sweden, though a Russian admiral was scouring that sea to prevent his passage. A few words must suffice to complete the story of this remarkable man. He found Sweden largely depleted of men and money and in the new army which he sought to raise he was obliged to take boys of fifteen into the ranks. With these he proposed, in the cold winter of 1716, to invade Denmark by leading an army over the Sound to the Danish islands, but a thaw set in and put an end to this adventurous project. Then he invaded Norway, as a part of the Danish realm, and after some unsuccessful efforts, laid siege to the fortress of Frederikshald. Here the end of his strange career was reached. On the morning of December 11, 1718, while leaning over the side of a breastwork and giving directions to the men in the trenches, he was seen to stagger, his head sinking on his breast. The officers who ran to his aid found him breathing his last breath. A bullet had struck him, passing through his head and ending his remarkable career at the early age of thirty-six. With the death of this famous soldier ended the military glory and greatness of Sweden. As a result of his mad ambition and his obstinate persistence in Turkey, Sweden lost all the possessions won in previous reigns, losing them never to be regained. And with him also vanished the absolute rule of the Swedish kings. For with his death the nobles regained their lost influence and drew up a compact in which the crown was deprived of all its overruling control and the diet of the nobles became the dominant power in the state. _THE ENGLISH INVADERS AND THE DANISH FLEET._ The Napoleonic wars filled all Europe with tumult and disorder, the far-northern realms of Norway and Sweden and the far-eastern one of Turkey alone escaping from being drawn into the maelstrom of conflict. Denmark, the Scandinavian kingdom nearest the region of conflict, did not escape, but was made the victim of wars with which it had no concern to a disastrous extent. Christian VII. was then the Danish king, but he was so feeble, both in mind and body, that the Crown Prince Frederick was made regent or joint-ruler in 1784, and was practically king until his father's death in 1808, when he came to the throne as Frederick VI. Count Bernstorf was minister of foreign affairs and kept Denmark at peace until his death in 1799, when troubles at once broke out between Denmark and England. It was a different state of affairs now from that far-off time of Canute and the vikings, when the Danes overran England and a Dane filled its throne. The tide had long turned and Denmark was an almost helpless victim in the hands of the great maritime island, which sought to control the politics of the whole continent during the terrible struggle with Napoleon. For some years the English made complaints against Denmark, saying that it was carrying food and forage into French and German ports in defiance of the laws of neutrality. As these laws were of English origin the Danes did not feel inclined to submit to them, and after the death of Bernstorf Danish men-of-war were sent to sea to protect their merchant vessels. Quarrels and hostile feeling arose from this, but the crisis did not come until the summer of 1800, when Russia, Sweden, and Prussia formed a treaty for an "armed neutrality" and invited Denmark to join it. England at once took alarm. While the other nations were powerful enough to defy her, Denmark was poor and quite unprepared for warlike operations, and when, in the spring of 1801, a fleet under Admirals Parker and Nelson appeared on her waters she was by no means in readiness for such a demonstration. Taken by surprise as they were, however, the Danes had no thought of weakly submitting to this hostile movement, and did their best to prevent the English from passing the Sound. Their chief defence was the fortress of Cronberg, near Elsinore, where heavy cannon were mounted to command the narrow strait here separating Sweden and Denmark. But by closely hugging the Swedish coast Parker kept beyond the range of these guns, and in April, 1801, cast anchor in the harbor of Copenhagen. His fleet consisted of fifty-one vessels, twenty of them being line-of-battle ships. Alarmed by the coming of the fleet and taking advantage of the delays in its movement, the Danes had made every possible preparation for a vigorous resistance. Strong batteries defended the city and an imposing array of heavily armed ships, drawn up behind a shoal, presented a formidable line of defence. Some delay took place, against the wish of the fiery Nelson, who was second in command of the fleet. Nelson was eager for an immediate attack, and finally Parker gave way and left the matter in his hands. Nelson was in command of the Elephant, but finding that ship too large for the waters before him he removed his flag to the St. George and led the way to the attack with the smaller vessels of the fleet, Parker remaining at anchor some miles distant with the larger vessels. A fierce and bloody conflict ensued, lasting from four to five hours. Nelson closed on his foe by getting within the shoal, but he met with a stout and vigorous resistance, the Danish seamen, under their able commander Olfert Fischer, fighting with the daring for which their people had been noted in the far past. Three times the aged Fischer left one burning ship to hoist his flag on another, and several of the younger captains fought their ships against Nelson's larger vessels as long as the shattered hulks kept above water. So protracted and obstinate was the defence that Parker grew alarmed and signalled Nelson to retreat. This was the last signal to be thought of by a man like Nelson and, clapping the glass to his blind eye, he said, "I really do not see the signal," and kept on fighting. Nelson was between two fires, that from the shore batteries and that from the ships, and though he destroyed the first line of the Danish defence and threatened the capital with serious injury, the batteries were not silenced and the English ships were suffering severely. He therefore sent an English officer on shore with a flag of truce, declaring that unless the Danes on shore ceased firing he would burn the ships in his hands without being able to save the crews, and pointing out that these crews were the worst sufferers, as they received a great part of the fire of both parties. A suspension of hostilities was agreed upon to permit of the prisoners being removed, and in the end the crown prince, against the wishes of his commanders, stopped all firing and agreed to discuss terms of peace. Thus ended a battle which Nelson said was the fiercest and best contested of the many in which he had taken part. The peace that followed lasted for several years, and Denmark, freed from connection with the hostilities existing in southern Europe, rapidly increased in trading activity. During these years, indeed, the Danes served as the commerce carriers for the other countries of Europe, and this prosperous state of affairs lasted till 1807, when new troubles arose and England repeated her violent act of 1801. The English government either had, or fancied it had, good grounds for suspecting that Denmark had joined Alexander of Russia in a treaty with France, and on the plea that the fleet of Denmark might be used in the cause of the French emperor, an array of fifty-four ships of war was sent to demand its immediate delivery to England. Denmark was taken more fully by surprise than before. Its army was absent in Holstein to guard against an attack which was feared from Germany, and Copenhagen was thus left without protection. General Peymann refused to comply with the preposterous demand of the English admiral, whereupon an army of thirty-three thousand men was landed and the city attacked by land and sea. For three days a fierce bombardment continued, and not until a large portion of the almost unprotected city was laid in ashes and the remainder threatened with like destruction did the general consent to admit the English troops into the citadel of Frederikshavn. The outcome of this brigand-like attack, which had nothing more definite than a suspicion to warrant it, and is ranked in history as of the same type with the burning of Washington some years later, was the seizure of the entire Danish fleet by the assailants. The ships carried off included eighteen ships-of-the-line, twenty-one frigates, six brigs and twenty-five gunboats, with a large amount of naval stores of all kinds. The act was no more warrantable than were the viking descents upon England centuries before. The latter were the acts of barbarian freebooters, and England, in an age of boasted civilization, put herself in the same position. The Danes were nearly crushed by the blow and many years passed away before their bitter resentment at the outrage decreased. [Illustration: KRONBERG CASTLE ON THE SOUND, DENMARK.] The political result of it was that Denmark allied herself with Napoleon, a measure which gave that unhappy land no small amount of trouble and distress and led in 1814 to the loss of Norway, which for four hundred years had been united with the Danish realm. Norway was handed over to Swedish rule, while England took for her share of the spoils the island of Heligoland, which she wanted to secure for the command of the Elbe. Thus the birds of prey gathered round and despoiled the weak realm of Denmark, which was to be further robbed in later years. _A FRENCH SOLDIER BECOMES KING OF SWEDEN AND NORWAY._ The career of Napoleon, which passed over Europe like a tornado, made itself felt in the Scandinavian peninsula, where it gave rise to radical changes. In the preceding tale its effect upon Denmark was shown. While the wars which desolated Europe did not reach the soil of Sweden and Norway, yet these countries were deeply affected and their relations decidedly changed. The work began in 1808 in the obstinate folly of Gustavus IV., who defiantly kept up an active trade with England when Russia and Prussia had closed their ports against British ships. As a result Russia declared war against Sweden, sent an immense army into Finland, and after a desperate struggle compelled the Swedes to evacuate that region. In this way Sweden lost a great province which it had held for six hundred years. This was one result of a weak king's setting himself against the great powers of Europe. By his lack of political good sense and his obstinacy Sweden lost nearly half its territory and Gustavus lost his throne, for the bitter indignation of the Swedes against him was such that he was taken prisoner by conspirators and forced to sign a deed in which he renounced the throne of Sweden for himself and his descendants. Not a hand was raised to help him and he spent the remainder of his life as a wandering exile. It was this series of events that in time brought a soldier of the French army to the Swedish throne. How this came about is well worth the telling. After the abdication of Gustavus, Duke Charles of Sodermanland was elected king as Charles XIII., and as he had no children, a Danish prince was chosen to succeed him. But this heir to the throne, Charles Augustus by name, died suddenly the next year. The people believed he had been poisoned, and on the day of the funeral, suspecting the haughty old Count Fersen of his death, they seized him and in their fury literally tore him to pieces. It was now proposed to take the brother of the deceased prince as heir to the throne, but little could be done in those days without the Corsican emperor being consulted about it, and the young Baron Mörner was sent to Paris to inform Napoleon of what was proposed. The youthful envoy was an admirer of the conqueror, and thinking to please him he suggested that one of the French generals should be chosen to rule over Sweden. Napoleon was highly gratified with the suggestion, but when the baron named Marshal Jean Bernadotte as his choice the emperor was much less pleased. He would much rather have chosen some one else, Bernadotte being too independent in character to please him. Difficulties were thrown in the way, but Mörner obtained Bernadotte's consent, and by his argument that Sweden needed an able and experienced soldier to regain its old power the Swedish Ricksdag was brought over to his side. In the end Napoleon gave his consent, and the marshal was elected Crown Prince of Sweden. But the French emperor evidently doubted him still, for on parting with him he used these significant farewell words: "Go, then, and let us fulfil our several destinies." He had reason for his distrust, as the events of later years showed. This selection ranks with the remarkable instances of the mutations of fortune. The new crown prince had begun life as the son of a poor French lawyer and in 1780, at the age of sixteen, entered the army as a common soldier. When the wars of the Revolution began he had risen to the rank of a sergeant, which was as high as a man of common birth could rise in the old army of France. But he made rapid progress in the army of the Revolution, being a man of great courage and unusual military genius. Under Napoleon, whose discerning eye no soldier of ability escaped, Bernadotte became one of the most successful of the French generals, was made governor of a province, ambassador, and minister of war, and had much to do with winning the great victories of Austerlitz, Jena, and Wagram. Finally he was made a marshal of France and prince of Ponte Corvo in Italy. But Napoleon had doubts of him. He was too independent. He opposed the emperor's ambitious plans and defended the liberties of the people, and was distrusted by the conqueror for other causes. The astute Corsican feared that he would not be the man to reduce Sweden to a province of France, and the event proved that Napoleon was right. It was in 1810 that Crown Prince Bernadotte, who adopted the name of Charles John as the title of his new rank, arrived in Sweden with his son Oscar. The people were delighted with his appearance. A handsome and imposing man, with black wavy hair, an eagle nose, keen, penetrating eyes and the manner of one accustomed to command, also a clear and eloquent speaker, polished in address and courteous in his dealings with all, they felt that in him they had a true king; while his reputation as one of the leading soldiers in Napoleon's great army gave them assurance that, if war should arise, their armies would be ably led. Sweden, when Bernadotte set foot on its soil, was in a helpless state of decadence, having become little better than a dependency of France. If ever it needed a strong ruler then was the time, but Charles XIII. was incapable as a monarch, and from the time of his landing the new crown prince ruled the country as though there were no king on the throne. He at once renounced Catholicism and was admitted into the Lutheran church, the state religion of Sweden. Proposing to consult the best interests of his new country and not to rule as a vassal of Napoleon, he was indignant when the emperor ordered that Sweden should declare war against England. In the existing condition of the country he felt compelled to submit, but he secretly advised the British government that the declaration of war was a mere formality and not a gun was fired on either side. He also made a secret alliance with Alexander of Russia. None of these movements could be made public, for the Swedes were then fervent admirers of Napoleon and hoped by his aid to gain the lost province of Finland and win revenge upon Russia, their old enemy. Bernadotte saw farther than they, feeling that the inordinate ambition of Napoleon must lead to his downfall and that it was best for Sweden to have an anchor out to leeward. But all these political deals had to be kept from the knowledge of the Swedes. A change in public opinion came when Napoleon, suspecting the loyalty to him of his former marshal, heaped insults upon Sweden, and finally, in the beginning of 1812, invaded Swedish Pomerania, intending by this act to frighten the Swedes into submission. Instead, he exasperated them and lost their friendship, thus giving Bernadotte the opportunity he had awaited. "Napoleon has himself thrown down the gauntlet, and I will take it up," he said, and at once began to prepare for the struggle which he foresaw. With the incitement of the invasion of Pomerania the Crown Prince Charles John--Prince Karl Johan, as the Swedes called him--began active preparations for war. The army was largely increased, new levies being raised and arms and equipment purchased, while alliances were made with foreign powers. It came as a surprise to the Swedes when the fact leaked out that it was not against Russia, but against France, that these warlike movements were being made. Napoleon now, seeing the state of affairs his injudicious act had brought about, sought to gain the friendship of Sweden, making alluring offers to his late marshal. His change of front came too late. Bernadotte had no confidence in him and came into closer relations with his enemies, encouraging the perplexed Alexander to a firm resistance against the French emperor in the great invasion threatened. Everyone knows the disastrous end of this invasion. When Napoleon was marching on Moscow Alexander and Charles John met at Abo and a treaty was formed in which Sweden was promised recompense for the loss of Finland in the acquisition of Norway, while a friendship sprang up between the two which lasted till the end of their lives. Events now moved rapidly. The Corsican conqueror entered Moscow. It was burned and he was forced to retreat. A terrible winter and hostile forces destroyed the Grand Army, only a handful of which escaped. Then came the death struggle in Germany of the greatest soldier in modern history. On every side his enemies rose against him and in the spring of 1813 Bernadotte joined them with an army of thirty thousand Swedes. This army took part in the several battles that followed, and made its mark especially at Dennewitz, where Marshal Ney commanded the French. Bernadotte thought that the Prussians should bear the brunt of this battle, since Berlin was threatened, and for this reason he held the Swedes in reserve. But when the right wing of the Prussians was broken, Ney cheering his soldiers by shouting, "My children, the victory is ours!" he deemed it time to take a hand, and ordered General Cardell, his artillery chief, to support the Prussians. Cardell won the day by a brilliant stratagem. He ordered the caissons into line with the guns and deployed his regiments so that they bore the appearance of a division of cavalry, the mounted artillerists bearing down upon the French at a gallop, with drawn swords. Failing to see the guns, and thinking that they had only cavalry to deal with, the French closed their lines and with fixed bayonets awaited the Swedes. Suddenly the line halted, the guns were rushed forward and reversed, the men sprang to their pieces, and from a long line of frowning cannon poured a fiery hail of grape and canister that tore remorselessly through the solid ranks of the French. The results were awful: dead and dying strewed the ground; the survivors fled in confusion; that deadly volley turned the day in favor of the French, and Ney and his braves were forced to make a hasty retreat. In the great battle of Leipsic no section of the Swedish army but the artillery took part. When the English agent, Sir C. Stewart, sought by threats to drive Bernadotte into action, he haughtily replied: "Do you forget that I am Prince of Sweden and one of the greatest generals of the age?" Bernadotte was considering the uplifting of his new kingdom rather than the overthrow of his old master. He was saving his army for the campaign he proposed against Denmark. Of this campaign we need only say that it ended in the acquisition of Norway. The Danes were beaten and their king disheartened, and in the peace of 1814 he ceded Norway to Sweden, receiving Swedish Pomerania in exchange. For centuries Sweden had sought to absorb Norway, and now, by the action of this crown prince from a foreign land, the result seemed achieved. But the brave Norwegians themselves remained to be dealt with. They did not propose, if they could avoid it, to be forced into vassalage to the Swedes. A party arose in favor of the independence of Norway, a government was formed, and their Danish governor, Prince Christian Frederick, was elected king of Norway. It was a hasty act, which could not be sustained against the trained army of Sweden. Norway was poor, her population small, her defences out of order, her army made up of raw recruits under untried officers, yet the old viking blood flowed in the veins of the people and they were bent on striking for their freedom. Bernadotte returned to Sweden in the summer of 1814 and at once led his army into Norway. Little fighting took place, the Swedish crown prince showing himself favorably disposed, and peace and union finally came, Charles XIII. of Sweden being elected king of Norway. Yet it was not as a subject nation, but as an independent and equal kingdom that Norway entered this union. All her old rights and privileges were retained and the government remained free from any interference on the part of Sweden. It was to the wisdom of Bernadotte that this result was due. An enforced union, he knew, would yield only hatred and bitterness, and to drive a brave people to the verge of despair was not the way to bring them into the position of satisfied subjects. Norway remained as free as ever in her history, dwelling side by side with Sweden, with one king over both countries. In 1818 the weak Charles XIII. died and the strong Bernadotte, or Charles John, ascended the throne as Charles XIV. The remainder of his reign was one of peace and growing prosperity, and when he died in 1844, leaving the throne to his son Oscar, the grateful people of Sweden felt that they owed much to their soldier king. _THE DISMEMBERMENT OF DENMARK._ The time once was when, as we have seen, all Scandinavia, and England also, were governed by Danish kings, and Denmark was one of the great powers of Europe. Since that proud time the power of the Danish throne has steadily declined, until now it is but the shadow of its former self. A great blow came in 1814, when it was forced to yield Norway to Sweden. All its possessions on the Baltic had vanished and its dominion was compressed into the Danish peninsula and its neighboring islands, with the exception of the duchies of Holstein and Lauenburg lying south of the peninsula. The time was near at hand when it was to lose these and more and be reduced to a mere fragment of its once great realm. The new trouble began in 1848, when the French revolution of that date stirred up all the peoples of Europe to fresh demands. North of Holstein lay the duchy of Sleswick, occupying the southern half of the peninsula, its inhabitants, like those of Holstein, being nearly all Germans. These duchies had long chafed under Danish rule, though for centuries they had formed part of Denmark, and now they made an eager demand for union with what they termed their true "Fatherland." A new king, Frederick VII., ascended the Danish throne in January, 1848. In February the French revolution broke out. Almost instantly the duchies were in a blaze of revolt, and on the 23d of April a Danish army of eleven thousand men met one of nearly three times its strength, composed of the insurgents and German allies, and was defeated after a hard fight and forced to take refuge on the little island Als, where it was protected by Danish ships of war. This was the beginning of a struggle that continued at intervals for nearly three years, the great powers occasionally intervening and bringing about a truce. In 1849, the Danes gained some important successes, followed by a second truce. The most severe battle was that of July 24, 1850, when a Danish army nearly forty thousand strong attacked the insurgents and battle went on amid mist and rain for two days, ending in the triumph of the Danes. New successes were gained in September, Sleswick being fully occupied and Holstein invaded, when a strong Austrian army marched into the latter province and again the war was brought to an end. Sleswick was left under the Danish king, but a joint commission of Danes, Austrians, and Prussians was formed to govern Holstein until its relations to Denmark could be determined. For the thirteen years following all remained at rest. But in that year King Frederick VII. of Denmark died and immediately the eldest son of the Duke of Augustenburg, who claimed the duchies, hastened into them and proclaimed himself as ruler, under the title of Duke Frederick VIII., of the united and independent province of Sleswick-Holstein. [Illustration: Reproduced by permission of the Philadelphia Museum. THE BOURSE, COPENHAGEN. DENMARK.] This impulsive act led to most important results. All the German powers to the south, large and small alike, supported the pretensions of the self-styled Frederick VIII., and before the end of the year Austrian and Prussian armies entered the province, which they proposed to hold until the claims of the house of Augustenburg should be definitely settled. This threw Denmark into a difficult position. If she wished to avoid dismemberment she must fight, and to fight against these two great powers seemed madness. Yet Prussia and Austria pressed one condition after another upon her, each more galling than the last. England, however, offered herself as umpire between the parties, strongly favoring Denmark. In consequence, fully expecting aid from England, a Danish army of forty thousand men crossed the border and attacked the Prussians. But England sent no aid and the Danes were forced to retreat and once more take refuge upon Als Island. As England showed no intention of helping them with armed assistance, despair followed the patriotic effort of the Danes, who were left single-handed to oppose their powerful foes. Yet in spite of their greatly inferior power they made a gallant defence, their courage and endurance winning the sympathy of those who looked on. Yet to struggle against such fearful odds was hopeless. The Prussians occupied one strong point after another until they had penetrated to the most northerly point of the peninsula. Then, to save his kingdom from utter destruction, Christian IX. gave way and accepted the terms offered him, agreeing to renounce all claims on the duchies of Sleswick-Holstein and Lauenburg and to abide by the decision of Prussia and Austria as to the future fate of these provinces. Thus were the weak dealt with by the strong, in the rude old fashion, and of its once proud dominion Denmark was left only the northern half of the peninsula, consisting of Jutland and its neighboring islands, a pocket kingdom of some 15,000 square miles extent in lieu of its once great and proud dominion. Yet it was not without satisfaction that the despoiled Danes looked on when their two powerful enemies, quarreling over the division of the spoils, sprang at one another's throats like two dogs snarling over a bone, a great war arising between Austria and Prussia over this question, at a cost far greater than the value of the provinces fought for. Prussia being the victor, the rights of Denmark and the claims of the Duke of Augustenburg alike were quietly laid aside and the matter settled by the absorption of the provinces into the German empire, Denmark being left to thank God that Bismarck did not decide to take the rest. _BREAKING THE BOND BETWEEN NORWAY AND SWEDEN._ In the year 1388 the people of Norway chose the great Queen Margaret of Denmark for their ruler, and from that date until 1905, more than five hundred years later, the realm of the Norsemen continued out of existence as a separate kingdom, it remaining attached to Denmark until 1814, when it came under the rule of the king of Sweden. In 1905 Norway broke these bonds and for the first time for centuries stood out alone as a fully separate realm. With a description of this peaceful revolution we may fitly close our sketches of the Scandinavian countries. During these centuries of union ill feeling frequently arose between the nations involved. Though the union with Denmark had been on terms of equality, the Danes in later years often acted towards Norway as though it were a subject country, at times creating great irritation in the proud sons of the sea-kings. It was the same with the Swedish union, the Swedes at times acting towards Norway as though it were a conquered country, won by the sword of Prince Bernadotte and subject to their will. This was a false view of the relations of the two countries. The act of 1815 states that "The union is not a result of warfare but of free convention, and shall be maintained by a clear acknowledgment of the legal rights of the nations in protection of their mutual thrones." It further states that "Norway is a free, independent, indivisible, and inalienable kingdom, united with Sweden under one king." This must be kept in mind in considering the recent events. Norway was in no sense subject to Sweden, but had simply accepted the king of Sweden as its monarch. They were not one nation, but two nations under one king, being otherwise independent in every respect, each with its own constitution, its own parliament, and its own laws. In fact, Norway has had a constitution since 1818, granted by Bernadotte when he came to the throne, while Sweden was not granted one until over forty years later. And while the constitution of Norway makes it the most democratic monarchy in Europe, that of Sweden gives much greater power to the throne. Thus the people of Norway for many years had reason to be well content with the situation, though they jealously kept watch over the preservation of their rights, and at times radical parties promoted an irritation that might have led to blows had it been sustained by the people at large. The difficulty that led to their final separation was a commercial one. Norway has always been a country with the sea for its province, rugged and unproductive as compared with Sweden, but with a long sea-coast inviting maritime pursuits. As a result, during the century its commerce grew much more rapidly than that of Sweden and it ended the century with a shipping three times as great. Its commercial interests thus made free-trade the economic doctrine of Norway, while protection became that of Sweden, and this was the wedge that in time forced the two countries asunder. In 1885 began the disagreement which led to separation twenty years later. In that year the king made the minister of foreign affairs responsible to the Swedish parliament, thus depriving Norway, as she claimed, of any important influence in foreign politics. Negotiations followed, but Sweden resisted, and irritation arose. Finally the question of a Norwegian minister of foreign affairs was dropped and only that of the right to a separate system of foreign consuls remained. Let us now very briefly epitomize the course of events. In 1891 Norway established a consular commission and made a strong demand for separate consuls to represent her interests in foreign ports. Violent quarrels with Sweden followed, but no agreement was reached. In 1898 the question became serious again, but still there was no agreement, and the same was the case when it came up once more in 1901. A new consular commission was appointed in 1902, its report favoring the demands of Norway, and finally, in 1903, King Oscar gave his sanction to an agreement for separate consuls. But the king's voice did not settle the question; it came before parliament, and after long consideration a decision was reached which avoided the point in dispute and announced principles which were declared in Norway to be in violation of its constitution and at variance with the king's sanction of 1903. This ended the negotiations. The incensed Norwegian legislators appointed a new cabinet to carry out the wishes of the people and a consular service law was passed. Events now proceeded rapidly. In February, 1905, King Oscar retired from active government on account of age and ill health, Crown Prince Gustavus being appointed temporary regent. On considering the subject he dissented from his father's opinion and offered the following proposition for a settlement of the question at issue: first, a common minister of foreign affairs; second, a separate consular service for each country, the consuls to be under the direction of the one foreign minister. This proposition was voted on favorably by the Swedish parliament and the main point in dispute seemed settled. But on May 27 King Oscar returned to the throne and immediately repudiated this action of his son and the parliament, vetoed the law for separate consuls passed in Norway, and when the cabinet of that country resigned in a body refused to accept their resignation. The crisis was now reached. A general wave of indignation swept through the realm of Norway. The feeling of the people was shared by their legislators. Norway's only connection with Sweden was that they had the same king--but the Norwegians had no use for a king that would place the interests of one country in precedence of those of another. The decisive move was made on June 7, when the Storthing--the parliament of Norway--announced itself as no longer in union with Sweden or under the rule of King Oscar, declaring that he had admitted that he was unable to govern Norway according to its constitution and therefore had ceased to rule as its king. The union flag was lowered from the government fortress in Christiania, where it had floated since 1814. In its address to the king the Storthing said that "the course of events has proved more powerful than the desire or will of individuals," but to show that good feeling existed towards Sweden, the king was requested to name a prince of his own house for the throne of Norway, who was to relinquish his right of succession to the Swedish throne. The die was cast. Would war result? Would Oscar seek to force Norway back into the Union as Bernadotte had done in 1814, when it rebelled and chose a king of its own? The occasion seemed critical. Oscar refused to abdicate, there was much talk of war, the Swedish Ricksdag--or parliament--disapproved of letting Norway depart in peace. If war had been declared the hope of Norway sustaining her independence was very doubtful, as her population was only half that of Sweden and her army and navy much weaker. Yet there was sufficient doubt of the outcome to make all men hesitate. Many of the leading men of Sweden disapproved of the idea of war, thinking that hostilities were not called for and that Sweden's stake in the question was not sufficient to justify the attempt to hold Norway by force. A significant event at this juncture was the declaration of the powerful Socialist party in Sweden that they would not bear arms against their brethren in Norway. In this the Socialists made the first international declaration of their opposition to war. As the weeks passed on the war feeling cooled. Oscar withdrew his refusal to abdicate, and said: "Of little use would the Union be if Norway had to be forced into it." As regards the feeling of the people of Norway regarding separation, it was decisively shown on August 13, when a vote was taken upon the question. It resulted in 368,200 votes in favor of to 184 against dissolution of the union. The chief question to be settled was that of the abolition of the frontier fortresses, of which Norway had a number on the border while Sweden had none. Norway held on to hers mainly from patriotic reasons, as several of them were of very ancient date and had great historic interest. The difficulty was finally settled by an agreement to dismantle the new portions and let the ancient ones remain. The final treaty of separation, as approved on September 23, 1905, covered the following points: 1st. There was to be arbitration of all questions arising between the two countries. 2d. A neutral zone was to be established and all forts within this zone to be destroyed or made useless for war purposes. 3d. The grazing rights of Swedish Laplanders in Norway were to be maintained. 4th. The laws of each country were to apply to the portion of waterways crossing each. 5th. No obstacle was to be placed on the commerce between the two countries. The question of the form of government of the new nation had before this arisen. The request to King Oscar for a descendant of his house had been at first refused. He subsequently reconsidered it and was willing to let his son Charles fill the vacant throne, but meanwhile it had been offered to Prince Charles of Denmark and accepted by him. The offer of the throne by the Storthing needed in democratic Norway to be confirmed by a vote of the people, and one was taken in October. The sentiment for a republic in Norway was supposed to be very strong, but the election resulted in a vote of four to one for a kingdom against a republic, and Charles of Denmark, grandson of King Christian, was formally chosen for the reigning monarch of the new kingdom. In compliment to the nation he chose for himself the national title of Haakon VII. and conferred on his son and heir the Norwegian name of Olaf. Formal offer of the throne was made to the new king at Copenhagen on November 20 by a deputation from the Norwegian parliament, King Christian accepting it for his grandson, and saying: "The young king does not come as a stranger to Norway, for he claims relationship to former Norwegian kings. Nor will the kingdom of Norway be strange to him, for everywhere in the land common recollections of the history of the kingdom and the history of his race will meet him." On the 25th of November the new monarch, with his wife, daughter of King Edward of England, made his formal entrance to Christiania, the capital of his new realm, where he was received with the highest demonstrations of joy. On their voyage from Copenhagen the royal pair were escorted by Norwegian, Danish, British, and German warships, while in their new realm elaborate preparations had been made for their fitting reception. At noon on November 27 Prince Charles was formally inaugurated king, as Haakon VII., before a distinguished assembly consisting of the highest state dignitaries, the diplomatic corps in full costume, and a brilliant concourse of men in uniform and women in court toilets. Entering the richly decorated Parliament house, surrounded by their suites, the king ascended the throne, the queen taking a seat by his side. The ceremonies were brief, consisting of the king's taking the oath to support the constitution of Norway, and pledging himself in a brief speech "to exert all his will and strength to serve the Fatherland and promote its peace and happiness." An interesting feature of the ceremony was a despatch of congratulation from Oscar, late king of Norway, in which he said: "I beg that you be persuaded that every effort looking towards good relations between our two countries will be given a sympathetic reception on my part." Thus, after for five hundred and seventeen years standing empty, the throne of Norway was filled with a king of its own, and that old land, once more single and separate, swung back into the tide of the nations. 
46019	----	CAPITALS OF THE NORTHLANDS [Illustration: THREE DEGREES FROM THE ARCTIC CIRCLE TRONDHJEM CATHEDRAL] [_Frontispiece_ CAPITALS OF THE NORTHLANDS TALES OF TEN CITIES BY IAN C. HANNAH, M.A. AUTHOR OF "EASTERN ASIA: A HISTORY," "THE SUSSEX COAST," "THE BERWICK AND LOTHIAN COASTS," ETC. ILLUSTRATED BY EDITH BRAND HANNAH [Illustration] HEATH CRANTON & OUSELEY, LTD. FLEET LANE, LONDON, E.C. TO THE LOVED MEMORY OF THE BEST OF MOTHERS WITH WHOM I ONCE MADE A PILGRIMAGE TO THE SHRINE OF ST. OLAF PREFACE Many excellent things have been written about the cities of the South, but little, comparatively speaking, about the cities of the North. True, indeed, they have not moulded kingdoms and shaped the culture of a continent, but England, like Scandinavia, is not a country city-built; she was formed by the dwellers on the land. Yet the less prominent part that they have played does not make our cities less noteworthy than those of the South. Few and peculiarly interesting are the cities of the North. And, with the exception, perhaps, of St. Petersburg, those spoken of in this book have all the charm that comes because they were built by country-loving folk, to whom deep woods and open fields were lovelier than monumental streets and squares. I shall not have written in vain if the perusal of this small book leads any one to study larger works on the Northlands, and particularly the matchless sagas, many of them so skilfully Englished by the joint labour of an Englishman and an Icelander, William Morris and Eirîkr Magnússon. In them we may read of all these ten towns, save that Copenhagen and St. Petersburg have risen in Saga Lands after the sagas were penned. After accuracy I have striven hard, but if any reader should detect any error I should be grateful to have it pointed out for correction in a later edition. I. C. H. FERNROYD, FOREST ROW. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THORSHAVN, CAPITAL OF THE FAROE ISLANDS 11 II. REYKJAVIK, CAPITAL OF ICELAND 28 III. TRONDHJEM, OLD CAPITAL OF NORWAY 66 IV. CHRISTIANIA, CAPITAL OF NORWAY 93 V. ROSKILDE, OLD CAPITAL OF DENMARK 111 VI. COPENHAGEN, CAPITAL OF DENMARK 127 VII. VISBY, CAPITAL OF GOTHLAND 150 VIII. UPSALA, OLD CAPITAL OF SWEDEN 176 IX. STOCKHOLM, CAPITAL OF SWEDEN 199 X. ST. PETERSBURG, CAPITAL OF RUSSIA 226 INDEX 261 ILLUSTRATIONS GOL STAVEKIRKE _Title Page_ TRONDHJEM CATHEDRAL (EXTERIOR) _Frontispiece_ PAGE THORSHAVN 11 REYKJAVIK HARBOUR 28 BOATS AT TRONDHJEM 66 STABBUR AT BYGDÖ, CHRISTIANIA 93 MARKET PLACE AT ROSKILDE 111 CANAL AT COPENHAGEN 127 EAST WELLS AT VISBY 150 CASTLE AND CATHEDRAL, UPSALA 176 HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT, STOCKHOLM 199 CATHEDRAL OF ST. ISAAC, ST. PETERSBURG 226 FACE PAGE THORSHAVN FISHERMEN 22 HOT SPRINGS NEAR REYKJAVIK 60 CORONA OF TRONDHJEM CATHEDRAL (INTERIOR) 86 GAMLA UPSALA, CHURCH AND RUNIC STONE (PLAN) 99 GREENSTED CHURCH 108 ROSKILDE CATHEDRAL (PLAN) 118 ROSKILDE CATHEDRAL 122 HOJBROPLADS, COPENHAGEN 134 TOWN OF VISBY, WITH DRAWING OF A SADDLE TOWER (PLAN) 158 INTERIOR OF ST. LARS, VISBY 166 CHURCHES OF VISBY (PLAN) 172 GAMLA UPSALA 180 GENERAL VIEW OF STOCKHOLM 206 TRONDHJEM CATHEDRAL (PLAN) 246 ST. ISAAC'S CATHEDRAL, ST. PETERSBURG (PLAN) 246 CHURCH OF THE RESURRECTION, ST. PETERSBURG 254 [Illustration] CHAPTER I THORSHAVN Loud in Harfur's echoing bay, Heard ye the din of battle bray, 'Twixt Kiotvi rich, and Harald bold? Eastward sail the ships of war; The graven bucklers gleam afar, And dragon heads adorn the prows of gold. Glittering shields of purest white, And swords, and Celtic falchions bright, And Western chiefs the vessels bring: Loudly roar the wolfish rout, And maddening Champions wildly shout, And long and loud the twisted hauberks ring. Firm in fight they proudly vie With him whose might will make them fly, Of Eastmen kings the warlike head. Forth his gallant fleet he drew, Soon as the hope of battle grew, But many a buckler brake ere Long-chin bled. Fled the lusty Kiotvi then Before the Shock-head king of men, And bade the islands shield his flight. Warriors wounded in the fray, Beneath the thwarts all gasping lay, Where head-long cast they mourned the loss of light. So does an Icelandic skald describe the most important battle in the annals of the Norse.[1] Harald Shock-head had exalted himself, and said "I will be king" over the whole of Norway. He desired to wed the daughter of the kinglet of Hordaland. She was a maiden exceeding fair and withal somewhat high-minded. To Harald's messengers she answered in this wise: "I will not waste my maidenhood for the taking to husband of a king who has no more realm to rule over than a few folks. Marvellous it seems to me that there is no king minded to make Norway his own, and be sole lord thereof in such wise as Gorm of Denmark or Eric of Upsala have done." The messengers came back in wrath and told the king that Gyda (for so the maiden was called) was witless and overbold, but Harald answered that the maid had spoken nought of ill, and done nought worthy of evil reward. Rather he bade her much thank for her word; "For she has brought to my mind that matter which it now seems to me wondrous I have not had in my mind heretofore." And, moreover, he said: "This oath I make fast, and swear before that god who made me and rules over all things, that never more will I cut my hair nor comb it, till I have gotten to me all Norway, with the scat thereof and the dues, and all rule thereover, or else will I die rather." And so for ten winters his hair was neither cut nor combed, but during all those days the kinglets were being warred down, and at last, in 872, as monarch of all Norway, Harald took a bath and let his hair be combed. Jarl Rognvald sheared his locks and called him Harald Fairhair; the name by which he is known in history to-day.[2] Thus he wedded the fair Gyda, but unhappily he also took to wife more other maidens than one may count with ease. Their very numerous sons were soon waxen riotous men in the land and were not at one among themselves. The good work of their father they came near to undoing. For good work to Norway it very truly was: national unity is a priceless thing. One king was better than a score of kinglets from the nation's point of view. But otherwise thought the jarls (or earls) and the stoutest opponents of Harald embarked on their ships and sailed away. Some turned their prows to the northward and settled in the Faroes or Iceland, or on the more distant American shore. These were, perhaps, the more peaceably disposed; they found lands waiting for settlement that became at once their own. Their descendants are Norsemen to-day, and among the most cultured of mankind. Others fared to the British Isles or the Continent of Europe or to the more distant Mediterranean Sea. These found lands that were richer, but to be gained only at the point of the sword. These set up powerful kingdoms, but none of them are Norse to-day. The classic sagas of Iceland have disappointingly little to tell us about the Faroe Islands. There are plenty of references to them indeed, but they are exiguous and dull. The _Faereyinga Saga_ is distinctly less vigorous and vivid than the elder sagas of heroic days. It was compiled in Iceland not long after the beginning of the thirteenth century, but older materials were used. It commences with a somewhat scrappy description of the first settlement of the islands. "There was a man named Grim Camban. He first settled the Faroes in the days of Harald Fairhair. For before the king's overbearing many men fled in those days. Some settled in the Faroes and began to dwell there, and some sought to other waste lands." Gladly would we have more details of the first settler in the islands with his Irish-sounding name, but they are lost in the abyss of years. With great probability, however, Professor York Powell, who Englished the _Faereyinga Saga_, supposes that the first place occupied was the present capital, the Harbour of Thor. There at any rate was the chief seat of the Thing or Moot for the Islands, certainly till the thirteenth century. At Thorshavn, too, was played the first half of the delightfully simple 2-Act drama which changed the faith of the archipelago. The renowned King Olaf Tryggvison of Norway (p. 72) had treated Sigmund with high regard and caused him to trow in the faith of the White Christ. "When the spring was coming in, the king fell on a day to talk with Sigmund, and said that he was minded to send him out to the Faroes to christen the folk that dwelt there. Sigmund said that he would rather not do that errand, but at last said he would do the king's will. Then the king made him lord over all the islands, and gave him wise men to baptize the folk and teach them the needful lore. Sigmund sailed when he was bound, and sped well on his way. When he came to the Faroes he summoned the franklins to a Thing in Stromo,[3] and much folk came. And when the Thing was set, Sigmund stood up and set forth his business at length, telling all that had happened since he had gone eastward to Norway to see King Olaf Tryggvison. Moreover, he said that the king had laid all the island under his lordship, and most of the franklins took this very well. Then Sigmund said on, 'I would likewise have you know that I have taken another faith, and am become a Christian man. I have also this errand and bidding from the king, to turn all folk in the island to the true faith.' Thrond answered this speech and said that it was right the franklins should talk over this hard matter among themselves. The franklins said this was well spoken. Then they went to the other side of the Thing-field, and Thrond told the franklins that the right thing clearly was to refuse to fulfil this command, and he brought things so far by his fair speeches that they were all of one mind thereon. But when Sigmund saw that all the folk had crowded over to Thrond's side, so that there was none stood by him save his own men who were christened, he said, 'Too much might have I given Thrond to-day.' And now men began to crowd back to where Sigmund was sitting; they bore their weapons aloft and carried themselves in no peaceful wise. Sigmund and his men sprang up to meet them. Then spake Thrond, 'Let men sit down and carry themselves more quietly. Now I have this to tell thee, kinsman Sigmund; we franklins are all of one mind on this errand thou hast done, namely that we will by no means change our faith, and we will set on here in the Thing and slay thee, unless thou give it up and bind thyself fast never more to carry this bidding to the islands.' And when Sigmund saw that he could not then bring this matter of the faith about, and was not strong enough to deal with all the folk that was come together there by the strong hand, it ended in his bidding himself to what they wished with witnesses and hand-plight. And with that the Thing broke up. "Sigmund sat at home that winter, and was right ill-pleased that the franklins had cowed him, although he did not let his mind be known." "One day in the spring, what time the races ran faster and men thought no ship could live on the main or between the islands, Sigmund set out from home with thirty men and two ships, saying that he would run the risk and carry out the king's errand or else die. They ran for Ostero and made the island; they got there at nightfall without being seen, made a ring round the homestead at Gate, drove a trunk of wood at the door of the house where Thrond slept, and broke it down, then laid hands on Thrond and led him out. Then said Sigmund, 'It happens now, as it often does, Thrond, that things go by turns. Thou didst cow me last harvest-tide, and gave me two hard things to choose between; and now I will give thee two very unlike things to choose between: the one is good--that thou take the true faith and let thyself be baptized, or else thou shalt be slain here on the spot; and that is a bad choice for thee to make, for thereby thou shalt swiftly lose thy wealth and earthly bliss in this world, and get instead woe and the everlasting torments of hell in the other world.' But Thrond said, 'I will not fail my old friends.' Then Sigmund sent a man to kill Thrond, and put a great axe in his hand; but as he went up to Thrond with his axe on high, Thrond looked at him and said, 'Strike me not so quickly. I have something to say first. Where is thy kinsman Sigmund?' 'Here am I,' said he. 'Thou alone shalt settle between me and thee, and I will take thy faith as thou wilt.' Then said Thore, 'Hew at him, man.' But Sigmund said, 'He shall not be cut down this time.' 'It will be thy bane and thy friends' as well if Thrond get off to-day,' said Thore. But Sigmund said that he would risk that. Then Thrond was baptized of the priest and all his household. Sigmund made Thrond come with him when he was baptized. And then he went through all the Faroes and stayed not till the whole people was christened."[4] King Olaf, called the Thick in life and the Holy in death--with whom we shall be much concerned later on--also sought to make his influence felt in the Faroe Islands. Thither he sent to look after the royal interests Karl o' Mere, who had been a viking and the greatest of lifters, but "was a man of great kin, a man of mickle stir, a man of prowess and doughty in many matters." Him King Olaf took "into his peace, and thereafter into his good love, and let array his journey in the best wise. Nigh twenty men they were on board the ship. The king made word to his friends in the Faroes, and sent Karl for trust and troth to Leif, son of Ozur, and Gilli the Speaker-at-law, and to that end he sent his tokens. Karl fared forthwith when he was ready, and a fair wind they had, and came to Faroe, and hove into Thorshavn in Stream-isle. Then a Thing was summoned there, and folk came thronging thereto. Thither came Thrand o' Gate with a mickle flock, and thereto came Leif and Gilli, and had with them a multitude of people. Now when they set up their tilts and dight them their booths there, they went to see Karl o' Mere, and the greetings there were good." It need hardly be said that one object the king had at heart was to collect his scat (or taxes) from the islands, and when the subject was mentioned to Thrand he amiably replied that "it was due and welcome that he should give that much furtherance to the king's errand." When the time came round for the next Thing, Thrand duly fared to Thorshavn and, because he had pains in the eyes and other ailments besides, he let hang the inner part of his tent with black cloth so that the daylight might be less dazzling. Here the purse containing the scat was duly delivered to Leif, who "bore it further out into the booth, where it was light, and poured the silver down upon his shield, and stirred it about with his hand, and said that Karl should look at the silver. "They looked on it for awhile, and Karl asked Leif how the silver seemed to him. He answered: 'Methinks that every bad penny to be found in the North isles is here come together.' Thrand heard this and said: 'Seemeth the silver nought well to thee, Leif?' 'Even so,' says he. Said Thrand: 'Forsooth, those my kinsmen are no middling dastards, whereas one may trust them in nought. I sent them in the spring north into the islands to gather up the scat, because last spring I was good for nothing myself; but they will have taken bribes of the bonders to take this false coin which is not deemed fit to pass. Thou hadst better, Leif, look at this silver wherewith my rents have been paid.' "So Leif took back to him that silver, and took from him another purse, and bore it to Karl, and they ransacked it, and Karl asked what Leif thought of this money. He said he deemed it bad, but not so bad as that it might not be taken in payment for debts carelessly bespoken,'but on behalf of the king I will have nought of this money.'" At last Thrand "bade Leif hand him that silver back: 'And take thou here this purse which my tenants have fetched me home last spring, and dim of sight though I be, still, 'Self hand the safest hand.'" "Leif took the purse and once more bore it to Karl, and they looked at the money, and Leif spoke: 'No need to look long at this silver; every penny here is better than the other, and this money will we have.'" The payment of taxes has seldom proved the most soothing thing for doubtful tempers. While the money was being weighed there appeared on the scene a man "with a cudgel in his hand and a slouch-hat on his head, and a green cloak; barefoot, in linen breeches strait-laced to the bone." There followed a scrimmage, in the course of which Karl got an axe-hammer in his brain, nor was his the only death. "But it came never to pass that King Olaf might avenge this on Thrand or his kinsmen, because of the unpeace which now befell in Norway.... And hereby leaves the tale to tell of the tidings which sprung out of King Olaf's claiming scat of the Faroes. Yet later on strifes arose in the Faroes out of the slaying of Karl o'Mere, and the kinsmen of Thrand o' Gate and Leif, the son of Ozur, had to do herein, and great tales are told thereof."[5] The haven of Thor is a little rocky bay; a small island, called Nolsö, protects its broad mouth. Streams trickle into it over the volcanic rocks, intersecting the town and justifying the name of the island upon whose shore it stands. One stream is fairly large, the rest are very small. The well-kept gardens are bright with flowers and stocked with currant bushes; a few are shaded by plane trees of the most diminutive size. The wooden houses, mostly Stockholm-tarred, some painted different shades, rest on rude foundations of boulders; some buildings are wholly of rough stone. Most of the roofs are covered with grass--amidst which wild flowers grow--so green that they are not to be distinguished from the hill-sides just behind, and the first impression is almost that of a ruined, roofless town. A few houses are creeper-covered: almost all have fish hanging out to dry and the passer-by is more conscious of their presence than of that of the flowers. Through the grassy roofs rise chimneys which in many cases are of wood. The main streets are wide and breezy, the byways are but three feet broad; the pavement for the most part is living rock. A mere fishing village indeed is Thorshavn, but there is much of the character of the capital of a little state. The culture of Scandinavia is displayed in the existence of a library, well used. [Illustration: THORSHAVN] _Face page 22_ The Amtmand, or Governor, dwells in a quite imposing house of stone; school, church and Lagthinghuus are merely framed of wood. Of the Mother of Parliaments Cowper once wrote, and some are making much the same remark to-day, Where flails of oratory thresh the floor, That yields them chaff and dust and nothing more. But of the legislature that meets in the Lagthinghuus no man can say anything so rude. However barren of other results the deliberations of the assembly may be, the community is at least benefited by the value of the hay that grows upon the roof. It may be the sluggard that lets the grass grow under his feet, but no stigma can attach to the man who lets it grow over his head. Besides possessing this venerable local Thing, the islanders send their own representatives to the Rigsdag, or Diet, at Copenhagen, for which qualified voters must have reached their thirtieth year. The Danish dominions have not yet followed Norway and Sweden in granting votes to women, but this will shortly come to pass. The mediæval bishop for the Faroes had his stool at Kirkebö, on the same island as Thorshavn but a few miles further south. There was a house of Benedictine monks, the ruins of which still remain. In the haven named from Thor the church[6] of the White Christ is conspicuous, though modern of date and unbeautiful of form. An ancient coffin-slab, however, is incised with an ornate and flowery cross, that shows a mediæval structure occupied the site. The tower vane bears the date 1788, pierced in the Scandinavian way. The effect within is rather quaint. On the altar two great candles stand; hanging from the roof are a large ship-model and some chandeliers of brass, one dated 1682, adorned with metal flowers; on the walls a picture of the Last Supper that was painted on wood in 1647, and several monuments in timber and stone to the dead who passed from earth two hundred years ago. On a promontory overlooking the town and the rocks covered with shells and pink and dark green sea-weed, there frowns a picturesque old fort; more interesting to the antiquary than formidable to the soldier. What higher praise than that could any place of strength deserve? The two lines of defence are each formed of boulders and earth. Though Thorshavn in the past has known unpeace, many an empire has risen to high power or crumbled to decay since these grass-grown ramparts were stained with human gore. The stony country round the town is partly enclosed by strange frail transparent dykes, which, though as in Scotland mortarless, display surprisingly wide openings between the stones. Hay grown on the rocky soil is much the commonest crop; ragged robin, white clover, and, in swampy parts, marsh marigolds, diversify the grass. Men capped and stockinged, women shawled, also tend the tiniest patches of oats and potatoes: here and there peat is cut. The older cottages are frequently half floored above, half open to the ridge, and most conspicuous still are the sooty rafters of which the sagas so often tell. Some faint breath from the atmosphere that filled such dwellings long ago is wafted to us by the complaint of Cetil to his son in the _Vatzdaela Saga_, that, when he was a boy, men yearned to do some daring deed, "But now young men have become stay-at-homes, sitting over the baking fires, and stuffing their bellies with mead and ale, and all manhood and hardihood is waning away." Gone to museums are the ancient looms weighted with stones from the beach, but old carved chests and solid furniture of wood worked in the northern way are still by no means rare. Men of great mark, by no means few, have had the Faroe Isles for home. In this remote and quiet capital there was born in 1860 Dr. N. R. Finsen, one of the great benefactors of mankind, widely known in medical circles from his study of the laws of light-rays, and the foundation of the Medical Light Institute at Copenhagen. A monument in the streets of the Danish metropolis bears his name, and it is possible that to the next generation he may be as well known as he would have been to his own, had he only invented some potent engine of destruction, instead of mere antidotes to wasting disease. A little like the Scottish highlands here and there, with mountain tarn and trickling stream and rock hill-side and distant sea, a little, yet not very like, for the most striking feature of this delightful group of islands is its lack of resemblance to any other part of earth. Vast mountains rising from the very sea, and never destitute of whitest clouds, fold upon fold of country devoid of trees and yet so fertile and kept so moist by shower and mist that the grass grows over house-top as well as ground, the close proximity of fjord and hay-field and fish and flowers, give a combined impression so individual that the widest wanderer will but faintly be reminded of any other part of the world. The surpassing stateliness of much of the coast declines to be expressed in ink or paint. Even the Naerofjord of Norway, most justly famed throughout the earth, is distanced in wild and rugged grandeur by some of the lonely channels among the north isles of the group, restricted in extent though they be. The largest steamer seems like a little toy between the towering mountains that rise on either side, carved into cliffs here and there, worn into caves now and then. The mountain sides are marked by waterfalls, like little silver threads. Wherever there is grass on the steep volcanic rocks, appearing like insects, there climb about white sheep and black; such gave the archipelago its name--far, the Norse word for sheep.[7] Everywhere hang white mists, clinging to the summits of the hills or streaming away like pennons in sharpest contrast with the coal-black sea of the sagas. [Illustration] CHAPTER II REYKJAVIK Hail, Isle! with mist and snow-storms girt around, Where fire and earthquake rend the shattered ground,-- Here once o'er furthest ocean's icy path The Northmen fled a tyrant monarch's wrath: Here, cheered by song and story, dwelt they free, And held unscathed their laws and liberty. ROBERT LOWE. A faint idea of Icelandic scenery may perhaps be gained by taking a journey on the moon by the aid of a good telescope. Nowhere else is to be found the same weird impression of vastness and of magnificent desolation! Not infrequently, particularly in a land of hills, do the works of man seem puny beside the works of God, but as in Iceland nowhere else. Only rarely, here and there, are signs of cultivation, and that is on the tiniest scale. Wild stretches of jagged lava and volcanic rock spread into space like "the ruins of an elder world." The great rugged mountains, capped by snow, and the numerous hot springs suggest the eternal battle-ground of elements, and give to the landscape a weird, almost unearthly effect. As Gudbrand Thorlac (Bishop of Holar, quoted by Hakluyt) expresses it: "There be in this Iland mountaines lift up to the skies, whose tops being white with perpetuall snowe, their roots boile with everlasting fire." The prevailing colours, including every shade of brown and yellow, are relieved only where appears the deep blue-black of the sea; save that here and there a tiny waterfall by stunted trees and a carpet of wild flowers, such as heather or grass of Parnassus, rather faintly suggest the glories of more southern lands. The Great Pyramid and the Chinese Wall themselves would be lost, St. Peter's would appear a mere pebble, amid those gigantic stretches of lonely mountain. And during the very darkest days of early mediæval times a small handful of men in these remote solitudes were to play a part in history that is perfectly unique, to endow humanity with something it could ill afford to put away. Here, on the dark winter nights of a region only just without the Arctic Circle, were written and enjoyed those sagas that are true history and very human, while nothing but dry chronicles were being composed in all Europe besides. Far less we should know of the early story of the British Isles and of North America had the Icelanders been dumb. Worthily appears the name of their Republic among those of other famous Commonwealths of earth in the hub of the universe, the State House at Boston, Massachusetts! Interest in Iceland and her sagas has been greatly revived of recent years. In these days it seems strange to read what P. H. Mallet (p. 152) wrote about 1755: "Such was the constitution of a republic, which is at present quite forgotten in the North, and utterly unknown through the rest of Europe even to men of much reading, notwithstanding the great number of poets and historians which that republic produced." The stories of the early settlers, as related in the sagas, slightly recall the conditions that even to-day exist in such places as Rhodesia and newly-opened districts of the Western States. The details are as different as they could well be, but there is something of the same overflowing youthful vitality, the same grim sort of humour and vigorous enjoyment of life. This tale, for instance, from the _Liosvetninga Saga_, shows a rather indirect and possibly somewhat modern method of leading up to an extremely simple point: "When the table was set there Ufey put his fist on the board, and spake, 'How big dost think that fist is, Gudmund?' He spake, 'Very big!' Ufey spake, 'Thou wouldst think that there would be strength in it.' Gudmund spake, 'Indeed I would.' Ufey answers, 'A heavy blow thou wouldst think it would give?' Gudmund spake, 'Mighty heavy.' Ufey spake, 'What harm wouldst think it would do?' Gudmund spake, 'Breaking of bones or death.' Ufey spake, 'How wouldst like that way of death?' Gudmund spake, 'Very ill, and I should not wish it to happen to me.' Ufey spake, 'Then do not thou sit in my seat.'" The settlement of Iceland was part of the happy movement that first carried Norsemen to the Faroe Islands and far beyond. There was a man named Gard-here, a Swede, and he journeyed to Sodor, or the Southern Islands[8] on the very common quest of getting in the inheritance of his wife's father, who had died. A gale broke his moorings. He was driven westward into the sea, and the eventual result was that he reached the island with which we are concerned. He praised the land much, and desired that it should be called by his own name. But _he_ did not discover the island. That glory belongs to dreamy mystics of the ancient Irish Church in the days when her rays lit up the whole of Western Europe, and her missionaries went out into all lands.[9] Where he heard no other sound than the thud of the storm waves on the lonely rocks, and the shrill cry of the sea-gulls, quite alone with his God, there the Celtic monk could best say his prayers. And the _Libellus Islandorum_ expressly says of the first days of settlement: "There were then here Christian men, whom the Northmen call 'papa.' But soon they went away because they could not dwell with pagan hordes, and they left behind them Irish books and bells and crooks." A little cross of theirs is in the Museum at Reykjavik to-day. Again there were certain men who needed to journey out of Norway to the Faroes, some say that Naddodh was of their number, and they also were driven to the same country, which they named Snowland. They walked up a high mountain in the East-friths, and looked far and wide to see if they could discover any smoke or other token of the presence of mankind, but they saw none. They went back to the Faroes at harvest-time and they praised the new country very much. The third party of Norsemen that reached Iceland had decorously made a great sacrifice before setting forth, and three ravens had been hallowed. In the Faroe Islands, Floki, their leader, got his daughter very satisfactorily married, and then he sailed out into the sea and let loose the three ravens. The first feebly flew to the bows of the vessel; the second with little more adventure soared into the air and then came back to the ship; but the third flew forth from the bows and led the way to the island. And when they sailed past Reek-ness, or Smoky Cape, and entered the great mountain-walled fjord, Faxe said, "This must be a big country which we have found; here are great rivers." And, though his surmise as to the rivers was mistaken, the inlet received his name; as Faxefjoth men know it to this day. The whole frith was full of fish, including seals and whales, and the party became so absorbed in catching them that they imprudently took no heed to make hay--with the result that they lost all their stock in the winter. As to the climate there were many different views, but Thorwolf said that butter dripped out of every blade of grass in the country that they had found. Wherefore he was called Thorwolf Butter. It was nevertheless so cold that the party originated the unfortunate designation of Iceland, a name that has probably done more than anything else to spread through the world undoubtedly exaggerated notions as to the coldness of the island. Sometimes for weeks together Reykjavik has been warmer than London. The famous Icelandic explorer, Eric the Red, seems to have realised that a mistake had been made, and with much discretion he gave another land "a name, and called it Greenland, and said that men would be ready to go thither if the land had a good name."[10] The Icelanders are as sensitive as the Canadians about the climate of their country, and as early as the sixteenth century we find the Bishop of Holar, already mentioned (p. 29), whose observations are quoted by Hakluyt, growling thus about one whose strictures on the island did not however stop with criticisms of the climate. "There came to light about the yeare of Christ 1561, a very deformed impe, begotten by a certain Pedlar of Germany; namely, a booke of German rimes, of al that ever were read the most filthy and most slanderous against the nation of Island. Neither did it suffice the base printer once to send abroad that base brat, but he must publish it also thrise or foure times over; that he might thereby, what lay in him, more deepely disgrace our innocent nation among the Germans, and Danes, and other neighbour countries, with shamefull, and everlasting ignomine. So great was the malice of this printer, and his desire so greedy to get lucre, by a thing unlawfull. And this he did without controlment, even in that citie, which these many yeares hath trafficked with Island to the great gaine, and commodity of the citizens. His name is Ioachimus Leo, a man worthy to become lion's foode." As late as 1846 "Sylvanus" (p. 202) wrote, "Iceland, a dreary, storm-beaten isle, nearly deprived of all communication with its fatherland. It is the abode of all but ceaseless winter, in which the sun, rarely for more than a few months out of the twelve, is ever seen." It is possible to suffer very much from heat in Iceland, but there seems to be good ground for believing that the climate has changed for the severer in the course of a thousand years. Forests are frequently mentioned in the earlier sagas--the _Libellus Islandorum_ expressly says that in the first days of settlement the country "was grown with wood between fell and foreshore." But to-day there is nothing much bigger than a Japanese dwarf tree. The first permanent settler was Ingwolf Arnerson (or Erneson) and he was told to go thither by an oracle while he sacrificed. And at that time Harald of the Fairhair had for twelve years been king in Norway, and since the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ 874 winters had passed away. He sailed to Iceland with Heor-leif, his sworn brother and the husband of his sister; a man who refused to sacrifice. They kept company till they saw Iceland and then they parted. And as soon as Ingwolf noticed the land he pitched his porch-pillars overboard to get an omen. For it was the pious custom of those days to let the site for a new settlement be fixed, not by the caprice of man, but by the decision of the gods, who made it known by causing the currents of ocean to cast up the porch-pillars on the shore where they would have the dwelling to be. Before their emigration to Iceland Leif and Ingwolf had made a foray in Ireland. There they had gained riches and thralls, and Leif was called Heor, or Sword, from an encounter with an Irishman, from whom he gained such a weapon. Driven westward off the land, Leif and his men ran short of water, and the thralls, with the readiness that ever marks their race, took to the plan of kneading meal and butter together, and they declared that this was a thirst-slake. But as soon as it was ready there fell a great rain and water was caught in the awnings. Eventually they reached land in safety, and there was only one ox, so the thralls had to drag the plow. And they plotted together to kill the ox, and to say that a bear had devoured it; then while Leif and his Norsemen were seeking to punish the non-existent bear, and were scattered through the shaw, the thralls should slay every one his man, and so should murder them all. And everything fell out just as the Irish had plotted. The dead body of Heor-leif was found by Ingwolf's thralls, who had been sent to search for the porch-pillars, and when they told their master he was very angry. And when he saw his brother dead he said, "It was a pitiful death for a brave man that thralls should slay him, but I see how it goes with those who will never perform sacrifice." "Then Ingwolf went up to the headland and saw islands lying in the sea to the south-west. It came into his mind that the thralls must have run away thither, for the boat had disappeared. So he and his men went to seek the thralls, and found them there at a place called Eith (the Tarbet) in the islands. They were sitting at their meat when Ingwolf fell upon them. They became fearful, and every man of them ran off his own way. Ingwolf slew them all. The place is called Duf-thac's Scaur, where he lost his life. Many of them leaped over the rock, which was afterwards called by their name. The islands were afterwards called the Westmen Isles whereon they were slain, for they were Westmen" (or Irish). Heimaey (or Home Isle), the largest of these Westmen Isles, consists of two great jagged masses of igneous rock, presenting wild cliffs to the ocean and a wild fretted outline to the sky. Between the two mountains is a rolling stretch of grass-land, and upon it stands the scattered little town of Kaupstadr. The cliffs are covered with sea-birds' nests, most of them filthy fulmars. And some of the other islands of the group, among which modern cruising steamers thread their way, are sea-worn into caves and caverns by the much contorted rocks along the shore. At last, in the third winter, Ingwolf's thralls, Weevil and Carle, found the porch-pillars, and at the spot where they came to land he made for himself a homestead. He dwelt in Reek-wick, and the _Land-nama-bok_, or Icelandic _Domesday_, from which nearly all the above facts are taken,[11] says that the pillars are still to be seen in his fire-house, or temple. In the _Eyrbyggja Saga_ we read of the building of another temple that stood on the north side of Faxefjoth. Somewhat similar, no doubt, was the shrine that incorporated the porch-pillars at Reykjavik. "There he let build a temple, and a mighty house it was. There was a door in the side-wall, and nearer to one end thereof. Within the door stood the porch-pillars and nails were therein; they were called the Gods' nails. There within was a great frith-place. But of the inmost house was there another house, of the fashion whereof now is the quire of a church, and there stood a stall in the midst of the floor in the fashion of an altar, and thereon lay a ring without a join that weighed twenty ounces, and on that must men swear all oaths; and that ring must the chief have on his arm at all man-motes." A gold ring that Olaf Tryggvison took from the Temple of Lade (p. 69), and presented to a lady whom he admired, turned out to be only plated copper, and much trouble resulted from that gift. The gods had in all probability never discovered the fraud, for, like the Chinese to-day, the pagan Norse had a most mean opinion of the intelligence of the objects of their worship (p. 106). Some of the temples of Iceland were of considerable dimensions: in the _Vatzdaela Saga_ we read of one at Thordisholt a hundred feet in length. Ingwolf, the founder of Reykjavik, was the most famous of all the fathers of Iceland, for he came to a desolate country, and was the first to build a house and to cultivate the ground. His son "was Thorstan, who let set the Thing at Keel-ness, before the Allthing was established. His son was Thor-kell Moon, the Law-speaker, who was one of the best conversation of any heathen men in Iceland, of those whom men have records of. He had himself carried out into the rays of the sun in his death-sickness, and commended himself to that God which had made the sun. Moreover, he had lived as cleanly as those Christian men who were of the best conversation or way of life." (_Landnama-bok._) A fair broad bay, an arm of the Faxefjoth, rocky islands rising from the water and low hills all around, the heights of Esja straight in front of the ship that sails in, was the site chosen by the pagan gods. The city of Reykjavik stands on low hills at whose foot the porch-pillars were found. At the head of the little reeking bay is the white steam of the hot springs; away to the north, just visible across the choppy waves of Faxefjoth, towers, four thousand seven hundred feet above the sea, the huge volcanic mass of Snaefells Jökull. Thus Reykjavik, the present capital of Iceland, bordered landward by a little lake, is more than a thousand years old, yet it does not look fifteen! No new settlement in the American West has a rawer or more recent appearance. The building materials are wood, brick, cement, felt and galvanized iron. There are a few fair gardens with very stunted trees, and in the rough grass square is a metal statue to Thorwaldsen (p. 138). For ugly commonplaceness the broad and dusty streets are hardly rivalled even on the North American continent, and that is saying a good deal. Yet the glorious views of wild mountain and ever-changing sea, with air as fresh and pure as in mid-ocean, make it attractive in spite of all. The Norse settlement of the island, having prosperously begun on the grassy plains at the edge of which the city stands, soon spread all round the shore. At wide intervals were built, or dug, the half underground turf-covered dwellings where men sat under their smoky rafters by the fire, drinking wine or mead, telling or hearing the saga tales. Old buildings that still remain, including a few in the vicinity of Reykjavik, give a fair idea of what these primitive dwellings were like; sometimes they were partly excavated in the side of a hill. Their interiors are much more cosy and homelike than would be suspected from their desolate-looking outsides. Hangings round the walls must have greatly improved the appearance as a rule, though the _Laxdaela Saga_ says that the hall which Thurid Olaf built in Herd-holt, whose sides and roof were lined with noble histories carved on wainscotting, looked better when the hangings were down. Each large householder was chief and priest, lord of all within sight of his dwelling. The same (_Laxdaela_) saga describes one of them, in fact the husband of this same Olaf's daughter. "Garmund was generally a reserved man, and surly to most folks, and he was always dressed the same; he used to wear a red-scarlet kirtle and a grey cloak over it, and a bear-skin hood on his head, a sword in his hand that was a great and good weapon with hilt of walrus-tooth, and there was no silver inlaid on it, but the blade was sharp and no rust to be found on it. This sword he called Leg-biter, and he never let it pass out of his hand." This man contrived to win Thurid, the daughter of Olaf, only by "giving no small sum of money" to her mamma. As not infrequently happens in such cases, husband and wife "did not get on very well, and this was felt by both of them." So Garmund sailed away from Iceland, and, to the great displeasure of his wife and mother-in-law, he left no chattels behind him. However Olaf's daughter pursued and, finding her husband asleep in his vessel, she took away the sword Leg-biter and left the baby in its place! As soon as the disgusted father awoke from its crying and discovered the unwelcome exchange, he sent a boat in pursuit of wife and sword. Thurid had, however, foreseen that man[oe]uvre and the boat, being riddled with holes, had in haste to put back to the ship. "Then Garmund called to Thurid and bade her turn back and give him the sword Leg-biter, and take the girl back, 'and as much money or chattels with her as thou wilt.' Thurid says, 'Dost think it better to get back the sword or not?' Garmund answered her, 'I would sooner lose great monies than lose the sword.' She spake, 'Then thou shalt never get it; thou hast in many ways treated me unjustly, and we will now part.'" Even less careful of his personal appearance than Garmund must have been Anlaf of Black-fen, whose deeds are recorded in the _Havardz Saga_ (II., 1). Men say that he had bear's warmth, for "there never was frost or cold so great that Anlaf would not go about in no more clothes than his breeches and a shirt tucked into the breeches. And he never went abroad off the farm with more clothes on him than these." He was, however, a good man, and somewhat before midwinter he walked over the hill pasture and all over the fell seeking men's sheep, and he found many and drove them home, and brought every man his own, so that every one wished him well. Iceland is perhaps the least mixed nation to be found on the surface of the globe. Among the fathers of her settlement there were indeed a few of other than Norse blood, particularly ubiquitous Irish, some of whom were men very well thought of, but all except a few individuals here and there were of pure Scandinavian stock. The _Landnama-bok_ expressly tells us: "Men of knowledge say that the country was wholly settled and taken up in sixty winters, so that it hath never after been settled any more." As the community grew older it became apparent that something more than local chiefs and Things were imperatively needed if any sort of peace was to be preserved and some kind of order to be established. And thus there was called into being in A.D. 930 the most famous parliament of the North--the Allthing, that assembled every year under the clear sky, by the banks of a little stream where the horizon was formed by the wild rocky hills of Thingvellir. From all over the island men came for practically every purpose for which human beings can gainfully meet. Laws were made and declared, law cases were decided; tales were recited and much was bought and sold. But the only official of the Republic was the Speaker of the Law, the jurisdiction was purely moral. Administrative machinery, civil service, navy or army there were none. He who refused to obey could but be outlawed.[12] No doubt this essentially Teutonic reform brought vast improvement on the lawless violence of earlier days, but the respect entertained for law still left very much to be desired. The famous _Saga of the Burnt Njal_ gives a truly Homeric account of proceedings at the Allthing itself. Flosi and certain others who were on trial for arson and manslaughter were on the point of getting off by the kind of legal quibble in which Dickens was interested so much. Gizur, one of the plaintiffs, said, "What counsel shall we now take, kinsman Asgrim?" Then Asgrim said, "Now will we send a man to my son Thorhall, and know what counsel he will give us." "Now the messenger comes to Thorhall, Asgrim's son, and tells him how things stood, and how Mord Volgard's son and his friends would all be made outlaws, and the suits for manslaughter be brought to nought. "But when he heard that, he was so shocked at it that he could not utter a word. He jumped up then from his bed, and clutched with both hands his spear, Skarphedinn's gift, and drove it through his foot.... Now he went out of the booth unhalting and walked so hard that the messenger could not keep up with him, and so he goes until he came to the Fifth Court. There he met Grim the Red, Flosi's kinsman, and as soon as they were met, Thorhall thrust at him with the spear, and smote him on the shield and clove it in twain, but the spear passed right through him, so that the point came out between his shoulders. Then there was a mighty cry all over the host, and then they shouted their war-cries. "Flosi and his friends then turned against their foes, and both sides egged on their men fast. "Kari Solmund's son turned now thither where Arni (Kol's son) and Hallbjorn the Strong were in front, and as soon as ever Hallbjorn saw Kari, he made a blow at him, and aimed at his leg, but Kari leaped up into the air, and Hallbjorn missed him. Kari turned on Arni (Kol's son) and cut at him, and smote him on the shoulder, and cut asunder the shoulder blade and collar bone, and the blow went right down into his breast, and Arni (Kol's son) fell down dead at once to earth. "After that he hewed at Hallbjorn and caught him on the shield, and the blow passed through the shield, and so down and cut off his great toe. Holmstein hurled a spear at Kari, but he caught it in the air, and sent it back, and it was a man's death in Flosi's band.... "Then there was a little lull in the battle, and Snorri the priest came up with his band, and Skapti was there in his company, and they ran in between them, and so they could not get at one another to fight.... So a truce was set, and was to be kept throughout the Thing, and then the bodies were laid out and borne to the church, and the wounds of those men were bound up who were hurt." The day after men went to the Hill of Laws. A skald opportunely sang some verses with the result that now men burst out in great fits of laughter. And eventually "in this way the atonement came about, and then hands were shaken on it, and twelve men were to utter the award, and Snorri the priest was the chief man in this award, and others with him. Then the manslaughters were set off the one against the other, and those men who were over and above were paid for in fines. They also made an award in the suit about the Burning."[13] The Allthing still meets, but no longer amid mountain wilds. A very substantial stone structure, two storeys and an attic high, faces the square at Reykjavik; it bears date 1881. Below is a library; above the chamber, from a gallery in the attic, the public may look on. It is impossible to visit this humble structure without emotion, for it is the seat of one of the ancientest moots upon the earth. Had it only a continuous history from its first institution it would be older by, at any rate, a century or two than the very Mother of Parliaments, for the French-named body that sits at St. Stephen's can hardly claim historic continuity with the Saxon Witanagemot. But the well-fitted Althinghuus is an unromantic substitute for the vast and desolate wildness of the Thingvellir. It is with a shock, too, that one notices on the walls great pictures of Egypt and of Greece. Are not Ellidaar and Hvita, salmon rivers of Iceland, to this assembly at any rate better than all the waters of Nile and Cephissus?[14] The Cathedral of Reykjavik, next to the Althinghuus, is a small whitewashed structure with saddle roof tower, whose vane is dated 1847. It is entirely destitute of the slightest interest, save for the lovely font by Thorwaldsen (p. 138), a cube of white marble. Round the top is a garland of flowers to support the metal bowl; on the four sides are bas-reliefs representing the Baptism of Christ, a mother and her children, cherubs, and Christ blessing the children. The Bishop, or Lutheran superintendent, has charge of the whole island, which in the middle ages formed two dioceses. The Christianising of Iceland was a less violent process than that of the other northern lands. The building of the earliest church was owing to the gentle influence of the great Scottish apostle of Ireland. "Aur-lyg was the name of a son of Hrapp, the son of Beorn Buna. He was in fosterage with Bishop Patrec, the saint in the Southreys. A yearning came upon him to go to Iceland, and prayed Bishop Patrec that he would give him an outfit. The bishop gave him timber for a church and asked him to take it with him, and a _plenarium_, and an iron church-bell, and a gold penny, and consecrated earth to lay under the corner-posts instead of hallowing the church, and prelates to dedicate the church to Columcella."[15] And the church was built at Esia-rock, looking out over the ocean. Close by in the sea-weed the iron bell had been found, for it was cast into the sea that, like the heathen porch-pillars, it might point out the exact site that was the best. The passing from the old faith to the new was on the whole remarkably destitute of bigotry. One, Helge, for example, "put his trust in Christ, and named his homestead after him, but yet would he pray to Thor on sea voyage and in hard stress, and in all those things that he deemed really of most account."[16] While the _Landnama-bok_ itself ends with the remark: "Some held their Christendom well till their death-day, but it did not often go on in the family, because that of their sons, some reared temples and sacrificed, and the land was heathen nearly a hundred and twenty winters." Then at a notable Allthing, about the year 1000, one Thor-gar spoke to the people at the Rock of the Laws. He told them a story about two kings who formerly ruled in Norway and Denmark respectively. "They had long kept up strife between them, till at last the people of both countries took the matter into their own hands, and made peace between them, although they themselves did not wish it; but this plan was so successful that the kings after a few winters' space were sending gifts to each other, and their friendship endured as long as they both did live. 'And this seems to me the best not to let them have their will that are most out and out on each side, but let us so umpire the matter between them that each side may gain somewhat of his case, but let us all have one law and one faith. For this saying shall be proved true, _If the Constitution be broken the peace will be broken_.' "Thor-gar ended his speech in such a way that each side agreed to hold those laws which he should think best to declare. "This was the declaration of Thor-gar, that all men in Iceland should be baptized and believe in one God, but as to the exposure of children, and the eating of horse-flesh, the old law should hold; men might sacrifice in secret if they would, but should fall under the lesser outlawry if witnesses came forward against them. This heathendom was taken away some years later."[17] The final establishment of the faith was chiefly owing to Bishop Gizor, who was, we are told, "better beloved by all the people of the land than any other man whom we know to have been on the land."[18] Such, indeed, was the devotion men felt for him, so much did they appreciate his speeches, that the Icelanders voluntarily agreed to a complete valuation of all that they possessed in order that they might have the privilege of paying tithes! Greater proof of love than that no people ever showed! It would stagger humanity indeed were anything of the sort to be recorded to-day. Gizor it was who fixed the seat of the Bishopric at Skalholt, for before it was nowhere; he, too, set up the northern Bishop's stool at Holar, giving more than the fourth part of his income to endow it. This Gizor was surnamed the White, and he kept such peace in the land that there were no great feuds between the chiefs, and the carrying of arms was almost laid aside. And he sent his son Islaf to school in Saxland; he also became a Bishop and took to wife Dalla, the daughter of Thorwald. So the faith in Iceland grew, not by bigotry but by conciliation, and men were apt to prefer prime-signing to baptism, for so could they have full intercourse with Christian men and with heathen too, and they could hold to the faith of their liking.[19] But good arguments had a very-powerful effect, and "this made men very eager in church-building, which was promised by the clergy, that a man should have room in the Kingdom of Heaven for as many as could stand in the church that he had built."[20] Things being thus comfortably and happily settled by the Icelanders, it was not to be expected that the sledge-hammer methods of the mainland would find much favour among them. St. Olaf (p. 79) sent a priest, one Thangbrand, to hasten the triumph of the faith in Iceland, but he soon made that cool country a great deal too hot to hold him. And, as the _Cristne Saga_ puts it: "At that very time Thangbrand the priest came to the king from Iceland, and told him what enmity men had shown him there, and said there was no hope of Christendom being received there. Then the king was so angry that he had many of the Icelanders taken prisoners and set in irons. Some he ordered to be slain, and some maimed, and some were plundered, for he said that he would pay them for the unworthy way their fathers had received his message in Iceland. But Sholto and Gizor spoke for them, saying that the king had promised that no man should have done such ill, but that he would give them his peace if they would be baptized.... Moreover Gizor said that he thought there was hope that Christendom would succeed in Iceland if it were wisely forwarded. 'But Thangbrand hath carried himself there, as he did here, rather lawlessly in slaying certain men there, and men thought it hard to brook such behaviour in a stranger.'" Longfellow (_The Saga of King Olaf_) sums up this troublesome missionary in the following verse:-- He was quarrelsome and loud, And impatient of control, Boisterous in the market crowd, Boisterous at the wassail-bowl, Everywhere Would drink and swear, Swaggering Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest. So firm a hold did Christianity take on the land that the sagas of early Christian days are largely concerned with bishops' lives. The Church was as powerful as in Italy, and the two prelates were much honoured in the land. Thus we read in the book called _Hungrvaca_, or _Hunger-Waker_, because many uninformed men, wise though they be, that have gone through it have wished to know much more concerning those notable persons of whom it speaks. "Bishop Cetil was now well seventy years of age; he went to the Allthing and commended himself to the prayers of all the clerks in the synod of priests. And then Bishop Magnus asked him to come home with him to Skalholt to keep the dedication feast of the church and a bridal that was to be there. The feast was so very splendid that it was a pattern after in Iceland; there was much mead mixed, and all other stores of the best that might be. But the Friday evening both bishops went to bathe at Bathridge after supper. And then it came to pass that Bishop Cetil died there, and men thought this great news (July 6, 1145). There was great grief at this feast among many of the guests till the bishop was buried and service done for him. But by the comforting speeches of Bishop Magnus and the noble drink that was provided, men got their sorrow the sooner out of mind than they would otherwise have done." The bathing of the bishops was in Iceland by no means exceptional. While in the rest of Europe personal cleanliness was inconspicuous between the destruction of the buildings of Rome and comparatively recent days, in Iceland, even during the tenth century, men could not get on without washing. One householder is specially distinguished in the _Landnama-bok_ as Leot the Unwashed. Thus the _Eyrbyggja Saga_ describes a bath: "Stir let build a hot bath at his house at Lava, and it was dug down in the ground, and there was a window over the furnace, so that it might be fed from without, and wondrous hot was that place." Many such are mentioned in the sagas, and one of the few mediæval ruins in Iceland is that of the bath-house of Snorri Sturluson, author of the _Heimskringla_, one who adorned history by his writings, but not by his actions; for the discreditable collapse of the Republic and the annexation of Iceland to Norway was largely owing to him. On his own estate and by his own son-in-law he was murdered in 1241. Two Icelandic bishops were placed among the Saints. Bishop Thorlak of Skalholt "never spoke a word that did not tend to some good purpose when he was asked anything. He was so wary of his words that he never blamed the weather as many do, or any of those things that are not blameworthy, but which he perceived went according to God's will. He did not look forward to any day above the rest." And most deservedly he was called that precious friend of God, the Beam and Gem of Saints, both in Iceland and other lands.[21] A still greater reputation was, however, gained by the other Icelandic saint, the holy bishop, John of Holar, widely famed for the beauty of his voice. His peculiar holiness very early in his life attracted the attention of the devout. "When John was yet a child his father and mother broke up housekeeping and went abroad together. They came to Denmark and went to King Swein, and the king received them worshipfully, and Thorgerd (John's mother) was made to sit by the queen herself, the mother of King Swein. Thorgerd had her son, the holy John, at the table with her, and when many kinds of precious dainties with good drink came to the king's table, then it happened with the boy John, as is ever the way with children, that he stretched out his hands to the things he wished to have. But his mother would have chidden him, and smote his hands. But when Queen Estrith saw this, she spake to Thorgerd, 'Not so, not so, Thorgerd mine; do not strike those hands, for they are bishop's hands!"[22] John not only survived this spoiling, but fulfilled the prophecy of the kindly queen. In due course, bearing a letter from Bishop Gizor, he sailed to Denmark for his consecration; "the Archbishop was at church at evensong, and when John, the holy bishop-elect, got to the church (presumably the Cathedral at Lund), evensong was well-nigh over. He took his place outside the quire, and began to sing evensong with his clerks. The Archbishop had forbidden all his clerks, old and young alike, to look out of the quire while the hours were being sung, and he set a penalty to be taken if his command were broken. But as soon as the Archbishop heard the chanting of the holy John, he looked out down the church, trying to see who the man was that had such a voice. But when evensong was over, the Archbishop's clerks said to him, 'How now, my lord bishop, have ye not yourself broken the rules ye made?' The Archbishop answered, 'I confess that it is true as ye say, but yet I have not done it for nought, for a voice was borne into my ears such as I have never heard before, and it may rather be likened to the voice of an angel than of a man.'"[23] The Primate perceived that his very dear brother had all the qualities desirable in a bishop, and so favourable was the impression made that the canonical difficulty to the consecration--that John had been twice married--was surmounted with little trouble.[24] Well did the new bishop regulate the affairs of the church on his arrival at Holar, where he rebuilt the Cathedral, and at the bishopstead, west of the church door, set up a school. A master he chose from Gothland and he paid him a great wage, both to teach the priestlings and to give such support to holy Christendom along with the bishop himself as he could manage in his teachings and addresses. By this time the days of transition in Iceland were over, and John felt strong enough not only to destroy the material relics of paganism, but also to anticipate George Fox in objecting to pagan names for the days of the week. "He also forbade all omens, which the men of old had been wont to take from the coming of the moon and observance of days, and dedicating days to heathen men or gods--as it is when they are called Tew's day, Woden's day, or Thor's, and so of all the week-days; but he bade men to keep the reckoning which the holy fathers have set in the Scriptures, and call them the Second Day of the week, and the Third Day, and so on--and all other things beside, which he thought sprung from ill roots."[25] At last, in 1121, on April 23, he departed out of this world into everlasting bliss. As might perhaps be expected, by far the most interesting object in Reykjavik is the National Museum, into which is gathered, Scandinavian fashion, much choice carved work from many an Icelandic church. For their inability to raise great fabrics like those of southern lands, the disciples of the White Christ in Iceland, much as in Ireland, resolved as far as possible to atone by wealth of detail. Here accordingly are quaint or beautiful works of art whose composition beguiled many a long winter night of old. Even Mallet (p. 151) most patronisingly remarks: "Nor is this sculpture so bad as might be expected." The sagas here and there refer to the use of timber from the Icelandic forests for purposes of building, but soft drift-wood is by far the commonest material used for carving figures of saints, many of which are extremely crude and some grotesque. The ornate "Kirkjustodir" are rather like the totem poles of North American Indians. Many things there are of post-Reformation date, as pulpits, bas-reliefs and fonts. Runic inscriptions survive into the eighteenth century. The finest feature is the magnificent retable in alabaster and wood, representing scenes from the Passion, that came from Holar Cathedral.[26] Carving of similar kind, though much earlier in date, for Skalholt Cathedral is described in the _Pols Saga_.[27] Margaret was the most cunning carver of all folk in Iceland, and she was surnamed the Skilful. "Bishop Paul had put in hand, and had her begin a tabula for the altar before he died, and had meant to spend on it much money, both gold and silver, and Margaret carved it most nobly out of tusk-ivory, and this would have been the greatest jewel or masterpiece if, according to his plan, both Thorstan the shrine-maker and Margaret had wrought it out with their craft. But his death was a big black blow, and such things had to be put off for the sake of many other things that had to be done." Some objects illustrate things other than ecclesiastical, but, comparatively speaking, they are few. Among them are old Icelandic chair-saddles with huge and unwieldy stirrups, and guns of wood with iron rings. The country surrounding the city seems dreary enough until the intense fascination of the wildly desolate land and the extreme purity of the air grows more and more upon the mind. The jagged rock-hills all round are never quite free from snow, but they were thrown up by the earth fires too late to be planed down by ice. The well-known little ponies of Iceland in considerable numbers wander at will over the rough rolling pasture land, save that some are ridden by tourists from the south, and some by radiant Icelandic girls. These come jogging in from the country on their curious flat side-saddles, both feet resting on a wide hanging step. They wear their hair in four plaits, the ends of which are looped up under a little flat cap of black cloth. From the centre of the cap there hangs through a little silver cylinder a long black tassel which reaches to the shoulder. The ground is largely dug into hummocks so as to increase the area available for grass. A good road, fringed by telegraph poles each side and patronised by a fair number of cyclists, leads out of the town, and after a mile or two crosses the Ellidaar, which has cut a broad winding channel through the hard volcanic rock, and is famous for fishing. Nearer the sea are the hot springs whose waters send up steam that is visible from far, and gave the capital its name. The ponies are kept from burning their noses by stretches of barbed wire. In water heated by the fires that burn far down, beyond the reach of man, the people of Reykjavik have long been wont to wash their linen and their clothes. A constant procession of women bear soiled things to the spring and clean things to the town. Many Icelanders speak English, and they are often surprisingly well-informed, both concerning their own history and the affairs of foreign lands. Still read are the sagas in the land of their birth, and they were Englished largely by Icelandic minds. There are very good secondary schools in the towns, and a College at Reykjavik itself. Though no elementary schools exist, almost every one can read and write from the excellent teaching in the homes. Reykjavik, Akureyri and Isafjordr are fair-sized towns, the former has a population of about ten thousand souls, but the loneliness of life in many parts is evident from the fact that the rest of the nation, about fifty or sixty thousand in number, tending cattle and ponies, and fishing for whale and cod, is thinly sprinkled through some two hundred and eighty parishes. [Illustration: HOT SPRINGS NEAR REYKJAVIK] [_Face page 60_ Of the rocky islands in Reykjavik Harbour by far the most interesting is Videy, the resort to-day of ptarmigan and eider duck, in past years the seat of one of the chief religious houses of Iceland, a Priory of the Benedictine order. The founder and the first Prior (1226-35) was one Thorvald, son of a Speaker of the Law, who was fifth in descent from Gizor the White. He was succeeded by Styrmir, surnamed _hinn fródi_ or the Wise, who was one of the editors of the _Landnama-bok_, and died in 1245. The chapel in which he worshipped still exists, a rude early thirteenth century structure, plain oblong with gables, built roughly of volcanic stone. The sole original features are the very plainest of windows under segmental arches. It is still used for service, and has plain eighteenth century fittings with tall screen, and pulpit rising behind the altar, all painted green and blue and red. Three bells are dated 1735, 1752 and 1785. In the loft under the roof is a collection of old spinning wheels. The absence of surnames, which is still a characteristic of the unchanged Norse tradition of Iceland, appears on a gravestone of 1820, to Viefus Scheving and his wife, Aunnu Stephansdóttur. This little chapel appears to have been almost the only stone church in mediæval Iceland; even the famous Cathedral at Skalholt, which was in every way glorious above any other building in Iceland, the finest and most precious in the island, was merely a structure of wood. From the highest point of the island of Videy there is a really superb view over the plantless mountains and the steepleless city across a few miles of blue-black, white-crested sea. The island pastures support fifty head of cattle and slope right down to the shore, where the waves have carved arches and caverns in the yielding rocks. The farmhouse by the chapel is a long stone building, whose weathering by the storms of some two hundred winters is concealed by a coat of whitewash, while the rooms are comfortably panelled within. The outhouses seem in some cases to be on foundations that were laid by the monks, for the monastic buildings were evidently detached in the Celtic fashion; there was no attempt to reproduce the conventional plan of a monastery that is so unvaried in southern lands. Iceland belongs geographically rather to America than to Europe, a much wider stretch of ocean divides her from Norway than from Greenland. But so close are the lands in the Far North that a present-day steamer might sail with ease from London to New York, permitting her passengers to go ashore for some part of every day.[28] Five hundred years before Columbus crossed the Western Ocean Icelandic barks had plowed their way, first to Greenland, then to the American mainland. The latter their crews called Vinland from its vines and surnamed from its character "the Good." In the _Saga of Olaf Tryggvison_ we read: "That same spring also King Olaf sent Leif Ericson to Greenland to bid christening there; so that same summer he went thither. He took up a ship's crew on the sea who had come to nought, and were lying on the wreck of the ship; and in that journey found he Vinland the Good, and came back in harvest-tide to Greenland." In the _Vinland Voyages_, commonly called the _Saga of Eric the Red_, the North American coast is described with great accuracy, but unfortunately still greater brevity, "The land seemed to them fair and thick wooded, and but a short space between the woods and the sea, and white sands. There were many islands and great shallows." Many Icelanders in these latter days have emigrated to the United States or Canada, and the son of one of them is V. Stefansson, who, in the service of the American Museum of Natural History, discovered the blond Eskimo of Victoria Land known as Akuliakattamiut, just possibly descended from the ancient Norse settlers in Greenland. To-day (1913), in the service of the Government of Canada, he is exploring the polar ocean to the north of that wide land. Sturdy independence and passionate attachment to their weirdly beautiful island have always marked the Icelanders, and though since the fall of the Republic more than six and a half centuries have worn away, the spirit of the nation has not decayed. Even by the great Margaret (p. 120) they would not consent to be taxed. In 1393 it is recorded[29]: "The Stadholder brought forward the Queen's demand at the meeting, when all the chief men promised to give sixteen feet of vadmal (cloth used for barter) for Vigfus' sake--he was very much beloved in Iceland; but on this condition, that it should not be called a tax, and should not be demanded again. But the inhabitants of Eyafjordr refused to give anything." And about the year 1000, while other Europeans were trembling for the end of the world or wondering why it had not come, Icelandic sailors, who knew not fear, were wandering admiringly through the woods of the North American Continent, were warring with the Scraelings or Indians, were eating the grapes of the New World, were planning settlements, possibly building churches,[30] in what became New England more than six centuries later. What boundless possibilities were before them had they only realised the value of that land! How different the history of mankind if any considerable number of their countrymen, sprinkled through all lands from the ice-fields of Greenland to the Russian steppes, and from the North Cape to Constantinople, had been summoned from their widely-scattered stations for the settlement of Vinland the Good! [Illustration] CHAPTER III TRONDHJEM Wild the Runic faith, And wild the realms where Scandinavian chiefs And Skalds arose, and hence the Skald's strong verse Partook the savage wildness. And methinks Amid such scenes as these the Poet's soul Might best attain full growth; pine-cover'd rocks, And mountain forests of eternal shade, And glens and vales, on whose green quietness The lingering eye reposes, and fair lakes That image the light foliage of the beach. SOUTHEY. There would not be much to see in the Low Countries if they were deprived of their historical associations, their ancient buildings and their superb paintings. Most parts of Europe owe very much of their interest and their beauty to the long-continued presence of mankind. But the delights of Norway are of another sort, and a yachting trip among her fjords and islands would lose little of its attraction to many, had they as few associations as those of Alaska. The chief charm of this northern country must always be found in the fact that a large steamer may sail far into the heart of her lofty mountains through winding valleys, enclosed by towering rock sides, over which fall streams with courses so steep that they sometimes reach the surface of ocean only in the form of spray. In Norway one may proceed up a wild Highland glen with scenery grander than anything even in Scotland, without leaving the surface of the sea. Here and there such river gorges as that of the Hudson near West Point are somewhat recalled to one's mind, but on the whole the scenery of Norway is not at all like anything else. The overpowering vastness of it all is perfectly unique.[31] But, even if one has not realised the fact amid the romantic scenery of those fjords where the works of man are confined to tiny fields like handkerchiefs scantily stretched upon the mountain sides, and settlements of wooden huts which are lost among the towering mountains of God, in Trondhjem Fjord one can hardly ignore the fact that this northern land has a history and a mythology of no mean kind, and one that is her very own. Though they have added less to the general sum of human action than have the thoughts of Greece and the achievements of Rome, the mythology of the North is more robust, its history is more virile, its literature is less voluptuous, its feelings more stern and deep. As the Swedish poet and bishop, Esaias Tegnér, expresses it: "Go to Greece for beauty of form, but to the North for depth of feeling and thought." Doubtless the difference is largely geographical, as is well set forth in a thought-provoking passage of Sir Archibald Geikie's Romanes Lecture, delivered at Oxford in 1898. "Who can doubt that the legends and superstitions of ancient Greece took their form and colour in no small measure from the mingled climates, varied scenery and rocky structure of that mountainous land, or that the grim, litanic mythology of Scandinavia bears witness to its birth in a region of rugged snowy uplands under gloomy and tempestuous skies." And to those of English speech at least the history of the North should mean much more, because it was not merely our teachers and civilisers, but our very selves that first launched dragon-prowed vessels on these clear waters and first heard the eddas recited by the Skalds. Just to the right of the spot where the broad river Nid pours its rather muddy waters into the Trondhjem Fjord, there rises a low hill, and there, commanding a glorious prospect far over the brown-green mountains and the slate-blue waters of the sea, once stood a great Temple for the worship of the Gods whose names are hourly on our lips, whenever we need to distinguish the days. A mighty line of Earls once had their seat in Ladir or Lade--for such are the ancient and modern names of the village where the Temple stood--and widely their authority was known. The greatest of them ruled over all the Norse for a quarter of a century (970-995), but so proud was he of his ancestral stock that he preferred to be known as the Earl of Ladir rather than as King of Norway. Sixteen earls recognised his sway, and he trowed in the old Gods. Thus the _Heimskringla_ describes his sway. "Whiles Earl Hakon ruled in Norway was the year's increase good in the land. And good peace there was betwixt man and man among the bonders. "Well beloved of the bonders was the earl the more part of his life, but as his years wore, it was much noted of the earl that he was mannerless in dealing with women.... Whereof he won great hatred from the kin of such women, and the bonders fell a-murmuring sore against it, even as they of Thrandheim are wont to do when aught goeth against their pleasure." Now a mysterious person named Oli was at Dublin, at that time a great settlement of Norsemen. Concerning him the earl heard rumours that he found exceedingly disquieting. He had a great friend called Thorir Klakka, "who was long whiles at viking work, but whiles would go cheaping voyages, and was of good knowledge of lands. Him Earl Hakon sent West-over-sea, bidding him go a cheaping voyage to Dublin, as many folk were wont, and look into it closely what this man Oli was; and if he found that he verily was Olaf Tryggvison, or any other offspring of the kingly stem of the North, then was Thorir to entangle him with guile if he might bring it to pass." Thorir had no difficulty in getting into conversation with Oli, and in reply to his questions about the conditions in Norway, he told how the earl was so mighty a man that none durst speak but as he would. Yet he admitted that many mighty men, yea, all the people, would be most fain and eager to have a king for the land come of the blood of Harald Fairhair. "Now when they had oft talked in this wise, Olaf bringeth to light before Thorir his name and kin, and asked his rede, what he thought of it, if Olaf should fare to Norway, whether the bonders would take him for king. But Thorir egged him on full fast to the journey, and praised him much and his prowess. So Olaf fell a-longing sorely to fare to the land of his fathers: and he saileth from the west with five ships, first to the South-Isles, and Thorir was in company with him." So Olaf got back eventually to the kingdom of his fathers, and "when he came north to Agdaness he heard that Earl Hakon was in the firth, and withal that he was at strife with the bonders. And when Thorir heard tell of these things, then were matters gone a far other way than he had been deeming; for after the battle with the Jomsburg vikings (notable pirates whose stronghold was in Pomerania) were all men of Norway utterly friendly to Earl Hakon for the victory he had gotten, and the deliverance of all the land from war; but now so ill had things turned out that here was the earl at strife with the bonders, and a great lord come into the land." There was a man named Worm Lyrgia, a wealthy bonder, and he had to wife one who was known as the Sun of Lund, where her father dwelt; she was the fairest among women. Thralls came from the Earl of Ladir to carry her away by force, but Worm (despite his name) was a man of spirit and fire. He "let the war-arrow fare four ways through the countryside with this bidding withal, that all men should fall with weapons on Earl Hakon to slay him." This incident, which was far from being an isolated case, proved very unfortunate for the government of the earl; in fact, he soon became a fugitive with a single thrall, named Kark. "Then he arose, and they went to the stead of Rimul, and the earl sent Kark to Thora, bidding her come privily to him. So did she, and welcomed the earl kindly, and he prayed her to hide him for certain nights till the gathering of the bonders went to pieces. Said she: 'They will be seeking thee here about my stead both within and without; for many wot that I would fain help thee all I may, but one place there is about my stead where I deem that I would not think of seeking for such a man as thou, a certain swine-sty to wit.' "So they went thither: and the earl said: 'Make we ready here; for we must take heed to our lives first of all.' Then dug the thrall a deep hole therein, and bore away the mould, and then laid wood over it. Thora told the earl the tidings how Olaf Tryggvison was come into the mouth of the firth, and had slain Erland his son. "Then went the earl into the hole and Kark with him, and Thora did it over with wood, and strawed over it mould and muck and drave the swine thereover. And this swine-sty was under a certain big stone." So the bonders and Olaf fell straightway into good friendship, and the son of Tryggvi ascended the throne of his fathers. He was one of the greatest of the kings of the Norse, superior in many respects to his namesake, who is distinguished as the saint. The chief secret of his power is opened to us by the following passage from the _Faereyinga Saga_, for popularity in the viking age was gained by much the same qualities that secure it in an English Public School to-day. "Once in the spring King Olaf said to Sigmund. 'We will amuse ourselves to-day, and prove our feats of skill.' 'I am not the man for that, lord,' said Sigmund, 'but thou shalt have thy way in this as in all other things that are in my hands.' Then they tried their might in swimming and shooting and other feats of skill and strength, and men say that Sigmund came very nigh the king in many feats, albeit he came short of him in all, as did every other man that was then living in Norway." To return to the swine-sty in the _Heimskringla_. Olaf came to seek the earl at Thora's stead as she had said he would. Then he "held a House-Thing out in the garth, and himself stood up on that same big stone that was beside the swine-sty. "There spake Olaf to his men, and some deal of his speaking was that he would with wealth and worth further him who should bring Earl Hakon to harm. "Now this talk heard the earl, and Kark, and they had a light there with them; and the earl said: 'Why art thou so pale, or whiles as black as earth? Is it not so that thou wilt bewray me?' "'Nay,' said Kark. "'We were born both on one and the same night, said the earl, 'nor shall we be far apart in our deaths. "Then fared King Olaf away as the eve came on, but in the night the earl kept himself waking, but Kark slept and went on evilly in his sleep. Then the earl waked him and asked what he dreamed: and he said, 'I was e'en now at Ladir and King Olaf laid a gold necklace on the neck of me.' "The earl answered: 'A blood-red necklace shall Olaf do about thy neck whenso ye meet. See thou to it; but from me shalt thou have but good even as hath been aforetime; so bewray me not.' "So thereafter they both waked, as men waking one over the other. "But against the daybreak the earl fell asleep, and speedily his sleep waxed troubled, till to such a pitch it came that he drew under him his heels and his head as if he would rise up, and cried out high and awfully. "Then waxed Kark adrad and full of horror, and gripped a big knife from out his belt, and thrust it through the earl's throat and sheared it right out. That was the bane of Earl Hakon. "Then Kark cut the head from the earl, and ran away thence with it; and he came the next day to Ladir, and brought the earl's head to King Olaf, and told him all these things that had befallen in the going of him and Earl Hakon, even as is here written. "Then let King Olaf lead him away thence, and smite the head from him." At Ladir thereafter King Olaf made a feast and bade to it lords and other great bonders. "But when the feast was arrayed, and the guests were come, the first eve was the feast full fair and the cheer most glorious, and men were very drunk; and that night slept all men in peace there. "But on the morrow morn when the king was clad he let sing mass before him, and when the mass was ended the king let blow for a House-Thing. And all his men went from the ships" (a "goodly host and great" of them were laid in the Nid) "therewith, and came to the Thing. But when the Thing was established the king stood up and spake in these words: 'A Thing we held up at Frosta, and thereat I bade the bonders be christened; and they bade me back again turn me to offering with them.... But look ye, if I turn me to offering with you, then will I make the greatest blood-offering that is, and will offer up men; yea, and neither will I choose hereto thralls and evil-doers; but rather will I choose gifts for the gods the noblest of men.'" He proceeded to name some of the chief men present. This was a convincing argument, and when the bonders saw that they lacked might to meet the king, they professed their willingness to trow in the faith of the White Christ. And at Ladir, on the site of the Godhouse, the king let build a church. A Romanesque doorway about a century later than his time still exists in the south wall of the chancel, under which is a crypt; but the present church is a very plain plastered structure, dated 1694; a porch was added in 1767. Close by, in the year 996, King Olaf Tryggvison raised a city on Nid bank. He chose a site at the very mouth, almost surrounded by the stream, and he desired that his town should be such as he had seen in Christian lands. He would that the Norse should resemble other Europeans, should trow in Christ and dwell in towns and grow rich by trade. The new settlement was known as Nidaros, because it was at the mouth of the Nid, or else as Kaupstad, because it was a merchants' town. But during the sixteenth century it was called as we know it to-day, taking its name from the district round. At first it did not prosper, for though Olaf Tryggvison gave men tofts whereon to build them houses, they did not want a town, nor aught but their farms and their ships. But when the holy bones of another Olaf, martyr and king and saint, were there enshrined and over them sprang the tall vaulting of Scandinavia's fairest church, pilgrims and trade and prosperity resorted to the mouth of the Nid. Little of the saint was in Olaf Haraldson during his earlier years. The first story of him in the sagas displays him as a mischievous boy. "On a time it befell that King Sigurd would ride away from his house, and no man was home at the stead; so he bade Olaf, his stepson, to saddle him a horse. Olaf went to the goat-house, and took there the biggest buck-goat and led it home, and laid thereon the saddle of the king, and then went and told him he had harnessed him the nag." A renowned viking he became, whose deeds men talked about in all the lands from Sweden to the British Isles. But as King of Norway he would have no peace but with believers in the White Christ. Perhaps his methods lacked charity and tact, and his temper lacked control, that he was wealth-grasping, the sagas distinctly say, but he was truly of a religious frame and in comparison with his faith he counted not anything dear. At the time when he was establishing his power the city that Olaf Tryggvison had founded on Nid-bank was already in decay. King Olaf the Saint, we read in the _Heimskringla_ "gat him gone at his speediest and held out to Nidoyce, where King Olaf Tryggvison had let set a cheaping-stead and reared a king's-house; but before that there was only one house in Nidness, as is writ before. But when King Eric became ruler of the land, he favoured Ladir, where his father had had his chief abode, but he left unheeded the houses which King Olaf had let build on the Nid; and some were now tumbled down, while othersome, though standing, were scarce meet for dwelling in. King Olaf steered his ships up into the Nid; and forthwith he let dight for dwelling the houses yet standing, and reared those up again which were fallen down, and had thereat a throng of men; and he let flit into the houses both the drink and the victuals, being minded to sit there Yule-tide over." Thrandheim "he deemed was all the pith of the land" (and thither he fared at his speediest), "if he might there bring the folk down under him while the earl was away from the land. But when King Olaf came to Thrandheim, then was no uprising against him there, and there he was taken to king; and he set him down there in the harvest-tide at Nidoyce, and there dight him winter-quarters. He let house a king's garth, and reared Clement's Church there whereas it now standeth. He marked out tofts for garths, and gave them to goodmen, and chapmen, or to any others he would, and who were minded to house. He sat there with many men about him, for he trusted the Thrandheimer's good faith but little, if so be the earl should come back to the land." A few chapters further on the court of the king is described.... "King Olaf let house a king's garth at Nidoyce. There was done a big court hall with a door at either end, but the high-seat of the king was in the midmost of the hall. Up from him sat Grimkel, his court-bishop, and next to him again other clerks of his; but down from the king sat his counsellors. In the other high-seat straight over against him sat his marshal, Biorn the Thick, and then the guests. If men of high degree came to King Olaf, they were well seated.... Withal he had thirty house-carles to work all needful service in the garth, and at whatso ingatherings were needful; he had many thralls withal. In the garth also was a mickle hall, wherein slept the bodyguard, and there was withal a mickle chamber wherein the king held his court councils." His canonisation came to pass thus. His vigorous propaganda on behalf of the true faith was by no means universally approved in Norway, and he had to take refuge in Russia (p. 231). Thence he returned to recover his kingdom, but even in almost desperate straits he would be succoured by none other than Christian men. One Arnliot Gellini offered his services and the king asked at once of his faith. "But he said this of his troth, that he trowed in his might and main. 'And that belief has served me full well hitherto; but now I am minded to trow in thee, O King.' "The king answered: 'If thou wilt trow in me, then thou shalt believe in what I teach thee. Thou shalt believe this, that Jesus Christ has created heaven and earth and all men, and that to him shall fare after death all those who are good, and who believe aright.' "Arnliot answered: 'I have heard tell of the White Christ, but I am not well learned in his doings, nor where he ruleth; so I will now believe all that thou hast to tell me, and I will leave all my matter in thy hand.' "Then Arnliot was christened, and the king taught him as much of the faith as he deemed was most needful, and arrayed him to the vanward battle-array, and before his own banner." On the field of Sticklestead, a few miles from Trondhjem, Olaf fell in fight against foes who were supported by English gold, for Knut the Rich, though a Christian himself, was planning a vast Empire of the North, and his political zeal was stronger than his enthusiasm for the holy faith (p. 115). His viceroy in Norway was one Hakon, the last of the stout Earls of Ladir, to whom he gave a court-bishop named Sigurd, a Dane. "That Bishop was a man masterful, and pompous of speech; he gave King Knut all the word-propping he might, and was the most unfriend of King Olaf." The Christian host went down before the troops whose faith was mixed, and after various adventures, the body of the king was buried at Nidaros, or Trondhjem, in Clement's Church, which he had built. "That winter uphove the word of many men there in Thrandheim[32] that King Olaf was a truly holy man, and that many tokens befell at his holy relic. And then many began to make vows to King Olaf about those matters whereon they had set their hearts. From such vows many folk got bettering." "Next summer there grew up mickle talk about the holiness of King Olaf, and all word-rumour about the king was changed." When Grimkel the bishop caused the chest of the king to be opened there was glorious fragrance, and when the face was exposed the lips were as ruddy as if Olaf had just gone to sleep. And so by degrees, as miracles increased, and old sharp feelings wore away, Olaf became the patron saint of all the Norse; Churches were raised to him in many lands, including a fair sprinkling in English seaports from Exeter to York. The Cathedral that rose to enshrine the relics of St. Olaf would be a striking feature of any city in the world, and it completely dominates this far northern, low-roofed town. Both from far off and near it is a Church of very English type, and it stands in a regular close amid fair trees and grass. The vegetation indeed seems more to suit the English south than a spot not far outside the Arctic Circle. It forms an impressive illustration of the influence that the warm currents of ocean exert upon westward looking shores. For the opposite point of America is north of Labrador. It has been in the hands of restorers for about the same time that the temple was in the hands of builders, and very amply fulfilled is Du Chaillu's prophecy that it would lose the quaint old look so much esteemed by the lovers of antiquity (p. 223). Much as some cry out against the restorer in England, that country is far ahead of the Continent both in reverence for the work of the past and in making serious efforts rather to bind up what is broken down than merely to present facsimiles of it to posterity. Trondhjem Cathedral has been rebuilt rather than restored, though Mr. Christie, the architect, has strictly followed the ancient lines. Sarcastic people might say that he has given us a building which ranks high among modern churches! Shortly before the earliest part of the Cathedral was built, Nidaros became the seat of an Archbishop whose metropolitan jurisdiction extended further than did that of any bishopric before. In 1151 Nicolas Breakspear, once it is said a beggar at St. Alban's, afterwards the only English pope,[33] came to set in order the affairs of the Northern Church. He arranged for the formation of a province that should include all Christians of Norwegian stock. The other sees in Norway (Bergen, Stavanger, Oslo (p. 95) and Hamar) were placed under the supervision of the Primate of Nidaros. Far over the sea his authority was likewise known, by bishops midst the British Isles, of Kirkwall in Orkney and of Sodor (or the Southern Isles[34]) and Man, by the Bishop of the Faroes, whose cathedral was at Kirkebö (p. 23), by the twin Bishops of Skalholt and Holar in Iceland and even by the first of American prelates, he who sat at Garth (or Garde) in Greenland[35] far away, knowing not that he lived in a different quarter of the world. Trondhjem Cathedral is a great cruciform church about 325 feet long, whose nave and quire are aisled, and the western towers project north and south to widen the great façade: at the east end of the quire is an octagonal corona, and on the northern side, joined only by a passage, is the apsidal Church of St. Clement, recalling the position of the Lady Chapel at Ely. It is built of blue-grey saponite, a local stone easy to work, varied with marble from the island of Almenningen. The oldest part is the transept which was raised by the great Archbishop Eystein. He was the foe of Sverre Sigurdsson, the knight-errant king, who in his youth had been ordained, still ignorant of his royal birth. In 1180 at a battle near Nidaros he contrived to establish his power and the archbishop fled to St. Edmundsbury in England, launching as a Scythian dart against the recreant priest a sentence of the excommunication of the Church. When no one seemed in the least impressed, and the king's power was waxing fast, the archbishop became more prudent. Making his peace with Sverre he returned to Nidaros and found less strenuous occupation in building his cathedral. He died in 1188, and the king gave his funeral address. Each transept has the usual three storeys with corner turrets and a square chapel opening on the east. They are rich in shafts and arcading with plentiful zigzag moulding, and they are really striking examples of the style that the Normans brought to England. The upper parts display a certain restiveness to commence the development of later forms. The present tower arches are modern. Not much later than the transepts is the little chapel of St. Clement, sometimes called the Lady Chapel and sometimes the Chapter House. Its nave is vaulted in two bays and flanked by western turrets; the roof of the apse is sustained by four clustered pillars bearing pointed arches. The quire and nave and octagonal corona are fairly uniform in style but surprisingly otherwise in plan. They belong to that period of Gothic architecture when lancets were just giving place to traceried windows, and clustered shafts and foliage caps and deeply-moulded arches were more beautiful than after or before. The works were in progress through much of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and evidently dragged on long. A bad fire gave a serious set-back in 1328. It is doubtful whether the nave was ever done. It was begun as early as 1248 by Archbishop Sigurd, son of one of the brave birkebeiner or birchlegs, who had helped King Sverre to his throne. The builders of each part seem to have been profoundly unconscious of what their colleagues elsewhere had been about. For they were working on the foundations of three little older churches. St. Clement's was built originally by St. Olaf himself, his son Magnus the Good raised a church over his later grave where now the corona stands, a stone church of St. Mary was erected by Harald Hardredy (p. 95) on the site of the quire.[36] Most awkwardly St. Clement's joins the rest of the church; the beautiful aisle-encircled corona declines to meet the quire at any understandable angle, the walls and pillars of the quire itself trend apart on either side toward the east.[37] See plan opposite p. 246. [Illustration: NORTH-EAST CORNER OF QUIRE, LOOKING INTO AISLE AND CORONA] [_Face page 86_ Over the great central tower, which long was cut off by a low metal roof, have been raised a tall spire of wood and four pinnacles of stone. It is largely this lofty steeple in the centre that gives the Cathedral so English a look. The magnificence of this fair church is all the more striking when one realises that, with a few most unimportant exceptions, it is the furthest north of all the buildings of the middle ages. Yet its equal is not to be found in any part of Europe further south, till the latitude of Glasgow is reached. The most striking feature of Trondhjem to-day is that so large and thriving a town should be almost wholly of wood, even in the business section and including the vast palace of the king. In 1872 the city seemed to Du Chaillu (p. 223) singularly cheerless from the large sections that had been burnt and not rebuilt, while grass grew in many of the streets. Things are very different to-day. The thoroughfares are broad and straight, most of them pleasantly fringed with trees, and there is all the character of a prosperous, substantial town. A few wooden buildings are two centuries old, for instance the vane of the Raadhus is dated 1710 and that of the Hospitals Kirken[38] 1704, but these do not in the very least affect the general character of the place, and the aspect of the streets as a whole is as modern as well could be. The Cathedral quarter by a river bend seems to exhale a quite different atmosphere from the whole of the rest of the town. It is almost as though an English close had invaded an American city. Near the white square tower of the Frue Kirke (dated 1739) is a wide open space where on market-days stalls are erected and country and town deal directly with each other in those picturesque surroundings that are so largely the same all over the north of Europe. The harness of the horses looks primitive, and all the weight is on the shafts, but they race along like the wind, and when a destination is reached, the owner needs to do no more than to slip round the front foot of his beast a long strap attached to the carriage. Little of the Norwegian costume that is so attractive a feature of the fjord villages is to be seen in the city; the general life of towns is becoming distressingly the same all over the Western world. The atmosphere is, however, distinctly Norse by the quays, where the fish boats come in and large barrels of their catchings are rolled about, and also where high wooden warehouses, not entirely without picturesqueness, fringe the shores of the Nid and exhale a smell of fish and tar. The days of Danish supremacy are recalled on a hill just east of the Cathedral on the other side of the river by the picturesque old Fortress of Christiansten, which dates from the seventeenth century, and displays rubble stone walls surmounted by grassy slopes and penetrated by brick-vaulted passages and rooms. This period and this district of Norway were chosen by Victor Hugo when writing his first romance, _Han d'Islande_, which he published anonymously in 1823. The scene is, however, laid chiefly in Munkholm, a small rocky island which rises out of the waters of the fjord immediately opposite the town. In very earliest days of Christianity in Norway a Benedictine cloister was reared there, and for half a thousand years the monks remained, but little beyond the name survives to indicate their occupation to-day. Fortifications have long existed where the psalter was chanted in days of yore. Victor Hugo himself explains the object of the work: "I wished to describe a girl who might realise the ideal of all fresh and poetic imagination, the girl of my dreams ... you, Adèle, my beloved.... And beside her I wanted to set a young man, not such as I am but such as I would wish to be." He has certainly succeeded so far that his characters are entirely French, and he seems rather to have made a mistake in placing the scene so far from France. The nightmare, gruesome character of the book is bloodcurdling enough, but decidedly overdone, and though the work is very well worth reading as the early effort of one of the greatest of writers, it contributes little to his fame and still less, perhaps to the interest of a visit to Trondhjem. The local colour is extremely poor, a fact that is hardly surprising when it is remembered that the author had never visited Norway. The hills stand about Trondhjem, as indeed about all other Norway towns; some of them display, five hundred feet above the sea, marks of former beaches where waves lapped cliffs unnumbered years ago, before the movements of the globe had raised the land so high. And from places within an easy walk of the city, there is a magnificent panorama, westward over hills riven in all directions by the jagged edged sea, and eastward to the snowy mountains of the Kiolen range that form the frontier of Sweden. Superbly beautiful at all times is the prospect of wooded hill and inland sea, particularly when seen in softer outline as the long Arctic twilight gradually gives place to the paler illumination of the moon, and little lights begin to sparkle over land and sea. But even in such dreamy conditions the city, beautiful from its verdure and striking from its position, declines to look like a mediæval or even a historic town. Though for more than a thousand years the landscape below has been the scene of the varied activities of mankind, and from it has gone out power by which the life of half Europe has been quickened, even yet there is rather the restless atmosphere of new settlements in a country still only half subdued, than that of quiet peace and sense of satisfied repose, such as broods over an ancient Italian seaport, where every corner has been transformed by untold generations of man and centuries ago even the rough hill-sides were terraced to enlarge his domain. Some three miles from the city, amid pine forests of perpetual shade, the River Nid plunges over hard dark blue rocks to form the Lerfos Falls. Most Norwegian cascades are chiefly spray, and by their great resemblance to bridal veils are associated with the happiest events in the lives of most of us. But these are more business-like waterfalls, which are not left in peace by mankind. The Lower Fall, or Lille Lerfos, is a rather average sort of thing: in a broad open place where much naked rock is exposed the water of the stream plunges over a sort of stairway to descend abruptly for nearly eighty feet, and the effect is not improved by various works in cement. A path along the wooded river bank leads to the Upper Fall, or Store Lerfos, which is one of the most beautiful anywhere to be seen. The stream leaps down a hundred feet, and both high and low the surging mass of whitened waters is cleft by tree-bearing rocks, while mist-like foam spreads far and wide. Europe has cathedrals statelier than that of Trondhjem and mediæval cities of greater intrinsic charm, but the interest of nearly everything is affected chiefly by its position, and it is startling indeed among the wildness of the northern fjords to come upon this history-haunted spot, to see this fair cathedral rising from the trees and grass of so English-looking a close. And in the long-drawn aisles of the ancient Metropolitan Church it is strange to reflect that the saint who was here enshrined in one of the stateliest of Gothic fanes was the doughty Olaf the Thick, famed in life for his wild viking career, who knew the craft of the bow, and of all men was the best in shooting of hand-shot, who was but twelve winters old when he first stepped on a warship to begin the harrying and burning in which so much of his life was spent! And as the bright sunlight streams through the lancet windows to illuminate and shade chaste arcading and hanging foliage carved in stone, with the deep mouldings of arch and vault, it is difficult indeed to realise that one is hardly more than three degrees outside the Arctic Line.[39] [Illustration] CHAPTER IV CHRISTIANIA And now to all the brave ones here, And to the maids that love us-- To men who never knew a fear, Maids pure as saints above us. The Norway maidens! fill on high-- The Norsemen, brave to do and die! And shame to him who passes by The pledge to Love and Freedom. _For Norge_, translated by LADY WILDE. Cleaving the Skager Rak from the Cattegat the small peninsula of Jutland projects far into the large gulf by which the Scandinavian mountain mass is riven on the south. And at the head of the gulf a lovely island-dotted fjord penetrates far among the hills that encircle the long and narrow Norway Lakes. The shores of the fjord are rocky, in places eaten into cliffs, pines cover all the slopes from which they are not cleared. Just here and there distant mountains of more jagged outline overtop the lower hills. For some miles the seaway is narrow, but it broadens out again before the end is reached. Less wild and rugged, less grand and awesome, than the high-walled fjords that cut into the western coast, but not less beautiful in some respects. By many coves the sea runs in among the woods, and during saga days here lived sea-kings who never slept under sooty roof-tree, nor ever drank in hearth ingle. Into one of the arms of the branching fjord, the water then called Drafn and now known as Drammensfjord, hove Olaf the Thick, the Holy, with his host in 1028, for he had heard that Knut the Rich, England's all-wielder, was close upon his heels. Knut was planning a great Norse Empire; he had made himself master of Norway, and held Things in every folk-land that he reached. Olaf could not meet him in warfare, but he held him in Drafn water in safety till he heard that Knut was gone south into Denmark, and then he fared forth, only to find that for the time at least the land was beguiled from under him. A few miles from the arm of the sea that had sheltered St. Olaf another saint was born, related to himself, Hallward, a worthy merchant of those parts, who got his bane while trying to protect a woman who was being attacked by men. Him Harald Hardredy, the same who met his end at Stamford Bridge in 1066, chose to be the patron saint of the new southern town which he founded to rival the capital far north. In the _Heimskringla_ we read how "King Harald let rear a cheaping-stead east in Oslo, and sat there often; whereas it was good there for the ingathering of victual, with wide countrysides all round about. There he sat well for the warding of the land against the Danes no less than for onsets at Denmark, which he was often wont to, though he might have no great host out."[40] After his death we learn that "it was the talk of all men that King Harald had been beyond other men in wisdom and deft rede, no matter whether he should take swiftly, or do longsome, a rede for himself or others.... King Harald was a goodly man, and noble to behold; bleak haired and bleak bearded, his lipbeard long; one eyebrow somewhat higher than the other; large hands and feet, yet either shapely waxen; five ells was the tale of his stature. To his unfriends was he grim and vengeful for aught done against him."[41] To this appreciation we may add that Harald was no bad judge of the best site for a town; for with the rocky forest-covered hills rising all round, and the lake-like sea with its many islands gently rippling in front, this capital has one of the best situations enjoyed by any European town. Nothing but huge advantages of site and greater nearness to the communications of the world could have reconciled Norway to her Government's abandoning the myriad associations of the far more historic city in the North. During the reign of Sigurd Jerusalem-farer (1121-1130) to Oslo came from Ireland one Harald Gilli, who said he was a Norse king's son, but he did not claim the kingdom for himself. And Sigurd said that Harald should tread bars for his fatherhood, and that ordeal was deemed somewhat hard, but still Harald yeasaid it. "He fasted unto iron, and that ordeal was done, which is the greatest that ever has been done in Norway, whereas nine glowing ploughshares were laid down, and Harald walked them barefoot, and was led by two bishops. Three days thereafter the ordeal was proven, and his feet were unburnt. "After that King Sigurd took kindly to the kinship of Harald, but Magnus his son had much ill-will to him, and many lords turned after him in the matter. King Sigurd trusted so much in his friendship with all the folk of the land, that he bade this, that all should swear that his son Magnus should be king after him; and he gat that oath sworn by all the land's-folk. "Harald Gilli was a tall man and slender of build, long-necked, somewhat long-faced, black-eyed, dark of hair, quick and swift of gait, and much wore the Irish raiment, being short-clad and light-clad. The northern tongue was stiff for him, and he fumbled much over the words, and many men had that for mockery. Harald sat on a time at the drink with another man, and told tales from the west of Ireland; and this was in his speech that in Ireland there were men so swift-foot that no horse might catch them up at a gallop. Magnus, the king's son, overheard that and said: 'Now is he lying again, as is his wont.' "Harald answers: 'True is this, that,' says he, 'those men may be found in Ireland whom no horse in Norway shall outrun.' "On this they had some words and both were drunk. Then said Magnus: 'Now here shalt thou wager thine head, if thou run not as hard as I ride my horse, but I will lay down against it my gold ring.' "Harald answers: 'I say not that I run so hard, but I shall find those men in Ireland who so will run, and on that may I wager.' "Magnus, the king's son, answers: 'I shall not be faring to Ireland, here shall we have the wager, and not there.' "Harald then went to bed and would have nought more to do with him. This was in Oslo. "But the next morning when matins were over, Magnus rode up unto the highway and sent word to Harald to come thither; and when he came he was so dight that he had on a shirt and breeches with footsole bands, a short cloak, an Irish hat on his head, and a spear-shaft in hand. "Now Magnus marked out the run. Harald says: 'Overlong art thou minded to have the run.' Magnus forthwith marked it off much longer and said that even so it was over-short. "There were many folk thereby. Then took they to the running, and Harald ever kept at the withers. "But when they came to the end of the run, said Magnus: 'Thou holdest by the girth, and the horse drew thee.' Magnus had a Gautland horse full swift. They took again another run back, and then Harald ran all the course before the horse. And when they came to the end of the run, Harald asked: 'Held I by the girth now?' Magnus answers: 'Thou didst take off first.' [Illustration: GAMLA UPSALA Details of Runic Stone and Plan of old Cathedral] [_Face page 99_ "Then Magnus let the horse breathe a while; and when he was ready, he smote the horse with his spurs, and he came swiftly to the gallop. Then Harald stood still, and Magnus looked back and called: 'Run now,' says he. Then Harald swiftly overran the horse, and far ahead, and so to the run's end; and came home so much the first, that he laid him down, and sprang up and hailed Magnus when he came."[42] Oslo stood on the Akers Elv, and was chiefly on its eastern bank; Oslo-havn still exists, by the mouth of the stream just eastward of the railway-circled cape on which frowns the castle Akershus. Less than a mile to the north, not far from the river's western shore, stands a small twelfth century Romanesque structure that belonged to a suburb of Oslo and is prosaically known to-day as Gamle Akers Kirke.[43] Oslo was a great city, one of the chief centres of Norwegian trade, and a bishop's stool stood in the church where Hallward's bones were shrined. It also played an important part in history when the great king, Hakon IV., of the Birch legs party (p. 85), overcame his domestic enemies there at a great battle during 1240. He thus restored peace to Norway, torn by the factions of a hundred years, and so widely did his fame extend that St. Louis asked for his help against Saracens and the pope for assistance against the emperor himself. But, feeling more interest in matters nearer home, Hakon preferred to direct his attention to joining Iceland to Norway (p. 54). Old Oslo was, however, much damaged by fire and wasted by war when about 1624 the illustrious Dane-Norway king, Christian IV., rebuilt the city on a slightly more western site and called it by his own name. In addition to his other accomplishments, which, as we shall see (p. 132) were very great, this Christian was a brave soldier, and the song of Ewald (d. 1781), "King Christian stood by the lofty mast" has become a National Anthem of the Danes. He fully realised the great advantage of having the Capital of Norway as near Copenhagen as he could. Christiania was but a few days' sail, Trondhjem was almost in another world. Of the new city's early days there still survive memorials in the present rather picturesque seventeenth century buildings of the peninsular castle of Akershus, in the old brick Raadhus with its archway and arcaded gables, and also in the Stor Torv, or great market-place, with its untented stalls round the statue of the Founder of the Town under the high spired clock tower of Vor Frelsers Kirke, which is dated 1696. The general character of present-day Christiania was, however, given to it during the early years of the nineteenth century when the city was largely extended toward the west. Happily the early Gothic revival had not reached Norway then, and the chief buildings are Classic, a style that is vastly to be preferred to any other for buildings that are not really among the best of their kind. A decent, rather uninspiring town. Broad streets with trolley-trams. Straight streets with shrubs and trees. Houses of brick or cement. Numerous little open spaces are, without much imagination, devoted to the cultivation of such vegetables as grass, elm, birch, willow, lilac and poplar. Like Capetown, which in position it somewhat resembles, Christiania depends for its beauty entirely on mountainous surroundings, for there is little that is striking in the streets. It is remarkable that in the capital of a country so extremely democratic, that has swept its nobility into the mass of the commons, by far the most conspicuous building should be the Palace of the King, and that in the chief town of a land of such strong national feeling, the main street should bear the name of one who gained the crown of Norway only at the point of the sword. Few classic structures in the world are more magnificently placed than the palace: it stands high up, wide gardens stretch around, and through them the great portico looks down along the broad, straight, well-gardened, chief street of the town, called after Karl Johan. Neither the architecture of the building nor the laying out of the gardens is at all worthy of the superb position, but the effect nevertheless is most striking. Were the Palace of Stockholm (p. 203) placed here and the park laid out on the same lines as the gardens of Versailles, the great central thoroughfare of the city being made a wide boulevard to match, there might have risen on this spot one of the most monumental and stately of all European cities. Unfortunately the Palace was only erected in 1825-48--when architecture was at its lowest ebb in every part of the western world--and neither material nor design is good. Karl Johans Gade, at whose other end is the Hoved Banegaard, or chief railway station, has gardens for a section of its length, but for the most part it is unfortunately bordered by houses of brick and stucco that rise straight from the pavements. Nevertheless the grandeur of the encircling mountains obliterates all minor defects. In front of the Palace, looking along the great street that bears his name, is a statue to Karl Johan, better known to the world perhaps as Bernadotte, Napoleon's marshal, who forgot his own country and his father's house, to champion the liberties of the North, Scandinavian in all but speech. Where end the gardens by the street of Karl Johan rises the Storthings-Bygning, or the seat of a parliament, some of whose members reside within the Arctic Line. Across the same noble thoroughfare, nearer the Palace, stand face to face the University, famed for many a distinguished name and also for the possession of viking ships, and the National Theatre, renowned for its connection with the great name of the dramatist whose appearance was tersely summed up by Björnson:-- Tense and lean, the colour of gypsum, Behind a vast coal-black beard, Henrik Ibsen. to whom a statue rises in the grounds. His charming play the _Dolls House_ (1879) was one of the first of his works to gain a reputation through the world, while it started, or stirred, about woman and her place a discussion whose end is not in sight, and also did very much to naturalise all modern drama by abolishing such devices as soliloquies, and attempting to set upon the stage what really happens in the world.[44] Well worth attention would be those very boats that first explored the wild fjords of the storied North, that pushed their unwelcome dragon-prows into every bay and broad river of Europe from end to end, that caused even the great Charles to weep, that added a petition to the Litany of the Church, that formed the navies on whose power were built kingdoms in Sicily and Russia, in Normandy and amidst the British Isles, that centuries before the days of Columbus sailed through ice-laden seas to the well-favoured American shore. Here they are! Put together with skill and preserved with care, they stand in sheds that form part of the University Museum. That ships will be required beyond the grave to sail on undiscovered seas is the simple opinion of many unsophisticated branches of mankind. The Chinese send vessels to the illustrious dead by burning them on earth. Probably with the same idea the ancient Norse buried them in their barrows or howes. The ship on which a viking had sailed in life became his coffin after death. Thus simply does the _Heimskringla_ in the _Story of Hakon the Good_ describe such burials. "So King Hakon let take all the ships of Eric's sons which had been beached, and let draw them up aland. There King Hakon let lay Egil Woolsark in a ship, and all those of his folk with him who were fallen, and let heap over them stones and earth. Then King Hakon let set up yet more ships, and bear them to the field of battle; and one may see the mounds to-day."[45] Such a king's howe was heaped up long ago at Gogstad on Sandefjord, where to-day is a prosperous little watering-place, hard by the mouth of the seaway by which Christiania is gained. Here in 1880 a well-preserved viking ship was brought to light and in due course it was reverently deposited in the Museum of the University at the Capital. Its lines are graceful and it is of very shallow draught. The size is quite considerable, just seventy-eight feet from end to end. It is framed with a heavy keel and rather light ribs; the planks are extremely neatly cut and carefully riveted together with iron nails and square washers. It must have possessed some suppleness, which was probably an advantage in a stormy sea. The two ends are very much alike, but by the stern is a steering-board, like a great oar, fixed loosely on the side that we still know as the starboard. Through the third plank from the top are pierced rowlocks and along the gunwale are ranged the big-bossed shields by which the Northmen sought to ward off blows. They are round, not large, and painted yellow and black. Compared with those of Chinese junks or Arab dhows, the lines of the viking vessel are strikingly modern in character: this is much less surprising than it otherwise would be when it is recollected that the Bronze Age sculptures on the Scandinavian rocks prove that boats of considerable dimensions had been used by the ancestors of the builders for something like a thousand years. The dragon prow is no longer to be seen. Such features were clearly detachable, for among the primitive laws and customs of Iceland it is written: "This was the beginning of the heathen laws, that men must not keep a ship at sea with a figure-head on; but if they have, then they must take off the head before they come in sight of land, and not sail to land with gaping heads and yawning jaws to frighten the spirits or wights of the country."[46] Thoughtful precaution! Near the centre of the boat are remains of the pine mast that rose from a mortice in a log whose either end is fashioned after the pattern of a fish's tail. The square sail, perhaps of painted wool, was hoisted or lowered by a pulley. Aft of the mast in the centre is a log-built house, whose timbers, both at the ends and those that on the sides lean together to form the roof, fit into grooved beams, reminding one of the construction of the stavekirkes. This deckhouse in all probability was constructed to form the tomb. A well-found boat, suited to the navigation of the fjords! But what courage must have been required of those who sailed across the stormiest of oceans in so frail a craft! Within the howe, but not within the boat, twelve horses, six dogs and one peacock were buried with their lord.[47] The sun sets on the harbour over Bygdö, almost an island, yet not quite. The famous Oscarshall is on its eastern shore. In the deep shade of the woods there has been formed such an open air museum as all Norse love, and hither have been collected ancient wooden buildings from country villages and from isolated farms that give a good idea of some aspects of the Norway of bygone years. One of the buildings is of the kind called a _stabbur_, a common adjunct to a prosperous farm. It formed a storehouse, which could likewise be used for extra sleeping-rooms whenever there was need. In the upper chamber, reached by a ladder, were preserved the initialled chests in which each member of the family preserved his valuables, or hers--clothes to a large extent. Thus each daughter had her trousseau packed, ready for removal to her husband's home. In this room, too, were kept blankets and tablecloths and things we store in linen closets now. The room below, which is narrower, for the upper one projects to right and left, was used for such things as grain bins and stores of food, bacon or mutton or flour.[48] (For drawing see chapter-heading.) The stavekirke was moved from Gol, a small village in Hallingdal passed by the railway to Bergen.[49] It is an excellent example of a mysterious form of Christian architecture that is confined to Norway, nothing like it existing in any other part of Europe. In a modern building surrounding a court is a small but very interesting folk museum, divided into domestic, commercial and ecclesiastical; it is dated 1898. A reredos carved in very high relief, which displays Christ at the Last Supper gesticulating and delivering an impassioned address to the Disciples, is at any rate unconventional in treatment. Most of the domestic furniture, such things as beds, chests, chairs and even jugs, is carved in soft wood. Many pieces are dated, usually in the eighteenth century, but the collection begins about the year 1500. [Illustration: GREENSTED CHURCH] [_Face page 108_ So close against the hills the city stands that a short electric railway lifts one in a few minutes from the streets to the heart of the spruce woods that cover the rock sides of Hollmenkollen. Among granite boulders and such wild flowers as Scotland knows, under the close shade of the pines--the woods untouched, save here and there, as if miles from a dwelling of man--one looks down on the streets of a city that lies among the mountains and yet borders upon the rippling sea. Still closer to the streets of Stockholm the forests come, but there the hills stand back. In being both girdled by mountains and splashed by the sea Christiania is almost alone among the capitals of the world. Norway is almost always seen by visitors under summer skies, unless it chances that they come for winter sports; it is well somewhat to correct the impressions received by recalling Björnson's holding description of his own country: "There is something in Nature here which challenges whatever is extraordinary in us. Nature herself here goes beyond all ordinary measure. We have night nearly all the winter; we have day nearly all the summer, with the sun by day and by night above the horizon. You have seen it at night half-veiled by the mists from the sea; it often looks three, even four times larger than usual. And then the play of colours on sky, sea and rock, from the most glowing red to the softest and most delicate yellow and white. And then the colours of the Northern Lights on the winter sky, with their more suppressed kind of wild pictures, yet full of unrest and for ever changing. Then the other wonders of Nature! These millions of sea-birds, and the wandering processions of fish, stretching for miles! These perpendicular cliffs that rise directly out of the sea! They are not like other mountains, and the Atlantic roars round their feet. And the ideas of the people are correspondingly unmeasured. Listen to their legends and stories." CHAPTER V ROSKILDE Between fair fields the fjord With winding waters, snake-like, Creeps inward from the salt sea. Where viking hordes have harried, Fare peaceful folk to market. High tower the tall twin spires. Beneath, in silent splendour Lie the dead kings of Dane-realm. This pleasant, quiet country town is named from its springs, referred to in the last part of the word (p. 115). The uncertainty about the first syllable has apparently led to the invention of a founder named Roe, who seems to have so much in common with Port of Portsmouth and King Cole of Colchester--that he never existed except to account for a name. The atmosphere of a small cathedral city such as Trollope describes is so peculiarly English that no one would expect to find it reproduced in a foreign land. The association of nearly all Continental cathedrals with houses and market-place makes the impression produced wholly different from that of the grey towers and long roofs that appear over the trees of an English Close. But at least in the fact that the cathedral is almost the only object of great interest, the centre of the whole district, the ancient Danish capital resembles a small English city. The atmosphere of farming and of pleasant country life, the general sense of repose, the way in which the cathedral rises among gardens and flowers a short distance away from the market-place, all do something to recall that most typical cathedral city, the ancient capital of Sussex--while the beautiful fretted fjord, bordered by low, sloping meadows, and the port almost destitute of shipping save for the fishing boats, bear very considerable resemblance to Chichester Harbour and Dell Quay. Knut the Rich is associated with that English district too, his daughter is buried in Bosham Church. He must have been frequently reminded while there of the peaceful country round his Danish capital. The story of Roskilde takes us pretty near the dawn of strictly Danish history, when the country was closely linked in politics with the British Isles. At the present time, however, it is not so picturesque a city as Copenhagen; there are but few old houses and only a single mediæval church, that of St. Mary, has survived, in addition to the great Cathedral of St. Lucius. Even the Raadhus, or Town Hall, in the very ample market place, was rebuilt not long ago. The founder of the Danish monarchy was Gorm the Old (p. 12); he first united all the land. About 935 he was succeeded by Harald of the Blue Tooth (Blaatand). Him the Holy Roman Emperor was to some extent able to control and insisted on his becoming a Christian. Traditionally at any rate he was the founder of Roskilde Cathedral, erecting a church of staves where before no church had been. Men say, the _Heimskringla_ informs us, that Keisar Otto II. was the gossip of his son, Svein Twibeard. So lightly, however, did Twibeard regard the solemn ceremony of his baptism that, heading the pagan party, he flung his father from the throne and began to reign himself about the year 985. More than once he changed his creed, but it seems that he happened to be trowing in the faith of the White Christ at the time of his unlamented death. He it was who fought against Olaf Tryggvison in the famous Long Worm at Svoldr, but he left when the fighting was of the sharpest and much folk fell. Nevertheless his Norwegian ally, Earl Eric, who had a beaked ship wondrous great, captured the Long Worm itself, when Olaf Tryggvison leapt into the deep sea and was never heard of more. While at war with Ethelred the Redeless in "England it betid there that King Svein, the son of Harald, died suddenly anight in his bed; and it is the say of Englishmen that Edmund the Holy did slay him after the manner in which the holy Mercury slew Julian the Apostate."[50] He is buried according to tradition under the Castle Hills at Gainsborough on the Trent. He had won a firm position on English soil, and notwithstanding the victory of Ethelred the Redeless and St. Olaf at London Bridge, his son, Knut the Rich, the Mighty, the Great--for so he is variously called--eventually established his power both in England and Denmark. Many a man has been improved by adversity, many spoiled by great success. But, as Dr. Hodgkin points out,[51] two great characters in history, Cæsar Augustus and Knut the Rich, vastly improved their behaviour after realising their very highest flights of ambition. Each was in a sense the founder of an empire, one of them the mightiest and in influence the most enduring dominion that the earth has ever known, the other was of the flimsiest and most ephemeral. Indeed it began to crumble before the founder died. English communications were in those early centuries mainly with the Scandinavian lands, by whose people many parts of the British Isles had been settled, and that Knut's dream of a great northern empire was never realised we have some cause for regret. Far more promising schemes, however, would have been destroyed by the two savages by whom he was succeeded. By Northmen speaking French, under the great William, descendant of Rolf Wend-afoot, whom no horse could bear, English foreign relations were suddenly changed in 1066. Hitherto it had seemed likely England might form the focus of a great dominion of the North, henceforth she was closely bound to the central lands of Europe. Had the empire of Knut the Rich been maintained its capital would probably have been Roskilde from the convenience of its position, or if the wealth and importance of England had made it desirable that the chief city should be there, it would most likely have been drawn to some place much nearer to Denmark than Winchester. Knut's own associations with Roskilde were by no means uniformly happy. Indeed it was there that he was guilty of one of the worst acts in his career. In 1017 "King Knut rode up to Roiswell the day before Michaelmas with a great following. Earl Wolf, his brother-in-law, had arrayed a banquet for him. The earl gave him entertainment full noble, but the king was unjoyous and scowling. The earl wrought many ways to make him gleesome, but the king was short and few-spoken. The earl bade him play at the chess, and that he yeasaid, so they got them a chessboard and played. Earl Wolf was a man quick of word and unyielding in all things; he was the mightiest man in Denmark next after King Knut.... Now when they had been playing a while at the chess Earl Wolf checked the king's knight. The king put his move back and bade him play another. The earl got angry, cast down the table and went away. The king said: 'Runnest thou away now, Wolf the Craven?' The earl turned back in the door and said: 'Further would'st thou have run in the Holy River if thou mightest have brought it about; nor didst thou call me Wolf the Craven when I thrust in to the helping of thee when the Swedes were beating you like hounds.' "Therewith the earl went out and went to sleep, and a little afterwards the king himself went to sleep. "The next morning as the king clad himself he said to his foot-swain, 'Go thou to Earl Wolf,' says he, 'and slay him.' The swain went and was away a while and came back. The king said: 'Didst thou slay the earl?' 'I did not slay him, for he had gone to Lucius' church.' "There was a man hight Ivar the White, a Norwegian of kin. The king said to Ivar: 'Go, and slay the earl.' Ivar went to the church and up into the quire, and thrust a sword through the earl, and forthwith Earl Wolf lost his life. Then went Ivar to the king and had his bloody sword. Said the king: 'Slewest thou the earl?' 'I slew him,' says he. The king said: 'Then thou hast well done.' "But after the murder of the earl the monks let lock the church; but the king sent men to the monks, bidding them to open the church and to sing the Hours there, and they did even as the king bade. And when the king came to the church he endowed it with great estates, so that they made a wide countryside, and thereafter this stead arose greatly." The harbour was an almost ideal one in those days, and Knut remained there with a great host of ships all through harvest. He evidently felt that the land given to the Cathedral of St. Lucius had quite atoned for the crime. His life work was in one sense a failure. The fabric he had reared fell down but much remained. As his latest biographer has said: "The great movement that culminated in the subjection of Britain was of vast importance for the North; it opened up new fields for western influences; it brought the North into touch with Christian culture; it rebuilt Scandinavian civilisation."[52] Knut's nephew, called Svein Wolfson (or Estridsen), the son of the murdered man, was King of Denmark from 1047 till 1076, and he did much for history writing in the north by his conversations with his friend, the famous chronicler, Canon Adam of Bremen.[53] His courtiers had once become very drunk in the palace hall at Roskilde, and without much delicacy they began discussing their master's want of bravery and lack of skill or success in war. Such conversations are always overheard, and in this case there was quite enough truth in the remarks to make them excessively disagreeable to the king. He relieved his mind by causing all the disputants to be killed while at church next day; then he went to service himself. But an English monk named William, whom he had made Bishop of Roskilde, like another Ambrose, sternly barred his way, nor was he allowed to enter and attend the Eucharist till he had humbly appeared in the garb of a penitent and craved the pardon of the Church. A few days later he imitated Knut by granting to the see a vast tract of land. It seems to have included the site of Copenhagen (p. 131). [Illustration: CATHEDRAL OF ST. LUCIUS, ROSKILDE] (1.) Passage to Episcopal Palace. (2.) Transept. (3.) Chapel of S. Lawrence. (4.) Chapel of S. Brita. (5.5.) Porches. (6.) North-west Tower, forming Chapel of S. Siegfrid. (7.) South-west Tower, forming the Bethlehem Chapel. [_Face page 118_ During the eleventh century a stone church replaced Bluetooth's building of logs. Knut the Holy, King of Denmark (1080-86), gave what help he could. The fact that this structure was on the same site as the present cathedral may help to account for the extraordinary irregularities in setting out the extremely simple ground plan. The church is almost wholly of brick, heavily buttressed and rather German in appearance; it must have been still more so originally when each bay of the aisles had a gable of its own. With its tall western spires and little central flèche, it reminds one of the Cathedral at Lübeck, but is a very much finer church. All the original parts were erected during the thirteenth century, the builders working east to west, delayed by fires in 1234 and 1284.[54] A magnificent monument in the quire fitly commemorates the greatest of all the honoured dead that rest within this simple and most impressive church. On an altar-tomb of great beauty and well restored is the canopied effigy of a lovely woman, who died in 1412. No student of history can tread here unmoved. We are in the presence of the most far-seeing of all the sovereigns of the North: the noble Margaret of whom the great _Chronicle of Lübeck_ says, "When men saw the wisdom and strength that were in this royal lady, wonder and fear filled their hearts." She was a daughter of Waldemar Atterdag (p. 161), and had married the King of Norway. "Great marvel it is to think that a lady, who, when she began to govern for her son found a troubled kingdom, in which she owned not money or credit enough to secure a meal without the aid of friends, had made herself so feared and loved in the short term of three months, that nothing in all the land was any longer withheld from her." By the Union of Calmar in 1397, she arranged the eternal federation of the four Scandinavian realms on principles acceptable to all. One King should reign, but each land should maintain its proper laws. The Northlands realised the blessings of her rule, and all that she did was so good that even her wretchedly unworthy successors took a century and a quarter to undo her work. Womanish, perhaps unworthy, yet by no means unprovoked, her mocking insults to the captured Swedish King, Albert the Elder of Mecklenburg. This carpet-bagger's German hirelings had been scattered by her troops, and she dressed him in the garments of a fool with a tail of nineteen yards in length depending from his cap. Natural but unnecessary return for his offensive gifts of an apron and a long gown and a whetstone to sharpen her needles! To her memory (in part) are the beautiful miserere stalls on whose canopies are Scripture scenes, set up in 1420 by Bishop Jens Andersen. By her was fitted the Bethlehem Chapel under the south-west tower. Strong, indeed, in life, but yet more strong in death, the appeal of the great queen! Even now the world is a loser because the Scandinavian realms are torn. Very truly spake a Swedish writer whom Otté quotes, but does not name: "Death made an end of Queen Margaret's life, but it could not make an end of her fame, which will endure through all ages. Under her hands the three kingdoms enjoyed a degree of strength and order to which they had long been strangers before her time, and which neither of the three regained till long after her." [Illustration: CATHEDRAL FROM NORTH-WEST] [_Face page 122_ Other royal monuments are many here, but it need not be assumed that the fairest of them mark the livers of the noblest and most useful lives. Many of them are in the numerous chapels which have been added beyond the aisles of this church from the fourteenth century to the eighteenth. They alter the character of the building very much.[55] Combined with the absence of any transept projection they make the plan of the church look very confused. Those who departed centuries ago are laid away with decency in vaults. But in later days a far less seemly custom has grown up; the coffins are merely ranged in rows upon the chapel floors. They seem to be at rest when they are of marble or stone, and so, too, perhaps when of solid metal, but most are only of oak, covered with black velvet. It is almost impossible to dismiss the idea that the victims of some disaster await the last solemn rites. There is something weirdly gruesome in this vast Valhalla of the unburied dead. Abraham desired decorously to bury his dead out of his sight, but the rulers of Denmark must for ever merely lie in state. In ancient Egypt an empty coffin was sometimes placed upon the table that the feasters might remember death. They who say their prayers in this cathedral in the very presence of the dead must surely learn that lesson with much more force. To kneel on the same floor where coffins lie must be far more impressive than merely to learn from storied urn and animated bust of those who sleep below. Trondhjem Cathedral, the noblest of Scandinavian churches, is without mediæval monuments, at Upsala there are few; this church is in very truth the most historical building of the North. Several of the monarchs that here rest bore rule over all the Norse. Saints of all three kingdoms have here some part. To St. Brita is hallowed a chapel on the north, to St. Siegfrid one under the northern tower. St. Olaf (Danish Oluf) and St. Knut are among those whose effigies are painted in the Chapel of Three Kings. Few fences break up the wide fields that extend round the town to the sea. Cattle are invariably tethered, pasture is valuable, and none of it must be trampled down. Sprinkled about are white farmhouses covered with tiles or with thatch. Many small-holders have purchased their land with money borrowed from the State. Sir Rider Haggard[56] has recently described their condition, and pointed out what England may learn. Denmark is, or rather has been, so progressively indifferent to the past that but few old buildings still adorn her open fields. When it was considered necessary for a self-respecting Scandinavian nation to establish an open-air museum,[57] the needful old farm buildings had to be brought from parts of old Denmark that are now either Swedish or German. Nothing had escaped rebuilding on strictly Danish soil. At first sight Danish farming looks rough, thistles may not seldom be seen growing luxuriantly among the oats. Danish landscapes indeed frequently look rather more American than European with something of that ungroomed appearance and absence of hedges that is so characteristic of a new country. In purely dairy farming, none the less, Danes practically lead the world, and that despite their poor soil and the need for sheltering stock from the rigours of a long winter. Though about a hundred and seventy-four of them live on each square mile, they manage to send away food that they do not need to the value of about twenty millions sterling every year. Age-long the connection between this pleasant land and the British Isles. Roskilde and Winchester were twin capitals of the middle empire of which England formed a part, after the legions of Rome had departed, before the British had built a dominion in the world for themselves. Nor is the impression the Danes left on England by any means worn away. A Danish resident in Middlesbrough, taking a walk with an English friend over the Cleveland Moors, found himself able to understand the dialect of the folk of those wild hills, while their own countryman could not. Political links with Denmark are to-day centred mainly in the relations of kings and queens. But the great smoky cities of the United Kingdom have their chief source of the necessaries of life in this quiet and green countryside. [Illustration] CHAPTER VI COPENHAGEN Dumb was the sea, and if the beech-woods stirred, 'Twas with the nesting of the grey-winged bird Midst its thick leaves.... Great things he suffered, great delights he had, Unto great kings he gave good deeds for bad; He ruled o'er kingdoms where his name no more Is had in memory, and on many a shore He left his sweat and blood to win a name Passing the bounds of earthly creatures' fame. _Ogier the Dane_, by WILLIAM MORRIS. Though the capital of an Empire which spreads from the Tropics to the near vicinity of the Northern Pole,[58] and by far the largest of Scandinavian cities, Copenhagen is yet so placed that many of her citizens look from their own windows over foreign soil. The capital is almost at the very eastern point of the wide-flung yet restricted dominions of Denmark. A flight of but a dozen miles would carry an aeroplane on to Swedish soil; only twice that distance off is the University city of Lund, so famous in the annals of the Northern Church and so long on Danish soil. Copenhagen is a very pleasant town, and almost all its chief buildings exemplify the architectural ideals of the Renaissance. Street upon street of houses, white stucco or red brick, adorned with pilaster and pediment and cornice, covered with tall pantiled roofs; many bearing the dates of their birth-years two or three centuries ago; these give the capital an old-world, most attractive look, a picturesqueness that is sternly denied to most so modern towns. Steeples of character to match, frequently tower above the roofs, while very constant parks and squares, long avenues of broad-leafed trees and cool-looking fountains, some of them real works of art, do much to make this town a very delightful place. Canals, somewhat numerous open-air markets and innumerable cafés, whose tables and chairs under trees or awnings encroach on the broad pavements, make the Danish metropolis a rather characteristic Continental town. In some ways, perhaps, it has less individuality than the other capitals of the Northlands. Less romantically situated, much larger, far easier to reach from more southern parts, it has much of the bright boulevard atmosphere of Paris. Tivoli Park and the cafés, with many other like attractions, draw crowds of visitors, not only from every part of the small kingdom, but also from the very prosperous section of Sweden across the Sound, which was Danish till 1658, and has by no means lost its affection for the city that it knew as the capital of old. Copenhagen is an epitome of Denmark herself, the prosperous metropolis of an extremely industrious and well-ordered community that likes to be amused. There is but little rotten in the state of Denmark to-day. Though fallen from possessing the widest empire of the north to the limits of a mere province, she yet thrills with vigorous life, an object lesson on many points that no land can afford to ignore. Copenhagen is not really very unlike a large German town, though the Danes are not pleased to be told so, and it lacks the numerous uniforms and those minute and detailed regulations for the welfare and good order of the population that so characterise the Fatherland itself. Magnificently equipped with boulevards, palaces and parks, cut through by fine waterways and roadways, the city rather strangely lacks any conspicuous central point. The Danes boast that their large buildings are schools, while those of England are factories and those of Germany barracks, but the headquarters of one of the chief Universities of earth possess little architectural splendour. The view of the city from the deck of an approaching steamer is not particularly impressive; nothing except a few steeples rises above the general line of the houses. Life is lived in the Danish capital. Some of the numerous bright restaurants do not close their doors till 3 a.m., and there is much of the all-night activity that is the unrestful pride of many of the cities of America. To-morrow blends with to-day; some citizens have not reached their beds while others are starting on the activities of next morning. But happily this unquiet atmosphere does not seem to penetrate individuals. The Copenhagener does not desire to be for ever talking about his hustling town. While so much that is of the old world still survives in Copenhagen, it is on the whole an intensely modern town, rather dominated by its stretches of asphalt and trolley-trams and ever growing lines of flats. A really magnificent feature, by the chief square next the Tivoli Park, emblematic of the soaring ambition of the place, is the new Raadhus or City Hall. Built in 1894, it is a beautiful specimen of Renaissance architecture in brick, raising a tall spire toward heaven, enclosing a couple of courts, one of them an open garden with a fountain in the centre, the other cloistered and roofed with glass. The adornments are very pleasing, appropriate to the style and use, tile mosaic of fish and bird, tree designs in relief or stencilling over the walls. The upper portions may be gained by a lift that never stops; on one side the cars are always going up and on the other down. The site of the city, like its name, Copenhagen or merchants' harbour, is not romantic, though extremely convenient for travel and trade. It looks straight over the Sound to Sweden and the entrance to the Baltic; the arm of the sea that divides Zealand from the small island of Amager (p. 143) also penetrates the town and adds to the water-front available for wharves. It was on a little backwater of this channel that in the twelfth century Bishop Axel (Absalon) raised on Church lands a castle, which was called by his own name, to protect the merchants from the pirates infesting the Sound.[59] Little he suspected that round it would grow up a town to supplant his cathedral city. Copenhagen was made the capital in 1443 by Christopher, the Bavarian, just after he had been recognised as King in Sweden and Norway as well as in Denmark itself. He was not a popular monarch. The Swedes called him the stumpy little German, and he thought them a free-spoken folk. When men complained that pirates were ravaging the coasts and were probably supported by Eric, the king who had been deposed, Christopher answered that, having been deprived of three kingdoms, a man could hardly be blamed for stealing a dinner now and then. Perhaps if the dinners had been stolen from the palace and not from their own houses the people would more readily have seen the joke. Thus, Copenhagen is a mediæval town, but it has no buildings earlier than the creations of that most accomplished sovereign, Christian IV., who could sail a ship and navigate the fjords and swim and leap and fence and fight and ride and drive and speak many languages and explain the course of the stars and drink enough wine and beer to astonish the court of his brother-in-law, James I. of England. If he really designed the buildings that he raised, as it seems he truly did, he was also an architect of no mean power. The Bourse, which he erected about 1624, presents a long low façade to one of the quays and its high roof is relieved by large gabled dormer windows. From the top of the tower in the centre four dragons look down and coil their tails heavenward together to form a spire about a hundred and fifty feet high.[60] Another of his works is the Round Tower,[61] originally used as the observatory. It is entirely filled by a brick slope up which one may walk with ease to the top, corkscrewing round a pillar. Over the metal parapet that bears the date 1643, there is a splendid view across wide miles of steep roofs covered with curving tiles, relieved by many a tree and the tall masts of many a ship. And the other spires and towers and domes of the city make a really splendid array, especially the quaint steeple of Vor Frelsers Kirke, round whose outside an open stairway winds to the gold ball at the top. Across the Sound loom up low Swedish hills, but the city is too vast to allow a view of Danish country of any decipherable sort. Over thirteen miles of choppy sea appears the small isle of Hveen, now famous for its hares, where in 1580 Tycho Brahe built his observatory and "wielded the sword, not to smite flesh and blood, but to strike out a clearer path up to the stars of heaven. For Holger Danske (p. 146) can come in many forms; so that through all the world one sees the might of Denmark."[62] In this teeming womb of royal kings one expects to see palaces, and very numerous they are, now in many cases put to every kind of useful purpose, from the framing of laws to the display of things curious and rare. But the sneer of Samuel Laing in 1839 that Copenhagen has more palaces in her streets and squares than ships in her harbour has long ceased to be true. The haven of merchants again has a busy trade; canals and shipping and docks are met with on every hand. Two palaces, Rosenborg and Fredericksborg, were erected (or begun) by the same fourth Christian king, and fine specimens of Danish Renaissance they are, far better in general effect than in detail. Walls mostly of brick, carved work of stone, tall metal-covered roofs and lofty open windowed spires. The palace of Rosenborg contains a beautiful array of furniture and weapons and china and jewels, the collection of several kings. [Illustration: HOJBROPLADS, COPENHAGEN] [_Face page 134_ Other of the palaces are fine examples of the severer Classic work of the eighteenth century erected when Europe had learned to call barbaric all that the Christian centuries had raised, so ceased merely to apply Classical details to Gothic designs, and could admire nothing but plain copies of the work of Greece and Rome. The Amalienborg (Winter Palace, etc.) surrounds a fine octagonal court with Ionic pilasters, balustrades and urns, over which rise high tiled roofs. In the centre of the court is a metal statue to King Frederick V., famed as the patron of science and art. It was erected by the Asiatic Trading Company which once made Denmark an Indian power, for the king's interest in the East was great, and he dispatched Niebuhr to Arabia in 1761.[63] Another eighteenth century palace, called Prindsens because the Crown Prince adorned it when in 1744 it was erected round its court, is now the National Museum. Even in the earliest age when "beasts were slaying men" Denmark was the abode of oyster-eating humanity which has left us the world-famed kitchen middens that make so fascinating to us the first beginnings of our race. This collection is of extraordinary interest as letting us trace in a general way the whole story of mankind from the time when he chipped flints into implements and built cromlechs of unshapen stones to the days when he learned to preach the message of peace from pulpits of Renaissance architecture and to shoot his fellows with long guns. As is natural in Denmark the collection of prehistoric implements is extremely representative and large. We see man armed with rude axes of flint or variegated marble and women adorned with amber beads, during the long, long millenniums of the two ages of stone. We see the swords and knives and the tree-trunk coffins of those who had learned the secret of the metals and substituted for stone first blunt bronze and then sharp iron. We see the works of Egypt and Assyria, of Greece and Rome, and of all the cultured races of the South. We see the beginning of civilisation in the North and the spoils of the Viking Age, the gold and jewels brought to Denmark by foray or by trade. We see the North becoming Christian and building churches of stone or staves and the Scandinavian countries moulding themselves into what they are to-day.[64] For purely educational purposes and for stimulating the imagination few museums on earth have quite the same power as this one.[65] Denmark is a country where education is a serious thing, and in few capitals may one learn so much as here. No amount of _merely_ technical instruction would give the Danes the technical skill that they possess. If any doubt the real and practical usefulness of good general education, this small country can supply the object-lesson that he needs; if any do not know just what education means, the Danes have hit upon a definition that is of real value and much comfort too. "Education is that which survives when all that was learned has been forgotten." Much of the spirit of the Norse fills the air of the Danish capital, but the town is too young to be mentioned in the sagas; to many of the heroes of the Danes there are monuments in streets and memorials in galleries, but they do not give their atmosphere to the town. The spirit of the city is rather that of solid achievement by a great people which no longer rests its pride on glory gotten in war. And if the nations of mankind were to be judged on the same principle that was applied to the holders of the Talents Denmark would be very near the top. The extreme richness of her small homeland is a still unexploded myth. If it were an American state it would be one of the most thinly settled areas of the country, outside the actual mountains. Denmark's place in the modern world is due to education and to nothing else. The sole fertility of the land is in the brains of her children. If America were occupied by a sufficient population of Danes she might almost take a contract to supply the solar system with food.[66] Even in a city of so many associations and despite the noble army of Danish worthies who have written their names in broader or fainter type across its streets, it is still the great name of Thorwaldsen that more than any other dominates Copenhagen. "Sylvanus" tells the truth in his remark: "Men speak not, think not of the king; they ask you, 'Have you seen the Frue kirk?' or Church of our Lady, within whose walls are the twelve apostles of Thorwaldsen, with the grandest, most holy conception of the Saviour, the chisels of future ages may vainly essay to surpass. The figures, larger than life and thrown _into_ life by the immortal Icelander, teem with varying expression and deep feeling." The exterior of the church is severely plain; indeed, it is very ugly, with two ranges of windows and a tower stuck through the sloping roof, a hexastyle Doric portico against it. This last feature in itself is, however, a thing of much beauty and its tympanum has sculptures by Thorwaldsen.[67] The inside is very truly one of the most impressive in Europe. Not that the actual architecture rises very far above the commonplace. The aisles open by round arches with heavy piers between; Doric colonnades above sustain the deeply panelled tunnel vault; there is an unlighted apse. Here, over the altar, stands the famous statue of Christ, one of the most striking in the world; the face radiates divine compassion, the hands are stretched out to all who come. In front an angel holds a font-shell, and against each pier is the figure of one of the Apostles. The supreme excellence of these glorious statues in white marble with their effective drapery and the absence of any other attempt at ornament renders the interior of this church striking in an extraordinary degree. There is an element of almost barbaric display in the huge number of works of art collected in many Gothic churches, and there is truth in the Japanese contention that not more than a single picture or figure should be displayed at the same time. If the statues were removed from the church one would hardly cross the street to see it, but were they erected in St. Paul's Cathedral they would lose more than half their effect. The only criticism that one can possibly make on Thorwaldsen is that his long sojourn in Rome seems to have given him a little trace of the softness of the South, a certain absence of virility that, slight as it is, attracts instant attention in the North. Not a trace of this appears in the figure of St. Paul: determination on every line of the strong face, clinched by the position of the left hand on the sword.[68] There is a large collection of the Master's works in the mongrel-Egyptian Valhalla next Christiansborg Palace (p. 131), in the centre of whose court Thorwaldsen sleeps beneath ivy trailing on the ground. Grace, tenderness, youth, beauty, and gentle mirth--these were the inspirations that gave his hand power. Nothing fearful or terrible is among his works. No agony like the Niobe or the Laocoon, never even the crucifixion of the Saviour. Even in sepulchral monuments he strove to lessen the gloom of death by symbols of a deathless life.[69] Even with Thorwaldsen fresh in mind, it is probably safe to say that the name of no Copenhagener, past or present, is so well-known in England and America as that of Hans Andersen, unrivalled as the teller of fairy tales. Few would maintain that he was the greatest of the Danes or the most illustrious alumnus of the University, but not very many are seriously interested in statuary, and in science still fewer, while all children love stories and there is an atmosphere about those of Hans Andersen of which most of us are conscious more or less from the cradle to the grave. In the rather risky work of foretelling the future Andersen was at any rate as successful as any one else. "Yes, in years to come we shall fly on the wings of steam high in the air, over the mighty ocean. The young inhabitants of America will visit the old Continent of Europe. They will come to admire the ancient monuments and ruined cities, just as we make pilgrimages to the fallen glories of Southern Asia. "In years to come they will certainly visit us.... "The airship comes: it is crowded with passengers, for the journey is quicker than by sea.... The passengers will tread the country of Shakespeare, as the intellectual ones of the party have it--the home of politics and machinery, as others say. "Here they stay for a whole day: they are a busy race, but they can afford so much time for England and Scotland. "On they go, through the tunnel under the Channel to France. "One whole day is given to Germany and one to the North--the birthplace of Oerstedt and Linnæus--to Norway, home of the ancient heroes and of the Normans. Iceland is taken on the return journey: the Geyser foams no longer, Hekla is extinguished; but an eternal stone table of the Saga still holds fast the island rock in the midst of the stormy seas." A delightful description of the writer himself is given us by Lady Wilde: "Hans Andersen was described to me as a tall, white-haired old man, with the most gentle and lovable manners. The son of a poor tailor, with no inheritance from nature or fortune save his genius, he gained a distinguished position in society and was an immense favourite in Copenhagen. He read nothing but his own works, and always talked as if fresh from Fairyland. The children adored him, and he was never so happy as when he gathered a circle of them round him, while he enchained their attention with some magical story fresh woven from his brain, and made them laugh or weep as he chose, with the mirth or pathos of his strange fancies." Southward the city leaps a narrow arm of sea and spreads on to the kitchen-garden island of Amager or Amak. During the early sixteenth century King Christian II., brother-in-law to the Emperor Charles V. famed for his noble work in organising schools in the cities and instituting a system of posts, but infamous for a stupendous crime that crushed the achievement of the great Margaret in the dust (p. 217), invited farmers and gardeners from the Low Countries to colonise Amak. Great was the benefit both to immigrants and Danes; the fertile island still retains much of old Flemish ways and imports the old costumes of Holland into the markets of the Danish capital. Of Anglo-Danish relations during the Napoleonic wars, of Nelson's victory in 1801 and Wellesley's in 1807, silence is better than words. The conqueror at Trafalgar has immortal fame without the added laurels won in the Sound, the hero of Waterloo needs not to add to his victories the operations against this town. No Dane could be expected to look back on those miserable events but with indignation, few English but with very deep regret. Necessary, perhaps, those actions, but wretched all the same. We live in better days. The presence of the Church of St. Alban in the lovely gardens by the very citadel, a sanctuary to whose erection Danish Queen Alexandra contributed, is a witness for all time that the relations between Denmark and England to-day are of no ordinary kind. The tall Gothic spire is an ornament to the city and one of its landmarks from the harbour, but there might have been advantages in less purely English architecture and perhaps dedication to some Danish saint.[70] The environs of the capital are made as delightful as those of Paris by the lovely beech-woods that cover so much of the land, and by the haunting beauty of the views across the Sound. A few miles north of the city is the famous Dyrehaven, or deer-park, a vast expanse of gently undulating woods or grass land with a large water-lily-covered pond, where deer roam about under a few old oaks and many beeches, often so close together that they have soared instead of being allowed to spread. Beech woods are very dear to the Danes, and in the Kunst Museum at Copenhagen there is a striking picture by Philipsen of which they form the subject.[71] On a low hill in the park is the Eremitagen, a hunting-lodge, in which the king can look out from his own house over soil that another rules. Along the Sound front there peep out from the woods just one or two old thatched cottages with heavy logs along their ridges, but far more prominent are the modern villages, which are largely made up of restaurants and hotels. Very many too are the summer cottages of prosperous citizens; far toward the north they spread along the shore, the bungalow kind of thing that has long been frequent in America and is beginning to become naturalised in England too. A tale is told of a Danish husband, not famous for the best of tempers, who proposed to his wife that they should celebrate their silver wedding, but rather weariedly she suggested that instead they might wait five years and then commemorate their Thirty Years' War. This must have been a most exceptional state of affairs, if one may judge from Danes one has the pleasure of knowing, or from what one may see of the race making holiday at these seaside resorts. No European people seems to get more out of life and into life than the always cheerful inhabitants of this small land. It is the mark of true genius that, shut out from so much, they have made still more of what remains. Less than thirty miles north of Copenhagen, where the Sound is straitest, stands the town that is next best known to the world of all on Danish earth. The call of the future dominates Copenhagen, but the romance of the past still broods over Elsinore, or Helsingör, where Kronborg Castle looks across the narrow sea. How it seems to Danish minds can hardly be better told than in Hans Andersen's simple and yet holding tale. "Kronborg Castle stands in Denmark, close to the Oere Sound, through which tall ships sail by in hundreds, English, Russian, and Prussian. They all greet the old fortress with their cannon, 'Boom!' And the castle answers, 'Boom!' That is the way the cannon say 'Good morning' and 'Good evening.' In the winter, when no ships sail by, and the Sound is covered with ice right up to the Swedish coast, it looks just like an inland street. Danish and Swedish flags are flying; Danes and Swedes cry to each other, 'good morning,' and 'good night,' but not with cannon--no, with a kindly clasp of the hand. One brings to the other biscuits and white bread, for foreign fare is always the sweetest. But the most beautiful sight of all is the grand old castle, in whose deep inaccessible vaults sits Holger Danske. He is clad in mail armour; his head rests on his strong arms; his long beard has grown into the marble table, where he sits asleep. He dreams, and in his dream he sees all that happens in his native land. Every Christmas Eve an angel comes to him, and tells him that his dreams are true, but that he may sleep on undisturbed for a while longer. Denmark is not yet in danger, but if the danger ever comes Holger Danske will spring to his feet, the table will shiver to pieces as he draws away his beard, and the hero will lay about him, so that every land shall ring with the story. "An old grandfather sat one evening telling his little grandson all this tale of Holger Danske, and the child knew well that what his grandfather said was true. As the old man spoke, he finished off a large wooden figure of Holger Danske which was to ornament the prow of a ship, for the grandfather was a carver in wood, and had carved many a figure-head from which a good ship was to take her name. Now he had just carved Holger Danske, standing proudly with his long beard; in one hand he held his flashing sword; in the other the Danish shield. "'It is the finest national arms in the world,' said the old man. 'Lions and hearts--emblems of strength and love!' He looked at the topmost lion and thought of King Knut, who chained England fast to Denmark's throne; he looked at the second lion and thought of Waldemar, who gave peace to Denmark, and subdued the Vandal's lands; he looked at the third lion and thought of Margaret, who united into one Sweden, Norway and Denmark. But as he looked at the hearts they burned and brightened into flames; each stirred in its place, and by its side stood a spirit. "But the little child in bed saw clearly the old Kronborg towering above the Oere Sound; he saw the real Holger Danske, sitting alone in the deep vault, his beard grown fast to the marble table, dreaming of all that happened overhead. Holger Danske dreamed too of all that went on in the little room; he heard every word, and nodded in his dreams. "'Yes,' he cried, 'keep me in your hearts and in your memory, ye Danish folk. In the hour of danger, I shall be at hand.' "And the clear daylight fell over Kronborg; the wind bore along the sound of the hunting horns from the country round; the ships sailed by with their greeting 'Boom, boom!' And Kronborg answered 'Boom! Boom!' But Holger Danske woke not, let them thunder as loud as they might, for they only meant 'good morning!' 'good evening!'" In this castle too in 1589 James VI. (and afterwards I.) was married to his Danish bride. That was only by proxy so far as the Scot was concerned, but the next year Queen Anne brought her husband to sojourn at the well-loved spot. By the sea is a long sandy beach and dark woods cover the flat lands behind. The superb castle was rising, or re-rising, from the ground during Shakespeare's younger years (1577-85); he first went to London the year after it was done. A grand sample of Renaissance work, it stands four-square to all the winds and protects a court within; details are carved in solid stone. And at each angle rises a tower, all different in design and height. A light for the shipping burns in one.[72] The architect was G. F. Stahlmann. The world fame of Elsinore is owed very largely to the immortal English bard who probably never was there. On the flat terrace between castle and sound Hamlet spoke with his father's ghost. The tale of Amlet or Hamlet seems to be derived from some old saga of a Jutish prince,[73] and the _Ambales Saga_ gives an Icelandic form of the legend. True, indeed, that Shakespeare's _Hamlet_, like his other plays, whose scene is laid abroad, lacks special local colour. But it is no weak link between Denmark and the world of English speech that the scene of one of the great masterpieces of Saxon literature, indeed of all the writings of the earth, is laid on Danish soil. [Illustration] CHAPTER VII VISBY Thou wonnest, O warrior-wager, Tribute from folk of Gothland, And durst not men against thee With brand to ward their island. So ran the Isle-syslings' war-host; I heard that the wolf-kind's hunger Thawed east-away. OTTAR THE SWART, in praise of Olaf the Holy. There was a time very long ago when a spectral island floated on the Baltic brine. Its mist-wrapped shores appeared at times to perplexed mariners, but when they tried to land there all was sea. It appears the reason was that certain trolls had made that land their own, and sought to amuse themselves by playing idle tricks on man. But the powers of darkness can never last for aye and eventually it chanced that a sailor from the North, called Thjelvar or the Diligent, more skilful or more fortunate than others, contrived to land on the enchanted isle. Knowing how to destroy the force of evil he at once kindled a fire by which the spell was burned away. The trolls were warned off. The land was added to the realms of man and yellow crops waved where grew dark woods of yore. But it was necessary that the career of the new people should be mainly on the water, and the island became known far and wide as the Eye of the Eastern Sea. The Goths, who did so much to overturn the Empire of Rome and at the same time to rejuvenate the South of Europe, have left no other account of themselves in literature than the version of Holy Writ that was made in their language by Ulfilas, a missionary great and good, however deplorably incorrect his views about the Trinity may have been (p. 191). But to this beautiful island of limestone in the heart of their oldest homelands the Goths gave at any rate a name; and such is the charm and interest of her ancient capital that one might well suppose the term Gothic Architecture to have been given here in admiration instead of being a term of contempt and reproach bestowed by a generation that could see no beauty save in the horizontal lines of Greek temples.[74] At an early date the men of Gothland had done in the Baltic what long before the Ph[oe]nicians had done in the Mediterranean. Their trading vessels were moored to London Bridge, they were anchored in the lonely gulf where St. Petersburg was eventually to rise. And their commercial activities extended to far remoter bounds. They fetched the furs of Russia and the gems of further east to shelter English men and to decorate English girls. No less than twenty thousand English coins, most of them inscribed with the unhonoured name of Ethelred the Redeless, have been found in their island of recent years. The further extent of Gothland trade is evidenced by the presence of coins not only from Scandinavia and Russia and the realms of the Holy Roman Empire, but also from the far south of Europe and towns on the Arabian sands. In the _Saga of Olaf_ we read of a merchant employed by that king to purchase robes in Garthrealm, or Russia, and Gothland is visited on the way, as was doubtless the almost universal custom of the time. "There was a man hight Gudleik the Garthrealmer, of Agdir kindred, a mariner, and a mickle chapman; wealthy withal, and one who went on chaffering journeys to sundry lands; he would often go east into Garthrealm, and for that cause was called Gudleik the Garthrealmer. Now this spring Gudleik dighted his ship, being minded to go in the summer east to Garthrealm. King Olaf sent him word that he would see him. So when Gudleik came to him the king told him he wished to be in fellowship with him, and prayed him to buy him dear havings hard to get in the land. Gudleik said it should be as the king would. Then let the king pay him such wealth as it seemed him good, and Gudleik went into the Eastways in the summer. "They lay awhile off Gothland, and here it befell as oft, that they were not all of them too close of their words, and the islanders got wind of it that on board was a chaffering fellow of Olaf the Thick. Gudleik went into the Eastways in the summer all the way to Holmgarth (p. 227), and bought there the cloths full-choice which he was minded for the king for his robes of state, and therewith furs of great price and a glorious table-service." Olaf himself on the way back from Russia to attempt to recover his kingdom, "hove with his ships into Gothland where he learnt tidings both from Sweden and Denmark and all the way from Norway." A great centre of trade is ever a centre of news. Upon the low limestone cliff that is partly enclosed within the walls of the city and is known as the Klint, there was of olden time a Vi, or place of sacrifice. Thus it seems was Visby (or Wisby) named; "by" is a very common Scandinavian ending that forms a part of many an English name. Two tiny islets, very close to the shore, protected the ancient port; most of it is dry land to-day and what remains wet, the inner harbour, is so small that an outer harbour has been formed by a long breakwater. Even this, however, will admit modern steamers only of the very smallest draught. From the cruising yachts landing is only possible in the smoothest weather, and cargo boats usually call at Slite, a better harboured place, connected by a narrow-gauged railway with the capital of the island. To the person unacquainted with the story of the North, it will be no small surprise to land on this remote island and to see a mediæval city that is almost unrivalled for interest even in the South of Europe. Here was a chief cradle of the far-told Hansa League, whose name appears to be derived from an ancient Gothic word.[75] The confederation for long centuries controlled the shipping and the commerce of the North, from the Steelyard in London to Novgorod the Great on the Russian plains; from Bergen of rockbound Norway to the remotest river-ports of vineyard-terraced Rhine. The merchants needed to protect themselves whom no prince would shield. As with the East India Company in later years, an association of traffickers was driven into politics and compelled by circumstances to make war and peace, and to take up all the responsibility of a mighty sovereign state. Had London been further away and the English kings of feebler frame, the career of the Cinque Ports might have been very similar. But the sovereigns of England were deeply interested in all that concerned their Kent and Sussex harbours, and desired to utilise their ships. The Holy Roman Emperor at Aachen was not far off from the teeming Hansa towns; but, German though he was, his eyes were fixed on the splendid cities of Italy and the glittering palaces by the Tiber rather than on the stalwart shipping of the cities of the North. Had the Emperor looked north and not south, had the Empire been German not Roman, the Hansa towns had not played a greater part in history than did the English Cinque Ports. Merchants would not have made treaties nor exercised the prerogatives of princes. But no German Empire was to arise during mediæval days; the towns went their own way and refused to do anything of mark for the Kaiser, who did almost nothing for them. Rapidly waxed the fortunes of the old place of sacrifice, and during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the city had grown to be the Baltic's leading port. It had become a chief centre of the trade of Northern Europe and the remotest East, whose riches were such that an old ballad declares: With twenty pound weights their gold they weigh, With costliest jewels as toys they play; Their swine-troughs are silver, their distaffs are gold, In Gothland luxurious in wealth untold. Visby was declared a Free City by the Emperor Lothar, the Saxon (1125-37); in 1237, Henry III. granted its merchants free trade all over England. So important was British commerce with those parts that the Easterlings gave to English currency the name by which (slightly clipped as sterling) it is known to-day. Fair churches still attest Visby's devotion, great walls its military strength. Undefended towns, famed for their wealth, were almost as unsafe in the early middle ages as they would be to-day. Visby unwalled suffered much. In the _Saga of Olaf Tryggvison_ we read how one of the Earls of Ladir (p. 69), driven forth by that king, "took such rede that he gat him a-shipboard and went a-warring to gather wealth for him and his men. First he made for Gothland, and lay off there long in the summer season, waylaying ships of chapmen who sailed toward the land, or of the vikings else; and whiles he went aland and harried there wide about the borders of the sea." But at least our fathers had the advantage over us that in the intervals of all this fighting they did not need to be practising the oldest of the arts. They knew not our crushing burdens. The same hands held the account-book and the sword; the same ships plowed the sea for trading and for war. Thus from the turbulence of neighbours the most peaceful of cities has left us some of the most impressive examples of military architecture that all Europe has to show. During the thirteenth century the burghers walled their town. The defences are of solid stone and make a bean-shaped circuit of two miles and a half. For 1,950 yards they run along the shore, where to-day is the Students' Walk between the lofty walls and a line of tall trees. The original height of the walls was fifteen to eighteen feet, according to the ground. Wide battlements, each second one pierced by a small embrasure, frowned along the top and just behind them was the customary parapet-path, sustained by a series of arches within--a very common way of economising materials from Roman to latest times. Much stronger were the walls from having two moats towards the land without, and on the north side there were three. Three older structures--little towers--were built into the walls, and so remain to-day. The Krut Torn, or Powder Tower, clearly named in later days, looks over the sea; the Tjärhof, or tar-house, and the Mynt Hus, look over the land. The tar-house is clearly known from a use to which it was degradingly put in latter days. There was a mint at Visby in the thirteenth century, and there seems to be no evidence whatever that it was not in this Mynt Hus. Six towers were also built to strengthen the wall, all toward the south; one of them is round, established on a jutting rock. One is known as Kejsar Hus, or Cæsar's Tower, named evidently because connected in some way with the Holy Empire of Rome.[76] For Roman indeed was the Empire still when these proud walls rose. As we have already seen, the sovereign was for ever straining his eyes towards the ancient city of the Cæsars, there to receive the Imperial Crown, in Italy to exercise imperial sway. A little later in the century, Horace Porter[77] thinks about the middle, more towers were added and, on the east, barbicans to enfilade the moats. [Illustration: ONE OF THE SADDLE TOWERS AND PLAN OF VISBY] V.Site of Visborg Castle. Churches.--1. S. Göran. 6. (S. Jacob.) 11. S. Katarina. K.H. Kejsar Hus. 2. S. Nicolaus. 7. S. Lars. 12. (S. Per.) T. Tjärhof. 3. S. Gertrude. 8. S. Drotten. 13. S. Hans. M.H. Mynt Hus. 4. S. Clemens. 9. S. Maria. 14. Helgeands J. Jungfrutornet. 5. S. Olof. 10. (Russian.) Kyrkan. K.T. Krut Torn. Of the Churches whose names are in brackets there are now no remains. The spotted area represents made ground, the two long spaces whose outlines are dotted are the sites of the two islands by which the original harbour was protected. The railway appears in the lower left-hand corner. [_Face page 158_ But all these excellent arrangements for the defence of the capital did not meet with the approval of the dwellers in the country round. It would have been much more remarkable if they had. Those whom they do not protect can seldom see the point of fortifications. There is still extant a strong protest which the villagers of Norfolk made against the circumvallation of Norwich, England, in 1253. In 1288 the Gothland farmers formed a posse to lay low the walls of which they disapproved. This attack was unsuccessful, the peasants were beaten off, and an appeal was made to the king. The island had long been Swedish, or rather for a regular payment it was protected by the Swedish King. Long, long before, in the ninth century it seems, the burghers had sent one Avajr Strabajn, or Longshanks, on a mission to Upsala to make a treaty with the king. But it is related that the monarch was sitting at meat in the lofty halls when the Gothic messenger arrived and, not being in the least pleased to see him, he kept Longshanks waiting on the threshold. At length the king unbent so far as to ask for news of the island, and was told that a mare had just had three foals. "And what," inquired the sovereign, "does the third one while the other two are sucking?" "Just as I am doing," the ambassador replied, "he stands by and looks on." Tickled by this neat rebuke to his own execrable manners, the king invited Longshanks to sit with him at table, and eventually a treaty was agreed to. The wealthy islanders supplied money and ships to the king, and the well-armed monarch promised to hold out a sword in protection of the commerce of Gothland. On this occasion the King of Sweden was entirely of the same opinion as the peasants about the walls, but (looking at the matter rather from his own point of view than from theirs), he decided that the offence would best be expiated, not by their destruction, but by a doubled yearly subsidy, with a slight fine in addition for the presumption of building walls without the permission of the sovereign lord. It was very probably during the actual fighting that those further additions were being made to the ramparts that cause them to look so impressive to-day. The walls were heightened and made thicker by building on the arch-supported walks, or even enclosing them in new masonry. About forty fresh towers were added, projecting toward the open country; some reach the height of seventy feet. Towers were likewise raised above the gates that were not so protected before. Between the great bastions, upon the walls were perched in many cases bartizans or saddle towers, projecting on either side, resting on large corbels built in between the huge battlements of older date; their outer walls rest upon arches that spring from corbel to corbel. Within they are open to the city like the great towers themselves. This is a curious feature of the work; the floors were all of timber and to make up for the lost stone walks double timber galleries ran along the walls within, one above and one below. The holes for their joists may still be seen, and ledges in the towers for the floors. All this open woodwork created a huge danger of fire, especially in the great towers, and, compared with other mediæval defences, particularly in France, the ramparts of Visby give the impression of being the work of amateurs. Nevertheless, from some points of view, the combination of low hills and sparkling sea and lofty towers recalls the mighty walls of the City of Constantine, whose capture by the Turks in 1453 was the beginning of the last act in the long mediæval drama. Little, however, did these brave defences effect against the forces of the Danes when in 1361 Visby was attacked and sacked by Waldemar IV., surnamed Atterdag, because, if once foiled, he was sure that his day of success would arrive. Close to the sea one of the city bastions is known as the Maiden Tower (Jungfrutornet).[78] There dwelt Nils the goldsmith, the liar, the loathsome traitor, the hideous thief. Such language his fellow-townsmen did well to use if in very truth on account of a petty slight he suggested the sack of Visby to the robber Danish king. A young girl, it was fabled, gave Waldemar information which enabled him to capture the fair town, and not unfitly she was walled alive into this very tower, from which circumstance it has its name. There can be little doubt that the only real foundation for these foolish tales was the fact that the merchants were somewhat ashamed of the very poor defence they made. Instead of defying the robber behind their strengthened walls, they abjectly permitted a breach to be torn when he refused to enter by a gate. He had led his army to Gothland and made knights in that land and struck down many men, for the peasants were unarmed and unused to war. And he set his face toward Visby and the citizens came out and surrendered, for they saw that resistance was impossible. This we learn from a Franciscan chronicler of Lübeck, the chief headquarters of the Hanseatic League. In the market-place of captured Visby were placed the three largest vats that in the city could be found, and these the Danish king insisted should be filled with glittering gold. The ransom received, the town was treacherously and pitilessly sacked and the Danish ships at length sailed off as encumbered with loot as no doubt the _Mayflower_ was with furniture. But by far the greater portion--almost the whole--it was fated should merely sparkle in the depths of the tossing sea, for the vessels were wrecked in a fearful storm and the king came very near being drowned. Fittingly his body might have lain amidst those ill-gotten spoils till the day of Holy Doom, but he was rescued by his men and continued to rule the Danes. Not wholly a bad King of Denmark, for he governed with might and power and in some ways really sought to enlarge his country's weal. His insult to the Hansa League was too great even for merchants to endure, and in striking contrast with the unchivalrous action of the king, who smote a peaceful city without excuse, without declaring war, a herald bore to Waldemar a formal notice that the towns would fight. Copenhagen was captured and plundered in the May of 1362, but then the Danes gained a considerable victory and the beaten burgomaster of proud Lübeck paid for failure with life. In 1367 the deputies of seventy-seven towns met at Köln, and in formal manner confirmed the League which even then was centuries old. Waldemar contemptuously likened the citizens to cackling geese, but ill-founded was his foolish mirth. After a few years of war, disastrous to the Danes and very profitable indeed to the traders, he was compelled to sign the humiliating Treaty of Stralsund, by which he virtually ceased to be an independent king. The League took its place as a first-rate power and for generations dominated the North. Visby was very fully avenged, but could never really recover from the staggering blow. The ancient port now fell on evil days. The city whose maritime code of laws was to Northern Europe very much what that of Rhodes was to the Mediterranean, slipped so low as to be made, helplessly, the headquarters of Baltic pirates and a pest to the shipping of that sea. The great Margaret (p. 120) cleared them out and annexed the island to Denmark,[79] but her worthless successor, Eric of Pomerania, erected at the southern end of the walls the Castle of Visborg,[80] to be a stronghold for himself. The city suffered further from his blighting presence and piracy sprang up again (p. 132). The saddest blow fell in the seventeenth century when the burghers of Lübeck, former sister city and close ally, plundered and sacked the sinning port and almost ended its being. Gradually it shrank to the quiet little market town that it remains to-day, nestling amid gardens and roses and the lofty ruins of its past. But even yet there is not the sleep of some little English cathedral towns. The railway runs along the quays by the harbour, where is sometimes a busy scene. Southward the chimneys of a factory pour their smoke into the clear air. The vigorous life of an older day still stirs in the picturesque market-place by the ruined Friars' Church. From it wind about to every part of the city narrow streets between garden walls that tunnel here and there under the whitewashed houses. Samuel Laing[81] became quite enthusiastic over the Visby churches. "These are the most interesting Gothic edifices in Europe. Wisby is the Rome of the modern architects who will deal in the Gothic." Possibly this is exaggerated (Laing's knowledge of architecture was small), but there is in it an element of truth. The way in which the church-builders of Gothland departed from stereotyped principles and planned as they were moved is refreshingly original. No series of churches in the world is more deserving of the closest study. This tendency to unusual ground plans and the Norwegian stavekirkes are the chief contributions to Gothic architecture that the northern lands made as the middle ages wore. It gives a most vivid idea of the unity of mediæval Christendom and of the frequency of communication that existed to realise the way in which architecture went through the same general course of evolution in all the lands from Portugal to Norway from the coronation of Charles the Great to the abdication of Charles V. The oldest and most massive of the Visby churches is dedicated to St. Lars, or Lawrence; it was evidently raised in the early years of the twelfth century, nine hundred years after its patron had suffered on the grid. Though with windows unglazed and bare of any fittings the structure is very tolerably perfect and, as one first enters, the effect is exceedingly impressive and also extremely oriental. Greek merchants raised it; they had seen Byzantine churches in the East and desired in the cold North to reproduce their effect.[82] [Illustration: S. LARS] [_Face page 166_ Only a narrow court separates this church from another, which a generation later men raised to the honour of St. Drotten or the Triune God. Some idle person once invented an absurd tale (reminding one of that concerning the twin steeples at Ormskirk) that these sister churches were raised by two rich sisters who were such bad friends that they would not even kneel under the same roof to receive the Body and Blood of Christ. The actual plan is very similar to that of St. Lars, but it does not seem to have been so successful.[83] The Church of St. Olaf (Swedish Olof) appears to have been of very similar character; there the Norway merchants used to pray.[84] The scantiest ruins survive in the Botanical Gardens. Thither the citizens resort in summer to eat their meals and listen to a band. The same plan is reproduced in St. Clemens,[85] whose patron saint has an anchor for his badge and likes his churches to stand by the sea. The south porch evidently formed a _vapenhus_, or house in which weapons might be left: this was a common feature of the churches of the North, for thus it is written in the ancient Icelandic Law Ecclesiastic. "Men shall not bear weapons in church or oratory that is licensed for service to be held in, and they shall not set them against the church gable or the church walls. And these are reckoned weapons under this head--axe and sword and spear and cutlass and halberd." Excavations within the walls of this now unroofed shrine, carried on by the learned Dr. Ekhoff, have exposed foundations of three more ancient churches. The earliest of them dates back perhaps to about the year 900 or within a century of the traditional era of the foundation of the town. A story had grown up that to St. Olaf was due the first preaching of Christianity among the merchants of Gothland, but this is evidently a libel on the progressive thought of the ancient fathers of the town. The _Saga of Olaf_ has several visits to Gothland to record, but it says nothing of his preaching the faith there, and has little of him to record that would be likely to make the Gothlanders trow in the same God as he. After the adventure of Stocksound (p. 211) we learn that "King Olaf sailed in autumn for Gothland, and arrayed him for harrying there. But there the Gothlanders had a gathering, and sent men to the king, and bade him tribute for the land. To this the king agreed, and took tribute of the land, and sat there the winter through." It was in reference to this event that the verse at the head of the chapter was composed. It was in Gothland too that Olaf let hew one Jokul, son of Bard, who had fought against him and was allotted to the steering of the _Bison_, which King Olaf himself had owned. An old story, whether true or not God knows, tells how in the sixteenth century one digged in this spot for a more evidently tangible reward. A German cobbler, Salts Vedel, heard friars or monks in Italy gossip about the lands from which by the Reformation they were expelled. "There is buried," said one, "behind the altar of St. Clemens' Church in Visby a goose and twenty-four little goslings, and they are all of solid gold." The cobbler was interested, as well he might be, and he hastened to the spot. He found the treasure and it brought no curse. On the contrary he became powerful and rich, and as Burgomaster of Visby he died. The local peculiarity of sustaining the nave vault on four pillars gained so much favour that it was used both in the upper and lower stage of the very remarkable Hospital Church of the Holy Ghost (Helgeands Kyrkan). Though parts of the quire walling are evidently earlier, this most striking little sanctuary seems to date from the early part of the thirteenth century; the general character is Romanesque, but early pointed arches and mouldings are employed. The nave forms an octagonal tower, which formerly had a gable every side and a low spire rose above. A particularly pleasing double stair, open by shafted arcading in the thickness of the western wall, leads up from the lower to the higher level. The four pillars below are round, the four pillars above are octagonal, and in the space between an octagonal opening pierces through the vault. By two great arches[86] each opens to the common quire and perhaps women sang above and men below, so that the opening in the floor facilitated the blending of voices in the Christian hymn of praise. The quire itself has the peculiarity of being apsidal within and square without, and in the corners of the walls is squeezed a nest of tiny chambers, miniature stairs connecting those above and those below. Apsidal within and square-ended without was likewise the little church of St. Gertrude the Abbess. There her countrymen, the merchants from the Lowlands of Europe, used to make their vows.[87] Very shallow apses which do not appear without are to be seen at the ends of the aisles of the great church of St. Mary, formerly the seat of the Lübeck merchants and now the cathedral. There was no such church of old. Though devout men and great builders of churches, mediæval merchants were not admirers of bishops, or for that matter of any other kind of lords. In the Low Countries they contrived to have only four prelates, in the German commercial cities extremely few and in Gothland none. Only as the result of considerable pressure would the islanders recognise the oversight of the Bishop of Linköping (Sweden), and he must come with not more than ten attendants, nor must even so restricted a train expect to be entertained for more than three meals. During the ages of faith there were preserved in this church, sometimes known as Sancta Maria Teutonicorum,[88] the relics of a hero giantess of earliest days. They were removed soon after 1741, when the great Linnæus unfeelingly records in his diary: "The Jatta bones preserved in the church I find, on inspection, to be those of a whale." The two largest of the Visby churches belonged to Friars, and they alone are normal in ground plan. Both consist of nave and aisles all of the same height, with a short quire ending in a buttressed triple apse projecting from the east; both were Romanesque altered to the so-called Decorated style. [Illustration: THE CHURCHES OF VISBY] These plans, made by Sir H. Dryden, Bart., are reproduced by kind permission of the Royal Institute of British Architects, in whose _Transactions_ they appeared during 1886. It will be noticed that all except S. Nicolaus are eccentric in plan. [_Face page 172_ St. Katarina (Franciscan) stands a roofless ruin beside the busy market-place; tall octagonal pillars with moulded caps and bases still sustain arches running east and west and north and south across the nave and aisles, dividing the space into rectangles from which the vaulting has fallen, and wild roses, growing on the tops of the arches, shower their petals over the grass-grown floor.[89] The Dominican church of St. Nicolaus still retains its massive Romanesque walls in the four west bays, later openings here and there pierced through. The rest is of Decorated character, strikingly beautiful.[90] The great glory of this church was that in days gone by twin carbuncles glittered in the centres of the brick rose windows in the western wall. As was fitting in a church dedicated to the mariners' patron saint, far out at sea the sailors saw them even when there were no stars; they lit the night as the sun lights up the day, nor were their equals to be found in all the surface of the world. They were not seen within the church, for the roses do not pierce the wall. These jewels formed part of the booty of the robber king. Without the walls a short distance to the north stands the roofless church of St. George. This was not the English chapel, but belonged to an institution for lepers.[91] Still further toward the pole the Klint is washed into steep cliffs by the eternal sea. On this elevated calvary three stone pillars stand, having formed the gallows of old. It was a very public place, commanding wide views over sea and land, too fair a spot for such a gruesome use. Not every building of interest in Visby dates from the time of the city's power, nor even from mediæval days. The Burmeister House, erected as late as 1662, displays in its interior paintings covering walls and ceiling, illustrating Bible stories and depicting other scenes. It was a rich merchant's house, and the counter where his customers were served can still be seen. An interesting witness to the prosperity the town enjoyed in commerce even at so late a date; while the present mildness of the climate is made clear by the great luxuriance of the creepers that swaddle the whole of the southern end. In no English cathedral city is any ancient dwelling more completely buried by vegetation; the windows look out through fully two feet of insect-sheltering leaves. Superlatives are always dangerous. There are much finer buildings and there is far finer scenery in Europe than anything that Visby has to show. But the real feature of the place is very much its own. One meets the influences of many lands. One beholds an epitome of half the history of the North. One gets a hint of the architectural features of remote places of Christendom. Of no town of equal importance perhaps may the ruins be so pleasantly surveyed. Midst all the charms of low limestone hills and peaceful fields by the sea, midst all the delights of wide gardens fragrant with the scent of roses, midst all the picturesqueness of a delightful little country town, may be studied in crumbling ruin, yet lovingly preserved, the uniquely interesting churches and stoutly buttressed walls of a city that once dominated the Mediterranean of the North. [Illustration] CHAPTER VIII UPSALA In Upsal's stately minster, before the altar, stands The Swedish King, brave Eric, with high uplifted hands; His royal robes are round him, the crown upon his head, And thus, before his people, right sovranly he said-- "God! whoso trusteth in Thee will never rue his trust: If God the Lord be with us, our foes shall flee like dust." He spake: from priest and people rose up the answering cry-- "If God the Lord be with us, all danger we defy!" Scarce through the aisles is dying their mingled voices' din, A pallid slave, disordered, comes rushing wildly in. "Now God us aid!--Skalater, the Dane, has come again, Fast pouring down the mountains with seven hundred men!" * * * * * King Eric's glance grew prouder; he grasped the golden Rood-- He held it high to heaven, as on Skalater strode: Lo! from each wound, the seven, pour forth a thousand rays, And down to earth Skalater sinks, dazzled by the blaze. They're prostrate on their foreheads, the seven hundred Danes, Praying to God to spare them Who guards the Christian fanes; But Eric and his people lift up the joyful cry-- "Our God, the Lord, has conquered; all praise to Him on high!" _Swedish Ballad_, translated by LADY WILDE. Of all the relics of primitive man none are so permanent, few so impressive, as large earthworks. Such to most of us at least convey no small part of the pleasure that we derive from the South Downs or so-called Salisbury Plain. Where the delights of Nature are comparatively few, on a wide, flat plain, distantly walled by low-looking hills, there has stood since the very twilight of Swedish history the town of Upsala--Lofty Halls. Of its early days we learn from Snorri Sturluson in the opening chapters of his great history, called from its first word, the _Heimskringla_, "That is the Round World, whereas manfolk dwell, much sheared apart by bights so that great seas go from ocean's river far into the land." Odin, or Woden, he to whom the fourth day of the week is hallowed, had led his people from Asgarth in Asia, and he settled in Sigtown or Sigtuna, on the lake between Upsala and Stockholm. Only a village holds the spot to-day with ruined mediæval towers. "Odin was a great warrior, and exceeding far-travelled, and had made many realms his own, and so victorious was he that in every battle he gained the day; whence it befell, that his men trowed of him that he should of his own nature ever have the victory in every battle. His wont it was, if he sent his men to the wars or on other journeys, before they went to lay his hands on the heads of them, and to give them blessing, and they trowed that they would fare well thereby."[92] "Odin died in his bed in Sweden; but when he was come nigh to his death, he let mark him with a spear-point, and claimed as his own all men dead by weapon; and he said that he would go his ways to Godhome and welcome his friends there. Now were the Swedes minded that he would be come to that Asgarth of old days, there to live his life for ever; and then began anew the worship of Odin and the vowing of vows to him. Oft thought the Swedes that he showed himself to them in dreams before great battles should be; and to some he gave victory there and then, and to others bidding to come to him; and either lot they deemed good enow." "Now this Sweden they called Manhome, but Sweden the Great called they Godhome; and of Godhome are told many tales and many marvels."[93] The founder of Upsala was Frey, one of Odin's _Diar_ or temple-priests, and his successor, next but one, as king. He "raised a great temple at Upsala, and there he had his chief abode, and endowed it with all his wealth, both land and chattels. Then began the weal of Upsala, which has endured ever since.... Now Frey fell sick, but when his sickness waxed on him men took counsel and let few folk come in to him; and they built a great howe (or barrow) and made a door therein, and three windows; and so when Frey was dead they bore him privily into the howe, and told the Swedes that he was still alive, and there they guarded him for three winters, and poured all the scat (p. 19) into the mound: gold through the one window, silver through the second, and copper pennies through the third. And this while endured plenteous years and peace.... But when all the Swedes wotted that Frey was dead, and the plenteous years and good peace still endured, then they trowed that so it would be while he still abode in Sweden; neither would they burn him, but called him the God of the World, and sacrificed to him ever after, most of all for plenteous years and peace."[94] In later chapters we learn that at Upsala was holden the Thing of all the Swedes. The earth platform on which they met may still be seen. The place was the chief town of all the Swede-realm and one of its monarchs built there a great Hall of the Seven Kings. "The Upsala kings were the master kings in Sweden, whereas there were many county-kings therein, from the time that Odin was lord in Sweden."[95] Again in the _Saga of Olaf the Holy_ we read: "Tenthland (p. 185) is the best and most nobly peopled of Sweden. Thither louteth all the realm. Upsala is there, with the king's-seat, and there is an archbishop's chair, and thereby is named the wealth of Upsala. So call the Swedes the King's-wealth, they call it Upsala-wealth. In each shire is its own Law-Thing, and its own laws in many matters.... But in all matters where the laws sunder, they must all yield to the Upsala-law, and all other lawmen shall be under-men of the lawman who is of Tenthland."[96] Three great howes, each rising some fifty-eight feet above the earthen floor and spreading more than two hundred feet upon it, are seen from far across the well-tilled fenceless flats, over which the wind blows clouds of dust. Many smaller mounds form a rude crescent stretching across the open plain with the great hills in the centre. They are doubtless the last resting-places of many kings about whose "howing" we read in the sagas. Though of old the capital of all the land, Upsala is but a tiny village now, so unimportant that it is known as Gamla (old) Upsala, for the neighbouring city of Östra-aros (East mouth), whose cathedral spires are the most prominent features of the landscape, has usurped the proper name. [Illustration: GAMLA UPSALA] [_Face page 180_ The Kungshögar or Hills of Kings, as the three great tumuli have immemorially been called, are distinguished as those of Odin, Thor and Frey, but these detail names date from much more recent years. They were opened, Odin's in 1846, and Thor's in 1874. They proved to be of the first part of the Later Iron Age, that is the period just before Viking days. Each appears to have been piled up over a cairn of stones covering the ashes of a funeral pyre--which is curious in the light of Snorri Sturluson's express statement:[97] "The first age is called the age of Burning, whereas the wont was to burn all dead men, and raise up standing stones to them; but after that Frey was laid in barrow at Upsala, many great men fell to raising barrows to the memory of their kin, no less often than standing stones." Besides the charred bones of man and horse and dog, there were many objects for ornament or use, made of iron and bronze and glass and gold.[98] There was a small cameo of Roman work, carried to these northern wilds, far beyond the widest limit of imperial power, not in the wake of all-conquering troops, but by gainful commerce with barbarian hordes. Or possibly it was a part of the shameful tribute that the tottering masters of the world had to offer to triumphant Goths. As to the point of burying so much treasure with the dead we get a useful hint in the _Vatzdaela Saga_; a father is expostulating with his son about his lack of taste for war. "It was the way of mighty kings or jarls, our peers, that they used to lie out a-warring, winning themselves riches and glory, and the riches they won thus were not reckoned in the inheritance they left, nor could son take it after father, but it was laid in howe with themselves. So though their sons got their lands they could not keep up their estate, though they inherited the honour, unless they threw themselves and their men into jeopardy and warfare; and by this means it was they won riches and renown one after another, each stepping in the footprints of his forefathers."[99] No spot of earth _seems_ to carry one's mind back so far into the immemorial past as this. From the top of one of the great howes we may peer beyond the history of unnumbered years to the days when history was not. About the early dawn of man's activity on earth we may read in any part of the world, but not in many places may we feel its spell as here. Close by was the most famous temple in all the North; and not far off was Odin's grove, whose trees were the sacredest on earth. And near the temple grew one tree whose sort might no man know whose branches were for ever green. The roadway from the south still approaches the ancient village through an avenue of rowan or mountain ash. These were planted recently indeed, but there is the right atmosphere about the mystic tree whence pagan priests cut sacred wands; whose wood is still a potent charm and a powerful protection against witchcraft. Just east of the three great howes we may stand on the flat-topped Tings-hög, where the ancient assemblies of Sweden were held and picture the weaponed warriors not always saying yea to their king. On this spot, too, we may well wonder why _we_ have abandoned our excellent northern words, Scandinavian Thing and Saxon Moot, in favour of a French expression that only means place where men talk, or a Latin one that refers to no more than their coming together. Honey-tasting sparkling mead has here been brewed through the unnumbered centuries, and we may still drink from ancient horns what our fathers enjoyed when the North was first peopled by Aryan man. Mead is still brewed indeed, but (happily) not in such noble quantity as was the case of old. "There was a great homestead," we read in the sagas, "and therein was there wrought a mighty vat many ells high, which stood on mighty big beams; now this stood down in a certain undercroft, and there was a loft above it, the floor whereof was open, that the liquor might be poured down thereby; but the vat was full of mingled mead, and the drink was wondrous strong." Unfortunately the king, a mighty man whose years were full of plenty and peace, was staying with the owner and went out amidst the night, when, being bewildered with sleep and dead-drunk, he missed his footing, fell into the mead-vat and was lost there.[100] In the temple festivals were held at Yule and twice besides in every year. One was the thanksgiving for good crops that the New England Puritans unconsciously revived. And greater feasts took place as often as the ninth year came. Mighty sacrifices were offered to the Gods and the victims were human at times. As in Mexico and elsewhere, highest reverence was paid to these unhappy men between dedication and death. The worship on the whole was of the beastliest; the temple and the grove must frequently have resembled blood-reeking shambles and there was nothing to regret when the people began to trow in the faith of the White Christ. The beauty of building and stateliness of ritual that characterised the shrines of Buddhist India or of Egypt or of Greece were but faintly reflected in the rude and untaught North. In the days of King Domald there fell on the Swedes great hunger and famine. So they offered oxen with no result; next year "they offered men, and the increase of the year was the same, or worse it might be, but the third autumn came the Swedes flockmeal to Upsala whenas the sacrifices should be. Then held the great men counsel together, and were of one accord that this scarcity was because of Domald their king, and withal that they should sacrifice him for the plenty of the year; yea, that they should set on him and slay him, and redden the seats of the Gods with the blood of him; and even so they did."[101] So successful was this service that there was good plenty and peace throughout the days of his son's long reign, "of him is nought more told save that he died in his bed at Upsala." A later king named Aun gained length of days by offering up his sons, for Odin had made him the promise that he should live on for ever, even so long as he gave Odin one of his sons every tenth year. "So when he had offered up seven sons, then he lived ten winters yet in such case that he might not go afoot, but was borne about on a chair. Then he offered up yet again the eighth son of his, and lived ten winters yet, and then lay bedridden. Then he offered up his ninth son, and lived ten winters yet, and then must needs drink from a horn, even as a swaddling babe. Now had he one son yet left, and him also would he offer up, and give to Odin Upsala withal and the countryside thereabout, and let call it Tenthland (p. 179)[102]; but the Swedes forbade it him, and there was no sacrifice. So King Aun died, and was laid in howe at Upsala."[103] The zeal of Iceland has indeed clothed these earthen mounds with vigorous life, this spot with vivid story. So much so that they are hardly to be called prehistoric, however the word may spring to our lips from the study of such earth monuments in other lands. It is tradition--but probably untrue--that there still stand parts of the ancient temple which glittered with gold in every corner, where were figures of Thor, of Odin and of Frey, the God of Thunder, most honoured, in the midst; so Adam of Bremen says. Chains of gold clinked on the temple roof, as chains of baser metal hang on many a Russian church to-day. A square, stone pile, of massive work but rude, stands high above the plain: two gateways toward the north, two toward the south, and two toward the west, only toward the east but one. It seems more likely, notwithstanding, that this gable-roofed structure was always what it is to-day, the central tower of a cruciform church, round-arched in style, opening to transepts and nave by two arches, but to the quire by only one.[104] That the church which was built by King Sverker I. in 1138[105] has annexed both the site and the materials of the temple of the Three Gods we need not doubt, but the structure is a fairly ordinary Romanesque building exactly suiting the architecture of the age. The small chancel of three bays has a round apse and round-headed windows, and if the plan preserved in the vestry--here reproduced--be founded on fact, there were once apsidal transepts, and an aisled nave that was not in line, but swerved away to the north. Built into the south wall of the apse is a Runic stone--here sketched--put up to the memory of his father by Sigvid, who had fared to England and come safely back.[106] (See page 108.) Eric IX. (p. 192) is traditionally connected with the building of the church. Perhaps to him are owed the plain ribbed vaults, indicated on the plan by dotted lines. In life he was known as Log-gifware, or Giver of Laws, and every one of his statutes were good; after death he was known as saint. With the first primate of Upsala, St. Henry, a man of English birth, Eric conquered the Finns, and, as this was an attack on one of the last centres of heathenism in Europe, it ranked as a crusade. The Swedish saint mourned to see so many pagans slain without a chance of Heaven, but the English saint was made of sterner stuff and he refused to weep. All heathen were vermin to him. He met his end in a most un-English way. The mistress of a house had expressly refused to invite him to her board, but all the same he went. In that rude age the conventions of society had not yet been elaborated, and so, instead of welcoming him with their lips and fuming in their hearts, the owners of the house sent the unbidden guest into another world (see p. 213). Nevertheless in Finland he was highly honoured by the sword-established Church; the cathedral at the old capital of Abo bears his name and once enshrined his remains. But in later days (by Count Douglas, p. 238) they were carried in triumph to St. Petersburg. Three miles of level plain, still fertile, for the soil is unexhausted by the tillage of two thousand years, separates Old Upsala from the town of Östra-aros, which usurped both the name and the archbishopric in 1276. From a distance its buildings seem to rise from the very forests in true Swedish style, but when the streets are gained one is somewhat reminded of Holland. For long rows of trees, largely lime and horse-chestnut, border the little (river) Fyrisa, which flows unhasting to the northern end of Mälar, and on the banks are a few picturesque gabled houses with seventeenth century dates. Trees line many of the wide streets and partly hide the trolley trams. The great brick cathedral in the distance too has a certain Flemish look. But all idea of Holland is expelled by the massive unbeautiful castle standing high on its wooded cliffs. This city seems to have a character all its own, largely through mingling the features of many other towns. Here in the wooded Swedish plain an English close, a Dutch canal and an American campus seem somehow or other to have met. The interest of the place centres largely round the university, which has sheltered no small number of scholars that the whole world holds great. In Upsala one is vaguely conscious of the existence of that intense charm, all-pervading yet undefinable, that in Oxford and Cambridge is so helped by the presence of buildings unrivalled on earth. Here no crumbling, creeper-covered walls surround garden quadrangles, nor do elm-shaded lawns slope to a placid river; here are none of the towers and spires of Isis, nor the deep red Tudor brickwork towers of Cam. The university was only founded in 1477 by the national leader, Sten Sture the Elder, who had been chosen administrator of Sweden at the Diet of Arboga six years before. It possesses no buildings that in themselves would claim attention for half an hour, though many are attractive from the well-treed lawns on which they stand. The oldest is called from the hero king who raised it, the Gustavianum; it is a plain white structure over which rises a tower capped by a swelling dome that displays the influence of the East. The new building, finished in 1886, has a fine central corridor panelled in green marble, and over the door of the Aula is written (from Thorild) in letters of gold: Great to think free, But greater to think right. One feels the same atmosphere of culture and of high ideal, of youthful enthusiasm and of joy that makes the two older universities of England so lovable, though it is produced with so much simpler scenes. The ungowned, white-capped students,[107] some two thousand of them, delighting in music and serenades, are organised in thirteen "nations." These somewhat recall English colleges, for they have buildings of their own, and somewhat resemble American Greek letter fraternities, but such likenesses soon leave off and wide differences appear. The members of the nations are chosen by the accident of birth, for each includes the students from one or more of the Swedish "läns." Graduating ceremonies take place in the cathedral, for, as in Oxford and Cambridge, the university is connected with the church. The university library is not in the least architecturally striking, but among its somewhat numerous treasures is the famous _Codex Argenteus_, written on purple parchment in uncial letters of silver and gold. It was captured at Prague in 1648 and, as it gives us the text of Ulfilas' Gothic Bible, no more appropriate home for it could have been found in the wide world. In the chief square of Upsala is a statue (by Börjeson) of one of the most renowned of former professors, Eric Gustaf Geiger (1783-1847), the poet who with zeal and zest sought to restore respect for native traditions so long overlaid by fads from France during Gustavian times. This he took up so seriously that thus, during his very engagement, wrote his future wife to a friend. Geiger "has become a Goth; instead of loving me he is in love with Valkyries and shield-bearing maidens, drinks out of Viking horns, and carries out Viking expeditions--to the nearest tavern. He writes poems which must not be read in the dark, they are so full of murders and deeds of slaughter." This is putting it somewhat crudely, the movement on the whole was very good. It is far better that each nation should cultivate and develop the traditions of its own fathers--if any such there be--rather than seek to copy ready-made the conclusions of another folk. And Sweden has no need to learn from France. Geiger's daughter married the Count Hamilton who was Governor of Upsala during the visit of Du Chaillu (p. 223) and entertained the explorer in the castle. The Swedish branch of this great Scottish house is descended from two brothers who, like many other Britishers, offered their swords to Gustavus Adolphus in 1624. Of the mediæval castle extremely slight ruins are to be seen; the present heavy and unfinished round-towered mansion was erected by Gustaf Vasa. In it took place the picturesque but humiliating ceremony of Christina's abdication of the throne, to shake the earth of Sweden from her feet and to amuse herself idly among peoples and courts further south. The best thing about the castle is the superb view from its windows over the forest town. The Botanical Gardens were set out by Linnæus himself, rather for serious study than for display of flowers. The founder of modern botany, to whom there is a marble statue by Byström, became a professor at Upsala in 1741 and was laid to rest in one of the chapels of the cathedral during 1778. Close to the banks of the river is the Erikskälla, marking the spot where Eric fell, national saint of Swedes (p. 187). He was canonised by the Swedish Church, not known at Rome, for the rival house of Sverker had gotten the ear of the pope. A spring has burst forth from the soil; such a thing very frequently happens where a saint has breathed his last. The story of his life is portrayed by mural paintings in one of the apsidal chapels on the south of the cathedral, the only part of the building where the brick vaulting-ribs are left exposed. He was at service in the Bondkyrka, or peasants' church, of the Trinity,[108] when the Danes made a surprise attack. The devout king refused to leave till the service came to an end, but soon after, fighting bravely at the head of his men, he was cut down by victorious foes. His silver-gilt shrine is still the chief treasure of the noble cathedral that rose between Trinity Church and St. Eric's Spring when the archbishopric was moved from the old Upsala to the new. This great church would dominate a much larger town, for its twin spires rise but little short of four hundred feet. It was designed by one of the builders of Notre Dame, Etienne de Bonneuil, who by a document written in Paris on September 8, 1287, was appointed master builder of Sweden's new metropolitan church. By students from Scandinavia at the French capital the cathedral rising by the Seine was so much admired that they got it arranged that a "tailleur de pierre" from its works should reproduce its glories among the forests of the North. It is thus no surprise to find the plan of Upsala Cathedral reproducing that of Notre Dame, though much simplified and on a scale considerably reduced.[109] The superficial resemblance is by no means close, for the materials available were only brick with stone for necessary detail work, which had to be sparingly used. The great rose windows, west and north, the clustered piers and moulded arches, the plainly ribbed vaulting and indeed the general effect of the interior remind one of the fairest contemporary churches of France, but the blind storey (or triforium), pierced only by meaningless little circles, does nothing to recall the beautiful arcades that open to the galleries of Notre Dame, while the plain pinnacles and flying buttresses without are destitute of any substitutes for the world-famed devils that look down on the Paris streets. The oldest monument is a brass memorial to Birger Persson, who was president of the Royal Commission which codified the laws of Upland in 1296. One of the children figured afterwards became the illustrious St. Birgitta, or Brita, who, after the death of her husband Ulf, visited Jerusalem, received revelations, founded an order for monks and nuns, and took a prominent part in Church affairs at Rome, trying to get the pope back from Avignon. Her revelations, or some of them, have been printed, but, if one may judge by the samples read by Bishop Wordsworth,[110] they are somewhat sorry stuff, not superior to the sermons of an average curate and not to be compared with the revelations of St. Julian of Norwich. The rules of her order were revealed to her (so she firmly believed) by Christ, and approved by the pope. There was a house in England (the priory of Syon), while the principal convent of the Order of the Holy Saviour, as it was called, stood on Lake Vettern at Vadstena; its buildings to-day form a refuge for the mad. In the church the relics of the foundress are still reverently preserved, for Charles XII. refused to sell them to the pope. "First and foremost," he remarked, "no one can say for certain if they be her bones or not; secondly, in no wise would I be a party to the encouragement of idle superstition; and thirdly I am not a dealer in old bones." In 1590 papal envoys had purchased the relics of another Swedish saint named David, who hung his gloves on sunbeams, and the church at Munketorp was built with the price they paid; but the priest who effected the sale boasted at a synod that he had only given up the first skeleton that he found in the vaults of the church. St. Brita has taken a strong hold on popular imagination in Sweden and figures largely in the folklore of the land. Her peculiar sanctity it is said enabled her to see the devil, until one day she failed to control her laughter when in church she saw him bump his head against a pillar. He was trying to stretch a goat's skin with his teeth, for as it was the vellum was far too small to hold the names of those that he noticed nodding as the sermon wore. The local colour of this tale seems distinctly later than the fourteenth century, when St. Brita was alive. In the Lady Chapel of the cathedral is a fine monument to Gustaf Vasa with effigies in English alabaster of the king and two wives. The walls are painted with some of the events of his adventurous life.[111] Restored to his birth-land in 1908 and deposited in this cathedral after original burial in England during 1772, are the bones of one of the strangest characters that Sweden ever produced, Emanuel Swedenborg. Son of a distinguished bishop, he early made a name as a scientist and his achievements were of no mean kind. He anticipated modern knowledge as to the planets of the solar system flying off from the mass of the sun and developing their own orbits and rotations. In England he knew Newton, Halley and Flamsteed, and on the Continent also he met the chief men of science of his day. Great practical assistance in the engineering line he was able to afford to Charles XII., including help in the construction of docks at Karlskrona (p. 164), and the transport of ships overland in the war against Norway in 1718. During the latter part of his life Swedenborg had visions and founded in London the _Society of the New Church signified by the New Jerusalem_, his ideas being much influenced by Gnosticism. How far he was qualified as a religious teacher is of course a matter of opinion. Emerson says that he is "disagreeably wise, and with all his accumulated gifts paralyses and repels." Few spots of Europe surpass in interest these simple and unornamented monuments of all the ages of the northern world: earth mounds told of in saga story, cathedral carrying the loveliest style of central Europe to the far North, castle where kings dwelt of old, university that has influenced the thought of all mankind. Though the capital is moved to the outlet of the lake, where there rises a yet fairer town, this plain is the true centre of Swedish story from earliest to latest days. As Tegnér's _Drapa_, Englished by Longfellow expresses it: So perish the old Gods! But out of the sea of Time Rises a new land of song Fairer than the old. Over its meadows green Walk the young bards and sing. [Illustration] CHAPTER IX STOCKHOLM Here the dark woods, with many a patriarch tree, In gloomy melancholy gaze on thee; Here rocks on rocks up-piled upon the strand, Seem the vast structure of some giant's hand; While high aloft the lucid meteors glow, And veins of iron in the mountains grow. TEGNER'S _Svea_, translated by OSCAR BAKER. One must be feeling in a particularly happy frame of mind not to be conscious of a certain depression when approaching London from almost any side. Nearly all large cities have to a greater or less extent transformed and half spoilt their surroundings. Stockholm has done nothing of the sort and there lies its unique charm. A vast city of more than a quarter of a million souls rises straight from the primeval forest and clear blue water. The Swedish capital reposes on islands and spreads to the mainland north and south, surrounded by the woods and the lakes. Westward to the Cattegat is a shipway, hollowed partly by the spade of man and partly by the tooth of time; northward stretches a natural waterway to the ancient capital of Lofty Halls. And the winding fjord that leads up from the open sea, through which the great lake drains, is of wonderful beauty. Low rocky shores, island and mainland, spruce woods close to the water, recall the loveliest scenery of the New England lakes, but there is the added charm of heather wherever the trees leave room. Small steamers lie in little coves so near the rockbound shore that it almost seems their rigging is likely to get tangled among boughs of oak, and their crews can pick wild strawberries the moment they step on land. For a mile or two the channel from the Baltic to Stockholm is most intricate and extremely narrow, then great lake-like expanses are traversed before the vessel enters another narrow gate. Little painted houses dot the woods, but they are few. The general effect of the constantly shifting shores is of almost fairy-like beauty, especially with the peculiarly Scandinavian interlocking of the water and the land. At length across a stretch of island-dotted lake the spires and roofs of the capital seem to rise right out of the woods. Eventually one lands in the very middle of the town. The whole place is intensely modern, the metropolis of a most progressive folk. Large numbers of Stockholmers dwell in flats despite their love of flowers. One of the chief landmarks of the city is the tall network tower of iron bars that surmounts the telephone centre. This repose-disturbing, but extremely useful, invention has fascinated the Swedes. The charges are extremely low, and Stockholm actually boasts of having more telephone numbers than New York. The first impression is that of a distinctly striking town; the vast Royal Palace and the huge Northern Museum produce a very individual effect, though hardly perhaps one that can be called monumental. All the conspicuous buildings are in some variety of the Classic style, several erected during the last few years. The streets are broad, but geography forbids any great regularity, excepting to the north and south. All roads lead to the water, except a few that lead to the woods; the chief ones pass through wide squares and parks. Immensely improved is the city since 1847, when an English traveller wrote: "The natural advantages of approach are not adequately appreciated, or rather done justice to by the Swedes. Their whole style of architecture is mean to a degree; and their houses on each side of the Mälar quite unworthy that superb piece of water. With a few of the old palaces of Venice on each bank, and trees at intervals, and a gondola or two afloat, the northern capital, from its more romantic environs, would far exceed the other."[112] The site indeed is almost unexcelled. So far as natural beauty goes, the owners of these nine bridge-linked islands[113] need not envy the dwellers on the Seven Hills. From the narrows that the islands guard broad waters spread far on almost every side; Lake Mälar ripples gently for nearly eighty miles toward the west, splashing towns and villages and rocks and woods, and pours its broad waters swiftly past the islands toward the sea. Ocean steamers are moored by the wide busy quays of the prosperous city: small steamboats supplement the trolley trams to provide communications for the town. Toward the interior four lines of railway thread their way among the farms and the woods. For the vast silent forests of the North touch the immediate outskirts of the town; and trees are planted wherever the streets leave a small space unused. By far the most conspicuous building, weirdly attractive by its complete incongruity with its surroundings, is the immense Royal Palace, a magnific pile in the heaviest French Classic style, whose rectangular courtyard is enclosed by a block measuring no less than 408 by 381 feet, and rising in three storeys to a height of nearly a hundred feet. These ample dimensions are increased by wings of about half the elevation projecting eastward toward the water front, and by another on the west that greatly lengthens the north façade. This structure, whose simplicity and grandeur made an impression on Fergusson, occupies quite a considerable portion of the original island of Staden. The architect was a Frenchman, Nicodemus de Tessin, and so much impressed with the designs was Louis XIV. that he specially congratulated his Swedish brother on the magnificent edifice he was proposing to erect. This king had planned to incorporate part of an older building on the site, but a fire which occurred while he was himself lying-in-state in the unfinished structure nearly cremated the body of the monarch and quite gave the architect complete liberty of design. The present building was begun by the renowned Charles XII. on his accession in 1697, and, much delayed by war and turmoil, its erection dragged on till 1760. For a wonder the later architects employed, including De Tessin's son, resisted the temptation to modify the plans.[114] Simplicity is by far the chief merit of the palace, only in the centre of each side are pilasters introduced; the top is finished with the plainest cornice and balustrade and the sky line is as horizontal as that of the sea. The building made a great impression in Europe when it was erected, and several travellers speak of it in terms of rather exaggerated praise. Thus Laing,[115] himself a Scot, after a very appreciative description, exclaims, "What are our public buildings about Edinburgh, our churches, hospitals, squares, street-fronts, with all their pillars, porticos, pilasters, cornices and carved work, compared to the composition and effect of this chaste and grand building?--minced pies, pastry-cook work in freestone." The only really serious defect is that the design is not adapted to the site and the material is not adapted to the design. Such a structure requires a vast space all round and looks cramped on a small island; it needs material of the most substantial, set off by avenues of trees and formal gardens on a lavish scale, but amid the rocks of Stockholm it is plastered and in the City of Flowers its immediate environs are comparatively destitute of vegetation.[116] In the same general style as the palace and close to it are other public buildings, but unfortunately the topography of the islands forbids their forming parts of a single great design. The beautiful Riddarhus, or Hall of Knights, the headquarters of the Swedish nobles in the capital, is a seventeenth century structure of brick and stone, designed by Simon de la Vallée, adorned with Corinthian pilasters and floral bands between the storeys. The Riksdaghuset, or Houses of Parliament, recently erected, form a fine block of red granite buildings that rather crush the little island of the Holy Ghost, on which they stand. The two upper storeys have Corinthian columns or pilasters and the sky-line is broken by sculpture rising over the balustrade. Both chambers are octagonal, and their members, for whom women vote, reach them by a most striking stairway, excellently adorned with marble, mottled, white and green. (See chapter-heading.) Close to the palace, looking over the harbour, is a very impressive statue of Gustavus III.; it was the work of J. T. Sergel, second only to Thorwaldsen among the sculptors of the North. Brilliantly this charmer king, this monarch of the double face,[117] taught Sweden to sin, fatuously he sought to bring to the icy pine-woods of the North the tinsel trinkets of Versailles. The country did not prosper, the royal house was undermined, the king was murdered, and soon a brave French soldier came to restore vigour and virtue to the long-suffering land. Still the reign that gave to Sweden Karl Mikael Bellman, the poet, and other illustrious men was by no means altogether barren of good results. The old French culture introduced is very far from being lost, and the Swedish Academy, which Gustavus founded in 1786, is one of a number of learned societies that have their homes in this city and have done much to make the Swedish capital pre-eminent for its devotion for letters. Another is the Academy of Sciences, in whose institution the great Linnæus had no small share. Many of their members have a reputation Europe-wide. Lost now is the position to which Sweden once attained, chief military power in the North, but higher her place in the world. The sword-won dominion of Gustavus Adolphus could not endure for very long--geography forbade--but a nobler Swedish empire was founded, or at any rate consolidated, by the genius of Linnæus, and that shows no sign of decay. There will dawn a day when mere brute force will no longer be the test of a nation's weal, but in Europe it is hardly yet. [Illustration: STOCKHOLM] [_Face page 206_ Across a monumental bridge, adorned with statues and lamps, on the island of Djurgarden, stands a recently finished structure of Renaissance character which looks like a great cruciform church, but is in fact the Northern, or the Folk, Museum. The great hall contains figures in armour, old coaches and such like to illustrate days that are past, but more interesting are the little chambers that show us in detail the life of Sweden in bygone years. Within an old cottage we see a duck-coop under the sofa and shut-up cupboards against the walls. Carved chests and spinning wheels and lace and little looms and fishing implements and traps for bears, saddles and flutes and harps and drums give the attentive student a very fair idea of how the peasants used to pass their days. No servile breed these men who crushed the armies of the Empire in the war of Thirty Years and first subdued the woods by the Delaware. A story told by W. W. Thomas[118] is fairly characteristic of the stern and independent nature of the farmers who have made Sweden. "A Swedish peasant, clad in homespun and driving a rough farm wagon, pulled up at a post station in the west of Sweden. There were but two horses left in the stable, and these he immediately ordered to be harnessed into his wagon. Just as they were being hitched up, there rattled into the courtyard in great style the grand equipage of the governor of the province, with coachman and footman in livery. Learning the state of affairs and wishing to avoid a long and weary delay, the coachman ordered these two horses to be taken from the peasant's cart and harnessed into the governor's carriage. But the peasant stoutly refused to allow this to be done. "'What,' said the governor, 'do you refuse to permit those horses to be harnessed into my carriage?' "'Yes, I do,' said the peasant. "'And do you know who I am?' said the governor, somewhat in a rage. 'I am the governor of this province, a knight of the Royal Order of the Northern Star, and one of the chamberlains of His Majesty the King.' "'Oh, ho!' said the peasant. 'And do you, sir, know who I am?' "He said this in such a bold and defiant manner that the governor was somewhat taken aback. He began to think that the fellow might be some great personage after all--some prince, perhaps, travelling in disguise. "'No,'he said, in an irresolute voice, 'I do not know who you are. Who are you?' "'Well,' replied the peasant, walking up to his face and looking him firmly in the eye, 'I'll tell you who I am--I am the man that ordered those horses.' "After this there was nothing more to be said. The peasant quietly drove away on his journey, and the governor waited until such time as he could legally procure fresh means of locomotion." Along the "clearstorey" of the church-like museum are a series of little chambers fitted and furnished to illustrate the life of the middle classes from 1520 to the end of the nineteenth century. These are far less distinctively Swedish than the objects taken from cottages.[119] So modern is Stockholm, bustling capital of a great industrial nation, so entirely Classic its principal buildings, that it seems almost incongruous that it should be a town of great historic interest, whose story goes back to saga days. The site is heard of now and then in the very earliest annals of the North. Once a king of Upsala is fabled here to have celebrated his marriage and gotten his bane. Round his neck he wore a great gold chain that his sires had worn of yore. He desired to wed the lovely Skialf, whose father, a monarch further east, he had just conquered and slain in war. She only bargained that a funeral feast for her parent might decorously precede the marriage feast for herself. The king of Upsala and his warriors poured down the grave-ale right heartily so that they could not stand. The bride and her friends had only feigned to drink so that they were in better condition for action when the feast was done. They contrived to slip one end of a rope through the great gold chain and the other end over the bough of a large oak. Thus the monarch of Upsala was hung and the bride unwed sailed home.[120] Within the present limits of Stockholm too, Olaf the Holy as a precocious viking youth showed some of that astuteness that was with him all through life. He had been harrying in the neighbourhood of Sigtuna, much to the annoyance of the Swedes, and "when autumn set in Olaf Haraldson got to know that Olaf the Swede-king drew together a great host, and also that he had done chains athwart Stocksound, and set guard thereover. But the Swede-king was of mind that King Olaf would there bide the frosts, and he held Olaf's host of little worth, for he had but a small company. So King Olaf went out to Stocksound, and might not get through there, for a castle was on the west side of the sound and a host of men on the south. But when they heard that the Swede-king was gone aboard ship, and had a great host and a multitude of ships, King Olaf let dig a dyke through Agni's-thwaite into the sea. At this time great rains prevailed. "Now from all Sweden every running water falls into the Low, and out to sea there is one oyce from the Low, so narrow that many rivers be wider. But when great rains or snow-thaws prevail, the waters fall with such a rush that through Stocksound the water runs in a force, and the Low goes so much upon the lands that wide-about be floods. Now when the dyke got to the sea, then leapt out the water and the stream. Then King Olaf let take inboard all the rudders of his ships, and hoist all sails topmast high. And there was a high wind at will blowing. They steered with the oars, and the ships went apace out over the shoal, and came all whole into the sea. "Then the Swedes went to see Olaf the Swede-king, and told him that by then Olaf the Thick had got him away out into the sea. So the Swede-king rated soundly those who should have watched that Olaf gat not away." The fact that the sagas give the place (or neighbourhood) the only distinctive part of the present name makes somewhat superfluous the legends that have grown up to account for the designation Stockholm. One of these declares that in the twelfth century by robber bands the ancient capital of Sigtuna had been destroyed. So placing their remaining valuables in a dug-out stock, the surviving citizens committed it to the waters of the lake and followed in their boats the drifting log. At the island where at last their stock came to shore the future capital rose. But the true founder of Stockholm was stout Birger Jarl, of royal race, and father of kings, who ruled the land (as regent for his son) from 1251 till his death in 1266.[121] He desired to lock the Mälar with a fortress town, and the advantages of doing this were so great that we may safely reject the idle tale that he too cast a log into the lake and vowed to build the town wherever the waters cast it up. Many a legend has grown to account for a city's name, but men of the stamp of Birger Jarl know what they want too well to trust to the decision of the winds. The new town rapidly grew in importance and from its splendid position gradually became the capital of the country. Gone are the winding lanes of mediæval days, gone are all traces of the city's youth except a couple of churches. A son of Birger Jarl, Magnus Ladulaas, who reigned from 1279 till 1290, founded a Franciscan convent and placed it on Riddarsholm, the island of the Knights. His surname, which signifies the locker of barns, was gained by a most just law he made compelling nobles like common folk to pay for any corn or straw that they might require on travels. "No Roman Emperor," gratefully exclaims the old _Swedish Chronicle_, "could wish himself a nobler name that Ladulaas, and very few could have laid claim to it, for the name of Ladu-brott (barn-breaker) would suit most rulers much better."[122] It is sad to know that this evil custom, the right to demand hospitality from unwilling hosts, was founded--largely at any rate--by an Englishman and a saint (p. 188). Other natives of the British Isles than he have bitterly complained of Continental inns. Henry had a practical remedy; he instituted the custom, that was sure to be abused, of making every peasant's house a free hostelry for travellers of note.[123] The ancient church of the Franciscans (now known as the Riddarsholms-Kyrka) is a brick structure of the early fourteenth century, raised a few years after the convent was founded; it is not greatly impressive. Nave of five bays, quire of three, triple apse to the east, clumsy-looking tower to the west. Round pillars hold up a heavy vault, whitewash daubed, and, as is so commonly the case in Scandinavia, unrelieved by any clearstorey. On to the tower has been hoisted a cast iron spire that rises 290 feet into the clear air and looks as awkward and unhappy as the similar feature over the cathedral at Rouen. The great interest of the church is that it has become the valhalla of warrior, sage and king; the floor is laid in gravestones, the walls blaze with the painted arms of the Knights of the Seraphim Order, the air is thick with the banners that Swedes have won in war. In the quire is the effigy of the founder, but as space in the church was small classic chapels have been added both north and south to be the last resting-places of other of Sweden's honoured dead. On the sun-warmed side of the quire a chapel bears date 1633, and its rather indifferent architecture is forgotten from the fact that it contains, within a later sarcophagus of green marble, the ashes of Gustavus Adolphus, one of the noblest of mankind, the hero king who perished victorious on the field of Lützen (1632). Opposite on the north is the Carolinian chapel, a domed Classic structure with detached columns outside where rest the renowned twelfth Charles and other princes of the Vasa House. Another chapel bears the name of Bernadotte, founder of the ruling line. It was before the altar of this church during the fourteenth century that the arrogant noble, Bo Jonsson, called Grip, because his arms were a griffin's head, who "ruled the land with a glance of his eye,"[124] uncontrolled by the helpless king, hewed in pieces his foe Karl Nilsson, and was never called to account on this side of the veil. Here, too, among the dead in later days, far into the night mused the third Gustavus, hoping to receive some omen from his fathers' graves. It is rather misleading to call this comparatively humble shrine the Westminster Abbey of the land that holds the Cathedral of Upsala and so many other glorious fanes. Instead of one of the grandest minsters on the earth, echoing several times a day with Christian praise, it is a somewhat commonplace church whose silence is broken only by the chatter of tourists, save on the anniversary of some hero's death or when another monarch has entered upon his last sleep. Nevertheless there is a deep and haunting interest in this last earthly resting-place of so many who have helped to shape the world. Close to this church is a fine statue by Fogelberg to Birger Jarl. The Storkyrka, or great church of St. Nicholas, has been Classicised without. It is better so, for with the great palace forcing Classic standards on the city, Gothic must look out of place, however much better its general lines would have suited the untamed site and the ancient traditions of Stockholm. Pastor here 1543-52 was the famous Olavus Petri[125] who, with his brother, Laurentius, Archbishop of Upsala, did much to shape the Swedish Reformation. Messenius' _Rhyme-Chronicle_ tells us: On Master Olof's wedding day Our Lutherdom had made such way That mass in Swedish first was sung. So all men followed their own tongue. For so had Master Olof seen How things at Wittenberg had been; There first at Carlstadt's marriage feast Was German mass sung by a priest. Chancellor of the kingdom he had been in earlier days (1532), but so much of an idealist was Olof that he desired public penance to be exacted from all who complained of the weather! This did not suit the sternly practical king, Gustaf Vasa, who dismissed him with the observation that he was as fit to be chancellor as an ass to play the lute, or a kicking cow to spin silk. In the Storkyrka[126] had been crowned in 1520 the last sovereign of united Scandinavia, Christian II., a Dane of the Oldenburg line. Not by any means a bad king on the whole (p. 143), he had nevertheless by some inscrutable mental process got it into his head that the destruction of the leading men of Sweden would benefit that country and help to consolidate his own power. So during the very festivities that followed the coronation, no other specific charge being handy, he availed himself of the one complaint that can never fail, and on a trumped-up charge connected with religion, he caused many of the nobles and most honoured men of Sweden to be executed in the market-place of the capital. But the effect of the fatal Blood Bath of Stockholm, on November 8, 1520, was far other than the monarch planned. A deliverer for the wronged nation rose up in the son of one of those who perished. An outlaw fugitive, Gustaf Vasa had several very narrow escapes from the machinations of Danish spies, but the peasants of Dalekarlia were sufficiently sympathetic to shield him, though at the risk of their lives. They had no very particular grievances and merely desired to live in peace; to his first patriotic harangue they listened in irritating silence. So, sick at heart and weary of body, the hero was plodding through the snow to seek a secure retreat for himself among the remote mountains of Norway. He heard himself hotly followed, but, looking round, was joyed to see not pursuing Danes, but penitent dalesmen. They had heard of the Blood Bath and of many other acts of cruelty and had come to agree with Gustaf. They now asked no more than to be led against the forces of the tyrant king. "For our country we will fight like men," they cried. "Come back, Gustaf, and be our chief." And with them he returned to found one of the most brilliant lines of sovereigns that Europe ever knew. The Danes could make little stand before the enthusiastic fury of the rising Swedes; one of their own leaders declared that the devil himself could not subdue a people who lived by drinking water and eating bread baked from the bark of trees, and in 1523 Gustaf entered Stockholm as king, and knelt in thanksgiving before the same altar that had witnessed the coronation of the tyrant only three years before. His spirit broods over the city to-day, before the Hall of Knights and in the Northern Museum his colossal statue stands. But it was to a capital in ruin that he came, and only three hundred families were camping amidst its broken walls. So serious did conditions seem to the new king that he ordered every other town in Sweden to pay Stockholm a tax of ten stout burghers, compensation to be sought from neighbouring farms. The natural forces of these town-extending times have, in Sweden as elsewhere, made such legislation more than superfluous to-day. Though on the very edge of the forest modern Stockholm is in some districts over-crowded, underhoused. Till far into the nineteenth century the Scandinavian countries had the bad distinction of being the most drunken in Europe: Linnæus as a scientist called attention to the national danger of drink. That Swedes and Norwegians are now the most abstemious of Europeans is a striking comment on the early Victorian maxim: "You can't make men sober by Act of Parliament."[127] So heavenly are the environs of the city that they could not easily be spoiled; the Swedes have made the very most of the lavish gifts of Nature to add to the delights of their capital. They are not infected with a mania for cutting trees and building mile-long lines of slate and brick, nor apparently is every landowner consumed with a burning zeal to pile as many dwellings as he possibly can onto each square inch of ground. Parks are numerous and beautiful, largely because the woods are left alone. Of the nine islands the largest except one and by far the most interesting is Djurgarden, so called because there was a deer-park in days gone by. A great part of its area is still left alone, forming a park almost unrivalled in the world. Wide stretches of primeval forest, miles of rockbound coast lapped by the rippling waters of the lake. At Skansen, midst the woods on elevated ground, is a splendid museum in the open air. Among the trees one keeps discovering all sorts of interesting things. Log houses with old furniture in which Swedes dressed as their fathers dressed play on musical instruments used of old. Other old cottages, moved from far, are boulder-built, turf-roofed, and hard mud-floored. Animals in cages, which are partly cut in rock, old Runic stones, old gravestones, old milestones are there too. And in parts the aborigines are housed, just as if in their native wilds. A wonderful people are these Lapps. For more than a thousand years they have lived in close proximity to one of the most cultured of all races, with which they have had constant intercourse and trade; yet here they are, exactly as Tacitus describes the Fenni, untaught barbarians and a standing contradiction to Rousseau's theories about the noble savage. Modern anthropology smiles at Dr. Johnson's crude remark, "One set of savages is like another." Nevertheless the huts of the Lapps seem strangely to reproduce the general atmosphere of those of the South African Kafirs.[128] The way in which the Lapps have so long resisted the seductions of civilisation is all the more remarkable in contrast with their near cousins the Finns. On the highest land, called Bredablick, rises a tall tower from which may be enjoyed a view that is one of the most individual upon earth. Miles and miles of rolling woodland, chiefly pine and birch, spread in almost endless folds and display almost every shade of green. Arms of water stretch away in all directions till in many cases they become so narrow that they are lost among the trees; the broad end of Mälar, myriad island lake, suggests itself on the western horizon, and, the very last thing one would naturally expect to see amid the silent woods, rises the great modern city with its towers and spires and domes and factory chimneys--the Venice of the North. Round the far horizon stand peaceful, peakless hills.[129] A few miles north of Stockholm, far enough away to be beyond the furthest suburb of the town, a beautiful park slopes down to where the now narrowing and now widening Edsvik runs into the land. The property was once owned by Prince Ulrik, son of Charles XI., and from him has its name, Ulriksdal. Some of the most characteristic features of the scenery of two continents seem to be epitomised in the district all around. By the eternal forest of northern trees, and the constant clearings in glacial boulder-earth for farms, with wooden house and barn, by electric trolley cars and muddy roads, New England is recalled. Wide heather-covered wastes and gnarled old firs, thatched buildings here and there, do much to suggest the delightful landscapes of old Scotland. Presumably it is the best of the land that has been cleared for crops, though it is not always very easy to declare why one acre is bearing artichokes[130] and the next one is left to the woods. Approached through grand avenues of maple and lime and oak, surrounding three sides of a squared pierced by three tiers of windows, and surmounted by a black clock turret, smaller than many English country houses, is the Ulriksdal summer palace of the Swedish kings. It was erected in the seventeenth century by the renowned Field-Marshal Jacob de la Gardie, he who became the husband of Ebba Brahe, dearly loved by Gustavus Adolphus, to whom she was betrothed, though never wed. For the great king, whom half Europe in arms could not withstand, was unable to resist the pressure of his mother, intriguing queen, who would not have royal blood allied with common human clay. And by his German princess wife, whom he could never love, the king had no other child than the erratic Christina, brilliant and irresponsible as Mary Queen of Scots. At this palace in 1871 the famous American explorer of Africa, Paul Du Chaillu, was received by King Charles XV. with Arcadian lack of ceremony that was rather disconcerting to the American conception of what royalty should do. The explorer could get no attention at the front door, but eventually raised some underling by going within and shouting up the stair. This official looked over the balusters and asked the intruder what he wanted. The king, he averred, was not at home, but when he learned that an invited guest stood there, he admitted that the monarch of two kingdoms was within. His Majesty was found at last, working on a picture in his shirt-sleeves, for he was a landscape painter of repute. As soon as he saw Du Chaillu approaching he proceeded to put on his coat. Wearing a broad-brimmed soft felt hat, the monarch led the explorer through the house from room to room.[131] The general effect is splendid, but not unhomelike. One chamber is lined with old Dutch tiles, another with stamped leather in colours of the softest and most restful, other apartments have fine old panelling, while the northern sunlight streams in through some beautiful pieces of painted glass, the oldest about 1504 in date. The richness of the effect is greatly enhanced by fine old inlaid cabinets, choice china and some very good pictures. Some cities, such as Oxford and Rome, owe almost everything to the activities of man: few would linger long by the Isis or the Tiber if their magnificent old buildings were gone. Some cities owe nearly everything to splendour of site and to the lavish gifts of God. Such a one pre-eminently is Stockholm. Other towns have sites more stately, streets more monumental, buildings more magnificent, but none can be compared with Stockholm in the features of water and island and forest that are peculiarly its own. There is another city built on islands by flowing waters near the open sea, but New York has pushed the forest far away except for a space on the New Jersey side, and both islands and city are far too big to bear any resemblance to Stockholm. Though no such impression could well be sustained in the streets of a great modern city, the first view of the Swedish capital suggests nothing so much as an enchanted town, the capital of fairyland in the middle of a wood that one dreamed about as a little child. [Illustration] CHAPTER X ST. PETERSBURG What must the man have been who, born and bred in this atmosphere, conceived and by one tremendous wrench, almost by his own manual labour and his own sole gigantic strength, executed the prodigious idea of dragging the nation, against its will, into the light of Europe, and erecting a new capital and a new empire among the cities and kingdoms of the world. St. Petersburg is indeed his most enduring monument. A spot up to that time without a single association, selected instead of the Holy City to which even now every Russian turns as to his mother; a site which but a few years before had belonged to his most inveterate enemies, won from morass and forest, with difficulty defended, and perhaps even yet doomed to fall before the inundations of its own river.--DEAN STANLEY. Russia, or Garthrealm, was not outside the circuit of saga lands. The _Heimskringla_ indeed has much to tell us concerning it in days when the country formed a most hospitable refuge for those in trouble at home. And at one time or other most prominent men of the viking age were in that uncomfortable position. Of the Slavs themselves, indeed, we do not learn a great deal. The saga writers were not much interested in foreign countries except as they affected the Norse, but the regard for law in Russia evidently made an impression, as did also the respect entertained for woman there, at any rate as she was represented by the queen. The chief town of Russia in those days was called by the Norsemen Holmgarth, because it stood on an island, to the Slavs it was known as Novgorod, or new town, although about the oldest we wot of in the land. It became in rather later days the eastern outpost of Hansa trade (p. 155). Russia herself, like Normandy, was originally a Scandinavian state, and there seems to be little doubt that the name Russ was originally applied to the Norse. Even to-day the Finns know the Swedes as Ruotsi.[132] Thus Ruric and his viking followers[133] gave a name to the Slavs of the North, even as Bulgars from Asia named a portion of the Slavs of the South and the German Franks gave a new designation to Gaul. In all three cases the conquerors who gave a new name to the conquered received from them language and nearly everything else. It is quite possible, however, that Scandinavian vigour was potent in giving to northern Slavland that political unity which neither Mongol domination, nor the long lapse of centuries nor a series of drunken and incapable monarchs ever succeeded in breaking up. While the disastrous failure of the southern Slavs to unite is patent to the whole earth. Closely in touch with the Northlands Garthrealm long remained; it was clearly a district in which the Norse could feel themselves perfectly at home, however much at times they might feel the call of the rockbound fjords. Thus for several centuries, from the British Isles to the heart of Russia, all lands were Scandinavian pure, or under the influence of the ever conquering Norse. Had the race possessed a spark of Roman organising power, here had been established a dominion greater than any that the Southlands knew, for such an empire had hardly failed to girdle the world, expanding eastward through northern Asia, westward from Vinland the Good. Knut the Rich (p. 114) seems to have been about the only individual to whom any such ideas occurred, and the very keenness of all the Norse about local autonomy and parochial Things was a hopeless bar to such plans. It is one of the chief characteristics of the Norse easily to be absorbed by other races, whether in ancient viking times or in the American North-West to-day. On Ireland they left no further impression than a few traditions and a church dedication or two; to Russia they gave a name, but little more. Norsemen failed to be absorbed by other races only in Iceland and Faroe, where no other races were. Both Olaf, son of Tryggvi, and Olaf the Saint, were at different times resident in Russia, when Norway proved unkind. The former was nine winters old when he came into Garthrealm, and he abode with King Valdimar other nine winters. One day the boy was standing idly in the gate of the city when he suddenly noticed the person who had slain his fosterer. "Olaf had a little axe in his hand, which same he drave into Klerkon's head, so that it stood right down in the brain of him; then he fell to running home to the house, and told Sigurd his kinsman thereof." Such a spirited action would not have mattered much in Scandinavia, for in those days the Norse were very tolerant toward such effervescence of youthful spirits, but it was otherwise in Russia. "Now in Holmgarth was the peace so hallowed, that, according to the law thereof, whoso slew a man undoomed should himself be slain. And now all the people made a rush together, according to their custom and law, and sought after the lad, where he were; and it was told that he was in the queen's garth, and that there was an host of men all armed. "Hereof was the king told, and he went thereto with his folk, and would not that they fought, and so brought about truce and peace thereafter; and the king adjudged the weregild, and the queen paid the fine. "Thereafter abode Olaf with the queen, and was right dear to her."[134] Why the queen, to whom Sigurd had hastily entrusted the boy, was able to do so much is explained to us later on: "Now it was much the wont of mighty kings in those days, that the queen should have half the court, and sustain it at her own costs, and have thereto of the scat and dues what she needed. And thus it was at King Valdimar's, and the queen had no less court than the king; and somewhat would they strive about men of fame, and either of them would have such for themselves. "Now so it befell that the king trowed those redes aforesaid which folk spake before him, and became somewhat cold to Olaf, and rough. And when Olaf found that, he told the queen thereof, and said withal that he was minded to fare into the Northlands, where, said he, his kin had dominion aforetime" and where he deemed it like that he should have the most furtherance. "So the queen biddeth him farewell, and sayeth that he shall be deemed a noble man whithersoever he cometh."[135] The reasons for the king's suspicion are rather delicately explained: "Yet it befell, as oft it doth when outland men have dominion, or win fame more abundant than they of the land, that many envied him the great love he had of the king, and of the queen no less. So men bade the king beware lest he make Olaf over-great: 'For there is the greatest risk of such a man, lest he lend himself to doing thee or the realm some hurt, he being so fulfilled of prowess and might and the love of men; nor forsooth wot we whereof he and the queen are evermore talking.'" Olaf the Holy was in slightly later days to find a refuge in Russia and to be welcomed there by a Scandinavian queen, daughter of his old enemy and namesake, the King of Sweden. This was the manner of the royal marriage, and somewhat modern it sounds. "The next spring there came to Sweden messengers from King Jarisleif east away from Holmgarth, and they fared to see to the matter of King Olaf's promise from the past summer to give Ingigerd his daughter to King Jarisleif. King Olaf put the matter before Ingigerd, and said it was his will that she should wed King Jarisleif." Driven from his kingdom and somewhat broken in his fortunes, "King Olaf arrayed his journey and got him a ship. And he fared that summer, and letted not till he came east to Garth-realm to the meeting of King Jarisleif, him and his queen, Ingigerd.... King Jarisleif gave King Olaf a hearty welcome, and bade him abide there with him and have land as much as he needed for the costs of holding of his company. That King Olaf took with thanks, and tarried there. So it is said, that King Olaf was devout and prayerful unto God all the days of his life. But from the time that he found his reign was waning, and his enemies were waxing mightier, then he laid all his heart to the serving of God; he was then hindered herefrom no more by other cares, or the toil which aforetime he had had on hand."[136] "Sithence King Olaf came to Garth-realm he had great imaginings, and turned it over in his mind what rede he had best take. King Jarisleif and Queen Ingigerd bade King Olaf dwell with them, and take over the dominion called Vulgaria, and that is one part of Garth-realm; and there in that land the folk was heathen. King Olaf bethought him in his mind of this offer; but when he laid it before his men, they all were loth to take up their abode there, and egged the king on to betake himself north to Norway to his own kingdom. The king would be still further thinking of this, to lay down his kingdom, and fare out into the world unto Jerusalem, or into some other holy places, and there to go under the Rule."[137] Not infrequently the Norse passed through Russia to the great metropolis of the eastern world (whence Russia had received her faith), New Rome, or Constantinople itself. So much were they impressed by that splendid city that they knew it as Micklegarth. The stalwart arms of the Norsemen, organised in the Vaeringian Guard, propped the Byzantine Empire against its Asian foes and gained for the Scandinavians much wealth. Among others the founder of Oslo (p. 95) had in that realm gotten enormous riches. "But when Harald came to Holmgarth, King Jarisleif gave him a wondrous good welcome, and there he tarried the winter over, and took into his own keeping all the gold which he had sent afore thither from Micklegarth, and many kinds of dear-goods. That was so mickle wealth, that no man in northern lands had seen such in one man's owning. Harald had three times come into palace-spoil whiles he was in Micklegarth. For that is law, that whenever the king of the Greeks dies the Vaerings shall have palace-spoil; they shall then go over all the king's palaces where are his wealth hoards, and there each one shall freely have for his own whatso he may lay hands on."[138] Strangely similar, both in weakness and in strength, were Alexander and Peter, both of them most justly surnamed Great. Each was born to a kingdom, each had marvellous foresight and each had imperial ideas. Semi-barbarous sceptres they both inherited, and they realised how much might be done by importing the civilisation of sea-powers further west; each was a worker with his own hands, each cared much for the science and art of his generation, but neither was superior to amusements of the grossest and pastimes of the beastliest. Both drank themselves into the other world at an untimely age, leaving their work half done. Each is commemorated by a city placed on the sea with the express purpose of attracting foreign influence, beyond the ancient limits of the country whose capital it became. More attractive in some ways the career of the Ptolemaic successors of Alexander at Alexandria than that of the immediate Romanoff descendants of Peter at Petersburg, but the story of an ancient nation ruled from a corner of its territory by a half foreign court is in both cases very much the same. Many of the capitals of Europe know at least traditional founders, but on none is impressed the stamp of an individual to such an extent as here. No city on earth of anything like equal importance is so entirely the creation of a single mind, nor so truly a monument to individual force of character. No capital except Tokyo is to such an extent the symbol of a new era in a nation's life. Peter heard the call of Europe and saw that it had something to offer that Asia could not give. Asiatics have felt a strange attraction toward European lands in all the ages of the world. Persian, Hun, Saracen and Turk have each in turn sought a footing on European soil. Despite administrative inconvenience the successive rulers of the House of Othman early desired to have as their capital some city famous in the story of the West. Peter's people were not Asiatics; their early organisation had come from the purest European stock, the conquering Norse themselves, their civilisation and religion had come straight from Rome. Not indeed old Rome on the Tiber, but during the tenth century the daughter city by the Bosphorus was probably the more cultured of the two. On the border-land of the continents the Russians had for centuries looked east and not west, the very year of Peter's accession to power (1689) they had fixed their first frontier with China. He desired that Russia should be definitely European, and in order to consolidate his reforms a westward-looking window was essential. Its communications must be by sea, Poland shut out direct intercourse with Europe overland. Southward was the better climate, but a Black Sea port would have increased relations with a purely Oriental Empire. At the farthest end of the icy Baltic, where the Neva flows into the Gulf of Finland, as near to ancient Novgorod as a seaside town could be, there eventually he decided the new capital of Russia should stand. From a glance at the map it is difficult to realise why no town had risen in so convenient a spot long before, but it is at once explained by a glance at the ground. Swampy forest, liable to floods and dangerous to health, extended over all the land where the City of Peter was to rise. The island that became the nucleus of the settlement had received a name from its hares. A few Finnish fishers, alone among mankind, broke the silence of its woods. The noble river communicates with little except timber forests, and wood is to-day brought down to Petersburg in temporary boats remarkable for their size, their frailty, and their graceful appearance. The difficulties in the way of founding a city in such a spot were such as might well have appalled any ordinary mind. The site had but a few years before belonged to the Swedes, who maintained a small fort on the edge of Ladoga, the lake which the Neva drains. They were constantly making attacks; Charles XII. remarked that Peter was founding cities only that he might capture them. Petersburg might well have anticipated the fate of Port Arthur. The wretched conditions in which operations had to be carried on brought about an appalling mortality among the workmen employed in building the new town, however much exaggerated may have been the foreign reports that two hundred thousand died. The mechanical appliances available were so extraordinarily poor that earth had to be carried by each workman as best he could; there was no one about who could construct a wheelbarrow! Brigands made communications with Russia unsafe and sometimes did as they pleased in the city itself, while sentries on duty or citizens going about their business were occasionally carried off by the wolves. Provisions had to be fetched from an enormous distance, the cost of living was extremely high. Though the woods were all around, fuel was so scarce that even the nobles (who most unwillingly had been compelled to live here for part of the year) were not allowed to have hot baths excepting once a week. To add to all this no one except Peter could see the slightest need for any other capital than Moscow, still less the point of building a city on this forbidding and man-forsaken spot. But to the Tsar the rising town was a Paradise, so well loved that he had soon decided to make it not merely the chief seaport of his Empire, but the capital as well. The objection which the sagas tell us the eleventh century Russians showed to outland men having dominion was fully shared by eighteenth century Russians, and the huge number of them employed about St. Petersburg helped still more to increase the general loathing for the new capital. Hardly a nation of Europe failed to supply Peter with friends and fellow-workers. He honoured them above his own subjects. Nor did it matter in the least in what circumstances he happened to encounter them. One day as he was inspecting the operations he chanced to notice working with the other convicts a scion of the fightingest family of Scotland, who, born in Sweden, combined with the surname of Douglas the designation of Gustaf Otto. Captured at Pultowa he entered the Russian service; having slain a general in wrath, he entered a Russian jail. But to Peter his failings did not appear at all seriously to cry to heaven for vengeance. He could well make allowance for the spirit of a Douglas when provoked, so restored him to all his honours. In 1719 the now Russified Swede-Scot seized the ancient capital of Finland, and bore in triumph from the cathedral of Abo the bones of Henry the English saint (p. 188).[139] The only antiquities of St. Petersburg are the structures connected with the life of the strenuous founder. Peter's cottage, which was erected soon after the works began in 1703, is a large four-roomed, shingle-roof, log-hut; and the living-room which still contains the simple wooden furniture that he used enables one to some extent to picture the backwoods life of the imperial pioneer. The whole is enclosed in a larger structure of brick, and a miracle-eikon is the central feature of the shrine that now occupies the chamber where the great Tsar slept. Never perhaps was Peter so happy as when he was living here. He hated lofty rooms and luxurious furniture and costly food. He liked to wear his oldest clothes and enjoyed working with his own hands. As a great concession to his wife he consented at Catherine's coronation to wear a gold-embroidered coat, but could think of nothing except the fact that its cost would have paid for several soldiers. In Paris he found the luxury of the Louvre absolutely insupportable. After looking impatiently at the sumptuous feast set out, he dined off radishes and bread which he washed down with two glasses of beer. After a contemptuous survey of the superbly fitted French bedrooms, he rested for the night on a camp-bed set up in a closet. Close by the cottage was the small wooden church of the Trinity with two towers and onion domes which Peter built, but which was burned down early in 1913. A picturesque appearance is given to the Neva's northern bank by the old fort with its needle spire of gold that stands on a little island of its own, close to the cottage and Trinity church. Peter's old earth bastions were faced with granite in later days and the east gate is dated 1740. For defending anything whatever the fortress is no more use than the Tower of London, but within are pleasant avenues of trees, and over the roofs of the barracks and other buildings rises the famous Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul, where rest the city's founder and the later Tsars.[140] A soldiers' city from the very first St. Petersburg has been, and such it is to-day. Troops constantly pass along the streets; sentries with bayonets fixed are to be seen on every hand. The thoroughfares are patrolled by policemen, each armed with baton, revolver and sword. Peter planned to build rather a canal town of Holland than a boulevard city of France. Many of the canals have been filled up, but beside one of those that remain, in the corner of the beautiful Summer Gardens, stands the delightful two-storey house with plaster bas-reliefs and metal roof that Dutch workmen built for Peter; it is known as his palace to-day. The rooms inside, doored and shuttered with panelled oak and partly lined with blue Dutch tiles, have a most cheerful and pleasant character; they contain some rather good carved work that was tooled by the great Tsar; a mirror-case with stag, foliage, birds and other things is signed and dated "Peter. 1710."[141] In this same year he founded a Battle Abbey in thanksgiving for his victories, although he fully realised the need for reducing the extremely large number of monks that Russia contained. This convent helps one to realise how well Peter came to understand the people that he ruled. If the new city was really to be the capital of this pious land, something of old Russia, of Holy Russia, must be brought into its midst. Most fortunately for Peter's plans it chanced that as early as 1241 a Russian general had gotten the surname of Nevski from a victory he gained over a Swedish army on the banks of the Neva; he had also become one of the most venerated of Russian saints. Thus the enshrining of his relics in the cloister church brought to St. Petersburg one of the holiest things in all the land. Venerable associations that meant much to the devout were secured to the brand new town. The very ornate silver shrine stands at present in the south transept of the church or cathedral which was erected for Catherine II. by a Russian architect named Staroff.[142] The peace that broods over this quiet cloister rather reminds one of the south of Europe. The picturesque convent buildings of yellow and bluish-white plaster are seen among gardens and trees, while over them appear the towers and dome of the cathedral and the steeples of the smaller chapels, in one of which Suworof is at rest. Across a placid canal is the burial ground of the monks. Even in Russia these men are famous for the beauty with which they sing the daily offices of the church, unaccompanied by any kind of instrument--for such is never allowed in buildings of the Communion of the East. A roadway cut straight through the forest between this convent and the Admiralty formed the beginning of the chief street of the present day city, the well-known Nevski Prospect. The Admiralty stands on the Neva side where Peter built his first boat on the Baltic; it forms the chief centre of the city, to which many of the streets converge. The building in some ways is one of the best in the city, erected in the Renaissance style by a Russian architect named Zucharoff. A ship in full sail forms a vane on the needle spire that rises from a square tower lined with Ionic columns, while the vast building, measuring over 1,300 by 500 feet, is well managed, the long façade being relieved from serious monotony by an imposing gateway in the centre and by the pilastered wings rising much higher than the plainer middle part. Close by is the splendid Winter Palace, another Renaissance building, designed in 1754 by Rastrelli but considerably modified after a fire in 1837.[143] One side faces the river, the other looks on, to the square in which rises the tall monolith column that commemorates Alexander I.--the site of the terrible scenes of January, 1905. By an archway over the street the palace is joined to the Hermitage, which houses one of the finest collections on the earth.[144] While St. Petersburg has been greatly influenced by the street architecture of Italy and France, its broadways have a distinct character of their own and resemble the thoroughfares of no other city. Over streets roughly paved with sharp-edged stones, or the upturned ends of logs, rattle droskeys, whose shafts and traces both start from the axle-trees. The horses wear high hames and the drivers long beards, for Peter's commands that all must shave are now no longer enforced.[145] The pace at which the horses move is a great contrast to the leisurely dignity that characterises the citizens. Over the windows of most of the shops are painted pictures of what men sell within, for many of the customers are unable to read and appreciate this guide. Huge gargoyles shoot waterfalls from rain or melting snow on to the pavements below them, so that much caution must be used in walking about in wet weather. Something of the café life of the Continent is to be seen under the creepers and trees of the pleasant courtyards of hotels. The way in which men kiss each other both here and in the public streets is at first sight rather startling to races trained to keep emotions more suppressed, but there is nothing insincere, and--coupled with many qualities one would fain see changed--there is a certain gentle and affectionate disposition about the Russians that becomes more and more attractive as one gets to know them better.[146] The most prominent, and in some ways the most interesting, building in the city is the Metropolitan Church of Russia, the great Cathedral of St. Isaac of Dalmatia, on whose festival Peter was born. Other statesmen have chosen new capitals but have been satisfied to leave the ecclesiastical centre in the older town. No half measures for Peter. Even the holy Patriarchate of Moscow, sacred to the whole of Eastern Christendom in a sense from making up again the number of five after the western one had lapsed into heresy (from the eastern point of view), he insisted upon sweeping away.[147] It was one of the duties of the Tsar to lead the donkey upon which the Patriarch rode on Palm Sunday, and that seemed to Peter to be putting the relations between Church and State on to a footing wholly wrong. A patriarch once found fault with the shabby-looking European dress of the emperor, who had discarded the flowing robes of the East, and Peter had retorted that he would have expected the head of the Church to be otherwise engaged than in minding the business of tailors. So when the patriarch died he did not name another, and at last when the priests begged that some one might sit in the throne, he is said to have sat there himself with the remark that he would be patriarch. The Holy Synod was organised instead and the Church lost almost entirely its old comparative independence of the State. The synod building is close to the cathedral and the highest dignitary of the Russian Church is now the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg. [Illustration: Cathedrals of Trondhjem (p. 81) and S. Isaac, St. Petersburg (p. 246), illustrating the very different character of the Gothic and the Classic styles. (Later Gothic refers only to Trondhjem).] [_Face page 246_ The existing Cathedral of St. Isaac was forty years in building and was finished in 1858, the architect being a Frenchman, the Chevalier de Montferrand. In magnificence of material it surpasses almost all, and in excellence of position it excels very many of the great churches of Christendom. Its chief merit is that it is the one building in the capital that really suggests durability and permanence. There is just a faint suggestion--very slight indeed, but still impossible entirely to shake off--of temporary exhibition buildings about the acres and acres of plaster in which the other great monuments of the capital are sheathed. But this cathedral is of solid marble or stone, and in its proportions the most massive large church in Christendom, a very considerable part indeed of its area being occupied by walls and piers. On the four sides of the church stand the four noblest porticoes that have been erected since Roman days. With the proneness of the Eastern Church to symbolism these glorious portals might have been made to suggest the City of God, but the opportunity was hopelessly lost; on the east there is no entrance at all, and the design cannot for one moment be compared with that of St. Sophia, St. Peter's or St. Paul's. Indeed, what was intended for stately simplicity has degenerated into the most hopeless commonplace.[148] Between St. Isaac's and the river are really beautiful gardens in which stands the famous equestrian statue of Peter (by the French sculptor, Falconet), that Catherine II. erected in 1782, on a huge block of granite.[149] The composition is extremely spirited and it certainly ranks very high among monuments of a similar kind over the whole world. The general effect of this wide open space with fine Renaissance structures all round, including those on the far side of the river, is exceedingly stately, especially when seen for the first time. National character is always mirrored in national architecture, but seldom quite as here. The plan of the city is European and the conception is of the stateliest; the flat and rather featureless site on both sides of a noble river is just such as to give the very utmost opportunity for splendid architectural display. The style chosen for the buildings, the Classic Renaissance as it was developed in France and Italy, is perhaps more suited than any other for the objects which successive emperors had in view. The magnificence of the great broad streets and boulevards, the ample squares and frequent monuments all give the impression in very truth of one of the grandest of European capitals. The effect that should be produced by the lavish expenditure of money and the splendour of much of the material are somewhat neutralised, however, by the fact that the great palaces and churches (with the exception of St. Isaac's) profess to be what they are not, and expose to the air no other material than stucco. The very elements rebel against so much imposture and bring down great patches of plaster, while western rulers have been utterly powerless to prevent the appearance of extremely eastern features in every corner of the town. But in spite of all defects of detail these uniform Classic buildings, well grouped and set off by wide spaces and trees, produce a really magnificent effect, and as often as the black peaty earth is exposed by taking up the streets for drains one realises more fully the miracle of all these sumptuous structures founded in security upon a quaking bog.[150] Here is a city, one feels, that was raised by a people of iron will, a nation that was only invigorated by the centuries of Mongol domination; a people who seek to be western Europeans, but as a nation are not, though many individuals among them are leaders in European thought and science too. In some respects St. Petersburg gives one the impression of being the capital of a vast dominion more than any other city on the globe. Even in the British Empire there is nothing that appeals to the imagination quite in the same way as the fact that from the Russian capital one may travel entirely on Russian territory to the frontier of Austria, to the frontier of Japan or to a point within thirty-six miles of American soil. Nevertheless, whether for evil or good, the spirit of the West is not here. The leaders of Asia think, but the leaders of Europe act. Tolstoy and Kropotkin, household words in countless English homes, have done as much as almost any others to sustain the present conditions in Russia by the very elaborateness of their programmes. When England yearned as Russia yearns she found a Cromwell, not a Tolstoy. He grasped a sword and the scabbard was thrown away. He had little to say to the world, but plenty to say to the king. The gentler Russian masses idolise a man who held an open book for all the world to read, yet did little to change the constitution of his own times--so far as on the surface shows. And for all practical purposes the great Russian Empire still retains the constitution that Ruric gave his conquering hordes. Law is the word of the prince. With the House of Commons (ten years after it had put a new sovereign on the throne) Peter seems to have been less favourably impressed than with any other English institution. On seeing the lawyers in Westminster Hall he is recorded to have remarked that there were only two such people in all Russia and he was going to hang them on his return. Peter did not see that, however much they may be sneered at, Parliaments and Law Courts are of the very essence of western civilisation. Japanese guns at Port Arthur greatly helped to set up indeed a _duma_ in the city of Peter, but the very place where it meets indicates the extent of its power. The Taurida Palace stands far east of the imposing mass of really important Government buildings and is in a somewhat squalid quarter of the town. European indeed is this city at first glance, wholly western in style, in fact one of the most striking groups of European buildings anywhere on earth to be seen. But step into a side street. Behold the life of the East! Behold Asiatic bazaars! Goods displayed on quaint little open stalls whose owners sit among their wares and make their calculations on the _abacus_ just as one may see in China. And the smells of Asia are there, and the leisurely pigeons of the East. The unhastening manner in which everything goes on likewise does much to intensify the underlying oriental atmosphere of the city. Look up to where the church towers are crowned by the onion domes of Tatary against a European sky. Europe in the square, Asia in the lane! Vast Government buildings reflect the spirit of the West, but toward the painted screens of the churches moves the changeless mind of the East. The concealed spear of the Tatar pierces the garment of the European. There is no need to scratch. It is a very real relief that one important building openly reverts to the ancient native style, and brings to the new capital a breath of Russian mediævalism. It need hardly be said that it is a church; it commemorates Alexander II. (p. 244) and is appropriately dedicated to the Resurrection, raised over the spot where he fell.[151] The outlines of the national story may be read in those of the church. The style is an attempt at Byzantine, and that reminds us of the fact that it was to Constantinople and the Eastern Church that Russia eventually went when in search of a new faith long centuries ago. The effort to produce the kind of effect of which St. Sophia is the noblest example is, however, extremely crude; Slavs could never really fathom the subtlety of the mind of Greece. The nine cupolas[152] are surmounted (and the character of the building is greatly influenced) by onion domes so common in the turbaned East, imposed upon Russia with much else during the long centuries of Mongol rule. The presence of this feature gives to all truly Russian churches something of the look of Indian and Central Asian mosques. But this point is concealed by the Russian priests, who, with their natural proneness to symbolism, will explain that these onion domes are in reality modelled on rosebuds, thus typifying the embryo Church on earth, destined to blossom hereafter in Heaven. Each cupola supports a cross with chains (p. 186) which surmounts a crescent to symbolise the triumph of Christianity over Islam and the long series of eastern wars in which Russia has been engaged. The interior with its glorious and most striking Italian mosaics evidences the western influences that have spread over Russia in latter years. [Illustration: CHURCH OF THE RESURRECTION] [_Face page 254_ The first ship to enter the port of St. Petersburg (in November, 1703) was Dutch, and it brought a cargo of wine and salt. Peter himself acted as pilot without telling the Hollanders who he was, but he afterwards gave great rewards both to skipper and crew, renamed the boat after the town, and freed it for ever from Russian dues. An English vessel arrived the same year. Much earlier the Muscovy Company had originated from the English efforts to discover the north-east passage to Cathay, and during the reign of Mary and Philip, Sebastian Cabot became its first Governor. British trade has been prominent in St. Petersburg ever since the town, began, and not far below the Admiralty is the old English Quay. Saints carved in stone mark the sky line of a large Classic building that looks over the quay to the river, and forming a long upper chamber is the pilastered Anglican Church.[153] Suburbs of singular beauty are provided for St. Petersburg by the lovely islands among which the Neva winds, its different branches crossed by rough bridges of wood. In places reeds and swamps still border the woods, giving some idea of the original nature of the hopeless-looking spot on which Peter decided to build. Here are large private houses with avenues and flower beds in the style of France, and many of them have such large grounds that the general impression in places is very much like that of the Bois de Boulogne. Even to-day the city of Peter is very largely isolated from the world, approached by road or rail through long miles of forest and swamp. Only on a small scale is agriculture or market gardening to be seen. Nevertheless two country palaces that the founder erected in the vicinity are centres of some population, Tsarske Selo among the woods on the way to Moscow and Peterhof on the southern shore of the gulf. The new Tatar-Byzantine church of the latter is a conspicuous landmark from the decks of vessels steaming along the Morskoi canal through the shallow waters between the heavily fortified island of Cronstadt and the timber port of the city itself. Of early days at this place we get a rather graphic description in a letter written by the Hanoverian Resident named Weber in 1718: "When at last we arrived at Cronslot, the Tsar invited us to his villa at Peterhof. We went with a fair wind, and at dinner warmed ourselves to such a degree with old Hungarian wine, although His Majesty spared himself, that on rising from the table we could scarcely keep on our legs, and when we had been obliged to drain quite a quart apiece from the hands of the Tsaritsa we lost all our senses, and in that condition they carried us out to different places, some to the garden, some to the woods, while the rest lay on the ground here and there. At four o'clock they woke us up and again invited us to the summer-house, where the Tsar gave us each an axe and bade us follow him. He led us into a young wood where he pointed out trees which it was necessary to fell in order to make an alley straight to the sea, about a hundred paces long, and told us to cut down the trees. He himself began work on the spot (there were seven of us besides the Tsar), and although this unaccustomed work, especially in our far from sober condition, was not at all to our liking, we nevertheless cut boldly and diligently, so that in about three hours the alley was ready and the fumes of wine had entirely evaporated. None of us did himself any harm except Minister X, who unconsciously cut one tree and was knocked down by another, badly scratched. After verbal thanks we received our real recompense after supper in a second drink, which was so strong that we were taken to our beds unconscious."[154] Peter's old villa still exists, a compromise between the styles of building that prevailed two centuries ago in Holland and France, but on the top of the wooded slope a long and beautiful palace has been erected in the style of the Renaissance.[155] The chapel alone is Russian under five gilded onion domes. The French-looking grounds are famous for their many fountains, whose water is brought from a lake miles away. A large number of jets play in front of the palace itself, and also beside the straight watercourse that runs down from it to the sea. The effect looking up through the trees from the road at the bottom is one of the most fairy-like things on the earth. Walking through the woods one comes upon all sorts of fountains where they would be expected least. Water runs downstairs or slips along a marble way under ferns, or sprinkles a statue or an artificial tree or plays among the columns of an Ionic temple in ruin, or forms a sort of birthday cake by jets rising higher and higher toward the centre. The effect of all these fountains among the trees is really most impressive, no other land has the like. But just as one is beginning to feel that it is the most magnificent thing upon earth one remembers that a cold bath in a St. Petersburg hotel costs two shillings and reflects on the water supply of the capital. By an artificial tree are hidden jets to throw water all over an ordinary-looking seat. Such was the idea of a joke entertained by former Tsars, who also liked to ride in carriages containing musical boxes under the seats that used to play as they were drawn[156] along by horses harnessed in red and gold. One may incidentally pick up many interesting facts about the dead rulers of Russia that are not inscribed on the page of history. Judged by results Peter was great indeed if mortal ever was. We are not asked to call him morally good. Alexandria has a magnificent position on the shores of the busiest of seas. Constantinople has few rivals in situation among all the cities of the world. But both are eclipsed in importance by this whimsical city that Peter insisted upon building among remote and frozen swamps. To turn a great people round and force them to look west not east, to compel them to expect a golden future who before looked to a golden past--this is as near to an impossibility as ever was attempted in the history of man. Yet to an amazing extent this Peter actually did. One's astonishment that he achieved so much is yet further increased when it is realised that his life was devoted very largely to frivolity and amusement, that in serious and earnest endeavour he was far surpassed by many who contrived to accomplish far less. Of no individual that ever lived perhaps can it be said that he consciously and deliberately influenced the history of the world to the same extent as the high-thinking, hard-working, hard-drinking, founder of Petersburg. INDEX AACHEN, 155 Abo, 188, 238 Absalon, Bp., 131 Adam of Bremen, 118, 186 Adrian IV., Pope, 82 Agdaness, 71 Agni's thwaite (position uncertain), 211 Akers Elv, 94 Akuliakattamiut, 64 Akureyri, 61 Alaska, 67 Albert of Mecklenburg, 121 Alexander the Great, 234 Alexander Nevski, St., 241-242 Alexander II. (Russia), 244, 253 Allthing, 39, 43-46, 49, 53 Almenningen, 84 Amager, 131, 143-143 _Ambales Saga_, 149 America, 14, 40, 62, 63, 65, 104, 125, 130, 137, 141, 145, 220, 251 Anderson, Hans, 131, 134, 141-142, 145-148 Anlaf of Black-fen, 42 Arabia, 152 Arboga, Diet of, 189 Arnliot Gellini, 79 Asgarth, 177 Aun, 185 BALTIMORE, 140 Bathridge, 53 Bellman, 206 Bergen, 83, 108, 155 Bernadotte, 102, 215 Berzelius, 219 Birchlegs, 85, 99 Birger, Jarl, 212, 215 Birger, Persson, 195 Bjoörnson, 103, 109 Blood Bath of Stockholm, 217-218 Bo Jonsson, 215 Boston, 29 Brahe, Ebba, 223 Brahe, Tycho, 133-134 Bredablick, 221 Brita, St., 122, 124, 195-196 Bryce, James, 44 _Burnt Njal, Saga of the_, 44 Bygdö, 107 Byström, 192 CALMAR, Union of, 121 Catherine II. (Russia), 242, 249 Charles XI. (Sweden), 164 Charles XII. (Sweden), 196, 197, 203, 214, 236 Charles XV. (Sweden), 223-224 Celsius, 187 Cetil, Bp., 53 China, 108 Christian II. (Scandinavia), 142, 217 Christian IV. (Denmark), 100, 123, 132 Christiania, 100-109 Christianity, Spread of, 15-18, 32, 48-58, 75, 79-80 Christiansten, 88 Christie, 82 Christina, 192, 223 Christopher the Bavarian (Denmark), 132 Cinque Ports, 155 _Codex Argenteus,_ 190 Columbus, 63 Constantinople, 161, 233, 253 Copenhagen, 26, 113, 127-145 Cowper, 23 _Cristne Saga,_ 50, 51 Cronstadt, 256 DAVID, St., 196 Dicuil, 32 Djurgarden, 220 Domald, 184-185 Douglas, Count, 188, 238 Drammensfjord, 94 Dublin, 69-70 Du Chaillu, 82, 87, 191, 223-224 Duf-thac's Scaur, 37 Dyrehaven, 144 EDSVIK, 222 _Egil's Saga_, 51 Eith, 37 Ekhoff, Dr., 167 Ellidaar, 60 Elsinore, 145-146 Enlart, C., 65, 172 Eric IX. (Sweden) St., 187, 192 Eric of Pomerania, 132, 164 Eric the Red, 33, 63 Esia-rock, 48 Esja, 40 Ethelred the Redeless, 114, 152 Etienne de Bonneuil, 193 Ewald, 100 Eyafjordr, 64 _Eyrbyggja Saga_, 38, 51, 54 Eystein, Abp., 84, 85 _FAEREYINGA SAGA_, 14-18, 73 Faroes, 14-27, 31, 32-33, 83 Faxefjoth, 33, 38, 39 Fergusson, 133, 203, 242, 244, 248 Finland, Finns, 187, 212, 236 Finsen, N. R., 25-26 Floki, 23 Flosi, 44-46 Fogelberg, 215 Frederick V. (Denmark), 123, 135 Fredericksborg, 134 Frey, 178, 180 Fyrisa, 188 GAINSBOROUGH, 114 Gard-here, 31 Gardie, de la, 223 Garthrealm, 152-153, 226-233 Gate, 17 Geiger, 191 Geikie, 68 Gilli, 19 Gizor, Bp., 50-52, 55, 61 Gogstad, 104 Gol, 108 Gorm the Old, 12, 113 Gotenburg system, 219 Gothland, 57, 150-175 Goths, 151 Greenland, 34, 63, 83, 127 Grim Camban, 14 Grimkel, Bp., 79 Gudleik, 153 Gustaf Vasa, 192, 197, 217-219 Gustavus Adolphus, 187, 189, 192, 214 Gustavus III. (Sweden), 205 Gyda, 12 HAGGARD, RIDER, 124 Hakluyt, 29 Hakon, Earl, 69-74 Hakon the Good, 104 Hakon IV. (Norway), 99-100 Hallward, St., 94, 99 Hamar, 83, 92 Hamilton, 191 Hanseatic League, 154, 162, 163, 227 Hansen, 131, 139 Harald Blaatand, 113 Harald Fairhair (Shock-head), 11-14 Harald Gilli, 96 Harald Hardredy, 85, 95, 233 _Havards Saga_, 42 Heimaey, 37 _Heimskringla_, 12, 13, 22, 54, 69, 73, 77, 86, 95, 99, 104, 113, 177, 181, 226, 233 Hell, 92 Henry, St., 187-188, 213, 238 Heor-leif, 35 Herd-holt, 41 Hill of Laws, 46, 49 Hodgkin, Dr., 114 Holar, 29, 34, 50, 55, 57, 58, 83 Holger Danske, 134, 146-148 Hollmenkollen, 109 Holmgarth, 153, 227, 233 Holy Roman Empire, 113, 155, 158 Hordaland, 12 Hudson, R., 67 Hugo, Victor, 89 Hultersta, 186 _Hungrvaca_, 53 Hveen, 133 IBSEN, 103 Ingigerd, 231-232 Ingwolf Arnerson, 35-39 Iona, 31 Ireland, Irish, 31-32, 36, 37, 43, 96-99, 229 Isaac, St., 246-248 Isafjordr, 61 JACOBSEN, Carl, 139 Jarisleif, 231-233 _Joans Saga_, 55, 57 John, St., of Holar, 55-57 Jomsburg Vikings, 71 Jutland, 94 KALFSKINSHUSET, 164 Kark, 71-74 Karl Nilsson, 215 Karl o'Mere, 19 Kaupstadr, 37 Keel-ness, 39 Kirkebö, 23, 83 Kirkwall, 83 Klenze, von, 244 Klint, 154, 174 Knut the Holy, 118, 124 Knut the Rich, 80, 94, 114-117 Köln, 163 Kronborg Castle, 145-146 Kungshögar, 180 LADE OR LADIR, 68-76, 77, 80 Ladoga, 236 Laing, Samuel, 134, 165, 204, 223 _Landnama-bok_, 38, 39, 43, 48, 49, 54, 61 Lapps, 221 Larson, L. M., 117 Lava, 54 _Laxdaela Saga_, 41 Leif Ericson, 63 Leif, son of Ozur, 19-21 Lerfos Falls, 91 _Libellus Islandorum_, 32, 34, 35, 50 _Linnæus_, 142, 172, 192, 206, 209, 219 _Liosvetninga Saga_, 30 London Bridge, 114, 152 Longfellow, 52, 198 Longshanks mission, 159 Lowe, R., 28 Lübeck, 119, 163, 164 Lucius, St., 116-117 Lund, 56, 71, 83, 128 Lyngby, 125 MAGNUS, Bp., 53 Magnus the Good, 85 Magnus Ladulaas, 213 Magnússon, 22 Mälar, Lake, 188, 201, 202, 212, 222 Mallet, P. H., 30, 58, 152 Man, 83 Margaret, Queen, 120-122, 143, 164 Marryat, Horace, 186 Micklegarth, 233 Montelius, 106, 181 Montferrand, Chevalier de, 247 Morris, William, 22, 127 Munketorp, 196 NADDODH, 32 Naerofjord, 26 Nelson, 143 Nestor, 227 Neva, 236, 241, 243, 249 Newport, R.I., 65 New York, 225 Nid, R., 68, 75, 76, 91 Niebuhr, 135 Nils the goldsmith, 161 Nolsö, 22 Nova Scotia, 67 Novgorod the Great, 155, 227 ODIN (WODEN), 57, 177-178, 180, 185 Olaf, St., 18, 21, 76-81, 85, 94, 124, 153-154, 168-169, 210-211, 231-233 _Olaf, St., Saga of_ (part of _Heimskringla_), 152, 168, 179 Olaf Tryggvison, 15, 16, 70-76, 113, 229-231 _Olaf Tryggvison, Saga of_ (part of _Heimskringla_), 63, 230 Olavus Petri, 216 _Origines Islandicæ_, 38, 83, 106, 182 Oslo, 83, 95-99 Ostero, 17 Otté, 122, 215 Otto, 113 PARIS, 193, 239 Patrec, St., 48 Peter the Great, 234-260 Peterhof, 256-258 _Pols Saga_, 58 Powell, York, 15, 38 RASTRELLI, 242, 243 Reek-ness, 33 Republic of Iceland, 44 Reykjavik, 32, 33, 38, 40-41, 46-47, 58-61 Riddarsholm, 213 Rognvald, Jarl, 13 Rosenborg, 134 Roskilde (Roiswell), 111-126 Ruric, 227 ST. EDMUNDSBURY, 84 St. Petersburg, 152, 226, 234-260 Salts Vedel, 169 Schuyler, 257 Scotland, 25, 26, 67, 222 Sergei, 206 Shakespeare, 149 Siegfrid, St., 124, 213 Sigmund, 15, 18, 73 Sigtuna, 177, 210, 212 Sigurd, Bp., 80 Sigurd Jerusalem-farer, 96 Skalholt, 50, 53, 54, 58, 83 Skansen, 220 Slite, 154 Smolni, 242 Snaefells Jökull, 40 Snoni Sturluson, 12, 54, 177, 181 Snowland, 32 Sodor (South Isles), 31, 70, 83 Southey, 66 Staroff, 242 Stavanger, 83 Steelyard, 155 Sten Sture, 189 Sticklestead, 80 Stockholm, 199-225 Stralsund, Treaty of, 163 Stromo or Streamsey, 15, 19 Styrmir hinn fródi, 61 Suworof, 242 Svein Twibeard, 113 Svein Wolf son, 117 Sverker house (Sweden), 187, 192 Sverre Sigurdsson, 84, 85 Svoldr, 113 Swedenborg, 197 Sylvanus, 35, 138 TEGNÉR, 68, 198, 199 Tessin, de, 194, 203 Thangbrand, 51-52 Thingvellir, 43 Thjelvar, 151 Thomas, W. W., 207 Thor, 49, 57, 180 Thore, 18 Thor-gar, 49-50 Thorild, 190 Thorir Klakka, 70-71 Thor-kell Moon, 39 Thorlac, Gudbrand, 29 Thorlak, St., 54 _Thorlacs Saga_, 54 Thorshavn, 15, 19, 22-25 Thorwaidsen, 47, 138-140 Thorwolf Butter, 33 Thrand o'Gate, 19-21 Thrond, 16-18 Tokyo, 235 Tolstoy, 251 Tressini, 240 Trondhjem, 76-90, 124 ULFILAS, Bp., 151, 191 Ulriksdal, 222 Upsala, 124, 159, 176-197, 210 VADSTENA, 196 Vaeringian Guard, 233 Varonikin, 248 _Vatzdaela Saga_, 25, 39, 181 Verestchagin, 254 Videy, 61-62 Vigfusson, Gudbrand, 38 Viking ships, 103-106 Vinland the Good, 63 Virginia, 123 Visborg Castle, 164 Visby, 154-175 Vossevangen, 107 Vulgaria, 232 WALDEMAR IV. (Atterdag), 130, 161-163 Weber, 256 Wellesley, 143 Westmen Isles, 37 Wheaton, 12 Wilde, Lady, 93, 140, 142, 176 William the Conqueror, 115 Winchester, 115 Wolf, Earl, 115-117 Worm Lyrgia, 71 _YNGLINGS, SAGA OF_ (part of _Heimskringla_), 117, _seq._, 184 ZIMMERN, HELEN, 154 Zucharoff, 243 THE LONDON AND NORWICH PRESS, LIMITED, LONDON AND NORWICH FOOTNOTES: [1] The skald was Thornbiorn Hornklofi; the lay was quoted by Snorri Sturluson in the _Heimskringla_; it was Englished by Henry Wheaton, _History of the Northmen_ (1831). [2] One thing very much to his credit the _Heimskringla_ lets us know: "Whensoever swift rage or anger fell on him, he held himself aback at first and let the wrath run off him, and looked at the matter unwrathfully." [3] Or Streamsey, the isle of streams, on which Thorshavn stands. [4] _Faereyinga Saga_, XXX.-XXXI. [5] All these details are taken from the CLIII. Chapter of the _Saga_ _of Olaf the Holy_, being part of the _Heimskringla_ of Snorri Sturluson (p. 54), done into English out of Icelandic by William Morris and Eiríkr Magnússon. [6] All the places described in this work, except St. Petersburg, are Lutheran, but see p. 195. [7] Other derivations have been suggested, but the traditional one appears by far the most satisfactory. [8] Of which the best known is Iona. [9] Dicuil, the Irish chronicler, was greatly impressed by the long Arctic days of summer. [10] _Libellus Islandorum_, VI. 1. [11] It is printed in full in _Origines Islandicæ_, by Gudbrand Vigfusson and F. York Powell, an extremely useful work, to which I am greatly beholden. [12] An excellent account of the constitution of the Republic is given in James Bryce's _Studies in History and Jurisprudence_, 1901. [13] _Njals Saga_, translated by Sir George Webbe Dasent, D.C.L. [14] The lower house is elected by Icelandic males, aged over twenty-five, paying 8kr. a year in direct taxes, who are their own masters--a rather restricted suffrage--the upper house is partly nominated, partly chosen by the lower. [15] _Landnama-bok_, VI. 1. [16] _ib._ XIV., 13. [17] _Cristne Saga_, VIII. 8. [18] _Liber Islandorum_, X., 3. [19] _Egils Saga_, 50. [20] _Eyrbyggja Saga_, 49. [21] _Thorlaks Saga_, Epilogue and XI., 1. He was never recognised as a saint in Rome, but that did not in the least affect the reverence felt for him in Iceland. [22] _Joans Saga_, II., 1. [23] _ib._ VII., 3. [24] The saga distinctly says that the pope approved of the consecration; it would be interesting to know whether this can be corroborated. At that time, as is well known, the clergy were in fact very frequently married in Northern Europe, but it was always papal policy to prevent it. [25] _Joans Saga_, XI., 3. [26] Mr. St. John Hope, to whom I have shown a photograph of the alabaster retable, says it is certainly of English origin. [27] _Joans Saga_, XIII., 3. [28] After leaving the Orkneys or Shetlands, the vessel would touch at one or more ports in the Faroes, Iceland, Greenland, Labrador, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New England. [29] By an old chronicler quoted, but not named, by C. A. Vansittart Conybeare in his _Place of Iceland in the History of European Institutions_, 1877. [30] It is extremely interesting to find so eminent a French antiquary as C. Enlart seeking to revive the theory that the famous Round Tower at Newport, R.I., was a church erected by the Norse. See _Revue de l'Art Chrétien_, Sept.-Oct., 1910. I cannot help feeling, however, that the balance of probability leans heavily against this view. [31] I have never seen the Alaska sea-coast; the deep bays and arms of Nova Scotia, lovely as they are, only mildly recall some of the tamest of Norwegian seascapes. [32] The district of which Nidaros or Trondhjem is the centre. [33] He was Pope Adrian IV., but the _Dictionary of National Biography_ suggests a doubt as to his name having been Nicolas Breakspear at all. [34] See p. 31. The title of this diocese is still attached to that of the Isle of Man, but the southern islands are the same as the Isles attached to the Scottish Diocese of Argyll. [35] A very interesting account of the foundation of this distant bishopric is given in _Graenlendinga Tháttr_, a work that gives us a peep of Greenland in the twelfth century after nothing has been heard of the colony for a hundred years. It is printed in _Origines Islandicæ_, Vol. II. See p. 38. The first bishop for Greenland was consecrated by Archbishop Auzur, of Lund. [36] "That was a great minster, and wrought strongly of lime, so that it might scarce be got broken when Archbishop Eystein let take it down" (_Heimskringla_, Vol. 3, Ch. XXXIX.). All my citations from the _Heimskringla_ are from the translation by Morris and Magnússon, except the lay at the beginning of the first chapter. [37] The corona is very rich. Clustered pillars, with arches divided by shafts and closed by stone screens, sustain the triforium, whose two-light openings have large carved caps and varied tracery, and the clearstorey with tall lancets. The dome-vault, which rises above, is steadied perhaps, but hardly supported, by very thin flying buttresses of rounded unconstructive form. The surrounding aisle has the richest of mural arcading and little chapels open from it to east and north and south. Into the east end of the quire a large arch opens from the corona itself, and a small one each side from the aisle. The quire is almost all rebuilt, pillars clustered or octagonal deeply fluted, with huge carved caps, sustain triforium, clearstorey and vaulting of character not dissimilar to those of the corona. The general effect is extremely fine, and one is reminded a little of Holyrood Chapel at Edinburgh and again of Lincoln Angel Quire. The corona recalls the similar feature at Canterbury, but is very much more beautiful. The most remarkable feature of the nave is the long and unbuttressed west front, 120 feet in extent. Two tiers of arches, dating from about the year 1300, still remain; there is no division of nave or aisle or tower, but three of the lower arches are pierced by doors, the others are divided by shafts. The upper arches do not correspond with the lower ones, than which they are much smaller; they are trefoil-headed and by corbels converted into niches. The general effect is a little like that of the west front of Wells, but not to any very striking extent. The cathedral is entirely detached, but a short distance to the south, forming barracks and a military museum to-day, are some remains of the L-shaped Palace of the Archbishops, displaying Romanesque and early pointed windows. [38] Used for Anglican services. [39] Trondhjem is connected with the interior by some of those superbly made roads for which Norway is so justly famed. They rest upon about four feet of stonework, the pieces diminishing upwards so far as size is concerned. The smaller streams are frequently spanned by arches of hard granite or other rock so neatly cut that no mortar need be used. Sometimes the road itself is cut in the living rock of the hills. The engine sheds are quite a feature of the city, and railways run southward to the new capital by the valleys of Gula and Glommen and past Hamar on its lake, also eastward into Sweden, among the mountains and the lakes. And at a place called Hell the latter line branches northward to Sunnan, near the head of Trondhjem Fjord. [40] _Heimskringla, Story of Harald the Hardredy._ Ch. LX. [41] _ib._ Ch. CIV. [42] _Heimskringla, Tale of Sigurd Jerusalem-farer._ Chs. XXXIV., XXXV. [43] Unbuttressed massive walls of stone surround a five-bayed nave with aisles, and chancel with north chapel, both round-apsed. The chapel opens to chancel and aisle by doorways rather than arches. The low clearstorey is lighted only on the south, over the east bay of the nave rises a tower that forms a lantern. The nave arcades have thick round pillars with the simplest caps; the chancel is vaulted at a much lower level than the wooden roof of the nave. The inside is very striking. [44] It is difficult, in reading over the play, to understand by what mental process Nora's preposterous conduct in leaving husband and children on the very vaguest of quests can be justified or even palliated. Ibsen merely professed to point out the hardships endured by women treated as dolls, the remedy for such social evils he did not essay to prescribe. Some of his most charming works, such as _Dame Inger of Östraat_, deal with Norwegian history. [45] Ch. XXVII. [46] _Origines Islandicæ_, Vol. I., p. 318. [47] _Civilisation of Sweden in Heathen Times_, by Oscar Montelius. [48] Close to Vossevangen is a building very similar to this one, but much more interesting, both from its still standing where its builders wished, and from its greater size; it also seems rather earlier in date than the stabbur re-erected at Bygdö, and was probably built about 1300. It is called the Finneloft, and is locally believed to be the oldest wooden building in Norway that was not a church. The basement is of slate stone, roughly walled, instead of, as at Bygdö, timber-work resting on big stones. The first floor in both is framed of flattened horizontal beams, dovetailed to fit at the corners; but at the Finneloft there are little passages at the sides occupying the space which at Bygdö is merely covered by the overhanging of the upper storey. This stage in both cases is walled with thick boards, placed vertically and overlapping each other. The roofs are of flattish pitch and in the pleasant manner of the North simple patterns are carved on doorpost and lintel and beam. The little side passages and the manner in which the horizontal beams are often mortised into the vertical remind one very much of Chinese carpentry, an impression greatly strengthened by the far more obvious resemblance that Norwegian Stavekirkes bear to Chinese temples. (See title-page.) [49] This remarkable little building, like several others of its class, consists of nave with aisle all round, aisled chancel with apse and an open cloister girdling the structure. The interior is lofty and dark, pillars, walls and roof all of timber. The three roofs, of cloister, aisle, and clearstorey, rising one above another, are increased to six by a turret-like structure that rises in three stages from the middle of the nave roof. The effect produced is singularly like that of a small Chinese temple, especially as queer objects like dragons project diagonally from the corners of the ridges. The cloister part seems far more suited to China than to Norway. In England there is a stavekirke at Greensted, near Ongar, supposed to have been erected in 1013 as a resting-place for the body of St. Edmund. The side walls are built of oak-trunks, but it is as plain as it could possibly be. [50] _Heimskringla, Saga of Olaf the Holy_, Ch. XI. [51] In his first volume to the _Political History of England_, edited by Hunt and Poole. [52] L. M. Larson. _Canute the Great, and the Rise of Danish Imperialism during the Viking Age._ 1913. [53] It is doubtless largely for this reason that Adam sometimes writes rather from the Danish point of view. The Icelandic Sagas are as free from bias as any history works in the world. [54] The quire has but a single bay with a round apse, there are transepts, there is a nave of seven bays. At the west end this is flanked by towers and an aisle girdles the structure from one tower and back to the other, running all round the apse--for the transepts, which no longer project, are reduced very largely to sections of the aisles. In the sacristy may be seen remains of the arch between the south transept and the eastern chapel which extended it before it was cut back. The interior is very striking from the unusual and pleasing combination of white and red. Bricks are exposed where are shafts and at the edges of the arches; white plaster covers walls and vaults. Many of the arches are round, but pointed ones are always used for the plain quadripartite vaulting. The windows are all single, some in groups of three, but they are numerous and wide enough to make the building extremely light. The blindstorey (triforium) is open to the church by arches about the same size as those that communicate with the aisles. Round the apse these two tiers of arches rest on shafts of granite, elsewhere stone is very sparingly used for capitals and a few other details. The blindstorey, itself vaulted above the vaulting of the aisles, forms a passage the whole way round the church, a groined gallery on two pillars carrying it from tower to tower, and wooden balconies across the transepts. (These look like sixteenth century work; can they have been erected when the transepts were cut back, perhaps at the Reformation?) By means of a simple archway over a road the blindstorey also communicates with the old Bishop's Palace to the eastward. The clearstorey has no passage along its windows, but round the apse there is an extra arcade between it and the blindstorey, which greatly improves the effect. The quire and apse with the central space and one bay of the nave are higher in floor-level than the rest of the church, and underneath is a crypt whose vaulting rests on a row of square columns, and whose small windows open to the aisles. Some of the fittings are extremely beautiful Renaissance work, especially the reredos with folding wings. This, it is said, a Dutch skipper was trying to smuggle through the Sound; on being detected he placed on it a ludicrously low value, hoping that the duty might thus be extremely light. Unfortunately, however, the Danish authorities preferred to purchase the work at the figure that its too clever owner had named. The worrying resourcefulness of customs house officials is no new thing. [55] The earliest that exists was built in 1384 by Bishop Ulfeld, who hallowed it to St. Laurence; the vaulting springs from little grotesque heads, and there are some beautiful wall paintings. In fact, many such have survived throughout the cathedral. Joining it on the west is another little square chapel, erected 1464, hallowed to St. Brita (p. 195). Here is some really beautiful old woodwork, and one of the wall paintings shows us a green devil writing. Westward it joins the north porch. Touching the south porch on the other side of the nave is the large chapel to the Three Holy Kings, erected 1459-64. A much older granite shaft with details of Byzantine character stands in the centre to support the vault which elsewhere rests on ancient corbels. Foliage and figure paintings cover vault and walls, and there are two sumptuous Classic Renaissance monuments to Christian III. (1533-59) and Frederic II. (1559-88). The former was chiefly responsible for the Danish Reformation, but neither king has so large a place in history as the columned canopies and numerous figures of their marble monuments might seem to imply. On the north side of the church Christian IV. (p. 132) built a fair chapel with star vaulting (whose character is indicated on the plan), resembling that of one bay in the sacristy. It is an interesting specimen of Gothic, dated 1615, the iron grill screen 1620, and the light streams in through two large four-fold windows, whose tracery is formed by the mullions intersecting, a common form in English work of that day, which is found also in a few of the oldest churches of Virginia. These are the only windows in the cathedral that are not single lights except the double ones in the upper stages of the western towers, which are later than the lower parts. The tall taper spires, copper-sheathed and nearly round, were added by the same king; they are a distinct improvement on those of the cathedral at Lübeck, which they rather resemble, and an ornament to the whole countryside. The great Chapel of Frederick V. (1746-66) is cross-shaped with a huge dome rising above; there are pilasters against the walls, and two columns (all with Ionic caps) separate it from the wide vestibule which joins the church. It is lighted from high up, and is a very fine thing in itself, though hopelessly out of keeping with the cathedral. (It was built after the death of the king whose name it bears, p. 135.) [56] _Rural Denmark and Its Lessons._ 1911. [57] This is at Lyngby, about seven miles from Copenhagen. Near the museum are the Agricultural College and an experimental farm. [58] The Danish West Indies are St. Thomas, St. John and Santa Cruz, just east of Porto Rico. No country in the Polar regions extends much further north than Greenland. [59] What remained of Axelhus was destroyed in 1740, when Christiansborg Palace was erected to gratify a whim of the German Queen, Sophia Magdalena of Kulmbach-Bayreuth. This structure was burned down in 1794 to be replaced by the palace burned in 1884, which was built in 1828 from designs by Hansen. The Rigsdag met there. The present citadel, protected by water and grass banks, buried in trees which hang over the moats, and dominated by a windmill, is on the Sound at the other end of the Amager channel. Most of the grass-grown rampart walls (near which was Andersen's Warton Almshouse) that surrounded the town and connected with the citadel have been removed, as Copenhagen had spread far beyond them, and they had become entirely out of date. [60] Fergusson is most unkind in his references to Danish Renaissance buildings, particularly this structure, "of which the inhabitants of Copenhagen pretend to be proud." [61] Trinity Church, of which this observatory is architecturally at any rate the tower, is a really noteworthy specimen of seventeenth century Gothic. Tall pointed windows pierce the walls along the sides and round the apse; octagonal pillars sustain the high-ribbed vault with painted bosses. There is no clearstorey, and the effect within is as striking as it is simple. [62] Hans Andersen. Brahe did not accept the Copernican system, though he first noticed the variations in the motions of the moon, and has hardly been excelled as a practical astronomer. He died in the service of the Emperor at Prague, 1601. [63] Practically forming part of the same design as the Amalienborg, and admirably completing it, is the Frederiks Kirke, which raises a great dome behind a Corinthian portico to the height of over 260 feet. Its construction dragged on from 1749 to 1894. The view from the top passes that from the Round Tower. [64] But while interest in the past, far more widespread than in most other countries, has done very much to bring objects of interest to the National Museum, England has been incomparably more happy than Denmark in preserving for generations yet to come the buildings of mediæval and Renaissance days (p. 125). [65] English education, in some ways excellent, attaches far too little importance to stimulating the imagination. I once met a very intelligent Cornishman who had been through the schools of his native county with credit, and could speak interestingly on many subjects, but he had never even heard of King Arthur. That is anything but an isolated instance. [66] Nor is it well to forget that the main reason for their great success is that the Danes are sufficiently educated to co-operate, instead of deeming every neighbour a necessary rival. Both town and country benefit alike. The capital is provided with pure milk at about half the London prices by the Copenhagen Milk Supply Company, from which the very poor may have milk for their babies without money and without price. [67] The church was designed by Hansen, and erected about a century ago. The general appearance of the neighbourhood will be greatly improved by the tall spire in the style of Wren, which Dr. Carl Jacobsen is giving, but the portico will be still further crushed. No one ever yet designed a Greek temple that would look well surmounted by a tall Christian steeple. [68] All the figures were designed by Thorwaldsen, but some were finished by pupils. There is a reproduction of that representing Christ in the Johns Hopkins Hospital at Baltimore. [69] Lady Wilde, _Driftwood from Scandinavia_, 1884. [70] Knut the Holy (p. 118), dedicated to St. Alban his church at Odense. [71] It is, of course, impossible that a work like the present should even refer to all the collections and interesting buildings in such a city as Copenhagen. [72] The sound dues which the owners of the castle collected from all the ships that sailed by dated from Hanseatic days. For Sweden they were abrogated by treaty in 1645, for other nations they were commuted for money in 1857. [73] E. C. Otté, _Scandinavian History_. [74] It does not seem certain that the term Gothic was applied to architecture in contempt of mediæval work. Evelyn in 1641 speaks of "one of the fairest churches of the Gotiq design I had seene," at a time when "Gothic" was used much as we employ "Teutonic" to-day. In 1713 Wren (_Parentalia_, a family biography by his son) says, "This we now call the Gothick manner of architecture so the Italians called what was not after the Roman style." The depreciatory use of the term seems first to occur in Dryden, 1695: "All that has not the ancient gust is called a barbarous or Gothique manner." So that it seems quite possible that Gothic architecture merely signified the style of the North of Europe as opposed to that of the South. Mallet (_Northern Antiquities_, translated from _Introduction à l'Histoire de Dannemarc_, 1770) refers to so many mediæval "edifices wherein we can find nothing to admire but the inexhaustible patience and infinite pains of those who built them!" [75] Helen Zimmern. _The Hansa Towns; Story of the Nations._ [76] Only a few miles from Visby is the ruined monastery known as Roma Kloster. [77] In a most interesting paper on the Walls of Visby read before the _Royal Institute of British Architects_, December 16, 1912, which I have found of much value. [78] Another sea-tower is known as Silfverhättan from the material with which it was roofed in the very wealthy days of old. [79] It finally became Swedish again in 1645. [80] There are still some slight remains, but the greater part was carried away by Charles XI. for the building of Karlskrona in the seventeenth century. In the grounds of the Burgomaster's House are some remains of the Kalfskinshuset, which seems to have been built originally in the early fourteenth century, the land being secured by making a calf's skin cover a fair area by cutting it into strings, much as was done with an ox-skin at Carthage. The owner of the ground when making the arrangement imagined he was only parting with about one square yard. [81] _Tour in Sweden_, 1838. [82] The main part is square, and the roughly vaulted roof is supported on four round arches that rest on square columns, placed close to the four corners. To the north and south and also to the west there project very shallow arms the same height as the rest. Over the western one and resting its corners on two of the large columns, rises a great square tower, three two-light windows aside in its upper stage. In the thickness of the walls there are stairs and galleries on three levels, whence varying views of the interior are gained. A comparatively low arch in the eastern wall opens to a small chancel, rib-vaulted and extended by a horseshoe apse. The details throughout are Romanesque of the plainest and the best, but the inspiration is clearly Byzantine. On a small scale the same sort of combination is attempted that La Farge has essayed in the great Cathedral of St. John at New York. [83] The square nave and four pillars were preserved, but instead of being close to the corners the columns were so spaced that the nine compartments of the vaulting should be practically equal squares. The vaulting ribs or arches, three against each wall, now look into the roofless nave. Not quite in the centre of the middle one on the east a round arch opens into the roofless chancel with horseshoe apse. A two-bay chapel projects on the south, and westward is a huge oblong tower with stairways in the thickness of its north and southern walls. [84] There is the same kind of oblong tower and the vaulting of the square nave rested on four octagonal pillars, which were placed near the corners of the walls. From a clustered respond in the chancel it is evident that there was a north chapel. [85] This is a late Romanesque building whose nave vault rested on four fairly equally spaced pillars, and the strong wide tower opened by arches both to nave floor and to the space above the vault. An arch just pointed, resting on clustered responds, opens to the roofless chancel which has a square east end; buildings joined it north and south; that on the latter side was evidently a transeptal chapel. Another square four-pillared late Romanesque nave was apparently that of St. Hans (Johans = John), but hardly a thing remains except a large and lofty chapel of later date with beautifully moulded corbels, in the north-east corner. These square churches are extraordinarily interesting to the student of architecture from the fact that they display Byzantine forms exercising an influence on the development of Gothic in the far north of Europe. Unfortunately the new idea does not seem to have spread beyond the island, but it is full of suggestion for small town churches at the present day, especially where the site is awkward and cramped. [86] The lower one just pointed, the upper round. [87] There are a few British instances of Romanesque churches, square without and apsidal within. Such are the Oratory of St. Margaret in the Castle at Edinburgh, two chapels in Romsey Abbey, and one in the ruined Abbey at Shaftesbury. A Renaissance instance of the same thing exists in the Chapel of Clare College, Cambridge. [88] It is a fine late Romanesque building, quite moderate in scale. For five bays extend nave and aisles, and the square chancel is flanked by small towers which become octagonal above the roof. (These are a characteristic German feature, and recall Trier or Mainz, but this Visby church has no resemblance to any existing building in Lübeck.) Pillars of some variety with figure-and leaf-carved caps sustain the triple vault, nor is the centre carried higher than the aisles. The great south door, six times recessed with shafts both round and square, is a magnificent example of what in England is called Norman work. There are many such fine doorways in the town, but no other is as good as this. Rather later than the rest a great west tower was built, and on the northern side it has a gallery open by a rich arcade. Extensive alterations and additions to the church were undertaken when men first began to build large traceried windows; they probably went on for long, but it may safely be assumed they were in progress about the year 1300. Most beautiful windows with foliated circles in their heads, not all alike, were pierced through the elder walls. A fair chapel was added west of south, adorned with pinnacles and gargoyles and statues and recessed carved door; clustered shafts hold up its vault. The climate doubtless caused it to open by a doorway, not arches, to the church. A tall addition was raised over the church with blindstorey arches and trefoil lancets in the clearstorey walls. It is a tempting hypothesis that it was intended to break through the central vault and to double the height of the nave, but C. Enlart is almost certainly right in saying: "These lofty halls above Scandinavian churches are sometimes habitable. The one which still rises over the nave of the church of St. Mary, now the cathedral, at Visby, had a chimney. It was the seat of the consulate of the Lübeck merchants, to whom the church belonged" (_Revue de l'Art Chrétien_, Sept.-Oct., 1910). In the middle ages churches served for the most miscellaneous purposes, and meetings of all kinds were held in them. In much the same style two stages were added to each of the eastern towers. In later days Renaissance spires were added to all the three towers, the largest having a balcony all round. A canopied pulpit was set up in the church, which is dated 1684. [89] At first sight the remains of Romanesque work are by no means clear, but the spacing of the pillars through the seven bays is exceedingly irregular, and on the south by the ruined cloister is an older chapel, the vault below quadripartite, above a tunnel. This church was finally consecrated, it seems, only in 1412, and it is apparently the only important mediæval building which is subsequent in date to the raid of 1361. The tower stood at the west end till 1885, and then it had to be removed or it would have tumbled down. [90] Square pillars, thirty feet in height, sustain the vaulting arches and fragments of the rough rubble vault. One of them has a shield inscribed "IACOB CHABBA A." At the east end two pillars are octagonal for a change; at the west old Romanesque responds are used. On the north remains a newel stair that led, it seems, to pulpit, rood and roof. Along the same side are still the remains of the vaulted cloister of the friars. [91] St. Göran is of late twelfth century date, and the low chancel still retains its vault, rising from corbels to a sort of dome at the top. From the keystone of the chancel arch started the vault-supporting arches that ran down the centre of the nave and rested on two pillars, round and square. Tall round-arched windows pierce the walls; there are twin west doors and three high gables mark the sky. [92] _Heimskringla; Story of the Ynglings_, Ch. II. [93] _Story of the Ynglings_, Chs. X. & IX. [94] _Story of the Ynglings_, Chs. XII. & XIII. [95] _ib._, Ch. XL. [96] _Story of the Ynglings_, Ch. LXXVI. [97] _Preface to the Heimskringla._ Presumably there was a transition period. [98] _The Civilisation of Sweden in Heathen Times_, by Oscar Montelius. Englished by Rev. F. H. Woods, 1888. [99] There is a ghost story about the dead men in an Icelandic howe in the _Tale of Thorstan Oxfoot_. Printed in _Origines Islandicæ_. Vol. II., p. 585. [100] _Story of the Ynglings_, Ch. XIV. [101] _Story of the Ynglings_, Ch. XVIII. [102] This is certainly not the real derivation of the term. Morris and Magnússon suggest that it may be "land of ten hundreds." Snorri was wrong in his belief that it meant "Tithe-land." [103] _Story of the Ynglings_, Ch. XXIX. [104] However, Horace Marryat, _One Year in Sweden_, 1862, tells us that when in 1803 Hultersta Church was destroyed there were discovered "two pagan altars of sacrifice, fitted with chimney-pipes, still containing ashes and bones of animals, bricked up when the building was adapted to Christian worship." [105] _Monumenta Hist. Vet. Upsaliæ_, 1709, by E. Benzelius. [106] Within there are interesting fittings both of mediæval and Renaissance date; including a carved reredos of the thirteenth century. There are the graves of Fornelius, chaplain to Gustavus Adolphus and of another pastor, named Celsius, who died in 1679. His grandson, of thermometer fame, is commemorated by a tablet. [107] There are women students as well as men. [108] The present building is a little later than his time, an interesting early pointed structure, partly of brick and partly of granite. Saddle roof tower, nave and aisles of five bays with transepts small and low. Brick arches and piers are partly cut into mouldings and clustered shafts, while angel paintings over the rib-vaulted roof have been restored with care. [109] There is a nave of seven bays and a quire of four, each with aisles and outer chapels, the western towers being the full width of both; each transept is of two bays and aisleless, the apse is three-sided with ambulatory and five radiating chapels, themselves apsidal. The corresponding chapels of Notre Dame, no less than thirteen in number, are not apsidal except the central one (though they usually are in other great French Gothic churches), but they were not built at the time Upsala was erected. In the case of Notre Dame the nave has two more bays and the quire one more, while the chapels, which were additions, are beyond the outer aisles. The length of Notre Dame is 430 feet, that of Upsala 360 feet, while across the transepts the French cathedral measures 165 feet, the Swedish 135 feet. The building of Upsala Cathedral was not finished till the fifteenth century, and the traceried windows in aisles and clearstorey are rather poor. The arches of the nave chapels are without caps, those of the quire in the same position are rather elaborate, and there is some good carved work over doors and round the ambulatory, though hardly in the same class with that at Notre Dame. The church was largely rebuilt in 1885-93, when the tall metal spires replaced rather ugly eighteenth century turrets and the central flèche was built. Both inside and outside look very new. The former is largely covered with modern paintings, and nearly all the fittings are recent except the beautiful Renaissance canopied pulpit by Tessin (p. 203). (I am unable to agree with Fergusson in thinking this "an extremely uninteresting church." T. Francis Bumpus, in his beautiful work, _The Cathedrals and Churches of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark_, 1908, comes to the conclusion that French influence in the design was small, and that it is to be attributed to a Swedish architect under very strong North German influence, but his reasons do not seem very conclusive.) [110] _Hale Lectures_, 1910; _The National Church of Sweden_, by John Wordsworth, Bishop of Salisbury. They were delivered in St. James' Church, Chicago, and grew out of the proposals for the union of the Swedish Church with the Anglican Communion. When in 1593 the Swedish Church in council at Upsala accepted the Augsburg confession of faith, the succession of Bishops and the ancient order were zealously guarded. Nevertheless, clergy ordained by the superintendents or Bishops of the other Scandinavian Churches (who have no succession from the mediæval Church) are admitted to Swedish altars. [111] Among other monuments, which are not very remarkable, is one with a marble effigy to John III. (d. 1592), which was executed in Italy. [112] _Rambles in Sweden and Gothland_, by "Sylvanus," published 1854. [113] The names of the nine islands are these: Stadsholmen (on which was the original settlement), Kungsholmen, Riddarsholmen, Helgeandsholmen, Skeppsholmen, Kastellholmen, Stromsborg, Djurgarden, Beckholmen. They are of extremely unequal size. The greater part of the city is on the mainland north and south, and the suburbs spread on to an indefinite number of other islands. [114] Many fine structures all over Sweden were erected by the same architect. Most of them were country seats for the nobility, who desired to house worthily the magnificent collections of art that had been the spoils of the Thirty Years' War, the only lasting monument for Sweden of the victories of her armies of old. [115] _Tour in Sweden in 1838._ [116] Within the effect is very splendid with many halls, a fine chapel and bewilderingly numerous suites of apartments. The great marble stair on the east with double columns in the three orders on the three levels is a magnificent feature. The inlaid floors and carved panelling, the really well-planned decorations, largely in white and gold, with ceiling paintings by Jacques Fouquet and others, all give the impression that the mansion has for generations been the home of people of culture and taste. The traditional absence of formality in the Swedish court is displayed by the way in which the public are admitted to the comfortable private rooms, where copies of the English _Graphic_ lie about and unbound Tauchnitz editions provide an admirable selection of English literature. A forest of horns and other trophies of sport in the billiard room, in fact to a great extent the whole atmosphere, suggest a large English country house. [117] Miss M. E. Coleridge wrote a novel about him called _The King with Two Faces_. [118] In his excellent work, _Sweden and the Swedes_ (one of them his wife), 1893. He was U.S. Minister to Sweden and Norway. [119] The National Museum, among many other things including a gallery of pictures old and new, possesses a collection of prehistoric antiquities rivalled only by that of Copenhagen. In the Humlegard (Botanic Garden) is a bronze statue of Linnæus in the centre of flower patterns; it also contains the Riks-Bibliotek, or National Library, among whose treasures are the Latin _Codex Aureus_, and the _Gigas Librorum_, one of whose illuminations is a huge coloured figure of the devil--spoils of the Thirty Years' War. [120] According to one legend the women of Wärend gained their ancient privilege of inheriting on equal terms with men by similar service against the Danes. The privilege is now extended all over the country. [121] He was crusading in Finland when his son Valdemar, first of the Folkungar Line, was chosen king by the Council on the collapse of the House of Sverker. [122] Quoted by Otté. [123] A nobler English saint (who with St. Peter shares the dedication of the Anglican Church in Stockholm), was one of the earliest and best Apostles of the Faith in the Swede-realm. Coming once to the borders of a lake, St. Siegfrid (or Sigurd) saw a bright vision of glistening angels, and vowed to raise a church where the cathedral of Vexio now stands. [124] Rhyming Chronicle, quoted by Otté. [125] There is a statue to him just east of the church. [126] It is often called the cathedral, but incorrectly. Stockholm is extra-diocesan, forming a sort of "enclave" administered by the Pastor Primarius and his consistory; necessary episcopal functions are performed by the Archbishop of Upsala. The church, originally about the same age as the Riddarsholmskyrka, was largely reconstructed about 1736, the chancel being removed, and the outer aisles apparently built. The square clock-tower has pilasters, the church has Classic buttresses, cornices, etc., but there are some mongrel-decorated windows. The interior is still largely mediæval, and most impressive from the wide dimensions--eight bays and five aisles all vaulted at the same level. The brick pillars are mostly clustered, the central vault has most ornate brick ribs, and the aisle roofs have remains of old paintings. There are really splendid Renaissance fittings, including a lovely Augsburg carved wooden reredos, stone font with Runic patterns dated 1514, two canopied thrones, carved pulpit and organ case, some fine tombs and tablets with several effigies and one canopy, besides a knight on horseback larger than life slaying a dragon. [127] Canon Wieselgren, of Göteborg (Gotenburg), was the main leader in the triumphant temperance movement, aided by the great chymist, Berzelius, who has a statue in the little Stockholm park that bears his name. Gustavus III. in 1775 had made distilling and selling spirits a Government monopoly, yielding a chief item of revenue. When this was abolished and distilling became absolutely free to all the state of Sweden became much worse than before. Eventually drinking was reduced to its present very moderate dimensions by confining the manufacture and sale of spirits to companies which may make what profit they can on everything else, but are only allowed five per cent. on drinks, any surplus being handed over to the local authority for providing such things as lectures, sports, excursions and libraries. As in America, districts may vote to be entirely "dry" if they prefer. This arrangement, generally called the Gotenburg system, with local variations, is in force over most of Norway and Sweden. Göteborg adopted it in 1865, and Stockholm followed in 1877. Beer is outside the arrangement. [128] Judging from the Lapp huts outside museums and the ordinary Zulu kraal of Natal, the African natives are the cleaner of the two races. [129] Not far from Skansen is the Hasselbacken Restaurant, whose cooking is unsurpassed in France. [130] Both thistle and globe artichokes are extensively cultivated for the markets of Stockholm. Tobacco is another crop very often to be seen; its growth is no new industry, it is mentioned by Laing in 1838, and he says it is used largely for snuff. Mere frames of poles on wheels serve for the ingathering of harvest. [131] _The Land of the Midnight Sun_, by Paul Du Chaillu, 1881. The author was French by birth. [132] The form Russia was not known till the end of the seventeenth century. In Great Blakenham Church, Suffolk, there is a monument of 1645 to a London merchant, named Swift "Honoured abroad for wise and just, Aske the Russe and Sweden theis." [133] The original authority for Ruric and his viking followers settling at Novgorod in 862 is the _Chronicle_ of Nestor, a monk of Kiev, who died about 1114. There is a very good account of early Russian history in W. R. Morrill's _Russia_ in the _Story of the Nations_. [134] _Heimskringla, Saga of Olaf Tryggvison_, Ch. VII. [135] _ib._, Ch. XXI. [136] _Saga of Olaf the Holy_, Ch. CXCI. [137] _ib._, Ch. CXCVIII. [138] _Heimskringla, Saga of Harald the Hardredy_, Ch. XVI. [139] My friend, A. Rothay Reynolds, author of _My Russian Year_, has very kindly elicited for me the information that these relics no longer exist. Although the sagas give no hint of any difference of religious views between Russians and Norse (p. 233), the bones of St. Henry were evidently insulted at St. Petersburg, where they might with more appropriateness have been shrined. [140] The present building was erected about 1733 from designs by Tressini, an Italian architect. It is a rather commonplace Classic church whose details are extremely poor, though the interior has a certain impressiveness from the tall pillars supporting the roof, for the usual galleries are not there. Over the windows are cherubs. Over the eastern octagon rises a little onion dome. The tower that surmounts the western front is crowned by the gilded needle spire which soars, out of all proportion to the church, no less than 364 feet into the air, sometimes most impressively catching the light of the setting sun while all is in shadow around. [141] This house contains the very distorting panes of glass that were the earliest to be made in Russia. The only large buildings in the city that Peter ever saw are part of the University and an adjacent palace of Menshikóf, now a school of cadets. Both are stucco and uninteresting; one bears the date 1710. [142] So that it is rather curious that this building should be on the whole the most perfect reproduction of an Italian church in St. Petersburg. There is nothing Russian about it; just an ordinary cruciform domed Renaissance building, 255 feet long. The other large monastery in St. Petersburg, Smolni, by the bend in the river, has buildings surrounding two huge courts which are made very pleasant by trees. The first, which is much the larger, has a covered cloister all round and a high dome in each corner. The centre of the western side is left open to expose to the street the chief façade of the church, which, like the Chantry at Winchester, stands detached in the centre of the court. It is a simple and impressive Italian Renaissance building, 245 feet long, with pilasters on two levels and in the centre a lofty tower, open to the top within. The interior is all white, some marble shafts giving relief to the eternal plaster. Designed by Rastrelli in 1734, the structure follows the type of his native country, except that five great onion domes mark as Russian the top of the tower. The faults of the building are glaring enough, but Fergusson seems rather severe in his remark: "It would be difficult to find in Europe anything so really bad as this." [143] Its dimensions are 731 by 584 feet. There are three stories with pilasters on two levels, but the architrave bends over each of the upper windows, and the consequent loss of the horizontal line that is of the very essence of Classic architecture, is absolutely fatal to the effect. Several halls and other chambers within are extremely magnificent, but the most glorious columns of marble support gilded capitals of plaster, and there is a good deal to justify Fergusson's observation about a man of taste recoiling in horror from such a piece of barbaric magnificence. The chapel is frankly Russian with the customary onion dome. The figures of the eikonastasis stand out detached, though the Eastern Church as a rule holds anything more than very slight relief as a breach of the Second Commandment. This little building contains some priceless relics, hands of the Baptist and of the Virgin, a fragment of the body of St. George, a piece of the true cross, a picture painted by St. Luke! There are relics nearer our own day in the chamber where the second Alexander died in 1881, after being wounded by the bomb (p. 253). His empty study chair, the books as he left them on the table, the few coins in his pocket when he went out for the last time, his unfinished cigarette, his coat thrown over the back of a chair, the couch on which he passed away. [144] This structure is more Greek in design, the architect was Baron Leo von Klenze, of Munich, and it was erected about the middle of the nineteenth century. There are two large courts, but one of them is divided by the great staircase which rises between two rows of magnificent grey marble columns that support the plaster ceiling; other portions have a very rich effect from the profusion of coloured marbles and the beautiful inlaid wood flowers which almost give the impression of mosaic. The lower storey forms a very complete museum, beginning with ancient Egypt and including many interesting things from different parts of the Russian Empire. The upper storey, which is higher and much better lighted, houses the famous collection of pictures. [145] The reason was that he wanted his people to look more European, but the Russians held a good deal of the oriental view of the sacredness of beards, and some preserved their cut-off hairs to be buried with them and enjoyed in the next world. [146] This characteristic seems even more apparent among Russians in the Far East than in their own capital. [147] The original Patriarchates were those of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople and Rome. That of Moscow dated from the sixteenth century. [148] Each portico has eight huge monolithic columns of red Finland granite, 56 feet high (bases and Corinthian caps of bronze), to support the sculptured tympanum, whose figures are in high relief, and is approached by a stately flight of steps. Except on the east there are splendid portals with grape patterns in stone and beautiful relief bronze doors. The side porticoes are deeper than the others and flanked by turrets for bells. The plan of the church is a simple oblong, 305 by 166 feet. Only four great windows admit light to the interior (except for a single one behind the altar opening into the eastern portico and those of the lantern dome), one on each side of the lateral porticoes. These naturally dwarf the design very much. A rather poorly planned circular colonnade and iron dome rise through the roof, resting on four huge piers in the church. The arrangement of the vaulting is made to suggest the ordinary cruciform plan, with a dome in each corner. The general effect is extremely rich from the magnificent shafts of malachite and lapis lazuli, and the lavish decorations of inlaid marble and mosaic, but nothing can redeem the poverty and commonplace character of the design. Fergusson calls the building a cold and unsatisfactory failure, and says there is not a week's thought in the whole design from pavement to dome cross. This it is not easy to deny, but there is much to redeem the failure, particularly in the splendour of the material. The other Renaissance buildings of the city are very numerous, and in many cases very large, but for variety they cannot be said to be remarkable. Of the foreign architects successively employed, not one was really good, and decidedly the best buildings on the whole are those designed by Russians who had mastered the principles of the foreign style. One of the most successful, by Varonikin, was erected at the worst possible period--the early nineteenth century. It is the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, an Italian building, 257 feet long. Inviting colonnades extend from the north transept to the street, forming a vast semi-circle and suggesting the piazza of St. Peter's. The portico of the transept appears in the centre with the dome rising above, and, material apart, this is one of the most successful things of its kind ever built. Nave and south transept also have porticoes. The columns throughout the building are in pairs, and within the effect is most striking from the granite columns that uphold the great entablature, the lofty flat roofs of the aisles, and the way in which the lantern rises from arches which terminate the tunnel vaults of the four arms. Much of the eikonastasis is of silver, and the floor is marble inlaid. [149] The centre of gravity of the rearing horse is successfully preserved in the right place by making the metal almost solid at the back and quite thin in front. In November, 1770, Rev. J. C. King wrote to Lord Macartney: "I mean the great stone on which Falconet's statue is to be placed.... It is ... arrived at St. Petersburg: the Empress had earrings made of it for herself." [150] In some parts of the city the soil is of a stiff blue clay. [151] The bomb-splintered brougham in which he took his last drive is preserved unrepaired among the Imperial carriages. [152] Surmounting the central octagon and its four corner turrets, the west tower, and the three eastern apses. Some are covered with extraordinary raised glazed tiles, the central one greatly resembling a turban. The interior is both simpler and better than the outside; four columns with round arches sustain the central lantern, and round arches open to apses and tower. The floor is of marble inlaid; walls, piers and vaults are covered with the most beautiful mosaics in prevailing colours of blue and gold, saints in four tiers varied by landscapes and lilies. The old church furniture displayed in the Museum of Alexander III. seems to show Byzantine forms getting more and more modified by increasing Tatar influences. In the same place are some very interesting paintings by Russian artists. Verestchagin has the place of honour, and is represented by some excellent pictures of battle scenes, some displaying the French at Moscow. The picture of Abram and Isaac done by Reutern with his left hand has faces that could hardly be better. [153] The Honourable Russia Company is still patron of four of the English churches in Russia. "A faint legal trace of the ancient privileges of the Muscovy Company survives in the extra-territorial character belonging for marriage purposes to the churches and chapels formerly attached to their factories in Russia."--Sir Courtenay Ilbert. [154] Quoted by Eugene Schuyler, _Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia_, 1884. [155] One room has pictures of several hundred Russian maids dwelling in different parts of the Empire, another has living plants trained up the walls as part of its permanent decoration, ornate chandeliers hang from ceilings, pictures and tapestry cover the walls, and, as at Solomon's Court, everything is splashed with gold. [156] Several such may be seen among the Imperial carriages in St. Petersburg. TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE -Plain print and punctuation errors fixed. 
6622	----	[Illustration: GUY EARL OF WARWICK] LEGENDS THAT EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW A SELECTION OF THE GREAT LEGENDS OF ALL TIMES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE EDITED BY HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE ILLUSTRATED AND DECORATED BY BLANCHE OSTERTAG INTRODUCTION If we knew how the words in our language were made and what they have meant to successive generations of the men and women who have used them, we should have a new and very interesting kind of history to read. For words, like all other creations of man, were not deliberately manufactured to meet a need, as are the various parts of a bicycle or of an automobile; but grew gradually and slowly out of experiences which compelled their production. For it is one of the evidences of the brotherhood of men that, either by the pressure of necessity or of the instinct to describe to others what has happened to ourself and so make common property of personal experience, no interesting or influential or significant thing can befall a man that is not accompanied by a desire to communicate it to others. The word legend has a very interesting history, which sheds light not only on its origin but on early habits of thought and customs. It is derived from the Latin verb _legere_, which means "to read." As legends are often passed down by word of mouth and are not reduced to writing until they have been known for centuries by great numbers of people, it seems difficult at first glance to see any connection between the Latin word and its English descendant. In Russia and other countries, where large populations live remote from cities and are practically without books and newspapers, countless stories are told by peasant mothers to their children, by reciters or semi-professional story-tellers, which have since been put into print. For a good many hundred years, probably, the vast majority of legends were not read; they were heard. When we understand, however, what the habits of people were in the early Christian centuries and what the early legends were about, the original meaning of the word is not only clear but throws light on the history of this fascinating form of literature. The early legends, as a rule, had to do with religious people or with places which had religious associations; they were largely concerned with the saints and were freely used in churches for the instruction of the people. In all churches selections from some book or books are used as part of the service; readings from the Old and New Testament are included in the worship of all churches in Christendom. In the earliest times not only were Lessons from the Old Testament and the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament read, but letters of bishops and selections from other writings which were regarded as profitable for religious instruction. Later stories of the saints and passages from the numerous lives which appeared were read at different services and contributed greatly to their interest. The first legends in Christian countries were incidents from the lives of the saints and were included in the selections made from various writings for public worship; these selections were called _legends_. The history of the word makes clear, therefore, the origin and early history of the class of stories which we call legends. The use of the stories at church services led to the collection, orderly arrangement and reshaping of a great mass of material which grew rapidly because so many people were interested in these semi-religious tales. In the beginning the stories had, as a rule, some basis in fact, though it was often very slight. As time went on the element of fact grew smaller and the element of fiction larger; stories which were originally very short were expanded into long tales and became highly imaginative. In the Thirteenth Century the _Legenda Aurea_, or Golden Legend, which became one of the most popular books of the Middle Ages, appeared. In time, as the taste for this kind of writing grew, the word legend came to include any story which, under a historical form, gave an account of an historical or imaginary person. During the Middle Ages verse-making was very popular and very widely practised; for versification is very easy when people are in the habit of using it freely, and a verse is much more easily remembered than a line of prose. For many generations legends were versified. It must be remembered that verse and poetry are often very far apart; and poetry is as difficult to compose as verse is easy. The versified legends were very rarely poetic; they were simply narratives in verse. Occasionally men of poetic genius took hold of these old stories and gave them beautiful forms as did the German poet Hartmann von Aue in "Der Arme Heinrich." With the tremendous agitation which found expression in the Reformation, interest in legends died out, and was not renewed until the Eighteenth Century, when men and women, grown weary of artificial and mechanical forms of literature, turned again to the old stories and songs which were the creation of less self-conscious ages. With the revival of interest in ballads, folk-stories, fairy stories and myths came a revival of interest in legends. The myths were highly imaginative and poetic explanations of the world and of the life of man in it at a time when scientific knowledge and habits of thought had not come into existence. The fairy story was "a free poetic dealing with realities in accordance with the law of mental growth, ... a poetic wording of the facts of life, ... an endeavour to shape the facts of the world to meet the needs of the imagination, the cravings of the heart." The legend, dealing originally with incidents in the lives of the saints and with places made sacred by association with holy men, has, as a rule, some slight historical basis; is cast in narrative form and told as a record of fact; and, in cases where it is entirely imaginative, deals with some popular type of character like Robin Hood or Rip Van Winkle; or with some mysterious or tragic event, as Tennyson's "Idylls of the King" are poetic renderings of part of a great mass of legends which grew up about a little group of imaginary or semi-historical characters; Longfellow's "Golden Legend" is a modern rendering of a very old mediaeval tale; Irving's "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is an example of purely imaginative prose, and Heine's "Lorelei" of a purely imaginative poetic legend. The legend is not so sharply defined as the myth and the fairy story, and it is not always possible to separate it from these old forms of stories; but it always concerns itself with one or more characters; it assumes to be historical; it is almost always old and haunts some locality like a ghost; and it has a large admixture of fiction, even where it is not wholly fictitious. Like the myth and fairy story it throws light on the mind and character of the age that produced it; it is part of the history of the unfolding of the human mind in the world; and, above all, it is interesting. HAMILTON W. MABIE. CHAPTER PAGE I. HIAWATHA From "Indian Myths." By Ellen Emerson. II. BEOWULF From "A Book of Famous Myths and Legends." III. CHILDE HORN From "A Book of Famous Myths and Legends." IV. SIR GALAHAD Alfred Tennyson. V. RUSTEM AND SOHRAB From "The Epic of Kings. Stories Retold from Firdusi." By Helen Zimmern. VI. THE SEVEN SLEEPERS OF EPHESUS From "Curious Myths of the Middle Ages." By Sabine Baring-Gould. VII. GUY OF WARWICK From "Popular Romances of the Middle Ages." By George W. Cox, M. A. and Eustace Hinten Jones. VIII. CHEVY CHASE From "The English and Scottish Popular Ballads." Edited by Francis James Child. IX. THE FATE OF THE CHILDREN OF LIR From "Gods and Fighting Men: The Story of the Tuatha de Danaan and of the Fianna of Ireland." Arranged and put into English by Lady Gregory. X. THE BELEAGUERED CITY From "Voices of the Night." By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. XI. PRESTER JOHN From "Curious Myths of the Middle Ages." By Sabine Baring-Gould. XII. THE WANDERING JEW From "Curious Myths of the Middle Ages." By Sabine Baring-Gould. XIII. KING ROBERT OF SICILY From "The Wayside Inn." By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. XIV. THE LIFE OF THE BEATO TORELLO DA POPPI From "Il Libro d'Oro of Those Whose Names are Written in the Lamb's Book of Life." Translated from the Italian by Mrs. Francis Alexander. Originally written in Latin by Messer Torrelo of Casentino, Canonico of Fiesole, and put into Italian by Don Silvano. XV. THE LORELEI From the German of Heinrich Heine. XVI. THE PASSING OF ARTHUR From "Idylls of the King." By Alfred Tennyson. XVII. RIP VAN WINKLE Washington Irving. XVIII. THE GRAY CHAMPION From "Twice Told Tales." By Nathaniel Hawthorne. XIX. THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW Washington Irving. CHAPTER I WIGWAM LEGEND OF HIAWATHA [Footnote: This story is ascribed to Abraham le Fort, an Onondaga chief, a graduate of Geneva College. The poem of Longfellow has given it general interest. Hiawatha is an example of the intellectual capacity of one of that race of whom it has been said "Take these Indians in their owne trimme and naturall disposition, and they bee reported to bee wise, lofty spirited, constant in friendship to one another: true in their promise, and more industrious than many others."--Wood's, "New England's Prospect," London, 1634.] On the banks of Tioto, or Cross Lake, resided an eminent man who bore the name of Hiawatha, or the Wise Man. This name was given him, as its meaning indicates, on account of his great wisdom in council and power in war. Hiawatha was of high and mysterious origin. He had a canoe which would move without paddles, obedient to his will, and which he kept with great care and never used except when he attended the general council of the tribes. It was from Hiawatha the people learned to raise corn and beans; through his instructions they were enabled to remove obstructions from the water courses and clear their fishing grounds; and by him they were helped to get the mastery over the great monsters which overran the country. The people listened to him with ever increasing delight; and he gave them wise laws and maxims from the Great Spirit, for he had been second to him only in power previous to his taking up his dwelling with mankind. Having selected the Onondagas for his tribe, years passed away in prosperity; the Onondagas assumed an elevated rank for their wisdom and learning, among the other tribes, and there was not one of these which did not yield its assent to their superior privilege of lighting the council-fire. But in the midst of the high tide of their prosperity, suddenly there arose a great alarm at the invasion of a ferocious band of warriors from the North of the Great Lakes; and as these bands advanced, an indiscriminate slaughter was made of men, women, and children. Destruction fell upon all alike. The public alarm was great; and Hiawatha advised them not to waste their efforts in a desultory manner, but to call a council of all the tribes that could be gathered together, from the East to the West; and, at the same time, he appointed a meeting to take place on an eminence on the banks of the Onondaga Lake. There, accordingly, the chief men assembled, while the occasion brought together a vast multitude of men, women, and children, who were in expectation of some marvellous deliverance. Three days elapsed, and Hiawatha did not appear. The multitude began to fear that he was not coming, and messengers were despatched for him to Tioto, who found him depressed with a presentiment that evil would follow his attendance. These fears were overruled by the eager persuasions of the messengers; and Hiawatha, taking his daughter with him, put his wonderful canoe in its element and set out for the council. The grand assemblage that was to avert the threatened danger appeared quickly in sight, as he moved rapidly along in his magic canoe; and when the people saw him, they sent up loud shouts of welcome until the venerated man landed. A steep ascent led up the banks of the lake to the place occupied by the council; and, as he walked up, a loud whirring sound was heard above, as if caused by some rushing current of air. Instantly, the eyes of all were directed upward to the sky, where was seen a dark spot, something like a small cloud, descending rapidly, and as it approached, enlarging in its size and increasing in velocity. Terror and alarm filled the minds of the multitude and they scattered in confusion. But as soon as he had gained the eminence, Hiawatha stood still, causing his daughter to do the same--deeming it cowardly to fly, and impossible, if it was attempted, to divert the designs of the Great Spirit. The descending object now assumed a more definite aspect; and, as it came nearer, revealed the shape of a gigantic white bird, with wide-extended and pointed wings. This bird came down with ever increasing velocity, until, with a mighty swoop, it dropped upon the girl, crushing her at once to the earth. The fixed face of Hiawatha alone indicated his consciousness of his daughter's death; while in silence he signalled to the warriors, who had stood watching the event in speechless consternation. One after the other stepped up to the prostrate bird, which was killed by its violent fall, and selecting a feather from its snow-white plumage, decorated himself therewith. [Footnote: Since this event, say the Indians of this tribe, the plumage of the white heron has been used for their decorations on the war-path.] But now a new affliction fell upon Hiawatha; for, on removing the carcass of the bird, not a trace could be discovered of his daughter. Her body had vanished from the earth. Shades of anguish contracted the dark face of Hiawatha. He stood apart in voiceless grief. No word was spoken. His people waited in silence, until at length arousing himself, he turned to them and walked in calm dignity to the head of the council. The first day he listened with attentive gravity to the plans of the different speakers; on the next day he arose and said: "My friends and brothers; you are members of many tribes, and have come from a great distance. We have come to promote the common interest, and our mutual safety. How shall it be accomplished? To oppose these Northern hordes in tribes singly, while we are at variance often with each other, is impossible. By uniting in a common band of brotherhood we may hope to succeed. Let this be done, and we shall drive the enemy from our land. Listen to me by tribes. You, the Mohawks, who are sitting under the shadow of the great tree, whose branches spread wide around, and whose roots sink deep into the earth, shall be the first nation, because you are warlike and mighty. You, the Oneidas, who recline your bodies against the everlasting stone that cannot be moved, shall be the second nation, because you always give wise counsel. You, the Onondagas, who have your habitation at the foot of the great hills, and are overshadowed by their crags, shall be the third nation, because you are greatly gifted in speech. You, the Senecas, whose dwelling is in the dark forest, and whose home is all over the land, shall be the fourth nation, because of your superior cunning in hunting. And you, the Cayugas, the people who live in the open country and possess much wisdom, shall be the fifth nation, because you understand better the art of raising corn and beans, and making lodges. Unite, ye five nations, and have one common interest, and no foe shall disturb and subdue you. You, the people who are the feeble bushes, and you who are a fishing people, may place yourselves under our protection, and we will defend you. And you of the South and West may do the same, and we will protect you. We earnestly desire the alliance and friendship of you all. Brothers, if we unite in this great bond, the Great Spirit will smile upon us, and we shall be free, prosperous, and happy; but if we remain as we are, we shall be subject to his frown. We shall be enslaved, ruined, perhaps annihilated. We may perish under the war-storm, and our names be no longer remembered by good men, nor be repeated in the dance and song. Brothers, those are the words of Hiawatha. I have spoken. I am done." [Footnote: Canassatego, a renowned chief of the Confederacy, in his remarkable piece of advice to the Colonial Commissioners of Lancaster in July, 1744, seems to imply that there was an error in this plan of Hiawatha, as it did not admit all nations into their Confederacy with equal rights.] The next day his plan of union was considered and adopted by the council, after which Hiawatha again addressed the people with wise words of counsel, and at the close of this speech bade them farewell; for he conceived that his mission to the Iroquois was accomplished, and he might announce his withdrawal to the skies. He then went down to the shore, and assumed his seat in his mystical canoe. Sweet music was heard in the air as he seated himself; and while the wondering multitude stood gazing at their beloved chief, he was silently wafted from sight, and they saw him no more. He passed to the Isle of the Blessed, inhabited by Owayneo [Footnote: A name for their Great Spirit in the dialect of the Iroquois.] and his manitos. And they said, "Farewell forever!" Said, "Farewell, O Hiawatha!" And the forests, dark and lonely, Moved through all their depths of darkness^ Sighed, "Farewell, O Hiawatha!" And the waves upon the margin, Rising, rippling on the pebbles, Sobbed, "Farewell, O Hiawatha!" And the heron, the shuh-shu-gah, From her haunts among the fen-lands, Screamed, "Farewell, O Hiawatha!" Thus departed Hiawatha, Hiawatha the Beloved, In the glory of the sunset, In the purple mists of evening, To the regions of the home-wind, Of the northwest wind, Keewaydin, To the Islands of the Blessed, To the kingdom of Ponemah, To the land of the Hereafter. [Footnote: "The Song of Hiawatha," by H. W. Longfellow.] CHAPTER II BEOWULF Old King Hrothgar built for himself a great palace, covered with gold, with benches all round outside, and a terrace leading up to it. It was bigger than any hall men had ever heard of, and there Hrothgar sat on his throne to share with men the good things God had given him. A band of brave knights gathered round him, all living together in peace and joy. But there came a wicked monster, Grendel, out of the moors. He stole across the fens in the thick darkness, and touched the great iron bars of the door of the hall, which immediately sprang open. Then, with his eyes shooting out flame, he spied the knights sleeping after battle. With his steel finger nails the hideous fiend seized thirty of them in their sleep. He gave yells of joy, and sped as quick as lightning across the moors, to reach his home with his prey. When the knights awoke, they raised a great cry of sorrow, whilst the aged King himself sat speechless with grief. None could do battle with the monster, he was too strong, too horrible for any one to conquer. For twelve long years Grendel warred against Hrothgar; like a dark shadow of death he prowled round about the hall, and lay in wait for his men on the misty moors. One thing he could not touch, and that was the King's sacred throne. Now there lived in a far-off land a youngster called Beowulf, who had the strength of thirty men. He heard of the wicked deeds of Grendel, and the sorrow of the good King Hrothgar. So he had made ready a strong ship, and with fourteen friends set sail to visit Hrothgar, as he was in need of help. The good ship flew over the swelling ocean like a bird, till in due time the voyagers saw shining white cliffs before them. Then they knew their journey was at an end; they made fast their ship, grasped their weapons, and thanked God that they had had an easy voyage. Now the coastguard spied them from a tower. He set off to the shore, riding on horseback, and brandishing a huge lance. "Who are you," he cried, "bearing arms and openly landing here? I am bound to know from whence you come before you make a step forward. Listen to my plain words, and hasten to answer me." Beowulf made answer that they came as friends, to rid Hrothgar of his wicked enemy Grendel, and at that the coastguard led them on to guide them to the King's palace. Downhill they ran together, with a rushing sound of voices and armed tread, until they saw the hall shining like gold against the sky. The guard bade them go straight to it, then, wheeling round on his horse, he said, "It is time for me to go. May the Father of All keep you in safety. For myself, I must guard the coast." The street was paved with stone, and Beowulf's men marched along, following it to the hall, their armour shining in the sun and clanging as they went. They reached the terrace, where they set down their broad shields. Then they seated themselves on the bench, while they stacked their spears together and made themselves known to the herald. Hrothgar speedily bade them welcome. They entered the great hall with measured tread, Beowulf leading the way. His armour shone like a golden net-work, and his look was high and noble, as he said, "Hail, O King! To fight against Grendel single-handed have I come. Grant me this, that I may have this task alone, I and my little band of men. I know that the terrible monster despises weapons, and therefore I shall bear neither sword, nor shield, nor buckler. Hand to hand I will fight the foe, and death shall come to whomsoever God wills. If death overtakes me, then will the monster carry away my body to the swamps, so care not for my body, but send my armour to my King. My fate is in God's hands." Hrothgar loved the youth for his noble words, and bade him and his men sit down to the table and merrily share the feast, if they had a mind to do so. As they feasted, a minstrel sang with a clear voice. The Queen, in cloth of gold, moved down the hall and handed the jewelled cup of mead to the King and all the warriors, old and young. At the right moment, with gracious words, she brought it to Beowulf. Full of pride and high purpose, the youth drank from the splendid cup, and vowed that he would conquer the enemy or die. When the sun sank in the west, all the guests arose. The King bade Beowulf guard the house, and watch for the foe. "Have courage," he said, "be watchful, resolve on success. Not a wish of yours shall be left unfulfilled, if you perform this mighty deed." Then Beowulf lay down to rest in the hall, putting off from him his coat of mail, helmet, and sword. Through the dim night Grendel came stealing. All slept in the darkness, all but one! The door sprang open at the first touch that the monster gave it. He trod quickly over the paved floor of the hall; his eyes gleamed as he saw a troop of kinsmen lying together asleep. He laughed as he reckoned on sucking the life of each one before day broke. He seized a sleeping warrior, and in a trice had crunched his bones. Then he stretched out his hand to seize Beowulf on his bed. Quickly did Beowulf grip his arm; he stood up full length and grappled with him with all his might, till his fingers cracked as though they would burst. Never had Grendel felt such a grip; he had a mind to go, but could not. He roared, and the hall resounded with his yells, as up and down he raged, with Beowulf holding him in a fast embrace. The benches were overturned, the timbers of the hall cracked, the beautiful hall was all but wrecked. Beowulf's men had seized their weapons and thought to hack Grendel on every side, but no blade could touch him. Still Beowulf held him by the arm; his shoulder cracked, and he fled, wounded to death, leaving hand, arm, and shoulder in Beowulf's grasp. Over the moors, into the darkness, he sped as best he might, and to Beowulf was the victory. Then, in the morning, many a warrior came from far and near. Riding in troops, they tracked the monster's path, where he had fled stricken to death. In a dismal pool he had yielded up his life. Racing their horses over the green turf, they reached again the paved street. The golden roof of the palace glittered in the sunlight. The King stood on the terrace and gave thanks to God. "I have had much woe," he said, "but this lad, through God's might, has done the deed that we, with all our wisdom, could not do. Now I will heartily love you, Beowulf, as if you were my son. You shall want for nothing in this world, and your fame shall live forever." The palace was cleansed, the walls hung anew with cloth of gold, the whole place was made fair and straight, for only the roof had been left altogether unhurt after the fight. A merry feast was held. The King brought forth out of his treasures a banner, helmet, and mail coat. These he gave to Beowolf; but more wonderful than all was a famous sword handed down to him through the ages. Then eight horses with golden cheekplates were brought within the court; one of them was saddled with King Hrothgar's own saddle, decorated with silver. Hrothgar gave all to Beowulf, bidding him enjoy them well. To each of Beowulf's men he gave rich gifts. The minstrels sang; the Queen, beautiful and gracious, bore the cup to the King and Beowulf. To Beowulf she, too, gave gifts: mantle and bracelets and collar of gold. "Use these gifts," she said, "and prosper well! As far as the sea rolls your name shall be known." Great was the joy of all till evening came. Then the hall was cleared of benches and strewn with beds. Beowulf, like the King, had his own bower this night to sleep in. The nobles lay down in the hall, at their heads they set their shields and placed ready their helmets and their mail coats. Each slept, ready in an instant to do battle for his lord. So they sank to rest, little dreaming what deep sorrow was to fall on them. Hrothgar's men sank to rest, but death was to be the portion of one. Grendel the monster was dead, but Grendel's mother still lived. Furious at the death of her son, she crept to the great hall, and made her way in, clutched an earl, the King's dearest friend, and crushed him in his sleep. Great was the uproar, though the terror was less than when Grendel came. The knights leapt up, sword in hand; the witch hurried to escape, she wanted to get out with her life. The aged King felt bitter grief when he heard that his dearest friend was slain. He sent for Beowulf, who, like the King, had had his own sleeping bower that night. The youth stood before Hrothgar and hoped that all was well. "Do not ask if things go well," said the sorrowing King, "we have fresh grief this morning. My dearest friend and noblest knight is slain. Grendel you yourself destroyed through the strength given you by God, but another monster has come to avenge his death. I have heard the country folk say that there were two huge fiends to be seen stalking over the moors, one like a woman, as near as they could make out, the other had the form of a man, but was huger far. It was he they called Grendel. These two haunt a fearful spot, a land of untrodden bogs and windy cliffs. A waterfall plunges into the blackness below, and twisted trees with gnarled roots overhang it. An unearthly fire is seen gleaming there night after night. None can tell the depth of the stream. Even a stag, hunted to death, will face his foes on the bank rather than plunge into those waters. It is a fearful spot. You are our only help, dare you enter this horrible haunt?" Quick was Beowulf's answer: "Sorrow not, O King! Rouse yourself quickly, and let us track the monster. Each of us must look for death, and he who has the chance should do mighty deeds before it comes. I promise you Grendel's kin shall not escape me, if she hide in the depths of the earth or of the ocean." The King sprang up gladly, and Beowulf and his friends set out. They passed stony banks and narrow gullies, the haunts of goblins. Suddenly they saw a clump of gloomy trees, overhanging a dreary pool. A shudder ran through them, for the pool was blood-red. All sat down by the edge of the pool, while the horn sounded a cheerful blast. In the water were monstrous sea-snakes, and on jutting points of land were dragons and strange beasts: they tumbled away, full of rage, at the sound of the horn. One of Beowulf's men took aim at a monster with his arrow, and pierced him through, so that he swam no more. Beowulf was making ready for the fight. He covered his body with armour lest the fiend should clutch him. On his head was a white helmet, decorated with figures of boars worked in silver. No weapon could hurt it. His sword was a wonderful treasure, with an edge of iron; it had never failed any one who had needed it in battle. "Be like a father to my men, if I perish," said Beowulf to Hrothgar, "and send the rich gifts you have given me to my King. He will see that I had good fortune while life lasted. Either I will win fame, or death shall take me." He dashed away, plunging headlong into the pool. It took nearly the whole day before he reached the bottom, and while he was still on his way the water-witch met him. For a hundred years she had lived in those depths. She made a grab at him, and caught him in her talons, but his coat of mail saved him from her loathsome fingers. Still she clutched him tight, and bore him in her arms to the bottom of the lake; he had no power to use his weapons, though he had courage enough. Water-beasts swam after him and battered him with their tusks. Then he saw that he was in a vast hall, where there was no water, but a strange, unearthly glow of firelight. At once the fight began, but the sword would not bite--it failed its master in his need; for the first time its fame broke down. Away Beowulf threw it in anger, trusting to the strength of his hands. He cared nothing for his own life, for he thought but of honour. He seized the witch by the shoulder and swayed her so that she sank on the pavement. Quickly she recovered, and closed in on him; he staggered and fell, worn out. She sat on him, and drew her knife to take his life, but his good mail coat turned the point. He stood up again, and then truly God helped him, for he saw among the armour on the wall an old sword of huge size, the handiwork of giants. He seized it, and smote with all his might, so that the witch gave up her life. His heart was full of gladness, and light, calm and beautiful as that of the sun, filled the hall. He scanned the vast chamber, and saw Grendel lying there dead. He cut off his head as a trophy for King Hrothgar, whose men the fiend had killed and devoured. Now those men who were seated on the banks of the pool watching with Hrothgar saw that the water was tinged with blood. Then the old men spoke together of the brave Beowulf, saying they feared they would never see him again. The day was waning fast, so they and the King went homeward. Beowulf's men stayed on, sick at heart, gazing at the pool. They longed, but did not expect, to see their lord and master. Under the depths, Beowulf was making his way to them. The magic sword melted in his hand, like snow in sunshine; only the hilt remained, so venomous was the fiend that had been slain therewith. He brought nothing more with him than the hilt and Grendel's head. Up he rose through the waters where the furious sea-beasts before had chased him. Now not one was to be seen; the depths were purified when the witch lost her life. So he came to land, bravely swimming, bearing his spoils. His men saw him, they thanked God, and ran to free him of his armour. They rejoiced to get sight of him, sound and whole. Now they marched gladly through the highways to the town. It took four of them to carry Grendel's head. On they went, all fourteen, their captain glorious in their midst. They entered the great hall, startling the King and Queen, as they sat at meat, with the fearful sight of Grendel's head. Beowulf handed the magic hilt to Hrothgar, who saw that it was the work of giants of old. He spake to Beowulf, while all held their peace, praised him for his courage, said that he would love him as his son, and bade him be a help to mankind, remembering not to glory in his own strength, for he held it from God, and death without more ado might subdue it altogether. "Many, many treasures," he said, "must pass from me to you to-morrow, but now rest and feast." Gladly Beowulf sat down to the banquet, and well he liked the thought of the rest. When day dawned, he bade the King farewell with noble words, promising to help him in time of need. Hrothgar with tears and embraces let him go, giving him fresh gifts of hoarded jewels. He wept, for he loved Beowulf well, and knew he would never see him any more. The coastguard saw the gallant warriors coming, bade them welcome, and led them to their ship. The wind whistled in the sails, and a pleasant humming sound was heard as the good ship sped on her way. So Beowulf returned home, having done mighty deeds and gained great honour. In due time Beowulf himself became King, and well he governed the land for fifty years. Then trouble came. A slave, fleeing from his master, stumbled by an evil chance into the den of a dragon. There he saw a dazzling hoard of gold, guarded by the dragon for three hundred winters. The treasure tempted him, and he carried off a tankard of gold to give to his master, to make peace with him. The dragon had been sleeping, now he awoke, and sniffed the scent of an enemy along the rock. He hunted diligently over the ground; he wanted to find the man who had done the mischief in his sleep. In his rage he swung around the treasure mound, dashing into it now and again to seek the jewelled tankard. He found it hard to wait until evening came, when he meant to avenge with fire the loss of his treasure. Presently the sun sank, and the dragon had his will. He set forth, burning all the cheerful homes of men: his rage was felt far and wide. Before dawn he shot back again to his dark home, trusting in his mound and in his craft to defend himself. Now Beowulf heard that his own home had been burnt to the ground. It was a great grief to him, almost making him break out in a rage against Providence. His breast heaved with anger. He meant to rid his country of the plague, and to fight the dragon single handed. He would have thought it shame to seek him with a large band, he who, as a lad, had killed Grendel and his kin. As he armed for the fray, many thoughts filled his mind; he remembered the days of his youth and manhood. "I fought many wars in my youth," he said, "and now that I am aged, and the keeper of my people, I will yet again seek the enemy and do famously." He bade his men await him on the mountain-side. They were to see which of the two would come alive out of the tussle. There the aged King beheld where a rocky archway stood, with a stream of fire gushing from it; no one could stand there and not be scorched. He gave a great shout, and the dragon answered with a hot breath of flame. Beowulf, with drawn sword, stood well up to his shield, when the burning dragon, curved like an arch, came headlong upon him. The shield saved him but little; he swung up the sword to smite the horrible monster, but its edge did not bite. Sparks flew around him on every side; he saw that the end of his days had come. His men crept away to the woods to save their lives. One, and one only, Wiglaf by name, sped through the smoke and flame to help his lord. "My Lord Beowulf!" he cried, "with all your might defend life, I will support you to the utmost." The dragon came on in fury; in a trice the flames consumed Wiglaf's shield, but, nothing daunted, he stepped under the shelter of Beowulf's, as his own fell in ashes about him. The King remembered his strength of old, and he smote with his sword with such force that it stuck in the monster's head, while splinters flew all around. His hand was so strong that, as men used to say, he broke any sword in using it, and was none the worse for it. Now, for the third time, the dragon rushed upon him, and seized him by the neck with his poisonous fangs. Wiglaf, with no thought for himself, rushed forward, though he was scorched with the flames, and smote the dragon lower down than Beowulf had done. With such effect the sword entered the dragon's body that from that moment the fire began to cease. The King, recovering his senses, drew his knife and ended the monster's life. So these two together destroyed the enemy of the people. To Beowulf that was the greatest moment of his life, when he saw his work completed. The wound that the dragon had given him began to burn and swell, for the poison had entered it. He knew that the tale of his days was told. As he rested on a stone by the mound, he pondered thoughtfully, looking on the cunning work of the dwarfs of old, the stone arches on their rocky pillars. Wiglaf, with tender care, unloosed his helmet and brought him water, Beowulf discoursing the while: "Now I would gladly have given my armour to my son, had God granted me one. I have ruled this people fifty years, and no King has dared attack them. I have held my own with justice, and no friend has lost his life through me. Though I am sick with deadly wounds, I have comfort in this. Now go quickly, beloved Wiglaf, show me the ancient wealth that I have won for my people, the gold and brilliant gems, that I may then contentedly give up my life." Quickly did Wiglaf enter the mound at the bidding of his master. On every side he saw gold and jewels and choice vases, helmets and bracelets, and over head, a marvellous banner, all golden, gleaming with light, so that he could scan the surface of the floor and see the curious treasured hoards. He filled his lap full of golden cups and platters, and also took the brilliant banner. He hastened to return with his spoils, wondering, with pain, if he should find his King still alive. He bore his treasures to him, laid them on the ground, and again sprinkled him with water. "I thank God," said the dying King, "that I have been permitted to win this treasure for my people; now they will have all that they need. But I cannot be any longer here. Bid my men make a lofty mound on the headland overlooking the sea, and there place my ashes. In time to come men shall call it Beowulf's Barrow, it shall tower aloft to guide sailors over the stormy seas." The brave King took from his neck his golden collar, took his helmet and his coronet, and gave them to his true knight, Wiglaf. "Fate has swept all my kinsmen away," said he, "and now I must follow them." That was his last word, as his soul departed from his bosom, to join the company of the just. Of all Kings in the world, he was, said his men, the gentlest to his knights and the most desirous of honour. CHAPTER III CHILDE HORN There dwelt once in Southland a King named Altof, who was rich, powerful, and gentle. His Queen was named Gotthild, and they had a young son called Horn. The rain never rained, the sun never shone upon a fairer boy; his skin was like roses and lilies, and as clear as glass; and he was as brave as he was handsome. At fifteen years old his like was not to be seen in all the kingdoms around. He had a band of play-fellows, twelve boys of noble birth, but not one of them could throw the ball so high as Horn. Out of the twelve, two were his special companions, and one of them, Athulf, was the best of the company, while the other, Figold, was altogether the worst. It came to pass one summer morning that good King Altof was riding on the sea-shore with only two attendants, and he looked out to sea and saw fifteen ships lying in the offing. It was the heathen Vikings who had come from Northland, bent on plundering Christian lands. When these saw the three Norsemen, they swarmed on to shore like a pack of wolves, all armed and full of battle fury. They slew the King and his knights, and made themselves masters of the whole land. Queen Gotthild wept much for her lord, and more for her son, Childe Horn, who could not now ascend his father's throne. She clad herself in mourning garments, the meanest she could find, and went to dwell in a cave, where she prayed night and day for her son, that he might be preserved from the malice of his enemies, at whose mercy he and his comrades lay. At first they thought to have slain him, but one of their leaders was touched by his glorious beauty, and so he said to the boy, "Horn, you are a fair stripling and a bold, and when you come to years, you and your band here, you are like to prove too many for us, so I am going to put you all in a boat and let it drift out to sea--where may the gods preserve you, or else send you to the bottom; but, for all our sakes, you cannot remain here." Then they led the boys down to the shore, placed them in a little skiff, and pushed it off from the land. All but Horn wrung their hands in fear. The waves rose high, and, as the boat was tossed up and down, the lads gave themselves up for lost, not knowing whither they were driven; but when the morning of the second day broke, Horn sprang up from where he sat in the forepart of the skiff, crying, "I hear the birds sing, and I see the grass growing green--we are at the land!" Then they sprang right gladly on shore, and Horn called after the boat as it floated away, "A good voyage to thee, little boat! May wind and wave speed thee back to Southland. Greet all who knew me, and chiefly the good Queen Gotthild, my mother. And tell the heathen King that some day he shall meet his death at my hand." Then the boys went on till they came to a city, where reigned King Aylmer of Westland--whom God reward for his kindness to them. He asked them in mild words whence they came, "for in good sooth," said he, "never have I seen so well-favoured a company"; and Horn answered proudly, "We are of good Christian blood, and we come from Southland, which has just been raided by pagans, who slew many of our people, and sent us adrift in a boat, to be the sport of the winds and waves. For a day and a night we have been at sea without a rudder; and now we have been cast upon your coast, you may enslave or slay us, if but, it please thee, show us mercy." Then the good King asked, "What is your name, my child?" and the boy answered. "Horn, at your pleasure, my Lord King; and if you need a servant, I will serve you well and truly." "Childe Horn," said the King, "you bear a mighty name for one so young and tender. "Over hills and valleys oft the horn has rung, In the royal palace long the horn has hung. So shall thy name, O Hornchild, through every land resound, And the fame of thy wondrous beauty in all the West be found." So Horn found great favour with the King, and he put him in charge of Athelbrus, the house-steward, that he might teach him all knightly duties, and he spared no pains with him, nor yet with his companions; but well trained as they all were, Horn was far ahead of them both in stature and noble bearing. Even a stranger looking at him could guess his lofty birth, and the splendour of his marvellous beauty lit up all the palace; while he won all hearts, from the meanest grooms to the greatest of the court ladies. Now the fairest thing in that lordly court was the King's only daughter, Riminild. Her mother was dead, and she was well-beloved of her father, as only children are. Not a word had she ever ventured to speak to Horn when she saw him among the other knights at the great feasts, but day and night she bore his image in her heart. One night she dreamed that he entered her apartments (and she wondered much at his boldness), and in the morning she sent for Athelbrus, the house-steward, and bade him conduct Horn into her presence. But he went to Athulf, who was the pure minded and true one of Horn's two chosen companions, while Figold, the other, was a wolf in sheep's clothing, and said to him, "You shall go with me in Horn's stead to the Princess." So he went, and she, not recognising him in the ill-lighted room, stretched out her hand to him, crying, "Oh, Horn, I have loved you long. Now plight me your troth." But Athulf whispered to her, "Hold! I am not Horn. I am but his friend, Athulf, as unlike him as may well be. Horn's little finger is fairer than my whole body; and were he dead, or a thousand miles off, I would not play him false." Then Riminild rose up in anger and glared upon the old steward, crying, "Athelbrus, you wicked man, out of my sight, or I shall hate you for evermore! All shame and ill befall you if you bring me not Childe Horn himself!" "Lady and Princess," answered Athelbrus warily, "listen, and I will tell you why I brought Athulf. The King entrusted Horn to my care, and I dread his anger. Now be not angry with me, and I will fetch him forthwith." Then he went away, but, instead of Horn, this time he called Figold, the deceiver, and said to him, "Come with me, instead of Horn, to the royal Princess. Do not betray yourself, lest we both suffer for it." Willingly went the faithless one with him, but to Figold the maid held not out her hand--well she knew that he was false, and she drove him from her presence in rage and fury. Athelbrus feared her anger, and said to himself, "To make my peace with her I must now send her the true Horn." He found him in the hall presenting the wine cup to the King, and whispered to him, "Horn, you are wanted in the Princess's apartments"; and when Horn heard this his hand holding the full goblet so trembled that the wine ran over the edge. He went straight into the presence of the royal maiden, and as he knelt before her his beauty seemed to light up the room. "Fair befall thee and thy maidens, O Lady!" said he. "The house-steward has sent me hither to ask thy will." Then Riminild stood up, her cheeks red as the dawn, and told him of her love; and Horn took counsel with himself how he should answer her. "May God in heaven bless him whom thou weddest, whoever he may be," he said. "I am but a foundling, and the King's servant to boot--it would be against all rule and custom were he to wed me with thee." When Riminild heard this her heart died within her, and she fell fainting on the floor; but Horn lifted her up, and advised her to request her father that he might now receive knighthood. "An then," said he, "I will win you by my brave deeds." When she heard that, she recovered herself and said, "Take my ring here to Master Athelbrus, and bid him from me ask the King to make you a knight." So Horn went and told all to Athelbrus, who sought the King forthwith, and said, "To-morrow is a festival; I counsel thee to admit Horn to knighthood." And the King was pleased, and said, "Good! Horn is well worthy of it. I will create him a knight to-morrow, and he himself shall confer it on his twelve companions." The next day the newly knighted one went to Riminild's bower, and told her that now he was her own true knight, and must go forth to do brave deeds in her name, and she said she would trust him evermore, and she gave him a gold ring with her name graven on it, which would preserve him from all evil. "Let this remind thee of me early and late," she said, "and thou canst never fall by treachery." And then they kissed each other, and she closed the door behind him, with tears. The other knights were feasting and shouting in the King's hall, but Horn went to the stable, armed from head to foot. He stroked his coal-black steed, then sprang upon his back and rode off, his armour ringing as he went. Down to the seashore he galloped, singing joyously and praying God soon to send him the chance to do some deed of knightly daring, and there he met a band of pagen marauders, who had just landed from their pirate-ship. Horn asked them civilly what they wanted there, and one of the pagans answered insolently, "To conquer the land and slay all that dwell in it, as we did to King Altof, whose son now serves a foreign lord." Horn, on hearing this, drew his sword and struck off the fellow's head; then he thought of his dead father and of his mother in her lonely cave; he looked on his ring and thought of Riminild, and dashed among the pirates, laying about him right and left, till, I warrant you, there were few of them left to tell the tale. "This," he cried, "is but the foretaste of what will be when I return to my own land and avenge my father's death!" Then he rode back to the palace and told the King how he had slain the invaders, and "Here," he said, "is the head of the leader, to requite thee, O King, for granting me knighthood." The next day the King went a-hunting in the forest, and the false Figold rode at his side, but Horn stayed at home. And Figold spoke to the King out of his wicked heart and said, "I warn thee, King Aylmer, Horn is plotting to dishonour thee--to rob thee of thy daughter and of thy kingdom to boot. He is even now plotting with her in her bower." Then the King galloped home in a rage, and burst into Riminild's bower, and there, sure enough, he found Horn, as Figold had said. "Out of my land, base foundling!" he cried. "What have you to do with the young Queen here?" And Horn departed without a word. He went to the stable, saddled his horse, then he girded on his sword and returned to the palace; he crossed the hall and entered Riminild's apartments for the last time. "Lady," he said, "I must go forth to strange lands for seven years; at the end of that time I will either return or send a messenger; but if I do neither, you may give yourself to another, nor wait longer for me. Now kiss me a long farewell." Riminild promised to be true to him, and she took a gold ring from her finger, saying, "Wear this above the other which I gave you, or if you grow weary of them, fling them both away, and watch to see if its two stones change colour; for if I die, the one will turn pale, and if I am false, the other will turn red." "Riminild," said Childe Horn, "I am yours for evermore! There is a pool of clear water under a tree in the garden--go there daily and look for my shadow in the water. If you see it not, know that I am unaltered; and if you see it, know that I no longer love thee." Then they embraced and kissed each other, and Horn parted from her, and rode down to the coast, and took passage on a ship bound for Ireland. When he landed there, two of its King's sons met him, and took him to their father, good King Thurstan, before whom Horn bowed low, and the King bade him welcome, and praised his beauty, and asked his name. "My name is Good Courage," said Horn boldly, and the King was well pleased. Now, at Christmas, King Thurstan made a great feast, and in the midst of it one rushed in crying, "Guests, O King! We are besieged by five heathen chiefs, and one of them proclaims himself ready to fight any three of our knights single handed to-morrow at sunrise." "That would be but a sorry Christmas service," said King Thurstan; "who can advise me how best to answer them?" Then Horn spoke up from his seat at the table, "If these pagans are ready to fight, one against three, what may not a Christian dare? I will adventure myself against them all, and one after another they shall go down before my good sword." Heavy of heart was King Thurstan that night, and little did he sleep. But "Sir Good Courage" rose early and buckled on his armour. Then he went to the King and said, "Now, Sir King, come with me to the field, and I will show you in what coin to pay the demands of these heathen." So they rode on together in the twilight, till they came to the green meadow, where a giant was waiting for them. Horn greeted him with a blow that brought him to the ground at once, and ran another giant through the heart with his sword; and when their followers saw that their leaders were slain, they turned and fled back to the shore, but Horn tried to cut them off from their ships, and in the scrimmage the King's two sons fell. At this Horn was sore grieved, and he fell upon the pagans in fury, and slew them right and left, to avenge the King and himself. Bitterly wept King Thurstan when his sons were brought home to him on their biers; there was great mourning for the young princes, who were buried with high honours in the vault under the church. Afterwards the King called his knights together and said to Horn, "Good Courage, but for you we were all dead men. I will make you my heir; you shall wed my daughter Swanhild, who is bright and beautiful as the sunshine, and shall reign here after me." So Horn lived there for six years, always under the name of Good Courage, but he sent no messenger to Riminild, not wishing any man to know his secret, and consequently Riminild was in great sorrow on his account, not knowing whether he was true to her or not. Moreover, the King of a neighbouring country sought her hand in marriage, and her father now fixed a day for the wedding. One morning, as Horn was riding to the forest, he saw a stranger standing in the wayside, who, on being questioned said, "I come from Westland, and I seek the Knight Sir Horn. Riminild the maiden is in sore heaviness of spirit, bewailing herself day and night, for on Sunday next she is to be married to a King." Then was Horn's grief as great as that of Riminild. His eyes overflowed with tears. He looked at his ring with its colored stones; the one had not turned red, but it seemed to him that the other was turning pale. "Well knew my heart that you would keep your troth with me, Riminild," said he to himself, "and that never would that stone grow red; but this paling one bodes ill. And you doubtless have often looked in the garden pool for my shadow, and have seen naught there but your own lovely image. _That_ shadow shall never come, O sweet love, Riminild, to prove to you that your love is false, but he himself shall come and drive all shadows away. "And you, my trusty messenger," he said aloud, "go back to maid Riminild and tell her that she shall indeed wed a King next Sunday, for before the church bells ring for service I will be with her." The Princess Riminild stood on the beach and looked out to sea, hoping to see Horn coming in his helmet and shield to deliver her; but none came, save her own messenger, who was washed up on the shore--drowned! And she wrung her hands in her anguish. Horn had gone immediately to King Thurstan, and, after saluting him, told him his real name and his present trouble. "And now, O King," said he, "I pray you to reward me for all my services by helping me to get possession of Riminild. Your daughter, Swanhild, will I give to a man the best and faithfullest ever called to the ranks of knighthood." Then said the King, "Horn, follow your own counsel"; then he sent for his knights, and many of them followed Horn, so that he had a thousand or more at his command. The wind favoured their course, and in a few hours the ships cast anchor on the shore of Westland. Horn left his forces in a wood while he went on to learn what was doing. Well did he know the way, and lightly did he leap over the stones. As he went he met a pilgrim, and asked him the latest news, who answered, "I come from a wedding feast--but the bride's true love is far away, and she only weeps. I could not stay to see her grief." "May God help me!" said Horn: "but this is sorrowful news. Let us change garments, good pilgrim. I must go to the feast, and once there I vow. I will give them something by which to remember Horn!" He blackened his eyebrows, and took the pilgrim's hat and staff, and when he reached the gate of the palace, the porter was for turning him back, but Horn took him up and flung him over the bridge, and then went on to the hall where the feast was being held. He sat down among the lowest, on the beggar's bench, and glowered round from under his blackened eyebrows. At a distance he saw Riminild sitting like one in a dream; then she rose to pour out mead and wine for the knights and squires, and Horn cried out, "Fair Queen, if ye would have God's blessing, let the beggar's turn come next." She set down the flagon of wine, and poured him out brown beer in a jug, saying: "There, drink that off at a draught, thou boldest of beggar men!" But he gave it to the beggars, his companions, saying "I am not come to drink jugs of beer, but goblets of wine. Fair Queen," he cried, "thou deemest me a beggar, but I am rather a fisherman, come to haul in my net, which I left seven years ago hanging from a fair hand here in Westland." Then was Riminild much troubled within herself, and she looked hard at Horn. She reached him the goblet and said, "Drink wine then, fisherman, and tell me who thou art." He drank from the goblet, and then dropped into it the gold ring, and said, "Look, O Queen, at what thou findest in the goblet, and ask no more who I am." The Queen withdrew into her bower with her four maidens, and when she saw the gold ring that she had given to Horn, she was sore distressed, and cried out, "Childe Horn must be dead, for this is his ring." She then sent one of her waiting-maids to command the stranger to her presence, and Horn, all unrecognised, appeared before her. "Tell me, honest pilgrim, where thou gottest this ring?" she asked him. "I took it," said he, "from the finger of a man whom I found lying sick unto death in a wood. Loudly he was bewailing himself and the lady of his heart, one Riminild, who should at this time have wedded him." As he spoke he drew his cap down over his eyes, which were full of tears. Then Riminild cried, "Break, heart, in my bosom! Horn is no more--he who hath already caused thee so many tender pangs." She threw herself on her couch and called for a knife, to kill the bridegroom and herself. Her maidens shrieked with fear, but Horn flung his arms around her and pressed her to his heart. Then he cast away hat and staff, and wiped the brown stain from his face, and stood up before his love in his own fair countenance, asking, "Dear love, Riminild, know thou me not now? Away with your grief and kiss me--I am Horn!--Horn, your true lover and born slave." She gazed into his eyes. At first she could not believe that it was he, but at last she could doubt no longer; she fell upon his neck, and in the sweet greetings that followed were two sick hearts made whole. "Horn, you miscreant! how could you play me such a trick?" "Have patience, sweet love, maid Riminild, and I will tell you all. Now let me go and finish my work, and when it is done I will come and rest at your side." So he left her, and went back to the forest, and Riminild sent for Athulf, who met her with a doleful countenance. "Athulf!" she cried, "rejoice with me! Horn has come--I tell you Horn is here!" "Alas!" said Athulf, "that cannot be. Who hath brought thee such an idle tale? Day and night have I stood here watching for him, but he came not, and much I fear me the noble Horn is dead." "I tell you he is living," she said--"aye, and more alive than ever. Go to the forest and find him--he is there with all his faithful followers." Athulf made haste to the forest, still unbelieving, but soon his heart bounded for joy, for there rode Horn in his shining armour at the head of his troops. Athulf rode to his side, and they returned together to the city, where Riminild was watching them from her turret. And Horn pointed to her and cried to his company, "Knights, yonder is my bride--help me to win her!" Then was there a fierce storming of the gate--the shock of it shook Riminild's tower--and Horn and his heroes burst, all unheralded, into the King's hall. Fierce and furious was the bridal dance that followed; the tumult of it rose up to Riminild, and she prayed, "God preserve my lover in this wild confusion!" Right merrily danced her dancer, and all unscathed he flashed through the hall, thanks to his true love and God's care. King Aylmer and the bridegroom confronted him and the younger, the bridegroom King, asked him what he sought there. "I seek my bride," said he, "and if you do not give her up to me I will have your life." "Better thou should have the bride than that," said the other; "though I would sooner be torn in pieces than give thee either." And he defended himself bravely, but it availed him naught. Horn struck off his head from his shoulders, so that it bounded across the hall. Then cried Horn to the other guests, "The dance is over!" after which he proclaimed a truce, and, throwing himself down on a couch, spake thus to King Aylmer: "I was born in Southland, of a royal race. The pagan Vikings slew King Altof, my father, and put me out to sea with my twelve companions. You did train me for the order of knighthood, and I have dishonoured it by no unworthy deeds, though you did drive me from your kingdom, thinking I meant to disgrace you through your daughter. But that which you credited me with I never contemplated. Accept me then, O King, for your son-in-law. Yet will I not claim my bride till I have won back my kingdom of Southland. That will I accomplish quickly, with the help of my brave knights and such others as I pray you to lend me, leaving in pledge therefor the fairest jewel in my crown, until King Horn shall be able to place Queen Riminild beside him on his father's throne." As he spoke Riminild entered, and Horn took her hand and led her to her father, and the young couple stood before the old King--a right royal pair. Then King Aylmer spoke jestingly, "Truly I once did chide a young knight in my wrath, but never King Horn, whom I now behold for the first time. Never would I have spoken roughly to King Horn, much less forbidden him to woo a Princess." Then all the knights and lords came offering their good wishes to the happy pair; and the old house-steward, Athelbrus, would have bent the knee to his former pupil, but Horn took the old man in his arms and embraced him, thanking him for all the pains he had taken with his breeding. Horn's twelve companions came also, and did him homage as their sovereign, and he rejoiced to see them all, but especially Athulf the brave and true. "Athulf," he told him, "thou hast helped me to win my bride here, now come with me to Southland and help me to make a home for her. And you, too, shall win a lady--I have already chosen her; her name is Swanhild, and she will look fair even beside Riminild." Then did Athulf rejoice, but Figold, the traitor, was ready to sink into the ground with shame and envy. Then Horn returned to his ship, taking Athulf with him, but Figold he left behind. Truly it is ill knowing what to do with a traitor, whether you take him to the field or leave him at home. On went the ship before a favouring wind; the voyage lasted but four days. Horn landed at midnight, and he and Athulf went inland together. On the way they came upon a noble looking knight asleep under his shield, upon which a cross was painted, and Horn cried to him, "Awake, and tell us what they are doing here. Thou seemest to be a Christian, I trow, else would I have hewn thee in pieces with my sword!" The good knight sprang up aghast, and said, "Against my will I am serving the heathen who rule here. I am keeping a place ready for Horn, the best loved of all heroes. Long I have wondered why he does not bestir himself to return and fight for his own. God give him power so to do till he slay every one of these miscreants. They put him out to sea, a tender boy, with his twelve playmates, one of whom was my only son, Athulf. Dearly he loved Horn, and was beloved by him. Could I but see them both once more, I should feel that I could die in peace." "Then rejoice," they told him, "for Horn and Athulf are here!" Joyfully did the old man greet the youths; he embraced his son and bent the knee to Horn, and all three rejoiced together. "Where is your company?" asked the old knight. "I suppose you two have come to explore the land. Well, your mother still lives, and if she knew you to be living would be beside herself with joy." "Blessed be the day that I and my men landed here," said Horn. "We will catch these heathen dogs, or else tame them. We will speak to them in our own language." Then Horn blew his horn, so that all on board the ship heard it and came on shore. As the young birds long for the dawn, so Horn longed for the fight that should free his country from her enemies. From morning to night the battle raged, till all the heathen, young and old, were slain, and young King Horn himself slew the pirate King. Then he went to church, with all his people, and an anthem was sung to the glory of God, and Horn gave thanks aloud for the restoration of his kingdom, after which he sought the place where his mother dwelt. How his heart wept for joy when he saw her! He placed a crown on her head, and arrayed her in rich robes, and brought her up to the palace. "Thou art glad to have thy child again," he said to her in the joy of his heart, "but I will make thee gladder still by bringing thee home a daughter, one who will please thee well." And he thought of his love, Riminild, with whom, however, things were just then going very much amiss. For as son as Horn had departed, the treacherous Figold had collected a great army of workmen and made them build him a tower in the sea, which could only be reached when the tide was out. Now about this time Horn had a dream, in which he saw Riminild on board a ship at sea, which presently went to pieces, and she tried to swim ashore, steering with her lily-white hand, while Figold, the traitor, sought to stop her with the point of his sword. Then he awoke and cried, "Athulf, true friend, we must away across the sea. Unless we make all speed some evil will befall us." And in the midst of a storm they set sail. In the meantime Figold had left his tower and appeared in the presence of King Aylmer. Cunningly, out of his false heart spoke the traitor, "King Aylmer, Horn has sent me word that he would have his bride handed over to my care. He has regained his crown and realm and would fain have her there to be his Queen." "Very well," said the King, "let her go with thee." But Riminild was much displeased at the thought of being put into the hands of Figold, whom in her soul she would not trust. "Why comes not Horn for me himself?" she asked. "I know not the way to his kingdom either by land or by sea." "But I know it," said Figold, "and I will soon bring thee thither, most beauteous queen." But his wicked smile made her uneasy at heart. "If Horn could not come himself," she said, "why did he not send Athulf, his faithful friend?" But this question pleased the traitor so little that he gave her no answer. Her father blessed her, and she set forth, wringing her white hands. Meanwhile, Horn, sailing from the south, was driven in shore by a storm, and he beheld Figold's high tower, and asked who had built such an ugly thing. He thought he heard a low murmuring as his ship flew past it before the wind, but knew not what it might be. Soon he saw the battlements of King Aylmer's palace rising in the distance; there Riminild should be, looking out for him, but all was bare and empty. It seemed to him as though a star were missing from heaven; and as he crossed the threshold the ill news was told him how Figold had carried off Riminild. Horn had no mind to linger with the King. "Come, Athulf, true friend," said he, "and help me to search for her." So they searched far and near, in vain, till at last Horn remembered that strange tower in the sea, and set sail for the lonely fortress where Figold had the fair princess in his evil keeping. "Now, my eleven companions, and you, too, Athulf," said he, "abide here while I go up alone with my horn. God hath shown me how to order this attempt." He left his sword on the ship, and took only a fishing line with a long hook. Then round and round the tower he walked, and he blew a loud blast out into the raging storm, until a head appeared out of a hole in the wall of the tower--it was that wicked knave Figold's; and Horn cast his line, and hauled the writhing traitor clean out of the tower. He whirled round the sea wolf at the end of the line, and swung him over the water by the sheer force of his arm, so that he was cast over to Athulf in the ship; and sore afraid was the traitor when the true men on board seized him. Then Horn took up his bugle once more and sounded it so loudly that at the first blast the door was uncovered; at the second he could enter the tower; the third was heard as he led Riminild forth. Lightly did he clasp her round the waist and swing her into his boat, and then pulled for the ship. He brought Riminild on board his ship, and called to his band, "Ho there, my trusty eleven! Our voyage is ended, and we will now go merrily home. And you, Athulf, my chosen and tried friend, shall now have your guerdon; I will bring you to your bride Swanhild, and Riminild and I will be wedded at the same time--the same wedding feast shall serve us both. "And Riminild, my sweet pearl, whom I have rescued from the deep, not all that I have suffered on your account grieves me like the perfidy this false one wrought on you, my loving heart. Through him the goodly tale of my twelve followers is broken; now when they gather round the table, one seat will ever be empty. Must it ever be that no dozen of men can be got together but one will prove a traitor?" Then he bade them "Set the traitor in the boat and let it drift out to sea, as we poor children were made to do aforetime. Let the waves bear away treachery as once they bore innocence--our ship will make better speed; and as for him, let him drift till he find a land where no traitors are." CHAPTER IV SIR GALAHAD My good blade carves the casques of men, My tough lance thrusteth sure, My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure. The shattering trumpet shrilleth high, The hard brands shiver on the steel, The splinter'd spear-shafts crack and fly, The horse and rider reel: They reel, they roll in changing lists, And when the tide of combat stands, Perfume and flowers fall in showers, That lightly rain from ladies' hands. How sweet are looks that ladies bend On whom their favours fall! For them I battle till the end, To save from shame and thrall: But all my heart is drawn above, My knees are bow'd in crypt and shrine: I never felt the kiss of love, Nor maiden's hand in mine. More bounteous aspects on me beam, Me mightier transports move and thrill; So keep I fair thro' faith and prayer A virgin heart in work and will. When down the stormy crescent goes, A light before me swims, Between dark stems the forest glows, I hear a noise of hymns: Then by some secret shrine I ride; I hear a voice but none are there; The stalls are void, the doors are wide, The tapers burning fair. Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth, The silver vessels sparkle clean, The shrill bell rings, the censer swings, And solemn chaunts resound between. Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres I find a magic bark; I leap on board: no helmsman steers: I float till all is dark. A gentle sound, an awful light! Three angels bear the Holy Grail: With folded feet, in stoles of white, On sleeping wings they sail. Ah, blessed vision! blood of God! My spirit beats her mortal bars, As down dark tides the glory slides, And star-like mingles with the stars. When on my goodly charger borne Thro' dreaming towns I go, The cock crows ere the Christmas morn, The streets are dumb with snow. The tempest crackles on the leads, And, ringing, spins from brand and mail; But o'er the dark a glory spreads, And gilds the driving hail. I leave the plain, I climb the height; No branchy thicket shelter yields; But blessed forms in whistling storms Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields. A maiden knight--to me is given Such hope, I know not fear; I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven That often meet me here. I muse on joy that will not cease, Pure spaces clothed in living beams, Pure lilies of eternal peace, Whose odors haunt my dreams; And, stricken by an angel's hand, This mortal armour that I wear, This weight and size, this heart and eyes, Are touch'd, are turn'd to finest air. The clouds are broken in the sky, And thro' the mountain-walls A rolling organ-harmony Swells up, and shakes and falls. Then move the trees, the copses nod, Wings flutter, voices hover clear: "O just and faithful knight of God! Ride on! the prize is near." So pass I hostel, hall, and grange; By bridge and ford, by park and pale, All-arm'd I ride, whate'er betide, Until I find the Holy Grail. CHAPTER V RUSTEM AND SOHRAB Give ear unto the combat of Sohrab against Rustem, though it be a tale replete with tears. It came about that on a certain day Rustem arose from his couch, and his mind was filled with forebodings. He bethought him therefore to go out to the chase. So he saddled Rakush and made ready his quiver with arrows. Then he turned him unto the wilds that lie near Turan, even in the direction of the city of Samengan. And when he was come nigh unto it, he started a herd of asses and made sport among them till that he was weary of the hunt. Then he caught one and slew it and roasted it for his meal, and when he had eaten it and broken the bones for the marrow, he laid himself down to slumber, and Rakush cropped the pasture beside him. Now while the hero was sleeping there passed by seven knights of Turan, and they beheld Rakush and coveted him. So they threw their cords at him to ensnare him. But Rakush, when he beheld their design, pawed the ground in anger, and fell upon them as he had fallen upon the lion. And of one man he bit off the head, and another he struck down under his hoofs, and he would have overcome them all, but they were too many. So they ensnared him and led him into the city, thinking in their hearts, "Verily a goodly capture have we made." But Rustem when he awoke from his slumbers was downcast and sore grieved when he saw not his steed, and he said unto himself: "How can I stand against the Turks, and how can I traverse the desert alone?" And his heart was full of trouble. Then he sought for the traces of the horse's hoofs, and followed them, and they led him even unto the gates of the city. Now when those within beheld Rustem, and that he came before them on foot, the King and the nobles came forth to greet him, and inquired of him how this was come about. Then Rustem told them how Rakush was vanished while he slumbered, and how he had followed his track even unto these gates. And he sware a great oath, and vowed that if his courser were not restored unto him many heads should quit their trunks. Then the King of Samengan, when he saw that Rustem was beside himself with anger, spoke words of soothing, and said that none of his people should do wrong unto the hero; and he begged him that he would enter into his house and abide with him until that search had been made, saying: "Surely Rakush cannot be hid." And Rustem was satisfied at these words, and cast suspicion from his spirit, and entered the house of the King, and feasted with him, and beguiled the hours with wine. And the King rejoiced in his guest, and encompassed him with sweet singers and all honour. And when the night was fallen the King himself led Rustem unto a couch perfumed with musk and roses, and he bade him slumber sweetly until the morning. And he declared to him yet again that all was well for him and for his steed. Now when a portion of the night was spent, and the star of morning stood high in the arch of heaven, the door of Rustem's chamber was opened, and a murmur of soft voices came in from the threshold. And there stepped within a slave bearing a lamp perfumed with amber, and a woman whose beauty was veiled came after her. And as she moved musk was scattered from her robes. And the women came nigh unto the bed of the hero heavy with wine and slumber. And he was amazed when he saw them. And when he had roused him somewhat he spake and said: "Who are thou, and what is thy name and thy desire, and what seekest thou from me in the dark night?" Then the Peri-faced answered him, saying, "I am Tahmineh, the daughter of the King of Samengan, the race of the leopard and the lion, and none of the princes of this earth are worthy of my hand, neither hath any man seen me unveiled. But my heart is torn with anguish, and my spirit is tossed with desire, for I have heard of thy deeds of prowess, and how thou fearest neither Deev nor lion, neither leopard nor crocodile, and how thy hand is swift to strike, and how thou didst venture alone into Mazinderan, and how wild asses are devoured of thee, and how the earth groaneth under the tread of thy feet, and how men perish at thy blows, and how even the eagle dareth not swoop down upon her prey when she beholdeth thy sword. These things and more have they told unto me, and mine eyes have yearned to look upon thy face. And now hath God brought thee within the gates of my father, and I am come to say unto thee that I am thine if thou wilt hear me, and if thou wilt not, none other will I espouse. And consider, O Pehliva, how that love has obscured mine understanding and withdrawn me from the bosom of discretion, yet peradventure God will grant unto me a son like to thee for strength and valour, to whom shall be given the empire of the world. And if thou wilt listen unto me, I will lead forth before thee Rakush thy steed, and I will place under thy feet the land of Samengan." Now while this moon of beauty was yet speaking, Rustem regarded her. And he saw that she was fair, and that wisdom abode in her mind; and when he heard of Rakush, his spirit was decided within him, and he held that this adventure could not end save gloriously. So he sent a Mubid unto the King and demanded the hand of Tahmineh from her father. And the King, when he heard the news, was rejoiced, and gave his daughter unto the Pehliva, and they concluded an alliance according to custom and the rites. And all men, young and old, within the house and city of the King were glad at this alliance, and called down blessings upon Rustem. Now Rustem, when he was alone with the Peri-faced, took from his arm an onyx that was known unto all the world. And he gave it to her, and said: "Cherish this jewel, and if Heaven cause thee to give birth unto a daughter, fasten it within her locks, and it will shield her from evil; but if it be granted unto thee to bring forth a son, fasten it upon his arm, that he may wear it like his father. And he shall be strong as Keriman, of stature like unto Saum the son of Neriman, and of grace of speech like unto Zal, my father." The Peri-faced, when she had heard these words, was glad in his presence. But when the day was passed there came in unto them the King her father, and he told Rustem how that tidings of Rakush were come unto his ears, and how that the courser would shortly be within the gates. And Rustem, when he heard it, was filled with longing after his steed, and when he knew that he was come he hastened forth to caress him. And with his own hands he fastened the saddle, and gave thanks unto Ormuzd, who had restored his joy between his hands. Then he knew that the time to depart was come. And he opened his arms and took unto his heart Tahmineh the fair of face, and he bathed her cheek with his tears and covered her hair with kisses. Then he flung him upon Rakush, and the swift-footed bare him quickly from out of her sight. And Tahmineh was sorrowful exceedingly, and Rustem too was filled with thoughts as he turned him back unto Zaboulistan. And he pondered this adventure in his heart, but to no man did he speak of what he had seen or done. Now when nine moons had run their course there was born unto Tahmineh a son in the likeness of his father, a babe whose mouth was filled with smiles, wherefore men called him Sohrab. And when he numbered but one month he was like unto a child of twelve, and when he numbered five years he was skilled in arms and all the arts of war, and when ten years were rolled above his head there was none in the land that could resist him in the games of strength. Then he came before his mother and spake words of daring. And he said: "Since I am taller and stouter than my peers, teach unto me my race and lineage, and what I shall say when men ask me the name of my sire. But if thou refuse an answer unto my demands, I will strike thee out from the rolls of the living." When Tahmineh beheld the ardour of her son, she smiled in her spirit because that his fire was like to that of his father. And she opened her mouth and said: "Hear my words, O my son, and be glad in thine heart, neither give way in thy spirit to anger. For thou art the offspring of Rustem, thou art descended from the seed of Saum and Zal, and Neriman was thy forefather. And since God made the world it hath held none like unto Rustem, thy sire." Then she showed to him a letter written by the Pehliva, and gave to him the gold and jewels Rustem had sent at his birth. And she spake and said: "Cherish these gifts with gratitude, for it is thy father who hath sent them. Yet remember, O my son, that thou close thy lips concerning these things; for Turan groaneth under the hand of Afrasiyab, and he is foe unto Rustem the glorious. If, therefore, he should learn of thee, he would seek to destroy the son for hatred of the sire. Moreover, O my boy, if Rustem learned that thou wert become a mountain of valour, perchance he would demand thee at my hands, and the sorrow of thy loss would crush the heart of thy mother." But Sohrab replied, "Nought can be hidden upon earth for aye. To all men are known the deeds of Rustem, and since my birth be thus noble, wherefore hast thou kept it dark from me so long? I will go forth with an army of brave Turks and lead them unto Iran, I will cast Kai Kaous from off his throne, I will give to Rustem the crown of the Kaianides, and together we will subdue the land of Turan, and Afrasiyab shall be slain by my hands. Then will I mount the throne in his stead. But thou shalt be called Queen of Iran, for since Rustem is my father and I am his son no other kings shall rule in this world, for to us alone behoveth it to wear the crowns of might. And I pant in longing after the battlefield, and I desire that the world should behold my prowess. But a horse is needful unto me, a steed tall and strong of power to bear me, for it beseemeth me not to go on foot before mine enemies." Now Tahmineh, when she had heard the words of this boy, rejoiced in her soul at his courage. So she bade the guardians of the flocks lead out the horses before Sohrab her son. And they did as she had bidden, and Sohrab surveyed the steeds, and tested their strength like as his father had done before him of old, and he bowed them under his hand, and he could not be satisfied. And thus for many days did he seek a worthy steed. Then one came before him and told of a foal sprung from Rakush, the swift of foot. When Sohrab heard the tidings he smiled, and bade that the foal be led before him. And he tested it and found it to be strong. So he saddled it and sprang upon its back, and cried, saying: "Now that I own a horse like thee, the world shall be made dark to many." Then he made ready for war against Iran, and the nobles and warriors flocked around him. And when all was in order Sohrab came before his grandsire and craved his counsel and his aid to go forth into the land of Iran and seek out his father. And the King of Samengan, when he heard these wishes, deemed them to be just, and he opened the doors of his treasures without stint and gave unto Sohrab of his wealth, for he was filled with pleasure at this boy. And he invested Sohrab with all the honours of a King, and he bestowed on him all the marks of his good pleasure. Meantime a certain man brought news unto Afrasiyab that Sohrab was making ready an army to fall upon Iran, and to cast Kai Kaous from off his throne. And he told Afrasiyab how the courage and valour of Sohrab exceeded words. And Afrasiyab, when he heard this, hid not his contentment, and he called before him Human and Barman, the doughty. Then he bade them gather together an army and join the ranks of Sohrab, and he confided to them his secret purpose, but he enjoined them tell no man thereof. For he said: "Into our hands hath it been given to settle the course of the world. For it is known unto me that Sohrab is sprung from Rustem the Pehliva, but from Rustem must it be hidden who it is that goeth out against him, then peradventure he will perish by the hands of this young lion, and Iran, devoid of Rustem, will fall a prey into my hands. Then we will subdue Sohrab also, and all the world will be ours. But if it be written that Sohrab fall under the hand of Tehemten, then the grief he shall endure when he shall learn that he hath slain his son will bring him to the grave for sorrow." So spake Afrasiyab in his guile, and when he had done unveiling his black heart he bade the warriors depart unto Samengan. And they bare with them gifts of great price to pour before the face of Sohrab. And they bare also a letter filled with soft words. And in the letter Afrasiyab lauded Sohrab for his resolve, and told him how that if Iran be subdued the world would henceforth know peace, for upon his own head should he place the crown of the Kaianides; and Turan, Iran, and Samengan should be as one land. When Sohrab had read this letter, and saw the gifts and the aid sent out to him, he rejoiced aloud, for he deemed that now none could withstand his might. So he caused the cymbals of departure to be clashed, and the army made them ready to go forth. Then Sohrab led them into the land of Iran. And their track was marked by desolation and destruction, for they spared nothing that they passed. And they spread fire and dismay abroad, and they marched on unstayed until they came unto the White Castle, the fortress wherein Iran put its trust. Now the guardian of the castle was named Hujir, and there lived with him Gustahem the grave, but he was grown old, and could aid no longer save with his counsels. And there abode also his daughter Gurdafrid, a warlike maid, firm in the saddle, and practised in the fight. Now when Hujir beheld from afar a dusky cloud of armed men he came forth to meet them. And Sohrab, when he saw him, drew his sword, and demanded his name, and bade him prepare to meet his end. And he taunted him with rashness that he was come forth thus unaided to stand against a lion. But Hujir answered Sohrab with taunts again, and vowed that he would sever his head from his trunk and send it for a trophy unto the Shah. Yet Sohrab only smiled when he heard these words, and he challenged Hujir to come near. And they met in combat, and wrestled sore one with another, and stalwart were their strokes and strong; but Sohrab overcame Hujir as though he were an infant, and he bound him and sent him captive unto Human. But when those within the castle learned that their chief was bound they raised great lamentation, and their fears were sore. And Gurdafrid, too, when she learned it, was grieved, but she was ashamed also for the fate of Hujir. So she took forth burnished mail and clad herself therein, and she hid her tresses under a helmet of Roum, and she mounted a steed of battle and came forth before the walls like to a warrior. And she uttered a cry of thunder, and flung it amid the ranks of Turan, and she defied the champions to come forth to single combat. And none came, for they beheld her how she was strong, and they knew not that it was a woman, and they were afraid. But Sohrab, when he saw it, stepped forth and said: "I will accept thy challenge, and a second prize will fall into my hands." Then he girded himself and made ready for the fight. And the maid, when she saw he was ready, rained arrows upon him with art, and they fell quick like hail, and whizzed about his head; and Sohrab, when he saw it, could not defend himself, and was angry and ashamed. Then he covered his head with his shield and ran at the maid. But she, when she saw him approach, dropped her bow and couched a lance, and thrust at Sohrab with vigour, and shook him mightily, and it wanted little and she would have thrown him from his seat. And Sohrab was amazed, and his wrath knew no bounds. Then he ran at Gurdafrid with fury, and seized the reins of her steed, and caught her by the waist, and tore her armour, and threw her upon the ground. Yet ere he could raise his hand to strike her, she drew her sword and shivered his lance in twain, and leaped again upon her steed. And when she saw that the day was hers, she was weary of further combat, and she sped back unto the fortress. But Sohrab gave rein unto his horse, and followed after her in his great anger. And he caught her, and seized her, and tore the helmet off her head, for he desired to look upon the face of the man who could withstand the son of Rustem. And lo! when he had done so, there rolled forth from the helmet coils of dusky hue, and Sohrab beheld it was a woman that had overcome him in the fight. And he was confounded. But when he had found speech he said: "If the daughters of Iran are like to thee, and go forth unto battle, none can stand against this land." Then he took his cord and threw it about her, and bound her in its snare, saying: "Seek not to escape me, O moon of beauty, for never hath prey like unto thee fallen between my hands." Then Gurdafrid, full of wile, turned unto him her face that was unveiled, for she beheld no other means of safety, and she said unto him: "O hero without flaw, is it well that thou shouldest seek to make me captive, and show me unto the army? For they have beheld our combat, and that I overcame thee, and surely now they will gibe when they learn that thy strength was withstood by a woman. Better would it beseem thee to hide this adventure, lest thy cheeks have cause to blush because of me. Therefore let us conclude a peace together. The castle shall be thine, and all it holds; follow after me then, and take possession of thine own." Now Sohrab, when he had listened, was beguiled by her words and her beauty, and he said: "Thou dost wisely to make peace with me, for verily these walls could not resist my might." And he followed after her unto the heights of the castle, and he stood with her before its gates. And Gustahem, when he saw them, opened the portal, and Gurdafrid stepped within the threshold, but when Sohrab would have followed after her she shut the door upon him. Then Sohrab saw that she had befooled him, and his fury knew no bounds. But ere he was recovered from his surprise she came out upon the battlements and scoffed at him, and counselled him to go back whence he was come; for surely, since he could not stand against a woman, he would fall an easy prey before Rustem, when the Pehliva should have learned that robbers from Turan were broken into the land. And Sohrab was made yet madder for her words, and he departed from the walls in his wrath, and rode far in his anger, and spread terror in his path. And he vowed that he would yet bring the maid into subjection. In the meantime Gustahem the aged called before him a scribe, and bade him write unto Kai Kaous all that was come about, and how an army was come forth from Turan, at whose head rode a chief that was a child in years, a lion in strength and stature. And he told how Hujir had been bound, and how the fortress was like to fall into the hands of the enemy; for there were none to defend it save only his daughter and himself and he craved the Shah to come to their aid. Albeit when the day had followed yet again upon the night, Sohrab made ready his host to fall upon the castle. But when he came near thereto he found it was empty, and the doors thereof stood open, and no warriors appeared upon its walls. And he was surprised, for he knew not that in the darkness the inmates were fled by a passage that was hidden under the earth. And he searched the building for Gurdafrid, for his heart yearned after her in love and he cried aloud: "Woe, woe is me that this moon is vanished behind the clouds!" Now when Kai Kaous had gotten the writing of Gustahem, he was sore afflicted and much afraid, and he called about him his nobles and asked their counsels. And he said: "Who shall stand against this Turk? For Gustahem doth liken him in power unto Rustem, and saith he resembleth the seed of Neriman." Then the warriors cried with one accord, "Unto Rustem alone can we look in this danger!" And Kai Kaous hearkened to their voice, and he called for a scribe and dictated unto him a letter. And he wrote unto his Pehliva, and invoked the blessings of Heaven upon his head, and he told him all that was come to pass, and how new dangers threatened Iran, and how to Rustem alone could he look for help in his trouble. And he recalled unto Tehemten all that he had done for him in the days that were gone by, and he entreated him once again to be his refuge. And he said: "When thou shalt receive this letter, stay not to speak the word that hangeth upon thy lips; and if thou bearest roses in thy hands, stop not to smell them, but haste thee to help us in our need." Then Kai Kaous sent forth Gew with this writing unto Zaboulistan, and bade him neither rest nor tarry until he should stand before the face of Rustem. And he said-- "When thou hast done my behest, turn thee again unto me; neither abide within the courts of the Pehliva, nor linger by the roadside." And Gew did as the Shah commanded, and took neither food nor rest till he set foot within the gates of Rustem. And Rustem greeted him kindly, and asked him of his mission; and when he had read the writing of the Shah, he questioned Gew concerning Sohrab. For he said: "I should not marvel if such an hero arose in Iran, but that a warrior of renown should come forth from amid the Turks, I cannot believe it. But thou sayest none knoweth whence cometh this knight. I have myself a son in Samengan, but he is yet an infant, and his mother writeth to me that he rejoiceth in the sports of his age, and though he be like to become a hero among men, his time is not yet come to lead forth an army. And that which thou sayest hath been done; surely it is not the work of a babe. But enter, I pray thee, into my house, and we will confer together concerning this adventure." Then Rustem bade his cooks make ready a banquet, and he feasted Gew, and troubled his head with wine, and caused him to forget cares and time. But when morn was come Gew remembered the commands of the Shah that he tarry not, but return with all speed, and he spake thereof to Rustem, and prayed him to make known his resolve. But Rustem spake, saying: "Disquiet not thyself, for death will surely fall upon these men of Turan. Stay with me yet another day and rest, and water thy lips that are parched. For though this Sohrab be a hero like to Saum and Zal and Neriman, verily he shall fall by my hands." And he made ready yet another banquet, and three days they caroused without ceasing. But on the fourth Gew uprose with resolve, and came before Rustem girt for departure. And he said: "It behoveth me to return, O Pehliva, for I bethink me how Kai Kaous is a man hard and choleric, and the fear of Sohrab weigheth upon his heart, and his soul burneth with impatience, and he hath lost sleep, and hath hunger and thirst on this account. And he will be wroth against us if we delay yet longer to do his behest." Then Rustem said, "Fear not, for none on earth dare be angered with me." But he did as Gew desired, and made ready his army, and saddled Rakush, and set forth from Zaboulistan, and a great train followed after him. Now when they came nigh unto the courts of the Shah, the nobles came forth to meet them, and do homage before Rustem. And when they were come in, Rustem gat him from Rakush and hastened into the presence of his lord. But Kai Kaous, when he beheld him, was angry, and spake not, and his brows were knit with fury; and when Rustem had done obeisance before him, he unlocked the doors of his mouth, and words of folly escaped his lips. And he said: "Who is Rustem, that he defieth my power and disregardeth my commands? If I had a sword within my grasp I would spilt his head like to an orange. Seize him, I command, and hang him upon the nearest gallows, and let his name be never spoken in my presence." When he heard these words Gew trembled in his heart, but he said, "Dost thou set forth thy hand against Rustem?" And the Shah when he heard it was beside himself, and he cried with a loud voice that Gew be hanged together with the other; and he bade Tus lead them forth. And Tus would have led them out, for he hoped the anger of the Shah would be appeased; but Rustem broke from his grasp and stood before Kai Kaous, and all the nobles were filled with fear when they saw his anger. And he flung reproaches at Kai Kaous, and he recalled to him his follies, and the march into Mazinderan and Hamaveran, and his flight into Heaven; and he reminded him how that but for Rustem he would not now be seated upon the throne of light. And he bade him threaten Sohrab the Turk with his gallows, and he said: "I am a free man and no slave, and am servant alone unto God; and without Rustem Kai Kaous is as nothing, And the world is subject unto me, and Rakush is my throne, and my sword is my seal, and my helmet my crown. And but for me, who called forth Kai Kobad, thine eyes had never looked upon this throne. And had I desired it I could have sat upon its seat. But now am I weary of thy follies, and I will turn me away from Iran, and when this Turk shall have put you under his yoke I shall not learn thereof." Then he turned him and strode from out the presence-chamber. And he sprang upon Rakush, who waited without, and he was vanished from before their eyes ere yet the nobles had rallied from their astonishment. And they were downcast and oppressed with boding cares, and they held counsel among themselves what to do; for Rustem was their mainstay, and they knew that, bereft of his arm and counsel, they could not stand against this Turk. And they blamed Kai Kaous, and counted over the good deeds that Rustem had done for him, and they pondered and spake long. And in the end they resolved to send a messenger unto Kai Kaous, and they chose from their midst Gudarz the aged, and bade him stand before the Shah. And Gudarz did as they desired, and he spake long and without fear, and he counted over each deed that had been done by Rustem; and he reproached the Shah with his ingratitude, and he said how Rustem was the shepherd, and how the flock could not be led without its leader. And Kai Kaous heard him unto the end, and he knew that his words were the words of reason and truth, and he was ashamed of that which he had done, and confounded when he beheld his acts thus naked before him. And he humbled himself before Gudarz, and said: "That which thou sayest, surely it is right." And he entreated Gudarz to go forth and seek Rustem, and bid him forget the evil words of his Shah, and bring him back to the succor of Iran. And Gudarz hastened forth to do as Kai Kaous desired, and he told the nobles of his mission, and they joined themselves unto him, and all the chiefs of Iran went forth in quest of Rustem. And when they had found him, they prostrated themselves into the dust before him, and Gudarz told him of his mission, and he prayed him to remember that Kai Kaous was a man devoid of understanding, whose thoughts flowed over like to new wine that fermenteth. And he said: "Though Rustem be angered against the King, yet hath the land of Iran done no wrong that it should perish at his hands. Yet, if Rustem save it not, surely it will fall under this Turk." But Rustem said, "My patience hath an end, and I fear none but God. What is this Kai Kaous that he should anger me? and what am I that I have need of him? I have not deserved the evil words that he spake unto me, but now will I think of them no longer, but cast aside all thoughts of Iran." When the nobles heard these words they grew pale, and fear took hold on their hearts. But Gudarz, full of wisdom, opened his mouth, and said: "O Pehliva! the land, when it shall learn of this, will deem that Rustem is fled before the face of this Turk; and when men shall believe that Tehemten is afraid, they will cease to combat, and Iran will be downtrodden at his hands. Turn thee not, therefore, at this hour from thy allegiance to the Shah, and tarnish not thy glory by this retreat, neither suffer that the downfall of Iran rest upon thy head. Put from thee, therefore, the words that Kai Kaous spake in his empty anger, and lead us forth to battle against this Turk. For it must not be spoken that Rustem feared to fight a beardless boy." And Rustem listened, and pondered these words in his heart, and knew that they were good. But he said: "Fear hath never been known of me, neither hath Rustem shunned the din of arms, and I depart not because of Sohrab, but because that scorn and insult have been my recompense." Yet when he had pondered a while longer, he saw that he must return unto the Shah. So he did that which he knew to be right, and he rode till he came unto the gates of Kai Kaous, and he strode with a proud step into his presence. Now when the Shah beheld Rustem from afar, he stepped down from off his throne and came before Pehliva, and craved his pardon for that which was come about. And he said how he had been angered because Rustem had tarried in his coming, and how haste was his birthright, and how he had forgotten himself in his vexation. But now was his mouth filled with the dust of repentance. And Rustem said: "The world is the Shah's, and it behoveth thee to do as beseemeth thee best with thy servants. And until old age shall my loins be girt in fealty unto thee. And may power and majesty be thine for ever!" And Kai Kaous answered and said, "O my Pehliva, may thy days be blessed unto the end!" Then he invited him to feast with him, and they drank wine till far into the night, and held counsel together how they should act; and slaves poured rich gifts before Rustem, and the nobles rejoiced, and all was well again within the gates of the King. Then when the sun had risen and clothed the world with love, the clarions of war were sounded throughout the city, and men made them ready to go forth in enmity before the Turks. And the legions of Persia came forth at the behest of their Shah, and their countless thousands hid the earth under their feet, and the air was darkened by their spears. And when they were come unto the plains where stood the fortress of Hujir, they set up their tents as was their manner. So the watchman saw them from the battlements, and he set up a great cry. And Sohrab heard the cry, and questioned the man wherefore he shouted; and when he learned that the enemy were come, he rejoiced, and demanded a cup of wine, and drank to their destruction. Then he called forth Human and showed him the army, and bade him be of good cheer, for he said that he saw within its ranks no hero of mighty mace who could stand against himself. So he bade his warriors to a banquet of wine, and he said that they would feast until the time was come to meet their foes in battle. And they did as Sohrab said. Now when night had thrown her mantle over the earth, Rustem came before the Shah and craved that he would suffer him to go forth beyond the camp that he might see what manner of man was this stripling. And Kai Kaous granted his request, and said that it was worthy a Pehliva of renown. Then Rustem went forth disguised in the garb of a Turk, and he entered the castle in secret, and he came within the chamber where Sohrab held his feast. Now when he had looked upon the boy he saw that he was like to a tall cypress of good sap, and that his arms were sinewy and strong like to the flanks of a camel, and that his stature was that of a hero. And he saw that round about him stood brave warriors. And slaves with golden bugles poured wine before them, and they were all glad, neither did they dream of sorrow. Then it came about that while Rustem regarded them, Zindeh changed his seat and came nigh unto the spot where Rustem was watching. Now Zindeh was brother unto Tahmineh, and she had sent him forth with her son that he might point out to him his father, whom he alone knew of all the army, and she did it that harm might not befall if the heroes should meet in battle. Now Zindeh, when he had changed his seat, thought that he espied a watcher, and he strode toward the place where Rustem was hid, and he came before him and said-- "Who art thou? Come forth into the light that I may behold thy face." But ere he could speak further, Rustem had lifted up his hand and struck him, and laid him dead upon the ground. Now Sohrab, when he saw that Zindeh was gone out, was disquieted, and he asked of his slaves wherefore the hero returned not unto the banquet. So they went forth to seek him, and when they had found him in his blood, they came and told Sohrab what they had seen. But Sohrab would not believe it; so he ran to the spot and bade them bring torches, and all the warriors and singing girls followed after him. Then when Sohrab saw that it was true he was sore grieved; but he suffered not that the banquet be ended, for he would not that the spirits of his men be damped with pity. So they went back yet again to the feast. Meanwhile Rustem returned him to the camp, and as he would have entered the lines he encountered Gew, who went around to see that all was safe. And Gew, when he saw a tall man clad In the garb of a Turk, drew his sword and held himself ready for combat. But Rustem smiled and opened his mouth, and Gew knew his voice, and came to him and questioned him what he did without in the darkness. And Rustem told him. Then he went before Kai Kaous also and related what he had seen, and how no man like unto Sohrab was yet come forth from amid the Turks. And he likened him unto Saum, the son of Neriman. Now when the morning was come, Sohrab put on his armour. Then he went unto a height whence he could look down over the camp of the Iranians. And he took with him Hujir, and spake to him, saying: "Seek not to deceive me, nor swerve from the paths of truth. For if thou reply unto my questions with sincerity, I will loosen thy bonds and give thee treasures; but if thou deceive me, thou shalt languish till death in thy chains." And Hujir said, "I will give answer unto thee according to my knowledge." Then Sohrab said, "I am about to question thee concerning the nobles whose camps are spread beneath our feet, and thou shalt name unto me those whom I point out. Behold yon tent of gold brocade, adorned with skins of leopard, before whose doors stand an hundred elephants of war. Within its gates is a throne of turquoise, and over it floateth a standard of violet with a moon and sun worked in its centre. Tell unto me now whose is this pavilion that standeth thus in the midst of the whole camp?" And Hujir replied, "It pertaineth unto the Shah of Iran." Then Sohrab said, "I behold on its right hand yet another tent draped in the colours of mourning, and above it floateth a standard whereon is worked an elephant." And Hujir said, "It is the tent of Tus, the son of Nuder, for he beareth an elephant as his ensign." Then Sohrab said, "Whose is the camp in which stand many warriors clad in rich armour? A flag of gold with a lion worked upon it waveth along its field." And Hujir said, "It belongeth unto Gudarz the brave. And those who stand about it are his sons, for eighty men of might are sprung from his loins." Then Sohrab said, "To whom belongeth the tent draped with green tissues? Before its doors is planted the flag of Kawah. I see upon its throne a Pehliva, nobler of mien than all his fellows, whose head striketh the stars. And beside him standeth a steed tall as he, and his standard showeth a lion and a writhing dragon." When Hujir heard this question he thought within himself, "If I tell unto this lion the signs whereby he may know Rustem the Pehliva, surely he will fall upon him and seek to destroy him. It will beseem me better, therefore, to keep silent, and to omit his name from the list of the heroes." So he said unto Sohrab: "This is some ally who is come unto Kai Kaous from far Cathay, and his name is not known unto me." And Sohrab when he heard it was downcast, and his heart was sad that he could nowhere discover Rustem; and though it seemed unto him that he beheld the marks whereby his mother said that he would know him, he could not credit the words of his eyes against the words of Hujir. Still he asked yet again the name of the warrior, and yet again Hujir denied it unto him, for it was written that that should come to pass which had been decreed. But Sohrab ceased not from his questionings. And he asked: "Who dwelleth beneath the standard with the head of a wolf?" And Hujir said, "It is Gew, the son of Gudarz, who dwelleth within that tent, and men call him Gew the valiant." Then Sohrab said, "Whose is the seat over which are raised awnings and brocades of Roum, that glisten with gold in the sunlight?" And Hujir said, "It is the throne of Fraburz, the son of the Shah." Then Sohrab said, "It beseemeth the son of a Shah to surround himself with such splendour." And he pointed unto a tent with trappings of yellow that was encircled by flags of many colours. And he questioned of its owner. And Hujir said, "Guraz the lion-hearted is master therein." Then Sohrab, when he could not learn the tent of his father, questioned Hujir concerning Rustem, and he asked yet a third time of the green tent. Yet Hujir ever replied that he knew not the name of its master. And when Sohrab pressed him concerning Rustem, he said that Rustem lingered in Zaboulistan, for it was the feast of roses. But Sohrab refused to give ear unto the thought that Kai Kaous should go forth to battle without the aid of Rustem, whose might none could match. So he said unto Hujir: "And thou show not unto me the tents of Rustem, I will strike thy head from off thy shoulders, and the world shall fade before thine eyes. Choose, therefore, the truth or thy life." And Hujir thought within himself, "Though five score men cannot withstand Rustem when he be roused to battle-fury, my mind misgiveth me that he may have found his equal in this boy. And, for that the stripling is younger, it might come about that he subdue the Pehliva. What recketh my life against the weal of Iran? I will therefore abandon me into his hands rather than show unto him the marks of Rustem the Pehliva. So he said: "Why seekest thou to know Rustem the Pehliva? Surely thou wilt know him in battle, and he shall strike thee dumb, and quell thy pride of youth. Yet I will not show him unto thee." When Sohrab heard these words he raised his sword and smote Hujir, and made an end of him with a great blow. Then he made himself ready for fight, and leaped upon his steed of battle, and he rode till he came unto the camp of the Iranians, and he broke down the barriers with his spear, and fear seized upon all men when they beheld his stalwart form and majesty of mien and action. Then Sohrab opened his mouth, and his voice of thunder was heard even unto the far ends of the camp. And he spake words of pride, and called forth the Shah to do battle with him, and he sware with a loud voice that the blood of Zindeh should be avenged. Now when Sohrab's voice had run throughout the camp, confusion spread within its borders, and none of those who stood about the throne would accept his challenge for the Shah. And with one accord they said that Rustem was their sole support, and that his sword alone could cause the sun to weep. And Tus sped him within the courts of Rustem. And Rustem said: "The hardest tasks doth Kai Kaous ever lay upon me." But the nobles would not suffer him to linger, neither to waste time in words, and they buckled upon him his armour, and they threw his leopard-skin about him, and they saddled Rakush, and made ready the hero for the strife. And they pushed him forth, and called after him: "Haste, haste, for no common combat awaiteth thee, for verily Ahriman standeth before us." Now when Rustem was come before Sohrab, and beheld the youth, brave and strong, with a breast like unto Saum, he said to him: "Let us go apart from hence, and step forth from out the lines of the armies." For there was a zone between the camps that none might pass. And Sohrab assented to the demand of Rustem, and they stepped out into it, and made them ready for single combat. But when Sohrab would have fallen upon him, the soul of Rustem melted with compassion, and he desired to save a boy thus fair and valiant. So he said unto him: "O young man, the air is warm and soft, but the earth is cold. I have pity upon thee, and would not take from thee the boon of life. Yet if we combat together, surely thou wilt fall by my hands, for none have withstood my power, neither men nor Deevs nor dragons. Desist, therefore, from this enterprise, and quit the ranks of Turan, for Iran hath need of heroes like unto thee." Now while Rustem spake thus, the heart of Sohrab went out to him. And he looked at him wistfully, and said: "O hero, I am about to put unto thee a question, and I entreat of thee that thou reply to me according to the truth. Tell unto me thy name, that my heart may rejoice in thy words, for it seemeth unto me that thou art none other than Rustem, the son of Zal, the son of Saum, the son of Neriman," But Rustem replied, "Thou errest, I am not Rustem, neither am I sprung from the race of Neriman. Rustem is a Pehliva, but I, I am a slave, and own neither a crown nor a throne," These words spake Rustem that Sohrab might be afraid when he beheld his prowess, and deem that yet greater might was hidden in the camp of his enemy. But Sohrab when he heard these words was sad, and his hopes that were risen so high were shattered, and the day that had looked so bright was made dark unto his eyes. Then he made him ready for the combat, and they fought, until their spears were shivered and their swords hacked like unto saws. And when all their weapons were bent, they betook them into clubs, and they waged war with these until they were broken. Then they strove until their mail was torn and their horses spent with exhaustion, and even then they could not desist, but wrestled with one another with their hands till that the sweat and blood ran down from their bodies. And they contended until their throats were parched and their bodies weary, and to neither was given the victory. They stayed them a while to rest, and Rustem thought within his mind how all his days he had not coped with such a hero. And it seemed to him that his contest with the White Deev had been as nought to this. Now when they had rested a while they fell to again, and they fought with arrows, but still none could surpass the other. Then Rustem strove to hurl Sohrab from his steed, but it availed him naught, and he could shake him no more than the mountain can be moved from its seat. So they betook themselves again unto clubs, and Sohrab aimed at Rustem with might and smote him, and Rustem reeled beneath the stroke, and bit his lips in agony. Then Sohrab vaunted his advantage, and bade Rustem go and measure him with his equals; for though his strength be great, he could not stand against a youth. So they went their ways, and Rustem fell upon the men of Turan, and spread confusion far and wide among their ranks; and Sohrab raged along the lines of Iran, and men and horses fell under his hands. And Rustem was sad in his soul, and he turned with sorrow into his camp. But when he saw the destruction Sohrab had wrought his anger was kindled, and he reproached the youth, and challenged him to come forth yet again to single combat. But because that the day was far spent they resolved to rest until the morrow. Then Rustem went before Kai Kaous and told him of this boy of valour, and he prayed unto Ormuzd that He would give him strength to vanquish his foe. Yet he made ready also his house lest he should fall in the fight, and he commanded that a tender message be borne unto Rudabeh, and he sent words of comfort unto Zal, his father. And Sohrab, too, in his camp lauded the might of Rustem, and he said how the battle had been sore, and how his mind had misgiven him of the issue. And he spake unto Human, saying: "My mind is filled with thoughts of this aged man, mine adversary, for it would seem unto me that his stature is like unto mine, and that I behold about him the tokens that my mother recounted unto me. And my heart goeth out toward him, and I muse if it be Rustem, my father. For it behoveth me not to combat him. Wherefore, I beseech thee, tell unto me how this may be." But Human answered and said, "Oft have I looked upon the face of Rustem in battle, and mine eyes have beheld his deeds of valour; but this man in no wise resembleth him, nor is his manner of wielding his club the same." These things spake Human in his vileness, because that Afrasiyab had enjoined him to lead Sohrab into destruction. And Sohrab held his peace, but he was not wholly satisfied. Now when the day had begun to lighten the sky and clear away the shadows, Rustem and Sohrab strode forth unto the midway spot that stretched between the armies. And Sohrab bare in his hands a mighty club, and the garb of battle was upon him; but his mouth was full of smiles, and he asked of Rustem how he had rested, and he said: "Wherefore hast thou prepared thy heart for battle? Cast from thee, I beg, this mace and sword of vengeance, and let us doff our armour, and seat ourselves together in amity, and let wine soften our angry deeds. For it seemeth unto me that this conflict is impure. And if thou wilt listen to my desires, my heart shall speak to thee of love, and I will make the tears of shame spring up into thine eyes. And for this cause I ask thee yet again, tell me thy name, neither hide it any longer, for I behold that thou art of noble race. And it would seem unto me that thou art Rustem, the chosen one, the Lord of Zaboulistan, the son of Zal, the son of Saum the hero." But Rustem answered, "O hero of tender age, we are not come forth to parley but to combat, and mine ears are sealed against thy words of lure. I am an old man, and thou art young, but we are girded for battle, and the Master of the world shall decide between us." Then Sohrab said, "O man of many years, wherefore wilt thou not listen to the counsel of a stripling? I desired that thy soul should leave thee upon thy bed, but thou hast elected to perish in the combat. That which is ordained must be done, therefore let us make ready for the conflict." So they made them ready, and when they had bound their steeds they fell upon each other, and the crash of their encounter was heard like thunder throughout the camps. And they measured their strength from the morning until the setting of the sun. And when the day was about to vanish, Sohrab seized upon Rustem by the girdle and threw him upon the ground, and kneeled upon him, and drew forth his sword from the scabbard, and would have severed his head from his trunk. Then Rustem knew that only wile could save him. So he opened his mouth and said: "O young man, thou knowest not the customs of the combat. It is written in the laws of honour that he who overthroweth a brave man for the first time should not destroy him, but preserve him for fight a second time, then only is it given unto him to kill his adversary." And Sohrab listened to Rustem's words of craft and stayed his hand, and he let the warrior go, and because that the day was ended he sought to fight no more, but turned him aside and chased the deer until the night was spent. Then came to him Human, and asked of the adventures of the day. And Sohrab told him how he had vanquished the tall man, and how he had granted him freedom. And Human reproached him with his folly, and said: "Alas! young man, thou didst fall into a snare, for this is not the custom among the brave. And now perchance thou wilt yet fall under the hands of this warrior." Sohrab was abashed when he heard the words of Human, but he said: "Be not grieved, for in an hour we meet again in battle, and verily he will not stand a third time against my youthful strength." Now while Sohrab was thus doing, Rustem was gone beside a running brook, and laved his limbs, and prayed to God in his distress. And he entreated of Ormuzd that He would grant him such strength that the victory must be his. And Ormuzd heard him, and gave to him such strength that the rock whereon Rustem stood gave way under his feet, because it had not power to bear him. Then Rustem saw it was too much, and he prayed yet again that part thereof be taken from him. And once more Ormuzd listened to his voice. Then when the time for combat was come, Rustem turned him to the meeting-place, and his heart was full of cares and his face of fears. But Sohrab came forth like a giant refreshed, and he ran at Rustem like to a mad elephant, and he cried with a voice of thunder: "O thou who didst flee from battle, wherefore art thou come out once more against me? But I say unto thee, this time shall thy words of guile avail thee naught." And Rustem, when he heard him, and looked upon him, was seized with misgiving, and he learned to know fear. So he prayed to Ormuzd that He would restore to him the power He had taken back. But he suffered not Sohrab to behold his fears, and they made them ready for the fight. And he closed upon Sohrab with all his new-found might, and shook him terribly, and though Sohrab returned his attacks with vigour, the hour of his overthrow was come. For Rustem took him by the girdle and hurled him unto the earth, and he broke his back like to a reed, and he drew forth his sword to sever his body. Then Sohrab knew it was the end, and he gave a great sigh, and writhed in his agony, and he said: "That which is come about, it is my fault, and henceforward will my youth be a theme of derision among the people. But I sped not forth for empty glory, but I went out to seek my father; for my mother had told me by what tokens I should know him, and I perish for longing after him. And now have my pains been fruitless, for it hath not been given unto me to look upon his face. Yet I say unto thee, if thou shouldest become a fish that swimmeth in the depths of the ocean, if thou shouldest change into a star that is concealed in the farthest heaven, my father would draw thee forth from thy hiding-place, and avenge my death upon thee when he shall learn that the earth is become my bed. For my father is Rustem the Pehliva, and it shall be told unto him how that Sohrab his son perished in the quest after his face." When Rustem heard these words his sword fell from out of his grasp, and he was shaken with dismay. And there broke from his heart a groan as of one whose heart was racked with anguish. And the earth became dark before his eyes, and he sank down lifeless beside his son. But when he had opened his eyes once more, he cried unto Sohrab in the agony of his spirit. And he said: "Bearest thou about thee a token of Rustem, that I may know that the words which thou speakest are true? For I am Rustem the unhappy, and may my name be struck from the lists of men!" When Sohrab heard these words his misery was boundless, and he cried: "If thou art indeed my father, then hast thou stained thy sword in the life-blood of thy son. And thou didst it of thine obstinacy. For I sought to turn thee unto love, and I implored of thee thy name, for I thought to behold in thee the tokens recounted of my mother. But I appealed unto thy heart in vain, and now is the time gone by for meeting. Yet open, I beseech thee, mine armour and regard the jewel upon mine arm. For it is an onyx given unto me by my father, as a token whereby he should know me." Then Rustem did as Sohrab bade him, and he opened his mail and saw the onyx; and when he had seen it he tore his clothes in his distress, and he covered his head with ashes. And the tears of penitence ran from his eyes, and he roared aloud in his sorrow. But Sohrab said: "It is in vain, there is no remedy. Weep not, therefore, for doubtless it was written that this should be." Now when the sun was set, and Rustem returned not to the camp, the nobles of Iran were afraid, and they went forth to seek him. And when they were gone but a little way they came upon Rakush, and when they saw that he was alone they raised a wailing, for they deemed that of a surety Rustem was perished. And they went and told Kai Kaous thereof, and he said: "Let Tus go forth and see if this indeed be so, and if Rustem be truly fallen, let the drums call men unto battle that we may avenge him upon this Turk." Now Sohrab, when he beheld afar off the men that were come out to seek Rustem, turned to his father and said: "I entreat of thee that thou do unto me an act of love. Let not the Shah fall upon the men of Turan, for they came not forth in enmity to him but to do my desire, and on my head alone resteth this expedition. Wherefore I desire not that they should perish when I can defend them no longer. As for me, I came like the thunder and I vanish like the wind, but perchance it is given unto us to meet again above." Then Rustem promised to do the desires of Sohrab. And he went before the men of Iran, and when they beheld him yet alive they set up a great shout, but when they saw that his clothes were torn, and that he bare about him the marks of sorrow, they asked of him what was come to pass. Then he told them how he had caused a noble son to perish. And they were grieved for him, and joined in his wailing. Then he bade one among them to go forth into the camp of Turan, and deliver this message unto Human. And he sent word unto him, saying: "The sword of vengeance must slumber in the scabbard. Thou art now leader of the host; return, therefore, whence thou camest, and depart across the river ere many days be fallen. As for me, I will fight no more, yet neither will I speak unto thee again, for thou didst hide from my son the tokens of his father, of thine iniquity thou didst lead him into this pit." Then when he had thus spoken, Rustem turned him yet again to his son. And the nobles went with him, and they beheld Sohrab, and heard his groans of pain. And Rustem, when he saw the agony of the boy, was beside himself, and would have made an end of his own life, but the nobles suffered it not, and stayed his hand. Then Rustem remembered him that Kai Kaous had a balm mighty to heal. And he prayed Gudarz go before the Shah, and bear unto him a message of entreaty from Rustem his servant. And he said: "O Shah, if ever I have done that which was good in thy sight, if ever my hand have been of avail unto thee, recall now my benefits in the hour of my need, and have pity upon my dire distress. Send unto me, I pray thee, of the balm that is among thy treasures, that my son may be healed by thy grace." And Gudarz outstripped the whirlwind in his speed to bear unto the Shah this message. But the heart of Kai Kaous was hardened, and he remembered not the benefits he had received from Rustem, and he recalled only the proud words that he had spoken before him. And he was afraid lest the might of Sohrab be joined to that of his father, and that together they prove mightier than he, and turn upon him. So he shut his ear unto the cry of his Pehliva. And Gudarz bore back the answer of the Shah, and he said: "The heart of Kai Kaous is flinty, and his evil nature is like to a bitter gourd that ceaseth never to bear fruit. Yet I counsel thee, go before him thyself, and see if peradventure thou soften this rock." And Rustem in his grief did as Gudarz counselled, and turned to go before the Shah, but he was not come before him ere a messenger overtook him, and told unto him that Sohrab was departed from the world. Then Rustem set up a wailing such as the earth hath not heard the like of, and he heaped reproaches upon himself, and he could not cease from plaining the son that was fallen by his hands. And he cried continually: "I that am old have killed my son. I that am strong have uprooted this mighty boy. I have torn the heart of my child, I have laid low the head of a Pehliva." Then he made a great fire, and flung into it his tent of many colours, and his trappings of Roum, his saddle, and his leopard-skin, his armour well tried in battle, and all the appurtenances of his throne. And he stood by and looked on to see his pride laid in the dust. And he tore his flesh, and cried aloud: "My heart is sick unto death." Then he commanded that Sohrab be swathed in rich brocades of gold worthy his body. And when they had enfolded him, and Rustem learned that the Turanians had quitted the borders, he made ready his army to return unto Zaboulistan. And the nobles marched before the bier, and their heads were covered with ashes, and their garments were torn. And the drums of the war-elephants were shattered, and the cymbals broken, and the tails of the horses were shorn to the root, and all the signs of mourning were abroad. Now Zal, when he saw the host returning thus in sorrow, marvelled what was come about; for he beheld Rustem at their head, wherefore he knew that the wailing was not for his son. And he came before Rustem and questioned him. And Rustem led him unto the bier and showed unto him the youth that was like in feature and in might unto Saum the son of Neriman, and he told him all that was come to pass, and how this was his son, who in years was but an infant, but a hero in battle. And Rudabeh too came out to behold the child, and she joined her lamentations unto theirs. Then they built for Sohrab a tomb like to a horse's hoof, and Rustem laid him therein in a chamber of gold perfumed with ambergris. And he covered him with brocades of gold. And when it was done, the house of Rustem grew like to a grave, and its courts were filled with the voice of sorrow. And no joy would enter into the heart of Rustem, and it was long before he held high his head. Meantime the news spread even unto Turan, and there too did all men grieve and weep for the child of prowess that was fallen in his bloom. And the King of Samengan tore his vestments, but when his daughter learned it she was beside herself with affliction. And Tahmineh cried after her son, and bewailed the evil fate that had befallen him, and she heaped black earth upon her head, and tore her hair, and wrung her hands, and rolled on the ground in her agony. And her mouth was never weary of plaining. Then she caused the garments of Sohrab to be brought unto her, and his throne and his steed. And she regarded them, and stroked the courser and poured tears upon his hoofs, and she cherished the robes as though they yet contained her boy, and she pressed the head of the palfrey unto her breast, and she kissed the helmet that Sohrab had worn. Then with his sword she cut off the tail of his steed and set fire unto the house of Sohrab, and she gave his gold and jewels unto the poor. And when a year had thus rolled over her bitterness, the breath departed from out her body, and her spirit went forth after Sohrab her son. CHAPTER VI THE SEVEN SLEEPERS OF EPHESUS One of the most picturesque myths of ancient days is that told by Jacques de Voragine, in his "Legenda Aurea": "The seven sleepers were natives of Ephesus. The Emperor Decius, who persecuted the Christians, having come to Ephesus, ordered the erection of temples in the city, that all might come and sacrifice before him; and he commanded that the Christians should be sought out and given their choice, either to worship the idols, or to die. So great was the consternation in the city, that the friend denounced his friend, the father his son, and the son his father. "Now there were in Ephesus seven Christians, Maximian, Malchus, Marcian, Dionysius, John, Serapion, and Constantine by name. These refused to sacrifice to the idols, and remained in their houses praying and fasting. They were accused before Decius, and they confessed themselves to be Christians. However, the Emperor gave them a little time to consider what line they would adopt. They took advantage of this reprieve to dispense their goods among the poor, and they retired, all seven, to Mount Celion, where they determined to conceal themselves. "One of their number, Malchus, in the disguise of a physician, went to the town to obtain victuals. Decius, who had been absent from Ephesus for a little while, returned, and gave orders for the seven to be sought. Malchus, having escaped from the town, fled, full of fear, to his comrades, and told them of the Emperor's fury. They were much alarmed; and Malchus handed them the loaves he had bought, bidding them eat, that, fortified by the food, they might have courage in the time of trial. They ate, and then, as they sat weeping and speaking to one another, by the will of God they fell asleep. "The pagans sought everywhere, but could not find them, and Decius was greatly irritated at their escape. He had their parents brought before him, and threatened them with death if they did not reveal the place of concealment; but they could only answer that the seven young men had distributed their goods to the poor, and that they were quite ignorant as to their whereabouts. "Decius, thinking it possible that they might be hiding in a cavern, blocked up the mouth with stones, that they might perish of hunger." * * * * * "Three hundred and sixty years passed, and in the thirtieth year of the reign of Theodosius, there broke forth a heresy denying the resurrection of the dead. "Now, it happened that an Ephesian was building a stable on the side of Mount Celion, and finding a pile of stones handy, he took them for his edifice, and thus opened the mouth of the cave. Then the seven sleepers awoke, and it was to them as if they had slept but a single night. They began to ask Malchus what decision Decius had given concerning them. "'He is going to hunt us down, so as to force us to sacrifice to the idols,' was his reply. 'God knows,' replied Maximian, 'we shall never do that.' Then exhorting his companions, he urged Malchus to go back to the town to buy some more bread, and at the same time to obtain fresh information. Malchus took five coins and left the cavern. On seeing the stones he was filled with astonishment; however, he went on toward the city; but what was his bewilderment, on approaching the gate, to see over it a cross! He went to another gate, and there he beheld the same sacred sign; and so he observed it over each gate of the city. He believed that he was suffering from the effects of a dream. Then he entered Ephesus, rubbing his eyes, and he walked to a baker's shop. He heard people using our Lord's name, and he was the more perplexed. 'Yesterday, no one dared pronounce the name of Jesus, and now it is on every one's lips. Wonderful! I can hardly believe myself to be in Ephesus.' He asked a passer-by the name of the city, and on being told that it was Ephesus, he was thunderstruck. Now he entered a baker's shop, and laid down his money. The baker, examining the coin, inquired whether he had found a treasure, and began to whisper to some others in the shop. The youth, thinking that he was discovered, and that they were about to conduct him to the emperor, implored them to let him alone, offering to leave loaves and money if he might only be suffered to escape. But the shop-men seizing him, said, 'Whoever you are, you have found a treasure; show us where it is, that we may share it with you, and then we will hide you.' Malchus was too frightened to answer. So they put a rope round his neck, and drew him through the streets into the marketplace. The news soon spread that the young man had discovered a great treasure, and there was presently a vast crowd about him. He stoutly protested his innocence. No one recognised him, and his eyes, ranging over the faces which surrounded him, could not see one which he had known, or which was in the slightest degree familiar to him. "St. Martin, the bishop, and Antipater, the governor, having heard of the excitement, ordered the young man to be brought before them, along with the bakers. "The bishop and the governor asked him where he had found the treasure, and he replied that he had found none, but that the few coins were from his own purse. He was next asked whence he came. He replied that he was a native of Ephesus, 'if this be Ephesus.' "'Send for your relations--your parents, if they live here,' ordered the governor. "'They live here certainly,' replied the youth; and he mentioned their names. No such names were known in the town. Then the governor exclaimed, 'How dare you say that this money belonged to your parents when it dates back three hundred and seventy-seven years, and is as old as the beginning of the reign of Decius, and it is utterly unlike our modern coinage? Do you think to impose on the old men and sages of Ephesus? Believe me, I shall make you suffer the severities of the law till you show where you made the discovery.' "'I implore you,' cried Malchus, 'in the name of God, answer me a few questions, and then I will answer yours. Where is the Emperor Decius gone to?' "The bishop answered,'My son, there is no emperor of that name; he who was thus called died long ago.' "Malchus replied, 'All I hear perplexes me more and more. Follow me, and I will show you my comrades, fled with me into a cave of Mount Celion, only yesterday, to escape the cruelty of Decius. I will lead you to them.' "The bishop turned to the governor. 'The hand of God is here,' he said. Then they followed, and a great crowd after them. And Malchus entered first into the cavern to his companions, and the bishop after him. And there they saw the martyrs seated in the cave, with their faces fresh and blooming as roses; so all fell down and glorified God. The bishop and the governor sent notice to Theodosius, and he hurried to Ephesus. All the inhabitants met him and conducted him to the cavern. As soon as the saints beheld the Emperor, their faces shone like the sun, and the Emperor gave thanks unto God, and embraced them, and said, 'I see you, as though I saw the Saviour restoring Lazarus.' Maximian replied, 'Believe us! for the faith's sake, God has resuscitated us before the great resurrection day, in order that you may believe firmly in the resurrection of the dead. For as the child is in its mother's womb living and not suffering, so have we lived without suffering, fast asleep.' And having thus spoken, they bowed their heads, and their souls returned to their Maker. The Emperor, rising, bent over them and embraced them weeping. He gave them orders for golden reliquaries to be made, but that night they appeared to him in a dream, and said that hitherto they had slept in the earth, and that in the earth they desired to sleep on till God should raise them again." CHAPTER VII GUY OF WARWICK Of all the nobles of Britain none was so strong as Rohand, Earl of Warwick, Rockingham, and Oxford. He made just laws, and made them to be obeyed; nor king nor baron in the land could buy his favour with fine words or gold, or shield the wrong-doer from his punishment. Passing fair was Felice, his daughter, like some stately marble shaft of perfect mould; haughty was she as the great gerfalcon which spurns the earth and towers up into the noon to look the burning sun in the face. Wise masters, hoar with learning, came out from Toulouse to teach her the seven arts and sciences, until there was not her like for wisdom anywhere. Earl Rohand had a favourite page, named Guy, son of his just and upright steward, Segard of Wallingford; a brave and fearless youth, of strong and well-knit frame, whom Heraud of Ardenne, his tutor, taught betimes to just with lance and sword, and how to hunt with hawk and hound by wood and river side. It was the feast of Pentecost, when by old custom every maiden chose her love and every knight his leman. Guy, clad in a new silken dress, being made cup-bearer at the banquet table, saw for the first time the beautiful Felice, as, kneeling, he offered the golden ewer and basin and demask napkin to wash her finger-tips before the banquet. Thenceforward he became so love-stricken with her beauty that he heard not the music of the glee-men, saw neither games nor tourneys, but dured in a dream, like one crazed, all through the fourteen days festival. Knights and fair dames praised his handsome figure and well grown sinewy limbs; he heeded not--but once Felice gave him a courteous word as he offered her the wine-cup; he blushed and stammered and spilled the wine, and was rebuked for awkwardness. The feast being over, Guy went away to his chamber, and there fell into a great love-sickness. Hopeless it seemed for a vassal to love one so far above him as his sovereign's daughter; so he gave himself up to despair, and his disease grew so sore that the most skilful leeches of Earl Rohand's court were unable to cure his complaint. In vain they let him of blood or gave him salve or potion. "There is no medicine of any avail," the leeches said. Guy murmured, "Felice: if one might find and bring Felice to me, I yet might live." "Felice?" the leeches said among themselves, and shook their heads, "It is not in the herbal. Felice? Felix? No, there is no plant of that name." "No herb is Felice," sighing answered Guy, "but a flower--the fairest flower that grows." "He is light-headed," they said. "The flower Felice? He seeks perchance the flower of happiness, growing in the garden of the blessed, away in Paradise. He is surely near his end." "It is truly Paradise where Felice is," Guy answered, "You hear? You see," the leeches whispered one to another. "Come, let us go; for we can be of no more good." Night came, and being left alone Guy thought to rise up from his bed and drag himself into the presence of his mistress, there to die at her feet. So weak was he become, he scarce could stand, but fainted many times upon the way. Now Felice had heard many whisperings how Guy was dying for love of her, since her handmaidens had compassion on the youth, and sought to turn her heart toward him; but Felice was in no mind to have a page for a lover. Howbeit on this very night she had a dream, wherein being straitly enjoined to entreat the youth with kindness as the only way to save a life which would hereafter be of great service to the world, she arose and came to a bower in the garden where Guy lay swooning on the floor. Felice would not stoop to help him, but her maids having restored him to his senses, Guy fell at her feet and poured out all his love before her. Never a word answered Felice, but stood calmly regarding him with haughty coldness. Then said one of her maids, "O lady! were I the richest king's daughter in the land, I could not turn away from love so strong and true." Felice rebuked her, saying, "Could not? Silly child, see that your soft heart do not prove your shame." So with a tingling cheek the maid withdrew abashed. Then said Felice to Guy, "Why kneel there weeping like a girl? Get up, and show if there is the making of a man in you. Hear what I have to say. The swan mates not with the swallow, and I will never wed beneath me. Prove that your love is not presumption. Show yourself my peer. For I could love a brave and valiant knight before whose spear men bowed as to a king, nor would I ask his parentage, prouder far to know that my children took their nobleness from a self-made nobleman. But a weeping, love-sick page! No! Go, fight and battle--show me something that you do that I can love. Meantime I look for such a lover, and I care not if his name be Guy the page." Then Guy took heart and said, "Lady, I ask no better boon than to have you for witness of what love for you can do." Felice answered, "Deeds, not words. Be strong and valiant. I will watch and I will wait." Then Guy took leave of his mistress and in the course of a few days regained his health, to the surprise of all the court, but more especially of the leeches who had given him over for dead, and coming to Earl Rohand, entreated him to make him a knight. To this Earl Rohand having agreed, Guy was knighted at the next feast of Holy Trinity with a dubbing worthy a king's son; and they brought him rich armour, and a good sword and spear and shield, and a noble steed with costly trappings, together with rich silken cloaks and mantles fur-trimmed, and of great price. Then bidding farewell to Segard his father, Sir Guy left Warwick with Heraud his tutor, and Sir Thorold and Sir Urry for company, and having reached the nearest seaport, set sail for Normandy in search of adventures wherein to prove his valour. They came to Rouen, and whilst they tarried at an inn a tournament was proclaimed in honour of the fair Blancheflor, daughter to Regnier, Emperor of Germany, and the prize was the hand of the Princess, a white horse, two white hounds, and a white falcon. So Sir Guy and his companions rode into the lists, where was a great company of proven knights and champions. Three days they tourneyed, but none could withstand Sir Guy's strong arm. He overthrew Otho Duke of Pavia, Sir Garie the Emperor's son, Regnier Duke of Sessoyne, the Duke of Lowayne, and many more, till not a man was left who dared encounter him; and being master of the field, he was adjudged the prize. The horse and hounds and falcon he sent by two messengers to Felice in England as trophies of his valour. Then he knelt before the beautiful Princess Blancheflor and said, "Lady, I battle in honour of my mistress, the peerless Felice, and am her servant," whereat the Emperor and his daughter, admiring his constancy, loaded him with rich presents and allowed him to depart. Sir Guy then travelled through Spain, Lombardy, and Almayne, into far lands; and wheresoever a tournament was held, there he went and justed, coming out victor from them all; till the fame of his exploits spread over Christendom. So a year passed, and he returned to England unconquered, and renowned as the most valiant knight of his time. A while he sojourned in London with King Athelstan, who rejoiced to do him honour; then he came to Warwick, where he received from Earl Rohand a princely welcome. Then Sir Guy hastened to Felice. "Fair mistress," said he, "have I now won your love? You have heard my deeds, how I have travelled all through Christendom, and have yet found no man stand against my spear. I have been faithful in my love, Felice, as well as strong in fight. I might have wedded with the best. King's daughters and princesses were prizes in the tournaments; but I had no mind for any prize but thee. Say, is it mine, sweet mistress?" Then Felice kissed her knight and answered, "Right nobly have you won my love and worship, brave Sir Guy. You are more than my peer; you are become my sovereign; and my love pays willing homage to its lord. But for this same cause I will not wed you yet. I will not have men point at me and say, 'There is a woman who for selfish love's sake, wedded the knight of most renown in Christendom ere yet he did his bravest deeds-drew him from his level to her own-made him lay by his sword and spear for the slothful pleasures of a wedded life, and dwarfed a brave man down to a soft gentleman.' Nay, dear one, I can wait, and very proudly, knowing myself your chiefest prize. But seek not to possess the prize too soon, lest your strivings for renown, being aimless, should wax feeble. It is because I love you that I hold your fame far dearer than my love. Go rather forth again, travel through heathen lands, defend the weak against the strong; go, battle for the right, show yourself the matchless knight you are; and God and my love go with thee." Then Sir Guy got him ready for his new quest. Earl Rohand tried to persuade him to remain at home, as likewise did his father Segard; and his mother, weeping, prayed him stay. She said, "Another year it may not fare so well with thee, my son. Leave well alone. Felice is cold and proud and cares not for thee, else she would not risk thy life again. What is it to her? If thou wert slain she would get another lover; we have no more sons." Yet would not Sir Guy be turned from his purpose, but embarked with his companions, Sir Heraud, Sir Thorold, and Sir Urry, for Flanders. Thence he rode through Spain, Germany, and Lombardy, and bore away the prize at every tournament. But coming into Italy, he got a bad wound jousting at Beneventum, which greatly weakened him. Duke Otho of Pavia, whom Sir Guy overthrew in his first tournament at Rouen, thought now to be avenged on him. So he set a chosen knight, Earl Lombard, with fifteen other knights to lie in ambush in a wood and slay Sir Guy; and as Sir Guy, with his three companions, came ambling slowly through the wood, he smarting and well-nigh faint with his wound, the men in ambush broke out from their concealment and called on him to yield. The danger made him forget his pain, and straightway he dressed his shield and spurred among them. Sir Heraud, Sir Thorold, and Sir Urry killed the three first knights they rode against. Then Earl Lombard slew Sir Urry; and at the same time Hugo, nephew to Duke Otho, laid Sir Thorold dead at his horse's feet. Then only Sir Guy and Sir Heraud being left to fight, Sir Guy attacked Earl Lombard and smote him to the heart, whilst Sir Heraud chased Hugo, fleeing like a hound, and drove his spear throughout his body. Thus were Sir Urry and Sir Thorold avenged. But one of the felon knights, called Sir Gunter, smote Sir Heraud a mighty stroke when he was off his guard, and hewed his shield and coat of mail in pieces, and Sir Heraud fell to the earth covered with blood and lay as dead. Thereupon Sir Guy's anger waxed furious at his master's death; and he spurred his horse so that fire rose from under its feet, and with one blow of his sword cleft Sir Gunter from his helmet to the pummel of his saddle. As for the other knights he slew them all except Sir Guichard, who fled on his swift steed to Pavia, and got back to Duke Otho. Heavily Sir Guy grieved for the loss of his three friends, but most of all for his dear master Sir Heraud. He sought about the wood until he found a hermit. To him he gave a good steed, charging him to bury the bodies of Sir Urry and Sir Thorold. From Sir Heraud's body he would not part. Lifting the old knight to his arms, he laid him across his horse, and led the steed by the bridle-rein till they came to an abbey, where he left the body with the abbot, promising rich presents in return for giving it sumptuous burial with masses and chants. But Sir Guy departed and hid himself in a hermit's cave away from the malice of Duke Otho, until his wound should be healed. Now there was in the abbey whither Heraud's body was taken, a monk well skilled in leech-craft, who knew the virtues of all manner of grasses and herbs. And this monk, finding by his craft that life still flickered in the body, nursed and tended it; and after a long while Sir Heraud was well enough to travel. Disguised as a palmer he came into Burgundy, and there, to his great joy, found Sir Guy, who had come thither meaning to take his way back to England. But they lingered still, till Heraud should grow stronger, and so it fell out that they came to St. Omers. There they heard how the Emperor Regnier had come up against Segwin, Duke of Lavayne, laid waste his land, and besieged him in his strong city Seysone, because he had slain Sadoc, the Emperor's cousin, in a tournament. But when Sir Guy learned that Sadoc had first provoked Duke Segwin, and brought his death upon himself, he determined to help Segwin against his sovereign the Emperor Regnier. He therefore gathered fifty knights together with Heraud, and coming secretly at night to the city of Seysone, was let in at a postern gate without the enemy being aware. In the morning after mass they made a sally against their foes, which numbered thirty thousand strong, and routed them, taking many noble prisoners. Three times the Emperor came against the Greeks, each time with a new army larger than before. Twice did Sir Guy vanquish the host, and drive them from the walls. The third time he took Sir Gaire, the Emperor's son, prisoner, and carried him into the city. Then the Emperor Regnier determined, since he could not take the place by assault, to beleaguer it, and starve the town into surrender. And it was so that, while his army was set down before the walls, the Emperor hunted alone in a wood hard by, and Sir Guy, meeting him there, gathered a branch of olive tree, and came bending to the Emperor, saying, "God save you, gentle sire. Duke Segwin sendeth me to make his peace with you. He will yield you all his lands and castles in burg and city, and hold them of you henceforth in vassalage, but he now would have your presence in the city to a feast." So the Emperor was forced to go with him into the city as a prisoner, albeit he was served with the humility due to a sovereign both by Sir Guy and Duke Segwin's knights. Sir Gaire and the other captive nobles came also and prayed for peace with Duke Segwin, for they had been so well treated that they felt nothing but the truest friendship for their captor. So it befell when the Emperor found himself feasting in the enemy's castle, surrounded by the flower of his own knights and nobles, and Duke Segwin and his band serving them humbly at table as though they had been servants in place of masters, he was touched by their generosity, and willingly agreed to a free and friendly peace. And this was celebrated by the Emperor giving Duke Segwin his niece to wife, whilst the Duke of Saxony wedded Duke Segwin's sister amid great rejoicings. Now after this, learning that Ernis, Emperor of Greece, was besieged in Constantinople his capital by the Saracens, Sir Guy levied an army of a thousand knights and went to his assistance. Well pleased was Ernis at so timely a succor, and he promised to reward Sir Guy by making him heir to the throne and giving him the hand of his only daughter the beautiful Loret. Then Sir Guy led the army forth from the city against the Soudan and his host, and defeated them so badly that for some days they were unable to rally their men for another encounter. In the meantime, one of Sir Guy's knights named Sir Morgadour fell in love with the Princess Loret, and being envious of Sir Guy's achievements as well as jealous of such a rival, he sought how to embroil him with the Emperor and compass his disgrace. Wherefore one day when the Emperor Ernis was gone a-rivering with his hawks, Sir Morgadour challenged Sir Guy to play a game of chess in the Princess Loret's chamber. They played there, Sir Guy not thinking of treachery. But by-and-by the Princess entered, and Sir Morgadour after greeting her took his leave quickly and came to the Emperor Ernis, telling him how Sir Guy was alone in the chamber with his daughter. Ernis, however, paid little heed to the tale, for he said: "Well, and what of it? Loret is his promised bride, and Sir Guy is a good true knight. Away with your tales!" But Sir Morgadour was not to be baffled, so he went to Sir Guy and said: "Behold how little trust is to be placed in a king! Here is the Emperor Ernis mad wroth to hear you were alone with the Princess Loret, and swears he will have your life." Then Sir Guy in great anger summoned his knights, and was going over to the Saracens, when, on his way, he met the Emperor, who told him of the malice of Sir Morgadour and all was made plain. But now the Saracens coming anew against the city, Sir Guy went forth to meet them with many engines upon wheels which threw great stones quarried from a hill. Sir Guy and his army again defeated the Saracens, insomuch that a space of fifteen acres was covered so thick with dead that a man might not walk between, whilst the pile of slain around Sir Guy reached breast high. So the Soudan and his host withdrew to their camps. Then Sir Morgadour bethought him of another wile. The Soudan had sworn to kill every Christian found in his camp, without regard to flag of truce or ambassage. So Sir Morgadour persuaded Ernis to send Sir Guy to the Soudan saying, that, since the war seemed likely to come to no speedy issue, it should be settled by single combat between two champions chosen from the Christian and the Saracen hosts. The counsel seemed good to Ernis, but yet he liked not to risk his son-in-law's life; wherefore he called his Parliament together and asked for some bold knight to go and bear this message. When all the others held their peace, Sir Guy demanded to be sent upon the business, neither could the prayers and entreaties of Ernis cause him to forego the enterprise. He clad himself in iron hose and a trusty hauberk, set a helm of steel, gold-circled, on his head, and having girt his sword about him, leapt on his steed without so much as touching stirrup, and rode up to the Soudan's pavilion. He well knew it from the rest, since on the top thereof flashed a great carbuncle stone. There were feasting the Soudan, ten kings, and many barons, when Sir Guy walked into the pavilion and delivered his message with great roughness of speech. "Seize him and slay him!" cried the Soudan. But Sir Guy cut his way through his assailants and rushing on the Soudan cut off his head; and while he stooped to pick up the trophy with his left hand, with his right he slew six Saracens, then fought his passage past them all to the tent door, and leapt upon his horse. But the whole Saracen host being roused he never would have got back for all his bravery, but that Heraud within the city saw in a dream the danger he was in, and assembling the Greek army and Sir Guy's knights, came to his rescue and put the Saracens to flight. Then after the battle, Sir Guy came in triumph to Constantinople and laid the Soudan's head at the feet of the Emperor Ernis. Ernis now, being at peace from his enemies, would take Sir Guy through his realms. On their way they saw a dragon fighting a lion, and the lion having much the worst of the combat, Sir Guy must needs go and fight the dragon. After a hard battle he laid the monster dead at his feet, and the lion came and licked the hands of his deliverer, and would in no wise depart from his side. Soon afterward the Emperor Ernis gathered a great company of princes, dukes, earls, barons, bishops, abbots, and priors to the wedding feast, and in presence of them all he gave Sir Guy to be ruler over half the kingdom, and led forth the Princess Loret to be his bride. But when Sir Guy saw the wedding-ring, his old love came to his mind, and he bethought him of Felice. "Alas!" he cried, "Felice the bright and beautiful, my heart misgives me of forgetting thee. None other maid shall ever have my love." Then he fell into a swoon and when he came to himself he pleaded sudden sickness. So the marriage was put off, to the great distress of Ernis and his daughter Loret, and Sir Guy gat him to an Inn. Heraud tended him there, and learned how it was for the sake of Felice that Guy renounced so fair a bride, dowered with so rich a kingdom. But after a fortnight, when he could no longer feign illness because of the watchfullness of the Emperor and the Princess after his health, he was forced to return to court, and delay his marriage from day to day by one excuse and another, until at length fortune delivered him from the strait. The lion which Sir Guy had tamed was used to roam about the palace, and grew so gentle that none feared him and none sought him harm. But Sir Morgadour, being sore vexed to think that all his plans against Sir Guy had failed, determined to wreak his spite upon the lion. He therefore watched until he found the lion asleep within an arbour, and then wounded him to death with his sword. The faithful beast dragged himself so far as Sir Guy's chamber, licked his master's hands, and fell dead at his feet. But a little maid which had espied Sir Morgadour told Sir Guy who had slain his lion. Then Sir Guy went forth in quest of Sir Morgadour, and fought with him and slew him. He had forgiven the wrongs against himself, since he outwitted them; but he was fain to avenge his faithful favourite. Now Sir Morgadour was steward to the German Emperor Regnier. So Sir Guy showed Ernis that if he remained longer at his court, Regnier would surely make war on Greece to avenge his steward's death. Wherefore with this excuse he took his departure and set sail with Heraud in the first ship he could find. They landed in Germany, and visited the Emperor Regnier without telling anything about his steward's death. Then they came to Lorraine. As Sir Guy took his way alone through a forest, having sent his servants on to prepare a place for him at an inn, he heard the groaning of a man in pain, and turning his horse that way, found a knight sore wounded, and like to die. This knight was named Sir Thierry, and served the Duke of Lorraine. He told how he was riding through the wood with his lady, Osile, when fifteen armed men beset him, and forcibly carried off the lady to take her to Duke Otho of Pavia, his rival Then said Sir Guy, "I also have a score to settle with Otho, the felon duke." Then he took Sir Thierry's arms and armour, and went in pursuit of the ravishers whom he soon overtook, and having slain every one, he set the lady on his steed and returned to the place where he had left the wounded knight. But now Sir Thierry was gone; for four knights of Duke Otho's band had come and carried him off. So Sir Guy set down the lady, and started to find the four knights. Having fought and vanquished them, he set Sir Thierry on his horse and returned. But now Osile was gone. He searched for many hours to find her, but in vain. So as nightfall drew on he took Sir Thierry to the inn. There by good fortune they found the lady, Sir Guy's servants having met her in the wood and brought her with them to await his coming. A leech soon came and dressed Sir Thierry's wounds, and by the careful tending of Osile and Sir Guy, he got well Then Sir Guy and Sir Thierry swore brotherhood in arms. Soon there came a messenger, saying that Duke Otho, hotly wroth at losing the fair Osile, had gone to lay waste the lands of Aubry, Sir Thierry's father; the Duke of Lorraine was likewise helping him. Thereupon Sir Guy equipped five hundred knights and came with Sir Thierry to the city of Gurmoise where Aubry dwelt. It was a well ramparted city, and after being beaten in two battles with Sir Guy, Duke Otho found, despite the larger numbers of his host, that he could not stand against the courage of the little army and the valour of its leader. Thinking therefore to gain Osile by treachery, he sent an archbishop to Aubry, offering peace and pledging himself to confirm the marriage of Sir Thierry and Osile, provided only that the lovers would go and kneel in homage to their sovereign Duke of Lorraine. Thereon Sir Thierry and his bride, together with Sir Guy and Sir Heraud, set out unarmed, and after wending a day's journey out of Gurmoise, they met the Duke of Lorraine, who embraced and kissed them in token of peace. But Otho coming forward as if to do the like, made a sign to a band of men whom he had in waiting to seize them. These quickly surrounded Sir Heraud and Sir Thierry and carried them off; but Sir Guy with only his fists slew many of his assailants, and broke away to where a countryman stood with a staff in his hand. Snatching this for a weapon, Sir Guy beat down the quickest of his pursuers, and made his escape. Duke Otho cast Sir Thierry into a deep dungeon in Pavia, and meanwhile gave Osile a respite of forty days wherein to consent to be his bride. But the Duke of Lorraine carried off Sir Heraud. Weary and hungered, and vexed at the loss of his friends, Sir Guy came to a castle where he sought harbour for the night. Sir Amys of the Mountain, who dwelt there, welcomed him with a good will, and hearing his adventures, offered to raise an army of fifteen hundred men to help him against Duke Otho. But to this Sir Guy said nay, because it would take too long. So, after a day or two, having hit upon a plan, he disguised, himself by staining his face and darkening his hair and beard and eyebrows; and setting out alone, came to Duke Otho with a present of a war-horse of great price, and said, "You have in your keeping a dastard knight by name Sir Thierry, who has done me much despite, and I would fain be avenged upon him." Then Duke Otho, falling into the trap, appointed him jailor of Sir Thierry. The dungeon wherein Sir Thierry was prisoned was a pit of forty fathoms deep, and very soon Sir Guy spake from the pit's mouth bidding him be of good cheer, for he would certainly deliver him. But a false Lombard overheard these words, and thereby knowing that it was Sir Guy, ran off straightway to tell Duke Otho. Sir Guy followed quickly and sought to bribe the man with money to hold his peace, but without avail, for he would go into the palace where the Duke was, and opened his mouth to tell the tale. Then with one blow Sir Guy slew him at Duke Otho's feet. But Otho, very wroth, would have killed Sir Guy then and there, only that he averred that this was a certain traitor whom he found carrying food to the prisoner. Thus having appeased the Duke's anger, he gat away secretly to Osile, and bade her change her manner to Duke Otho, and make as though she was willing to have his love. The night before the day fixed for the wedding, Sir Guy let down a rope to Thierry in his pit, and having drawn him up, the two made all speed to the castle of Sir Amys. There, getting equipped with arms and armour, they leaped to horse on the morrow, and riding back to Pavia, met the wedding procession. Rushing into the midst Sir Guy slew Otho and Sir Thierry carried off Osile, whereupon they returned to Sir Amys with light hearts. And when the Duke of Lorraine had tidings of what had befallen Otho he had great fear of Sir Guy, and sent Sir Heraud back with costly gifts to make his peace. So Sir Thierry and Osile were wed, and a sumptuous banquet was held in their honour, with game, and hunting, and hawking, and justing, and singing of glee-men, more than can be told. Now as Sir Guy went a-hunting one day, he rode away from his party to pursue a boar of great size. And this boar, being very nimble and fleet of foot, led him a long chase till he came into Flanders. And when he killed the boar he blew upon his horn the prize. Florentine, King of Flanders, hearing it in his palace, said, "Who is this that slays the tall game on my lands?" And he bade his son go forth and bring him in. The young prince coming with a haughty message to Sir Guy, the knight struck him with his hunting-horn, meaning no more than chastisement for his discourtesy. But by misadventure the prince fell dead at his feet. Thinking no more of the mishap, and knowing not who it was whom he had slain, Sir Guy rode on to the palace, and was received with good cheer at the King's table. But presently the prince's body being brought in, and Guy owning that he had done this deed, King Florentine took up an axe, and aimed a mighty blow at the slayer of his son. This Sir Guy quickly avoided, and when all arose to seize him, he smote them down on either hand, and fought his way through the hall till he reached his steed, whereon lightly leaping he hasted back to Sir Thierry. Then after a short while he took leave of Sir Thierry, and came with Sir Heraud to England, to the court of King Athelstan at York. Scarce had he arrived there when tidings came that a great black and winged dragon was ravaging Northumberland, and had destroyed whole troops of men which went against him. Sir Guy at once armed himself in his best proven armour, and rode off in quest of the monster. He battled with the dragon from prime till undern, and on from undern until evensong, but for all the dragon was so strong and his hide so flinty Sir Guy overcame him, and thrust his sword down the dragon's throat, and having cut off his head brought it to King Athelstan. Then while all England rang with this great exploit, he took his journey to Wallingford to see his parents. But they were dead; so after grieving many days for them he gave his inheritance to Sir Heraud, and hasted to Felice at Warwick. Proudly she welcomed her true knight, and listened to the story of his deeds. Then laughingly Sir Guy asked, should he go another quest before they two were wed? "Nay, dear one," said Felice, "my heart misgives me I was wrong to peril your life so long for fame's sake and my pride in you. A great love-longing I have borne to have you home beside me. But now you shall go no more forth. My pride it was that made me wish you great and famous, and for that I bade you go; but now, beside your greatness and your fame, I am become so little and so unworthy that I grow jealous lest you seek a worthier mate. We will not part again, dear lord Sir Guy." Then he kissed her tenderly and said, "Felice, whatever of fame and renown I may have gained, I owe it all to you. It was won for you, and but for you it had not been--and so I lay it at your feet in loving homage, owning that I hold it all of you." So they were wed amid the joy of all the town of Warwick; for the spousings were of right royal sort, and Earl Rohand held a great tournament, and kept open court to all Warwick, Rockingham, and Oxford for fourteen days. Forty days they had been wed, when it happened that as Sir Guy lay by a window of his tower, looking out upon the landscape, he fell to musing on his life. He thought, "How many men I have slain, how many battles I have fought, how many lands I have taken and destroyed! All for a woman's love; and not one single deed done for my God!" Then he thought, "I will go a pilgrimage for the sake of the Holy Cross." And when Felice knew what he meditated she wept, and with many bitter tears besought him not to leave her. But he sighed and said, "Not yet one single deed for God above!" and held fast to his intent. So he clad himself in palmer's dress, and having taken a gold ring from his wife's hand and placed upon his own, he set out without any companion for the Holy Land. But Felice fell into a great wan-hope at his departure, and grieved continually, neither would be comforted; for she said, "I have brought this on myself by sending him such perilous journeys heretofore, and now I cannot bear to part from him." But that she bore his child she would have taken her own life for very trouble of heart; only for that child's sake she was fain to live and mature it when it should be born. Now after Sir Guy had made his toilsome pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and shrived him of his life, and done his prayers and penances about the holy places, he took his way to Antioch. Beside a well he met a certain Earl Jonas, whose fifteen sons were held in prison till he should find a champion to deliver the Saracen Sir Triamour from the hands of a fierce and terrible Ethiopian giant named Amiraunt. So Sir Guy took arms again, and rode into the lists, and fought with Amiraunt and slew him; thus both Sir Triamour was delivered from his enemy, and the sons of Earl Jonas were restored to him. After this, Sir Guy travelled many years as a pilgrim of the Cross, till in his wanderings, chancing to come into Almayne, he there fell in with Sir Thierry, who, dressed in palmer's weeds, made sorry complaint. Sir Thierry told how a knight named Barnard inherited Pavia in the room of his cousin Duke Otho; and how Barnard, being at enmity with him because of the slaying of Duke Otho, had never rested from doing him mischief with his sovereign, until the Duke of Lorraine dispossessed him from his lands and brought him into poverty. Howbeit Sir Guy would not reveal himself, and Sir Thierry being faint and weary, laid his head upon Sir Guy's knees, and so great a heaviness came over him that he fell asleep. As he slept, Sir Guy, watching him, saw a small white weasel creep out from the mouth of the sleeping man, and run to a little rivulet that was hard by, going to and fro beside the bank, not seeming wistful how to get across. Then Sir Guy rose gently and laid his sword athwart the stream from bank to bank; so the weasel passed over the sword, as it had been a bridge, and having made his way to a hole at the foot of the hill on the other side, went in thereat. But presently the weasel came out, and crossing the stream in the same manner as before jumped into the sleeper's mouth again. Then Sir Thierry woke and told his dream. "I dreamed," said he, "that I came beside a mighty torrent which I knew not how to pass, until I found a bridge of shining steel, over which I went, and came into a cavern underground, and therein I found a palace full of gold and jewels. I pray thee, brother palmer, read to me this dream." Then Sir Guy said that without doubt it betokened a fair treasure hid by a waterside, and with that showed him the hole under the hill whereat he had seen the weasel go in. There they digged and found the treasure, which was very great; yet Sir Guy would have no share therein, but took leave of Sir Thierry without ever making himself known, and came to Lorraine the duke that was Sir Thierry's sovereign. Seeing a palmer the Duke of Lorraine asked tidings of his travels. "Sir," said the palmer, "men in all lands speak of Sir Thierry, and much do blame you for taking away his heritage at the bidding of so false a knight as Sir Barnard. And palmer though I be, I yet will prove Sir Barnard recreant and traitor upon his body, and thereto I cast down my glove." Then Sir Barnard took up the glove, and Sir Guy being furnished with armour and a sword and shield and spear, they did battle together. And in the end Sir Guy overcame and slew Sir Barnard, and demanded of the duke to restore Sir Thierry to his possessions, which being granted, he went in search of the banished man, and having found him in a church making his prayer, brought him straightway to the duke, and thus they were made friends. And when Sir Thierry found who his deliverer was he was exceeding glad and would willingly have divided all his inheritance with him. But Sir Guy would receive neither fee nor reward, and after he had abode some time with him at the court, he took his way to England. Now Athelstan was besieged in Winchester by Anlaf King of Denmark, and could not come out of the city for the great host that was arrayed against him, whilst all the folk within the city walls were famishing for want of food and thought of nothing but surrender. Moreover King Anlaf had proclaimed a challenge, giving them seven days' grace wherein either to deliver up the city keys, or to find a champion who should fight against the great and terrible Danish giant Colbrand; and every day for seven days' the giant came before the walls and cried for a man to fight with him. But there was found no man so hardy to do battle with Colbrand. Then King Athelstan, as he walked to and fro in his city and saw the distress of his people, was suddenly aware of a light that shone about him very brightly, and he heard a voice which charged him to intrust his cause to the first poor palmer he should meet. Soon after he met a palmer in the city, and weening not that it was Sir Guy, kneeled humbly to him, in sure faith in the heavenly voice, and asked his help. "I am an old man," said the palmer, "with little strength except what Heaven might give me for a people's need beset by enemies. But yet for England's sake and with Heaven's help I will undertake this battle." They then clothed him in the richest armour that the city could furnish, with a good hauberk of steel, and a helmet whose gold circle sparkled with precious stones, and on the top whereof stood a flower wrought of divers colours in rare gems. Gloves of mail he wore, and greaves upon his legs, and a shirt of ring-mail upon his body, with a quilted gambeson beneath: sharp was the sword, and richly carved the heavy spear he bare; his threefold shield was overlaid with gold. They led forth to him a swift steed; but before he mounted he went down upon his knees and meekly told his beads, praying God to succor him that day. And the two kings held a parley for an hour, Anlaf promising on his part that if his champion fell he would go back with all his host to Denmark and never more make war on Britain, whilst Athelstan agreed, if his knight were vanquished, to make Anlaf King of England, and henceforth to be his vassal and pay tribute both of gold and silver money. Then Colbrand stode forth to the battle. So great was he of stature that no horse could bear him, nor indeed could any man make a cart wherein to carry him. He was armed with black armour of so great weight that a score of men could scarce bear up his hauberk only, and it took three to carry his helmet. He bare a great dart within his hand, and slung around his body were swords and battle-axes more than two hundred in number. Sir Guy rode boldly at him, but his spear shivered into pieces against the giant's armour. Then Colbrand threw three darts. The first two passed wide, but the third crashed through Sir Guy's shield, and glided betwixt his arm and side, nor fell to ground till it had sped over a good acre of the field. Then a blow from the giant's sword just missed the knight, but lighting on his saddle at the back of him hewed horse and saddle clean in two; so Sir Guy was brought to ground. Yet lightly sprang he to his feet, and though seemingly but a child beside the monster man, he laid on hotly with his sword upon the giant's armour, until the sword brake in his hands. Then Colbrand called on him to yield, since he had no longer a weapon wherewith to fight. "Nay," answered Sir Guy, "but I will have one are of thine," and with that ran deftly to the giant's side and wrenched away a battle-axe wherewith he maintained the combat. Right well Sir Guy endured while Colbrand's mighty strokes shattered his armour all about him, until his shield being broke in pieces it seemed he could no longer make defence, and the Danes raised a great shout at their champion's triumph. Then Colbrand aimed a last stroke at the knight to lay him low, but Sir Guy lightly avoiding it, the giant's sword smote into the earth a foot or more, and before he could withdraw it or free his hand, Sir Guy hewed off the arm with his battle-axe; and since Colbrand's weight leaned on that arm, he fell to the ground. So Sir Guy cut off his head, and triumphed over the giant Colbrand, and the Danes withdrew to their own country. Then without so much as telling who he was, Sir Guy doffed his armour and put on his palmer's weeds again, and secretly withdrawing himself from all the feasts and games they held in honour of him in the city of Winchester, passed out alone and took his journey toward Warwick on foot. Many a year had gone since he had left his wife and home. The boy whom Felice had borne him, named Raynburn, he had never seen; nor, as it befell, did he ever see his son. For Raynburn in his childhood had been stolen away by Saracens and carried to a far heathen country, where King Aragus brought him up and made him first his page, then chamberlain, and as he grew to manhood, knighted him. And now he fought the battles of King Aragus with a strong arm like his father Guy's, neither could any endure against his spear. But all these years Felice had passed in prayer and charity, entertaining pilgrims and tired wayfarers, and comforting the sick and the distressed. And it was so that Sir Guy, all travel-worn and with his pilgrim's staff in hand, came to her house and craved an alms. She took him in and washed his feet and ministered to him, asking oftentimes if in his travels he had seen her lord Sir Guy. But when he watched her gentleness to the poor and to the children at her gate, he feared to break in upon her holy life, and so refrained himself before her and would not reveal himself, but with a heavy heart came out from the lady's door and gat him to a hermit's cell. There he abode in fasting and in penitence many weeks, till feeling his end draw near, he took the ring from his finger and sent it by a herdsman to Felice. "Where got you this token?" cried Felice, all trembling with her wonderment and fear. "From a poor beggar-man that lives in yonder cell," the herdsman answered. "From a beggar? Nay, but from a kingly man," said Felice, "for he is my husband, Guy of Warwick!" and gave the herdsman a hundred marks. Then she hasted and came to Sir Guy in his hermit's cell, and for a long space they wept in each other's arms and neither spake a word. Weaker and fainter waxed Sir Guy. In a little while he died, and Felice closed his tired eyes. Fifteen weary days she lingered sore in grief, and then God's angel came and closed her own. CHAPTER VIII CHEVY CHASE God prosper long our noble king, Our lives and safeties all; A woeful hunting once there did In Chevy Chase befall. To drive the deer with hound and horn Earl Percy took the way; The child may rue that is unborn The hunting of that day. The stout earl of Northumberland A vow to God did make, His pleasure in the Scottish woods Three summer days to take-- The chiefest harts in Chevy Chase To kill and bear away. These tidings to Earl Douglas came In Scotland where he lay; Who sent Earl Percy present word He would prevent his sport. The English earl not fearing that, Did to the woods resort. With fifteen hundred bowmen bold, All chosen men of might, Who knew full well in time of need To aim their shafts aright. The gallant greyhound swiftly ran To chase the fallow deer; On Monday they began to hunt Ere daylight did appear; And long before high noon they had A hundred fat bucks slain; Then having dined, the drovers went To rouse the deer again. The bowmen mustered on the hills, Well able to endure; Their backsides all with special care That day were guarded sure. The hounds ran swiftly through the woods, The nimble deer to take, That with their cries the hills and dales An echo shrill did make. Lord Percy to the quarry went To view the tender deer; Quoth he, "Earl Douglas promised once This day to meet me here." "But if I thought he would not come, No longer would I stay"; With that a brave young gentleman Thus to the earl did say: "Lo, yonder doth Earl Douglas come, His men in armour bright; Full twenty hundred Scottish spears All marching in our sight; "All men of pleasant Teviotdale, Fast by the River Tweed." "O cease your sports," Earl Percy said, "And take your bows with speed; "And now with me, my countrymen, Your courage forth advance, For there was never champion yet, In Scotland or in France, "That ever did on horseback come, And if my hap it were, I durst encounter man for man With him to break a spear." Earl Douglas on his milk white steed, Most like a baron bold, Rode foremost of his company, Whose armour shone like gold. "Show me," said he, "whose men you be, That hunt so boldly here, That, without my consent, do chase And kill my fallow deer." The first man that did answer make, Was noble Percy he, Who said, "We list not to declare Nor show whose men we be: "Yet will we spend our dearest blood Thy chiefest harts to slay." Then Douglas swore a solemn oath, And thus in rage did say: "Ere thus I will out-braved be, One of us two shall die; I know thee well, an earl thou art-- Lord Percy, so am I. "But trust me, Percy, pity it were, And great offence, to kill Any of these our guiltless men, For they have done none ill. "Let thou and I the battle try, And set our men aside." "Accurst be he," Earl Percy said, "By whom it is denied." Then stept a gallant squire forth-- Witherington was his name-- Who said, "I would not have it told To Henry, our king, for shame, "That e'er my captain fought on foot, And I stood looking on. You be two earls," quoth Witherington, "And I a squire alone; "I'll do the best that do I may, While I have power to stand; While I have power to wield my sword, I'll fight with heart and hand." Our English archers bent their bows-- Their hearts were good and true; At the first flight of arrows sent, Full four score Scots they slew. To drive the deer with hound and horn, Douglas bade on the bent, Two captains moved with mickle might, Their spears to shivers went. They closed full fast on every side, No slackness there was found, But many a gallant gentleman Lay gasping on the ground. O Christ! it was great grief to see How each man chose his spear, And how the blood out of their breasts Did gush like water clear. At last these two stout earls did meet Like captains of great might; Like lions wode, they laid on lode; They made a cruel fight. They fought until they both did sweat, With swords of tempered steel, Till blood down their cheeks like rain They trickling down did feel. "O yield thee, Percy!" Douglas said, "And in faith I will thee bring Where thou shalt high advanced be By James, our Scottish king. "Thy ransom I will freely give, And this report of thee, Thou art the most courageous knight That ever I did see." "No, Douglas," quoth Earl Percy then, "Thy proffer I do scorn; I will not yield to any Scot That ever yet was born." With that there came an arrow keen, Out of an English bow, Which struck Earl Douglas on the breast A deep and deadly blow. Who never said more words than these: "Fight on, my merry men all! For why, my life is at an end, Lord Percy sees my fall." Then leaving life, Earl Percy took The dead man by the hand; Who said, "Earl Douglas, for thy life Would I had lost my land! "O Christ! my very heart doth bleed For sorrow for thy sake, For sure a more redoubted knight Mischance could never take." A knight amongst the Scots there was Which saw Earl Douglas die, Who straight in heart did vow revenge Upon the Lord Percy. Sir Hugh Montgomery was he called, Who, with a spear full bright, Well mounted on a gallant steed, Ran fiercely through the fight, And past the English archers all, Without all dread or fear, And through Earl Percy's body then He thrust his hateful spear. With such a vehement force and might His body he did gore, The staff ran through the other side A large cloth-yard, and more. Thus did both those nobles die, Whose courage none could stain; An English archer then perceived The noble earl was slain. He had a good bow in his hand Made of a trusty tree; An arrow of a cloth-yard long To the hard head haled he. Against Sir Hugh Montgomery His shaft full right he set; The gray-goose-wing that was thereon In his heart's blood was wet. This fight from break of day did last Till setting of the sun, For when they rang the evening-bell The battle scarce was done. With stout Earl Percy there was slain Sir John of Egerton, Sir Robert Harcliff and Sir William, Sir James, that bold baron. And with Sir George and Sir James, Both knights of good account, Good Sir Ralph Raby there was slain, Whose prowess did surmount. For Witherington needs must I wail As one in doleful dumps. For when his legs were smitten off, He fought upon his stumps. And with Earl Douglas there was slain Sir Hugh Montgomery, And Sir Charles Morrell, that from field One foot would never flee; Sir Roger Heuer of Harcliff, too, His sister's son was he; Sir David Lambwell, well esteemed, But saved he could not be. And the Lord Maxwell, in like case, With Douglas he did die; Of twenty hundred Scottish spears, Scarce fifty-five did fly. Of fifteen hundred Englishmen Went home but fifty-three; The rest in Chevy Chase were slain, Under the greenwood tree. Next day did many widows come Their husbands to bewail; They washed their wounds in brinish sears. But all would not prevail. Their bodies, bathed in purple blood, They bore with them away; They kissed them dead a thousand times Ere they were clad in clay. The news was brought to Edinburgh, Where Scotland's king did reign, That brave Earl Douglas suddenly Was with an arrow slain. "O heavy news!" King James can say, "Scotland may witness be I have not any captain more Of such account as he." Like tidings to King Henry came Within as short a space, That Percy of Northumberland Was slain at Chevy Chase. "Now God be with him!" said our king, "Since it will no better be; I trust I have within my realm Five hundred as good as he." "Yet shall not Scots nor Scotland say But I will vengeance take, And be revenged on them all For brave Earl Percy's sake." This vow the king did well perform After on Humble-down; In one day fifty knights were slain With lords of great renown. And of the rest, of small account, Did many hundreds die: Thus endeth the hunting in Chevy Chase Made by the Earl Percy. God save our king, and bless this land With plenty, joy, and peace, And grant henceforth that foul debate Twixt noble men may cease! CHAPTER IX THE FATE OF THE CHILDREN OF LIR Now at the time when the Tuatha de Danaan chose a king for themselves after the battle of Tailltin, and Lir heard the kingship was given to Bodb Dearg, it did not please him, and he left the gathering without leave and with no word to any one; for he thought it was he himself had a right to be made king. But if he went away himself, Bodb was given the kingship none the less, for not one of the five begrudged it to him but only Lir. And it is what they determined, to follow after Lir, and to burn down his house, and to attack himself with spear and sword, on account of his not giving obedience to the king they had chosen. "We will not do that," said Bodb Dearg, "for that man would defend any place he is in; and besides that," he said, "I am none the less king over the Tuatha de Danaan, although he does not submit to me." All went on like that for a good while, but at last a great misfortune came on Lir, for his wife died from him after a sickness of three nights. And that came very hard on Lir, and there was heaviness on his mind after her. And there was great talk of the death of that woman in her own time. And the news of it was told all through Ireland, and it came to the house of Bodb, and the best of the Men of Dea were with him at that time. And Bodb said: "If Lir had a mind for it," he said, "my help and my friendship would be good for him now, since his wife is not living to him. For I have here with me the three young girls of the best shape, and the best appearance, and the best name in all Ireland, Aobh, Aoife, and Aihbhe, the three daughters of Oilell of Aran, my own three nurselings." The Men of Dea said then it was a good thought he had, and that what he said was true. Messages and messengers were sent then from Bodb Dearg to the place Lir was, to say that if he had a mind to join with the Son of the Dagda and to acknowledge his lordship, he would give him a foster-child of his foster-children. And Lir thought well of the offer, and he set out on the morrow with fifty chariots from Sidhe Fionna-chaidh; and he went by every short way till he came to Bodb's dwelling-place at Loch Dearg, and there was a welcome before him there, and all the people were merry and pleasant before him, and he and his people got good attendance that night. And the three daughters of Oilell of Aran were sitting on the one seat with Bodb Dearg's wife, the queen of the Tuatha de Danaan, that was their foster-mother. And Bodb said: "You may have your choice of the three young girls, Lir." "I cannot say," said Lir, "which one of them is my choice, but whichever of them is the eldest, she is the noblest, and it is better for me to take her." "If that is so," said Bodb, "it is Aobh is the eldest, and she will be given to you, if it is your wish." "It is my wish," he said. And he took Aobh for his wife that night, and he stopped there for a fortnight, and then he brought her away to his own house, till he would make a great wedding-feast. And in the course of time Aobh brought forth two children, a daughter and a son, Fionnuala and Aodh their names were. And after a while she was brought to bed again, and this time she gave birth to two sons, and they called them Fiachra and Conn. And she herself died at their birth. And that weighed very heavy on Lir, and only for the way his mind was set on his four children he would have gone near to die of grief. The news came to Bodb Dearg's place, and all the people gave out three loud, high cries, keening their nursling. And after they had keened her it is what Bodb Dearg said: "It is a fret to us our daughter to have died, for her own sake and for the sake of the good man we gave her to, for we are thankful for his friendship and his faithfulness. However," he said, "our friendship with one another will not be broken, for I will give him for a wife her sister Aoife." When Lir heard that he came for the girl and married her, and brought her home to his house. And there was honour and affection with Aoife for her sister's children; and indeed no person at all could see those four children without giving them the heart's love. And Bodb Dearg used often to be going to Lir's house for the sake of those children; and he used to bring them to his own place for a good length of time, and then he would let them go back to their own place again. And the Men of Dea were at that time using the Feast of Age in every hill of the Sidhe in turn; and when they came to Lir's hill those four children were their joy and delight for the beauty of their appearance; and it is where they used to sleep, in beds in sight of their father Lir. And he used to rise up at the break of every morning, and to lie down among his children. But it is what came of all this, that a fire of jealousy was kindled in Aoife, and she got to have a dislike and a hatred of her sister's children. Then she let on to have a sickness, that lasted through nearly the length of a year. And the end of that time she did a deed of jealousy and cruel treachery against the children of Lir. And one day she got her chariot yoked, and she took the four children in it, and they went forward toward the house of Bodb Dearg; but Fionnuala had no mind to go with her, for she knew by her she had some plan for their death or their destruction, and she had seen in a dream that there was treachery against them in Aoife's mind. But all the same she was not able to escape from what was before her. And when they were on their way Aoife said to her people: "Let you kill now," she said, "the four children of Lir, for whose sake their father has given up my love, and I will give you your own choice of a reward out of all the good things of the world." "We will not do that indeed," said they; "and it is a bad deed you have thought of, and harm will come to you out of it." And when they would not do as she bade them, she took out a sword herself to put an end to the children with; but she being a woman and with no good courage, and with no great strength in her mind, she was not able to do it. They went on then west to Loch Dairbhreach, the Lake of the Oaks, and the horses were stopped there. And Aoife bade the children of Lir to go out and bathe in the lake, and they did as she bade them. And as soon as Aoife saw them out in the lake she struck them with a Druid rod, and put on them the shape of four swans, white and beautiful. And it is what she said: "Out with you, children of the king, your luck is taken away from you forever; it is sorrowful the story will be to your friends it is with flocks of birds your cries will be heard for ever." And Fionnuala said: "Witch, we know now what your name is, you have struck us down with no hope of relief; but although you put us from wave to wave, there are times when we will touch the land. We shall get help when we are seen; help, and all that is best for us; even though we have to sleep upon the lake, it is our minds will be going abroad early." And then the four children of Lir turned toward Aoife, and this is what Fionnuala said: "It is a bad deed you have done, Aoife, and it is a bad fulfilling of friendship, you to destroy us without cause; and vengeance for it will come upon you, and you will fall in satisfaction for it, for your power for our destruction is not greater than the power of our friends to avenge it on you; and put some bounds now," she said, "to the time this enchantment is to stop on us." "I will do that," said Aoife, "and it is worse for you, you to have asked it of me. And the bounds I I set to your time are this, till the Woman from the South and the Man from the North will come together. And since you ask to hear it of me," she said, "no friends and no power that you have will be able to bring you out of these shapes you are in through the length of your lives, until you have been three hundred years on Loch Dairbhreach, and three hundred years on Sruth na Maoile between Ireland and Alban, and three hundred years at Irrus Domnann and Inis Gluaire; and these are to be your journeys from this out," she said. But then repentance came on Aoife, and she said: "Since there is no other help for me to give you now, you may keep your own speech; and you will be singing sweet music in the Sidhe, that would put the men of the earth to sleep, and there will be no music in the world equal to it; and your own sense and your own nobility will stay with you, the way it will not weigh so heavy on you to be in the shape of birds. And go away out of my sight now, children of Lir," she said, "with your white faces, with your stammering Irish. It is a great curse on tender lads, they to be driven out on the rough wind. Nine hundred years to be on the water, it is a long time for any one to be in pain; it is I put this on you through treachery, it is best for you to do as I tell you now. "Lir, that got victory with so many a good cast, his heart is a kernel of death in him now; the groaning of the great hero is a sickness to me, though it is I that have well earned his anger." And then the horses were caught for Aoife, and the chariot yoked for her, and she went on to the palace of Bodb Dearg, and there was a welcome before her from the chief people of the place. And the son of the Dagda asked her why she did not bring the children of Lir with her. "I will tell you that," she said. "It is because Lir has no liking for you, and he will not trust you with his children, from fear you might keep them from him altogether." "I wonder at that," said Bodb Dearg, "for those children are dearer to me than my own children." And he thought in his own mind it was deceit the woman was doing on him, and it is what he did, he sent messengers to the North to Sidhe Fionnachaidh. And Lir asked them what did they come for. "On the head of your children," said they. "Are they not gone to you along with Aoife?" he said. "They are not," said they; "and Aoife said it was yourself would not let them come." It is downhearted and sorrowful Lir was at that news, for he understood well it was Aoife had destroyed or made an end of his children. And early in the morning of the morrow his horses were caught, and he set out on the road to the Southwest. And when he was as far as the shore of Loch Dairbhreach, the four children saw the horses coming toward them, and it is what Fionnuala said: "A welcome to the troop of horses I see coming near to the lake; the people they are bringing are strong, there is sadness on them; it is us they are following, it is for us they are looking; let us move over to the shore, Aodh, Fiachra, and comely Conn. Those that are coming can be no others in the world but only Lir and his household." Then Lir came to the edge of the lake, and he took notice of the swans having the voice of living people, and he asked them why was it they had that voice. "I will tell you that, Lir," said Fionnuala. "We are your own four children, that are after being destroyed by your wife, and by the sister of our own mother, through the dint of her jealousy." "Is there any way to put you into your own shapes again?" said Lir. "There is no way," said Fionnuala, "for all the men of the world could not help us till we have gone through our time, and that will not be," she said, "till the end of nine hundred years." When Lir and his people heard that, they gave out three great heavy shouts of grief and sorrow and crying. "Is there a mind with you," said Lir, "to come to us on the land, since you have not your own sense and your memory yet?" "We have not the power," said Fionnuala, "to live with any person at all from this time; but we have our own language, the Irish, and we have the power to sing sweet music, and it is enough to satisfy the whole race of men to be listening to that music. And let you stop here to-night," she said, "and we will be making music for you." So Lir and his people stopped there listening to the music of the swans, and they slept there quietly that night. And Lir rose up early on the morning of the morrow and he made this complaint: "It is time to go out from this place. I do not sleep though I am in my lying down. To be parted from my dear children, it is that is tormenting my heart. "It is a bad net I put over you, bringing Aoife, daughter of Oilell of Aran, to the house. I would never have followed that advice if I had known what it would bring upon me. "O Fionnuala, and comely Conn, O Aodh, O Fiachra of the beautiful arms; it is not ready I am to go away from you, from the border of the harbour where you are." Then Lir went on to the palace of Bodb Dearg, and there was a welcome before him there; and he got a reproach from Bodb Dearg for not bringing his children along with him. "My grief!" said Lir. "It is not I that would not bring my children along with me; it was Aoife there beyond, your own foster-child and the sister of their mother, that put them in the shape of four white swans on Loch Dairbhreach, in the sight of the whole of the men of Ireland; but they have their sense with them yet, and their reason, and their voice, and their Irish." Bodb Dearg gave a great start when he heard that, and he knew what Lir said was true, and he gave a very sharp reproach to Aoife, and he said: "This treachery will be worse for yourself in the end, Aoife, than to the children of Lir. And what shape would you yourself think worst of being in?" he said. "I would think worst of being a witch of the air," she said. "It is into that shape I will put you now." said Bodb. And with that he struck her with a Druid wand, and she was turned into a witch of the air there and then, and she went away on the wind in that shape, and she is in it yet, and will be in it to the end of life and time. As to Bodb Dearg and the Tuatha de Danaan they came to the shore of Loch Dairbhreach, and they made their camp there to be listening to the music of the swans. And the Sons of the Gael used to be coming no less than the Men of Dea to hear them from every part of Ireland, for there never was any music or any delight, heard in Ireland to compare with that music of the swans. And they used to be telling stories, and to be talking with the men of Ireland every day, and with their teachers and their fellow-pupils and their friends. And every night they used to sing very sweet music of the Sidhe; and every one that heard that music would sleep sound and quiet whatever trouble or long sickness might be on him; for every one that heard the music of the birds, it is happy and contented he would be after it. These two gatherings now of the Tuatha de Danaan and of the Sons of the Gael stopped there around Loch Dairbhreach through the length of three hundred years. And it is then Fionnuala said to her brothers: "Do you know," she said, "we have spent all we have to spend of our time here, but this one night only." And there was great sorrow on the sons of Lir when they heard that, for they thought it the same as to be living people again, to be talking with their friends and their companions on Loch Dairbhreach, in comparison with going on the cold, fretful sea of the Maoil in the North. And they came early on the morrow to speak with their father and with their foster-father, and they bade them farewell, and Fionnuala made this complaint: "Farewell to you, Bodb Dearg, the man with whom all knowledge is in pledge. And farewell to our father along with you, Lir of the Hill of the White Field. "The time is come, as I think, for us to part from you, O pleasant company; my grief it is not on a visit we are going to you. "From this day out, O friends of our heart, our comrades, it is on the tormented course of the Maoil we will be, without the voice of any person near us. "There hundred years there, and three hundred years in the bay of the men of Domnann, it is a pity for the four comely children of Lir, the salt waves of the sea to be their covering by night. "O three brothers, with the ruddy faces gone from you, let them all leave the lake now, the great troop that loved us, it is sorrowful our parting is." After that complaint they took to flight, lightly, airily, till they came to Sruth na Maoile between Ireland and Alban. And that was a grief to the men of Ireland, and they gave out an order no swan was to be killed from that out, whatever chance there might be of killing one, all through Ireland. It was a bad dwelling-place for the children of Lir they to be on Sruth na Maoile. When they saw the wide coast about them, they were filled with cold and with sorrow, and they thought nothing of all they had gone through before, in comparison to what they were going through on that sea. Now one night while they were there a great storm came on them, and it is what Fionnuala said: "My dear brothers," she said, "it is a pity for us not to be making ready for this night, for it is certain the storm will separate us from one another. And let us," she said, "settle on some place where we can meet afterward, if we are driven from one another in the night." "Let us settle," said the others, "to meet one another at Carraig na Ron, the Rock of the Seals, for we all have knowledge of it." And when midnight came, the wind came on them with it, and the noise of the waves increased, and the lightning was flashing, and a rough storm came sweeping down; the way the children of Lir were scattered over the great sea, and the wideness of it set them astray, so that no one of them could know what way the others went. But after that storm a great quiet came on the sea, and Fionnuala was alone on Sruth na Maoile; and when she took notice that her brothers were wanting she was lamenting after them greatly, and she made this complaint: "It is a pity for me to be alive in the state I am; it is frozen to my sides my wings are; it is little that the wind has not broken my heart in my body, with the loss of Aodh. "To be three hundred years on Loch Dairbhreach without going into my own shape, it is worse to me the time I am on Sruth na Maoile. "The three I loved, Och! the three I loved, that slept under the shelter of my feathers; till the dead come back to the living I will see them no more for ever. "It is a pity I to stay after Fiachra, and after Aodh, and after comely Conn, and with no account of them; my grief I to be here to face every hardship this night." She stopped all night there upon the Rock of the Seals until the rising of the sun, looking out over the sea on every side till at last she saw Conn coming to her, his feathers wet through and his head hanging, and her heart gave him a great welcome; and then Fiachra came wet and perished and worn out, and he could not say a word they could understand with the dint of the cold and the hardship he had gone through. And Fionnuala put him under her wings, and she said: "We would be well off now if Aodh would but come to us." It was not long after that, they saw Aodh coming, his head dry and his feathers beautiful, and Fionnuala gave him a great welcome, and she put him in under the feathers of her breast, and Fiachra under her right wing and Conn under her left wing, the way she could put her feathers over them all. "And Och! my brothers," she said, "this was a bad night to us, and it is many of its like are before us from this out." They stayed there a long time after that, suffering cold and misery on the Maoil, till at last a night came on them they had never known the like of before, for frost and snow and wind and cold. And they were crying and lamenting the hardship of their life, and the cold of the night and the greatness of the snow and the hardness of the wind. And after they had suffered cold to the end of a year, a worse night again came on them, in the middle of winter. And they were on Carraig na Ron, and the water froze about them, and as they rested on the rock, their feet and their wings and their feathers froze to the rock, the way they were not able to move from it. And they made such a hard struggle to get away, that they left the skin of their feet and their feathers and the tops of their wings on the rock after them. "My grief, children of Lir," said Fionnuala, "it is bad our state is now, for we cannot bear the salt water to touch us, and there are bonds on us not to leave it; and if the salt water goes into our sores," she said, "we will get our death." And she made this complaint: "It is keening we are to-night; without feathers to cover our bodies; it is cold the rough, uneven rocks are under our bare feet. "It is bad our stepmother was to us the time she played enchantments on us, sending us out like swans upon the sea. "Our washing place is on the ridge of the bay, in the foam of flying manes of the sea; our share of the ale feast is the salt water of the blue tide. "One daughter and three sons; it is in the clefts of the rocks we are; it is on the hard rocks we are, it is a pity the way we are." However, they came on to the course of the Maoil again, and the salt water was sharp and rough and bitter to them, but if it was itself, they were not able to avoid it or to get shelter from it. And they were there by the shore under that hardship till such time as their feathers grew again, and their wings, and till their sores were entirely healed. And then they used to go every day to the shore of Ireland or of Alhan, but they had to come back to Sruth na Maoile every night. Now they came one day to the mouth of the Banna, to the north of Ireland, and they saw a troop of riders, beautiful, of the one colour, with well-trained pure white horses under them, and they travelling the road straight from the Southwest. "Do you know who those riders are, sons of Lir?" said Fionnuala. "We do not," they said; "but it is likely they might be some troop of the Sons of the Gael, or of the Tuatha de Danaan." They moved over closer to the shore then, that they might know who they were, and when the riders saw them they came to meet them until they were able to hold talk together. And the chief men among them were two sons of Bodb Dearg, Aodh Aithfhiosach, of the quick wits, and Fergus Fithchiollach, of the chess, and a third part of the Riders of the Sidhe along with them, and it was for the swans they had been looking for a long while before that, and when they came together they wished one another a kind and loving welcome. And the children of Lir asked for news of all the men of Dea, and above all of Lir, and Bodb Dearg and their people. "They are well, and they are in the one place together," said they, "in your father's house at Sidhe Fionnachaidh, using the Feast of Age pleasantly and happily, and with no uneasiness on them, only for being without yourselves, and without knowledge of what happened you from the day you left Loch Dairbhreach." "That has not been the way with us," said Fionnuala, "for we have gone through great hardship and uneasiness and misery on the tides of the sea until this day." And she made this complaint: "There is delight to-night with the household of Lir! Plenty of ale with them and of wine, although it is in a cold dwelling-place this night are the four children of the King. "It is without a spot our bedclothes are, our bodies covered over with curved feathers; but it is often we were dressed in purple, and we drinking pleasant mead. "It is what our food is and our drink, the white sand and the bitter water of the sea; it is often we drank mead of hazel nuts from round four-lipped drinking cups. "It is what our beds are, bare rocks out of the power of the waves; it is often there used to be spread out for us beds of the breast feathers of birds. "Though it is our work now to be swimming through the frost and through the noise of the waves, it is often a company of the sons of kings were riding after us to the Hill of Bodb. "It is what wasted my strength, to be going and coming over the current of the Maoil the way I never was used to, and never to be in the sunshine on the soft grass. "Fiachra's bed and Conn's bed is to come under the cover of my wings on the sea. Aodh has his place under the feathers of my breast, the four of us side by side. "The teaching of Manannan without deceit, the talk of Bodb Dearg on the pleasant ridge; the voice of Angus, his sweet kisses; it is by their side I used to be without grief." After that the riders went on to Lir's house, and they told the chief men of the Tuatha de Danaan all the birds had gone through, and the state they were in. "We have no power over them," the chief men said, "but we are glad they are living yet, for they will get help in the end of time." As to the children of Lir, they went back toward their old place in the Maoil, and they stopped there till the time they had to spend in it, was spent. And then Fionnuala said: "The time is come for us to leave this place. And it is to Irrus Domnann we must go now," she said, "after our three hundred years here. And indeed there will be no rest for us there, or any standing ground, or any shelter from the storms. But since it is time for us to go, let us set out on the cold wind, the way we will not go astray." So they set out in that way, and left Sruth na Maoile behind them, and went to the point of Irrus Domnann, and there they stopped, and it is a life of misery and a cold life they led there. And one time the sea froze about them that they could not move at all, and the brothers were lamenting, and Fionnuala was comforting them, for she knew there would help come to them in the end. And they stayed at Irrus Domnann till the time they had to spend there was spent. And then Fionnuala said: "The time is come for us to go back to Sidhe Fionnachaidh, where our father is with his household and with all our own people." "It pleases us well to hear that," they said. So they set out flying through the air lightly till they came to Sidhe Fionnachaidh; and it is how they found the place, empty before them, and nothing in it but green hillocks and thickets of nettles, without a house, without a fire, without a hearthstone. And the four pressed close to one another then, and they gave out three sorrowful cries, and Fionnuala made this complaint: "It is a wonder to me this place is, and it without a house, without a dwelling-place. To see it the way it is now, Ochonel it is bitterness to my heart. "Without dogs, without hounds for hunting, without women, without great kings; we never knew it to be like this when our father was in it, "Without horns, without cups, without drinking in the lighted house; without young men, without riders; the way it is to-night is a foretelling of sorrow. "The people of the place to be as they are now, Ochone! it is grief to my heart! It is plain to my mind to-night the lord of the house is not living. "Och, house where we used to see music and playing and the gathering of people! I think it is a great change to see it lonely the way it is to-night. "The greatness of the hardships we have gone through going from one wave to another of the sea, we never heard of the like of them coming on any other person. "It is seldom this place had its part with grass and bushes; the man is not living that would know us, it would be a wonder to him to see us here." However, the children of Lir stopped that night in their father's place and their grandfather's, where they had been reared, and they were singing very sweet music of the Sidhe. And they rose up early on the morning of the morrow and went to Inis Gluarie, and all the birds of the country gathered near them on Loch na-n Ean, the Lake of the Birds. And they used to go out to feed every day to the far parts of the country, to Inis Geadh and to Accuill, the place Donn, son of Miled, and his people that were drowned were buried, and to all the western islands of Connacht, and they used to go back to Inis Gluaire every night. It was about that time it happened them to meet with a young man of good race, and his name was Aibric; and he often took notice of the birds, and their singing was sweet to him and he loved them greatly, and they loved him. And it is this young man that told the whole story of all that had happened them, and put it in order. And the story he told of what happened them in the end is this. It was after the faith of Christ and blessed Patrick came into Ireland, that Saint Mochaomhog came to Inis Gluaire. And the first night he came to the island, the children of Lir heard the voice of his bell, ringing near them. And the brothers started up with fright when they heard it. "We do not know," they said, "what is that weak, unpleasing voice we hear." "That is the voice of the bell of Mochaomhog," said Fionnuala; "and it is through that bell," she said, "you will be set free from pain and from misery." They listened to that music of the bell till the matins were done, and then they began to sing the low, sweet music of the Sidhe. And Mochaomhog was listening to them, and he prayed to God to show him who was singing that music, and it was showed to him that the children of Lir were singing it. And on the morning of the morrow he went forward to the Lake of the Birds, and he saw the swans before him on the lake, and he went down to them at the brink of the shore. "Are you the children of Lir?" he said. "We are indeed," said they. "I give thanks to God for that," said he, "for it is for your sakes I am come to this island beyond any other island, and let you come to land now," he said, "and give your trust to me, that you may do good deeds and part from your sins." They came to the land after that, and they put trust in Mochaomhog, and he brought them to his own dwelling-place, and they used to be hearing Mass with him. And he got a good smith and bade him make chains of bright silver for them, and he put a chain between Aodh and Fionnuala, and a chain between Conn and Fachra, And the four of them were raising his heart and gladdening his mind, and no danger and no distress that was on the swans before put any trouble on them now. Now the king of Connacht at that time was Lairgnen, son of Colman, son of Colman, son of Cobthach, and Deoch, daughter of Finghin, was his wife. And that was the coming together of the Man from the North and the Woman from the South, that Aoife had spoken of. And the woman heard talk of the birds, and a great desire came on her to get them, and she bade Lairgnen to bring them to her, and he said he would ask them of Mochaomhog. And she gave her word she would not stop another night with him unless he would bring them to her. And she set out from the house there and then. And Lairgnen sent messengers after her to bring her back, and they did not overtake her till she was at Cill Dun. She went back home with them then, and Lairgnen sent messengers to ask the birds of Mochaomhog, and he did not get them. There was great anger on Lairgnen then, and he went himself to the place Mochaomhog was, and he asked was it true he had refused him the birds. "It is true indeed," said he. At that Lairgnen rose up, and he took hold of the swans, and pulled them off the altar, two birds in each hand, to bring them away to Deoch. But no sooner had he laid his hand on them than their bird skins fell off, and what was in their place was three lean, withered old men and a thin withered old woman, without blood or flesh. And Lairgnen gave a great start at that, and he went out from the place. It is then Fionnuala said to Mochaomhog: "Come and baptise us now, for it is short till our death comes; and it is certain you do not think worse of parting with us than we do of parting with you. And make our grave afterward," she said, "and lay Conn on my right side and Fiachra on my left side, and Aodh before my face, between my two arms. And pray to the God of Heaven," she said, "that you may he able to baptise us." The children of Lir were baptised then, and they died and were buried as Fionnuala had desired; Fiachra and Conn one at each side of her, and Aohd before her face. And a stone was put over them, and their names were written in Ogham, and they were keened there, and heaven was gained for their souls. And that is the fate of the children of Lir. CHAPTER X THE BELEAGUERED CITY I have read, in some old marvellous tale Some legend strange and vague, That a midnight host of spectres pale Beleaguered the walls of Prague. Beside the Moldau's rushing stream. With the wan moon overhead, There stood, as in an awful dream, The army of the dead. White as a sea-fog, landward bound, The spectral camp was seen, And, with a sorrowful, deep sound, The river flowed between. No other voice nor sound was there, No drum, nor sentry's pace; The mist-like banners clasped the air, As clouds with clouds embrace. But, when the old cathedral bell Proclaimed the morning prayer, The white pavilions rose and fell On the alarmed air. Down the broad valley fast and far The troubled army fled; Up rose the glorious morning star, The ghastly host was dead. I have read, in the marvellous heart of man, That strange and mystic scroll, That an army of phantoms vast and wan Beleaguer the human soul. Encamped beside Life's rushing stream, In Fancy's misty light, Gigantic shapes and shadows gleam Portentous through the night. Upon its midnight battle-ground The spectral camp is seen, And, with a sorrowful, deep sound, Flows the River of Life between. No other voice, nor sound is there, In the army of the grave; No other challenge breaks the air, But the rushing of Life's wave. And, when the solemn and deep church-bell Entreats the soul to pray, The midnight phantoms feel the spell The shadows sweep away. Down the broad Vale of Tears afar The spectral camp is fled; Faith shineth as a morning star, Our ghastly fears are dead. CHAPTER XI PRESTER JOHN About the middle of the twelfth century, a rumour circulated through Europe that there reigned in Asia a powerful Christian Emperor, Presbyter Johannes. In a bloody fight he had broken the power of the Mussulmans, and was ready to come to the assistance of the Crusaders. Great was the exultation in Europe, for of late the news from the East had been gloomy and depressing, the power of the infidel had increased, overwhelming masses of men had been brought into the field against the chivalry of Christendom, and it was felt that the cross must yield before the odious crescent. The news of the success of the Priest-King opened a door of hope to the desponding Christian world. Pope Alexander III. determined at once to effect a union with this mysterious personage, and on the 27th of September, 1177, wrote him a letter, which he intrusted to his physician, Philip, to deliver in person. Philip started on his embassy, but never returned. The conquests of Tschengis-Khan again attracted the eyes of Christian Europe to the East. The Mongol hordes were rushing in upon the West with devastating ferocity; Russia, Poland, Hungary, and the Eastern provinces of Germany had succumbed, or suffered grievously; and the fears of other nations were roused lest they too should taste the misery of a Mongolian invasion. It was Gog and Magog come to slaughter, and the times of Antichrist were dawning. But the battle of Liegnitz stayed them in their onward career, and Europe was saved. Pope Innocent IV. determined to convert these wild hordes of barbarians, and subject them to the cross of Christ; he therefore sent among them a number of Dominican and Franciscan missioners, and embassies of peace passed between the Pope, the King of France, and the Mogul Khan, The result of these communications with the East was, that the travellers learned how false were the prevalent notions of a mighty Christian empire existing in Central Asia. Vulgar superstition or conviction is not, however, to be upset by evidence, and the locality of the monarchy was merely transferred by the people to Africa, and they fixed upon Abyssinia, with a show of truth, as the seat of the famous Priest-King. However, still some doubted. John de Piano Carpini and Marco Polo, though they acknowledged the existence of a Christian monarch in Abyssinia, yet stoutly maintained as well that Prester John of popular belief reigned in splendour somewhere in the dim Orient. But before proceeding with the history of this strange fable, it will be well to extract the different accounts given of the Priest-King and his realm by early writers; and we shall then be better able to judge of the influence the myth obtained in Europe. Otto of Freisingen is the first author to mention the monarchy of Prester John, with whom we are acquainted. Otto wrote a chronicle up to the date 1156, and he relates that in 1145 the Catholic Bishop of Cabala visited Europe to lay certain complaints before the Pope. He mentioned the fall of Edessa, and also "he stated that a few years ago a certain King and Priest called John, who lives on the farther side of Persia and Armenia, in the remote East, and who, with all his people, were Christians, though belonging to the Nestorian Church, had overcome the royal brothers Samiardi, kings of the Medes and Persians, and had captured Ecbatana, their capital and residence. The said kings had met with their Persian, Median, and Assyrian troops, and had fought for three consecutive days, each side having determined to die rather than take to flight. Prester John, for so they are wont to call him, at length routed the Persians, and after a bloody battle, remained victorious. After which victory the said John was hastening to the assistance of the Church at Jerusalem, but his host, on reaching the Tigris, was hindered from passing, through a deficiency in boats, and he directed his march North, since he had heard that the river was there covered with ice. In that place he had waited many years, expecting severe cold; but the winters having proved unpropitious, and the severity of the climate having carried off many soldiers, he had been forced to retreat to his own land. This king belongs to the family of the Magi, mentioned in the Gospel, and he rules over the very people formerly governed by the Magi; moreover, his fame and his wealth are so great, that he uses an emerald sceptre only. "Excited by the example of his ancestors, who came to worship Christ in his cradle, he had proposed to go to Jerusalem, but had been impeded by the above-mentioned causes." At the same time the story crops up in other quarters; so that we cannot look upon Otto as the inventor of the myth. The celebrated Maimonides alludes to it in a passage quoted by Joshua Lorki, a Jewish physician to Benedict XIII. Maimonides lived from 1135 to 1204. The passage is as follows: "It is evident both from the letters of Rambam (Maimonides), whose memory be blessed, and from the narration of merchants who have visited the ends of the earth, that at this time the root of our faith is to be found in the lands of Babel and Teman, where long ago Jerusalem was an exile; not reckoning those who live in the land of Paras and Madai, of the exiles of Schomrom, the number of which people is as the sand: of these some are still under the yoke of Paras, who is called the Great-Chief Sultan by the Arabs; others live in a place under the yoke of a strange people ... governed by a Christian chief, Preste-Cuan by name. With him they have made a compact, and he with them; and this is a matter concerning which there can be no manner of doubt." Benjamin of Tudela, another Jew, travelled in the East between the years 1159 and 1173, the last being the date of his death. He wrote an account of his travels, and gives in it some information with regard to a mythical Jew king, who reigned in the utmost splendour over a realm inhabited by Jews alone, situate somewhere in the midst of a desert of vast extent. About this period there appeared a document which produced intense excitement throughout Europe--a letter, yes! a letter from the mysterious personage himself to Manuel Comnenus, Errmeror of Constantinople (1143-1180). The exact date of this extraordinary epistle cannot be fixed with any certainty, but it certainly appeared before 1241, the date of the conclusion of the chronicle of Albericus Trium Fontium. This Albericus relates that in the year 1165 "Presbyter Johannes, the Indian king, sent his wonderful letter to various Christian princes, and especially to Manuel of Constantinople, and Frederic the Roman Emperor." Similar letters were sent to Alexander III, to Louis VII of France, and to the King of Portugal, which are alluded to in chronicles and romances, and which were indeed turned into rhyme, and sung all over Europe by minstrels and trouveres. The letter is as follows: "John, Priest by the Almighty power of God and the Might of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, to his friend Emanuel, Prince of Constantinople, greeting, wishing him health, prosperity, and the continuance of Divine favour. "Our Majesty has been informed that you hold our Excellency in love, and that the report of our greatness has reached you. Moreover, we have heard through our treasurer that you have been pleased to send to us some objects of art and interest, that our Exaltedness might be gratified thereby. "Being human, I receive it in good part, and we have ordered our treasurer to send you some of our articles in return. "Now we desire to be made certain that you hold the right faith, and in all things cleave to Jesus Christ, our Lord, for we have heard that your court regard you as a god, though we know that you are mortal, and subject to human infirmities....Should you desire to learn the greatness and excellency of our Exaltedness and of the land subject to our sceptre, then hear and believe: I, Presbyter Johannes, the Lord of Lords, surpass all under heaven in virtue, in riches, and in power; seventy-two kings pay us tribute....In the three Indies our Magnificence rules, and our land extends beyond India, where rests the body of the holy Apostle Thomas; it reaches toward the sunrise over the wastes, and it trends toward deserted Babylon near the tower of Babel. Seventy-two provinces, of which only a few are Christian, serve us. Each has its own king, but all are tributary to us. "Our land is the home of elephants, dromedaries, camels, crocodiles, meta-collinarum, cametennus, ten-sevetes, wild asses, white and red lions, white bears, white merules, crickets, griffins, tigers, lamias, hyenas, wild horses, wild oxen and wild men, men with horns, one-eyed, men with eyes before and behind, centaurs, fauns, satyrs, pygmies, forty-ell-high giants, Cyclopses, and similar women; it is the home, too, of the phoenix, and of nearly all living animals. We have some people subject to us who feed on the flesh of men and of prematurely born animals, and who never fear death. When any of these people die, their friends and relations eat them ravenously, for they regard it as a main duty to munch human flesh. Their names are Gog and Magog, Anie, Agit, Azenach, Fommeperi, Befari, Conei-Samante, Agrimandri, Vintefolei, Casbei, Alanei. These and similar nations were shut in behind lofty mountains by Alexander the Great, toward the North. We lead them at our pleasure against our foes, and neither man nor beast is left undevoured, if our Majesty gives the requisite permission. And when all our foes are eaten, then we return with our hosts home again. These accursed fifteen nations will burst forth from the four quarters of the earth at the end of the world, in the times of Antichrist, and overrun all the abodes of the Saints as well as the great city Rome, which, by the way, we are prepared to give to our son who will be born, along with all Italy, Germany, the two Gauls, Britain and Scotland. We shall also give him Spain and all the land as far as the icy sea. The nations to which I have alluded, according to the words of the prophet, shall not stand in the judgment, on account of their offensive practices, but will be consumed to ashes by a fire which will fall on them from heaven. "Our land streams with honey, and is overflowing with milk. In one region grows no poisonous herb, nor does a querulous frog ever quack in it; no scorpion exists, nor does the serpent glide amongst the grass, nor can any poisonous animals exist in it, or injure any one. "Among the heathen, flows through a certain province the River Indus; encircling Paradise, it spreads its arms in manifold windings through the entire province. Here are found the emeralds, sapphires, carbuncles, topazes, chrysolites, onyxes, beryls, sardius, and other costly stones. Here grows the plant Assidos, which, when worn by any one, protects him from the evil spirit, forcing it to state its business and name; consequently the foul spirits keep out of the way there. In a certain land subject to us, all kinds of pepper is gathered, and is exchanged for corn and bread, leather and cloth....At the foot of Mount Olympus bubbles up a spring which changes its flavour hour by hour, night and day, and the spring is scarcely three days' journey from Paradise, out of which Adam was driven. If any one has tasted thrice of the fountain, from that day he will feel no fatigue, but will, as long as he lives, be as a man of thirty years. Here are found the small stones called Nudiosi, which, if borne about the body, prevent the sight from waxing feeble, and restore it where it is lost. The more the stone is looked at, the keener becomes the sight. In our territory is a certain waterless sea, consisting of tumbling billows of sand never at rest. None have crossed this sea; it lacks water altogether, yet fish are cast up upon the beach of various kinds, very tasty, and the like are nowhere else to be seen. Three days' journey from this sea are mountains from which rolls down a stony, waterless river, which opens into the sandy sea. As soon as the stream reaches the sea, its stones vanish in it, and are never seen again. As long as the river is in motion, it cannot be crossed; only four days a week is it possible to traverse it. Between the sandy sea and the said mountains, in a certain plain is a fountain of singular virtue, which purges Christians and would-be Christians from all transgressions. The water stands four inches high in a hollow stone shaped like a musselsheil. Two saintly old men watch by it, and ask the comers whether they are Christians, or are about to become Christians, then whether they desire healing with all their hearts. If they have answered well, they are bidden to lay aside their clothes, and to step into the mussel. If what they said be true, then the water begins to rise and gush over their heads; thrice does the water thus lift itself, and every one who has entered the mussel leaves it cured of every complaint. "Near the wilderness trickles between barren mountains a subterranean rill, which can only by chance be reached, for only occasionally the earth gapes, and he who would descend must do it with precipitation, ere the earth closes again. All that is gathered under the ground there is gem and precious stone. The brook pours into another river, and the inhabitants of the neighbourhood obtain thence abundance of precious stones. Yet they never venture to sell them without having first offered them to us for our private use: should we decline them, they are at liberty to dispose of them to strangers. Boys there are trained to remain three or four days under water, diving after the stones. "Beyond the stone river are the ten tribes of the Jews, which, though subject to their own kings, are, for all that, our slaves and tributary to our Majesty. In one of our lands, hight Zone, are worms called in our tongue Salamanders. These worms can only live in fire, and they build cocoons like silk-worms, which are unwound by the ladies of our palace, and spun into cloth and dresses, which are worn by our Exaltedness. These dresses, in order to be cleaned and washed, are cast into flames.... When we go to war, we have fourteen golden and bejewelled crosses borne before us instead of banners; each of these crosses is followed by 10,000 horsemen, and 100,000 foot soldiers fully armed, without reckoning those in charge of the luggage and provision. "When we ride abroad plainly, we have a wooden, unadorned cross, without gold or gem about it, borne before us, in order that we may meditate on the sufferings of Our Lord Jesus Christ; also a golden bowl filled with earth, to remind us of that whence we sprung, and that to which we must return; but besides these there is borne a silver bowl full of gold, as a token to all that we are the Lord of Lords. "All riches, such as are upon the world, our Magnificence possesses in superabundance. With us no one lies, for he who speaks a lie is thenceforth regarded as dead; he is no more thought of, or honoured by us. No vice is tolerated by us. Every year we undertake a pilgrimage, with retinue of war, to the body of the holy prophet Daniel, which is near the desolated site of Babylon. In our realm fishes are caught, the blood of which dyes purple. The Amazons and the Brahmins are subject to us. The palace in which our Super-eminency resides, is built after the pattern of the castle built by the Apostle Thomas for the Indian king Gundoforus. Ceilings, joists, and architrave are of Sethym wood, the roof of ebony, which can never catch fire. Over the gable of the palace are, at the extremities, two golden apples, in each of which are two carbuncles, so that the gold may shine by day, and the carbuncles by night. The greater gates of the palace are of sardius, with the horn of the horned snake inwrought, so that no one can bring poison within. "The other portals are of ebony. The windows are of crystal; the tables are partly of gold, partly of amethyst, and the columns supporting the tables are partly of ivory, partly of amethyst. The court in which we watch the jousting is floored with onyx in order to increase the courage of the combatants. In the palace, at night, nothing is burned for light but wicks supplied with balsam....Before our palace stands a mirror, the ascent to which consists of five and twenty steps of porphyry and serpentine." After a description of the gems adorning this mirror, which is guarded night and day by three thousand armed men, he explains its use: "We look therein and behold all that is taking place in every province and region subject to our sceptre. "Seven kings wait upon us monthly, in turn, with sixty-two dukes, two hundred and fifty-six counts and marquises: and twelve archbishops sit at table with us on our right, and twenty bishops on the left, besides the patriarch of St. Thomas, the Sarmatian Protopope, and the Archpope of Susa....Our lord high steward is a primate and king, our cup-bearer is an archbishop and king, our chamberlain a bishop and king, our marshal king and abbot." CHAPTER XII THE WANDERING JEW The year 1228, "a certain Archbishop of Armenia the Greater came on a pilgrimage to England to see the relics of the saints, and visit the sacred places in the kingdom, as he had done in others; he also produced letters of recommendation from his Holiness the Pope, to the religious and the prelates of the churches, in which they were enjoined to receive and entertain him with due reverence and honour. On his arrival, he came to St. Albans, where he was received with all respect by the abbot and the monks; and at this place, being fatigued with his journey, he remained some days to rest himself and his followers, and a conversation took place between him and the inhabitants of the convent, by means of their interpreters, during which he made many inquiries relating to the religion and religious observances of this country, and told many strange things concerning the countries of the East. In the course of conversation he was asked whether he had ever seen or heard any thing of Joseph, a man of whom there was much talk in the world, who, when our Lord suffered, was present and spoke to Him, and who is still alive, in evidence of the Christian faith; in reply to which, a knight in his retinue, who was his interpreter, replied, speaking in French, 'My lord well knows that man, and a little before he took his way to the western countries, the said Joseph ate at the table of my lord the Archbishop of Armenia, and he has often seen and conversed with him.' "He was then asked about what had passed between Christ and the said Joseph; to which he replied, 'At the time of the passion of Jesus Christ, He was seized by the Jews, and led into the hall of judgment before Pilate, the governor, that He might be judged by him on the accusation of the Jews; and Pilate, finding no fault for which he might sentence Him to death, said unto them, "Take Him and judge Him according to your law"; the shouts of the Jews, however, increasing, he, at their request, released unto them Barabbas, and delivered Jesus to them to be crucified. When, therefore, the Jews were dragging Jesus forth, and had reached the door, Cartaphilus, a porter of the hall in Pilate's service, as Jesus was going out of the door, impiously struck Him on the back with his hand, and said in mockery, "Go quicker, Jesus, go quicker; why do you loiter?" and Jesus, looking back on him with a severe countenance, said to him, "I am going, and you shall wait till I return." And according as our Lord said, this Cartaphilus is still awaiting His return. At the time of our Lord's suffering he was thirty years old, and when he attains the age of a hundred years, he always returns to the same age as he was when our Lord suffered. After Christ's death, when the Catholic faith gained ground, this Cartaphilus was baptised by Ananias (who also baptised the Apostle Paul), and was called Joseph. He dwells in one or other divisions of Armenia, and in divers Eastern countries, passing his time amongst the bishops and other prelates of the Church; he is a man of holy conversation, and religious; a man of few words, and very circumspect in his behaviour; for he does not speak at all unless when questioned by the bishops and religious; and then he relates the events of olden times, and speaks of things which occurred at the suffering and resurrection of our Lord, and of the witnesses of the resurrection, namely, of those who rose with Christ, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto men. He also tells of the creed of the Apostles, and of their separation and preaching. And all this he relates without smiling, or levity of conversation, as one who is well practised in sorrow and the fear of God, always looking forward with dread to the coming of Jesus Christ, lest at the Last Judgment he should find Him in anger whom, when on His way to death, he had provoked to just vengeance. Numbers came to him from different parts of the world, enjoying his society and conversation; and to them, if they are men of authority, he explains all doubts on the matters on which he is questioned. He refuses all gifts that are offered him, being content with slight food and clothing.'" Much about the same date, Philip Mouskes, afterward Bishop of Tournay, wrote his rhymed chronicle (1242), which contains a similar account of the Jew, derived from the same Armenian prelate: "Adonques vint un arceveskes De ca mer, plains de bonnes teques Par samblant, et fut d'Armenie," and this man, having visited the shrine of "St. Tumas de Kantobire," and then having paid his devotions at "Monsigour St. Jake," he went on to Cologne to see the heads of the three kings. The version told in the Netherlands much resembled that related at St. Albans, only that the Jew, seeing the people dragging Christ to his death, exclaims: "Atendes moi! g'i vois, S'iert mis le faus profete en crois." Then "Le vrais Dieux se regarda, Et li a dit qu'e n'i tarda, Icist ne t'atenderont pas, Mais saces, tu m'atenderas." We hear no more of the wandering Jew till the sixteenth century, when we hear first of him in a casual manner, as assisting a weaver, Kokot, at the royal palace in Bohemia (1505), to find a treasure which had been secreted by the great-grandfather of Kokot, sixty years before, at which time the Jew was present. He then had the appearance of being a man of seventy years. Curiously enough, we next hear of him in the East, where he is confounded with the prophet Elijah. Early in the century he appeared to Fadhilah, under peculiar circumstances. After the Arabs had captured the city of Elvan, Fadhilah, at the head of three hundred horsemen, pitched his tents, late in the evening, between two mountains. Fadhilah, having begun his evening prayer with a loud voice, heard the words "Allah akbar" (God is great) repeated distinctly, and each word of his prayer was followed in a similar manner. Fadhilah, not believing this to be the result of an echo, was much astonished, and cried out, "O thou! whether thou art of the angel ranks, or whether thou art of some other order of spirits, it is well; the power of God be with thee; but if thou art a man, then let mine eyes light upon thee, that I may rejoice in thy presence and society." Scarcely had he spoken these words, before an aged man, with bald head, stood before him, holding a staff In his hand, and much resembling a dervish in appearance. After having courteously saluted him, Fadhilah asked the old man who he was. Thereupon the stranger answered, "Bassi Hadhret Issa, I am here by command of the Lord Jesus, who has left me in this world, that I may live therein until he come a second time to earth. I wait for this Lord, who is the Fountain of Happiness, and in obedience to his command I dwell behind yon mountain." When Fadhilah heard these words, he asked when the Lord Jesus would appear; and the old man replied that his appearing would be at the end of the world, at the Last Judgment. But this only increased Fadhilah's curiosity, so that he inquired the signs of the approach of the end of all things, whereupon Zerib Bar Elia gave him an account of general, social, and moral dissolution, which would be the climax of this world's history. In 1547 he was seen in Europe, if we are to believe the following narration: "Paul von Eitzen, Doctor of the Holy Scriptures, and Bishop of Schleswig, [Footnote: Paul v. Eitzen was born January 25, 1522, at Hamburg; in 1562 he was appointed chief preacher for Schleswig, and died February 25, 1598.] related as true for some years past, that when he was young, having studied at Wittemberg, he returned home to his parents in Hamburg in the winter of the year 1547, and that on the following Sunday, in church, he observed a tall man, with his hair hanging over his shoulders, standing barefoot, during the sermon, over against the pulpit, listening with deepest attention to the discourse, and, whenever the name of Jesus was mentioned, bowing himself profoundly and humbly, with sighs and beating of the breast. He had no other clothing, in the bitter cold of the winter, except a pair of hose which were in tatters about his feet, and a coat with a girdle which reached to his feet; and his general appearance was that of a man of fifty years. And many people, some of high degree and title, have seen this same man in England, France, Italy, Hungary, Persia, Spain, Poland, Moscow, Lapland, Sweden, Denmark, Scotland, and other places. "Every one wondered over the man. Now, after the sermon, the said Doctor inquired diligently where the stranger was to be found; and when he had sought him out, he inquired of him privately whence he came, and how long that winter he had been in the place. Thereupon he replied, modestly, that he was a Jew by birth, a native of Jerusalem, by name Aliasverus, by trade a shoemaker; he had been present at the crucifixion of Christ, and had lived ever since, travelling through various lands and cities, the which he substantiated by accounts he gave; he related also the circumstances of Christ's transference from Pilate to Herod, and the final crucifixion, together with other details not recorded in the Evangelists and historians; he gave accounts of the changes of government in many countries, especially of the East, through several centuries; and moreover he detailed the labours and deaths of the holy Apostles of Christ most circumstantially. "Now when Doctor Paul v. Eitzen heard this with profound astonishment, on account of its incredible novelty, he inquired further, in order that he might obtain more accurate information. Then the man answered, that he had lived in Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion of Christ, whom he had regarded as a deceiver of the people, and a heretic; he had seen Him with his own eyes, and had done his best, along with others, to bring this deceiver, as he regarded Him, to justice, and to have Him put out of the way. When the sentence had been pronounced by Pilate, Christ was about to be dragged past his house; then he ran home, and called together his household to have a look at Christ, and see what sort of a person He was. "This having been done, he had his little child on his arm, and was standing in his doorway, to have a sight of the Lord Jesus Christ. "As, then, Christ was led by, bowed under the weight of the heavy cross, He tried to rest a little, and stood still a moment; but the shoemaker, in zeal and rage, and for the sake of obtaining credit among the other Jews, drove the Lord Christ forward, and told Him to hasten on His way. Jesus, obeying, looked at him, and said, 'I shall stand and rest, but thou shalt go till the last day.' At these words the man set down the child; and, unable to remain where he was, he followed Christ, and saw how cruelly He was crucified, how He suffered, how He died. As soon as this had taken place, it came upon him suddenly that he could no more return to Jerusalem, nor see again his wife and child, but must go forth into foreign lands, one after another, like a mournful pilgrim. Now, when, years after, he returned to Jerusalem, he found it ruined and utterly razed, so that not one stone was left standing on another; and he could not recognise former localities. "He believes that it is God's purpose, in thus driving him about in miserable life, and preserving him undying, to present him before the Jews at the end, as a living token, so that the godless and unbelieving may remember the death of Christ, and be turned to repentance. For his part he would well rejoice were God in heaven to release him from this vale of tears. After this conversation, Doctor Paul v. Eitzen, along with the rector of the school of Hamburg, who was well read in history, and a traveller, questioned him about events which had taken place in the East since the death of Christ, and he was able to give them much information on many ancient matters; so that it was impossible not to be convinced of the truth of his story, and to see that what seems impossible with men is, after all, possible with God. "Since the Jew has had his life extended, he has become silent and reserved, and only answers direct questions. When invited to become any one's guest, he eats little, and drinks in great moderation; then hurries on, never remaining long in one place. When at Hamburg, Dantzig, and elsewhere, money has been offered him, he never took more than two shillings (fourpence, one farthing), and at once distributed it to the poor, as token that he needed no money, for God would provide for him, as he rued the sins he had committed in ignorance. "During the period of his stay in Hamburg and Dantzig he was never seen to laugh. In whatever land he travelled he spoke its language, and when he spoke Saxon, it was like a native Saxon. Many people came from different places to Hamburg and Dantzig in order to see and hear this man, and were convinced that the providence of God was exercised in this individual in a very remarkable manner. He gladly listened to God's word, or heard it spoken of always with great gravity and compunction, and he ever reverenced with sighs the pronunciation of the name of God, or of Jesus Christ, and could not endure to hear curses; but whenever he heard any one swear by God's death or pains, he waxed indignant, and exclaimed, with vehemence and with sighs, 'Wretched man and miserable creature, thus to misuse the name of thy Lord and God, and His bitter sufferings and passion. Hadst thou seen, as I have, how heavy and bitter were the pangs and wounds of thy Lord, endured for thee and for me, thou wouldst rather undergo great pain thyself than thus take His sacred name in vain!' "Such is the account given to me by Doctor Paul von Eitzen, with many circumstantial proofs, and corroborated by certain of my own old acquaintances who saw this same individual with their own eyes in Hamburg. "In the year 1575 the Secretary Christopher Krause, and Master Jacob von Holstein, legates to the Court of Spain, and afterward sent into the Netherlands to pay the soldiers serving his Majesty in that country, related on their return home to Schleswig, and confirmed with solemn oaths, that they had come across the same mysterious individual at Madrid in Spain, in appearance, manner of life, habits, clothing, just the same as he had appeared in Hamburg. They said that they had spoken with him, and that many people of all classes had conversed with him, and found him to speak good Spanish. In the year 1599, in December, a reliable person wrote from Brunswick to Strasburg that the same mentioned strange person had been seen alive at Vienna in Austria, and that he had started for Poland and Dantzig; and that he purposed going on to Moscow. This Ahasverus was at Lubeck in 1601, also about the same date in Revel in Livonia, and in Cracow in Poland. In Moscow he was seen of many and spoken to by many. "What thoughtful, God-fearing persons are to think of the said person, is at their option. God's works are wondrous and past finding out, and are manifested day by day, only to be revealed in full at the last great day of account. "Dated, Revel, August 1st, 1613. "D. W. "D. "Chrysostomus Duduloeus, "Westphalus." * * * * * In 1604 he seems to have appeared in Paris. Rudolph Botoreus says, under this date, "I fear lest I be accused of giving ear to old wives' fables, if I insert in these pages what is reported all over Europe of the Jew, coeval with the Saviour Christ; however, nothing is more common, and our popular histories have not scrupled to assert it. Following the lead of those who wrote our annals, I may say that he who appeared not in one century only, in Spain, Italy, and Germany, was also in this year seen and recognised as the same individual who had appeared in Hamburg, anno MDLXVI. The common people, bold in spreading reports, relate many things of him; and this I allude to, lest anything should be left unsaid." J. C. Bulenger puts the date of the Hamburg visit earlier. "It was reported at this time that a Jew of the time of Christ was wandering without food and drink, having for a thousand and odd years been a vagabond and outcast, condemned by God to rove, because he, of that generation of vipers, was the first to cry out for the crucifixion of Christ and the release of Barabbas; and also because soon after, when Christ, panting under the burden of the rood, sought to rest before his workshop (he was a cobbler), the fellow ordered Him off with acerbity. Thereupon Christ replied, 'Because thou grudgest Me such a moment of rest, I shall enter into My rest, but thou shalt wander restless.' At once, frantic and agitated, he fled through the whole earth, and on the same account to this day he journeys through the world. It was this person who was seen in Hamburg in MDLXIV. Credat Judaeus Apella! I did not see him, or hear anything authentic concerning him, at that time when I was in Paris." A curious little book, written against the quackery of Paracelsus, by Leonard Doldius, a Nurnberg physician, and translated into Latin and augmented, by Andreas Libavius, doctor and physician of Rotenburg, alludes to the same story, and gives the Jew a new name nowhere else met with. After having referred to a report that Paracelsus was not dead, but was seated alive, asleep or napping, in his sepulchre at Strasburg, preserved from death by some of his specifics, Labavius declares that he would sooner believe in the old man, the Jew, Ahasverus, wandering over the world, called by some Buttadaeus, and otherwise, again, by others. He is said to have appeared in Naumburg, but the date is not given; he was noticed in church, listening to the sermon. After the service he was questioned, and he related his story. On this occasion he received presents from the burgers. In 1633 he was again in Hamburg. In the year 1640, two citizens, living in the Gerberstrasse, in Brussels, were walking in the Sonian wood, when they encountered an aged man, whose clothes were in tatters and of an antiquated appearance. They invited him to go with them to a house of refreshment, and he went with them, but would not seat himself, remaining on foot to drink. When he came before the doors with the two burgers, he told them a great deal; but they were mostly stories of events which had happened many hundred years before. Hence the burgers gathered that their companion was Isaac Laquedem, the Jew who had refused to permit our Blessed Lord to rest for a moment at his door-step, and they left him full of terror. In 1642 he is reported to have visited Leipzig. On the 22d July, 1721, he appeared at the gates of the city of Munich. About the end of the seventeenth century or the beginning of the eighteenth, an impostor, calling himself the Wandering Jew, attracted attention in England, and was listened to by the ignorant, and despised by the educated. He, however, managed to thrust himself into the notice of the nobility, who, half in jest, half in curiosity, questioned him, and paid him as they might a juggler. He declared that he had been an officer of the Sanhedrim, and that he had struck Christ as he left the judgment hall of Pilate. He remembered all the Apostles, and described their personal appearance, their clothes, and their peculiarities. He spoke many languages, claimed the power of healing the sick and asserted that he had travelled nearly all over the world. Those who heard him were perplexed by his familiarity with foreign tongues and places. Oxford and Cambridge sent professors to question him, and to discover the imposition, if any. An English nobleman conversed with him in Arabic. The mysterious stranger told his questioner in that language that historical works were not to be relied upon. And on being asked his opinion of Mahomet, he replied that he had been acquainted with the father of the prophet, and that he dwelt at Ormuz. As for Mahomet, he believed him to have been a man of intelligence; once when he heard the prophet deny that Christ was crucified, he answered abruptly by telling him he was a witness to the truth of that event. He related also that he was in Rome when Nero set it on fire; he had known Saladin, Tamerlane, Bajazeth, Eterlane, and could give minute details of the history of the Crusades. Whether this wandering Jew was found out in London or not, we cannot tell, but he shortly after appeared in Denmark, thence travelled into Sweden, and vanished. CHAPTER XIII KING ROBERT OF SICILY Robert of Sicily, brother of Pope Urbane And Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine, Apparelled in magnificent attire, With retinue of many a knight and squire, On St. John's eve, at vespers, proudly sat And heard the priests chant the Magnificat. And as he listened, o'er and o'er again Repeated, like a burden or refrain, He caught the words, "_Deposuit potentes De sede, et exaltavit humiles_"; And slowly lifting up his kingly head He to a learned clerk beside him said, "What mean these words?" The clerk made answer meet, "He has put down the mighty from their seat, And has exalted them of low degree." Thereat King Robert muttered scornfully, "'T is well that such seditious words are sung Only by priests and in the Latin tongue; For unto priests and people be it known, There is no power can push me from my throne!" And leaning back, he yawned and fell asleep, Lulled by the chant monotonous and deep. When he awoke, it was already night; The church was empty, and there was no light, Save where the lamps, that glimmered few and faint, Lighted a little space before some saint. He started from his seat and gazed around, But saw no living thing and heard no sound. He groped toward the door, but it was locked; He cried aloud, and listened, and knocked, And uttered awful threatenings and complaints, And imprecations upon men and saints. The sounds reechoed from the roof and walls As if dead priests were laughing in their stalls. At length the sexton, hearing from without The tumult of the knocking and the shout, And thinking thieves were in the house or prayer, Came with his lantern, asking, "Who is there?" Half choked with rage, King Robert fiercely said, "Open:'tis I, the King! Art thou afraid?" The frightened sexton, muttering, with a curse, "This is some drunken vagabond, or worse!" Turned the great key and flung the portal wide; A man rushed by him at a single stride, Haggard, half naked, without hat or cloak, Who neither turned, nor looked at him, nor spoke, But leaped into the blackness of the night, And vanished like a spectre from his sight. Robert of Sicily, brother of Pope Urbane And Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine, Despoiled of his magnificent attire, Bareheaded, breathless, and besprent with mire, With sense of wrong and outrage desperate, Strode on and thundered at the palace gate; Rushed through the courtyard, thrusting in his rage To right and left each seneschal and page, And hurried up the broad and sounding stair, His white face ghastly in the torches' glare. From hall to hall he passed with breathless speed; Voices and cries he heard, but did not heed, Until at last he reached the banquet-room, Blazing with light, and breathing with perfume. There on the dais sat another king, Wearing his robes, his crown, his signet-ring, King Robert's self in features, form, and height, But all transfigured with angelic light! It was an Angel; and his presence there With a divine effulgence rilled the air, An exaltation, piercing the disguise, Though none the hidden Angel recognised. A moment speechless, motionless, amazed, The throneless monarch on the Angel gazed, Who met his look of anger and surprise With the divine compassion of his eyes; Then said, "Who art thou? and why com'st thou here?" To which King Robert answered with a sneer, "I am the King, and come to claim my own From an impostor, who usurps my throne!" And suddenly, at these audacious words, Up sprang the angry guests, and drew their swords; The Angel answered, with unruffled brow, "Nay, not the King, but the King's Jester, thou Henceforth shalt wear the bells and scalloped cape, And for thy counsellor shalt lead an ape; Thou shalt obey my servants when they call, And wait upon my henchmen in the hall!" Deaf to King Robert's threats and cries and prayers, They thrust him from the hall and down the stairs; A group of tittering pages ran before, And as they opened wide the folding-door, His heart failed, for he heard, with strange alarms, The boisterous laughter of the men-at-arms, And all the vaulted chamber roar and ring With the mock plaudits of "Long live the King!" Next morning, waking with the day's first beam, He said within himself, "It was a dream!" But the straw rustled as he turned his head, There were the cap and bells beside his bed, Around him rose the bare, discolored walls, Close by, the steeds were champing in their stalls, And in the corner, a revolting shape, Shivering and chattering sat the wretched ape. It was no dream; the world he loved so much Had turned to dust and ashes at his touch! Days came and went; and now returned again To Sicily the old Saturnian reign; Under the Angel's governance benign The happy island danced with corn and wine, And deep within the mountain's burning breast Enceladus, the giant, was at rest. Meanwhile King Robert yielded to his fate, Sullen and silent and disconsolate. Dressed in the motley garb that Jesters wear, With look bewildered and a vacant stare, Close shaven above the ears, as monks are shorn, By courtiers mocked, by pages laughed to scorn, His only friend the ape, his only food What others left--he still was unsubdued. And when the Angel met him on his way, And half in earnest, half in jest, would say, Sternly, though tenderly, that he might feel The velvet scabbard held a sword of steel, "Art thou the King?" the passion of his woe Burst from him in resistless overflow And, lifting high his forehead he, would fling The haughty answer back, "I am, I am the King!" Almost three years were ended; when there came Ambassadors of great repute and name From Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine, Unto King Robert, saying that Pope Urbane By letter summoned them forthwith to come On Holy Thursday to his city of Rome. The Angel with great joy received his guests, And gave them presents of embroidered vests, And velvet mantles with rich ermine lined, And rings and jewels of the rarest kind. Then he departed with them o'er the sea Into the lovely land of Italy, Whose loveliness was more resplendent made By the mere passing of that cavalcade, With plumes, and cloaks, and housings, and the stir Of jewelled bridle and of golden spur. And lo! among the menials, in mock state, Upon a piebald steed, with shambling gait, His cloak of fox-tails flapping in the wind, The solemn ape demurely perched behind, King Robert rode, making huge merriment In all the country towns through which they went. The Pope received them with great pomp and blare Of bannered trumpets, on Saint Peter's square, Giving his benediction and embrace, Fervent, and full of apostolic grace. While with congratulations and with prayers He entertained the Angel unawares, Robert, the Jester, bursting through the crowd, Into their presence rushed, and cried aloud, "I am the King! Look, and behold in me Robert, your brother, King of Sicily! This man, who wears my semblance to your eyes, Is an impostor in a king's disguise. Do you not know me? does no voice within Answer my cry, and say we are akin?" The Pope in silence, but with troubled mien, Gazed at the Angel's countenance serene; The Emperor, laughing, said, "It is strange sport To keep a madman for thy Fool at court!" And the poor, baffled Jester in disgrace Was hustled back among the populace. In solemn state the Holy Week went by, And Easter Sunday gleamed upon the sky; The presence of the Angel, with its light, Before the sun rose, made the city bright, And with new fervour filled the hearts of men, Who felt that Christ indeed had risen again. Even the Jester, on his bed of straw, With haggard eyes the unwonted splendour saw, He felt within a power unfelt before, And, kneeling humbly on his chamber-floor, He heard the rushing garments of the Lord Sweep through the silent air, ascending heavenward. And now the visit ending, and once more Valmond returning to the Danube's shore, Homeward the Angel journeyed, and again The land was made resplendent with his train, Flashing along the towns of Italy Unto Salerno, and from thence by sea. And when once more within Palermo's wall, And, seated on the throne in his great hall, He heard the Angelus from convent towers, As if the better world conversed with ours, He beckoned to King Robert to draw nigher, And with a gesture bade the rest retire; And when they were alone, the Angel said, "Art thou the King?" Then, bowing down his head, King Robert crossed both hands upon his breast, And meekly answered him: "Thou knowest best! My sins as scarlet are; let me go hence, And in some cloister's school of penitence, Across those stones, that pave the way to heaven, Walk barefoot, till my guilty soul be shriven!" The Angel smiled, and from his radiant face A holy light illumined all the place, And through the open window, loud and clear, They heard the monks chant in the chapel near, Above the stir and tumult of the street: "He has put down the mighty from their seat, And has exalted them of low degree!" And through the chant a second melody Rose like the throbbing of a single string: "I am an Angel, and thou art the King!" King Robert, who was standing near the throne, Lifted his eyes, and lo! he was alone! But all apparelled as in days of old, With ermined mantle and with cloth of gold; And when his courtiers came, they found him there Kneeling upon the floor, absorbed in silent prayer. INTERLUDE And then the blue-eyed Norseman told A Saga of the days of old. "There is," said he, "a wondrous book Of Legends in the old Norse tongue, Of the dead kings of Norroway-- Legends that once were told or sung In many a smoky fireside nook Of Iceland, in the ancient day, By wandering Saga-man or Scald; 'Heimskringla' is the volume called; And he who looks may find therein The story that I now begin." And in each pause the story made Upon his violin he played, As an appropriate interlude, Fragments of old Norwegian tunes That bound in one the separate runes, And held the mind in perfect mood, Entwining and encircling all The strange and antiquated rhymes With melodies of olden times; As over some half-ruined wall, Disjointed and about to fall, Fresh woodbines climb and interlace, And keep the loosened stones in place. CHAPTER XIV THE BEATO TORELLO DA POPPI In that time in which the portion of Tuscany called Casentino was not yet subject to the Florentines, but was ruled by its own counts, in the lands of Poppi, an important place in that valley through which runs the river Arno, and not far from its source, a son was born to a certain good man named Paolo, to whom he gave the name of Torello, and whom, when a suitable age, he not only taught to fear God, and to lead a Christian life, but sent to school, that he might learn the first principles of letters--which he soon did--and to avoid evil companions and imitate the good. The young Torello, being accustomed to this life, and his father dying, for some time proceeded from good to better. But that not pleasing our common enemy, who always goes about seeking whom he may devour, he so tempted Torello--God permitting it, for future and greater good--that he abandoned a virtuous life, and gave himself to the pursuit of the pleasures of the world; so that instead of being praised for his blameless and religious life, he was censured by all, and had become the very opposite of what he had at first been. But the blessed Lord--who had never abandoned him, though He had left him to wander, in order to permit him to become a true mirror of penitence--called him to himself in this manner; as he was one day wandering and seeking amusement with his idle companions, a cock that was on a perch outside a window suddenly fell, and alighted on his shoulder, and crowed three times, and then flew back to the perch. Torello, calling to mind how the Apostle Peter had in a similar manner been made to gee his guilt, awaked from his sleep of vice and sin in a state of wonder and fear; and thinking that this could have happened only by divine Providence, and to show him that he was in the power of the devil, left his companions instantly, and in penitence and tears sought the Abbot of Poppi, of the order of Vallombrosa; and commending himself to his prayers, threw himself at his feet, humbly begging for the robe of a mendicant friar, since he desired to serve God in the humblest manner. The abbot wondered much, knowing by common report Torello to be a youth of most incorrect life, to see him thus kneeling in contrition before him, and endeavoured, together with the monks, to persuade him to take their habit of St. John Gualberto. But at last, seeing he had no heart for it, and remained constant to his first request, he at last granted it; and he became a poor brother, and almost a desert hermit, for having received the benediction of the abbot, without communicating with either his family or friends, he left that country and took his way toward the most desert and savage places of the mountains, wandering among them for eight days, and passing the night wherever it chanced to overtake him. But having at last come to a great rock, near a place called Avellanato, he remained there, adopting it for a cell eight days more, weeping for his sins, praying, and imploring God to pardon him; living all this time on three small loaves, which he had brought with him, and on wild herbs like the animals; and being much pleased with the place, he determined to make a cell under that great rock, and there spend all the days of this life, serving God with fasts, vigils, discipline, and prayers, and bitterly lamenting his past sins and evil life. Having taken this resolution, he went to his own country to put his affairs in order; and all his relatives and friends came about him, praying him with much earnestness, if he sought to serve God, to leave this life of a wild beast and join some order, living like other monks. But all was of no avail; and selling all his goods, he gave the price to the poor, reserving to himself only a small sum of money to build a cell. And he returned to his solitude with a mason, who made for him a miserable cell under that same rock; and he bought near it enough land for a small garden, and there established himself, practising the most severe austerities. Having now spoken of the penitence and life of the Beato Torello, we must make mention of the great gifts and grace which he received from God during his life, and which were often granted to him in behalf of those who commended themselves to him in faith and devotion. A poor woman of Poppi, who had only one son, three years old, going to the spring to wash her clothes, took him with her; and he having strayed from her a little way while she was washing, a savage wolf seized him and carried him away, and the poor woman's shrieks could be heard almost at Poppi, while she could do nothing but commend the child to God. While the wolf was escaping with his prey between his teeth, he came, as it pleased God--who thus began to make known the reward of his service--to the cell of the Beato Torello; who, when he saw this, instantly ordered the wolf, in God's name, to lay the child on the ground, safe and sound; which command the wolf no sooner heard than he came to him immediately, and laid the child at his feet. And after he had, with evident humility, received the directions of the holy father, that neither he, nor any of the wolves his companions, should do any harm to any person of that country, he departed, and returned to the forest; and the servant of God took the half-dead child into his cell, where he made a prayer to the Lord, and he was immediately healed of the wounds the wolf's teeth had made in his throat. And when his mother came seeking him with great lamentation and sorrow, he graciously restored him to her alive and well, but with the command that while he lived she should never reveal this miracle. Carlo, Count of Poppi, being very fond of the Beato Torello, sent him by his steward, one evening in Carnival, a basket full of provisions, praying the good father to accept it for love of him. The steward also carried him many other gifts, which some good ladies, knowing where he was going, took the opportunity to send by his hand. Having arrived at the cell, he presented them all to the padre, who thanked him much, and returned him the empty baskets; when he took occasion to enquire, how he, being alone, could possibly eat so much in one evening. And Torello, seeing that the steward thought him a great eater, answered: "I am not alone, as you suppose; my companion will come from the woods before long, who has a great appetite, and he will help me." And the steward, hearing this, hid himself in the wood not far from the hermitage, to see who this could be who the padre said had such a fine appetite. He had not waited long when he saw a great wolf go straight to the door of the saint's cell, who opened it for him, and fed him until he had devoured everything that the steward had brought; and he then began to caress the saint, as a faithful and affectionate dog would his master; and this he continued to do until Torello gave him permission to go, and reminded him that neither he, nor any of his companions, should do any harm to the people of that place until they were at such a distance as to be out of hearing of the bell of the monastery, which the wolf promised to do and obey, by bowing his head. The servant, having seen and heard this, returned home, and related it to the count and the others, to their great amazement. There was a lady of Bologna, named Vittoriana, who made a pilgrimage to the holy place in Vernia, where the glorious St. Francis received the stigmata; and there her two children fell ill with a violent and dangerous fever; and being, in consequence, much distressed and afflicted, she consulted with some ladies from Poppi, whose devotion had also brought them to the same place, who advised her to take her children, as soon as possible, to the blessed Torello, and commend them to him, that by means of his prayers God would restore their health. And going to him, she commended them to him with faith and tears and hope beyond the power of words to describe. And truly it was not in vain; for the holy man, who was most pitiful, kneeled down and prayed to the Lord for her and her children as only the true servants of God pray; and having so done, he took some water from the spring of which he usually drank and gave it to the children, and they were entirely cured and delivered from that fever. And what is more, the water of that fountain is to this day called the fountain of St. Torello, and is a sovereign remedy against every kind of fever to those who drink of it, as experience has testified and still testifies. But at last, in the year of our salvation twelve hundred and eighty-two, the saint having reached the eightieth year of his life, and spent them all in the service of God--many of his good works being unknown--an angel brought him this message: "Rejoice, Torello, for the time is come when thou shalt receive the crown of glory thou hast so long desired, and the reward in paradise of ail thy labour in the service of God; for thirty days from this time, on the sixteenth of March, thou shalt be delivered from the prison of this world." The blessed Torello, having heard this, continued all his devout exercises until the end, which approaching, he went to the abbot and confessed his sins for the last time, and received the holy communion from his hands; and they embraced each other, and he returned to his hermitage. And he took leave of one of his disciples, named Pietro, and exhorted him to persevere in God's service; and having with many affectionate prayers recommended his country and the people of it to the blessing of God, praying especially that it should not be ravaged by wolves, he departed in peace. And all the people of the parishes around, hearing of his death, hastened to the hermitage; and all desiring that his holy body should repose in their church, a great controversy arose, and much scandal would have ensued, had not the Abbot of Poppi passed into the midst of them and convinced them it was the will of God it should be laid in his monastery; to which they all finally agreed. And a wonderful and miraculous event occurred; for while they were all standing around the holy body, a wolf came in with a little pig in his mouth, and passing through them without fear, placed it at the foot of the bier, and went away. CHAPTER XV THE LORELEI I know not whence it rises, This thought so full of woe: But a tale of the times departed Haunts me--and will not go. The air is cool, and it darkens, And calmly flows the Rhine; The mountain peaks are sparkling In the sunny evening-shine. And yonder sits a maiden, The fairest of the fair; With gold is her garment glittering, And she combs her golden hair. With a golden comb she combs it, And a wild song singeth she, That melts the heart with a wondrous And powerful melody. The boatman feels his bosom With a nameless longing move; He sees not the gulfs before him, His gaze is fixed above. Till over boat and boatman The Rhine's deep waters run; And this with her magic singing The Lorelei hath done! CHAPTER XVI THE PASSING OF ARTHUR So all day long the noise of battle roll'd Among the mountains by the winter sea. Until King Arthur's Table, man by man, Had fall'n in Lyonnesse about their Lord, King Arthur. Then, because his wound was deep, The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him, And bore him to a chapel nigh the field, A broken chancel with a broken cross. That stood on a dark strait of barren land: On one side lay the Ocean, and on one Lay a great water, and the moon was full. Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: "The sequel of to-day unsolders all The goodliest fellowship of famous knights Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep They sleep--the men I loved. I think that we Shall never more, at any future time, Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds, Walking about the gardens and the halls Of Camelot, as in the days that were. I perish by this people which I made-- Tho' Merlin sware that I should come again To rule once more; but, let what will be, be, I am so deeply smitten thro' the helm That without help I cannot last till morn. Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur, Which was my pride: for thou rememberest how In those old days, one summer noon, an arm Rose up from out the bosom of the lake, Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, Holding the sword--and how I row'd across And took it, and have worn it, like a king; And, wheresoever I am sung or told In aftertime, this also shall be known: But now delay not: take Excalibur, And fling him far into the middle mere: Watch what thou seest and lightly bring me word." To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere: "It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus, Aidless, alone, and smitten thro' the helm-- A little thing may harm a wounded man; Yet I thy hest will all perform at full, Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word." So saying, from the ruin'd shrine he stept, And in the moon athwart the place of tombs, Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men, Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock, Came on the shining levels of the lake. There drew he forth the brand Excalibur, And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon, Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt: For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks, Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long That both his eyes were dazzled, as he stood, This way and that dividing the swift mind, In act to throw: but at the last it seem'd Better to leave Excalibur conceal'd There in the many-knotted water flags, That whistled stiff and dry about the marge. So strode he back slow to the wounded King. Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: "Hast thou perform'd my mission which I gave? What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?" And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: "I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, And the wild water lapping on the crag." To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale: "Thou hast betray'd thy nature and thy name, Not rendering true answer, as beseem'd Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight: For surer sign had followed either hand, Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. This is a shameful thing for men to lie. Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again, As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me word." Then went Sir Bedivere the second time Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere, Counting the dewy pebbles, fix'd in thought; But when he saw the wonder of the hilt, How curiously and strangely chased, he smote His palms together, and he cried aloud: "And if indeed I cast the brand away, Surely a precious thing, one worthy note, Should thus be lost forever from the earth, Which might have pleased the eyes of many men. What good should follow this, if this were done? What harm, undone? Deep harm to disobey, Seeing obedience is the bond of rule. Were it well to obey then, if a king demand An act unprofitable, against himself? The King is sick, and knows not what he does. What record, or what relic of my lord Should be to aftertime, but empty breath And rumours of a doubt? but were this kept, Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings, Some one might show it at a joust of arms, Saying, 'King Arthur's sword, Excalibur, Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake. Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps Upon the hidden bases of the hills.' So might some old man speak in the aftertime To all the people, winning reverence. But now much honour and much fame were lost." So spake he, clouded with his own conceit, And hid Excalibur the second time, And so strode back slow to the wounded King. Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily: "What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?" And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: "I heard the water lapping on the crag, And the long ripple washing in the reeds." To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath: "Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue, Unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me! Authority forgets a dying king, Laid widow'd of the power in his eye That bow'd the will. I see thee what thou art, For thou, the latest-left of all my knights, In whom should meet the offices of all, Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt; Either from lust of gold, or like a girl Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes. Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice, And the third time may prosper, get thee hence: But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur, I will arise and slay thee with my hands." Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran, And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged Among the bulrush beds, and clutch'd the sword, And strongly wheel'd and threw it. The great brand Made lightings in the splendour of the moon, And flashing round and round, and whirl'd in an arch, Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, Seen where the moving isles of winter shock By night with noises of the Northern Sea. So flashed and fell the brand Excalibur: But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, And caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him Three times, and drew him under in the mere. And lightly went the other to the King. Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath: "Now see I by thine eyes that this is done. Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seen?" And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: "Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems Should blind my purpose, for I never saw, Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die, Not tho' I live three lives of mortal men, So great a miracle as yonder hilt. Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him; But when I look'd again, beheld an arm, Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful. That caught him by the hilt, and brandished him Three times, and drew him under In the mere." And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard: "My end draws nigh;'tis time that I were gone. Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight, And bear me to the margin; yet I fear My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die." So saying, from the pavement he half rose, Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm, And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere Remorsefully regarded thro' his tears, And would have spoken, but he found not word; Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee, O'er both his shoulders drew the languid hands, And rising bore him thro' the place of tombs. But, as he walk'd, King Arthur panted hard, Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed When all the house is mute. So sigh'd the King, Muttering and murmuring at his ear, "Quick, quick! I fear it is too late, and I shall die." But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge, Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walk'd, Larger than human on the frozen hills. He heard the deep behind him, and a cry Before. His own thought drove him like a goad. Dry clashed his harness in the icy caves And barren chasms, and all to left and right The bare black cliff clang'd round him, as he based His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels-- And on a sudden, lo! the level lake, And the long glories of the winter moon. Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge, Dark as a funeral scarf from stern to stern, Beneath them; and descending they were ware That all the decks were dense with stately forms, Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream--by these Three Queens with crowns of gold: and from them rose A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars, And, as it were one voice, an agony Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills All night in a waste land, where no one comes Or hath come, since the making of the world. Then murmur'd Arthur, "Place me in the barge." So to the barge they came. There those three Queens Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept. But she, that rose the tallest of them all And fairest, laid his head upon her lap, And loosed the shatter'd casque, and chafed his hands, And call'd him by his name, complaining loud, And dropping bitter tears against a brow Striped with dark blood: for all his face was white And colourless, and like the withered moon Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east; And all his greaves and cuisses dash'd with drops Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls-- That made his forehead like a rising sun High from the dias-throne--were parch'd with dust; Or, clotted into points and hanging loose, Mix'd with the knightly growth that fringed his lips. So like a shatter'd column lay the King; Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest, From spur to plume a star of tournament, Shot thro' the lists of Camelot, and charged Before the eyes of ladles and of kings, Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere: "Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go? Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes? For now I see the true old times are dead, When every morning brought a noble chance, And every chance brought out a noble knight. Such times have been not since the light that led The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. But now the whole Round Table is dissolved Which was an image of the mighty world, And, I the last, go forth companionless, And the days darken round me, and the years, Among new men, strange faces, other minds." And slowly answered Arthur from the barge: "The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfils himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me? I have lived my life, and that which I have done May He within himself make pure! but thou, If thou shouldst never see my face again, Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice Rise like a fountain for me night and day. For what are men better than sheep or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friend? For so the whole round earth is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. But now farewell. I am going a long way With these thou seest-if indeed I go (For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) To the island-valley of Avilion; Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea. Where I will heal me of my grievous wound." So said he, and the barge with oar and sail Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere Revolving many memories, till the hull Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn, And on the mere the wailing died away. But when that moan had past for evermore, The stillness of the dead world's winter dawn Amazed him, and he groan'd, "The King is gone." And therewithal came on him the weird rhyme, "From the great deep to the great deep he goes" Whereat he slowly turn'd and slowly clomb The last hard footstep of that iron crag; Thence mark'd the black hull moving yet, and cried, "He passes to be King among the dead, And after healing of his grievous wound He comes again; but--if he come no more-- O me, be yon dark Queens in yon black boat, Who shriek'd and wail'd, the three whereat we gazed On that high day, when, clothed with living light, They stood before his throne in silence, friends Of Arthur, who should help him at his need?" Then from the dawn it seem'd there came, but faint As from beyond the limit of the world, Like the last echo born of a great cry, Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice Around a king returning from his wars. Thereat once more he moved about, and clomb Ev'n to the highest he could climb, and saw, Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand, Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the King, Down that long water opening on the deep Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go From less to less and vanish into light. And the new sun rose bringing the new year. CHAPTER XVII RIP VAN WINKLE The following tale was found among the papers of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker, an old gentleman of New York, who was very curious in the Dutch history of the province, and the manners of the descendants from its primitive settlers. His historical researches, however, did not lie so much among books as among men; for the former are lamentably scanty on his favourite topics; whereas he found the old burghers, and still more their wives, rich in that legendary lore so invaluable to true history. Whenever, therefore, he happened upon a genuine Dutch family, snugly shut up in its low-roofed farmhouse under a spreading sycamore, he looked upon it as a little clasped volume of black-letter, and studied it with the zeal of a book worm. The result of all these researches was a history of the province during the reign of the Dutch governors, which he published some years since. There have been various opinions as to the literary character of his work, and, to tell the truth, it is not a whit better than it should be. Its chief merit is its scrupulous accuracy, which indeed was a little questioned on its first appearance, but has since been completely established; and it is now admitted into all historical collections, as a book of unquestionable authority. The old gentleman died shortly after the publication of his work, and now that he is dead and gone, it cannot do much harm to his memory to say that his time might have been much better employed in weightier labours. He, however, was apt to ride his hobby his own way; and though it did now and then kick up the dust a little in the eyes of his neighbours, and grieve the spirit of some friends, for whom he felt the truest deference and affection; yet his errors and follies are remembered "more in sorrow than in anger," and it begins to be suspected that he never intended to injure or offend. But however his memory may be appreciated by critics, it is still held dear by many folk, whose good opinion is worth having; particularly by certain biscuit-bakers, who have gone so far as to imprint his likeness on their new-year cakes; and have thus given him a chance for immortality, almost equal to the being stamped on a Waterloo Medal, or a Queen Anne's farthing. Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember the Kaatskill Mountains. They are a dismembered branch of the great Appalachian family, and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a noble height, and lording it over the surrounding country. Every change of season, every change of weather, indeed, every hour of the day, produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains, and they are regarded by all the good wives, far and near, as perfect barometers. When the weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue and purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear evening sky; but sometimes when the rest of the landscape is cloudless they will gather a hood of gray vapours about their summits, which, in the last rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of glory. At the foot of these fairy mountains, the voyager may have descried the light smoke curling up from a village, whose shingle-roofs gleam among the trees, just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into the fresh green of the nearer landscape. It is a little village of great antiquity, having been founded by some of the Dutch colonists in the early time of the province, just about the beginning of the government of the good Peter Stuyvesant (may he rest in peace!) and there were some of the houses of the original settlers standing within a few years, built of small yellow bricks brought from Holland, having latticed windows and gable fronts, surmounted with weathercocks. In that same village, and in one of these very houses (which, to tell the precise truth, was sadly time-worn and weather-beaten), there lived many years since, while the country was yet a province of Great Britain, a simple, good-natured fellow, of the name of Rip Van Winkle. He was a descendant of the Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in the chivalrous days of Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied him to the siege of Fort Christina. He inherited, however, but little of the martial character of his ancestors. I have observed that he was a simple, good-natured man; he was, moreover, a kind neighbour, and an obedient hen-pecked husband. Indeed, to the latter circumstance might be owing that meekness of spirit which gained him such universal popularity; for those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews at home. Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and malleable in the fiery furnace of domestic tribulation; and a curtain lecture is worth all the sermons in the world for teaching the virtues of patience and long-suffering. A termagant wife may, therefore, in some respects be considered a tolerable blessing, and if so, Rip Van Winkle was thrice blessed. Certain it is, that he was a great favourite among all the good wives of the village, who, as usual with the amiable sex, took his part in all family squabbles; and never failed, whenever they talked those matters over in their evening gossipings, to lay all the blame on Dame Van Winkle. The children of the village, too, would shout with joy whenever he approached. He assisted at their sports, made their playthings, taught them to fly kites and shoot marbles, and told them long stories of ghosts, witches, and Indians. Whenever he went dodging about the village, he was surrounded by a troop of them, hanging on his skirts, clambering on his back, and playing a thousand tricks on him, with impunity; and not a dog would bark at him throughout the neighbourhood. The great error in Rip's composition was an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labour. It could not be from the want of assiduity or perseverance; for he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a Tartar's lance, and fish all day without a murmur, even though he should not be encouraged by a single nibble. He would carry a fowling-piece on his shoulder for hours together, trudging through woods and swamps, and up hill and down dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He would never refuse to assist a neighbour, even in the roughest toil, and was a foremost man at all country frolics for husking Indian corn, or building stone-fences; the women of the village, too, used to employ him to run their errands, and to do such little odd jobs as their less obliging husband^ would not do for them. In a word, Rip was ready to attend to anybody's business but his own; but as to doing family duty, and keeping his farm in order, he found it impossible. In fact, he declared it was of no use to work on his farm; it was the most pestilent little piece of ground in the whole country; everything about it went wrong, and would go wrong, in spite of him. His fences were continually falling to pieces; his cow would either go astray or get among the cabbages; weeds were sure to grow quicker in his fields than any where else; the rain always made a point of setting in just as he had some out-door work to do; so that though his patrimonial estate had dwindled away under his management, acre by acre, until there was little more left than a mere patch of Indian corn and potatoes, yet it was the worst-conditioned farm in the neighbourhood. His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if they belonged to nobody. His son Rip, an urchin begotten in his own likeness, promised to inherit the habits, with the old clothes of his father. He was generally seen trooping like a colt at his mother's heels, equipped in a pair of his father's cast-off galligaskins, which he had much ado to hold up with one hand, as a fine lady does her train in bad weather. Rip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy mortals, of foolish, well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easy, eat white bread or brown, whichever can be got with least thought or trouble, and would rather starve on a penny than work for a pound. If left to himself; he would have whistled life away in perfect contentment; but his wife kept continually dinning in his ears about his idleness, his carelessness, and the ruin he was bringing on his family. Morning, noon, and night her tongue was incessantly going, and everything he said or did was sure to produce a torrent of household eloquence. Rip had but one way of replying to all lectures of the kind, and that, by frequent use, had grown into a habit. He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, cast up his eyes, but said nothing. This, however, always provoked a fresh volley from his wife; so that he was fain to draw off his forces, and take to the outside of the house--the only side which, in truth, belongs to a henpecked husband. Rip's sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who was as much henpecked as his master; for Dame Van Winkle regarded them as companions in idleness, and even looked upon Wolf with an evil eye, as the cause of his master's going so often astray. True it is, in all points of spirit befitting an honourable dog, he was as courageous an animal as ever scoured the woods--but what courage can withstand the ever-during and all-besetting terrors of a woman's tongue? The moment Wolf entered the house his crest fell, his tail drooped to the ground, or curled between his legs, he sneaked about with a gallows air, casting many a sidelong glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at the least flourish of a broomstick or ladle he would fly to the door with yelping precipitation. Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle as years of matrimony rolled on; a tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use. For a long while he used to console himself, when driven from home, by frequenting a kind of perpetual club of the sages, philosophers, and other idle personages of the village; which held its sessions on a bench before a small inn, designated by a rubicund portrait of His Majesty George the Third. Here they used to sit in the shade through a long lazy summer's day, talking listlessly over village gossip, or telling endless, sleepy stories about nothing. But it would have been worth any statesman's money to have heard the profound discussions that sometimes took place, when by chance an old newspaper fell into their hands from some passing traveller. How solemnly they would listen to the contents, as drawled out by Derrick Van Bummel, the school-master, a dapper learned little man, who was not to be daunted by the most gigantic word in the dictionary; and how sagely they would deliberate upon public events some months after they had taken place. The opinions of this junto were completely controlled by Nicholas Vedder, a patriarch of the village, and landlord of the inn, at the door of which he took his seat from morning till night, just moving sufficiently to avoid the sun and keep in the shade of a large tree; so that the neighbours could tell the hour by his movements as accurately as by a sun-dial. It is true he was rarely heard to speak, but smoked his pipe incessantly. His adherents however (for every great man has his adherents), perfectly understood him, and knew how to gather his opinions. When anything that was read or related displeased him, he was observed to smoke his pipe vehemently, and to send forth short, frequent and angry puffs; but when pleased, he would inhale the smoke slowly and tranquilly, and emit it in light and placid clouds; and sometimes, taking the pipe from his mouth, and letting the fragrant vapour curl about his nose, would gravely nod his head in token of perfect approbation. From even this stronghold the unlucky Rip was at length routed by his termagant wife, who would suddenly break in upon the tranquillity of the assemblage and call the members all to naught; nor was that august personage, Nicholas Vedder himself, sacred from the daring tongue of this terrible virago, who charged him outright with encouraging her husband in habits of idleness. Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair; and his only alternative, to escape from the labour of the farm and clamour of his wife, was to take gun in hand and stroll away into the woods. Here he would sometimes seat himself at the foot of a tree, and share the contents of his wallet with Wolf, with whom he sympathised as a fellow-sufferer in persecution. "Poor Wolf," he would say, "thy mistress leads thee a dog's life of it; but never mind, my lad, whilst I live thou shalt never want a friend to stand by thee!" Wolf would wag his tail, look wistfully in his master's face, and if dogs can feel pity I verily believe he reciprocated the sentiment with all his heart. In a long ramble of the kind on a fine autumnal day, Rip had unconsciously scrambled to one of the highest parts of the Kaatskill Mountains. He was after his favourite sport squirrel shooting, and the still solitudes had echoed and reechoed with the reports of his gun. Panting and fatigued, he threw himself, late in the afternoon, on a green knoll, covered with mountain herbage, that crowned the brow of a precipice. From an opening between the trees he could overlook all the lower country for many a mile of rich woodland. He saw at a distance the lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving on its silent but majestic course, with the reflection of a purple cloud, or the sail of a lagging bark, here and there sleeping on its glassy bosom, and at last losing itself in the blue highlands. On the other side he looked down into a deep mountain glen, wild, lonely, and shagged, the bottom filled with fragments from the impending cliffs, and scarcely lighted by the reflected rays of the setting sun. For some time Rip lay musing on this scene; evening was gradually advancing; the mountains began to throw their long blue shadows over the valleys; he saw that it would be dark long before he could reach the village, and he heaved a heavy sigh when he thought of encountering the terrors of Dame Van Winkle. As he was about to descend, he heard a voice from a distance, hallooing, "Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle!" He looked round, but could see nothing but a crow winging its solitary flight across the mountain. He thought his fancy must have deceived him, and turned again to descend, when he heard the same cry ring through the still evening air: "Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle!"--at the same time Wolf bristled up his back, and giving a low growl, skulked to his master's side, looking fearfully down into the glen. Rip now felt a vague apprehension stealing over him; he looked anxiously in the same direction, and perceived a strange figure slowly toiling up the rocks, and bending under the weight of something he carried on his back. He was surprised to see any human being in this lonely and unfrequented place; but supposing it to be some one of the neighbourhood in need of his assistance, he hastened down to yield it. On nearer approach he was still more surprised at the singularity of the stranger's appearance. He was a short, square-built old fellow, with thick bushy hair, and a grizzled beard. His dress was of the antique Dutch fashion: a cloth jerkin strapped round the waist, several pair of breeches, the outer one of ample volume, decorated with rows of buttons down the sides, and bunches at the knees. He bore on his shoulder a stout keg, that seemed full of liquor, and made signs for Rip to approach and assist him with the load. Though rather shy and distrustful of this new acquaintance, Rip complied with his usual alacrity; and mutually relieving one another, they clambered up a narrow gully, apparently the dry bed of a mountain torrent. As they ascended, Rip every now and then heard long rolling peals like distant thunder, that seemed to issue out of a deep ravine, or rather cleft, between lofty rocks, toward which their rugged path conducted. He paused for a moment, but supposing it to be the muttering of one of those transient thunder-showers which often take place in mountain heights, he proceeded. Passing through the ravine, they came to a hollow, like a small amphitheatre, surrounded by perpendicular precipices, over the brinks of which impending trees shot their branches, so that you only caught glimpses of the azure sky and the bright evening cloud. During the whole time Rip and his companion had laboured on in silence; for though the former marvelled greatly what could be the object of carrying a keg of liquor up this wild mountain, yet there was something strange and incomprehensible about the unknown, that inspired awe and checked familiarity. On entering the amphitheatre, new objects of wonder presented themselves. On a level spot in the centre was a company of odd-looking personages playing at nine-pins. They were dressed in a quaint outlandish fashion; some wore short doublets, others jerkins, with long knives in their belts, and most of them had enormous breeches of similar style with that of the guide's. Their visages, too, were peculiar; one had a large beard, broad face, and small piggish eyes; the face of another seemed to consist entirely of nose, and was surmounted by a white sugar-loaf hat, set off with a little red cock's tail. They all had beards, of various shapes and colours. There was one who seemed to be the commander. He was a stout old gentleman, with a weather-beaten countenance; he wore a laced doublet, broad belt and hanger, high-crowned hat and feather, red stockings, and high-heeled shoes, with roses in them. The whole group reminded Rip of the figures in an old Flemish painting in the parlour of Dominie Van Shaick, the village parson, which had been brought over from Holland at the time of the settlement. What seemed particularly odd to Rip was, that though these folks were evidently amusing themselves, yet they maintained the gravest faces, the most mysterious silence, and were, withal, the most melancholy party of pleasure he had ever witnessed. Nothing interrupted the stillness of the scene but the noise of the balls, which, whenever they were rolled, echoed along the mountains like rumbling peals of thunder. As Rip and his companion approached them, they suddenly desisted from their play, and stared at him with such fixed, statue-like gaze, and such strange, uncouth, lack-lustre countenances that his heart turned within him, and his knees smote together. His companion now emptied the contents of the keg into large flagons, and made signs to him to wait upon the company. He obeyed with fear and trembling; they quaffed the liquor in profound silence, and then returned to their game. By degrees Rip's awe and apprehension subsided. He even ventured, when no eye was fixed upon him, to taste the beverage, which he found had much of the flavour of excellent Hollands. He was naturally a thirsty soul, and was soon tempted to repeat the draught. One taste provoked another; and he reiterated his visits to the flagon so often that at length his senses were overpowered, his eyes swam in his head, his head gradually declined, and he fell into a deep sleep. On waking, he found himself on the green knoll whence he had first seen the old man of the glen. He rubbed his eyes--it was a bright, sunny morning. The birds were hopping and twittering among the bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft, and breasting the pure mountain breeze. "Surely," thought Rip, "I have not slept here all night." He recalled the occurrences before he fell asleep. The strange man with a keg of liquor--the mountain ravine--the wild retreat among the rocks--the woe-begone party at nine-pins--the flagon--"Oh! that flagon! that wicked flagon!" thought Rip--"what excuse shall I make to Dame Van Winkle?" He looked round for his gun, but in place of the clean, well-oiled fowling-piece, he found an old firelock lying by him, the barrel incrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the stock worm-eaten. He now suspected that the grave roisters of the mountain had put a trick upon him, and, having dosed him with liquor, had robbed him of his gun. Wolf, too, had disappeared, but he might have strayed away after a squirrel or partridge. He whistled after him, and shouted his name, but all in vain; the echoes repeated his whistle and shout, but no dog was to be seen. He determined to revisit the scene of the last evening's gambol, and if he met with any of the party, to demand his dog and gun. As he rose to walk, he found himself stiff in the joints, and wanting in his usual activity. "These mountain beds do not agree with me," thought Rip, "and if this frolic should lay me up with a fit of the rheumatism, I shall have a blessed time with Dame Van Winkle." With some difficulty he got down into the glen; he found the gully up which he and his companion had ascended the preceding evening; but to his astonishment a mountain stream was now foaming down it, leaping from rock to rock and filling the glen with babbling murmurs. He, however, made shift to scramble up its sides, working his toilsome way through thickets of birch, sassafras, and witch-hazel, and sometimes tripped up or entangled by the wild grapevines that twisted their coils or tendrils from tree to tree, and spread a kind of network in his path. At length he reached to where the ravine had opened through the cliffs to the amphitheatre; but no traces of such opening remained. The rocks presented a high, impenetrable wall, over which the torrent come tumbling in a sheet of feathery foam, and fell into a broad, deep basin, black from the shadows of the surrounding forest. Here, then, poor Rip was brought to a stand. He again called and whistled after his dog; he was only answered by the cawing of a flock of idle crows, sporting high in air about a dry tree that overhung a sunny precipice; and who, secure in their elevation, seemed to look down and scoff at the poor man's perplexities. What was to be done? the morning was passing away, and Rip felt famished for want of his breakfast. He grieved to give up his dog and gun; he dreaded to meet his wife; but it would not do to starve among the mountains. He shook his head, shouldered the rusty firelock, and, with a heart full of trouble and anxiety, turned his steps homeward. As he approached the village he met a number of people, but none whom he knew, which somewhat surprised him, for he had thought himself acquainted with every one in the country round. Their dress, too, was of a different fashion from that to which he was accustomed. They all stared at him with equal marks of surprise, and whenever they cast their eyes upon him, invariably stroked their chins. The constant recurrence of this gesture induced Rip, involuntarily, to do the same, when, to his astonishment, he found his beard had grown a foot long! He had now entered the skirts of the village. A troop of strange children ran at his heels, hooting after him, and pointing at his gray beard. The dogs, too, not one of which he recognised for an old acquaintance, barked at him as he passed. The very village was altered; it was larger and more populous. There were rows of houses which he had never seen before, and those which had been his familiar haunts had disappeared. Strange names were over the doors--strange faces at the windows--everything was strange. His mind now misgave him; he began to doubt whether both he and the world around him were not bewitched. Surely this was his native village, which he had left but the day before. There stood the Kaatskill Mountains--there ran the silver Hudson at a distance--there was every hill and dale precisely as it had always been--Rip was sorely perplexed--"That flagon last night," thought he, "has addled my poor head sadly!" It was with some difficulty that he found the way to his own house, which he approached with silent awe, expecting every moment to hear the shrill voice of Dame Van Winkle. He found the house gone to decay--the roof fallen in, the windows shattered, and the doors off the hinges. A half-starved dog that looked like Wolf was skulking about it. Rip called him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his teeth, and passed on. This was an unkind cut indeed--"My very dog," sighed poor Rip, "has forgotten me!" He entered the house, which, to tell the truth, Dame Van Winkle had always kept in neat order. It was empty, forlorn, and apparently abandoned. This desolateness overcame all his connubial fears--he called loudly for his wife and children--the lonely chambers rang for a moment with his voice, and then again all was silence. He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old resort, the village inn--but it, too, was gone. A large, rickety wooden building stood in its place, with great gaping windows, some of them broken and mended with old hats and petticoats, and over the door was painted, "The Union Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle." Instead of the great tree that used to shelter the quiet little Dutch inn of yore, there now was reared a tall naked pole, with something on the top that looked like a red night-cap, and from it was fluttering a flag, on which was a singular assemblage of stars and stripes--all this was strange and incomprehensible. He recognised on the sign, however, the ruby face of King George, under which he had smoked so many a peaceful pipe; but even this was singularly metamorphosed. The red coat was changed for one of blue and buff, a sword was held in the hand instead of a sceptre, the head was decorated with a cocked hat, and underneath was painted in large characters, GENERAL WASHINGTON. There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the door, but none that Rip recollected. The very character of the people seemed changed. There was a busy, bustling, disputatious tone about it, instead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy tranquillity. He looked in vain for the sage Nicholas Vedder, with his broad face, double chin, and fair long pipe, uttering clouds of tobacco-smoke instead of idle speeches; or Van Bummel, the school-master, doling forth the contents of an ancient newspaper. In place of these, a lean, bilious-looking fellow, with his pockets full of handbills, was haranguing vehemently about rights of citizens--elections--members of Congress--liberty--Bunker's Hill--heroes of seventy-six--and other words, which were a perfect Babylonish jargon to the bewildered Van Winkle. The appearance of Rip, with his long grizzled beard, his rusty fowling-piece, his uncouth dress, and an army of women and children at his heels, soon attracted the attention of the tavern-politicians. They crowded round him, eying him from head to foot with great curiosity. The orator bustled up to him, and, drawing him partly aside, inquired "on which side he voted?" Rip started in vacant stupidity. Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and, rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear, "Whether he was Federal or Democrat?" Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend the question; when a knowing, self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made his way through the crowd, putting them to the right and left with his elbows as he passed, and planting himself before Van Winkle, with one arm akimbo, the other resting on his cane, his keen eyes and sharp hat penetrating, as it were, into his very soul, demanded in an austere tone, "what brought him to the election with a gun on his shoulder, and a mob at his heels, and whether he meant to breed a riot in the village?"--"Alas! gentlemen," cried Rip, somewhat dismayed, "I am a poor quiet man, a native of the place, and a loyal subject of the king, God bless him!" Here a general shout burst from the bystanders--"A tory! a tory! a spy! a refugee! hustle him! away with him!" It was with great difficulty that the self-important man in the cocked hat restored order; and having assumed a tenfold austerity of brow, demanded again of the unknown culprit what he came there for, and whom he was seeking? The poor man humbly assured him that he meant no harm, but merely came there in search of some of his neighbours, who used to keep about the tavern. "Well--who are they?--name them." Rip bethought himself a moment, and inquired, "Where's Nicholas Vedder?" There was a silence for a little while, when an old man replied, in a thin, piping voice: "Nicholas Vedder! why, he is dead and gone these eighteen years! There was a wooden tombstone in the church yard that used to tell all about him, but that's rotten and gone too." "Where's Brom Butcher?" "Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning of the war; some say he was killed at the storming of Stony Point--others say he was drowned in a squall at the foot of Antony's Nose. I don't know--he never came back again." "Where's Van Bummel, the school-master?" "He went off to the wars too, was a great militia general, and is now in Congress." Rip's heart died away at hearing of these sad changes in his home and friends, and finding himself thus alone in the world. Every answer puzzled him too, by treating of such enormous lapses of time, and of matters which he could not understand: war--Congress--Stony Point; he had no courage to ask after any more friends, but cried out in dispair, "Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle?" "Oh, Rip Van Winkle!" exclaimed two or three, "Oh, to be sure! that's Rip Van Winkle yonder, leaning against the tree." Rip looked, and beheld a precise counterpart of himself, as he went up the mountain: apparently as lazy, and certainly as ragged. The poor fellow was now completely confounded. He doubted his own identity, and whether he was himself or another man. In the midst of his bewilderment, the man in the cocked hat demanded who he was, and what was his name? "God knows," exclaimed he, at his wit's end; "I'm not myself--I'm somebody else--that's me yonder--no--that's somebody else got into my shoes--I was myself last night, but fell asleep on the mountain, and they've changed my gun, and everything's changed, and I'm changed, and I can't tell what's my name, or who I am!" The bystanders began now to look at each other, nod, wink significantly, and tap their fingers against their foreheads. There was a whisper, also, about securing the gun, and keeping the old fellow from doing mischief, at the very suggestion of which the self-important man in the cocked hat retired with some precipitation. At this critical moment a fresh, comely women pressed through the throng to get a peep at the gray-bearded man. She had a chubby child in her arms, which, frightened at his looks, began to cry. "Hush, Rip," cried she, "hush, you little fool; the old man won't hurt you." The name of the child, the air of the mother, the tone of her voice, all awakened a train of recollections in his mind. "What is your name, my good woman?" asked he. "Judith Gardenier." "And your father's name?" "Ah, poor man, Rip Van Winkle was his name, but it's twenty years since he went away from home with his gun, and never has been heard of since,--his dog came home without him; but whether he shot himself, or was carried away by the Indians, nobody can tell. I was then but a little girl." Rip had but one question more to ask; and he put it with a faltering voice: "Where's your mother?" "Oh, she too had died but a short time since; she broke a blood-vessel in a fit of passion at a New England peddler." There was a drop of comfort at least, in this intelligence. The honest man could contain himself no longer. He caught his daughter and her child in his arms. "I am your father!" cried he--"Young Rip Van Winkle once--old Rip Van Winkle now! Does nobody know poor Rip Van Winkle?" All stood amazed, until an old woman, tottering out from among the crowd, put her hand to her brow, and peering under it in his face for a moment, exclaimed, "Sure enough it is Rip Van Winkle--it is himself! Welcome home again, old neighbour--Why, where have you been these twenty long years?" Rip's story was soon told, for the whole twenty years had been to him but as one night. The neighbours stared when they heard it; some were seen to wink at each other, and put their tongues in their cheeks; and the self-important man in the cocked hat, who, when the alarm was over, had returned to the field, screwed down the corners of his mouth, and shook his head--upon which there was a general shaking of the head throughout the assemblage. It was determined, however, to take the opinion of old Peter Vanderdonk, who was seen slowly advancing up the road. He was a descendant of the historian of the that name, who wrote one of the earliest accounts of the province. Peter was the most ancient inhabitant of the village, and well versed in all the wonderful events and traditions of the neighbourhood. He recollected Rip at once, and corroborated his story in the most satisfactory manner. He assured the company that it was a fact, handed down from his ancestor the historian, that the Kaatskill Mountains had always been haunted by strange beings. That it was affirmed that the great Hendrick Hudson, the first discoverer of the river and country, kept a kind of vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the Half-moon; being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes of his enterprise, and keep a guardian eye upon the river and the great city called by his name. That his father had once seen them in their old Dutch dresses playing at nine-pins in a hollow of the mountain; and that he himself had heard, one summer afternoon, the sound of their balls like distant peals of thunder. To make a long story short, the company broke up, and returned to the more important concerns of the election. Rip's daughter took him home to live with her; she had a snug well-furnished house, and a stout cheery farmer for a husband, whom Rip recollected for one of the urchins that used to climb upon his back. As to Rip's son and heir, who was the ditto of himself, seen leaning against the tree, he was employed to work on the farm; but evinced an hereditary disposition to attend to anything else but his business. Rip now resumed his old walks and habits; he soon found many of his former cronies, though all rather the worse for the wear and tear of time; and preferred making friends among the rising generation, with whom he soon grew into great favour. Having nothing to do at home, and being arrived at that happy age when a man can be idle with impunity, he took his place once more on the bench at the inn door, and was reverenced as one of the patriarchs of the village, and a chronicle of the old times "before the war." It was some time before he could get into the regular track of gossip, or could be made to comprehend the strange events that had taken place during his torpor. How that there had been a revolutionary war--that the country had thrown off the yoke of old England--and that, instead of being a subject of his Majesty George the Third, he was now a free citizen of the United States. Rip, in fact, was no politician; the changes of states and empires made but little impression on him; but there was one species of despotism under which he had long groaned, and that was--petticoat government. Happily that was at an end; he had got his neck out of the yoke of matrimony, and could go in and out whenever he pleased, without dreading the tyranny of Dame Van Winkle. Whenever her name was mentioned, however, he shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and cast up his eyes, which might pass either for an expression of resignation to his fate, or joy at his deliverance. He used to tell his story to every stranger that arrived at Mr. Doolittle's hotel. He was observed, at first, to vary on some points every time he told it, which was, doubtless, owing to his having so recently awaked. It at last settled down precisely to the tale I have related, and not a man, woman, or child in the neighbourhood but knew it by heart. Some always pretended to doubt the reality of it, and insisted that Rip had been out of his head, and that this was one point on which he always remained flighty. The old Dutch inhabitants, however, almost universally gave it full credit. Even to this day they never hear a thunder-storm of a summer afternoon about the Kaatskill, but they say Hendrick Hudson and his crew are at their game of nine-pins; and it is a common wish of all henpecked husbands in the neighbourhood, when life hangs heavy on their hands, that they might have a quieting draught out of Rip Van Wrinkle's flagon. CHAPTER XVIII THE GRAY CHAMPION There was once a time when New England groaned under the actual pressure of heavier wrongs than those threatened ones which brought on the Revolution. James II, the bigoted successor of Charles the Voluptuous, had annulled the charters of all the colonies, and sent a harsh and unprincipled soldier to take away our liberites and endanger our religion. The administration of Sir Edmund Andros lacked scarcely a single characteristic of tyranny: a Governor and Council, holding office from the King, and wholly independent of the country; laws made and taxes levied without concurrence of the people immediate or by their representatives; the rights of private citizens violated, and the titles of all landed property declared void; the voice of complaint stifled by restrictions on the press; and, finally, disaffection overawed by the first band of mercenary troops that ever marched on our free soil. For two years our ancestors were kept in sullen submission by that filial love which had invariably secured their allegiance to the mother country, whether its head chanced to be a Parliament, Protector, or Popish Monarch. Till these evil times, however, such allegiance had been merely nominal, and the colonists had ruled themselves, enjoying far more freedom than is even yet the privilege of the native subjects of Great Britain. At length a rumour reached our shores that the Prince of Orange had ventured on an enterprise, the success of which would be the triumph of civil and religious rights and the salvation of New England. It was but a doubtful whisper; it might be false, or the attempt might fail; and, in either case, the man that stirred against King Tames would lose his head. Still the intelligence produced a marked effect. The people smiled mysteriously in the streets, and threw bold glances at their oppressors; while far and wide there was a subdued and silent agitation, as if the slightest signal would rouse the whole land from its sluggish despondency. Aware of their danger, the rulers resolved to avert it by an imposing display of strength, and perhaps to confirm their despotism by yet harsher measures. One afternoon in April, 1689, Sir Edmund Andros and his favourite councillors, being warm with wine, assembled the red-coats of the Governor's Guard, and made their appearance in the streets of Boston. The sun was near setting when the march commenced. The roll of the drum at that unquiet crisis seemed to go through the streets, less as the martial music of the soldiers, than as a muster-call to the inhabitants themselves. A multitude, by various avenues, assembled in King Street, which was destined to be the scene, nearly a century afterward, of another encounter between the troops of Britain, and a people struggling against her tyranny. Though more than sixty years had elapsed since the pilgrims came, this crowd of their descendants still showed the strong and sombre features of their character perhaps more strikingly in such a stern emergency than on happier occasions. There were the sober garb, the general severity of mien, the gloomy but undismayed expression, the scriptural forms of speech, and the confidence in Heaven's blessing on a righteous cause, which would have marked a band of the original Puritans, when threatened by some peril of the wilderness. Indeed, it was not yet time for the old spirit to be extinct; since there were men in the street that day who had worshipped there beneath the trees, before a house was reared to the God for whom they had become exiles. Old soldiers of the Parliament were here, too, smiling grimly at the thought that their aged arms might strike another blow against the house of Stuart. Here, also, were the veterans of King Philip's war, who had burned villages and slaughtered young and old, with pious fierceness, while the godly souls throughout the land were helping them with prayer. Several ministers were scattered among the crowd, which, unlike all other mobs, regarded them with such reverence, as if there were sanctity in their very garments. These holy men exerted their influence to quiet the people, but not to disperse them. Meantime, the purpose of the Governor, in disturbing the peace of the town at a period when the slightest commotion might throw the country into a ferment, was almost the universal subject of inquiry, and variously explained. "Satan will strike his master-stroke presently," cried some, "because he knoweth that his time is short. All our godly pastors are to be dragged to prison! We shall see them at a Smithfield fire in King Street!" Hereupon the people of each parish gathered closer round their minister, who looked calmly upward and assumed a more apostolic dignity, as well befitted a candidate for the highest honour of his profession, the crown of martyrdom. It was actually fancied, at that period, that New England might have a John Rogers of her own to take the place of that worthy in the Primer. "The Pope of Rome has given orders for a new St. Bartholomew!" cried others. "We are to be massacred, man and male child!" Neither was this rumour wholly discredited, although the wiser class believed the Governor's object somewhat less atrocious. His predecessor under the old charter, Bradstreet, a venerable companion of the first settlers, was known to be in town. There were grounds for conjecturing, that Sir Edmund Andros intended at once to strike terror by a parade of military force, and to confound the opposite faction by possessing himself of their chief. "Stand firm for the old charter Governor!" shouted the crowd, seizing upon the idea. "The good old Governor Bradstreet!" While this cry was at the loudest, the people were surprised by the well-known figure of Governor Bradstreet himself, a patriarch of nearly ninety, who appeared on the elevated steps of a door, and, with characteristic mildness, besought them to submit to the constituted authorities. "My children," concluded this venerable person, "do nothing rashly. Cry not aloud, but pray for the welfare of New England, and expect patiently what the Lord will do in this matter!" The event was soon to be decided. All this time, the roll of the drum had been approaching through Cornhill, louder and deeper, till with reverberations from house to house, and the regular tramp of martial footsteps, it burst into the street. A double rank of soldiers made their appearance, occupying the whole breadth of the passage, with shouldered matchlocks, and matches burning, so as to present a row of fires in the dusk. Their steady march was like the progress of a machine, that would roll irresistibly over everything in its way. Next, moving slowly, with a confused clatter of hoofs on the pavement, rode a party of mounted gentlemen, the central figure being Sir Edmund Andros, elderly, but erect and soldier-like. Those around him were his favourite councillors, and the bitterest foes of New England. At his right hand rode Edward Randolph, our arch-enemy, that "blasted wretch," as Cotton Mather calls him, who achieved the downfall of our ancient government, and was followed with a sensible curse through life and to his grave. On the other side was Bullivant, scattering jests and mockery as he rode along. Dudley came behind, with a downcast look, dreading, as well he might, to meet the indignant gaze of the people, who beheld him, their only countryman by birth, among the oppressors of his native land. The captain of a frigate in the harbour, and two or three civil officers under the Crown, were also there. But the figure which most attracted the public eye, and stirred up the deepest feeling, was the Episcopal clergyman of King's Chapel, riding haughtily among the magistrates in his priestly vestments, the fitting representative of prelacy and persecution, the union of church and state, and all those abominations which had driven the Puritans to the wilderness. Another guard of soldiers, in double rank, brought up the rear. The whole scene was a picture of the condition of New England, and its moral, the deformity of any government that does not grow out of the nature of things and the character of the people. On one side the religious multitude, with their sad visages and dark attire, and on the other, the group of despotic rulers, with the high churchman in the midst, and here and there a crucifix at their bosoms, all magnificently clad, flushed with wine, proud of unjust authority, and scoffing at the universal groan. And the mercenary soldiers, waiting but the word to deluge the street with blood, showed the only means by which obedience could be secured. "O Lord of Hosts," cried a voice among the crowd, "provide a Champion for thy people!" This ejaculation was loudly uttered, and served as a herald's cry, to introduce a remarkable personage. The crowd had rolled back, and were now huddled together nearly at the extremity of the street, while the soldiers had advanced no more than a third of its length. The intervening space was empty--a paved solitude, between lofty edifices, which threw almost a twilight shadow over it. Suddenly, there was seen the figure of an ancient man, who seemed to have emerged from among the people, and was walking by himself along the centre of the street, to confront the armed band. He wore the old Puritan dress, a dark cloak and a steeple-crowned hat, in the fashion of at least fifty years before, with a heavy sword upon his thigh, but a staff in his hand to assist the tremulous gait of age. When at some distance from the multitude, the old man turned slowly round, displaying a face of antique majesty, rendered doubly venerable by the hoary beard that descended on his breast. He made a gesture at once of encouragement and warning, then turned again, and resumed his way. "Who is this gray patriarch?" asked the young men of their sires. "Who is this venerable brother?" asked the old men among themselves. But none could make reply. The fathers of the people, those of four-score years and upwards, were disturbed, deeming it strange that they should forget one of such evident authority, whom they must have known in their early days, the associate of Winthrop, and all the old councillors, giving laws, and making prayers, and leading them against the savage. The elderly men ought to have remembered him, too, with locks as gray in their youth, as their own were now. And the young! How could he have passed so utterly from their memories--that hoary sire, the relic of long-departed times, whose awful benediction had surely been bestowed on their uncovered heads, in childhood? "Whence did he come? What is his purpose? Who can this old man be?" whispered the wondering crowd. Meanwhile, the venerable stranger, staff in hand, was pursuing his solitary walk along the centre of the street. As he drew near the advancing soldiers, and as the roll of their drum came full upon his ear, the old man raised himself to a loftier mien, while the decrepitude of age seemed to fall from his shoulders, leaving him in gray but unbroken dignity. Now, he marched onward with a warrior's step, keeping time to the military music. Thus the aged form advanced on one side, and the whole parade of soldiers and magistrates on the other, till, when scarcely twenty yards remained between, the old man grasped his staff by the middle, and held it before him like a leader's truncheon. "Stand!" cried he. The eye, the face, and attitude of command; the solemn, yet warlike peal of that voice, fit either to rule a host in the battle-field or be raised to God in prayer, were irresistible. At the old man's word and outstretched arm, the roll of the drum was hushed at once, and the advancing line stood still. A tremulous enthusiasm seized upon the multitude. That stately form, combining the leader and the saint, so gray, so dimly seen, in such an ancient garb, could only belong to some old champion of the righteous cause, whom the oppressor's drum had summoned from his grave. They raised a shout of awe and exultation, and looked for the deliverance of New England. The Governor, and the gentlemen of his party, perceiving themselves brought to an unexpected stand, rode hastily forward, as if they would have pressed their snorting and affrighted horses right against the hoary apparition. He, however, blenched not a step, but glancing his severe eye round the group, which half encompassed him, at last bent it sternly on Sir Edmund Andros. One would have thought that the dark old man was chief ruler there, and that the Governor and Council, with soldiers at their back, representing the whole power and authority of the Crown, had no alternative but obedience. "What does this old fellow here?" cried Edward Randolph, fiercely. "On, Sir Edmund! Bid the soldiers forward, and give the dotard the same choice that you give all his countrymen--to stand aside or be trampled on!" "Nay, nay, let us show respect to the good grandsire," said Bullivant, laughing. "See you not, he is some old round-headed dignitary, who hath lain asleep these thirty years, and knows nothing of the change of times? Doubtless, he thinks to put us down with a proclamation in Old Noll's name!" "Are you mad, old man?" demanded Sir Edmund Andros, in loud and harsh tones. "How dare you stay the march of King James's Governor?" "I have stayed the march of a King himself, ere now," replied the gray figure, with stern composure, "I am here, Sir Governor, because the cry of an oppressed people hath disturbed me in my secret place; and beseeching this favour earnestly of the Lord, it was vouchsafed me to appear once again on earth, in the good old cause of his saints. And what speak ye of James? There is no longer a Popish tyrant on the throne of England, and by to-morrow noon, his name shall be a byword in this very street, where ye would make it a word of terror. Back, thou that wast a Governor, back! With this night thy power is ended--to-morrow, the prison!--back, lest I foretell the scaffold!" The people had been drawing nearer and nearer, and drinking in the words of their champion, who spoke in accents long disused, like one unaccustomed to converse, except with the dead of many years ago. But his voice stirred their souls. They confronted the soldiers, not wholly without arms, and ready to convert the very stones of the street into deadly weapons. Sir Edmund Andros looked at the old man; then he cast his hard and cruel eye over the multitude, and beheld them burning with that lurid wrath, so difficult to kindle or to quench; and again he fixed his gaze on the aged form, which stood obscurely in an open space, where neither friend nor foe had thrust himself. What were his thoughts, he uttered no word which might discover. But whether the oppressor were averawed by the Gray Champion's look, or perceived his peril in the threatening attitude of the people, it is certain that he gave back, and ordered his soldiers to commence a slow and guarded retreat. Before another sunset, the Governor, and all that rode so proudly with him, were prisoners, and long ere it was known that James had abdicated, King William was proclaimed throughout New England. But where was the Gray Champion? Some reported that, when the troops had gone from King Street, and the people were thronging tumultuously in their rear, Bradstreet, the aged Governor, was seen to embrace a form more aged than his own. Others soberly affirmed, that while they marvelled at the venerable grandeur of his aspect, the old man had faded from their eyes, melting slowly into the hues of twilight, till, where he stood, there was an empty space. But all agreed that the hoary shape was gone. The men of that generation watched for his reappearance, in sunshine and in twilight, but never saw him more, nor knew when his funeral passed, nor where his gravestone was. And who was the Gray Champion? Perhaps his name might be found in the records of that stern Court of Justice, which passed a sentence, too mighty for the age, but glorious in all after-times, for its humbling lesson to the monarch and its high example to the subject. I have heard, that whenever the descendants of the Puritans are to show the spirit of their sires, the old man appears again. When eighty years had passed, he walked once more in King Street. Five years later, in the twilight of an April morning, he stood on the green, beside the meeting-house, at Lexington, where now the obelisk of granite, with a slab of slate inlaid, commemorates the first fallen of the Revolution. And when our fathers were toiling at the breastwork on Bunker's Hill, all through that night the old warrior walked his rounds. Long, long may it be, ere he comes again! His hour is one of darkness, and adversity, and peril. But should domestic tyranny oppress us, or the invader's step pollute our soil, still may the Gray Champion come, for he is the type of New England's hereditary spirit; and his shadowy march, on the eve of danger, must ever be the pledge, that New England's sons will vindicate their ancestry. CHAPTER XIX THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF THE LATE DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER IN THE bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail and implored the protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed, there lies a small market town or rural port, which by some is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly known by the name of Tarry Town. This name was given, we are told, in former days, by the good housewives of the adjacent country, from the inveterate propensity of their husbands to linger about the village tavern on market days. Be that as it may, I do not vouch for the fact, but merely advert to it, for the sake of being precise and authentic. Not far from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little valley or rather lap of land among high hills, which is one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to repose; and the occasional whistle of a quail or tapping of a woodpecker is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquillity. I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in squirrel-shooting was in a grove of tall walnut trees that shades one side of the valley. I had wandered into it at noontime, when all nature is peculiarly quiet, and was startled by the roar of my own gun, as it broke the Sabbath stillness around and was prolonged and reverberated by the angry echoes. If ever I should wish for a retreat whither I might steal from the world and its distractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a troubled life, I know of none more promising than this little valley. From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of Sleepy Hollow, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the neighbouring country. A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place was bewitched by a High German doctor, during the early days of the settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his tribe, held his powwows there before the country was discovered by Master Hendrick Hudson. Certain it is, the place still continues under the sway of some witching power, that holds a spell over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk in a continual reverie. They are given to all kinds of marvellous beliefs; are subject to trances and visions, and frequently see strange sights, and hear music and voices in the air. The whole neighbourhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and twilight superstitions; stars shoot and meteors glare oftener across the valley than in any other part of the country, and the nightmare, with her whole ninefold, seems to make it the favourite scene of her gambols. The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback, without a head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away by a cannon-ball, in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War, and who is ever and anon seen by the country folk hurrying along in the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind. His haunts are not confined to the valley, but extend at times to the adjacent roads, and especially to the vicinity of a church at no great distance. Indeed, certain of the most authentic historians of those parts, who have been careful in collecting and collating the floating facts concerning this spectre, allege that the body of the trooper having been buried in the churchyard, the ghost rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head, and that the rushing speed with which he sometimes passes along the Hollow, like a midnight blast, is owing to his being belated, and in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before daybreak. Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition, which has furnished materials for many a wild story in that region of shadows; and the spectre is known at all the country firesides, by the name of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. It is remarkable that the visionary propensity I have mentioned is not confined to the native inhabitants of the valley, but is unconsciously imbibed by every one who resides there for a time. However wide awake they may have been before they entered that sleepy region, they are sure, in a little time, to inhale the witching influence of the air, and begin to grow imaginative, to dream dreams, and see apparitions. I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud; for it is in such little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there embosomed in the great state of New York, that population, manners, and customs remain fixed, while the great torrent of migration and improvement, which is making such incessant changes in other parts of this restless country, sweeps by them unobserved. They are like those little nooks of still water, which border a rapid stream, where we may see the straw and bubble riding quietly at anchor, or slowly revolving in their mimic harbour, undisturbed by the brush of the passing current. Though many years have elapsed since I trod the drowsy shades of Sleepy Hollow, yet I question whether I should not still find the same trees and the same families vegetating in its sheltered bosom. In this by-place of nature there abode, in a remote period of American history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy wight of the name of Ichabod Crane, who sojourned, or, as he expressed it, "tarried," in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of instructing the children of the vicinity. He was a native of Connecticut, a state which supplies the Union with pioneers for the mind as well as for the forest, and sends forth yearly its legions of frontier woodmen and country schoolmasters. The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weathercock perched upon his spindle neck to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield. His schoolhouse was a low building of one large room, rudely constructed of logs; the windows partly glazed, and partly patched with leaves of old copybooks. It was most ingeniously secured at vacant hours, by a withe twisted in the handle of the door, and stakes set against the window shutters; so that though a thief might get in with perfect ease, he would find some embarrassment in getting out--an idea most probably borrowed by the architect, Yost Van Houten, from the mystery of an eelpot. The schoolhouse stood in a rather lonely but pleasant situation, just at the foot of a woody hill, with a brook running close by, and a formidable birch tree growing at one end of it. From hence the low murmur of his pupils' voices, conning over their lessons, might be heard in a drowsy summer's day, like the hum of a beehive; interrupted now and then by the authoritative voice of the master, in the tone of menace or command; or, peradventure, by the appalling sound of the birch, as he urged some tardy loiterer along the flowery path of knowledge. Truth to say, he was a conscientious man, and ever bore in mind the golden maxim, "Spare the rod and spoil the child." Ichabod Crane's scholars certainly were not spoiled. I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one of those cruel potentates of the school who joy in the smart of their subjects; on the contrary, he administered justice with discrimination rather than severity; taking the burden off the backs of the weak, and laying it on those of the strong. Your mere puny stripling, that winced at the least flourish of the rod, was passed by with indulgence; but the claims of justice were satisfied by inflicting a double portion on some little tough, wrong-headed, broad-skirted Dutch urchin, who sulked and swelled and grew dogged and sullen beneath the birch. All this he called "doing his duty by their parents"; and he never inflicted a chastisement without following it by the assurance, so consolatory to the smarting urchin, that "he would remember it and thank him for it the longest day he had to live." When school hours were over, he was even the companion and playmate of the larger boys; and on holiday afternoons would convoy some of the smaller ones home, who happened to have pretty sisters, or good housewives for mothers, noted for the comforts of the cupboard. Indeed, it behooved him to keep on good terms with his pupils. The revenue arising from his school was small, and would have been scarcely sufficient to furnish him with daily bread, for he was a huge feeder, and, though lank, had the dilating powers of an anaconda; but to help out his maintenance, he was, according to country custom in those parts, boarded and lodged at the houses of the farmers whose children he instructed. With these he lived successively a week at a time, thus going the rounds of the neighbourhood, with all his worldly effects tied up in a cotton handkerchief. That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his rustic patrons, who are apt to consider the costs of schooling a grievous burden, and schoolmasters as mere drones, he had various ways of rendering himself both useful and agreeable. He assisted the farmers occasionally in the lighter labours of their farms, helped to make hay, mended the fences, took the horses to water, drove the cows from pasture, and cut wood for the winter fire. He laid aside, too, all the dominant dignity and absolute sway with which he lorded it in his little empire, the school, and became wonderfully gentle and ingratiating. He found favour in the eyes of the mothers by petting the children, particularly the youngest; and like the lion bold, which whilom so magnanimously the lamb did hold, he would sit with a child on one knee, and rock a cradle with his foot for whole hours together. In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing-master of the neighbourhood, and picked up many bright shillings by instructing the young folks in psalmody. It was a matter of no little vanity to him on Sundays, to take his station in front of the church gallery, with a band of chosen singers; where, in his own mind, he completely carried away the palm from the parson. Certain it is, his voice resounded far above all the rest of the congregation; and there are peculiar quavers still to be heard in that church, and which may even be heard half a mile off, quite to the opposite side of the mill-pond, on a still Sunday morning, which are said to be legitimately descended from the nose of Ichabod Crane. Thus, by divers little makeshifts, in that ingenious way which is commonly denominated "by hook and by crook," the worthy pedagogue got on tolerably enough, and was thought, by all who understood nothing of the labour of headwork, to have a wonderfully easy life of it. The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance in the female circle of a rural neighbourhood; being considered a kind of idle, gentlemanlike personage, of vastly superior taste and accomplishments to the rough country swains, and, indeed, inferior in learning only to the parson. His appearance, therefore, is apt to occasion some little stir at the tea-table of a farmhouse, and the addition of a supernumerary dish of cakes or sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the parade of a silver teapot. Our man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly happy in the smiles of all the country damsels. How he would figure among them in the churchyard, between services on Sundays! gathering grapes for them from the wild vines that overran the surrounding trees; reciting for their amusement all the epitaphs on the tombstones; or sauntering, with a whole bevy of them, along the banks of the adjacent mill-pond; while the more bashful country bumpkins hung sheepishly back, envying his superior elegance and address. From his half itinerant life, also, he was a kind of travelling gazette, carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house to house, so that his appearance was always greeted with satisfaction. He was, moreover, esteemed by the women as a man of great erudition, for he had read several books quite through, and was a perfect master of Cotton Mather's "History of New England Witchcraft," in which, by the way, he most firmly and potently believed. He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simple credulity. His appetite for the marvellous, and his powers of digesting it, were equally extraordinary; and both had been increased by his residence in this spellbound region. No tale was too gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow. It was often his delight, after his school was dismissed in the afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed of clover bordering the little brook that whimpered by his schoolhouse, and there con over old Mather's direful tales, until the gathering dusk of evening made the printed page a mere mist before his eyes. Then, as he wended his way by swamp and stream and awful woodland, to the farmhouse where he happened to be quartered, every sound of nature, at that witching hour, fluttered his excited imagination--the moan of the whip-poor-will from the hillside, the boding cry of the tree toad, that harbinger of storm, the dreary hooting of the screech owl, to the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The fireflies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now and then startled him, as one of uncommon brightness would stream across his path; and if, by chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came winging his blundering flight against him, the poor varlet was ready to give up the ghost, with the idea that he was struck with a witch's token. His only resource on such occasions, either to drown thought or drive away evil spirits, was to sing psalm tunes; and the good people of Sleepy Hollow, as they sat by their doors of an evening, were often filled with awe at hearing his nasal melody, "in linked sweetness long drawn out," floating from the distant hill, or along the dusky road. Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was to pass long winter evenings with the old Dutch wives, as they sat spinning by the fire, with a row of apples roasting and spluttering along the hearth, and listen to their marvellous tales of ghosts and goblins, and haunted fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges, and haunted houses, and particularly of the headless horseman, or Galloping Hessian of the Hollow, as they sometimes called him. He would delight them equally by his anecdotes of witchcraft, and of the direful omens and portentous sights and sounds in the air, which prevailed in the earlier times of Connecticut; and would frighten them woefully with speculations upon comets and shooting stars; and with the alarming fact that the world did absolutely turn round, and that they were half the time topsy-turvy! But if there was a pleasure in all this, while snugly cuddling in the chimney corner of a chamber that was all of a ruddy glow from the crackling wood fire, and where, of course, no spectre dared to show its face, it was dearly purchased by the terrors of his subsequent walk homewards. What fearful shapes and shadows beset his path, amidst the dim and ghastly glare of a snowy night! With what wistful look did he eye every trembling ray of light streaming across the waste fields from some distant window! How often was he appalled by some shrub covered with snow, which, like a sheeted spectre, beset his very path! How often did he shrink with curdling awe at the sound of his own steps on the frosty crust beneath his feet; and dread to look over his shoulder, lest he should behold some uncouth being tramping close behind him! and how often was he thrown into complete dismay by some rushing blast, howling among the trees, in the idea that it was the Galloping Hessian on one of his nightly scourings! All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms of the mind that walk in darkness; and though he had seen many spectres in his time, and been more than once beset by Satan in divers shapes, in his lonely perambulations, yet daylight put an end to all these evils; and he would have passed a pleasant life of it, in despite of the Devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, and that was--a woman. Among the musical disciples who assembled, one evening in each week, to receive his instructions in psalmody, was Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and only child of a substantial Dutch farmer. She was a blooming lass of fresh eighteen; plump as a partridge; ripe and melting and rosy-cheeked as one of her father's peaches, and universally famed, not merely for her beauty, but her vast expectations. She was withal a little or a coquette, as might be perceived even in her dress, which was a mixture of ancient and modern fashions, as most suited to set off her charms. She wore the ornaments of pure yellow gold, which her great-great-grandmother had brought over from Saardam; the tempting stomacher of the olden time, and withal a provokingly short petticoat, to display the prettiest foot and ankle in the country round. Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart toward the sex; and it is not to be wondered at, that so tempting a morsel soon found favour in his eyes, more especially after he had visited her in her paternal mansion. Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect picture of a thriving, contented, liberal hearted farmer. He seldom, it is true, sent either his eyes or his thoughts beyond the boundaries of his own farm; but within those everything was snug, happy and well-conditioned. He was satisfied with his wealth, but not proud of it; and piqued himself upon the hearty abundance, rather than the style in which he lived. His stronghold was situated on the banks of the Hudson, in one of those green, sheltered, fertile nooks in which the Dutch farmers are so fond of nestling. A great elm tree spread its broad branches over it, at the foot of which bubbled up a spring of the softest and sweetest water, in a little well formed of a barrel; and then stole sparkling away through the grass, to a neighbouring brook, that babbled along among alders and dwarf willows. Hard by the farmhouse was a vast barn, that might have served for a church; every window and crevice of which seemed bursting forth with the treasures of the farm; the flail was busily resounding within it from morning to night; swallows and martins skimmed twittering about the eaves; and rows of pigeons, some with one eye turned up, as if watching the weather, some with their heads under their wings or buried in their bosoms, and others swelling, and cooing, and bowing about their dames, were enjoying the sunshine on the roof. Sleek unwieldy porkers were grunting in the repose and abundance of their pens, from whence sallied forth, now and then, troops of sucking pigs, as if to snuff the air. A stately squadron of snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond, convoying whole fleets of ducks; regiments of turkeys were gobbling through the farmyard, and Guinea fowls fretting about it, like ill-tempered housewives, with their peevish, discontented cry. Before the barn door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern of a husband, a warrior and a fine gentleman, clapping his burnished wings and crowing in the pride and gladness of his heart--sometimes tearing up the earth with his feet, and then generously calling his ever-hungry family of wives and children to enjoy the rich morsel which he had discovered. The pedagogue's mouth watered as he looked upon this sumptuous promise of luxurious winter fare. In his devouring mind's eye, he pictured to himself every roasting-pig running about with a pudding in his belly, and an apple in his mouth; the pigeons were snugly put to bed in a comfortable pie, and tucked in with a coverlet of crust; the geese were swimming in their own gravy; and the ducks pairing cosily in dishes, like snug married couples, with a decent competency of onion sauce. In the porkers he saw carved out the future sleek side of bacon, and juicy relishing ham; not a turkey but he beheld daintily trussed up, with its gizzard under its wing, and, peradventure, a necklace of savoury sausages; and even bright chanticleer himself lay sprawling on his back, in a side dish, with uplifted claws, as if craving that quarter which his chivalrous spirit disdained to ask while living. As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he rolled his great green eyes over the fat meadow lands, the rich fields of wheat, of rye, of buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the orchards burdened with ruddy fruit, which surrounded the warm tenement of Van Tassel, his heart yearned after the damsel who was to inherit these domains, and his imagination expanded with the idea, how they might be readily turned into cash, and the money invested in immense tracts of wild land, and shingle palaces in the wilderness. Nay, his busy fancy already realised his hopes, and presented to him the blooming Katrina, with a whole family of children, mounted on the top of a wagon loaded with household trumpery, with pots and kettles dangling beneath; and he beheld himself bestriding a pacing mare, with a colt at her heels, setting out for Kentucky, Tennessee--or the Lord knows where! When he entered the house, the conquest of his heart was complete. It was one, of those spacious farmhouses, with high ridged but lowly sloping roofs, built in the style handed down from the first Dutch settlers; the low projecting eaves forming a piazza along the front, capable of being closed up in bad weather. Under this were hung flails, harness, various utensils of husbandry, and nets for fishing in the neighbouring river. Benches were built along the sides for summer use; and a great spinning-wheel at one end, and a churn at the other, showed the various uses to which this important porch might be devoted. From this piazza the wondering Ichabod entered the hall, which formed the centre of the mansion, and the place of usual residence. Here rows of resplendent pewter, ranged on a long dresser, dazzled his eyes. In one corner stood a huge bag of wool, ready to be spun; in another, a quantity of linsey-woolsey just from the loom; ears of Indian corn, and strings of dried apples and peaches, hung in gay festoons along the walls, mingled with the gaud of red peppers; and a door left ajar gave him a peep into the best parlour, where the claw footed chairs and dark mahogany tables shone like mirrors; andirons, with their accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert of asparagus tops; mock-oranges and conch-shells decorated the mantle-piece; strings of various coloured birds' eggs were suspended above it; a great ostrich egg was hung from the centre of the room, and a corner cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed immense treasures of old silver and well mended china. From the moment Ichabod laid his eyes upon these regions of delight, the peace of his mind was at an end, and his only study was how to gain the affections of the peerless daughter of Van Tassel. In this enterprise, however, he had more real difficulties than generally fell to the lot of a knight-errant of yore, who seldom had anything but giants, enchanters, fiery dragons, and such like easily conquered adversaries, to contend with, and had to make his way merely through gates of iron and brass, and walls of adamant to the castle keep, where the lady of his heart was confined; all which he achieved as easily as a man would carve his way to the centre of a Christmas pie; and then the lady gave him her hand as a matter of course. Ichabod, on the contrary, had to win his way to the heart of a country coquette, beset with a labyrinth of whims and caprices, which were forever presenting new difficulties and impediments; and he had to encounter a host of fearful adversaries of real flesh and blood, the numerous rustic admirers, who beset every portal to her heart, keeping a watchful and angry eye upon each other, but ready to fly out in the common cause against any new competitor. Among these, the most formidable was a burly, roaring, roystering blade, of the name of Abraham, or, according to the Dutch abbreviation, Brom Van Brunt, the hero of the country round, which rang with his feats of strength and hardihood. He was broad-shouldered and double-jointed, with short curly black hair, and a bluff but not unpleasant countenance, having a mingled air of fun and arrogance. From his Herculean frame and great powers of limb, he had received the nickname of Brom Bones, by which he was universally known. He was famed for great knowledge and skill in horsemanship, being as dexterous on horseback as a Tartar. He was foremost at all races and cock-fights; and, with the ascendancy which bodily strength always acquires in rustic life, was the umpire in all disputes, setting his hat on one side, and giving his decisions with an air and tone that admitted of no gainsay or appeal. He was always ready for either a fight or a frolic; but had more mischief than ill-will in his composition; and with all his overbearing roughness, there was a strong clash of waggish good humour at bottom. He had three or four boon companions, who regarded him as their model, and at the head of whom he scoured the country, attending every scene of feud or merriment for miles round. In cold weather he was distinguished by a fur cap, surmounted with a flaunting fox's tail; and when the folks at a country gathering descried this well-known crest at a distance, whisking about among a squad of hard riders, they always stood by for a squall. Sometimes his crew would be heard dashing along past the farmhouses at midnight, with whoop and halloo, like a troop of Don Cossacks; and the old dames, startled out of their sleep, would listen for a moment till the hurry-scurry had clattered by, and then exclaim, "Ay, there goes Brom Bones and his gang!" The neighbours looked upon him with a mixture of awe, admiration, and good-will; and, when any madcap prank or rustic brawl occurred in the vicinity, always shook their heads, and warranted Brom Bones was at the bottom of it. This rantipole hero had for some time singled out the blooming Katrina for the object of his uncouth gallantries, and though his amorous toyings were something like the gentle caresses and endearments of a bear, yet it was whispered that she did not altogether discourage his hopes. Certain it is, his advances were signals for rival candidates to retire, who felt no inclination to cross a lion in his amours; insomuch, that when his horse was seen tied to Van Tassel's paling, on a Sunday night, a sure sign that his master was courting, or, as it is termed, "sparking," within, all other suitors passed by in despair, and carried the war into other quarters. Such was the formidable rival with whom Ichabod Crane had to contend, and, considering all things, a stouter man than he would have shrunk from the competition, and a wiser man would have despaired. He had, however, a happy mixture of pliability and perseverance in his nature; he was in form and spirit like a supple-jack--yielding, but tough; though he bent, he never broke; and though he bowed beneath the slightest pressure, yet, the moment it was away--jerk!--he was as erect, and carried his head as high as ever. To have taken the field openly against his rival would have been madness; for he was not a man to be thwarted in his amours, any more than that stormy lover, Achilles. Ichabod, therefore, made his advances in a quiet and gently insinuating manner. Under cover of his character of singing-master, he made frequent visits at the farmhouse; not that he had anything to apprehend from the meddlesome interference of parents, which is so often a stumbling block in the path of lovers. Balt Van Tassel was an easy, indulgent soul; he loved his daughter better even than his pipe, and, like a reasonable man and an excellent father, let her have her way in everything. His notable little wife, too, had enough to do to attend to her housekeeping and manage her poultry; for, as she sagely observed, ducks and geese are foolish things, and must be looked after, but girls can take care of themselves. Thus, while the busy dame bustled about the house, or plied her spinning-wheel at one end of the piazza, honest Balt would sit smoking his evening pipe at the other, watching the achievements of a little wooden warrior, who, armed with a sword in each hand, was most valiantly fighting the wind on the pinnacle of the barn. In the meantime, Ichabod would carry on his suit with the daughter by the side of the spring under the great elm, or sauntering along in the twilight, that hour so favourable to the lover's eloquence. I profess not to know how women's hearts are wooed and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration. Some seem to have but one vulnerable point, or door of access; while others have a thousand avenues, and may be captured in a thousand different ways. It is a great triumph of skill to gain the former, but a still greater proof of generalship to maintain possession of the latter, for a man must battle for his fortress at every door and window. He who wins a thousand common hearts is therefore entitled to some renown; but he who keeps undisputed sway over the heart of a coquette is indeed a hero. Certain it is, this was not the case with the redoubtable Brom Bones; and from the moment Ichabod Crane made his advances, the interests of the former evidently declined: his horse was no longer seen tied to the palings on Sunday nights, and a deadly feud gradually arose between him and the preceptor of Sleepy Hollow. Brom, who had a degree of rough chivalry in his nature, would fain have carried matters to open warfare and have settled their pretensions to the lady, according to the mode of those most concise and simple reasoners, the knights-errant of yore--by single combat; but Ichabod was too conscious of the superior might of his adversary to enter the lists against him; he had overheard a boast of Bones, that he would "double the schoolmaster up, and lay him on a shelf of his own schoolhouse"; and he was too wary to give him an opportunity. There was something extremely provoking in this obstinately pacific system; it left Brom no alternative but to draw upon the funds of rustic waggery in his disposition, and to play off boorish practical jokes upon his rival. Ichabod became the object of whimsical persecution to Bones and his gang of rough riders. They harried his hitherto peaceful domains, smoked out his singing-school by stopping up the chimney, broke into the schoolhouse at night, in spite of its formidable fastenings of withe and window stakes, and turned everything topsy-turvy, so that the poor schoolmaster began to think all the witches in the country held their meetings there. But what was still more annoying, Brom took all opportunities of turning him into ridicule in presence of his mistress, and had a scoundrel dog whom he taught to whine in the most ludicrous manner, and introduced as a rival of Ichabod's, to instruct her in psalmody. In this way matters went on for some time, without producing any material effect on the relative situations of the contending powers. On a fine autumnal afternoon, Ichabod, in pensive mood, sat enthroned on the lofty stool from whence he usually watched all the concerns of his little literary realm. In his hand he swayed a ferule, that sceptre of despotic power; the birch of justice reposed on three nails behind the throne, a constant terror to evil doers; while on the desk before him might be seen sundry contraband articles and prohibited weapons detected upon the persons of idle urchins, such as half-munched apples, popguns, whirligigs, fly-cages, and whole legions of rampant little paper game-cocks. Apparently there had been some appalling act of justice recently inflicted, for his scholars were all busily intent upon their books, or slyly whispering behind them with one eye kept upon the master; and a kind of buzzing stillness reigned throughout the schoolroom. It was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a negro in tow-cloth jacket and trousers, a round-crowned fragment of a hat, like the cap of Mercury, and mounted on the back of a ragged, wild, half-broken colt, which he managed with a rope by way of halter. He came clattering up to the school door with an invitation to Ichabod to attend a merry-making or "quilting-frolic," to be held that evening at Mynheer Van Tassel's; and having delivered his message with that air of importance and effort at fine language which a negro is apt to display on petty embassies of the kind, he dashed over the brook, and was seen scampering away up the Hollow, full of the importance and hurry of his mission. All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quiet schoolroom. The scholars were hurried through their lessons without stopping at trifles; those who were nimble skipped over half with impunity, and those who were tardy had a smart application now and then in the rear, to quicken their speed or help them over a tall word. Books were flung aside without being put away on the shelves, inkstands were overturned, benches thrown down, and the whole school was turned loose an hour before the usual time, bursting forth like a legion of young imps, yelping and racketing about the green in joy at their early emancipation. The gallant Ichabod now spent at least an extra half hour at his toilet, brushing and furbishing up his best, and indeed only suit of rusty black, and arranging his locks by a bit of broken looking-glass that hung up in the schoolhouse. That he might make his appearance before his mistress in the true style of a cavalier, he borrowed a horse from the farmer with whom he was domiciliated, a choleric old Dutchman of the name of Hans Van Ripper, and, thus gallantly mounted, issued forth like a knight-errant in quest of adventures. But it is meet I should, in the true spirit of romantic story, give some account of the looks and equipments of my hero and his steed. The animal he bestrode was a broken down plow-horse, that had outlived almost everything but its viciousness. He was gaunt and shagged, with a ewe neck, and a head like a hammer; his rusty mane and tail were tangled and knotted with burs; one eye had lost its pupil, and was glaring and spectral, but the other had the gleam of a genuine devil in it. Still he must have had fire and mettle in his day, if we may judge from the name he bore of Gunpowder. He had, in fact, been a favourite steed of his master's, the choleric Van Ripper, who was a furious rider, and had infused, very probably, some of his own spirit into the animal; for, old and broken down as he looked, there was more of the lurking devil in him than in any young filly in the country. Ichabod was a suitable figure for such a steed. He rode with short stirrups, which brought his knees nearly up to the pommel of the saddle; his sharp elbows stuck out like grasshoppers'; he carried his whip perpendicularly in his hand, like a sceptre, and as his horse jogged on, the motion of his arms was not unlike the flapping of a pair of wings. A small wool hat rested on the top of his nose, for so his scanty strip of forehead might be called, and the skirts of his black coat fluttered out almost to the horse's tail. Such was the appearance of Ichabod and his steed as they shambled out of the gate of Hans Van Ripper, and it was altogether such an apparition as is seldom to be met with in broad daylight. It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day; the sky was clear and serene, and nature wore that rich and golden livery which we always associate with the idea of abundance. The forests had put on their sober brown and yellow, while some trees of the tenderer kind had been nipped by the frosts into brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet. Streaming files of wild ducks began to make their appearance high in the air; the bark of the squirrel might be heard from the groves of beech and hickory nuts, and the pensive whistle of the quail at intervals from the neighbouring stubble field. The small birds were taking their farewell banquets. In the fullness of their revelry, they fluttered, chirping and frolicking from bush to bush, and tree to tree, capricious from the very profusion and variety around them. There was the honest cockrobin, the favourite game of stripling sportsmen, with its loud querulous note; and the twittering blackbirds flying in sable clouds; and the golden-winged woodpecker, with his crimson crest, his broad black gorget, and splendid plumage; and the cedar-bird, with its red-tipt wings and yellow-tipt tail and its little monteiro cap of feathers; and the blue jay, that noisy coxcomb, in his gay light blue coat and white underclothes, screaming and chattering, nodding and bobbing and bowing, and pretending to be on good terms with every songster of the grove. As Ichabod jogged slowly on his way, his eye, ever open to every symptom of culinary abundance, ranged with delight over the treasures of jolly autumn. On all sides he beheld vast store of apples: some hanging in oppressive opulence on the trees; some gathered into baskets and barrels for the market; others heaped up in rich piles for the cider-press. Farther on he beheld great fields of Indian corn, with its golden ears peeping from their leafy coverts, and holding out the promise of cakes and hasty-pudding; and the yellow pumpkins lying beneath them, turning up their fair round bellies to the sun, and giving ample prospects of the most luxurious of pies; and anon he passed the fragrant buckwheat fields breathing the odour of the beehive, and as he beheld them, soft anticipations stole over his mind of dainty slap-jacks, well buttered, and garnished with honey or treacle, by the delicate little dimpled hand of Katrina Van Tassel. Thus feeding his mind with many sweet thoughts and "sugared suppositions," he journeyed along the sides of a range of hills which look out upon some of the goodliest scenes of the mighty Hudson. The sun gradually wheeled his broad disk down in the west. The wide bosom of the Tappen Zee lay motionless and glassy, excepting that here and there a gentle undulation waved and prolonged the blue shadow of the distant mountain. A few amber clouds floated in the sky, without a breath of air to move them. The horizon was of a fine golden tint, changing gradually into a pure apple green, and from that into the deep blue of the mid-heaven. A slanting ray lingered on the woody crests of the precipices that overhung some parts of the river, giving greater depth to the dark gray and purple of the rocky sides. A sloop was loitering in the distance, dropping slowly down with the tide, her sail hanging uselessly against the mast; and as the reflection of the sky gleamed along the still water, it seemed as if the vessel was suspended in the air. It was toward evening that Ichabod arrived at the castle of the Heer Van Tassel, which he found thronged with the pride and flower of the adjacent country. Old farmers, a spare leathern-faced race, in homespun coats and breeches, blue stockings, huge shoes, and magnificent pewter buckles. Their brisk, withered little dames, in close crimped caps, long waisted short-gowns, homespun petticoats, with scissors and pincushions, and gay calico pockets hanging on the outside. Buxom lasses, almost as antiquated as their mothers, excepting where a straw hat, a fine ribbon, or perhaps a white frock, gave symptoms of city innovation. The sons, in short square skirted coats, with rows of stupendous brass buttons, and their hair generally queued in the fashion of the times, especially if they could procure an eelskin for the purpose, it being esteemed throughout the country as a potent nourisher and strengthener of the hair. Brom Bones, however, was the hero of the scene, having come to the gathering on his favourite steed Daredevil, a creature, like himself, full of mettle and mischief, and which no one but himself could manage. He was, in fact, noted for preferring vicious animals, given to all kinds of tricks which kept the rider in constant risk of his neck, for he held a tractable, well broken horse as unworthy of a lad of spirit. Fain would I pause to dwell upon the world of charms that burst upon the enraptured gaze of my hero, as he entered the state parlour of Van Tassel's mansion. Not those of the bevy of buxom lasses, with their luxurious display of red and white; but the ample charms of a genuine Dutch country tea-table, in the sumptuous time of autumn. Such heaped-up platters of cakes of various and almost indescribable kinds, known only to experienced Dutch housewives! There was the doughty doughnut, the tender olykoek, and the crisp and crumbling cruller; sweet cakes and short cakes, ginger cakes and honey cakes, and the whole family of cakes. And then there were apple pies, and peach pies, and pumpkin pies; besides slices of ham and smoked beef: and moreover delectable dishes of preserved plums, and peaches, and pears, and quinces; not to mention broiled shad and roasted chickens; together with bowls of milk and cream, all mingled higgledy-piggledy, pretty much as I have enumerated them, with the motherly teapot sending up its clouds of vapour from the midst--Heaven bless the mark! I want breath and time to discuss this banquet as it deserves, and am too eager to get on with my story. Happily, Ichabod Crane was not in so great a hurry as his historian, but did ample justice to every dainty. He was a kind and thankful creature, whose heart dilated in proportion as his skin was filled with good cheer, and whose spirits rose with eating, as some men's do with drink. He could not help, too, rolling his large eyes round him as he ate, and chuckling with the possibility that he might one day be lord of all this scene of almost unimaginable luxury and splendour. Then he, thought, how soon he'd turn his back upon the old school-house; snap his fingers in the face of Hans Van Ripper, and every other niggardly patron, and kick any itinerant pedagogue out of doors that should dare to call him comrade! Old Baltus Van Tassel moved about among his guests with a face dilated with content and good humour, round and jolly as the harvest moon. His hospitable attentions were brief, but expressive, being confined to a shake of the hand, a slap on the shoulder, a loud laugh and a pressing invitation to "fall to, and help themselves." And now the sound of the music from the common room, or hall, summoned to the dance. The musician was an old gray-headed negro, who had been the itinerant orchestra of the neighbourhood for more than half a century. His instrument was as old and battered as himself. The greater part of the time he scraped on two or three strings, accompanying every movement of the bow with a motion of the head; bowing almost to the ground, and stamping with his foot whenever a fresh couple were to start. Ichabod prided himself upon his dancing as much as upon his vocal powers. Not a limb, not a fibre about him was idle; and to have seen his loosely hung frame in full motion, and clattering about the room, you would have thought St. Vitus himself, that blessed patron of the dance, was figuring before you in person. He was the admiration of all the negroes; who, having gathered, of all ages and sizes, from the farm and the neighbourhood, stood forming a pyramid of shining black faces at every door and window; gazing with delight at the scene; rolling their white eye-balls, and showing grinning rows of ivory from ear to ear. How could the flogger of urchins be otherwise than animated and joyous? the lady of his heart was his partner in the dance, and smiling graciously in reply to all his amorous oglings; while Brom Bones, sorely smitten with love and jealousy, sat brooding by himself in one corner. When the dance was at an end, Ichabod was attracted to a knot of the sager folks, who, with Old Van Tassel, sat smoking at one end of the piazza, gossiping over former times, and drawing out long stories about the war. This neighbourhood, at the time of which I am speaking, was one of those highly favoured places which abound with chronicle and great men. The British and American line had run near it during the war; it had, therefore, been the scene of marauding, and infested with refugees, cow-boys, and all kinds of border chivalry. Just sufficient time had elapsed to enable each story-teller to dress up his tale with a little becoming fiction, and, in the indistinctness of his recollection, to make himself the hero of every exploit. There was the story of Doffue Martling, a large blue-bearded Dutchman, who had nearly taken a British frigate with an old iron nine-pounder from a mud breast work, only that his gun burst at the sixth discharge. And there was an old gentleman who shall be nameless, being too rich a mynheer to be lightly mentioned, who, in the battle of White Plains, being an excellent master of defence, parried a musket-ball with a small-sword, insomuch that he absolutely felt it whiz round the blade, and glance off at the hilt; in proof of which he was ready at any time to show the sword, with the hilt a little bent. There were several more that had been equally great in the field, not one of whom but was persuaded that he had a considerable hand in bringing the war to a happy termination. But all these were nothing to the tales of ghosts and apparitions that succeeded. The neighbourhood is rich in legendary treasures of the kind. Local tales and superstitions thrive best in these sheltered, long-settled retreats; but are trampled under foot by the shifting throng that forms the population of most of our country places. Besides, there is no encouragement for ghosts in most of our villages, for they have scarcely had time to finish their first nap and turn themselves in their graves, before their surviving friends have travelled away from the neighbourhood; so that when they turn out at night to walk their rounds, they have no acquaintance left to call upon. This is perhaps the reason why we so seldom hear of ghosts except in our long established Dutch communities. The immediate cause, however, of the prevalence of supernatural stories in these parts, was doubtless owing to the vicinity of Sleepy Hollow. There was a contagion in the very air that blew from that haunted region; it breathed forth an atmosphere of dreams and fancies infecting all the land. Several of the Sleepy Hollow people were present at Van Tassel's, and, as usual, were doling out their wild and wonderful legends. Many dismal tales were told about funeral trains, and mourning cries and wailings heard and seen about the great tree where the unfortunate Major Andre was taken, and which stood in the neighbourhood. Some mention was made also of the woman in white, that haunted the dark glen at Raven Rock, and was often heard to shriek on winter nights before a storm, having perished there in the snow. The chief part of the stories, however, turned upon the favourite spectre of Sleepy Hollow, the Headless Horseman, who had been heard several times of late, patrolling the country; and, it was said, tethered his horse nightly among the graves in the churchyard. The sequestered situation of the church seems always to have made it a favourite haunt of troubled spirits. It stands on a knoll, surrounded by locust trees and lofty elms from among which its decent, whitewashed walls shine modestly forth, like Christian purity beaming through the shades of retirement. A gentle slope descends from it to a silver sheet of water, bordered by high trees, between which, peeps may be caught at the blue hills of the Hudson. To look upon its grass-grown yard, where the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly, one would think that there at least the dead might rest in peace. On one side of the church extends a wide woody dell, along which raves a large brook among broken rocks and trunks of fallen trees. Over a deep black part of the stream, not far from the church, was formerly thrown a wooden bridge; the road that led to it, and the bridge itself, were thickly shaded by overhanging trees, which cast a gloom about it, even in the daytime; but occasioned a fearful darkness at night. Such was one of the favourite haunts of the Headless Horseman, and the place where he was most frequently encountered. The tale was told of old Brouwer, a most heretical disbeliever in ghosts, how he met the Horseman returning from his foray into Sleepy Hollow, and was obliged to get up behind him; how they galloped over bush and brake, over hill and swamp, until they reached the bridge; when the Horseman suddenly turned into a skeleton, threw old Brouwer into the brook, and sprang away over the tree-tops with a clap of thunder. This story was immediately matched by a thrice marvellous adventure of Brom Bones, who made light of the Galloping Hessian as an arrant jockey. He affirmed that on returning one night from the neighbouring village of Sing Sing, he had been overtaken by this midnight trooper; that the had offered to race with him for a bowl of punch, and should have won it too, for Daredevil beat the goblin horse all hollow, but just as they came to the church bridge, the Hessian bolted, and vanished in a flash of fire. All these tales, told in that drowsy undertone with which men talk in the dark, the countenances of the listeners only now and then receiving a casual gleam from the glare of a pipe, sank deep in the mind of Ichabod. He repaid them in kind with large extracts from his invaluable author, Cotton Mather, and added many marvellous events that had taken place in his native state of Connecticut, and fearful sights which he had seen in his nightly walks about Sleepy Hollow. The revel now gradually broke up. The old farmers gathered together their families in their wagons, and were heard for some time rattling along the hollow roads, and over the distant hills. Some of the damsels mounted on pillions behind their favourite swains, and their light-hearted laughter, mingling with the clatter of hoofs, echoed along the silent woodlands, sounding fainter and fainter, until they gradually died away--and the late scene of noise and frolic was all silent and deserted. Ichabod only lingered behind, according to the custom of country lovers, to have a tete-a-tete with the heiress; fully convinced that he was now on the high road to success. What passed at this interview I will not pretend to say, for in fact I do not know. Something, however, I fear me, must have gone wrong, for he certainly sallied forth, after no very great interval, with an air quite desolate and chapfallen. Oh, these women! these women! Could that girl have been playing off any of her coquettish tricks? Was her encouragement of the poor pedagogue all a mere sham to secure her conquest of his rival? Heaven only knows, not I! Let it suffice to say, Ichabod stole forth with the air of one who had been sacking a henroost, rather than a fair lady's heart. Without looking to the right or left to notice the scene of rural wealth, on which he had so often gloated, he went straight to the stable, and with several hearty cuffs and kicks roused his steed most uncourteously from the comfortable quarters in which he was soundly sleeping, dreaming of mountains of corn and oats, and whole valleys of timothy and clover. It was the very witching time of night that Ichabod, heavy-hearted and crest-fallen, pursued his travels homewards, along the sides of the lofty hills which rise above Tarry Town, and which he had traversed so cheerily in the afternoon. The hour was as dismal as himself. Far below him the Tappen Zee spread its dusky and indistinct waste of waters, with here and there the tall mast of a sloop, riding quietly at anchor under the land. In the dead hush of midnight, he could even hear the barking of the watchdog from the opposite shore of the Hudson; but it was so vague and faint as only to give an idea of his distance from this faithful companion of man. Now and then, too, the long-drawn crowing of a cock, accidentally awakened, would sound far, far off, from some farmhouse away among the hills--but it was like a dreaming sound in his ear. No signs of life occurred near him, but occasionally the melancholy chirp of a cricket, or perhaps the guttural twang of a bull-frog from a neighbouring marsh, as if sleeping uncomfortably and turning suddenly in his bed. All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in the afternoon now came crowding upon his recollection. The night grew darker and darker; the stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and driving clouds occasionally hid them from his sight. He had never felt so lonely and dismal. He was, moreover, approaching the very place where many of the scenes of the ghost stories had been laid. In the centre of the road stood an enormous tulip-tree, which towered like a giant above all the other trees of the neighbourhood, and formed a kind of landmark. Its limbs were gnarled and fantastic, large enough to form trunks for ordinary trees, twisting down almost to the earth, and rising again into the air. It was connected with the tragical story of the unfortunate Andre, who had been taken prisoner hard by, and was universally known by the name of Major Andre's tree. The common people regarded it with a mixture of respect and superstition, partly out of sympathy for the fate of its ill-starred namesake, and partly from the tales of strange sights, and doleful lamentations, told concerning it. As Ichabod approached this fearful tree, he began to whistle; he thought his whistle was answered; it was but a blast sweeping sharply through the dry branches. As he approached a little nearer, he thought he saw something white, hanging in the midst of the tree: he paused, and ceased whistling; but, on looking more narrowly, perceived that it was a place where the tree had been scathed by lightning, and the white wood laid bare. Suddenly he heard a groan--his teeth chattered, and his knees smote against the saddle: it was but the rubbing of one huge bough upon another, as they were swayed about by the breeze. He passed the tree in safety, but new perils lay before him. About two hundred yards from the tree, a small brook crossed the road, and ran into a marshy and thickly-wooded glen, known by the name of Wiley's Swamp. A few rough logs, laid side by side, served for a bridge over this stream. On that side of the road where the brook entered the wood, a group of oaks and chestnuts, matted thick with wild grape-vines, threw a cavernous gloom over it. To pass this bridge was the severest trial. It was at this identical spot that the unfortunate Andre was captured, and under the covert of those chestnuts and vines were the sturdy yeomen concealed who surprised him. This has ever since been considered a haunted stream, and fearful are the feelings of the schoolboy who has to pass it alone after dark. As he approached the stream, his heart began to thump; he summoned up, however, all his resolution, gave his horse half a score of kicks in the ribs, and attempted to dash briskly across the bridge; but instead of starting forward, the perverse old animal made a lateral movement, and ran broadside against the fence. Ichabod, whose fears increased with the delay, jerked the reins on the other side, and kicked lustily with the contrary foot: it was all in vain; his steed started, it is true, but it was only to plunge to the opposite side of the road into a thicket of brambles and alder-bushes. The schoolmaster now bestowed both whip and heel upon the starveling ribs of old Gunpowder, who dashed forward, snuffling and snorting, but came to a stand just by the bridge, with a suddenness that had nearly sent his rider sprawling over his head. Just at this moment a plashy tramp by the side of the bridge caught the sensitive ear of Ichabod. In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin of the brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen, and towering. It stirred not, but seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some gigantic monster ready to spring upon the traveller. The hair of the affrighted pedagogue rose upon his head with terror. What was to be done? To turn and fly was now too late; and besides, what chance was there of escaping ghost or goblin, if such it was, which could ride upon the wings of the wind? Summoning up, therefore, a show of courage, he demanded in stammering accents, "Who are you?" He received no reply. He repeated his demand in a still more agitated voice. Still there was no answer. Once more he cudgelled the sides of the inflexible Gunpowder, and, shutting his eyes, broke forth with involuntary fervour into a psalm tune. Just then the shadowy object of alarm put itself in motion, and with a scramble and a bound stood at once in the middle of the road. Though the night was dark and dismal, yet the form of the unknown might now in some degree be ascertained. He appeared to be a horseman of large dimensions, and mounted on a black horse of powerful frame. He made no offer of molestation or sociability, but kept aloof on one side of the road, jogging along on the blind side of old Gunpowder, who had now got over his fright and waywardness. Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange midnight companion, and bethought himself of the adventure of Brom Bones with the Galloping Hessian, now quickened his steed in hopes of leaving him behind. The stranger, however, quickened his horse to an equal pace. Ichabod pulled up, and fell into a walk, thinking to lag behind--the other did the same. His heart began to sink within him; he endeavoured to resume his psalm tune, but his parched tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and he could not utter a stave. There was something in the moody and dogged silence of this pertinacious companion that was mysterious and appalling. It was soon fearfully accounted for. On mounting a rising ground, which brought the figure of his fellow-traveller in relief against the sky, gigantic in height, and muffled in a cloak, Ichabod was horror-struck on perceiving that he was headless! but his horror was still more increased on observing that the head, which should have rested on his shoulders, was carried before him on the pommel of his saddle! His terror rose to desperation; he rained a shower of kicks and blows upon Gunpowder, hoping by a sudden movement to give his companion the slip; but the spectre started full jump with him. Away, then, they dashed through thick and thin; stones flying and sparks flashing at every bound. Ichabod's flimsy garments fluttered in the air, as he stretched his long lank body away over his horse's head, in the eagerness of his flight. They had now reached the road which turns off to Sleepy Hollow; but Gunpowder, who seemed possessed with a demon, instead of keeping up it, made an opposite turn, and plunged headlong down hill to the left. This road leads through a sandy hollow, shaded by trees for about a quarter of a mile, where it crosses the bridge famous in goblin story; and just beyond swells the green knoll on which stands the whitewashed church. As yet the panic of the steed had given his unskilful rider an apparent advantage in the chase; but just as he had got half way through the hollow, the girths of the saddle gave way, and he felt it slipping from under him. He seized it by the pommel, and endeavoured to hold it firm, but in vain; and had just time to save himself by clasping old Gunpowder round the neck, when the saddle fell to the earth, and he heard it trampled under foot by his pursuer. For a moment the terror of Hans Van Ripper's wrath passed across his mind--for it was his Sunday saddle; but this was no time for petty fears; the goblin was hard on his haunches; and (unskilful rider that he was!) he had much ado to maintain his seat; sometimes slipping on one side, sometimes on another, and sometimes jolted on the high ridge of his horse's backbone, with a violence that he verily feared would cleave him asunder. An opening in the trees now cheered him with the hopes that the church bridge was at hand. The wavering reflection of a silver star in the bosom of the brook told him that he was not mistaken. He saw the walls of the church dimly glaring under the trees beyond. He recollected the place where Brom Bones's ghostly competitor had disappeared. "If I can but reach that bridge," thought Ichabod, "I am safe." Just then he heard the black steed panting and blowing close behind him; he even fancied that he felt his hot breath. Another convulsive kick in the ribs, and old Gunpowder sprang upon the bridge; he thundered over the resounding planks; he gained the opposite side; and now Ichabod cast a look behind to see if his pursuer should vanish, according to rule, in a flash of fire and brimstone. Just then he saw the goblin rising in his stirrups, and in the very act of hurling his head at him. Ichabod endeavoured to dodge the horrible missile, but too late. It encountered his cranium with a tremendous crash--he was tumbled headlong into the dust, and Gunpowder, the black steed, and the goblin rider, passed by like a whirlwind. The next morning the old horse was found without his saddle, and with the bridle under his feet, soberly cropping the grass at his master's gate. Ichabod did not make his appearance at breakfast; dinner-hour came, but no Ichabod. The boys assembled at the schoolhouse, and strolled idly about the banks of the brook; but no schoolmaster. Hans Van Ripper now began to feel some uneasiness about the fate of poor Ichabod, and his saddle. An inquiry was set on foot, and after diligent investigation they came upon his traces. In one part of the road leading to the church was found the saddle trampled in the dirt; the tracks of horses' hoofs deeply dented in the road, and evidently at furious speed, were traced to the bridge, beyond which, on the dank of a broad part of the brook, where the water ran deep and black, was found the hat of the unfortunate Ichabod, and close beside it a shattered pumpkin. The brook was searched, but the body of the schoolmaster was not to be discovered. Hans Van Ripper, as executor of his estate, examined the bundle which contained all his worldly effects. They consisted of two shirts and a half; two stocks for the neck; a pair or two of worsted stockings; an old pair of corduroy small-clothes; a rusty razor; a book of psalm tunes full of dog's-ears; and a broken pitch-pipe. As to the books and furniture of the schoolhouse, they belonged to the community, excepting Cotton Mather's History of Witchcraft, a New England Almanac, and a book of dreams and fortune-telling; in which last was a sheet of foolscap much scribbled and blotted in several fruitless attempts to make a copy of verses in honour of the heiress of Van Tassel. These magic books and the poetic scrawl were forthwith consigned to the flames by Hans Van Ripper; who, from that time forward, determined to send his children no more to school; observing that he never knew any good come of this same reading and writing. Whatever money the schoolmaster possessed, and he had received his quarter's pay but a day or two before, he must have had about his person at the time of his disappearance. The mysterious event caused much speculation at the church on the following Sunday. Knots of gazers and gossips were collected in the churchyard, at the bridge, and at the spot where the hat and pumpkin had been found. The stories of Brouwer, of Bones, and a whole budget of others were called to mind; and when they had diligently considered them all, and compared them with the symptoms of the present case, they shook their heads, and came to the conclusion that Ichabod had been carried off by the Galloping Hessian. As he was a bachelor, and in nobody's debt, nobody troubled his head any more about him; the school was removed to a different quarter of the Hollow, and another pedagogue reigned in his stead. It is true, an old farmer, who had been down to New York on a visit several years after, and from whom this account of the ghostly adventure was received, brought home the intelligence that Ichabod Crane was still alive; that he had left the neighbourhood partly through fear of the goblin and Hans Van Ripper, and partly in mortification at having been suddenly dismissed by the heiress; that he had changed his quarters to a distant part of the country; had kept school and studied law at the same time; had been admitted to the bar; turned politician; electioneered; written for the newspapers; and finally had been made a justice of the ten pound court. Brom Bones, too, who, shortly after his rival's disappearance conducted the blooming Katrina in triumph to the altar, was observed to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related, and always burst into a hearty laugh at the mention of the pumpkin; which led some to suspect that he knew more about the matter than he chose to tell. The old country wives, however, who are the best judges of these matters, maintain to this day that Ichabod was spirited away by supernatural means; and it is a favourite story often told about the neighbourhood round the winter evening fire. The bridge became more than ever an object of superstitious awe; and that may be the reason why the road has been altered of late years, so as to approach the church by the border of the mill-pond. The schoolhouse being deserted soon fell to decay, and was reported to be haunted by the ghost of the unfortunate pedagogue; and the plough-boy, loitering homeward of a still summer evening, has often fancied his voice at a distance, chanting a melancholy psalm tune among the tranquil solitudes of Sleepy Hollow. 
42132	----	[Illustration: THE AUTHOR.] THROUGH SCANDINAVIA TO MOSCOW With Many Illustrations and Maps by WILLIAM SEYMOUR EDWARDS Author of "In to the Yukon," etc. Cincinnati The Robert Clarke Co. 1906 Copyright 1906, by William Seymour Edwards DEDICATION To my life-long chum, my father, these pages are affectionately dedicated. FOREWORD These pages are made up of letters written during a little journey through Scandinavia and into Russia as far as Moscow, some four years ago, before the smashing of the Russians by the Japanese. They were written to my father, and are necessarily intimate letters, in which I have jotted down what I saw and felt as the moment moved me. The truth is, I was on my honey-moon trip, and the world sang merrily to me--even in sombre Russia. Afterward, some of these letters were published here and there; now they are put together into this little book. I had my kodak with me and have thus been able to add to the text some of the scenes my lens made note of. It was my endeavor at the time, that the kindly circle who read the letters should see as I saw, feel as I felt, and apprehend as I apprehended; that they should share with me the delight of travel through serene and industrious Denmark, among the grand and stupendous _fjelds_ and _fjords_ of romantic Norway; should visit with me a moment the Capital of once militant Sweden, and join me in the excitement of a plunge into semi-barbarous Russia. The transition from Scandinavia to Russia was sharp. I went from lands where the modern spirit finds full expression, as seen in the splendid schools and libraries of Denmark, in the democratic and Americanized atmosphere of Norway, in the scientific and mechanical progressiveness of Sweden. Entering Russia, I found myself amidst social and political conditions, mediaeval and malevolent. The wanton luxury of the enormously rich, the pinching poverty of the very poor, the political and social exaltation of the very few, the ruthless suppression of the many, here stared me in the face on every hand. The smoldering embers of discontent, profound discontent, were even then apparent. In the brief interval which has since elapsed, this smoldering discontent has become the blazing conflagration of Revolution. Driven against his will by inexorable fate, the Czar has at first convoked the Imperial Douma and then, terrified by its growing aggressiveness, has summarily decreed its death. Panic-struck by the apparition of popular liberty, which his own act has called forth, he is now in sinister retreat toward despotic reaction; the consternation of the unwilling Bureaucracy, day by day increases; terror, abject terror, increasingly haunts the splendid palaces of the Autocracy; and the inevitable and irrepressible movement of the Russian people toward liberty and modern order is begun. The symptoms of social and political ailment which then discovered themselves to me are now apparent to all the world. And it is this verification of the suggestions of these letters which may now, perhaps, justify their publication. WILLIAM SEYMOUR EDWARDS. Charleston-Kanawha, West Virginia, September 1, 1906. CONTENTS PAGE I. London to Denmark Across the North Sea 1 II. Esbjerg--Across Jutland, Funen and Zealand, the Little Belt and Big Belt to Copenhagen, and Friends Met Along the Way 7 III. Copenhagen, a Quaint and Ancient City 15 IV. Elsinore and Kronborg--An Evening Dinner Party 31 V. Across the Sund to Sweden and Incidents of Travel to Kristiania 40 VI. A Day Upon the Rand Fjord--Along the Etna Elv To Frydenlund--Ole Mon Our Driver 51 VII. A Drive Along the Baegna Elv--the Aurdals Vand and Many More to Skogstad 60 VIII. Over the Height of Land--A Wonderful Ride Down the Laera Dal to the Sogne Fjord 68 IX. A Day Upon the Sogne Fjord 75 X. From Stalheim to Eida--The Waterfall of Skjerve Fos--The Mighty Hardanger Fjord 80 XI. The Buarbrae and Folgefonden Glaciers--Cataracts and Mountain Tarns--Odda to Horre 89 XII. Over the Lonely Haukeli Fjeld--Witches and Pixies, and Maidens Milking Goats 96 XIII. Descending from the Fjelde--The Telemarken Fjords--The Arctic Twilight 106 XIV. Kristiania to Stockholm--A Wedding Party--Differing Norsk and Swede 118 XV. Stockholm the Venice of the North--Life and Color of the Swedish Capital--Manners of the People and their King 128 XVI. How We Entered Russia--The Passport System--Difficult to Get Into Russia and More Difficult to Get Out 136 XVII. St. Petersburg--The Great Wealth of the Few--The Bitter Poverty of the Many--Conditions Similar to Those Preceding the French Revolution 148 XVIII. En Route to Moscow--Under Military Guard--Suspected of Designs on Life of the Czar 158 XIX. Our Arrival at Moscow--Splendor and Squalor--Enlightenment and Superstition--Russia Asiatic Rather Than European 167 XX. The Splendid Pageant of the Russian Mass--The Separateness of Russian Religious Feeling From Modern Thought--Russia Mediaeval and Pagan 180 XXI. The First Snows--Moscow to Warsaw--Fat Farm Lands and Frightful Poverty of the Mujiks Who Own them and Till them--I Recover My Passport 189 XXII. The Slav and the Jew--The Slav's Envy and Jealousy of the Jew 201 XXIII. Across Germany and Holland to England--A Hamburg Wein Stube--The "Simple Fisher-Folk" of Maarken--Two Gulden at Den Haag 214 XXIV. Map of North Europe. Map of Scandinavia and Baltic Russia, in profile. ILLUSTRATIONS OPPOSITE PAGE The Author Frontispiece The Naero--Sogne Fjord 1 The North Sea 3 The Docks, Esbjerg 5 Our Danish Railway Carriage 7 My Instructor in Danish 10 Our Danish Friends 12 The Krystal Gade and Round Tower, Copenhagen 14 The Oestergade 16 The Royal Theatre, Copenhagen 17 The Exchange, Copenhagen 19 The Gammel Strand 23 Along the Quays, Copenhagen 26 An Ancient Moat, Now the Lovely Oersteds Park 30 A Vista of the Sund 32 Elsinore 33 The Sund from Kronborg's Ramparts 35 The Fishing Boats, Elsinore 37 A Snap-shot for a Dime, Kronborg 39 Kronborg 41 Karl Johans Gade, Kristiania 42 Vegetable Market, Kristiania 44 Kristiania, A View of the City 46 Our Norwegian Train 48 Along the Etna Elv 50 Hailing our Steamer, The Rand Fjord 51 The Old Salt 53 Ole Mon 55 Feeding the Ponies, Tomlevolden 58 Church of Vestre Slidre 58 The Distant Snows 60 The Baegna Elv 62 The Granheims Vand 63 A Herd of Cows, Fosheim 63 A Hamlet Beneath the Fjeld 65 The Author by the Slidre Vand 67 Ricking the Rye 67 The Protected Road 69 Three Thousand Feet of Waterfall 71 Our Little Ship, Laerdalsoeren 74 The Sogne Fjord--Along the Sogne Fjord 76 Sudals Gate, on the Sogne Fjord 78 The Naerodal 80 Greeting our Boat, Aurland 83 The Hardanger Fjord 85 The Soer Fjord--Hardanger 87 Commingling Lote and Skars Fos 90 The Espelands Fos 90 Glacier of Buarbrae 92 The Gors Vand 92 The Descending Road to Horre 94 A Mile Stone 97 Cattle on the Haukeli Fjeld 97 The Desolate Haukeli Fjeld 99 Norse Maiden Milking Goat (2 illustrations) 103 Our Hostesses, Haukeli-Saeter 106 A Norse Cabin 106 A Goat Herd's Saeter 110 Haukeli-Saeter 110 Tending the Herds 112 Drying Out the Oats 112 Dalen on the Bandaks Vand 115 Norse Women Raking Hay 117 Stockholm 119 King's Palace, Stockholm 122 Ancient Swedish Fortress 124 A Swedish Church 124 A Band of Swedish Horses 126 The Shore of Lake Maelaren, Stockholm 129 Cathedral of Riddarsholm 131 Norrbro, Stockholm 133 Facing the Gale 140 The Pier, Helsingfors 142 Fishing Boats Along the Quay, Helsingfors 142 Market Square, Helsingfors 144 The Doebln at her Pier, Helsingfors 144 A Wild Sea--Leaving Helsingfors 145 Fishing Boats at Mouth of the Neva 145 Entering the Neva 149 Along the Neva 149 Our Droschky, St. Petersburg 151 Along the Nevsky-Prospekt 151 Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan 154 Our Squealing Stallions 154 Our Izvostchik 156 Our Landau, St. Petersburg 160 A Noble's Troika, St. Petersburg 161 The Railway Porters, St. Petersburg 161 Our Military Guard, Bargaining for Apples 165 The Holy Savior Gate, Kremlin 165 Along the Gostinoi Dvor, Moscow 167 Cathedral of the Assumption, Kremlin 167 The Red Square, Moscow 170 Begging Pilgrims, St. Basil 170 Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed, Moscow 172 Ancient Pavements, Moscow 176 Bread Vendors, Moscow 176 The Kremlin beyond the Moskva 179 Cathedral of St. Savior 181 A Tram-Car, Moscow 188 The Out-of-Works 188 Cemetery, Novo Dievitchy 190 Monastery Church, Novo Dievitchy 190 Holy Beggar, Novo Dievitchy 191 The Kremlin Beneath the Snows 193 A Station Stop, En Route to Warsaw 197 Catching a Kopeek--A Beggar 204 A Cold Day 208 Along the River Moskva, Moscow 209 A Russian Jew 211 Jewish Types, taken in Russia 213 Jewish Types, taken in America 213 A Dainty Nurse-maid, Berlin 215 Hamburg Street Traffic 218 Our Bill of Fare 220 A Gentleman of Maarken 222 A Kinder of Maarken 222 Among Vrow and Kinderen, Maarken 224 A Load of Hay, Holland 227 Along the Zuyder Zee 227 The Fish Market, Den Haag 228 The Gossips, Den Haag 228 A Watery Lane, Den Haag 229 Dutch Toilers 229 Map of North Europe. Map of Scandinavia and Baltic Russia, in profile. [Illustration: THE NAERO--SOGNE FJORD, NORWAY.] Through Scandinavia to Moscow. I. London to Denmark Across the North Sea. ESBJERG, DENMARK, _August 25, 1902_. We came down from London to Harwich toward the end of the day. Our train was a "Special" running to catch the steamer for Denmark. We were delayed a couple of hours in the dingy, dirty London station by reason of a great fog which had crept in over Harwich from the North Sea, and then, the boat had to wait upon the tide. The instant the train backed in alongside the station platform--only ten minutes before it would pull out--there was the usual scramble and grab to seize a seat in the first-carriage-you-can and pandemonium reigned. H is well trained by this time, however, and I quickly had her comfortably ensconced in a seat by a window with bags and shawls pyramided by her side the better to hold a place for me. Meantime, I hurried to a truck where stood awaiting me a well-tipped porter and together we safely stowed two "boxes" into a certain particular "luggage van," the number of which I was careful to note so that I might be sure quickly to find the "luggage" again, when we should arrive at Harwich, else a stranger might walk off with it as aptly as with his own. Our "carriage" was packed "full-up" with several men and women, who looked dourly at us and at each other as they sat glumly squeezed together, elbows in each other's ribs. So forbidding was the prospect confronting me that I did not presume to attempt a conversation. These comrades, however, soon dropped out at the way-stations, until only one lone man was left, when I took heart and made bold to accost him. I found him very civil and, recognizing me to be a foreign visitor, he spoke with freedom. One Englishman never forgives another for sitting beside him, unintroduced, and squeezing him up in a railway carriage; but he harbors no such grudge against his American cousin, equally the victim of British methods. Our _vis-à-vis_ had been a volunteer-trooper in South Africa, and had just come back to England, after two years' hardship and exposure. He had given up a good position in order to serve his country, and had been promised that the place would be kept open for him against his return. He tells me he now finds a stay-at-home holds his job. He has "a wife and two little lads to keep," and so far he has had "no luck in finding work." There are thousands of others in as bad a fix as he, he says, returned patriots who are starving for lack of work. He denounced the entire Boer-smashing business most savagely and declared that as for South Africa, he "would not take the whole of it for a gift." We hear this sort of talk everywhere among the people we casually meet. The average Englishman takes small pride in his Army. "It gives fat jobs to the aristocracy, it is death to us," is what I have heard a dozen times remarked. Our new acquaintance seemed to feel the better for having thus spoken out his mind, and when we parted, wished us a "prosperous voyage." [Illustration: THE NORTH SEA.] The ship was in motion within twenty minutes after our train reached the Harwich pier. To my landsman's thinking the air was yet murky with the fog. Big sirens were booming all about us. The melancholy clang of tidal bells sounded in sombre muffled tones from many anchored buoys. It was a drear, dank night to leave the land. We moved slowly, sounding our own hoarse whistle all the while. I stood upon the upper deck peering into the mists till we had come well out to sea. There were few boats moving, no big ones. Multitudes of small schooners and sloops rode at anchor, their danger lights faintly gleaming. I wondered we did not run down and crush them, but the pilot seemed to apprehend the presence of another boat even before the smallest ray of light shone through the fog. One or two great ships we came shockingly close upon. At least, I was jarred more than once when their huge black hulks and reaching masts suddenly grew up before me out of the dead white curtain of the mists. The estuary which leads from Harwich to the sea is long and tortuous. Only a pilot who has been born upon it, and from boyhood learned its currents and its tides, its shallows and its shoals, may dare to guide a boat along it, even in broad day. How much greater the skill and knowledge required thus to steer a ship through these labyrinthine channels amidst the fogs and blackness of such a night! The Captain told me he was always uneasy when coming out, no matter when, and never felt safe until far out upon the sea. Even in open water he must keep the sharpest kind of a watch lest some one of the myriad fishing craft which haunt these waters, should lie athwart the way. The sea was quiet, rolling with a long slow swell. The rising wind soughed softly through the rigging when, toward midnight, I at last turned in. All day Sunday the North Sea lay smooth and glassy as a pond; no hint of the turmoil and tempest which so often rage upon its shallow depths. We did not see many vessels; far to the north I made out the smoke of a steamer which the captain said was bound for Kristiansand, in Norway; and south of us were a few sail, which I took to be fishing luggers from Holland. Nor were there many seabirds flying. The sky hung low and in the gray air was the feel of a storm in the offing. Toward dark, about eight o'clock, a misty rain settled down upon us, and the rising wind began swashing the dripping waters along the decks. Toward half past nine we descried a dim glimmer in the east,--a beacon light flickering through the night,--and then another with different intervals of flash, a mile or two out upon the left, and then our ears caught the deep bellow of a fog horn across the sea. We were nearing the west coast of the Province of Jutland, in Denmark. Our port lay dead ahead between the lights. Another hour of cautious navigating, for there are many sand bars and shifting shoals along this coast, and we came steaming slowly, very slowly, among trembling lights--fishing smacks at anchor with their night signals burning--and then we crept up to a big black wharf. We were arrived at Esbjerg. [Illustration: THE DOCKS, ESBJERG.] The train for Copenhagen (Kjoebenhavn) would leave at midnight, an eight-hours' ride and no sleeping car attached. We decided to stay aboard the ship, sleep peacefully in our wide-berthed stateroom and take a train at eleven o'clock of the morning, which would give us a daylight ride. We were entering Denmark by the back door. The sea-loving traveler generally approaches by one of the ocean liners which sail direct from New York to Copenhagen; those who find terror in the sea enter by way of Kiel, and an all-rail ride through Holland and Germany, crossing the channel to Ostend, Dieppe, or the Hook. Only the few voyage across the North Sea with its frequent storms--the few who, like ourselves, are good sailors and do not fear the stress of tide and tempest. We were now at Esbjerg, and must cross the entire peninsula of Denmark, its Little Belt, its Big Belt and the large islands of Funen and Zealand to reach our journey's end. I am already beginning to pick up the Danish speech, a mixture of English, German, Dutch and new strange throat gutturals, the latter difficult for an American larynx to make. And yet so similar is this mother tongue of Scandinavia to the modern English, that I can often tell what a Dane is saying by the very similarity of the sounds: "Go Morn"--(good morning), "Farvel"--(farewell). Our fellow passengers were mostly Danes. This is their favorite route for coming home. They are a quiet, rather pensive people. The men, much of the time, were smoking, and drinking beer and a white brandy. The women were often sitting in the smoking room with them, enjoying, I presume, the perfume of tobacco, as every right-minded woman should, and it may be, also finding solace in the scent of the strong brown beer, which they are not themselves indisposed to quaff. The cooking on this Danish boat has been good. We have keenly appreciated the improvement upon the diet of roast beef, boiled mutton, boiled ham, boiled potatoes, and boiled peas steeped in mint, which we have been compelled to exist upon during the past few weeks in Britain. [Illustration: OUR DANISH RAILWAY CARRIAGE.] II. Esbjerg--Across Jutland, Funen and Zealand, the Little Belt and the Big Belt to Copenhagen--Friends Met Along the Way. HOTEL DAGMAR ("Dahmar"), COPENHAGEN, DENMARK, _August 27, 1902_. Here we are in "Kjoebenhavn," which word you will find it quite impossible properly to pronounce, however strenuously your tongue may try. My letter, beginning in Esbjerg, was broken short by the necessity of sleep. We wisely remained upon the ship and took full benefit of our comfortable berths. In the morning we were up betimes, obtained a cup of coffee and a roll, and then, sending our bags and baggage to the railway station, set out afoot. The air was misty, full of a fine drizzling rain. It was regular Scotch and English weather, but the atmosphere was cooler and not so heavy as in Britain. The little stone-and-brick-built town is clean and neat, with its main street well asphalted. It lies on a gentle slope of hillside which lifts from the water. A giant lighthouse, rising from the highest point of land, is the first object to meet the view. Back of this, upon the level summit, lies the best of the town. The buildings are generally of one and two stories, with steep, gabled roofs. H, in her Scottish "bonnet," and I, in my raincoat, were quite impervious to wetness, and we spent the morning strolling here and there, stopping to see, among other things, the tubs and tanks of fish in the market square, where fishwives in big, white caps, stood quite heedless of the rain. The fish were almost wholly the famous _roed spoette_ (red spots), one of the flounder family, much resembling the English sole. Wanting cigars, I was tempted into a little shop, and found it kept by an intelligent young Dane, who instantly confessed to me, in good United States, that he had lived in America and there done well. In fact, it was plain to see that his heart still beat for the great Republic. His father had died and he had come back to Denmark to care for his old mother, and then, he had fallen in love with the blue-eyed daughter of a citizen of Esbjerg, an only child. So now, with several little Danes added to his charge, he was fixed fast in Esbjerg. But he was "always grieving for America," he said. He delighted to see us, and sent for his young wife, who came smiling in to us with her baby in her arms. H says he told his wife in Danish, that we were Americans just like all others she would see, if she should ever reach New York! So I bought a box of cigars from him, instead of one or two, and found them good smoking and well worth the very moderate cost. Crossing the market square to a long, low building, which somehow had about it that indefinable air suggestive of a breakfast comfortably cooked, we came to an inn, in the low-ceilinged dining room of which were little tables set about upon the sanded floor. Two or three men of the sea were smoking in one corner, a bar and a red-cheeked barmaid were in another, and two huge, yellow, Great-Dane dogs occupied most of the remaining space. We chose a table by the window and H ordered _roed spoette_, rolls and coffee. The fish was delicious, possessing a harder, sweeter flesh than the English sole; and rolls with salted butter rejoiced my palate, for I am dreadfully tired of English butter with no salt; and then we were given big brown pancakes with currant jelly, all we could eat. It was a breakfast fit for a Viking. The bill was only three _kroner_ and twenty _oere_, which equals about eighty-six cents. At the railway station, a mile from the docks, our tickets, bought in London, gave us the best on the train, better than similar carriages in England, for here they are bigger, with larger windows and the cars are set on trucks. The journey to Copenhagen was over and through a sandy, flat and slightly rolling country, more carefully tilled and more generally cultivated than in England, with more grain, wheat and rye; with more vegetables, turnips, carrots, cabbage and potatoes. There were cattle, herds of large red cows, for Denmark is now the dairy of all Europe. But I saw no steers, nor beef cattle, fattening for the market, and but few sheep; nor any hogs running afield--the last are probably kept up. The houses are set singly upon the farms, are surrounded by outbuildings, and are usually of one story and often big and rambling with ells and gables, and generally have thatched roofs. The barns are big and substantial. More people are here upon the land than in England, and not living in clustered villages, as in France; the fields are divided usually by hedges. There are sluggish waterways and canals, and ponds where fish are bred and raised for market; and almost every hilltop is capped with a Dutch-looking windmill. The train moved deliberately. It made from twenty to twenty-five miles an hour, stopping a long time at each station. We hadn't gone far when a bald-pated, round-headed _Herr_ climbed in and we speedily fell into talk with him. H speaks Danish enough to get on, and I use my pocket dictionary, and pick up what I can. His name was Hansen and he "owns" the "Hotel Kikkenborg," at "Brammige," wherever that may be. He told us of the country we were passing through and helped me on the Danish gutturals. You must gurgle the sounds down in your gullet as though you were quite filled with water, and the more profound the depth from which the sound comes forth, the more perfect the speech. We lost him at the first change of cars, when we boarded an immense ferryboat to cross the strait of water called the Little Belt, which separates the main land from the large island of Funen, but we found ourselves again in kindly company, this time, with a gray-bearded man and two ladies, his wife and daughter. He was "Inspector of Edifices" for the Government. They had been spending a few weeks on the island of Fanoe at Nordby, a fashionable seaside resort much patronized by the gentry of Copenhagen. He talked with me in fluent German, and the ladies conversed readily in French, while all spoke with H in _Dansk_ and so we got on, fell fast friends and were introduced to a beau of the Froeken, a young "Doctor" who had "just taken his degree." We sat together while crossing the island of Funen and on the ferryboat top all through the long sail across the Big Belt which divides Funen from the island of Zealand. Our friends here pointed out to us where it was that Charles X of Sweden, and his army of foot and horse and guns made their dare-devil passage on the ice that night in January, 1658, crossing the Little and Big Belts to Zealand and Copenhagen, forcing the beaten Danes by the Peace of Roskilde to cede the great Provinces of Skaania, Halland and Bleking, which made Sweden forever henceforth a formidable European state,--"God's work," the Swedes declared, for these salty waters were never before frozen solid enough to bear an army's weight,--nor have they been since. We parted only at the journey's end. Our friends were pleasant people of the aristocratic office-holding class, content to live simply on the modest stipend the Government may grant, who neither speak nor read English, and who listened to the tales of bigness in America with doubting wonder. "A building twenty stories high!" "Impossible!" "Eighty millions of people!" "Incredible!" "America already holds four hundred thousand Danes--one-fifth of the Danish race." "Ja! Alas! That is too true!" "Our young men are never satisfied to come back to stay when once they have lived in America!" "Our young men don't return, it's hard upon our girls." [Illustration: MY INSTRUCTOR IN DANISH.] Our new found friends, when we lunched upon the big ferryboat, introduced us to that very Danish dish called _Smoer Broed_, thickly buttered rye bread overlaid with raw herring or smoked goose breast, a Viking dainty--a salty appetizer well calculated to make the Norseman quaff from his flagon with more than usual vim, and to drive an American in hurried search of plain water! These salty snacks of cold bread and cold fish are as eagerly devoured and enjoyed by the Scandinavian as are the peppery, stinging eatables for which every Mexican palate yearns. It was dusk when we arrived in the large and commodious Main station at Copenhagen. The suburbs of the city were hidden from us by the gathering darkness, and the electric lights were glowing when we left the train. We missed General and Mrs. C at the station, so great was the crowd, but found them when we came to our hotel, the Dagmar, they having themselves missed us and followed on our track. [Illustration: OUR DANISH FRIENDS.] There are many good hotels in Copenhagen and this is among the larger and more popular stopping places of the Danes themselves. It is built along the clean Vestre Boulevard, with umbrageous trees in front of it, and possesses that rare thing, an elevator. In the dining room we sit at little tables, and find the cooking much superior to what one generally meets in England. It is more after the French sort, the Danes priding themselves greatly upon their soups and sauces. In our rooms, which look out upon the broad, paved boulevard, the furniture is old style mahogany, very substantial, and in the corner there is one of those immense porcelain stoves reaching to the ceiling, which is the general mode of heating large rooms in these Scandinavian lands. Copenhagen is a city of four hundred thousand people, one-quarter of the estimated population of Denmark, and the city is growing steadily at the expense of the country,--increasing too fast for a land the population of which is as steadily growing less. English is said to be the fashionable foreign tongue in court circles, by reason of the British royal connection; but among the people the German speech is steadily and stealthily taking a foremost place, and this despite the fact that the Danes dislike Germany and view the Germans with well-founded fear. You will talk to a Dane but a few moments before he is pouring out his heart to you about the atrocious robbery of the splendid Provinces of Sleswik and Holstein, of which Bismarck despoiled the little kingdom nearly forty years ago. Almost half of Denmark was then lopped off at a single blow,--nor England nor Russia interfering to save the Danes,--and now they are ever in uneasy spirit lest Germany encroach yet more upon them and ultimately devour them, land and sea. They feel she is incessantly creeping on to them with all the cunning of a hungry cat. [Illustration: THE KRYSTAL GADE AND ROUND TOWER, COPENHAGEN.] III. Copenhagen, a Quaint and Ancient City. KJOEBENHAVN, DANNMARK, (COPENHAGEN, DENMARK), _August 28, 1902_. The Copenhagener declares that his beloved "Kjoebenhavn" is not really an ancient city, although he admits it has been in active business since the middle of the tenth century, nearly one thousand years. My Danish friends assert that it is my "Yankee eye," which is so new, and prove the modernity of their town by telling me how many times it has been bombarded, how often sacked and razed, how frequently burned up; and yet, despite their facts, I still make bold to say the city bears the markings of an ancient town. Long, long ago, even before the time of King Gorm the Old, here were markets by the water's side, where the fisherman brought his catch, the peasant fetched his eggs and milk and cheese and what the soil might yield, where the itinerant merchant came to show and trade his wares. These handy markets by the sea were at first moved constantly about; by and by they came to be held, year after year, in the self-same spot; the temporary clustered settlement became a lasting town. As the centuries rolled on these market hamlets expanded into a single commercial rendezvous for all the northern world. Thus Copenhagen won her name (_Kopman-haven_--merchant port) and grew until her commerce made her the heir to the trade and traffic of the Hanseatic League, and she was recognized as supreme mistress of the commerce of the North by London and Bremen, Brussels and Bordeaux, as well as by the merchant fleets of Venice and the Levant. Those were the days when her Kings and hardy seamen would as lief drink and fight and die as eat and live; their very recklessness made them masters of the North; they even annexed the mighty Norseman, and made Norway a Danish Province; they hammered and held in check their doughty cousins, the Swedes; they brought beneath their sway the Provinces of Skaania, of Halland and of Bleking, the southern portion of what is now known as Sweden; they dominated the cities along the shores of the North and Baltic Seas. Copenhagen became, in fact as well as in name, the veritable capital of the North. In politics and in intrigue she played the master hand. She gathered to herself the arts and the sciences, the fashion and the elegance, of the North; and to-day, although warlike pride and power have fallen from her, although trade and commerce have lessened in her midst, yet the arts and the sciences, the culture and the elegance are still her own, and the fine old city claims to be as markedly as of yore the intellectual center of the Scandinavian race. [Illustration: THE OESTERGADE, COPENHAGEN.] Copenhagen is a flat-lying city; it has no hills in it, while there are many canals and watery lanes which wind through it and lead to the sea, or as the Danes would say the _Sund_ (Sound),--that narrow strait which links the Baltic to the Kattegat, where Denmark and Sweden appear once to have split apart. The buildings are generally of brick, sometimes of stone, never of wood; they are large and substantial, often four and five stories high, with gabled roofs, sharp and steep, covered with tiles. In the older parts of the city, the streets are narrow, and twist and turn and change their names even more often than the Rues of Paris. In the newer section, toward the north and northwest, there are long straight boulevards and straight cross streets, and the inevitable air of modern monotony. The feeling and impression which stole over me the first morning I strolled about the city became almost one of sadness. The wistful, pensive faces of the people; their unobtrusive politeness; the inconsequential traffic of drays and carts along the quiet streets; canals and quays half empty where there should have been big packs of boats; absence everywhere of bustle and ado,--all these were almost pathetic. It might have been a Puritan Sabbath, so silent stood the big stone docks and piers among the lapping waters. There was none of the ponderous movement of London, none of the liveliness of Paris, nor the busy-ness of Hamburg, of Bremen, of Amsterdam, of Rotterdam and Antwerp, although once Copenhagen was peer of any one. The bales of goods, the tons of merchandise which once filled her lofts and cellars are no longer there. The commerce which once made the city rich and gave her power has ebbed away. She is far fallen into commercial and industrial decay. The causes which have wrought this collapse of the once great city are, perhaps, difficult to analyze. At least, those Danes with whom I have talked upon the matter are not at all agreed. Nor are they united upon the solution of the problem of restoring the city to the proud place she once held as metropolis of the northern world. Some tell me that after the demise of the present King, and the passing of Sweden's ruler to the Halls of Valhalla, then will it be possible for the Scandinavian peoples to come together in one permanent federation, or federal pact, where the Norwegian-Democratic spirit shall instil new energy into the now moribund political body of the sister states, and that then Copenhagen will be the natural capital of this free and potent Scandinavian state, and then will come to her the splendor and dignity justly her due. Others declare, and declare with a flash of terror in their eyes, that the only hope for Copenhagen, the only hope for the pitiful remnant of the once proud Kingdom of Denmark, is to be wholly devoured by the Hohenzollern Ogre, to be by him chewed fine, gulped down, digested and assimilated as part of the flesh and blood of the waxing German Empire. Then will Copenhagen become the chief seaport of the German Hinterlands to the south, then will the importance of Bremen and Hamburg and Kiel be expanded into the new vigor that will have come to Copenhagen. They point to the inevitableness of this destiny as evidenced by the subtle, silent, incessant encroachment of the German tongue among the people of the city as well as throughout the land, and by the continuous invasion and settlement of the city and country by men and women of German breed. They say the Imperial monster grips them in a clutch whence there is no escape. [Illustration: THE ROYAL THEATRE, COPENHAGEN.] Whatever the future may have in store for stricken Denmark and Copenhagen, it is clear enough to the apprehension of the friendly stranger that the noble city is ailing and benumbed. She stagnates, and only revolution and rebirth into a greater Scandinavian state, or Germanic conquest and absorption, will restore her to her former place. It is natural for an American to hope for Denmark and her people a rehabilitation through the uplifting influence of a Scandinavian Republic. There are fine shops in Copenhagen; behind the unpretentious fronts along the Oestergade, the Amagertorv, the Vimmelskaft and Nygade and neighboring streets is stored great wealth of fabrics and of merchandise. Here we saw the notably handsome pottery and artistic porcelain ware for which Copenhagen is already famous beyond the sea; and H and her mother have delightedly bought several charming pieces of the latter and ordered them sent forward to New York. They have also quite lost their hearts, and certainly their _kroners_, over the exquisite gold and silver and enamel work manufactured here, while they declare the laces and drawn work--particularly what is called _Hedebo_--excels anything of the kind they have discovered in London. The Dane is a poet, a dreamer, an artist; he is also a patient artisan, and what he produces ranks among the world's best work. Passing along the narrow sidewalks you would never suspect what is stored behind the plain exteriors, for the Dane has not yet learned the art of window display, nor has he acquired the skill of so showing his goods that the buyer is caught at a single glance. If you would purchase, you must have already determined what you want, and then, upon asking for it, will be given liberal choice. The shops are mostly small, each seller dealing in a single ware. Only one Dane, a wide-awake newcomer from Chicago, has dared to introduce the complex methods of "department" trade. He has opened an immense establishment called the Magazin du Nord, where thus far is done a rushing business. But the conservative merchants of Copenhagen have not yet become so well assured of the success of this innovation that they are willing to follow the example set. [Illustration: THE EXCHANGE, COPENHAGEN.] In company with the ladies I have been out all the afternoon along these narrow streets--streets where the narrow sidewalks are altogether insufficient to accommodate the passing crowds, which consequently fill up the middle of the way--and we find the _Frus_ and _Froekens_ of Copenhagen apparently as much devoted to what is called "shopping" as our own fair dames at home. Buxom and yellow-haired and rosy-cheeked, they throng the streets each afternoon. They are comely to look upon, and carry themselves with more graceful carriage than do the women of England. They walk deliberately, with none of the nervous scurry of their transatlantic sisters. Indeed, it is hinted to me, they have not come out so much to buy as to meet some friend or neighbor, and exchange a bit of news or gossip in one of the numerous and cozy cafes where is sold _conditterie_:--candies and chocolates and coffee and little cakes. Next to _conditterie_, the Copenhagener is fondest of his books and the town abounds in bookshops, big and little. Every Dane reads and writes his native tongue, and among the educated, English and French and German are generally understood. In the book stores I visited I was always addressed in English, and found French, German and English and even American books upon the shelves; and more newspapers and magazines are published in Copenhagen, a Danish friend declares, than in any other city in Europe of its size. The Danes have, too, a widely established system of free circulating libraries and book clubs, which extend throughout the countryside of Zealand and Funen and Jutland, as well as in the towns, while Copenhagen is supplied also from the extensive collections of the University and Royal Libraries. The public schools and the University we did not see, for the season was the vacation interval, and the teachers, professors and students were all dispersed. But the schools and University of Copenhagen are modernly equipped. The Dane is intelligent above all else, and he has always paid great heed to the adequate education of his race. Indeed, Copenhagen was the first city in Europe to establish real public schools, opening them in every parish more than three hundred years ago. There are many _Torvs_ about the city, market-places where all sorts of things have once been sold, but which are now become wide-open public squares. The old word _Torv_ has already lost its ancient meaning, even as has the word _Circus_, which in London first sounds so strange to American ears. But while the Gammelstorv, the Nytorv, the Kongen's Nytorv and many others are now degenerated into these mere open breathing spaces between the big buildings of the town, there are yet _Torvs_ where fish, and flowers, meats and vegetables, and things else are offered for sale. The most attractive of them all to me were those where are sold the flowers and the fish. In the Amagertorv were heaps of pale and puny roses, and diminutive asters and chrysanthemums, along with splendid pansies--"stepmother flowers," as the Danes call them--and luxuriant piles of mignonette, and big baskets of pinks and phloxes; where rosy-cheeked women, in starched white caps, smilingly urged me to buy, and one _Froeken_ with a wealth of yellow hair and cobalt-blue eyes, pinned on my coat a monstrous pansy for _boutonnière_. [Illustration: THE GAMMEL STRAND, COPENHAGEN.] Among the fishwives of the Gammel Strand there was always lively stir, for their _fisk_ must early find a buyer, and by midday they themselves must be back to their nets and boats. These Danish fishwives, moreover, have a burden of responsibility quite unknown to their English, German, Dutch and French sisters. Not merely must they sell the fish which the men turn over to their keeping, but they must also preserve it hearty and alive, else the dainty Danish housewife will not buy. The fish are kept in large tubs and tanks filled with fresh sea water, where they swim about as keen and lively as they might do in the sea. The buyer scrutinizes the contents of these tubs with a fine and practiced eye; she picks out the fish which swims and splashes to her mind; has it lifted out alive, and carries it home in a bucket of water which she has brought to the market for that purpose. A fish which is dead, a fish which has died of strangulation in the air, is looked upon with horror and rejected as unfit for food by all right-acting Danish stomachs. No dead fish, preserved from becoming stale through the use of chemicals, ever enters a Danish kitchen. Is it any wonder then, that the buxom red-cheeked women and sturdy men of these seafaring lands prefer a square meal of sweet fresh fish to any other! Sauntering along the Strand I espied the cod and mackerel and herring under names I did not know, and everywhere foremost among them all the now familiar _roed spoette_, the Danish epicure's delight. The streets of London are choked with moving vehicles, or those drawn up in line awaiting fares. In Copenhagen one is struck at once by the absence of the equipages of the rich, the very limited number of cabs anywhere about, as well as the small number of heavy drays, even upon the wholesale business streets. One might almost say that the streets would seem deserted if it were not for the pigeons and the dogs. There must be many dove-cotes in Copenhagen and the birds certainly have hosts of friends. But the dog, the unabashed and capricious dog, is the real king of Denmark's capital. After seeing him in Holland and in France, where his dogship is a faithful co-worker with man, toiling all the long day and longer year to eke out the income of his master, one almost envies the lot of the dogs of Copenhagen. These beasts abound throughout the city; neither tag nor muzzle adorns them, nor do owners seemingly claim them, but from puppyhood to gaunt old age they lead a boisterous and vagabond life, to the terror of small children and their nurses, and the well-gowned women who may chance to cross their trail. Whether they survive through performing the office of scavenger, as do the dogs of Constantinople, I have never been informed, but whatever the cause, the curs of Copenhagen take as full possession of that town as do the tame vultures of Vera Cruz. We visited, of course, the many objects of interest the tourist is expected to see; we studied the splendid collection of the masterpieces of Thorvaldsen, housed in the stately building where also is set his tomb; we looked at the collection of ethnological relics, one of the most notable in the world; we lingered in the old castle of Charlottenborg, and the new art galleries where are gathered many of the master paintings of which the Danish capital is so proud; we admired the great round tower, up the spiral causeway of which a squadron of dragoons may ride to the very top, and Peter the Great ascended on horseback; we duly marveled at the much bepraised Fredriks Kirke, a marble edifice, smothered beneath a ponderous and ornate dome; and H and I spent a delightful hour in the noble Vor Frue Kirke, where her grandmother was wedded some sixty years ago; the banks and the Bourse, the imposing new Hotel de Ville--the finest modern building in Denmark--the Legislative Palace, Christiansborg and Rosenborg and Amalienborg and Fredriksberg. We saw what of them the public is allowed to see; we also drove and strolled upon the fine wide Lange Linie Boulevard along the water side, shaded by ancient and umbrageous lindens, whence may be viewed the inner and outer harbors and Free Port and the spacious, new and half empty docks, and much of the shipping, and where of a pleasant afternoon the fashion and beauty of the city are wont to ride and drive. We joined in with the multitude upon the long, straight Fredriksberggade, where the life and movement of the city may be watched and studied, even as upon New Orleans' Canal Street and New York's Broadway; and we did all else that well instructed Americans are taught to do. But after all, these are the things that Baedeker and the guide books tell about. To me it is ever of higher interest to learn from the people themselves by word and touch what my own senses aid me to see and hear, and so it was only when I met some of my wife's Danish kin, and a broad and burly Berserker clasped me in his arms and implanted a smacking kiss upon either cheek, ere I knew him to be of her relations,--that I felt my acquaintance begun with the most polished and elegant branch of the Scandinavian race. Other parts of nights and days we spent with friends in the lovely Tivoli gardens, where all the Copenhagen world, high and low, rich and poor alike, are wont to meet in simple and democratic assemblage, equally bent upon having a good time. "Have you seen Tivoli?" is ever almost the first question a Copenhagener will put. There we watched the famous pantomime in the little open booth beneath the stars, a sort of Punch and Judy show; there we entered the great music hall where the Royal band plays, and the crowded audiences of music-loving Danes always applaud; there we drank the Danish beer which is admitted to be the best on earth--so a Danish neighbor whispered in my ear. Tivoli is the Copenhagener's elysium. When he is blue he gets himself to Tivoli; when he feels gay he travels to Tivoli; alone or in company he goes to Tivoli, and he goes there as often as time will permit, which is usually every night. [Illustration: ALONG THE QUAYS, COPENHAGEN.] A most difficult problem for Copenhagen has been that of draining and sewering the city. It lies so low, almost at the dead level of the sea, and the tides of these Baltic waters are so insignificant--ten to twelve inches only--that for many centuries Copenhagen has been a most unhealthy city, infected by cesspools, tainted by blind drains, and defiled by accumulated poisons, until its death rate was higher than that of any other city in Europe. But at last the problem is solved. Forced water and giant suction pumps wash and drain out the elaborate system of pipes, and spill the death-laden wastage at a distant point into the sea, and with this transformation Copenhagen has become a measurably healthy city. Perhaps it is this century-long fight with death, plague and epidemic knocking continually at her doors, which has endowed Copenhagen with so many fine hospitals and public charities for the care of the sick,--few cities in Europe are so elaborately provided. Hand in hand with the hospitals are also institutions for caring for the destitute and very poor. Denmark has never followed England's pauper-creating system, but the beggar on the street is promptly put in jail, while the deserving poor is given a kindly and helping hand. One of the most charming spectacles of the city is its extensive public gardens, where the ancient defenses are converted into parks, and the moats are transformed into ponds and little lakes where swans and geese are kept, and boys sail toy boats. The landward side of the city is thus almost encircled with these pleasure grounds. One morning we were crossing one of these gardens, the lovely Oersteds Park, when I caught a pretty picture with my kodak, a little two-years-old tot learning to make her first courtesy to a little boy of four or five. She dropped and ducked and bent her little body with all the grace of a Duchess of the Court. Denmark is about the size of three-fifths of West Virginia, comprises fifteen thousand square miles and contains less than two millions of people,--about sixteen hundred thousand. She possesses no deposits of coal or iron, no forests of valuable timber; she has few manufactures. Her people are farmers making a pinched living off the land, raising lean crops and selling butter and cheese, or they are crowded--one-fourth of them,--into the city of Copenhagen, or they are gaining a hardy livelihood upon the sea. And yet this diminutive kingdom puts up $275,000 a year for the keeping of the King, and also provides him and his family, tax free, with palaces and castles, and estates whereon to fish and hunt and play. [Illustration: AN ANCIENT MOAT, NOW THE LOVELY OERSTEDS PARK.] To an American mind it is amazing that a competent people will accept and suffer burdens such as these. In the great state of New York, with its seven millions of people, with wealth of coal and iron, with immense primeval forests, with cities whose commerce expands with a swiftness almost incredible, the Governor is paid $15,000 a year, and allowed a single mansion wherein to dwell. Massachusetts, Vermont and Michigan, and many other commonwealths, pay their Governors but $1,000 per year, without a mansion for their residence. The mighty Republic of the United States itself, with a continent for domain, and eighty millions of people, pays its President $50,000 per year, and gives him the use of the White House for his home. Therefore, do you wonder, as I stroll about this fine old city, and look into the unhopeful, wistful faces of its plainly clad, not over-rich nor over-busy people, that I begin to comprehend why Copenhagen holds the highest record for suicides of any city in the world, and why so many of her vigorous, and alert and capable, young men continually forsake their native land for the greater opportunities and freer political and industrial atmosphere of the United States? The Dane always gets on if you give him half a chance. He is called the "Frenchman of the North." Graceful and supple in his manners, with a mouthful of courtesies of speech, he is naturally a social diplomat. The blunt Norwegian calls him a fop. The martial Swede sneers at his want of fight. But the Dane has always held his own, and as a financier, a diplomat and man-of-the-world able to make the best out of the situation he may be in, he still gives proof of possessing his full share of the Scandinavian brain. [Illustration: A VISTA OF THE SUND.] IV. Elsinore and Kronborg--An Evening Dinner Party. HELSINOERE, DANNMARK, _August 29, 1902_. We left Copenhagen Friday evening, about four o'clock, from the Nordbane station. We were in plenty of time. Nobody hurries in Denmark. The train of carriages, with their side doors wide open, stood on the track ready to start. Prospective passengers and their friends moved about chatting, or saying good-bye. It was a local train to Elsinore, where it would connect with the ferry across the _Sund_ to Helsingborg and there with the through express to Stockholm and Kristiania, a night's ride. We would go to Elsinore, and there spend the night, and go on by daylight in the morning. A good many acquaintances had come down to see us off, just for the sake of friendliness. I had kissed all the rosy-cheeked _Froekens_ and been kissed by the _Frus_, having dexterously escaped the embraces of the men, when there loomed large before me an immense Dane, near six feet high and proportionate in girth, brown-bearded and blue-eyed, holding an enormous bouquet in either hand, an American flag waving from the midst of each. He made straight for me, folded me up among the flowers and kissed me joyfully on either cheek, and all before I really knew just what had taken place; then he doffed his hat, and bowing profoundly, presented first to me and then to H one of the bouquets with which he was loaded. And these bouquets were tied up with great white ribbons! Of course, we were evidently but newly wed. We suddenly became of interest to the entire company. Nor was there escape, for General C is well known and popular in Copenhagen. Others now came up and were introduced, and H and I held a _levée_ right then and there, and of kisses and embraces I made no count. The ride was along the _Sund_, that lovely stretch of salt water, only a few miles wide, which joins the Baltic Sea and the Atlantic. It is more like the Hudson River below West Point than anything I know, except that the shores are low and more generally wooded to the water's edge. Or, perhaps I should say that it is another and narrower Long Island Sound, as you see it a few miles out from Jamaica Bay. The busy waters were alive with a multitudinous traffic from Russia and Germany and Sweden and Denmark itself, and the fishing vessels that abound along these coasts. Here and there villas and fine country houses peeped out among the trees. The _Sund_ is the joy of the Dane. He loves it, and the stranger who looks upon it does not forget it. One then understands why the Danish poets have sung so loudly of it. [Illustration: ELSINORE.] Our way lay through much cultivated land, market gardens sending their produce to Copenhagen, dairy farms where is made some of that famous Danish butter every Londoner prefers to buy, and which is sold all around the world. Here and there we passed a little town, always with its sharp-steepled Lutheran church and dominie's snug manse along its side. The church, the Lutheran church in Denmark, is no trifling power. It is as bigoted and well entrenched as is the Roman hierarchy in Mexico and Spain. We should have liked to be wedded in the Vor Frue Kirke, where the dear old grandmother had been married. But it is a Lutheran church, and we were Dissenters, and without the pale. Nor could we present the necessary proof. We had no papers to show we had been duly born. Nor had we legal documents to prove that our parents were our very own. Nor could we show papers in proof that we had been christened and were legally entitled to our names, nor that we had been regularly confirmed. Without these documents, sealed and authenticated by the state, and in our case also by the United States, no Lutheran pastor would have dared to try and make us one. So we ran the gauntlet of less stringent English law, in itself quite bad enough, and lost the experience of the quaint Danish ceremonial in the noble church. At the fine big Government station in Helsinoere (Elsinore)--for the Government owns and runs the railroads in Denmark, just as it does in Germany and much of France--we were met by an aunt and uncle and cousin of H's. They were a charming old couple, and the son was a young naval engineer (shipbuilder), working in the ship yard at Helsinoere. All have lived in America and speak our tongue. We were to dine with them and spend the evening, when General and Mrs. C would go home on the last train at 10 P. M. I left the ladies together, while D and I strolled over to the ancient, yet formidable, fortress of Kronborg, which for centuries has commanded the gateway to the Baltic. Built of Norwegian granite, when erected it was believed to be impregnable. Its casemates, lofty walls, turrets and towers frowned threateningly across the three-mile strait to Helsingborg in Sweden, and no boat sailed past except it first paid the dues. To-day, these walls of rock, these ramparts in the air, no longer terrify the mariner. _Sund_ taxes are no longer levied! The ancient fortress does little else than fire an occasional salute. But the Danes still love and honor it, and a few soldiers are stationed in it, a solitary guard. A vista of the _Sund_ I tried to kodak from the top of the great tower, and I bribed a soldier for a dime to let me take his manly form, although a camera is forbidden within the precincts of this place of war. But Kronborg is famous for other things than mere Danish tolls and wars. Kronborg it is, where Hamlet's shade still nightly wanders along the desolate ramparts. There it is that the Danish prince beheld his father's ghost. There he kept watch at night with Horatio and Marcellus. And close by in the park of Marienlyst Castle is Hamlet's grave. We did not see it, but many pilgrims do. [Illustration: THE SUND FROM KRONBORG'S RAMPARTS.] Then we descended into the deep dungeons, or part of them, and a pretty, rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed Danish lass told us tales of Holger Danske, who lives down in the deepest pits, whose long white beard is fast grown to the table before which he sits, and who is to come forth some day and by his might restore to the Danish race its former great position on the earth; and she told us also of the human tragedies which have in past ages been enacted in these keeps. She spoke in soft, lisping, musical Danish, the only sweet Danish I have heard; for the Copenhagen speech is jerky, the consonants are chopped short, and the vowels are deep gurgled in the throat, difficult for foreign ears to comprehend. After seeing the fortress, we visited an ancient monastery, suppressed when the Roman church was driven from these northern Lutheran lands, and now become an Old Ladies' Home--shocking transformation in the contemplation of those monkish shades which may yet roam the forsaken cloisters!--of which institution the old uncle is now Superintendent with Government pension for life! And then we came to the cozy home where the ladies were already met. We entered a narrow doorway, a sort of interior storm door, and turned to the right into a comfortable sitting room, beyond which was the dining room, with the table set. The aunt is a gentle, round-faced, rosy-cheeked little woman, in a white lace cap and the prettiest of manners. With her was an old spinster friend, _Froeken_----, a slim, wizen-faced dame of sixty, in brown stuff dress, with tight sleeves and close fitting waist, and old lace at the throat, fastened by a big mediaeval-looking gold brooch, and with a gold chain about her neck. She possessed very small, bright black eyes, and lips that stuck straight out. She courtesied,--dropped down straight about ten inches and came up quick, a sort of bob--smiled, and said in Danish, "she was rejoiced to meet H's '_Mand_.'" All were very friendly, and H to have caught a _Mand_, sure enough, was treated with distinction. The table was set for eight; there was beer in glass decanters, cold fried fish, cold smoked goose breast, cold smoked salmon (raw), cold sardines, cold calveshead jelly, cold beef loaf, cold bread, black bread, rye bread, cold rolls (hard and shiny with caraway seeds in them), gooseberry jelly, spiced currants, and also tea, this latter piping hot. At each place was set a pile of salted butter (at least a pound) on a little dish. I sat next "_Tante_," with _Froeken_--across the table from me, her black eyes boring me through with steady gleam. You take your fish up by the tail and eat him as you would a piece of bread. "Butter him thick, yes, thick," "_Tante_" said to me. I laid on about half an inch, she did, they all did. It was delicious butter and that fish went down wonderfully slick. The goose breast was good, but I discerned it to have been a gander. The raw herring I did not find so attractive as the goose. There were also several sorts of cheese, of which every one ate much. You put a heavy layer of butter on your bread, then a layer of thin cut cheese, then a layer of herring or sardine or salmon, and eat it fast. There was no hot food, there never is. The rule is to stow away cold fish, butter and cheese, and wash it down with the strong brown beer. The sweets are then taken to top off with. Pickles and preserves together--just like the Germans. (I have not yet run into the sour foods in which the German stomach delights.) Having begun with a mild cheese, you gradually ascend to the strongest with the final sweets. H says the meal was only "supper," not dinner, but I confess I am so mixed on these Scandinavian meals, that I cannot yet tell the difference. At breakfast, the Danes take only a cup of coffee and a roll, the Spanish _Desayuno_; not even an egg, nor English jam. About one or two o'clock in the day, they dine, having soups, meats (roast or boiled), fish (fresh and salt), vegetables and beer. At night, it is about as I have told you, and they often dare to add a little more cold fish and cheese before they finally retire. The soups at dinner are very good; and the meats are better cooked than at a British table, on which, after a while, all meats begin to taste alike, and you grow tired to death of the eternal boiled potatoes, and boiled peas steeped in mint. I have had very nice cauliflower at Danish tables, and the lettuce of their salads is delicate and crisp, while the coffee of the Danes, like that of the Dutch, is better than you will find in either England, Germany or France; it seems to be the real thing, with neither chicory nor hidden beans. The Danes are skilful cooks, although their palates seem to be fondest of cold victuals and raw smoked fish. [Illustration: FISHING BOATS, ELSINORE.] We stayed the night in a comfortable inn, close by the water side, an ancient ale house where sailors used to congregate in the halcyon days when all passing ships must lay-to at Helsinoere to pay the tolls then levied by the King, hard by where now the fishing boats tie up. There were many of these and one in particular was continually surrounded by an excited crowd. It had just arrived loaded down to the decks with a catch of herring. The fishermen had had the luck to run into one of those rare and extraordinary schools of herring which are sometimes chased into the protecting waters of the Sound by a whale or other voracious enemy outside. The nets had been let quickly down and millions of fish as quickly drawn up. The boat had been filled to sinking, and word flagged to brothers of the craft to hasten up and partake of the abounding catch. Twenty thousand dollars' worth of herring had been caught within a few hours by the fishermen of Helsinoere alone, to say nothing of what were taken by the crews of other fishing boats along the coast. The entire population of the little town is now busy cleaning and salting fish, fish that will feed them well and keep them easy in stomach until the winter shall be past and the spring be come again. Women were selling fish along the streets, boys were peddling fish, how many for a cent I do not know, and men were giving fish, gratis, to whosoever would carry them away. These extraordinary catches do not often happen. No such luck had befallen Helsinoere for many a day. It may be years before it again occurs. The fisherman of these northern waters sails forth upon his cruise each day inflamed with very much the same spirit of adventurous quest as in America are we who, living upon the land, drill wells for oil or dig for gold. Helsinoere is rich to-night, and the herring is her king. [Illustration: A SNAP SHOT FOR A DIME, KRONBORG.] V. Across the Sund to Sweden and Incidents of Travel to Kristiania. KRISTIANIA, MISSION HOTEL, PILESTRADIET 27 (ALFHEIM), _August 31, 1902_. _Hilsen Fra Kristiania!_ Our ancient tavern, the Sleibot, in Elsinore, cared for us most comfortably. We were given a large room looking out over the waters of the _Sund_, with wide small-paned casemented windows, and a great porcelain stove and giant wooden bedstead. For breakfast we had fresh herring, the fish which will now form the chief diet of Helsinoere for many a month, and more of the good Danish coffee. The bill for lodging and breakfast was seven _kroner_ (about $1.90) for us two. The dear old couple were on hand to see us off, and waved _farvel_ as we boarded the immense ferryboat which takes on, if needful, an entire train, but usually only the baggage cars, for through travel to Swedish and Norwegian points. The boats are long and wide and strong, and smash their way through the floes of drifting ice the winter through, for this outlet of the Baltic is rarely frozen solid for any length of time. The four-miles passage is made in twenty minutes, and after we got under way, it was not long before even massive Kronborg faded upon the view, and we were making fast to the pier at Helsingborg, in Sweden. [Illustration: KRONBORG.] In England, owing to the smallness of the tunnels and the present cost of enlarging them, the railway management is compelled to keep to the ancient diminutive style of carriage first introduced sixty years ago. But here, in these northern lands, where railway building is of more recent date, although the gauge is the same as in Britain, the carriages are half as large again, and are many of them almost as long as our American cars, so that the riding in them is much easier than there. And in Norway I have already seen cars which, except for being shorter, were exactly like our own. We traveled first along the sea, then through a flat country. There were scores of sails upon the Kattegat, a multitude of ships and barques and brigs, schooners and sloops, and small fishing smacks, and larger fishing luggers going far out upon the North Sea. There were also many black hulks in tow of big tugs carrying coal to the Baltic cities, and steamers bound for English and German ports and even for America. The waters were alive with the busy traffic. We passed wide meadows and much grass land. Cows were feeding upon these fields, red cows mostly, with herders to watch over them. The cows were tethered each to a separate iron pin sunk in the ground, all in a single row; and thus they eat their way across an entire meadow,--an animated mowing machine. Now and then we returned to the shore of the sea, passing some fishing village nestled along the rocks, or we rolled through forests of small birches, pines and spruce. In the same compartment with ourselves sat a couple of young Germans. They were much interested in each other. I noticed that the lady's rings were most of them shining new, and one, a large plain gold ring, was in look particularly recent and refulgent. H came to the same conclusion also at about the very same moment. The two were surely a bridal pair. And they talked German, and looked out across us through the wide windows as though we were never there. So I spoke to my wife in good United States, and we agreed that these two were newly wed. And then the bride's noble face and fine brown eyes appealed to me, and I declared her to be the loveliest woman I had yet seen this side the sea. The while she and her _Mann_ still conversed in low, soft German. But it now seemed to me that they looked out across us with a kindlier feeling in their eyes and, in a surreptitious way, the German beauty was peeping at the fine large diamond on H's left hand (the wedding ring she had already succeeded in making look dull and old). At Goteborg (Gothenburg) our train drew up for half an hour's wait. Here that portion of it going to Stockholm would be cut loose from our own, and another engine would take us to the north. Along with most of the other passengers the young German and I also got out, leaving the two ladies in the car. At the counter of the big lunch room I watched the ever hungry Norsemen stowing away cold fish and cheese, and was in somewhat of a dilemma what to take, when the German husband of the lovely bride came up to me in a most friendly way, and suggested that I would enjoy a certain sort of fish and thin brown cake, which seemed to be one of the popular objects of attack by the voracious multitude. And he spoke to me in perfect English of the educated sort. He had evidently quite understood my flattering comments upon his bride, and was now my fast friend. I did not show surprise, but took his hint, and afterward we strolled up and down the platform, munching our snack, while he told me that he was a "barrister from Cologne." "Yes, on his wedding trip." He had "learned English in the German schools," he said, and had "never been in England or America." His wife, he admitted, "could not speak English," but "could read it and understand it when others talked!" He told me of the German courts, and of his long years of study before he was admitted to the bar. When they left us a few miles further on, for their way lay up through the lakes and forests of Sweden, we parted as old friends, and they promised to visit us if ever they should come across the sea; our unsuspecting admiration had won their hearts! [Illustration: KARL JOHANS GADE, KRISTIANIA.] About 4 P. M., we dined at the small station of Ed, our first example of Swedish railway dinner-serving on an elaborate scale. The train was a long one. There were many passengers. The fish and cheese consumed at Gothenburg was long since shaken down. We were genuinely hungry. But when the train came to a stop there was no rush to the restaurant, nor attempt of every man to get ahead of the one in front of him. The passengers took their leisure to get out, and walked deliberately toward the big eating room. The food was set upon a long central table. There were hot soups, hot boiled fowl, hot meats, an abundance of victuals, cold and salt. There were piles of plates, of napkins and of knives and forks. Everyone helped himself, and ate standing or carried his food to a little table and sat at ease. This latter plan we followed. Rule: Eat all you will, drink as much beer as you desire, take your own time, the train will wait, and when you are quite satisfied pay a single _kroner_ (twenty-seven cents). There is no watching to see how much you may consume. You eat your fill, you pay the modest charge, you go your deliberate way. However slow you may be the train will wait! We now traversed a barren country of marshy flats; with skimp timber, chiefly small birch and spruce. Toward dusk it was raining hard. The long twilight had fairly begun when we crossed the Swedish border and a few miles beyond stopped at Fredrikshald, where is a famous fortress against the Swedes, besieging which, King Charles XII was killed. Here a customs' officer walked rapidly through the car, asked a few questions and passed us on. Our trunks had been marked "through" from Helsinoere, so we had no care for them until we should arrive in Kristiania. But that there should be still maintained a customs' line between the sister kingdoms of Norway and Sweden, which are ruled by a common King, may perhaps surprise the stranger unacquainted with the peculiar and somewhat strained relations ever existing between these kindred peoples. [Illustration: VEGETABLE MARKET, KRISTIANIA.] For many hundreds of years (since 1380) Norway had been a province of Denmark. Her language and that of the Dane had grown to be almost the same, the same when written and printed, and differing only when pronounced. But in 1814, the selfish powers of the Holy Alliance handed over Norway to the Swedish crown as punishment to Denmark for being Napoleon's friend, and threatened to enforce their arbitrary act by war. So Norway yielded to brute force, and accepted the sovereignty of Napoleon's treacherous Marshal Bernadotte, the Swedish King, but she yielded nothing more, and to this day has preserved and yet jealously maintains her own independent Parliament, her own postal system, her own separate currency and her Custom Houses along the Swedish line. And you never hear a Norwegian speak of any other than of the "King of Sweden." "He is not our King," they say, "we have none." "We are ruled by the King of Sweden, but Norway has no King." Cunning Russia, it is said, cleverly spends many _rubles_ in order that this independent spirit shall be kept awake, and the war force of Sweden thereby be so much weakened. Russia might even to this day be able to nourish into war this ancient feud between the kindred breeds, if it were not that in her greed of power she has shown the cloven foot. The horror of her monstrous tyranny in Finland already finds echo among the Norwegian mountains. "We are getting together," a Norwegian said to me. "We have got to get together, however jealous we may be of one another. We must, or else the Russian bear will hug us to our death, even as now he is cracking the ribs of helpless Finland." And when I suggested that little Denmark should be taken within the pale, and a common Scandinavian Republic be revived in more than ancient force to face the world, he declared that already a movement toward this end was set afoot, and only needed a favorable opportunity to become a living fact. At 11 P. M. we arrived at Kristiania in a pouring rain, and at General C's recommendation, came to this curious and comfortable hotel. Like many other hotels in Norway, it is kept by women, and seems to be much patronized by substantial Norwegians of the nicer sort. It is on the top floor of a tall building, and you pass up and down in a rapid modern elevator. It is kept as clean as a pin, and the beds we sleep in are the softest, freshest in mattress and linen we have seen this side the sea. We have also passed beyond the latitude of blankets and are come to the zone of eider down. Coverlets, light, buoyant, and delightfully warm now keep us from the cold, and in our narrow bedsteads we sleep the slumber of contented innocence. We have a large well-furnished chamber, all for two _kroner_ per day (fifty-four cents). When we entered the long, light breakfast hall this morning, we saw a single table running the length of the room, a white cloth upon it, and ranged up and down, a multitude of cheeses big and little, cow cheese and goat cheese, and many sorts of cold meat, beef and pork and mutton, and cold fish and salt fish. And there were piles of cold sliced bread and English "biscuits" (crackers). The coffee, or milk if you wish it, is brought in, and in our case so are fresh soft-boiled eggs. A group of evidently English folk near us had a special pot of Dundee marmalade. The Norwegians take simply their coffee or milk, with cheese and cold fish and the cold bread. Our breakfast cost us twenty cents apiece. [Illustration: KRISTIANIA, A VIEW OF THE CITY.] To-day the city is washed delightfully clean, the heavy rain of the night having cleared streets and atmosphere of every particle of dust and grime. We have driven all about in an open victoria. It is a splendid town, containing some two hundred thousand inhabitants. It lies chiefly upon a sloping hillside with a deep harbor at its feet. Like Copenhagen, it is the capital of its country, and the seat of the Norwegian Government, of the Supreme Law Courts, and of the Storthing or National Congress or Parliament. At the end of the wide Karl Johans Gade stands the "Palace of the Swedish King," a sombre edifice, now rarely occupied. Kristiania is also the literary and art center of the Norse people. Here Ibsen lives, here Bjoernstjoerne Bjoernsen would live, if Swedish intolerance did not drive him into France. The types of men and women we see upon the streets are the finest we have met since coming over sea. Tall and well-built, light-haired and blue-eyed, the men carry themselves with great dignity. The women are, many of them, tall, their backs straight, not the curved English spine and stooping shoulders. All have good chins, alert and initiative. The Norwegians are the pick of the Scandinavian peoples. They are the sons and daughters of the old Viking breeds which led the race. They are to-day giving our northwestern states a population able, fearless and progressive, no finer immigration coming to our shores. Senators and Governors of their stock are already making distinguished mark in American affairs. It was not long before we perceived that in Kristiania, as in Copenhagen, we were also very close to the great Republic; except that, perhaps, here we discovered a keener sympathy with American feeling, a closer touch with the American spirit. Those Norwegians whom we have met speak good United States, not modern English. You hear none of the English sing-song flutter of the voice, none of its suppression of the full-sounded consonant, but the even, clear, precise accent and intonation of the well-taught American mouth. And our friends tell us that it is much easier for them to learn to speak the American tongue than to master the often extraordinary inflexion of spoken English as pronounced in Britain. I am gaining a great respect for these Scandinavian and Norwegian peoples. They are among the finest of the races of the European world. [Illustration: OUR NORWEGIAN TRAIN.] We have driven not merely through the beautiful city and its parks, and beheld the wide view to be had from the tower at its highest point, but we have also visited the ancient Viking ship, many years ago discovered and dug out of the sands along the sea, a measured model of which was so boldly sailed across the Atlantic, and floated on Lake Michigan, at Chicago, in 1892. At this time, however, we are but birds of passage in Kristiania. We may not linger to become more intimately acquainted with the noble town; we are arranging for a ten days' journey by boat and carriage through the _fjords_ and mountain valleys, and region of the mighty snow-fields and glaciers of western Norway. We must now go on, and postpone any intimate knowledge of the city until another day. H is quite ready for this trip. She wears a corduroy shirt waist of deep purple shade, and has brought with her one of those short, simply-cut walking-skirts, of heavy cloth. A natty toque sets off her head. She is fitly clad. And my eyes are not the only ones that note this fact, as I observed to-day when, to avoid a shower, we sought shelter under the pillared portico of the Storthing's fine edifice in the central square. As we stood there, waiting for the rain to cease, I noticed a small, fair-haired, quietly-dressed woman intently staring at the skirt. Each hem and tuck and fold and crease and gore she studied with the steadfast eye of the connoisseur. And so absorbed did she become that she grew quite oblivious of our knowledge of her interest. Around and around she circled, until at last we left her still taking mental notes. Some other woman in Kristiania, we are quite sure, will soon be wearing a duplicate of this well made costume from New York. [Illustration: ALONG THE ETNA ELV.] [Illustration: HAILING OUR STEAMER, THE RAND FJORD.] VI. A Day Upon the Rand Fjord and Along the Etna Elv--To Frydenlund--Ole Mon Our Driver. FRYDENLUND, NORGE, _September 1, 1902_. We left Kristiania about seven o'clock this morning and drove six kilometers to Grefsen, a suburb where the new railway comes in, which will ultimately connect the capital with Bergen on the west coast. Grefsen is up on the hills back of the city. The cars of the train we traveled in were long like our own and also set on trucks, the compartments being commodious, like the one we rode in from Helsingborg. We traversed a country of spruce forests, rapid streams, small lakes and green valleys; with red-roofed farmsteads, cattle, sheep and horses in the meadows, and yellowing fields of oats and rye, just now being reaped; where men were driving the machines and women raking the fallen grain, all a beautiful, fertile, well-populated land with big men, big women, rosy and well set up, usually yellow-haired and blue-eyed. About ten o'clock we arrived at Roikenvik, on the Rand Fjord, a sheet of dark blue water about two miles wide and thirty or forty long, with high, fir-clad mountains on either hand; with green slopes dotted with farm buildings, and occasional hamlets where stopped our tiny steamboat, the Oscar II. This _fjord_ is more beautiful than a Scottish _loch_, for here the mountains are heavily timbered with fir to their very summits, while the hills of Scotland are bare and bleak. We sat contentedly upon the upper deck inhaling the keen, fresh air, watching the picturesque panorama and noting the passengers crowded upon the forward deck below. They were chiefly farmers getting on and off, intelligent, self-respecting, well-appearing men, and full of good humor. One old gentleman with snowy whiskers, who resembled an ancient mariner, which I verily believe he was, seemed to hold the center of attention and many and loud were the shouts which his quaint jests brought forth. He evidently delivered a lecture upon my big American valise, pointing to it and explaining its excellent make, and his remarks were apparently to the credit of the owner, and of America whence it came. Just before the bell summoned us to dinner in the after cabin, I noticed a skiff rowing toward us, one of the three men in it waving his hat eagerly to our Captain, who immediately stopped the boat until they drew beside us, when two of them, clean-cut, rosy-faced, young six-footers, came up, hand over hand, on a rope which was lowered to them. They were born sailors, like all Norwegians. I snapped my kodak as their skiff drew near us, and the first news the Captain gave them was to apprise them of that fact. They appeared to be greatly flattered by the attention. They laughed and bowed and looked at me as much as to say, "How much we should like a copy of the photograph, if we knew enough English to ask for it," but they were too diffident to make the suggestion through their Captain friend. [Illustration: THE OLD SALT.] With the Captain himself, I became well acquainted; an alert man of affairs, who had knocked about the world on Norwegian ships and visited the greater ports of the United States. He gave me an interesting account of Norse feeling at the time of the outbreak of the Spanish war, saying to me, "I am from Bergen. I am a sailor like the rest of our people, and with about a thousand more of my fellow countrymen I went over at that time to New York. I was boatswain on the warship--and I served through the Spanish war. When we heard that there was likely to be trouble and got a hint that you wanted seamen, I gathered the men together and we went over and enlisted and others followed. Yes, there were several thousands of us, altogether, on your American warships, ready to give up our lives for the great Republic. Next to Norway, your great, free country, where already live half of the Norwegian race, lies closest to our hearts. We were ready to give up our lives for the stars and stripes. When the war was over most of us came back again. In the summer time I am captain of this boat, in the winter seasons I go out upon the sea. If America ever needs us again we are ready to help her. We Norwegians will fight for America whenever she calls." Then he spoke of Norway and the growing irritation of the Norwegian people against the assumptions of Sweden. "It is true that the Swedes are our kin, but we have never liked them. The Norwegians are democrats. We have manhood suffrage, and each man is equal before the law. In Sweden, there is a nobility who are privileged, and while the Swedish people submit to the aristocrats running the Government over there, we Norwegians will never permit them to run us. If it were not for fear of Russia, we would fall apart, but the Russian bear is hungry. If he dared he would eat us up. If it were not for England he would devour Sweden now, and then there would be no hope for Norway. The Russian Czar wants our harbors, our great _fjords_, as havens for his fleets, and he would like to fill his ships with Norwegian seamen. So we fret and growl at Sweden, but we can't afford really to have trouble with her any more than she can afford to fall out with us. We must stand together if we are to maintain our national independence, but nevertheless, we are full of fear for the future. I am apprehensive that the bear will some day satisfy his hunger. France will hold down Germany, who just now claims to be our friend also. England will be bought off by Russian promises in some other quarter of the world, and then, we shall be at the mercy of the Czar. God help us when that day comes! Those of us who can will fly to America, all except those who die upon these mountains. The Russians may finally take Norway, but it will then be a devastated and depeopled land. America is our foster mother. Our young men go to her. We are always ready to fight for her!" [Illustration: OLE MON.] As I looked into his strong blue eyes, which gazed straight at me, I felt that the man meant everything he said, and was expressing not alone his personal sentiment, but also the feeling of the sturdy, seafaring people of whom he was so fit a type, and I wondered what the Spaniard would have thought if he had known when he sent his fleets across the sea--fleets deserted by the Scotch engineers who, in times of peace, had kept their engines clean--that the United States could call at need, not merely upon its own immense population, but might equally rely upon the greatest seafaring folk of all the world to fill her fighting ships. After three and a half hours' sail--about thirty miles--we came to the end of the _fjord_ at Odnaes, where was awaiting us a true Norwegian carriage, a sort of _landau_ or _trille_ with two bob-maned Norwegian ponies, in curious harness with collar and hames thrusting high above the neck. We had dined on the boat; we had only a valise, a hand-bag and our sea-rugs. We were soon in the carriage and began our first day's drive, a journey of fifty-four kilometers (thirty-two miles), before night. Our driver was presented to us as "Ole Mon;" and the English-speaking owner of the carriage informed us that Ole ("Olie") Mon spoke fluently our tongue. He was a sturdily built, rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed man some forty years of age with a gray moustache and smooth, weather-beaten face. He drove these tourists' carriages in summer, he said; in the winter he took to the sea. We soon discovered his English to be limited to a few simple phrases, while when he ran to the end of his vocabulary he never hesitated to put in a fit Norwegian word. He was proud of his acquaintance with the foreign tongue, and delighted to exercise his knowledge of it. His chief concern in life was to take care of the ponies. He continually talked to them as though they were his boys, and at any excuse for a stop, always had nosebags filled with oat meal ready to slip on and give them a lunch. The ponies are not over eight or ten hands high, but are powerfully muscled, and they are as sleek and tame as kittens. We believe that we have a treasure in Ole Mon, and I expect to learn much from him about the country we traverse, for he is glib to talk. The road was superb, the scenery magnificent. We followed a deep fertile valley, along a roaring river, the Etna Elv--recent rains having filled the streams brim full--with high fir-clad mountains rising sheer on either hand. We climbed gradually for quite twenty miles, meeting and passing many curious two-wheeled carts, drawn by a single horse, called _stolkjaerres_, in which the driver sits behind the passenger, and about four o'clock we halted at Tomlevolden, a rambling farmstead where Ole Mon put the nosebags on the ponies and we rested until the bags were emptied. Here, we visited a dairy cow barn,--a large airy building finished in planed lumber, with long rows of stalls where the cows face each other, standing on raised floors and with a wide middle aisle where the feeders pass down between. So scrupulously clean was it that each day it must be washed out and scrubbed. In one end stood a big stone furnace, a sort of oven, to keep the cattle warm through the dark cold winter time, and fresh spring water was piped to a little trough set at each stall. Some years ago, having spent the night at a West Virginia mountain farm, in middle winter, I looked out of the window in the morning and beheld the family cow with about a foot of snow piled on her back and belly-deep in an icy drift. I remarked, "It has snowed some in the night." Mine host replied that "he reckoned it had." And then talking of the snow, I told him that I had seen snow eight feet deep way up in Canada. He looked at me incredulously and inquired, "Say, what mought the cows do in such snow as that." Would that I might show him and his like this Norwegian cow barn! Then we went on till 7 P. M., when we reached the famous Sanatorium of Tonsaasen, almost at the summit of the long grade, a spacious wooden hotel overlooking a profound _dal_, down which plunges a cascade. The hotel is kept by a big, bustling woman who speaks perfect cockney English, and who tells us she has "lived in Lonnon, although a native Norwegian." She wears a large white apron and a white lace cap, and she has received H in most motherly fashion. Indeed, our coming has greatly piqued her curiosity. She has asked us many questions and has taken H aside and inquired confidentially whether I am not a deserting soldier, and whether she is not eloping with me! She is evidently alert for military scandal, and was sorely disappointed and half incredulous when H declared that she and I were really man and wife. The truth is, Norway is become the retreat for so many runaway couples, recreant husbands and truant wives, that the good people of these caravansaries are quite ready to add you to the list of shady episodes. Even when I boldly wrote several postal cards to America and handed them to mine hostess to mail, I felt sure that after she had carefully read them she would scarcely yet believe our tale. Here we were given a bounteous supper of eggs, coffee, milk, cream, chicken, hare, trout, five sorts of cheese, and big hot rolls, and all for thirty-five cents each. The ponies were also fed again, and at eight o'clock we moved on twelve miles further, crossing the divide and rolling down into the valley of the Baegna Elv in the long twilight, and then brilliant starlight, coming at last to a typical Norwegian inn, at Frydenlund, not far from the lovely Aurdals Vand. This is the main road in winter between Bergen and Kristiania, and is then more traveled by sleighs and sledges than even now by carriages. All along the way there are frequent inns and post-houses. To-morrow we start at eight o'clock, and go on sixty-one miles more. [Illustration: FEEDING THE PONIES, TOMLEVOLDEN.] [Illustration: CHURCH OF VESTRE SLIDRE.] Our inn is a roomy farmhouse where "entertainment is kept," even as it used to be along the stage-traversed turnpikes of old Virginia, and adjoining it are extensive barns and stables. There seemed to be many travelers staying the night. We are really at an important point, for here two state highways separate, the one over which we have come leading to Odnaes, and the other diverging southward toward Lake Spirillen and the country known as the Valders, continuing on straight through to Kristiania. The house is painted white, and has about it an air quite like a farmstead in New England or New York. We were expected when we arrived. Word of our coming had been telephoned from Tonsaasen, and also from Kristiania. A large bedroom on the second story is given us. The floor is painted yellow and strips of rag carpet are laid beside the narrow bedsteads, where we sleep under eider down. I am writing by the light of a home-made candle. It is late, the silence of the night is unbroken save by the ticking of the tall clock on the staircase landing outside my door, and the occasional neighing of a horse or lowing of a cow. It is the silence of the contented country-side. VII. A Drive Along the Baegna Elv--the Aurdals Vand and Many More to Skogstad. SKOGSTAD, NORWAY, _September 2, 1902_. Here we are eighty-four kilometers (sixty-one miles) from Frydenlund, where we spent last night. All day we have sat in an easy carriage, inhaled the glorious buoyant air, and driven over a superb macadamized road. We have skirted the shores of five lakes or _vands_--called _fjords_,--amidst towering snow-marked mountains, passing beneath cliffs rising sheer above us for thousands of feet, the highway sometimes a mere gallery cut into the solid rock, and we are now wondering how we were ever such simple things as to waste our time in tame England, or even linger among what now seem so commonplace, Scottish _lochs_ and _tarns_. We have traversed the shores of the Aurdal, the Stranda, the Granheim, the Slidre and the Vangsmjoesen Fjords, each and all pools of the foaming river Baegna; and have looked across their limpid waters, their clustered islets, their shimmering surfaces reflecting field and forest and _fjeld_, and even portraying as in a mirror the snow-fields of mountain heights so far distant as to be indistinguishable to the naked eye, distant yet two full days' journey to the west. We have been continually excited and astonished as each succeeding vista of vale and lake and mountain has burst upon us. [Illustration: THE DISTANT SNOWS.] As we advanced further and further along the wide white military road, the valley of the Baegna Elv grew narrower and deeper, and the contrasts of verdant meadow and dark mountain increased in sharpness. The lower slopes are as green and well watered as those of Switzerland, and are dotted with farmsteads where the thrifty Norse farmer dwells upon his own land, independent, self-respecting, recognizing no lord but God--for the title of the "Swedish King" weighs but little here. Everywhere have I remarked a trim neatness, exceeding, if it were possible, even that of Holland. Upon the meadows were cattle, mostly red. The fields were ripe with rye and oats and barley where men and women were garnering the crops. The lands were cleared far up the mountain sides to where the forests of dark green fir stretched further up, until beyond the timber-line bare black rock masses played hide and seek among the clouds. Back and beyond this splendid panorama of vale and lake and cloud-wrapped summit, far beyond it, binding the horizon on the west, there grew upon our vision all the afternoon enormous heights of stern and austere mountains, lifting themselves into the very zenith, their slopes gleaming with white bands of snow, their topmost clefts nursing glittering icepacks and glaciers. Ole Mon has constantly pointed toward them saying "Yotunheim!" "Yotunheim!" and we have known them to be the gigantic ice-bound highlands of the celebrated Jotunheim Alps, the loftiest snow mountains of Norway. We left the inn at Frydenlund after a breakfast of brook trout, fried to a turn, and all we could eat of them, delicious milk like that from our blue grass counties of Greenbrier and Monroe, in West Virginia, and coffee made as only an Americanized Norwegian may know how. Along the way we have met children evidently going to and returning from their schools, and it has been charming to see how the little boys pull off their caps, and the little girls drop down in a courtesy. The little caps always come off the yellow heads with sweeping bow, and the duck of the little girls is always accompanied by a smile of greeting. I regret that in America we have lost these pretty customs which were once taught as good manners by our forebears. We have passed this morning a frowning stone jail, the prison of this province, and Ole Mon tells us that it is quite empty and has had no tenant for some two years; surely, convincing testimony of the innate honesty of these sturdy folk. We have also to-day met many young men, tall and stalwart, clad in the dark blue uniform of the Norwegian National Guard. This is the season when the annual drills are going on, just at the end of the harvest time. Norway, like the rest of Europe, has adopted universal military training for her men. They are taught the art of war and how to shoot. It is calculated that in eight or ten years more every Norwegian of voting age will have had the necessary military training and will have become a part of the effective national defense. "We will never have trouble with Sweden," they say, "the Swedes and ourselves only show our teeth." "It is Russia, hungry Russia, that we fear. We will learn to march and shoot and dig entrenchments so that we may defend ourselves against the aggression of the Slav. Upon the sea, we are the masters. We learn in your navy how to handle modern warships and shoot the giant guns. Upon these mountains, we hope, ere another decade has elapsed, also to be safe against the encroachment of that 'Great White peril.'" [Illustration: THE BAEGNA ELV.] [Illustration: A HERD OF COWS, FOSHEIM.] [Illustration: THE GRANHEIMS VAND.] We stopped for our first pony-feed at Fagernaes, where a road turns off to Lake Bygdin and its _Elv_, where the English go to fish; halted a half hour at Fosheim, where is a fine hotel, and then, passing the ancient stone church of Vestre Slidre, drove on to Loeken, where a reindeer-steak-and-salmon-trout-dinner awaited us. The inn, situated on a rocky point overlooking the picturesque Slidre Vand, was quakerly-clean, as all of these places are. The neatly dressed young woman who waited on us had lived two years in Dakota, and in Spokane, and spoke perfect United States. She had an uncle and a brother still there, and hoped to go back herself when the old folks had passed away. At Oeilo, fifteen kilometers further on, we also drew rein--each time we stop the ponies have the nosebags of oat meal--and then we paused again at Grindaheim at the Vang Hotel, close to the shores of the Vangsmjoesen Vand. Here the mistress of the inn had lived in Minnesota, and talked with us like one of our own countrywomen. She had come home on a little visit, she said. A stalwart Norseman had lost his heart and won her hand, and saved-up dollars--but yet her spirit longed for free America. Her boys would go there as soon as they were big enough to hustle for themselves. In the dining room of the comfortable house was gathered a collection of stuffed and mounted birds of the surrounding countryside. There were several ptarmigan and one fine capercailzie, the cousin to the black cock, and the biggest thing of the pheasant-kind that flies in Northern Europe. Our Minnesotan hostess pressed us to stay and tarry a few days, setting before us a big pitcher of milk and little caraway-seed-flavored tea cakes, all for the price of _Te Oere_, two and a half cents. We would like to have lingered here, for the house is nestled in one of the wildest and loveliest of dales. To the north, a mile across the vand, tower the black precipitous heights of the giant Skodshorn (5,310 feet) upon whose cloud-capped peaks, Ole Mon tells us, the ghosts of the ancient Scalds and Vikings meet in berserker combat with Thor and Odin, and whence, sometimes, when the air is still and there are no storms about, the clangs and clashes of their battle conflicts resound with thunder roars, waking the echoes in all the valleys round. Then the black mountain sides breathe forth gigantic jets of steamlike cloud, while it is at such times also that the _Trolls_ and Gnomes creep forth from the shadows of the rocks to do honor to the warring giants. When questioned closely, he admitted he had never witnessed one of these combats, but declared that when a boy he had heard the roar on the summit of the mountain and had seen the white clouds shoot up, which is always the sign of victory for the gods. Our hostess also asserted that she had once heard the mountain roar, but admitted she had not seen the shooting clouds. Some scientists try to explain the mountain's action according to natural laws, but so great is my faith in Ole Mon that I dare not dispute his word. Back of the little inn also rise the lofty masses of the Grinde Fjeld (5,620 feet) upon whose moorland summits it is, the capercailzie fly and the herds of reindeer range, whence came the juicy steaks we ate to-day at Loeken and have had to-night for supper. [Illustration: A HAMLET BENEATH THE FJELD.] All along the Baegna valley, including the fertile basins wherein nestle the many _vands_ or lesser _fjords_, there were men and women in the fields mowing the short grass and ripening grain. But neither the grasses, nor the rye and oats and barley had reached maturity. Nor do they ever fully ripen in these cold latitudes. They must be cut green, and then the feeble sunshine must be made the most of. Long ricks, made of sticks and saplings, or poles barred with cross-pieces set on at intervals are built extending through the fields, and on these the grass and grain are carefully spread out, hung on a handful at a time, so that each blade and straw may catch the sun, and dry out, a tedious, laborious work on which the women were more generally employed. The men bring up back-loads newly cut by scythe and sickle, and throw them down before the women, who then carefully hang each handful on the ricks. What must a Norwegian feel, trained to such painstaking toil as this, when he at first sets foot upon the boundless wheat lands of Minnesota and the prairie West. No wonder he returns to his native homestead only to make a hasty visit, never to remain. In Switzerland, I also saw the grass cut when scarcely half ripe and but a few inches high, when it is stored in handy little log cribs where in the course of time it slowly dries out, but here every blade must be hung up in the sun and air if it shall turn to hay. When the hay and grain is fully dried, it is taken down and done up into loosely bound sheaves, or carried in bulk to the large, roomy barns. The grain is generally thrashed out with flails, I am told, although a few American machines are now being introduced. The wire fence is not yet come into Norway, although timber is remote and costly, and the people are hard put to it for fencing material. I noticed that they generally depend upon slim poles and small saplings loosely strung together, for English hedges cannot be grown in these chilly northlands. [Illustration: RICKING THE RYE.] [Illustration: THE AUTHOR BY THE SLIDRE VAND.] And now we are at Skogstad, above the Vangsmjoesen Vand and lesser Strande Vand, with two or more _vands_ to see to-morrow before we cross the height of land and come down to Laerdalsoeren, on the Sogne Fjord which holds the waters of the sea, sixty-five miles further on. The _vands_ to-day have been like giant steps, each emptying into the one below by the roaring river, mounting up, each smaller than the one below and more pent in by towering mountain masses. H is now tucked in between mattress and coverlet of eider down--we are beyond the latitude of blankets--in a narrow bed, and I am about to get into another on the other side of the room, on which I now sit writing to you by the light of a sperm candle, while the murmur of a thousand cascades tinkles in my ears. VIII. Over the Height of Land--A Wonderful Ride Down the Laera Dal to the Sogne Fjord. LAERDALSOEREN, NORGE, _September 3, 1902_. We left Skogstad early and began to climb a long ascent, a dozen miles of grade, still following the valley of the Baegna Elv foaming and tossing by our side. The two days so far had been clear and cloudless, but now the air was full of a fine mist, and we probably ascended a thousand feet before the curtain lifted and a panorama of snow-capped mountains, profound valleys, and sheer precipices burst upon us. A thousand rills and rivulets and brawling brooks streaked the green slopes with threads and lines of white; mosses and lichens softened the black rock-masses; blooming heather, and a plant with fine red and yellow leaf gave color to the heights between the sombre greenness of the fir forests below and the whiteness of the snow-fields above. I have never before seen such stupendous precipices, such tremendous heights; neither Switzerland nor Mexico, Alps nor Cordilleras lift themselves in so precipitous ascent. After a two hours' climb, all the way listening to the roar of the _Elv_ choking the gorge a thousand feet below our way, we met its waters issuing quietly from yet another lake, the little Utro Vand, surrounded by snow-crowned summits, the snow-fields creeping almost to the water's edge, also passing on our right, the road which leads to the Tyin Vand and the ice-crowned summits of the Jotunheim. Here was a large and comfortable inn, Nystuen by name, and Ole Mon gave the ponies their first morning's feed, adding an armful of mountain hay to the oatmeal diet. Half an hour's rest is the usual limit, and the ponies seem to know their business and eat their fare on time. In Mexico, horses are fed grain but once in twenty-four hours, and that at midnight, so that all hearty food will be digested before the early morning start. Here a horse is kept full all the time to do his best; difference of climate and latitude, I suppose. [Illustration: THE PROTECTED ROAD.] Just beyond the Nystuen Vand, we crossed the height of land between the waters of east and west Norway, and now the streams were running the other way. We were up 3,294 feet, and the summits round about us--rising yet two and three thousand feet higher--were deeply snow-marked--great patches and fields of snow. Then we came to another succession of four more _vands_, like steps, each bigger than the one above it, and a roaring river that proportionately grew in size. The road became steeper and we fairly scampered down to a fine inn, painted red with curiously-carven Norse ornamentation on the gables, called Maristuen. Here we had fresh salmon, and more good coffee. For breakfast we were given trout and eggs, now salmon and a delicious custard for dessert. At table we met a Mr. C and wife, of Chicago, going over our trail, and we may meet them again in Stockholm. They are anxious to go on to Russia after seeing Stockholm, and have urged us to go along also. Across the table from us sat a dear old white-haired grandmother from Bergen with a blue-eyed, flaxen-haired granddaughter--a Viking Juno. They are driving across to Odnaes in their own carriage, a curious, old-fashioned _trille_, low and comfortable with a mighty top. The old lady is stacked up between pillows of eider down, and the blue-eyed granddaughter is full of tender care. We spake not to them nor they to us, but we smiled at one another and that made us friends. They both waved _farvel_ as they drove away. And then, about two o'clock, we went on again for forty miles down to the level of Laerdalsoeren and the sea, on the Sogne Fjord, where now we are. We were to descend some 3,000 feet, and here began one of the most exciting experiences of my life. The mountains kept their heights; we alone came lower, all down a single _dal_. Most of the road was hewn out of the side of precipices--a gallery; great stones were set endwise about two feet apart on the outer edge, and sometimes bound together by an iron rail; a slope down which we rolled at a flying trot, coasted down--the roaring, foaming river below, far below. Close to us were falls and cascades and cataracts, and the stupendous mountains, the snow-capped rock-masses lifting straight up thousands of feet. H grew so excited, exclaiming over the mighty vistas of rock and water and distant valley, that I had fairly to hold her in; and ever we rolled down and down and down, spanking along with never a pause for nearly thirty miles, the spinning wheels never once catching the ponies' flying heels. Great driving that of Ole Mon, great speeding that of the sturdy ponies; marvelous macadamized roadway, smooth as New York's Fifth Avenue! Water bursts, misty cascades, descending hundreds of feet, sprayed us, splashed us, dashed us, as we went on and on and on, only the gigantic precipices growing higher and higher and higher, and the ever-present snowy summits more and more supreme above us. [Illustration: THREE THOUSAND FEET OF WATERFALL.] Then we swept out into a green valley, hemmed in on either hand by sombre precipices rising straight up for three and four and five thousand feet, and hove to at the farmstead of Kvamme for the ponies to be fed once more before their last descent. A mile or two further on the precipices choke together forming a deep gorge, called the Vindhelle, where it looks as though the mountains had been cracked apart. The Norwegian farmer, like the Swiss, not only makes his living from the warm bottom-lands, which he cultivates, but also from the colder uplands to which his goats and cattle are driven in the early summer, and where the surplus grasses are painstakingly gathered with the sickle. We were driving quietly along when my attention was attracted to a couple of women standing with pitchforks in their hands near a cock of hay. The hay was fresh mown, but I could see no hay-fields round about. They were looking intently at the distant summit of the precipice towering above them. My eye followed theirs. I could barely make out a group of men shoving a mass of something over the edge, and then I beheld the curious sight of a haymow flying through the air. Nearer it came, and nearer until it landed at the women's feet. I then made out a wire line connecting a windlass set in the ground near where the women stood and reaching up to the precipice's verge, whence came the hay. The hay was wound about this line. In this manner is the hay crop of these distant uplands safely delivered at the little _gaard_ or farmstead in the valley's lap. From these mountain altitudes the milk and cheese and butter which the goats and cows afford are also sometimes lowered by this telegraph. In Switzerland, I have seen communications of this sort for shorter distances, but never before beheld a stack of hay flying through the air for half a mile. This Laera River with its _dal_ (dale, valley), is famous for its trout and salmon. We passed several men and boys trying their luck, one, an Englishman, up to his waist in the ice-cold tide. We have now put up at a snug hotel, quite modern; English is spoken here. And--but I forgot; when we stopped to feed the ponies, right between the two descents, we made solemn friendship with the old Norseman who here keeps the roadhouse; his daughter "had been in Chicago," she spoke perfect United States, and took us to see, hard by, the most ancient church in Norway, the church of Borgund, eight hundred to one thousand years old. It is very quaint, with strange Norse carving and Runic inscriptions. I gave our pretty guide a _kroner_ for her pains. On returning to the house, she handed it to the old man, who took out a big leathern wallet and put the coin away. We had meant it all for her, and by reason of her knowing Chicago had made the fee quite double size. To-morrow we sail for six hours out upon the Sogne Fjord to Gutvangen, then drive by carriage to Eida, on the Hardanger Fjord, all yet among these stupendous mountains. I was sitting in the little front room of the inn waiting for supper, when our driver, Ole Mon, came in to settle our account, for his trip was at an end. After I had paid him and added a few _oeres_ and a _kroner_ for _trinkgeld_, at the liberality of which he seemed to be much gratified, he produced from the inner pocket of his coat a goodly-sized blank book, which he handed to me, and begged that I would set down therein a recommendation of his qualities as a driver and a guide. In the book were already a number of brief statements in French and German and Norwegian, by different travelers, declaring him to be a "safe and reliable man," who had "brought them to their journey's end without mishap." I took the book and wrote down some hurried lines. When I had finished, he gazed upon the foreign writing and then disappeared with the book into the kitchen to consult the cook, who had lived in Minneapolis. He presently reappeared, his eyes big with wonder and a manner of profound deference. He now advised me that he would deem it a great honor to be permitted to drive us free of charge, next morning, from the hotel to the steamer, a couple of miles distant. He further said, that he had decided to take the sea trip to Gutvangen on our ship and would there secure for us the best carriage and driver of the place. He evidently regarded me as some famous bard, to whom it would be difficult to do sufficient honor. The lines were these: Aye! Ole Mon, you are a dandy whip, You are a corker and a daisy guide. You talk our tongue and rarely make a slip, You've taken us a stunner of a ride. And when from Norge's _fjelds_ and _fjords_ we sail, And in America tell of what we've seen, Our friends will stand astonished at the tale, And next year bid you take them where we've been. [Ilustration: OUR LITTLE SHIP, LAERDALSOEREN.] IX. A Day Upon the Sogne Fjord. STALHEIM HOTEL, NORWAY, _September 4, 1902_. To-day we have spent mostly on the water. We left Laerdalsoeren--the mouth of the valley of the river Laera--by ship, a tiny ship, deep-hulled and built to brave the fiercest gales, a boat of eighty to one hundred tons. Casting off from the little pier at eight o'clock, we were upon the waters of the majestic Sogne Fjord until after 3 P. M. This great _fjord_ is the first body of water that I have seen which to my mind is really a _fjord_, the others along the shores of which we have journeyed for the past three days, including the last and least, the Smidal and the Bruce _Fjords_, were only mountain tarns, what in Norse speech is termed a "_Vand_." While I had read much of _fjords_, never till to-day have I comprehended their marvelous grandeur, the overwhelming magnitude of the earth's convulsions which eons ago cracked open their tremendous depths and heights. Although their bottoms lie deeper than the bottom of the sea, (4,000 feet deep in some places), so the Captain tells me, yet up out of these profound waters rise the gigantic mountains (_fjeld_) five and six thousand feet into the blue sky, straight up as it were, with hundreds of cascades and foaming waterfalls, sometimes the tempestuous tides of veritable rivers, leaping down the black rocks and splashing into space, and everywhere above them all are the snow-fields, the eternal snow-fields. Sometimes when the precipices are sheltered and sun-warmed, their surface is green with mosses and banded with yellow gorse, and with white and pink and purple heather, and barred with scarlet and gray lichens. The waters were so deep, the precipices so sheer that often our ship sailed not more than twenty or thirty feet distant from them; the misty spray of the streams dissolving into impalpable dust hundreds of feet above us, dampening us like rain, or windblown, flying away in clouds of vaporous smoke. Here and there along the more open parts of the _fjord_ were bits of green slope with snug farmsteads, a fishing boat swinging to a tiny pier or tied to the very house itself. Sometimes, perched on a rocky shelf, grass-grown and high-up a thousand feet, we would discern a clinging cabin, and once we espied a grazing cow that seemed to be hanging in mid air. No patch of land lay anywhere about that was not dwelt upon, tilled or grazed by some man or beast. The climate of western Norway is mild and humid, tempered as it is by the Gulf Stream. These coasts have always been well peopled, sea and soil yielding abundant living to the hardy Norsk. The _fjords_ are the public highways and upon their icefree waters vigorous little steamships ply back and forth busied with incessant traffic through all the year. Our course led us up many winding arms and watery lanes to cozy hamlets nestled at the mouth of some verdant _dal_, where we would lie-to a few minutes to put off and take on passengers and freight. We also carried the mails. At each stopping-place the ship's mate would hand out the bags to the waiting official, often an old man, more generally a rosy-cheeked young woman, and carefully take a written memorandum of receipt, when bag and maiden and many of the waiting crowd would disappear. Once or twice the bags were loaded upon one of the curious two-wheeled carts called _stolkjaerres_ driven by a husky boy, when cart and horse and boy at once set off at lively gallop. In winter time sledges and men on _skjis_ replace the handy _stolkjaerre_, and thus all through the year are the mails efficiently distributed. The captain tells me that a great proportion of the letters received and sent are from and to America, where so many of Norway's most energetic and capable young men are growing rich, and that a large proportion of these letters received are registered, and contain cash or money orders remitted to the families at home. What wonder is it that these thousand white-winged missives, which continually cross the sea, have made and are now making the ancient Kingdom almost a Democratic state! At one of these hamlets, Aurland by name, I caught with my camera a pretty Norwegian lass in full native costume, such as has been worn from time immemorial by the women of the Sogne Fjord,--a charming picture. [Illustration: THE SOGNE FJORD.] [Illustration: ALONG THE SOGNE FJORD.] Toward three o'clock we sailed up a shadowy canyon, the Naeroe Fjord, under mighty overhanging precipices, arriving at Gudvangen, our voyage's end. Here carriages awaited us and here Ole Mon, who has sailed with us throughout the day, after having driven us down to the boat himself and refused all pay, handed us over to the driver of the best _vogn_ (wagon) of the lot, with evidently very particular instructions as to our welfare. In fact, H tells me, Ole Mon has spent the day with his book of recommendation open in his hand, calling the world's attention to my glowing rhymes, and pointing me out with an air of profound deference as an illustrious, although to him unknown, bard. We bid him _farvel_, with real sorrow, and regretted that he might not have driven us to the very end. We now went on ten kilometers through a narrow clove, between enormous heights, passing the Jordalsnut, towering above us, straight up more than three thousand feet, and straining our necks to peer up at the foaming torrent of the Kilefos leaping two thousand feet seemingly at a single bound, and almost wetting us with its flying spray. At one place the road is diverted, and the immense mountain is scarred from the very edge of the snows by the marring rifts of a recent avalanche, which, our driver says, was the most tremendous fall of snow and ice these parts have ever known. At last we began a steep zigzag ascent, so sharp that even H relieved the ponies of her weight. We were an hour in climbing the twelve hundred feet; and found ourselves on a wide bench overlooking the wild and lovely Naeroedal up which we had come. The sun was behind us, the half shadows of approaching twilight were creeping out from each dell and crevice. Upon our left, the gray peak of the Jordalsnut yet caught the sunshine, as also did the snow-fields of the Kaldafjeld, almost as lofty upon our right. The Naeroedal was filling with the mysterious haziness of the northern eventime. Behind us, commanding this exquisite vista, we found a monstrous and uncouth edifice, a German enterprise, the Stalheim Hotel, thrust out upon a rocky platform between two rivers plunging down on either side. Here we have been given a modern bedroom, fitted with American-looking oak furniture, have enjoyed a well-cooked German supper, sat by a blazing wood fire, and shall soon turn off the electric lights and turn in, to repose on a wire mattress, and be lulled to sleep by the musical roar of the two great waterfalls. [Illustration: SUDALS GATE ON THE SOGNE FJORD.] X. From Stalheim to Eida--The Waterfall of Skjerve Fos--The Mighty Hardanger Fjord. ODDA, NORWAY, _September 5, 1902_. We left Stalheim by _Skyd_ (carriage), at nine o'clock. The drive was up a desolate valley, through a scattering woodland of small firs and birches, close by the side of a foaming creek, the Naerodals Elv, hundreds of becks and brooklets bounding down the mountain sides to right and left. After an hour's climb, we reached a flattened summit where lay a little lake, the Opheims Vand, two or three miles long and wide, encircled with snow-fields. Here and there we passed a scattered farmstead--_gaard_--for every bit of land yielding any grass is here in the possession of an immemorial owner. The _vand_ is a famed trout pool, and as we wound along its shores we passed any number of men and boys trying their luck. It was raining steadily, a cold fine downpour, and all the male population seemed to have taken to the rod. At the lake's far end we passed a small hotel, built in Norse style with carved and ornamented gables and painted a light green. Here in the season the English come to fish. [Illustration: THE NAERO DAL.] Leaving the _vand_, we began a long descent, and for twelve miles rolled down at a spanking pace, the brook by our side steadily growing until it at last became a huge and violent torrent, a furious river, the Tvinde Elv. In the fourteen miles we had descended--coasted--two thousand five hundred (2,500) feet, and now were come to the little town of Voss or Vossvangen, which lies on the banks of the Vangs Vand, a body of blue water five or six miles long and two miles wide, surrounded by one of the most fertile, well-cultivated valleys of Norway. Vossvangen is a town of importance, and is the terminus of the railway with which the Norwegian government is connecting Bergen and Kristiania. The easiest parts of this national railway, those between Bergen and Vossvangen, and between Kristiania and Roikenvik--over which we came--are already constructed and running trains, but it is estimated that it will be twenty years before the connecting link is finally completed, for it is almost a continuous tunnel--a magnificent piece of railroad-making when it is done. Vossvangen is also the birthplace of one of Minnesota's most illustrious sons, United States Senator Knute Nelson. It is upon these mountains that he tended the goats and cows when a barefooted urchin, and I do not doubt that he has surreptitiously pulled many a fine trout and salmon out of the lovely lake. The people of Vossvangen accept his honors as partly their own, and my Norwegian host gazed at me most complacently when I told him that American Senators held in their hands more power and were bigger men than any Swedish King. Norwegians are justly proud of their eminent sons who, in the great Republic over the sea, are so splendidly demonstrating the capability of the Norse race. We put up at a modern-looking inn, called Fleischer's Hotel, a favorite rendezvous for the English, despite its German-sounding name. Here we rested a couple of hours, and were given a well-served dinner with tender mutton and baked potatoes, big and mealy, which we ate with a little salt and abundance of delicious cream. Our hearts were here stirred with sympathy for a most unhappy-looking American girl who had evidently married a foreign husband. He was a surly, ugly-mannered man, with low brows and tangled black hair. She, poor thing, was the picture of despair, her fate being that all too common one of the American woman who, foolishly dazzled with a titled lover, too late finds him to be a titled brute. We were to continue to Eida on the Hardanger Fjord, in the same carriage in which we set out. The ponies were well rested, and we got away a little after two o'clock. Ascending the well-tilled valley of the Rundals Elv by easy grades over a fine hard road, we crossed a marshy divide and then descended to the Hardanger Fjord. After passing the divide and coming down a few miles, we suddenly found ourselves on the rim of a vast amphitheatre into the center of which plunged a mighty waterfall, the Skjervefos, much resembling that of the Kaaterskill Falls, in the Catskill mountains of New York, only ten times as big. A roaring river here jumps sheer a thousand feet, and then again five hundred more. Yet we did not know of it until we were right on to it and into it. The falls making two great leaps, the road crosses the wild white waters between them on a wooden bridge. Over this we drove through soaking clouds of spray. [Illustration: GREETING OUR BOAT, AURLAND.] When in London we had no thought of Norway. Not until we heard from General and Mrs. C of the delights of this journey did we make up our minds to take it. We were then in Copenhagen, and neither in that town nor in Kristiania have we been able to get hold of an English-worded guide book. We are trusting to our driver's knowledge, and to our own eyes and wits. And so it is, that we came right upon one of the most splendid waterfalls in all Norway, and never knew aught of it until chasm and flood opened at our feet. Perhaps it is better so. We have no expectations, our eyes are perpetually strained for the next turn in the road, our ears are alert for the thundering of cascades, our minds are open for astonishment and delight. While it is a substantial modern bridge that now takes you safely over the stream which spins and spumes between the upper and the nether falls, yet our driver tells us, that in the ancient days when men and beasts must ford or swim to get across, this was dreaded as a most dangerous place. Few dared to ford,--most made a long detour. No matter how quiet or how low the waters might appear, there were yet dangers which men could not see, for water-demons hid in the black eddies and skulked in the foam. They lurked in silence until the traveler was midway the stream when they would boldly seize him by the feet, and draw him down, and ride his body exultingly through the plunging cataract below, nor did they fear also to drown what rescuer might venture in to save his friend. When now the moon is low and the night is still, may frequently be heard commingling with the leaping waters' roar, 'tis said, the death wails of the lost souls of those whom the demons thus have drowned and delivered for torment to the cruel master-demon, Niki. Below the giant Skjervefos we rolled alongside its Elv until we came out upon the margin of another exquisite tarn, the Gravens Vand, where, just as along the Vangsmjoesen Vand, the roadway is, much of it, hewn out in galleries at the base of overhanging cliffs. Nor is there room for carriages to pass. There are turnouts, here and there, and you pull a rope and ring a bell which warns ahead that you are coming. In some places the roadway was shored up with timbers above the profound black waters. We passed from the _vand_ through a rocky glen down which the foaming waters hurried to the sea. We followed the stream and suddenly came out into vast breadth and distance. We were at Eida on an arm of the mighty Hardanger Fjord, the biggest earth crack in Norway. [Illustration: THE HARDANGER FJORD.] A fresh, keen wind blew up from the ocean. A wooden pier jutted out into the deep water, where, tied to it, were several fishing smacks. A small, black-hulled steamer was there taking on freight, but it was not our boat. The sky was overcast. The long twilight was coming to an end. It would soon be dark. Across the _fjord_, giant black-faced precipices lifted up into the clouds and snows. Down the _fjord_ misty headlands loomed against the dusk. The black waters were foam capped. There was a dull moan to the wind in the offing; it was a night for a storm at sea. It now grew dark. A few fitful stars shone here and there. The wind was rising. A bright light suddenly appeared toward the west. Our boat had come round the headland, and was soon at the pier. It was much like the little ship in which we sailed upon the Sogne Fjord. These _fjords_ are alive with multitudes of just such boats, deep-set, sturdy craft, built to brave all weathers and all seas. Our course lay down the Graven Fjord, through the Uten Fjord, and then up the long, narrow Soer Fjord--arms of the Hardanger--to the hamlet of Odda, where we would again take a carriage and cross the snow-fields of the giant Haukeli mountains of the Western Alps. Watching the sullen waters, profound and mysterious, as they churned into a white wake behind our little craft, I could scarcely credit it that I was upon the Hardanger Fjord, the greatest and most intricate of the sheltered harbors which for centuries have made the coasts of Norway the fisherman's haven, the pirate's home. Upon these waters the ancient Viking learned his amphibious trade. Hid in the coves which nestle everywhere along the bases of the precipices the Viking mothers hatched and reared their broods of sea-urchins, who romped with the seals and chased the mermaids and frolicked with the storms. Where I now sailed had met together again and again those fleets of war-boats, the like of which we saw the other day in Kristiania, and which went out to plunder and ravage hamlet and town and city along all the ocean coasts, even passing through the Gates of Hercules, and visiting Latin and Greek and African province with devastation and death. "Sea-wolves," Tacitus called them, and such they were. Here gathered the hardy war-men who went out and conquered Gaul, and founded Norse rule in Normanwise where now is Normandy. Hence sailed forth the warships which harried the British Isles, and left Norse speech strong to this day on Scottish tongue and in Northumbrian mouth. Here, also, fitted out the ships, some of the crews of which it may have been who left their marks upon the New Jersey shores in Vineland, and who may even have been the sires of that strange blue-eyed, light-haired, unconquered race I saw two years ago in Yucatan, who have held the Spaniards these four centuries in check. I gazed upon the black waters of mighty Hardanger, and saw the fleets returning with their spoil, and heard the shouts of vengeance wreaked and victory won, which have so often echoed among these mountains. I was looking upon the breeding, homing waters of the greatest sea-race the world has known, and every lapping wavelet became instinct with the mystery of the cruel, splendid past. [Illustration: THE SOER FJORD, HARDANGER.] The churning of the propeller blades now ceased. I felt a jarring of the boat. We were come to Odda and the voyage's end. It was ten o'clock when we made our port. A black night it had been, pitch dark, with a fierce wind and ill-tempered sea. The profound waters respond with sullen restlessness to the stress of outer tempest. Only a Norseman born and bred to these tortuous channels could have safely navigated them on such a night, and I noticed that our engines did not once slacken speed throughout the voyage! Upon arriving at our hotel we found we were expected. A comfortable room was in readiness, and a carriage engaged for the following day and early breakfast arranged. All this had been done through telephone by our Tourists' Agency (the Bennetts) in Kristiania. And so have we found it everywhere along our route. All Norway, every post office and nearly every farm, and especially all hotels and inns, are connected by a telephone system owned and run by the Government. Anybody in Norway can call up and talk to anybody else. We have experienced the full benefit of this efficiency. Our entire trip has been arranged by telephone from Kristiania. We are always expected. A delicious meal, ordered from Kristiania, is always ready for us, and every landlord knows to the minute just when we will arrive, for news of us has been 'phoned ahead from the last station we have passed. This hamlet of Odda is an important point. Here converge the two great trade and tourist routes of Western Norway. The one, the Telemarken route, crossing the Haukeli Fjeld of the Western Alps to Dalen, and thence by the Telemarken lakes and locks to Skien, and by rail to Kristiania; the other diverging at Horre, passing down the valley of the Roldals Vand to Sand and thence to Staavanger by the sea, whence ships cross to Hamburg and Bremen and the North Sea ports, and to Hull and Harwich in Britain--favorite routes by which the Germans and British enter Norway. XI. The Buarbrae and Folgefonden Glaciers--Cataracts and Mountain Tarns--Odda to Horre. HORRE, HOTEL BREIFOND, _September 6, 1902_. To-day we have driven thirty miles from Odda, all of it up hill, except the last six miles. We started about nine o'clock with two horses, an easy carriage, and a driver whom I have had to resign to H's more promising Danish, for he is elderly and very weak in the foreign tongue. From the first we began to climb. The driver in Norway always walks up the hills, and the male traveler also walks, while the female traveler is expected to walk, if she be able. The Norse ponies take their time, although at the end of the day they have traveled many miles and are seemingly little tired. By the side of the smooth road rushed a river, the Aabo Elv, a mass of foam and spray which sometimes flew over us. A couple of miles farther on we came to a little dark-blue lake, the Sandven Vand, surrounded by lofty mountains, on the far side of which, almost jutting into it, pressed down the glacier of Buarbrae, descending from the snow-fields of the Folgefonden, a single expanse of ice and snow some forty miles long and ten to twenty wide, the greatest accumulation of snow and ice in western Norway. Over the precipices hemming in the _vand_ dashed scores of cataracts and cascades, often leaping two and three thousand feet in sudden plunge. H says nobody can ever show her a waterfall again, nor talk about English _Waters_ or Scottish _Lochs_. Passing the lake, we continued to ascend, the road entering a deep and sombre gorge, which suddenly widened out into a sunlit vale, the air being filled with mists and rainbows. We were nearing the Lotefos and the Skarsfos, two of Norway's most celebrated cataracts. Two rivers begin falling almost a mile apart, approaching as they fall, until they unite in a final leap of nearly fifteen hundred feet, a splendid spectacle, while right opposite to them tumbles the Espelandsfos, falling from similar heights. The spray and mist of the three commingle in a common cloud, and the highway passes through the eternal shower bath. As you look up you can see the entire mass of the waters from their first spring into space throughout their tumultuous, furious descent, until they eddy at your feet. Nature is so lavish here with her gigantic earth and water masses that one is perpetually awe-struck. One incident has occurred today, which I presume I may take as a high compliment to my native tongue. One of two young Frenchmen, whose carriage has traveled near our own, while walking ahead of his vehicle, found the ponies disposed to walk him down. Twice this happened. Then he waxed wroth. He suspected the tow-headed Norse driver of not being really asleep, but of trying to even up the ancient national grudge against his own dear France. He flew into a Gallic passion. He stopped short. He halted the team. He awoke the driver. He shouted in broken English, "You drive me down! You drive me down! You vone scoundrel! I say vone damn to you, I say vone damn, I say vone damn!"--shaking his fist in the astonished face of the sleepy-head. After that the Norseman kept awake and the French gentleman walked safely in the middle of the road. He evidently felt that to swear in French would be quite lost upon the son of the Vikings. English alone would do the job. [Illustration: THE ESPELANDS FOS.] [Illustration: COMMINGLING LOTE FOS AND SKARS FOS.] We climbed for many miles a deep glen called the Seljestad Juvet; and dined long past the hour of noon at a wayside inn, the Seljestad Hotel. The hotel was kept by women. "Our men," they said, "are gathering hay at the _Saeter_ (mountain farm) far up on the mountain highlands. They are gone for a month, and will not return until the crop is all got in." We paid our modest reckoning to a delicate, fair-haired, blue-eyed little woman, with quiet, graceful manners, well bred and courteous in bearing. She is the bookkeeper and business manager of the inn, "so long as the summer season lasts," she said. And then she sails to England in one of her father's ships, and there becomes a governess in an English family until another summer holiday shall come around. She had never been to America. "Some day," her skipper sire had "promised to take her to New York," when they would "run over for a day" to Minneapolis to see an aunt and cousins who were prospering, as do all Norwegians in America's opportunity-affording air. And "Americans, she always liked to meet," she said, "for unlike the English, they met you so frankly and did not condescend." She showed H all through the neat and tidy kitchen, while a big black nanny goat stood in the doorway and watched them both. All the afternoon we kept on climbing by the winding roadway, passing a black-watered, snow-fed tarn, the Gors Vand, and over the Gorssvingane pass above the snow line, where snow-fields stretched below us, around us, above us. From the summit of 3,392 feet above Odda and the sea, we had a superb view of all the vast Folgefond ice-field behind us, and before us two others, the Breifond and the Haukeli Fjeld, as vast, while 2,000 feet right down beneath us lay a deep blue lake, the Roldals Vand. The road now wound ten kilometers (six and one-third miles) down into the deep valley by many successive loops, twelve of them, one-half a mile to the loop--a feat of fine engineering, for this is a military road. We came down on a full trot all the way, even as Ole Mon came down the Laera Dal, until we reined in at a picturesque inn at the vale of Horre, overlooking the valley of Roldal and its _vand_. Now we are in a cozy hostelry, the Hotel Breifond, with a room looking out over the exquisite deep-blue lake, encompassed by green mountains and snow-covered summits. [Illustration: THE GORS VAND.] [Illustration: GLACIER OF BUARBRAE.] Our hotel is kept by two sweet-faced elderly women, serene and rosy-cheeked, dressed in black with immaculate white caps; one is the widow of a daring seaman who years ago went down with his ship in a winter gale. He was the captain and would not leave his post, though many of the crew deserted and were saved. The other is her spinster sister, whose betrothed lover likewise was lost at sea. In the summer time they here harbor many anglers, who come to fish the waters of the Roldals Vand and adjacent streams, which like most Norwegian lakes and rivers are rented out by the local provincial or district governments. The visitors who come here are chiefly English, the ladies tell us, and great is their distress and often violent their objurgation at the absence of any darkness when they may sleep. They cannot adjust themselves to the nightless days. They are inexpressibly shocked when they find themselves playing a game of golf or tennis at midnight, or forgetful of the flight of time in the excitement of a salmon chase, pausing to eat a midday snack at 2 A. M. Our beds are the softest we have yet slept in, for both mattress and coverlet are of eider down. The two ladies have been delighted to talk with H in the native tongue, and have told her of their nephews and cousins who are getting rich owning fine wheat farms in the Red River of the North. "Come back to us in June," they say. "Our wild flowers are then in bloom, and the hungry trout and salmon will then rise to any fly!" And H and I resolve that in June we surely will return. I saw one or two small pale butterflies to-day, and one gray moth at the snow edge, where we crossed the divide; the only ones I yet have seen. The birds, in this northland, of course, are all new to me; the crows are gray, with black wings, heads and tails; a magpie with white shoulders and white on head, and long, blue-black tail, is very tame; while a bird I take to be a jay is numerous, with black body, white shoulders and wing tips, and tail feathers edged with white. I have seen some gray swallows which are now gathering in flocks preparatory to going south, and several sparrows much like our field sparrows; and sandpipers and upland plover, very small. The gray crows have a coarse croak like a raven, "Krakers" they are called. In England we saw and heard our only lark the day we drove from Ventnor to Cowes, on the Isle of Wight, but I heard no other song birds in England, only once, near Oxford, when I caught a note like our song sparrow's, while crows and rooks swarmed everywhere from Southampton to Inverness. In Denmark there are many storks, and I there saw the nest of one, a gigantic mass of sticks and mud, built on the ridge of a barn, but I noticed few other birds, except the gulls and terns along the sea. At Vang, the other day, I saw, as I wrote you, the ptarmigan, and the capercailzie stuffed and mounted by a Norwegian living there; they are found on the mountains thereabouts; and a passenger, day before yesterday, on the Sogne-fjord-boat, had in his hand half a dozen ptarmigan, with their plumage already turning toward the winter's white. [Illustration: THE DESCENDING ROAD TO HORRE.] XII. Over the Lonely Haukeli Fjeld--Witches and Pixies, and Maidens Milking Goats. HOTEL HAUKELID, _September 17, 1902_. This morning we left Hotel Breifond about eight o'clock and although we started alone, three other carriages soon caught up with us, and we set off together, ours being the first in the line. As it is the etiquette of the drivers never to pass each other, we have kept this order all the day. Next behind us was a Dane with his Norwegian wife, from Bergen, to whom H talked in their own tongue. Next to them were the two young Frenchmen with whom I have managed to converse, and behind these rode a German and his _frau_, who were most icy until they learned we were not English but Americans, whereupon they grew friendly indeed. We have got well acquainted while walking together up the long mountain slopes. Yesterday we crossed the divide at a maximum elevation of 3,392 feet, and were above the snow line; to-day we again traversed the snow-fields at a yet higher altitude, passing under one snow mass by a tunnel, where H took a snap-shot of me standing in the snow, and reached the maximum altitude of 3,500 feet. [Illustration: A MILE STONE.] [Illustration: CATTLE ON THE HAUKELI FJELD.] From the emerald valley of the Roldals Vand we crept up a long ascent for twenty miles, and I walked the whole of it. We followed the foaming Vasdals Elv to its source, until all trees were below us, and only short grasses, mosses and lichens grew amid the masses of drear, black rock, and wide fields and patches of snow. This was the most desolate region I have ever yet beheld or set foot upon; no life of any sort; "_aucuns animaux, aucuns oiseaux; seulement les roches, le silence et le froid_," as one of the young Frenchmen exclaimed! There was not even a gnat or a butterfly. The primordial adamant rock presented as sharp and unworn edges to the blows of the icy torrents as when God first made it. The sun was warm and all the streams brim full, swollen from the melting snows. High on the height of land we found two silent lakes, the Ulivaa Vand and the Staa Vand. No life stirred about them, although our driver asserted they were "alive with fish." On these silent heights with their mosses and lichens, goats and reindeer thrive, and the latter range throughout the year. We dined near the summit at a neat log inn called Haukeli-Saeter upon a soup, boiled salmon, reindeer steak and vegetables,--all good. Here our Germans clamored for _sauerkraut_ and _bier_, and were much perturbed at receiving instead schooners of sweet milk and caraway-seeded tea-cakes. The inn is built in typical Norse style, with sharp and elaborately carved gables, and is kept open chiefly for the benefit of tourist travel. Our driver is a quaint and lackadaisical old Norsk, who speaks a drawling, ancient Roldal _patois_. The first day we could not do much with him, although H tried her best Danish. But to-day he is beginning to thaw out and has at last become really garrulous. He is full of peasant superstition and folk lore which he implicitly believes. These Haukeli Fjelde will never be inhabited by man, he says, for they are already the home of the giant and dangerous _Trolls_, mysterious and mighty spirits who are inimical to man. They dwell on the barest and bleakest and most desolate mountain tops, where they devour young kids and reindeer fawns and, occasionally, even dare to kidnap a child, and are always on the watch to steal a buxom lass. It is useless to chase or follow them, they are never to be caught, and while they may show themselves at times if they shall choose, yet they are invisible to most human eyes. He has never seen a _Troll_, he says, but once he knew an old man who had been scared by one which tried to catch him when a boy. There are also witches upon the Haukeli mountain tops, the old man says. He is sure he has heard them hurtling through the air, sometimes, when driving alone in the dusk of midsummer nights, crossing the desolate heights of the Haukeli Fjeld. I asked him if they still rode on broomsticks as they used to do in Germany, but he declared that they were more bloodthirsty than that, for they always carried ancient Viking broadswords, which they had picked up after some of the big fights which take place before breakfast in Valhalla every morning among the Vikings. Every summer some few witches are sure to be seen or at any rate heard, by some lonely peasant caught by fatigue on a twilight mountain top. There is one more beautiful than all the rest, he says. He calls her "Hulda," and says she is a great hand to seduce and beguile young men. She can fix herself up to appear very beautiful, and to look upon her is to fall fast in love with her. Then she taps a rock with a long staff she carries and lo! it opens and there within are splendid chambers, a fairy palace, with all the allurements of golden furnishings and sumptuous hangings and a table groaning under the weight of delicious things to eat. If, dazzled by this glimpse of paradise, the youth once enters and is taken in her arms and kissed by her, then it is all up with him. He never escapes, but after she has toyed with him to her heart's content in idle dalliance, and grown tired of him, then are his blackened bones cast forth upon some barren mountain top, perhaps to be found long years afterward by wandering goatherd or venturesome hunter. Between these _Trolls_ and the witches, H has acquired a most wholesome fear of the Haukeli Fjeld, and she vows she would never drive over it alone. [Illustration: THE DESOLATE HAUKELI FJELD.] Also, the old man has at first hinted at and then confided to us that the _Trolls_ and witches are not indeed the so serious menace they might seem, for they are really afraid of man and keep generally well out of his way; but that the real vexation of life comes from the little pixies and sprites, who love to live handily about your house, and who are always making trouble, either out of a spirit of pure mischief, or else by reason of jealousy or pique. They are "very touchy," he says, and you never know when or how you may offend them. But if you do, then woe betide you. They will steal the feed out of your horse's trough, or from his very nosebag right before your eyes, and so deft are they at their tricks that you can never catch them. You only discover that your horse gets thinner and thinner until he finally dies, while if they shall be pleased with what you have done or said you will find the horses always sleek and fat and able to do two days' work in one. I asked him how he stood in with the pixies just now, for I thought his team looked rather poor, but he said that was by reason of the hard summer's work, the pixies having done him no ill for several years. They also delight to milk the goats and cows upon the sly, he said, and will steal the cheese set out to dry, and often play such havoc with household supplies as to drive the peasants to despair. For this reason it is, that many good farmers set out little bowls of milk and bits of cheese in some silent meadow or mountain dell, where the pixies may eat quite undisturbed. As if to emphasize the old man's words, we just then passed the hut of a woman goatherd almost upon the summit of the vast lonely Haukeli Fjeld and there, set upon a little shelf, high up near the moss-grown roof, were a small milk-bowl and a bit of brown cheese, an offering to the elves and pixies of that place. The information I here give you may be wrong in minor detail, for we could not always perfectly interpret the quaint and ancient dialect in which the facts were told, but H says she could make out the most of what the old man said; for after all Danish and Norse speech are very nearly the same. We were now well over the height of land and were coasting down toward prospective supper. The barren waste of black and gray rocks, across which we had traveled, began to give place to greener slopes; the mosses had returned; the grass was peeping up again. Swinging around a well-graded curve, we dropped into a little valley. The evening sun was behind us, the slanting rays tipped peak and snowy crest with reddish gold, but the vale below was wrapped in soft shadow. On the left, stood a moss-roofed cabin, near where ran the road; on the right, across a boisterous brook, we saw a group of Norse maidens, clad in blue-and-red peasant costume, surrounded by a herd of goats. The goats were apparently in great excitement. Each young woman was following a goat and that particular goat walked with demure and expectant gait. One old gray goat moved with particularly stately step, while the lady by his side held in her hand a small wooden bucket. I presumed that, of course, she proposed to give that goat his evening meal. Imagine my astonishment when, before the goat really was aware, she collared it, swung her leg over it and holding it fast between her thighs, facing its rear, began energetically milking, not it, or him, but her! The goat had disappeared, only a tail and a head discovered themselves beyond the lady's skirts, and the evening shadows gathered about that maid and goat,--that goat held tight as though in iron vise. The day was too nearly done for my kodak to avail, so I have tried to sketch the episode, and so also has one of our French companions--and I send you the pictures. If the old poet had only seen the tableau of goat and maid he never could have written the following lines which long ago my memory clipped from the Yale _News_: "The milkmaid pensively milked the goat, When, sighing, she paused to mutter, I wish you brute, you'd turn to milk, And the animal turned to butt her!" We have driven some eighty kilometers to-day and have been in the fresh mountain air, open air, for eleven hours. H is growing plump, and her cheeks have caught the Norse red. The keen air makes our blood tingle in spite of the cold, for it is cold. On these summits ice forms the moment the sun is hid. We are in full winter clothing, and wrap our heavy sea rugs about us as we sit in the carriage. In a fortnight the snows will cover the passes and tourist travel will cease till another year. [Illustration: NORSE MAIDEN MILKING GOAT.] During the last two days we have frequently met men bearing on their backs and dragging on sledges piles of birch branches, the twig ends with the leaves yet on, and we have noticed here and there, entire birch-growing hillsides where the saplings had all been trimmed, the tender twigs sheared off and frequently the lopped-off branches stacked up in bundles stuck in a handy tree-crotch. This is the winter fodder for the goats, and the birch twig is as important for them as is the hay for the cattle. Just as in Switzerland, large flocks of goats are pastured throughout the summer upon the higher mountain slopes and ridges, and much cheese is manufactured from their milk. Of sheep we have seen few, although I understand a good many are raised for the local demand for wool. Like Scotland, Norway is hereabouts too cold and harsh for sheep to do their best. Nor have we noticed many fowls, turkeys or geese or ducks about the farmsteads,--only a few chickens here and there. This also is too cold a climate, with too rigorous and lengthy winters for poultry to be profitable. Nor have we had chicken set before us but the once when we supped with the inquisitive dame of Tonsaasen. Trout and reindeer steak as well as eggs we have often had, and once roast ptarmigan. Neither in Britain, nor in France, nor in Germany have I ever seen a wooden house; all buildings there are of stone or brick; but here the buildings throughout the countryside are all of wood; hewn logs most frequently, not uncommonly of sawed lumber, these latter quite often painted white and red, reminding one of tidy New England. The roofs are steep to shed the snows or, otherwise, quite flat and covered with a layer of birch bark and then tight-growing sods and mosses, which covering the snow may melt upon but through which it will never soak. To-day being Sunday, we have met many churchgoers upon the road, and have passed two churches where the Lutheran service was being held. During our drive we have constantly noted the number of these Lutheran churches, as well as the snug-built, substantial schoolhouses. Piety and intelligence deeply mark the lives of these Norse people. Just as in Denmark, so here also is the Lutheran church recognized and supported by the state, and its pastors constitute a formidable and influential body, guiding the thought of the Norwegian people. Apparently the schools here are as universal and as well attended as our own. Every Norwegian child, who is of school age, is compelled by law to go to school. Nowhere outside of my own country have I seen so many schoolhouses dotting the countryside. In England there are no common schools and no schoolhouses. In France the schoolhouses are hidden among the buildings of the clustered villages. In Switzerland, perhaps, the schoolhouse is as much in evidence as here, but in neither Germany nor Holland, although their universities lead the world, is there revealed the teaching of the common people as is done by the many schoolhouses of this northern land. Now we are housed in a commodious and quite modern inn, and have had a delicious trout supper, all our four carriage-loads of travelers sitting at one long table, where H and I have been the stars--for we only and alone can talk equally to the Dane and his Norwegian wife, to the young Frenchmen, and to the German pair; while through us only can they exchange ideas, for we alone can talk to each in his own native tongue. "Ah! these Americans!" "You talk all the languages!" "How wide you see!" "While we, we do not see beyond the boundaries of France." "We speak too seldom a foreign tongue." "You are bigger-minded than are we!" So exclaimed one of our French friends. XIII. Descending from the Fjelde--The Telemarken Fjords--The Arctic Twilight. DALEN, _September 8, 1902, 7 P. M._ Our series of great rides on land and water is at an end. For eight days we have been inhaling the crisp, buoyant, ozone-laden atmosphere, viewing the majestic scenery, watching the sturdy, strong-faced men and women, the rosy, yellow-haired children; and now it is over. H and I agree that in our lives we will never again experience a more delightful outing--our sure-enough honeymoon. This morning we left the Hotel Haukelid with only sixty kilometers for the day, and most of it down hill; since noon yesterday we have been coming down. Just a little snow was now to be seen far away upon distant summits, while forests of birches, interspersed with aspens, covered the nearer slopes. Our road led us along the borders of several exquisite lakes, the little Voxli Vand and then the greater Grungadals Vand, about a mile wide and ten or twelve miles long; frowning precipices and cloud-wrapped heights encircled us on every hand, their rocks now largely greened over with mosses, and birches--only a few firs--growing wherever trees might thrust their roots. Then we drove through a narrow clove, along a frothing torrent, and came to another _vand_ equally shut in, but not so long nor so wide,--a greener, warmer valley, Boertedals Vand in the Boerte Dal. Here we dined at Hotel Boerte, rested till 3 P. M., and then got away for one of the finest thirty kilometers of the trip. If we only had had Ole Mon to drive us, how perfect would have been the day! I imagined we had already come down enough to be at the bottom, but we were yet to descend a mighty canyon with the road blasted out of the precipice's side, and walled in with rock posts and iron defenders, much like the Laera Dal, while far beneath us wound a silver thread, the almost imperceptible roar of whose waters floated up a tremulous murmur. We came down at a rattling trot, every moment unfolding new vistas of vale and precipice and mountain. After two hours of this fearful, yet joyous, coasting we crossed a wide-spanning iron bridge and swept out into the charming vale of Dalen, at the head of the Bandaks Vand, where now we are. The mountains are here clothed in heavy forests of birch and much deciduous timber, only a little of the fir; I can scarcely realize that yesterday we were up amongst the mosses, the lichens and the snows. As we descended we kept taking off our wraps; our rugs were folded up; H took off her golf cape, then her jacket; she wanted to ride with bared head, so soft and warm had grown the air. [Illustration: A NORSE CABIN.] [Illustration: OUR HOSTESSES, HAUKELI SAETER.] KRISTIANIA, NORWAY, _September 10, 1902_. Yesterday, we left Dalen at the head of navigation on the Bandaks Vand, boarded a taut little steamboat about 150 feet long, built for deep water, and traveled sixty-five kilometers through a succession of _vands_ and _fjords_--the Telemarken Fjords--canals and locks--twenty locks in all--to Skien (called "Sheen"), where we took the railway for Kristiania, arriving at midnight. The lakes were long, narrow and mostly shut in by heavily-timbered mountains, which as always, lifted up to enormous heights, green vales and valleys opening in between, where were picturesque hamlets and neat, thrifty-looking farmsteads. Nothing here impresses me more than the great patience and tireless energy of the "Norsks," as they call themselves. The magnificent roads, superior to those of England, equal, almost equal to those of France; the canals, blasted for miles through solid granite; the railways, which are as good as our own; the little boats so perfectly appointed. The Norwegians impress you as being born seamen; they know how to build and how to sail a boat, and you feel it. Standing upon the forward deck, watching the changing panorama of vale and lake and mountain, I became so absorbed in the enchanting pictures that it was some moments before I noticed a slit-eyed, high-cheek-boned, black-straight-haired, short, pudgy youth or man--hard to tell which--a sure-enough Lap if ever there was one, who was making vain efforts to hold conversation with me. He spoke slowly and with some hesitation in perfect Cockney English. I at once gave him my ear, and asked him where he had learned to speak so well. "Hi ave been a cook in Lonnon," he said. "Hi ave been hassistant cook in a Hinglish otel, you know. Hi am just now leaving the otel at Dalen, where Hi ave been hassistant cook this summer, you know." Whereupon he told me of his experiences in London. How he landed there from a Norwegian ship, friendless and unknown, and made his way by his aptitude in wiping dishes! And some day he "oped" to go to "Hamerica" and there own a kitchen all for himself. "Ow strange it must be for an Hamerican to see real mountains," he exclaimed, and I discovered that the only America he knew about was the prairie land of the flat west. Upon my asking whether he was not a Laplander, he resented the suggestion with great vehemence, declaring himself to be a Viking pure, and he begged me to let him know if I should learn of any good openings for dish-wipers in America, especially if it would lead to the dignity of cook. His manner was frank and simple, wholly free from self-consciousness, except as he took great pride in being able to speak the English tongue. In Norway there are no classes and all men stand equal before the law. It is as respectable there to work as it is in America, and similarly men meet you as your natural equals. There is none of that offensive subserviency which so jars upon one in most of the monarchy and aristocracy bestridden lands. The volume of water which flows from these lakes and through these deep canals is immense and we have sometimes swept along the narrower channels at really an exciting pace. We had just passed through the beautiful Flaa Vand and descended the deep full-flowing river, the Eids Elv, with its many locks, to the greater Nordsjoe Vand, when we drew up beside a little pier. There were many people upon it. Evidently, there was here gathered an unusual crowd, and down the hillside leading toward us came yet others. The whole community had turned out. Two tall, rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed, fair-haired young men were the center of the throng; about them the others pressed. They were neatly dressed, fine-looking fellows, and the men and women were kissing them good-bye. They were going to America, perhaps never to return. The mother, a gentle-faced, white-haired old lady, wept on the necks of each of them, and the white-haired father kissed them upon either cheek, and then everybody rushed in to shake their hands. They were going to America where so many of Norway's most ambitious and able sons had gone before. The whole countryside would watch their career and wait for news of their success! Two iron-bound chests were dragged on to the boat. The young men stepped alertly aboard, their faces flushed with the excitement of the farewells and the anticipations of the land across the sea. As I watched them and their family and friends waving their adieus I could not but ponder upon this instinct of the old-world races, my own among the rest, to go out and seize life's prizes even across the widest waters. The leave-taking I was now beholding must be not unlike that of the men and women who in the days of Pilgrim and Puritan and Cavalier left little England to found a community where freedom and opportunity are still the loadstones which attract the energy and youth of all the world. [Illustration: HAUKELI SAETER.] [Illustration: A GOAT HERD'S SAETER, HAUKELI FJELD.] In traveling through Norway, I have been greatly surprised to see so many newly-built farmhouses, barns and farm buildings, new fences and modern gates. Everywhere the old and tumbled-down is being replaced by the substantial and modern. I have seen nothing like this anywhere in Europe; nowhere so general a replacing of the old with the new. Many of the new farmhouses are not merely substantial, but are architecturally attractive. There must be abundant money coming from somewhere to pay the cost of this universal rebuilding. I have asked about it more than once and every time I receive the same reply. "The sons have gone to America, they are in Chicago, in Minnesota, in Dakota. They have grown rich. They are sending back the money. They want the old places made as trim and spick as though they were in America." "Put everything in good repair," they say, "never mind the cost." And then, every few years they return with the American grandchildren to see the beloved old folks. More and more of these American-Norwegians are coming every year to holiday in the fatherland. Many now regularly sojourn throughout the summer. A few, a very few, remain to end their days on the loved home-soil. I also learn that it is to supply the demand of this increasing travel from America to Norway that the Scandinavian-American line have recently put on the large ocean steamers now sailing direct from New York to Kristiansand, with accommodations equal to anything which has hitherto entered the ports of Germany and England and France. The other day at Loeken, we were waited on at table by a fine-looking young woman who spoke perfect United States. She had an air about her of comfortable independence. The house, the farm buildings, everything about the place was new and neat. While we were talking with her, she told us that she had a brother and an uncle in the far west, one at Spokane, who was rich. She was living with him when word came that the old father had passed away. She was needed at home to care for the mother and the younger children, so she returned; and the brother sent back the money to have the old place put in perfect repair. This intimate connection between our thriving west and Norwegian home life, largely explains, I think, that independent American spirit which now so prominently marks Norway, and the growth and assertion of which is driving her by natural momentum away from the hectoring ties of franchise-constricted, aristocratic Sweden, pushing her toward her inevitable destiny--to become a Republic. [Illustration: DRYING OUT THE OATS.] [Illustration: TENDING THE HERDS.] The immigration from Norway to the United States has taken from her nearly one-half the population, a much larger percentage than has yet come forth from Sweden. Although even there, so great is now the exodus, that the Swedish Ministry is alarmed; there is also uneasiness in Norway. Recently, laws have been enacted prohibiting the steamship agents from spreading among the people the glowing accounts of America, by means of which so many steerage tickets are sold, but all the same, the propaganda is persistently carried on. At Skogstad, the other day, I fell in with an alert-looking, quiet-mannered man, who, after he learned I was an American, confided to me that he himself was from Minnesota. He had been born in Norway, but went to America when a boy. He was now back in Norway representing large farming interests in the Northwest, and his business was to recruit farm hands for the western wheat fields. He said he had penetrated during the past three years into every nook and cranny of Norway, everywhere finding out what vigorous and sturdy young men would like to go to America, and then arranging with them to pay their passage, and supply sufficient funds to enable them to pass the immigration inspectors, and providing also their railroad transportation to the west. "They are a splendid and hard working lot of men," he said. "We want all of them we can get. And most of them do well when they reach America; many of them become rich men." He was traveling in the disguise of an itinerant doctor selling herbs and roots. Crossing the mountain this side of Boerte, where the road wound up through the fir forest to avoid an immense cliff which jutted into the lake, I stopped and dug up a little seedling fir, surely a real Norway spruce. I took it up with care and have now brought it to Kristiania and to-day am sending it to America by mail wrapped in damp mosses, and trust that it will reach Kanawha with life enough to live and thrive in its West Virginia home. Along the roadside, not far from where I found the seedling, were lying a fine pair of _skjis_, just as the wearer laid them aside, only to be worn when winter shall return. The Norwegian does not need to lock his door! Upon the mossy, marshy, moorland summits and divides which we have traversed, I have noticed widespread beds of peat. In some places these are extensively worked, large areas being uncovered and the squares of peat piled up to dry. The existence of this fuel has proved a godsend to Norway, for the forests are often distant and year by year the woodlands diminish. Although there are some inferior coal beds in southern Sweden, there are none in Norway, and for fuel her peat beds and her forests are her sole domestic supply. And yet, despite this lack of fuel, it seems to me that Norway is dowered with enormous stores of power. She possesses water power without stint. King Winter surely cannot freeze up all the streams. Will not the day yet come when the harnessed water powers of Norway may run the turbines which will supply the world? [Illustration: DALEN ON THE BANDAKS VAND.] It is yet early September; the belated summer of this far northern land, to our strange eyes, is just begun. The meadows are green; the fields of grain are scarcely yellowed; in the markets of Kristiania we see daily exposed for sale fresh-ripened strawberries; in our Virginian latitude it would be the season of the month of May. Yet we see big stacks of firewood piled near each farmhouse door; we see the cabin newly banked with earth against the frost; at blacksmith's shop we see men hammering on well-used sled; alongside the road, awaiting the winter's need, lies an upturned snowplow newly ironed; everywhere men are making ready for the cold. In a fortnight the highway across the Haukeli Fjeld will be blocked with new-fallen snow. In a month the jingling bells of sleighs and sledges will sound along the now verdant valley of the Baegna Elv. A year ago, when traveling in Mexico, in southern Michoacan, the tropical precipitancy of the night was sure to take me unawares. I was never quite prepared for the sharp transition from day to night. The hot red sun rested a moment above the towering Cordillera, then it dipped behind, and the cold white stars instantly shone forth. Here in Norway my senses are equally surprised. It is already September and yet "early candle light," means near ten o'clock. The day dies slowly. The contours of vale and mountain almost imperceptibly fade upon the eye. A violet blueness softens form and hue. Little by little the violet changes into gray, and then the grayness pervades the air as though the shadow of some phantom raven's wing overspread the world. At nine o'clock, at half past nine, at ten o'clock, the goats and cattle are awake--we have made long day-drives by reason of the limits to our time--I wonder if they ever sleep. The sparrows and gray-coated crows fly soberly across our way; a magpie softly flutters to the road. I hear no bird-songs, only faint twitters, no chirping crickets, no piping frogs and newts, none of the evening sounds of my Virginian countryside. A hush creeps over _dal_ and _fjeld_ and _fjord_, even as do the mysterious violet and gray shadows. We ourselves are drowsed. I do not speak to H nor she to me. To the ponies Ole Mon has ceased to talk. The world is stilled. We draw long breaths, inhale the delicious air, lean back against the cushions of our seat, and daydream amidst this hush of man and thing. The old Norse driver of the Roldal cautions H to watch. "This is the hour," he says, "when the elves and pixies stir abroad. Count the fifth meadow from where you stand and there they are always sure to be." Thus have we driven through the twilight, the mysterious, lingering twilight of this far and almost Arctic North. This is the last letter you will receive from Norway and I am sure that you will agree with me, after reading what I have sent you, that nowhere in all the world may one have a more delightful outing. [Illustration: NORSE WOMEN RAKING HAY.] As to expenses, I figure it up that the total cost for both of us is a little less than five dollars per day, which includes our carriage, our driver, our eating, our sleeping and the liberal fees which, like good Americans, we have everywhere bestowed. Here in Norway the _oere_ (two and one-half cents) is as big as the quarter, and the _kroner_ (twenty-seven cents) as big as the dollar. How long the _oere_ will loom so large I dare not say, for the American invasion is begun, and I fear the _kroner_ will soon be no bigger than the dime. XIV. Kristiania to Stockholm--A Wedding Party--Differing Norsk and Swede. STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN, _September 12, 1902_. We came over here night before last from Kristiania, by the night train; by _sovevogn_ (sleep-wagon), the first I have tried in Europe. We traveled first-class and had a compartment to ourselves. About 9 P. M. a porter came in at a way-station, put all our bags out in the corridor, pulled out the round cushions at the back of the seats and put them into the overhead racks; he then pulled out a linen cover with which he overlaid the long seat, and unholed small, wee pillows from a cavity at the end of each seat; the beds were made! Later, another man informed me that we could have sheets at one _kroner_ (twenty-seven cents) each; but these we declined. Fortunately, we had with us our heavy sea rugs. I put H into my long gray overcoat, did her up in the blanket and rug, and tucked her big golf cape over her. Then I put on my blanket smoking jacket, my slippers and cap, rolled up in a blanket and rug, and so we slept comfortably on our narrow seat-beds. There was no heat in the car, and only one toilet room for both sexes! The night was cold and it was with difficulty we managed to keep warm. Such is the modern European method of running a sleeping car. [Illustration: STOCKHOLM.] The train we traveled in was crowded. In our car every compartment was filled. There were two groups of travelers who interested us. The first was a party of Americans, a petite elderly woman, keen, lively, very much mistress of herself, evidently accustomed to command, and with her two pretty black-eyed American girls, "pert," "sassy," and used to receiving the homage of man! In their company were half a dozen tall, blond-bearded, blue-eyed Viking youths, entirely willing to be commanded and to render homage. They were all in uniform, a dark blue cloth with red facings and a very little gold braid. The blue eyes shot tender glances, we thought, the black ones defending against Cupid's darts with great vivacity. Each young man presented an enormous bouquet to the elderly woman, and one gave her a basket of fruit--the girls got nothing, only the blue-eye-flashes. And how eagerly the young men promised to call on the elderly woman, if ever they should be so fortunate as to visit New York! And all the while the two American belles laughed and smiled and smote yet deeper through the dark blue uniforms. The departing train almost carried away with us one fair-haired giant. All the military caps came off with sweeping bows, while two handkerchiefs fluttered from the windows. The other group took us by storm and also captured the train. Before we knew it, there was a surging crowd outside the car and the roar of many Viking throats. And then into the compartment next to ours rushed a pack of ladies, one of them all in white, with a sweet face half hid in a pink satin bonnet. A little man with waxed moustache, curly black hair, wearing a stovepipe hat, and clad in evening dress, followed close behind. The women admitted him, as though by right, but no other man was let inside. It was a wedding party. A wedding in high life. He was a Professor at Upsala. She was one of Kristiania's fairest daughters. They had been married in the Fru Kirke in the afternoon. She had had a big reception at her home. The friends and guests were now come down to the train to see them off. She was large and fair and rosy, yet in her early twenties. He was small and weazen, shriveled and swarthy. They called him "Herr Doctor," evidently recognizing his eminent standing. Flowers and rice and a white satin slipper were thrown into the window. There was tremendous hugging and kissing of the bride by all the women,--I could not see that here the men had any show,--and pandemonium still prevailed upon the station platform when the train pulled out. Later in the night I was awakened by shouts and then most glorious singing. I sat up with a start, the melody pulsing through my brain. The Student Corps from the University of Upsala had come down to the junction where the newly-wedded pair would change cars, to welcome their Professor and his bride. They were singing a mighty welcome. And it was such full-toned, full-voiced, perfect and practiced singing by the hundreds of young men who seemed to be on hand! I fell asleep as our train went on, the splendid harmony of the well-trained voices filling me with dreams of realms not far away from Paradise. Next morning I was about dressed, and H was adjusting her skirt, when the doors, which I thought securely locked, flew open and a burly red-faced uniformed official thrust himself in. He came to take away the pillow cases! He did not seem to think he in any way intruded; privacy is not much respected this side the sea. Our toilets were scarcely made when the train came to a stop in the station at Stockholm. Indeed H was not yet quite ready, when another official in uniform again burst open the door and began grabbing our effects. To his astonishment he was forthwith ejected and the door shut in his face. When we were finally dressed I went out and found him waiting for us on the station platform. He was a licensed porter. We were first obliged to fetch all our belongings to the Custom House, where important-looking officials, in gray uniforms trimmed with red, asked perfunctory questions and hurriedly passed us through--an exercise of Swedish authority which seemed quite unnecessary since we came direct from Norway under the same King. This done, our porter then gathered up our bags and rugs, put them into a little two-wheeled push cart and started out across the square. Here again I came near meeting the fate of the tenderfoot. We did not know the location of the Hotel Continental; I stepped up to a cabby and told him we wanted to be taken to that hotel. A man in uniform gave me a brass check with "No. 5" marked on it, pointing to a cab standing in a long row which also bore a No. 5. I handed the brass check to No. 5 cabby, and was putting in my bag when our porter pointed to the farther side of the square. There was our hostelry, not three hundred feet away! I took out my bag from the carriage, in spite of protest, and walked to the hotel. The driver claimed a fare of half a _kroner_ and raised a mighty clamor, but I vowed I would not give him an _oere_. Thus you must have your eyes about you when you come to a city you do not know. The Continental is a fine hotel. The rooms are supplied with electric lights and with telephones (good ones, not the imperfect London system). We have a large front room, facing the Vasa Gatan, with dressing room and ante-room, handsomely furnished, and as clean as anything can be. We are fain to be content with the fourth story, although we asked for the tenth, and a new modern elevator takes us up and also down; all this costs only six _kroner_ a day ($1.62) for the two of us. Our breakfasts are served in our room, two eggs each, a pot of coffee, boiled milk and cream, a basket of rolls, fresh radishes, cold tongue, cold veal, smoked goose breast, anchovies, cold smoked salmon, cheese, each in a neat little dish by itself, and a big round flat slab of slightly salted butter; all for one and a half _kroner_ each, three _kroner_ for us two (eighty-one cents). You receive much for your money here in Scandinavia. [Illustration: KING'S PALACE, STOCKHOLM.] The spirit of Stockholm, although intensely Scandinavian, is yet widely different from that of either Copenhagen or Kristiania. It is a difference, not so much to the eye, as to the feeling. The city presents the same substantial and solid types of buildings, there are the same high walls of stone and dark red brick, and sharp-gabled roofs covered with heavy tiles, the same square towers, the same spindly leanness to the steepled churches, and in the older sections the narrow streets are paved from wall to wall with the same big squares of granite. The people are mostly blue-eyed and fair-haired like their kindred Danes and Norsks. But here the likeness ends and you feel it the instant you pass out upon the street. I missed at once that certain self-containment, based upon unostentatious self-respect, which marks the Norsk, where no man knows a lord but God, and manhood suffrage everywhere prevails. I missed that composure of manner and self-assurance to the step, which lets men look you calmly in the eye without offense, that spirit, which takes for granted the perfect equality of man and man. I instantly felt myself among men of another temper. The alert, frank, self-respecting manner of the Norsk is lacking in the Swede. I found myself again among a "lower class," who have no votes, and treat you with sullen servility, and also among men with the swashbuckling manners of military caste. Stockholm is full of young officers in natty uniforms, who strut along the streets aping the braggart insolence one meets among the soldier-bestridden Germans. The peasant and townsman must also here step aside to let these Yunker soldiery pass on. Militarism hangs heavy over Stockholm, where the scions of an impecunious aristocracy think to find in dashing uniform and truculent German manner a restoration of the noble military traditions of the past. The Norwegian looks out upon the Twentieth Century and finds his inspiration in the example of free America and the universal equality of man. The Swede looks ever backward to the glorious days of Gustavus Vasa, Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII, and sighs for a return of the good old times when the half of Europe trembled before Sweden's military might. The lofty mountains and profound valleys, the savage mystery of fathomless _fjords_, the wondrous immensity of the unknown and illimitable sea, which fired the brain and pricked the energy of the Norseman, and made him poet, pirate, explorer and conqueror through a dozen successive centuries, were all unknown to the practical-minded Swede. His monotonous forests, his sandy levels and shallow gulfs, his pond-like and insignificant Baltic Sea, stirred no fibre of his imagination; nor when he crossed those narrow waters and set foot upon the flat and barren shores of Germanic and Slavic Europe, was there anything in their sombre forests and limitless plains and desolate marshes to arouse within him the fire of his soul. War with the flaxen-haired savages, who swarmed upon these lands like myriad wolves, was his only exercise. He sailed up the Gulf of Bothnia till he entered the Arctic wastes where dwelt the Laps; he followed the shores of the Gulf of Finland, and explored the river Neva and Lake Ladoga and connecting streams, and even crossed to the waters of the mighty Volga, and entered Asia by the Caspian Sea; he ascended the lesser Russian rivers, and pitched fortified camps along their banks, founding Revel and Riga and Novogorod, whence the Swedish Ruriks gave to the Muskovites their earliest Czars. He ruled Finland and Esthonia and Livonia and Courland, and even begat Sigismund, the Polish King. For centuries he warred with and ruled these Slavic tribes until at last, driven back to his narrow peninsula, the mainland knew him only as defeated and expelled. A practical, unimaginative fighting man was the Swede. He loved war for war's own sake, and when he had no longer reason to war for conquest or defense, he clung to pike and sword as permanent substitute for plow and seine, and hired himself to bickering Slav and German and grew famous as a "Mercenary," who spilled his blood for pay and the plunder of his master's foes. Thus have the cousin peoples swung wide apart. The one, free and open-minded; the other, still dazed by the faded glories of a long dead past, turns ever a wistful eye toward the military tyrannies of Czar and Kaiser, and finds in the inequalities of landed noble and landless yokel, in official and military caste and enthralled peasantry, the realization of his Fifteenth Century ideal. [Illustration: A SWEDISH CHURCH.] [Illustration: ANCIENT SWEDISH FORTRESS.] Thus, as I have wended my way along the Vasa and Freds Gatans and neighboring streets, toward the fine Gustaf Adolf Torg, the chief public square, mixing among the jostling crowds, have I felt keenly the variant atmospheres of these Norse and Swedish lands, differences which finding their roots in the historical development of the kindred peoples make their present union beneath a single flag and King both artificial and constrained. While on the surface and to the feeling there is apparently wide divergence in political sentiment between the Norwegian and Swedish peoples, yet there is in reality a closer and closer approachment between them. The democratic notions prevailing in Norway already stir the pulse of the Swedish peasantry and working classes--the classes which in Sweden have no votes. Already has the demand for universal suffrage been raised in Sweden, and sentiment inimical to aristocracy, yunkerdom and privilege, grows continually more aggressive. An intelligent and aristocratic Swede with whom I have discussed this question to-day, admits this rising tide of democracy, and admits, also, though ruefully, that not until universal suffrage shall become established in Sweden will it be possible to come to that understanding with the Norwegian people on which may be founded a lasting and united Scandinavian State. Thus in Sweden itself, I hear uttered sentiments very nearly akin to those which caught my ear when in Copenhagen: the possibility, nay, probability, of a common Scandinavian Union, when the peoples of Denmark and Norway and Sweden shall federate, and the obsolete system of kingship and privilege shall be set aside. [Illustration: A BAND OF SWEDISH HORSES.] XV. Stockholm the Venice of the North--Life and Color of the Swedish Capital--Manners of the People and their King. STOCKHOLM, _September 13, 1902_. While wandering about the city I have not taken a guide. A guide or a courier is to me always a very last resort, but I have followed the movement of the crowd, and enjoyed the being lost in it, immersed in it, becoming one with it, while yet so separate. I could not read the signs, nor understand the speech. I could only see. My vision became my one guiding sense. My eyes became abnormally alert. Color and form and action,--I caught them all. And what I saw, my mind held fast. Thus I wandered on through many quaint and ancient _Gatans_ (streets) past _Plats_ and _Torgs_ (open squares), and over _Bros_ (bridges), and yet I felt secure and well assured that, returning, I should find my way safely back. I knew each corner of a street, each square, each unusual sign, each building of strange design, even as at home I have often wandered alone among the wild mountains and forests with nothing for a guide but my eyes, the sun, and my knowledge of moss and tree. Thus has my early training always served me well in foreign lands and cities, where speech was strange, and I myself unknowing and unknown. [Illustration: THE SHORE OF LAKE MAELAREN, STOCKHOLM.] My first quest was a bookstore, a map, and an English or French or German-worded guide book, which would tell me of what I saw. By great good luck, I happened immediately upon the object of my search. I saw a window holding maps. I entered a small shop, and found it the "Bureau" of the "National Tourists' Union," with German spoken perfectly. This bureau is maintained by the enterprising citizens of Stockholm, and for most moderate cost gives information to tourists, and publishes a series of fine maps, showing every road and lake and mountain and town and inn in Sweden. I bought a set of the maps and one in particular of the city. Thus fortified I was now perfectly equipped. Our few days' sojourn in Stockholm has taught me to like the Swede, although he is quite lacking in the hearty frankness of the Norsk. Stockholm has always been a spot where men have congregated, and has been a city known as such these last eight centuries, ever since Birger Jarl made it the seat of his pirate power. It holds the passage between the lakes Maelaren, which stretch far inland and now form the eastern section of the great Gotta system of canals reaching across Sweden to the Kattegat and Atlantic Ocean, and the deeply indented waters of the Baltic Sea, thus being a natural place of rendezvous and commerce; it was a place easy of access before men had roads and mostly traveled by boats. Here the Kings of Sweden have always set their capital, and the history of Stockholm is the history of the Swede himself. In past ages, disorders and massacres and open murders have drenched with blood her streets and her great public squares, and Stockholm's dungeons have their tales of horror and wickedness to tell. She was cruel and turbulent when Sweden herself was harsh and savage, she is now equally serene and contented under the liberal rule of enlightened King Oscar II, and is become one of the best-ordered and most beautiful cities of the world. By reason of the many islands within her limits, she is called the "Venice of the North," and by reason of her cleanliness, the substantial character of her modern buildings, and the efficiency of her municipal government she is termed the "Edinburgh of the Baltic." Stockholm is more scientifically advanced, and more modernly wide-awake than are the German and English cities of to-day. She has a fine and bountiful water supply, an elaborate and efficient telephone system, and is probably more thoroughly and effectively illuminated by electricity than any city in Europe. The older quarters of the city are well paved and scrupulously clean; in the newer sections are blocks of stately buildings of modern design, and wide boulevards and avenues paved with asphalt and squares of stone. Her public buildings, her numerous _Plats_ and _Torgs_ and lovely parks are all exquisitely kept. We spent one delightful morning crossing the wide stone bridge of Norrbro, and viewing the Royal Palace, the State Apartments, and Royal Library, and the fine old church of Riddarsholm, which is the Westminster Abbey of Sweden, her Pantheon, where lie entombed the bones of Gustavus Adolphus and the ashes of Charles XII, and members of the House of Vasa, along with other illustrious Swedes. The old church is of red brick, topped by a curious wrought-iron steeple, and is the shrine to which come all patriotic Swedes, there to contemplate the departed glories of their fatherland. [Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL OF RIDDARSHOLM.] Of an afternoon, we visited the famous Djurgaard (deer park) and then went on to the park called Skansen, where are gathered a most interesting collection illustrative of the ancient Swedish way of living, as well as examples of the ancient industries, exemplified by charming lively peasant girls clad in their divers Provincial costumes. We then also climbed the tower set upon the hill, whence spread out before us a superb vista of the city and its many islands and surrounding waters, and wide-sweeping woods and forests. We also crossed among the islands upon dapper electric launches which ferry between, and then came back to dine in a fashionable restaurant under the Grand Hotel near the quay, where were small tables, and where sat men in dress coats and handsome women in evening dress--generally high-necked--and we were given fresh strawberries--this September 13th--and savory mutton chops and fresh-grown peas, and fruits and ices. The streets at all hours of the day and evening were astir and gay. The many officers in blue and gray uniforms, patterned after the German styles, the Dalecarlian girls in their picturesque bright barred aprons and braided hair, carrying packages and bundles--the messenger boys of the North--the blue-eyed and yellow-haired men and women neatly and soberly clad, and the absence of all beggars--we did not come across a single one,--the multitude of boats, great and small, constantly moving rapidly up and down and across the many lanes of water, all these gave animation to the city. The streets of Stockholm are filled with women, more like the German towns, while, just as there, scores of sturdy men stand idly around decked out in soldier's uniform. Rosy-cheeked young women wait upon you in the restaurants; women armed with big brooms sweep at the crossings; women come in from the country driving carts loaded with produce of the farm; and women also largely "man" the small boats that ply along the waters between the islands. Woman is here as greatly in evidence as she is in Boston, but of a huskier, heartier type. Visiting the markets, I found a great profusion of strawberries, whortleberries, blueberries and others I did not know, and withal, most of the vegetables my Kanawha garden would yield in June. These fruits of tree and soil are brought into the city by chunky native horses hitched to little two-wheeled carts, which horses, when they reach their destination, are securely halted by a strap or line passed around their two fore fetlocks, tying the feet tight together, a treatment an American horse would scarcely endure. [Illustration: NORRBRO, STOCKHOLM.] Another day H and I wandered across the Norrbro and beyond the Palace and down near the Storkyrko Brink, and discovered a curious little coffeehouse, tucked away up a flight of creaking stairs, in an ancient building which seemed to be a counting-house below and offices above. Here were set against the walls little mahogany tables holding three and four, where plates were laid without a cloth, and ale and beer were served in tall pewter mugs. We called for the foaming brown brew and asked for _roed spoette_, our old Danish joy, and lunched delightfully. The room was filled with big, burly, red-cheeked men, merchants and sea captains, H thought, from what bits of conversation she could pick up. A most substantial company they were, who evidently came here to strike weighty bargains as well as to eat and drink and smoke. We were doubtless lunching in a well-known and most ancient rendezvous, much like the historic grill room I discovered in London, called "Toms," where Dickens' and Mr. Pickwick's chairs are shown to the visitor, and the waiter will inform you on just what sort of kidney broil and roasted sausage each made his daily meal. Stockholm divides with Copenhagen the honors of being the metropolis of the Scandinavian world, boldly asserting her superiority over Kristiania, for she is the larger city. She is easily first in Sweden in all save scholarship and learning--in that, Upsala, the Cornell and Harvard of the North, holds unrivaled lead. The fine stores and shops, along such streets as the Dronning Gatan and Regerings Gatan and adjacent thoroughfares, H declares quite equal to those of Copenhagen; while in an ancient and narrow alleyway she discovered a perfect mint of embroideries and linens, articles of feminine apparel which rejoice her heart. On our last evening we attended the Royal Opera, occupying a box quite to ourselves, where we heard good singing and well-rendered music by the Royal Band, beheld a fashionably-dressed and intelligent-looking audience, and were stared at by old King Oscar who sat rigid in his box, and glared at us with a mighty black opera-glass until he had studied each feature of the stranger guests, and by his persistence thereby directed upon us the curiosity of every other pair of opera glasses in the house. The example of the King was quite in accordance with Continental custom, where the glare of opera-glasses is astonishingly bold. Nor does the impudent stare stop at that, but in Stockholm, just as in Paris and Berlin, between the acts very many of the men rise up, put on their hats, turn their backs to the stage, and deliberately focus their glasses upon the faces of every attractive woman in the theater, no matter how near she may be, nor how annoying this treatment may appear; and often two or three young men will then compare notes, and unite in a common stare, bold and insolent. To avoid this unpleasant ordeal, ladies very generally rise from their seats, leave the theater and promenade in the foyers until the curtain rises and the impudent glasses are put down. We have secured tickets and berths for the voyage to St. Petersburg across the Baltic Sea and Gulf of Finland. We sail to-night, and are to arrive on Tuesday morning, a voyage of three nights and two days, a distance of six hundred miles. We have now visited the three capitals of Scandinavia, Copenhagen, Kristiania and Stockholm, and have spent a month among these kindred peoples. While I had learned in America to esteem the vigor, the intelligence and the worth of our Scandinavian immigration, no finer race contributing to the citizenship of the Republic, yet it has been only when I have met the Dane and Norsk and Swede upon their native soil, and beheld their noble cities, so alert and clean and modern, and traversed their hills and valleys, and climbed their mountain heights and floated upon their _fjords_, that I have learned fitly to admire and appreciate the grandeur and greatness of Scandinavia. XVI. How We Entered Russia--The Passport System--Difficult to Get Into Russia and More Difficult to Get Out. ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA, _September 16, 1902_. It is not easy to get into Russia; it is yet more difficult to get out. Before leaving the United States, I had taken due precautions and secured a passport from the State Department, signed by Secretary Hay, with the Great Seal of the United States upon it. In that passport I was described. I had also provided myself with a special letter from the State Department, in which all consuls and officials of the United States in foreign lands had been bidden to pay particular heed to my welfare, for I was vouched for as a worthy and respected citizen of the Republic. I presumed that, armed with these credentials, I should find all doors and gateways open to my passage. I assumed that the autocracy of the Russian Empire would be delighted to welcome a citizen of the great Republic, so well accredited. Imagine my surprise, when I presented myself at the ticket office of the Russian steamship line, by which we would travel to St. Petersburg, and was refused a ticket because I did not then have my passport in hand, so that the ticket-seller might duly scrutinize it! An hour later, when I again presented myself with the passport and laid down the coin, I was a second time refused. The passport had not been certified by the American Minister in Stockholm, our port of departure, nor had it been _viséed_ by the Russian Consul General of the port. I immediately drove to the American Ministry, a mile away, where the Swedish clerk endorsed my passport as being genuine, and gave me a note to the Russian official. A drive of another mile brought me to a tall stone building, above the door of which reposed the Imperial Eagle. Ascending two flights of stairs, I was shown into a small ante-room, and, after waiting some time, was ushered into a large, well-lighted chamber, where a big, round-headed, bearded man, in Russian uniform, sat at a long table. He was writing. He did not deign to look up. After standing some moments before this important personage, I called his attention in my best French, to the fact that I was there. Still he made no reply, but kept on writing. I noticed that he was nearly to the bottom of the page; when he had finished it, he looked up and inquired in German what I wanted. I replied in German that I called upon him to have my passport _viséed_, and handed him the document and the note. He read the latter and looked at the former, but the description of my person was in English and he was evidently stumped. He gazed at me and the paper, took up a metal stamp, pressed it on an ink pad, made on the passport the imprint of some Russian characters, signed his name to them, and advised me that I was his debtor to the extent of twenty _kroners_ (about five dollars). He then turned again to his writing. I had thus spent three hours in driving about the city, visiting these officials, and now hurried to the steamship office, where on presenting my passport duly _viséed_, I at last obtained the tickets. Upon boarding the ship, at a later hour, we were notified to call at the Captain's office and surrender our passports, which were then once more verified, along with our tickets, before we cast off from the pier. We left Stockholm about eight o'clock in the evening. We were a party of four,--H and myself, and the two delightful friends whom we met that day at Maristuen, at the head of the Laera Dal, in Norway. The suggestions then first made had ripened into a definite plan, and we agreed to join forces for our journey through Russia. Our friends were Mr. and Mrs. Condit, of Chicago, and we found their ready western wit and genial fellowship on more than one occasion of most signal aid. We crossed the Baltic Sea in the night, and touched at the Russian port of Hangoe, in Finland, early Sunday morning. Here I noticed a messenger in uniform leave the ship bearing a long iron box heavily padlocked, and was informed that this box contained the passports of the passengers, which he was to take to St. Petersburg by a special Imperial train that would put him there in twenty-three hours, when the passports would be immediately filed with the police department, verified, recorded and given to certain other officials who would meet our ship on its arrival at the mouth of the river Neva on Tuesday morning, and who would examine and scrutinize us and then return them to us. If in the meantime, we should happen to change our minds and want to remain a few days in Finland, say at Helsingfors, we would be liable to arrest for not having our passports now gone to St. Petersburg. We might not change our minds or alter our itinerary. It was now St. Petersburg or jail. The twilight was just fading into night when we cast off from the pier and slowly made our way among the islands. The sail down the narrow channel to the sea was in the light of the full moon. The myriad electric lights of the city were blazing behind us. We passed the black hulls of many vessels anchored in the harbor, and in turn were passed by scores of little boats, with a big light on the foremast, which were scurrying about carrying passengers between the islands. Along the wooded shores were villas and country-seats, and ever and anon, there seemed to be open clearings and farms, and then we came into the blackness of wide waters. We were out upon the Baltic Sea. In the morning we were among more islands; the Aaland Archipelago; we had had only two hours of the open sea. The sun was behind a mass of scudding clouds, gray and threatening; and great banks of blacker clouds were rolling up from the south. A gale was blowing--a furious gale--which drove the waters and whirling foam wherever open space allowed. The wind was bitterly cold, and grew ever colder, while higher and higher rose the tempest. We were in great danger, although at the time I did not know it. The steering of the Swedish pilots was skillful, and the little ship obeyed the helm perfectly, swinging round sharp points, and traversing narrow channels where, even in quiet waters, it is dangerous to navigate. About noon we slipped in between two rocky islets, scarcely a cable-tow's length apart, rising only a few feet above the level of the sea, and turning sharp to port came into the rock-bound harbor of Hangoe, a town of Finland, whence the railway goes on to Helsingfors and St. Petersburg. The gale now grew into a tornado with deluges of rain, a storm so fierce that, until it should subside, the Captain refused to leave the protection of the port. Thus we lay-to at Hangoe until the dawn of the following day, when we cast off from the long pier and plunged once more among the islands of the Archipelago. Hundreds of islands there were, barren and uninhabited, the big ones covered with dwarf birches, a few stunted pines and firs, the lesser islets thick with tangled grasses, or more often bare of all except lichens and gray moss, the vegetation of a desolate, wintry latitude. [Illustration: FACING THE GALE.] The wind was now somewhat abated, but not so the sea. It was angry, stirred to its depths. It was a bad day for a landsman,--a bad day even for an old salt. Two stalwart seamen stood ever at the wheel in addition to the pilot and our Captain, and it took all their combined strength and skill to save us from certain wreck. The conflicting currents churned and swirled with maelstrom violence, while we crept steadily on among the shoals and sunken bars and hidden reefs. It was long past noon when we swung round a bold rocky point, and saw before us Finland's capital, Helsingfors. The city surrounds the harbor much like a crescent. On either horn, granite promontories jut out into the sea, where are fortifications, one of them the formidable fortress of Sveaborg, where we could see brown-coated Cossacks gathered in large numbers watching our entrance to the port. A great garrison there seemed to be, and everywhere floated the Russian flag,--parallel stripes of white, blue and red. Russian troops not merely man all these fortifications, but there are also soldiers within the city itself, and more are quartered in every village of consequence in Finland. The ancient Senate and House of Chevaliers are no longer permitted to enact the laws. A Russian Governor-General issues his Ukases, which the Russian bayonets are here savagely to enforce. All this you already know, but it comes vividly upon one when you see the Cossack, clad in his long kaftan-like military coat, everywhere about you visible evidence of how harshly Finland has been stripped of her rights and liberties. Helsingfors astonished us. Lying upon a rising slope, it presents an imposing outline from the sea. It is a city of ninety-six thousand people. We were not prepared for so large and substantial a city. It has well-kept parks, well-paved streets, frequently asphalted as in Stockholm, and blocks of big granite buildings five and six stories high; the city is clean, and the streets are alive with well-dressed, rosy-cheeked, vigorous people. Everywhere there are electric tram-cars and electric lights, and on the broad thoroughfares are large and handsome shops. It is evident that in the Finnish hinterlands there is an extensive and well-to-do population. Our ship was to lie at her pier for several hours, and the passengers were told that they might safely visit the town; if arrested for not having passports, we might refer to the Captain of the ship. So we wandered up along the quays, following a wide boulevard. Everywhere on the sidewalks and driving through the streets were Russian officials in their long gray coats and flat black caps; there were also many soldiers upon the streets. Finland was once a province of Sweden, and the Teutonic Swedish language is yet that of the educated classes, who are chiefly of Swedish descent. In the country, however, and among the working classes, there remains the original population of primitive Finnish race, "The old Finns," cousins to the Hungarians, and these have a Turanian language of their own. They have accepted for centuries the Swedish rule and fraternized with the Swedish leaders, but have held to their ancient tongue. Now is also the Slavonic Russian speech, by Ukase, commanded to be the language of the schools, of the courts and of the government. Thus the Finlander must be acquainted with three fundamentally different tongues, and all of the streets of Helsingfors are named in the three languages on the same placard. The Russian name is in Greek text, then in Latin text the Swedish name, and under that the native Finnish name; thus there is much babel of tongues in Helsingfors, while all the Finlanders bitterly resent the brutal attempt to substitute the Russian for their own. [Illustration: FISHING BOATS ALONG THE QUAY, HELSINGFORS.] [Illustration: THE PIER, HELSINGFORS.] Finland has, also, heretofore been privileged to coin her own money,--but now the Russian _ruble_ is supreme. We had boarded a tram-car, as modern and comfortable as those of New York, and were whirling along the boulevard, when we tendered the conductor our fare in Russian coin (we had provided ourselves with "_kopeeks_" and _rubles_ before leaving Stockholm), but he declined to take the money. He was about to stop the car and put us off, when a courtly-mannered Finn, addressing the passengers as well as the conductor, explained that, under the present laws, Russian money must be taken when tendered, and that we were entitled to ride,--so H tells me, who understood his speech, so much is it like the Danish. But the conductor, patriot that he was, refused to touch the _ruble_ I offered him, preferring to let us ride without making charge. If I had been able to do so, I would have explained to our fellow-passengers that I intended no insult, and would thus probably have restored myself to their confidence. As it was they glowered at me as a friend of hated Russia. We visited the splendid Parliament buildings, where the Finnish Senate and House of Chevaliers have been wont to meet,--now closed forever by the Ukase of the Czar. I understand, also, that the Finnish judges have recently been deposed from the courts, and Russians appointed in their stead; and we were told by a friendly Finn that so completely are the people terrorized, that no patriot dare give open evidence of opposition to the Russian rule. One may only detect it by the sullen, disquieted faces of the people one meets upon the streets. In the dour glances cast at the Russian officials I saw everywhere expression of hatred and revenge.[1] [Footnote 1: The reverses of the Japanese War, the assassination of Governor Bobrikoff and threat of revolution have at last frightened the Russian Autocracy into partially restoring to Finland her pillaged liberties.] It was middle afternoon when we set sail again. No other vessel dared leave the port, but our Captain, being anxious to reach St. Petersburg, decided to venture on the voyage. As soon as we emerged from the protecting barriers of the islands at the harbor's mouth, we came into open waters. A furious sea was running and the ship rolled heavily. She plunged and reared and pitched, until most of the passengers were driven to their staterooms,--indeed, so mad was now the sea that we were told there would be no more hot coffee and hot steak, since the cooks in the kitchen could not keep their legs, nor could dishes be set upon the tipping tables. Those who were able to eat might get a snack from the steward, who would hand it out--cold fish and cheese at that. The boat rolled until her gunwales were awash, and frequently the roaring waters swept across the decks. Although it was a wild and dangerous night, yet the clouds were parting and the stars were out. No grander panorama of the sea have I looked upon than these mighty foam-capped billows--greater even than our ship,--between which we hid, and on the summits of which we climbed,--the angry, pitch-black waters, the star-lit firmament, and the serene moon shining with fullest splendor. [Illustration: THE DOEBLN AT HER PIER, HELSINGFORS.] [Illustration: MARKET SQUARE, HELSINGFORS.] At dawn on Tuesday morning, we passed the great naval fortification of Kronstadt, and three hours later, after threading our way among fishing boats, were entering the canal which leads from the gulf of Finland to the river Neva and the city of St. Petersburg. South and east of us, behind low shores, the land stretched away green and flat as far as the eye could see, an apparently indefinitely extending plain. Only the glint of a gilded oriental dome, the bulbous cupola of a Russian village church, lightened here and there the green monotony. Then far to the east we saw not one but many domes glittering and flashing in the light of the lifting sun--the gilded towers of the cathedrals and churches of the city of St. Petersburg--then we saw a tangle of tall chimneys, then ships and barks and schooners and enormous barges from Lake Ladoga, and immense docks on either side. We were upon the river Neva. We were come to the city of "Petersborg," the splendid capital of the Russian Czars. Just as we were entering the canal, a steam-tug came up alongside us and a company of government officials in long gray coats climbed on board. They were the customs inspectors and officers of the police department. The two chief officials seated themselves at a long table. An officer of the ship directed the passengers to form in a queue, and one by one we appeared before the official examiner, while the Captain called off our names, reading the list from a little book. When my name was announced a clerk handed one of the officials a passport. It was numbered--my name was upon it--it had been received in St. Petersburg from the messenger who left Hangoe Sunday morning;--it had been filed with the police department; it had been _viséed_; it had been translated into Russian, and the official now read over the description to his assistants;--I was scrutinized,--the passport was found correct--the officials so endorsed it and handed it to me. The passenger immediately behind me, seemingly, did not correspond with his passport, and was directed to stand to one side. There were a number of these, who were to have a difficult time with the authorities. Our baggage was also examined, but not closely. With the Russian official the main thing is the passport, not the baggage. [Illustration: A WILD SEA--LEAVING HELSINGFORS.] [Illustration: FISHING BOATS, MOUTH OF RIVER NEVA.] We were now arrived at the pier and were ready to go ashore. Two sailors carried our small steamer trunk upon the wharf, and we were in St. Petersburg. Instantly we were surrounded by a howling mob of bearded, blond-headed, dressing-gown-coated men, clamoring for our fares. They were _izvostchiks_ in their native _kaftans_. I beckoned to one of them, and pointed to our trunk. He lifted it to his shoulder and led us to his _droschky_,--a diminutive open vehicle, much like a small sledge on wheels. We entered it and in a moment were galloping through the streets of the city, the driver constantly shouting to his horse and yelling to all foot-farers to get out of the way. I gave him the name of our destination, Hotel de l'Europe. He seemed to comprehend my meaning, and never drew rein until we stopped before the imposing entrance of that hostelry. We were in Russia. We had run the gauntlet of the border,--our passports had been sufficient, and we were at last safely within the dominions of the Czar. Would it be as difficult to get out? XVII. St. Petersburg--The Great Wealth of the Few--The Bitter Poverty of the Many--Conditions Similar to Those Preceding the French Revolution.[2] [Footnote 2: These letters were written in the early autumn of the year, 1902, and present a glimpse of Russia as it then appeared.] GRAND HOTEL DE L'EUROPE, ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA, _September 18 (N. S.), 1902_. So much has been jammed into the last two days that my pen is like to burst. Splendor and squalor, the glitter of twentieth century civilization, the sombre shadow of barbarism, are here entwined in inextricable comminglement. The city is filled with stately buildings of gigantic and imposing dimensions; with wide, straight boulevards and streets. The sidewalks and _droschkies_ are gay with the dashing and gaudy uniforms of innumerable soldiery, and the fine dresses of elegant women. Yet many of these great buildings are in ill repair, and what you at first imagine to be magnificent stone, reveals itself to be a stucco of rotting wood and crumbling plaster; the broad thoroughfares are abominably paved, and pitifully cared for by abject wretches wielding dilapidated birch-stick brooms. [Illustration: ENTERING THE NEVA.] [Illustration: ALONG THE NEVA.] The superb horses--stallions, all of them--whirl past, driven by _izvostchiks_ in dirty, truncated plug-hats and blue dressing-gown-like _kaftans_, whose sodden faces tell of _vodka_ and hopeless haplessness. Beggars swarm (frightful creatures), and the faces of the officers, fine big men in striking uniforms, are dissipated, hard and cruel. We are in a huge hotel. Big men in uniform open the door; big men in livery fill the halls; the rooms are big, ours is immense, with double windows, It is steam-heated, and also has hearth fires of burning wood. The building is warmed all through, even the halls. There are French waiters in the big dining-rooms; there is delicious food and delightful coffee, whose aroma is very perfume of the Orient; the beefsteaks are juicy, thick and tender. We have had no such meals since leaving America. On each story there is an elaborate bar for serving _vodka_ (a fierce white whisky distilled from wheat) and drinks to the guests of that particular floor, and a single bath room, and a single diminutive toilet for both sexes' common use. The moment we set foot within the doorway of the hotel, up stepped an official, in blue and gold, and demanded our passports, and we were requested also to sign a paper like the one enclosed, viz.: NOTICE TO THE POLICE. Family and Christian WHERE IS YOUR PASSPORT? Name: Signature: Profession: Please order your passport Age: two days before leaving Confession: Russia. Arrived from .......... This to be at once filed with the police department, and the passport not to be given back until we should notify the same big official,--whose duty it was to stay right there and watch all guests of that hotel, and who must be notified twenty-four hours before we leave the city,--when he will return the passport two hours before the said time set, and give it to me only upon my paying him the government fee of ten _rubles_ (five dollars) in good yellow gold.[3] And right outside the door of our apartments, seated at a little table, are two officials, pen and paper in hand, who set down the hour and the minute of the day we enter and come out. They were there when we went to breakfast; they, or others as fox-jowled and lynx-eyed, were also there when we returned from the theater late at night, and they are there all through the day. Our Swedish guide, who does the duties of courier and shows us about the great city, is also registered at the police department, and he has to hand in every night a written report of what he has done with us all through the day, where we have gone, what we have seen, and we suspect even what we may have said. On the streets, big sword-begirded policemen stand at the intersections of the ways, pull out a little book from their pockets and make note of our passing that particular spot at that certain hour; at night these reports also are handed in to the central police office to be checked up against the statements of the guide and the spies at the hotel. [Footnote 3: I have subsequently learned that the legal fee is about three _rubles_ ($1.50), the charge of ten _rubles_ being impudent graft.] [Illustration: ALONG THE NEVSKY-PROSPEKT.] [Illustration: OUR DROSCHKY, ST. PETERSBURG.] We are in the capital city of the mighty Russian Empire; in the capital created by Peter the Great amidst and upon the marshy delta of the river Neva; a city of more than a million inhabitants; a city spread out over vast distances; a city whose disproportionately wide streets and boulevards are paved with wood, wood that is rotting all the while, leaving big holes into which a horse, a team, may plunge and disappear, because only wood will float upon the marshy mire of the mucky islets, and stone and brick will eventually sink from sight; a city whose top-heavy palaces and public edifices are so treacherously set upon the sands that they must constantly undergo costly repairs; a city builded upon foundations so unstable that the springtime floods of the river Neva ever threaten permanently to wipe out its very existence; a city where the palaces of the always widening circle of the Imperial princes of the blood, and of the upper nobility, and of the great bureaucratic chiefs, are builded with an arrogance of dimension, an elaborateness of design, a lavishness of cost that beats anything an American billionaire has ever tried to do, or dreamed of doing in San Francisco or New York; and yet a city abounding in the mean, small, log and wooden cabins of the very poor; a city where penury and poverty and dire pinch protrude their squalid presence in continual tragic protest against the flaunted and wanton riot of unmeasured wealth, possessed by the very few. This morning as I walked upon the Nevsky Prospekt, the Broadway of the Imperial capital, and watched the movement of mankind along the way, and beheld the extraordinary contrasts between those who walked and those who rode; as I saw the burly policeman arrest the shabby foot-farer for nearly being run down, while he let the haughty grandee drive freely on; as I beheld poverty and wealth in such flagrant contrast, and realized that a standing army is kept ever armed and girt to protect and uphold the privilege and security of the rich; as I beheld the surly, sour, sombre faces of those who wore no gaudy covering of broadcloth and gold lace, my fancy harked back to the time, somewhat more than a century ago, when the King and Nobles of France drove through the Rues of Paris in all their glittering splendor, trampling down in their pride of power the pedestrian who failed to escape from their sudden approach. How secure they felt in their arrogant enjoyment of prerogative and rank! How contemptuously they disdained the humble claims of the glitter-proletarian, of the peasant on the land! Louis XIV had cried "_L'etat c'est moi._" Was that not enough! And yet, I had stood in the Place de la Concorde, almost on the very spot where, inspired by the hatred of the Sansculottes, Mademoiselle La Guillotine had bit off the dull head of Louis XVI, and cut through the fair throat of Marie Antoinette. It may be possible for Russia and her governing men, her Bureaucratic Autocracy, yet a little while to postpone the fateful hour. By means of foreign wars it may be possible to play the old game of diverting the public mind from its own bitter ills; by promises of fair and liberal dealing it may be possible to calm the public mind--cajole it until the promises are duly broken, as is invariably the case. Whatever fair-speaking and fat-feeding officialdom may to the contrary assert, the impression I gain amidst all this splendor and pomp and glare of supreme, concentered power of the few is that, beneath this opulent exterior, deep down in the hearts and even below the conscious working of their minds, there to-day abides among the masses of the Russian people--who after all hold in their hands the final power--a profound and monstrous discontent: a discontent so deep-rooted and so intense that when the inevitable hour strikes, as strike it must, the world will then behold in Russia a saturnalia of blood and tears, a squaring of ten centuries' accounts, more fraught with human anguish and human joy than ever dreamed a Marat and a Robespierre, more direful and more glad than yet mankind have known. We drove about the city like grandees. Our _landau_ was just such as Russian nobles like best to use; our splendid pair of sorrel stallions pranced upon their heels and neighed and ran just as all nobles' horses should; and our well-distended driver, of enormous and deftly-padded girth, sat belted with a big embroidered band, and guided the horses he never dreamed to hold, and helloed loudly to those who did not fly out of the way, just as would any driver of the Blood! We almost ran over some slow-moving man or woman, foot-weary wretch, at every crossing of a street! Many palaces and public buildings we visited--enormous edifices, all of them, with innumerable and extensive halls and immense chambers finished in gold and alabaster and gaudy hues, with countless servants and lackeys in livery and lace, gold lace, to care for them, and watch over them, and fatten upon a government graft or easy-gotten fee. Suites of enormous apartments they were, which are never used and never are likely to be used. The paintings of the great masters collected in the galleries of the Hermitage and Winter Palaces, accumulated by the Czars, are among the most renowned in Europe. The reception halls and audience chambers and ballrooms and dining halls of these palaces are designed and intended to dazzle and impress whosoever are given the chance of beholding them. At the same time, the library and study of the late Czar, Alexander III, is a small and plainly furnished room, with the atmosphere and markings of a man of simple tastes, who laboriously worked, worked as no other official of the Bureaucracy in Russia pretends to work. [Illustration: OUR SQUEALING STALLIONS.] [Illustration: CATHEDRAL OF OUR LADY OF KAZAN.] We traversed the suites of apartments used by the Imperial family, when sojourning in St. Petersburg during those portions of the winter season when the court there gathers, and we noted the outer guardrooms where night and day stand the faithful watchers with sleepless vigil, and we realized, perhaps for the first time, that this man, so steeped in power, is after all but a prisoner of the system which locks him in and binds him fast and robs him of that independence of action which you and I enjoy. He is become but a creature of the great machine that governs, a slave of the system which Peter the Great set up for the furtherance of his Imperial will, a system of government which has so developed and spread out that to-day the Czar of all the Russias is merely the puppet of its will, the tool of the greedy, grasping, intriguing, governing Bureaucracy. On approaching the city, our straining eyes first caught sight of the gilded, glittering domes and spires of the great cathedrals and churches with which it is so abundantly supplied. The domes of St. Isaac, of our Lady of Kazan, of Alexander Nevsky, and the spires of St. Peter and St. Paul, each and all told us that whatever else we might discover, we were yet entering a city and a land where the people counted not the cost of the splendid housing of their faith. And so we have found it. The wealth of gold and of silver, of precious stones and of priceless stuffs with which these churches are adorned and crammed, excels anything of which the western brain has ever dreamed. Each great church is famed and honored for its particular beneficence, its peculiar holiness, and to each one comes in procession perpetual an innumerable throng to pray and worship and to receive the blessings flowing from that especial fane. Even in the ancient log cabin, said to be the actual house erected by Peter himself, is established a shrine, where priests continuously intone the beautiful service of the Russian church and where thousands of devoted worshipers swarm in and out all the day long, and the night as well, praying to Imperial Peter's now sainted ghost. In the noble chamber of the golden-spired cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul lie the white marble tombs of the Romanoffs, where is also kept up throughout the day and night yet another sumptuous service for the repose of the souls of the illustrious dead. In the great monastery of Alexander Nevsky is each day maintained a simple and splendid choral service which multitudes attend, and where the melancholy Gregorian chanting and intoning of the black-robed long-bearded monks reveal new organ stops in the human voice. Naturally, an American has great sympathy for the Russian people who have so little, while he has so much. In America we send our girls and boys to school as a matter of course. Here in the ornate center of autocracy, I have seen no building that I recognized as a common school, nor in Russia is there such a system, as we know it. [Illustration: OUR IZVOSTCHIK.] To the western mind three things stand out above all else in Russia: (1) The concentrated wealth and privilege of the few--the big grafters who have seized it all. (2) The opulence and extraordinary power of that ecclesiastical organization, the "Holy Orthodox Church" itself an engine of the autocratic rule,--used to cover atrocious authority with gilded cassock and priestly cope. (3) The profound poverty and hopeless subserviency of the Russian people--those who are robbed and ruined by the grafters and hoodooed by the Church. XVIII. En Route to Moscow--Under Military Guard--Suspected of Designs on Life of the Czar. MOSCOW, RUSSIA, _September 19, 1902, 10 P. M._ We took the Imperial Mail train as determined. Foreign travelers generally journey by the night express, which arrives at Moscow only an hour behind the Imperial Mail, but it leaves St. Petersburg at so late an hour that there is little chance to see the country traversed. We made up our minds to take the more democratic train, which goes in the middle afternoon and stops at all way-stations. This would give us an opportunity to see more of the people as well as a longer season of daylight to watch the passing panorama of the land. We knew no reason why we should not take the train of our choice. It was true that our guide urged us to go by the night express. It was also true, when I presented my passport to the ticket agent at the railway station, the day before, and requested tickets, that he advised us to make the journey by the night express, nor would he at first agree to sell us tickets by the Imperial Mail, but told us to come back again two hours later, when he would let us know whether there were any berths unsold in the train's through sleeper. It was also true that when we returned, he again advised us to take the night express. But our minds were made up, and we at last secured the tickets we wanted, and became entitled to an entire stateroom upon a designated car. [Illustration: OUR LANDAU, ST. PETERSBURG.] When we left the Hotel de l'Europe, the government official to whom I had returned my passport, after having bought my tickets, emerged from his office, received graciously his ten _rubles_, and again handed me the document; the sundry flunkies in liveries and spies in uniforms obsequiously bowed us out of the establishment, and our very competent guide immediately packed us into several _droschkies_ and galloped us along the Nevsky Prospekt to the huge government station of the railway running to Moscow. The instant our _izvostchiks_ brought their horses to a stop, we were surrounded by a swarm of porters clad in white tunic aprons and flat caps, who seized our bags, and preceded us through the large waiting room to the gates admitting to the train platform. Here our tickets were scrutinized, and a group of uniformed officials, who seemed to be awaiting us, informed us that the car in which our stateroom had been sold being already filled, another stateroom in another car was placed at our disposal. They then led the way to the front of the long train, and showed us into a large combined sleeper-and-chair car immediately back of the engine. Several soldiers were standing guard near by. We were evidently expected and were especially provided for. We almost had the car to ourselves. The only other passengers were a Russian officer and his orderly. We were at the head of a train made up mostly of mail cars locked and sealed, having at the rear several passenger coaches. But we were separated from all these latter, and we seemed to be objects of unusual interest. Many strange faces flattened against our windows, peering in at us, and the orderly locked up with us never took his eyes away from us. This did not annoy me, however, for I presumed he was admiring the beauty of our American women. The train was a long one,--and such huge cars. The Russian gauge is five feet, the cars are long, and half as big and wide again as are the American cars, and are heated by steam, having double windows prepared against the cold. We had secured a whole compartment in which the two seats, facing each other, pull out and the backs lift up, making four berths, two lower, two upper, placed cross-wise. You pay one _ruble_ (fifty cents) for blankets, sheets and towels. We put H and Mrs. C in the lower berths. Mr. C and I took the uppers. The car had only two more staterooms, one on each side of our own, and then a large drawing-room with reclining chairs. The stateroom ahead of us was occupied by the officer; his orderly slept on a chair in the salon. In the stateroom behind us were two railway guards. After we entered the car, the door was closed and locked by an official who stood on the outside. The officer and his orderly were locked in with us. Our trunk was checked through to Moscow by the guide, very much as we would have done it at home. He gave me the check, and I paid him his last _pourboire_ before we entered. This was the only daily local train going southeastward, and whoever would leave St. Petersburg for the way stations must travel by it. [Illustration: A NOBLE'S TROIKA.] [Illustration: THE RAILWAY PORTERS, ST. PETERSBURG.] Our first impression, after leaving the city, was that of the flatness and the vacantness of the land; the landscape was marked here and there with insignificant timber, birches, firs and wide reaches of tangled grasses, and seemed uninhabited. There were no sheep, no hogs, no goats. Occasionally we saw herds of cattle and some horses, but very little tillage anywhere. The few houses, mostly low built, were of small-sized logs, or slabs. Towns and villages were few and far apart. In the towns were rambling wooden buildings, all just alike; in the villages were log and wooden cabins, scattered along a single wide street, and these streets were deep mud and mire from door to door. Here and there was a wooden church painted green, with onion-shaped steeple gilded or painted white, but there were no schoolhouses anywhere. At all the railroad stations were many soldiers, and dull-looking, shock-headed peasants, men clad in sheepskin overcoats with the wool inside, and women in short skirts wearing men's boots, or with their legs wrapped in dirty cotton cloth tied on with strings, their feet bound up in twisted straw. It was a desolate, monotonous, dreary, sombre land. We saw no smiling faces anywhere, but always were the corners of the mouth drawn down. Now and then we passed a large town, with a commodious, well-built station of brick and stone. Here and there we saw huge factories and mills, all belonging to the government of the Czar. We stopped at Lubin for supper. The guard unlocked our car, opened the door and pointed to the station, where we found a monster eatingroom with huge lunch counters on either side and long rows of tables down the middle. Everybody was standing up; there were no seats anywhere. Hot soft drinks were served at the side counters and smoking coffee and tall glasses of hot, clear tea. The Russian swallows only hot drinks and eats only hot foods. On the center tables, set above spirit lamps, were hot dishes with big metal covers. There were glasses of hot drink for a few _kopeeks_, which the Russian pours down all at once. Taking a plate from a pile standing ready, you help yourself to what victuals you choose. There were hot doughnuts with hashed meat inside, hot apple dumplings, hot juicy steaks, hot stews, hot fish; all _H-O-T_. When you have eaten your fill, you pay your bill at a counter near the entrance, according to your own reckoning. The Russian is honest in little things, and nobody doubts your word or questions the correctness of your payment. The eatingroom was full of big, tall, robust, fair-haired, blue-eyed men and a few women. The Russian is big himself, he likes big things, he thinks on big lines, he sees with wide vision, too wide almost to be practical. Hanging around the station were groups of unkempt, dirty peasants. We see such groups of gaping peasants at every station, always a hopeless look of "don't care" in their eyes. The train ran smoothly and we slept well. All Russian cars are set on trucks, American fashion, and there is no jarring and bouncing as in England's truckless carriages. We traveled over an almost straight roadway, traversing the Valdai hills, the brooks and rivulets of which, uniting, give rise to the mighty Volga, and crossing the river passed through the city of Tver during the night. It was just daylight when I awoke. I at once arose, and then waked Mr. C and afterward we aroused the ladies. A different military officer and a different orderly were now traveling in our car. The officer seemed to have kept vigil in the compartment ahead of our own. When I came out of the stateroom, he was standing smoking a cigarette in the aisle just outside our door. When I went to the toilet-room he followed me and then returned to the door of our stateroom. He watched us all, even standing guard at the door of the toilet-room when occupied by the ladies. We were evidently in his charge. Later, I made acquaintance with him, accosting him in German, to which he readily replied. He was a medium-sized, wiry man with dark hair and eyes, close-cropped beard and long moustaches. He was a "lieutenant-colonel of infantry," he said. The night before, as we rode along, we noticed many soldiers gathered everywhere at the stations. Now there were none, but instead there was a soldier pacing up and down each side of the track, a soldier every sixteen seconds! His gun was on his shoulder. He wore a long brown overcoat reaching to his heels, and a vizored brown cap. At all the bridges there were several soldiers, at each culvert two. After a few miles of soldiers, I commented on this, to me, extraordinary spectacle, and asked the colonel what it meant. "Do you not know," he said, "the Czar is coming in half an hour? He is returning from the autumn manoeuvers in the south!" Presently, we drew in on a siding. I wanted to go out with my kodak and take a snapshot. He said, "_Es ist verboten_ (It is forbidden). You cannot go out." He then asked to see my kodak, which he examined with the greatest care, taking it quite apart. He then handed it back to me saying, apologetically, "Bombs have been carried in kodak cases, you know." Soon we heard the roar of an approaching train. The ladies pressed to the windows. The uniformed attendant stepped up and pulled down the shades right in their faces. I demurred to this and appealed to the colonel, who then directed the guard to raise the curtains, seeming to censure him in Russian. The ladies might look. A train of dark purple cars richly gilded flashed by. Was it the Czar? No! Only the Court. Another train just like the first would follow in half an hour and the Czar would be on that. But none of the public might know on which train he would ride. The colonel turned to me and said, "You kill Presidents in America. We would protect our Czars here! We also have Anarchists." [Illustration: THE HOLY SAVIOR GATE. KREMLIN.] [Illustration: OUR MILITARY GUARD BARGAINING FOR APPLES.] I could not forbear remarking upon the excessive number of men in uniforms, soldiers apparently, I met everywhere in Russia, as well as the great expanse of vacant land, saying to him, "You have too many soldiers in Russia. You should have fewer men in the army and more men out on the land tilling the soil and supporting themselves. It is unfair to those who work to be compelled to feed so many idle mouths." He answered me frankly. He said, "It is necessary to have these soldiers. The peasants are ignorant. We take their young men and make soldiers and good citizens out of them. The army is a school of instruction; it is there the peasant learns to be loyal and to shoot." And then he said with emphasis, "Ah! In America you don't need to learn to shoot, you are like the Boers, you all know how to shoot," which view of American dexterity, I, of course, readily acceded to. And when I asked him why it was there were no schools or schoolhouses in all this journey, he replied that it was useless to build schools for the peasant, for he did not wish to learn. He had no desire to improve. "You in America," he said, "are every year receiving the energetic young men of all Europe. You are constantly recruiting with the vigor and energy of the world. You can afford to have schools. Your people want schools, but the Russian people want no schools. They will not learn, they will not change, and no young men ever come to Russia. We receive no help from the outside. Nobody comes here. Nobody. Nobody (_Niemand, Niemand_). We have always the peasant, always the peasant (_Immer der Bauer_)." And then he asked me about President Roosevelt, and inquired whether he would succeed himself for a second term, remarking that "Mr. Roosevelt was greatly admired by the Russian army." "The Russian army sees in your President Roosevelt a great man," he said, then added, "in France the Jews and financiers set up a President, but in America you choose a man who is a man." We became very good friends, and he accepted from me an American cigar, one of a few I had brought along and saved for an emergency. At subsequent stations he allowed me to get out in his company, and even let me take his picture along with some of the other officers who stood about. The Czar had passed. The weight of responsibility was off his shoulders, he had discovered no evidence of our being conspirators. He now treated us as friends. He even directed the car attendant to clean from the windows their accumulated dust. During all the early hours of the morning we came through the same flat, desolate, uninhabited country. It was a landscape of profound monotony, with the dark green of the firs, the frosted yellow of the birches, the withering browns of the tangled grasses, the black and sodden soil. Even the crows were dressed in melancholy gray. [Illustration: CATHEDRAL OF THE ASSUMPTION, KREMLIN.] [Illustration: ALONG THE GOSTINOI DVOR, MOSCOW.] XIX. Our Arrival at Moscow--Splendor and Squalor--Enlightenment and Superstition--Russia Asiatic Rather Than European. MOSCOW, RUSSIA, _September 20, 1902_. It was toward ten o'clock when we drew near the suburbs of Moscow, a city of more than a million inhabitants. We saw straggling wooden houses, mostly unpainted, rarely ever more than one story high, and unpaved streets filled with country wagons, not the great two-wheeled carts of France, but long, low, four-wheeled wagons with horses pulling singly, or hitched three and four abreast; and I noted that the thills and traces of these wagons were fastened to the projecting axles of the fore wheels, the pull being thus directly on the axle, so as to lift the wheel out of the ever present mud holes. So universal has become this method of hitching up a wagon that I observed it even used on the vehicles in the cities where the streets are paved. Men in high boots and sheepskin coats and felt caps were walking beside the wagons, cracking long whips. The roads appeared to be frightful sloughs of bottomless mire. Our train drew into a long, low, brick station, the Nicholas Depot. The door of the car was unlocked, porters came in and seized our bags, and we followed them. Our military escort did not even deign to say good-bye. He was writing up his note book and seemingly preoccupied. The instant we emerged from the station portal we were surrounded by a mob of roaring_izvostchiks_; a pandemonium. We picked out two of the cleaner-looking _droschkies_; the porters who had taken our checks came with the trunks on their shoulders, and we started off for our hotel. Although a dozen _izvostchiks_ will wrangle and war for your custom, until you fear for your very life, yet the instant you pick your man, the others retire and peace reigns. There is no attempt to make you change your mind. The sky was overcast, drops of rain were falling, and there had been more rain earlier in the day. The cobble-paved streets were thickly overlaid with mud. Surely, they had never been cleaned in a century! Moscow is a city of low, one and two story buildings, generally of stone or stucco, but there are many of wood. It is a city full of reek and accumulated filth, and is apparently without sewers, or with sewers badly laid and long ago choked up. It is a city of narrow streets with many turns, and narrow sidewalks or none at all. It is an old city, the ways and alleys and streets of which have grown up as they would. The people we met were ill-clad, unwashed, unkempt, wild-eyed, shock-polled, dull-faced. They were a meaner multitude of men and women than I had ever before set eyes upon. "Hotel Berlin" we said to our _izvostchiks_. The word "Berlin" they seemed to comprehend, and they brought us safely to our destination. It is a comfortable inn, on the Rojdestvensky way, kept by a Jew, and recommended to us by the Swiss Concierge of the St. Petersburg hotel. "It is the hotel where the drummers go," he said. We had learned long ago that "where the drummers go," is where the best table will be found, for the world over, the drummer loves a knowing cook. So we went to the Hotel Berlin. We were there received by a little weazen-faced, black-eyed, dried-up man, who spoke in voluble German and broken English. "The police had notified him that we would come!" he said. He told us that "He had once lived in London!"--and declared that his rooms were exactly what we wanted, and his table "the best in Moscow." He also confided to us that he was "fortunate in having at hand, immediately at hand, and now at our service, the most skilled and intelligent guide in Moscow, who would be delighted to serve us, who was altogether at our disposal and whose charge would be 'only ten _rubles_ a day,' and the guide 'talked English.'" We thanked our host, took the rooms and accepted the guide. We have now been in Moscow several days, and the guide has been faithful. He vows he has been twice in Chicago. He says he is from Hungary and he talks excellent German, but Mr. C, who himself hails from Chicago, is quite unable to comprehend the English of his speech. Only my knowledge of German has saved the guide his _rubles_. Moreover, his remembrance of Chicago is indistinct, as well as of New York. Indeed, his knowledge of America we are fain to believe is altogether hearsay. The nighest he has been to Chicago, we surmise, was when a few years ago he "bought Astrakhan lamb skins at Nijni Novo Gorod for Marshall Field & Company," whose agent we believe he may really then have been. He is now married to a Russian, and it is many years since he has been back to Hungary, nor does he have much occasion to talk German or English, except when he is acting as guide to Americans. Mr. C now and then forgets and attempts to use American speech in conversation with him, when there is entanglement. I am appealed to in German, the difficulty is cleared up, and so we get on. To-day, we have taken a _landau_ and have driven all about the city. Just how shall I describe this strange commingling of past and present; of sumptuous splendor and squalor profounder than any seen in St. Petersburg; of modern intelligence and mediaeval superstition; this city which contains a Gostinnoi Dvor, a magnificent building of white stone, extending over many blocks, a bazaar of six thousand shops, with a single steel and glass vaulted roof covering the entire immense series of structures as well as all included streets; this city of beautiful stores, displaying the costliest products of London, of Paris and New York; which is lit with electric lights equal to Berlin, and provided with a telephone service superior to that of London; this city where right alongside this modern bazaar, the handiwork of Chicago builders, stand the towers and ramparts of the ancient Kremlin; a city where at every corner of every street, swarm bowing multitudes worshiping before the innumerable Eikons. [Illustration: BEGGING PILGRIMS, ST. BASIL.] [Illustration: THE RED SQUARE, MOSCOW.] A strange and curious sight it is to see a street packed with people all bowing to a little picture stuck up in the wall. The Eikon to the Russian is even more important than the Czar. He wears a miniature Eikon hung about his neck as a sort of amulet. He puts an Eikon in his house, in his shop, along his streets, and builds cathedrals and lavishes fortunes to house and adorn them. Indeed, Russia might be fitly termed the land of the Eikon, for there, as nowhere else in all the world, has a simple picture been exalted to become an object of worship. The Greek church allows no images. One of the serious causes of the great schism with Rome in the eleventh and twelfth centuries was the strict interpretation by the Eastern Church of the injunction of the II Commandment, "Thou shalt make no graven images," wherefore they declared the Roman practice rank idolatry, but to the sacred pictures they gave their sanction. These Eikons are mostly painted in the monasteries by monks of recognized holy lives. They are paintings of the Christ, or of a Saint, sometimes the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child together, and are often so overlaid with gold and jewels--tens of thousands of dollars worth of jewels--that only the eyes and the face may be seen, the draperies of the person being scrupulously imitated and concealed by the overlaid plates of gold. This afternoon we saw a big, black, hearse-like carriage drawn by six black horses, harnessed three abreast, accompanied by priests, to which all the people took off their hats and bowed and crossed themselves as it passed along. It was an Eikon being carried to the death-bed of some penitent, who would be permitted to kiss it before death. Sometimes these Eikons work miracles and the dying sinner begins to recover so soon as it enters the room. All Russians keep Eikons in their homes, and generally have one in every room, before which a little candle is kept perpetually burning. And when a Russian enters a house, he at once goes to the family Eikon and bows and crosses himself before he greets his host. To ignore the Eikon would be an unpardonable offense. In St. Petersburg we procured a copy of the famous Eikon which reposes in the little chapel of the house of Peter the Great, the portrait of St. Alexander Nevsky, which Peter always carried with him into battle, and to the power of which he attributed the victory of Pultova. The beautiful cathedral dedicated to "Our Lady of Kazan," upon the Nevsky Prospekt, in St. Petersburg, was erected in honor of victories brought to Russian arms by the miraculous influence of her Eikon. The Russian lives in an atmosphere of Eikons, and it takes a quick eye and an agile hand to doff your hat and properly bow, as the Russian always does, whenever you pass by one. [Illustration: CATHEDRAL OF ST. BASIL THE BLESSED, MOSCOW.] In this city of contrasts, in sight of the modern Gostinnoi Dvor, I must take off my hat in going through a "Holy Gate," and every man, woman and child I here meet are crossing themselves and bowing as they pass along! In Mexico you do not feel so surprised at the superstition of the Indian! But these are white men with blue eyes and yellow hair! This is a city which contains so splendid an edifice as the monster cathedral of Saint Savior, a pile of wonderful beauty, built of white granite, and domed with five gigantic onion-shaped, cross-topped cupolas, all sheathed in plates of solid gold; it is a city which contains four hundred and fifty churches, five hundred chapels, and convents and monasteries, how many I dare not say, all of them begolded and bejeweled inside and out with barbaric emblazonry. And yet it is a city, the streets of which are as ill-paved and as stinking as were London's five hundred years ago; a city where trade and enterprise are throttled by arbitrary and excessive taxation, while the common people have no schools, even as they have no votes. We had just left the Imperial palace of the Kremlin, the most gorgeous edifice my eyes have ever looked upon, where I had beheld such chambers of gold and precious jewels and priceless tapestry, as one only reads about in the Tales of the Arabian Nights; where the vast Hall of St. George in the Czar's new palace is plated with gold from floor to ceiling, and the ceiling is altogether of gold; where is gold along the walls, panels of alabaster showing in between, ivory finish and gold, gold and lapis lazuli, gold and emerald malachite, gold in leaf, gold in heavy plate--gold everywhere. We were but the moment come out from this stupendous display of riches. We had just passed through the Holy Savior Gate. Our senses were still dazzled with this excess of reckless magnificence, when we found ourselves upon the Red Square--"Red" because of the human blood spilled there in the countless massacres of Moscow's citizens by past Czars,--amidst the swarming throngs of the abjectly poor; men and women, pinched-faced and hollow-eyed; men and women who toil with patient, dull, dumb hopelessness, and who are thankful to eat black bread through all their lives, who are become mere human brutes! We saw many groups of these, gnawing chunks of the black bread for their dinner with all the zest of famished wolves, while they bowed and crossed themselves incessantly, thanking God that they were indeed alive! The wanton luxury of the rich, the pinching poverty of the poor, so widespread, so universal in Russia, appal and shock me upon every hand. What are the political and social conditions which let these things be possible is the query which constantly hammers on my brain! Until to-day, I have never understood the light and shadow of Roman history, nor what manner of men made up the hosts and hordes of Alaric and of Attila. Here, you see the whole story right upon these streets. We have not only visited the Kremlin, its cathedrals and its palaces, its museums and its buildings of note, but we have also stood before and gazed upon that wonder of all churches, the cathedral of St. Basil, the weird and gorgeous creation of Vassili Blagenoi, and lasting monument to the artistic sense of that monster-tyrant, Ivan the IV, called the "Terrible." In the cathedral of the Archangel Michael, within the sacred precincts of the Kremlin, lie now their coffins side by side, costly coverings of gold-bespangled velvet enshrouding each; a strange example of the equality of death. The story runs: so delighted was Ivan with the extraordinary and curious beauty of Vassili's creation, that he gave a sumptuous banquet in his honor within the Imperial palace and there, lavishly bepraising him before the assembled company, declared that it were impossible for human mind to create another building so wonderful in all the world. Whereupon turning to Vassili, he inquired of the flattered and delighted architect whether this declaration were not the truth. The gratified creator of the wonderful cathedral is said to have replied, "Ah, Sire, give me the money and I will build you another a thousand times more beautiful than the poor work I have already done." Hearing this, the Terrible Ivan turned to his headsman who stood ever handy at his elbow, and ordered Vassili's eyes to be immediately burnt out with red-hot irons, in order, as he declared, that there should never be again created so splendid an edifice; then, Vassili dying as a result of the operation, Ivan ordered a magnificent funeral and directed that the body be laid within the consecrated chamber of the cathedral, among the princes of the blood, where even to-day it yet remains. Our Hungarian guide vowed that this tale was the literal truth, pointing to the coffin which lay at our feet, among the relics of the house of Rurik, as evidence incontrovertible. Nor did we presume to doubt this instance of Ivan's cruelty, so thick spotted are the pages of history with a thousand other instances of his devilish acts. Ivan loved the sight and smell of blood. As a boy he delighted to torture domestic animals, and to ride down old women when he caught them on the streets. As a man, he had the Archbishop of Novogorod sewn up in the skins of wild beasts and thrown to savage dogs; frequently he dispatched his enemies with his own sword, and he publicly murdered his eldest son, the Czarevitch. No malevolent scheme of the human mind was too cruel for his enjoyment. By him entire cities were devoted to destruction on the most trifling pretext. For one instance, the inhabitants of the commercial towns of Novogorod (sixty thousand in Novogorod alone) and of Tver and of Klin were massacred in cold blood under his personal supervision. He was more cruel than Nero or Caligula, and compared with the appalling atrocities of his reign, Louis XI and Ferdinand VII were gentle kings. [Illustration: ANCIENT PAVEMENTS, MOSCOW.] [Illustration: BREAD VENDORS, MOSCOW.] His presumption was equal to his cruelty, and he did not hesitate to send his Ambassador to Queen Elizabeth to offer her the privilege of becoming his eighth bride. History knows no such other monster as Ivan the Terrible, who was undoubtedly mad; and yet he built beautiful churches and palaces, and did more to encourage art and culture within the confines of the empire than any other of the Russian Czars. We have also driven about the city and viewed the public buildings, the shops and the markets, and this afternoon have come out across the river Moskva, and climbed the hills of Vorobievy Gory, the "Sparrow Hills,"--from the heights of which Napoleon, on that memorable fourteenth day of September, 1812, fresh from the victory of Borodino, first viewed the city. In superb panorama, Holy Moscow lay stretched before us, its towers, its spires, its red and green and blue and yellow walls and roofs, its golden domes, presenting a most sumptuous harmony of color to the delighted eye. While St. Petersburg is the political capital, yet Moscow is the real center of Russia. Here is the focus of Russia's industrial, commercial, financial and religious life. Her "Chinese Bank" cashes notes on Kashgar and Pekin, and sells bills of exchange upon their banks in return. The street-life of this most Russian city, the coming and going of its people, the commingling of these divers tribes and races, strikingly illustrates the heterogeneous character of the cumbrous empire. Here pass me by the blue-eyed, tow-polled _mujiks_ from the provinces; here I meet, face to face, the swarthy skins which tell of Tiflis and of Teheran; here I touch elbows with kaftan-gowned traders from Merv and Samarkand, and silk-clad Chinese merchants from the distant East. As I stroll along the Nickols-Skaia, the Iliinka-Skaia, or the Rojdestvensky Boulevard, and catch the glances of these faces which stare upon me with constant grave suspicion, doubtful, perchance, whether I am a foreign spy in bureaucratic employ, or a stranger friendly to the held-down people, I am musing upon the curious interweaving of science and superstition, of modern and mediaeval custom, which I here behold, and I ponder how work the hearts and minds behind these masks which alone I see. Profound suspicion and discontent is the impression I receive. Nowhere do I note a single instance of that joyous hopefulness which marks men's faces in America. The eye which here looks into mine has about it a gaze not frank and sunny, but furtive and melancholy as that of a chained-up wolf. Gradually I am beginning to comprehend that the men I look upon, although clothed in the veneer of twentieth century civilization, are nevertheless in mind and heart barbarians,--barbarians chafing beneath the bitter burden of the hateful auto-bureaucratic rule; they are Asiatic rather than European; even in discontent they lack the open-mindedness of the West; they belong to the mysterious and inscrutable peoples of the East. Napoleon's saying, "Scratch a Russian and you will find a Tartar," now comes to me with redoubled force. [Illustration: THE KREMLIN BEYOND THE MOSKVA.] Despite the French telephones and the Chicago-built Bazaar, despite the splendid churches and the gorgeous Kremlin, I perceive that these Russians are yet the same as when Byzantium sent St. Cyril and his monks to Christianize their savage ancestors thirteen centuries ago. XX. The Splendid Pageant of the Russian Mass--The Separateness of Russian Religious Feeling From Modern Thought--Russia Mediaeval and Pagan. MOSCOW, RUSSIA, _September 21, 1902_. We have just been leaning over a guard rail of burnished brass, peering down into the half twilight gloom, beholding ten thousand Russian men and women bending their swaying bodies, as a wheat field bends before the wind, crossing themselves in feverish fervor, even bowing the forehead to the marble floor and kissing it rapturously in the solemn celebration of the mass. We drove in a _landau_,--all four of us and our Hungarian guide,--through the narrow, crowded streets. "Drove," I say! Rather I should say whirled, behind two mighty black Arab stallions, which no man might hold, but only guide, and we never slackened our pace until we dashed up to the great white granite stairway of the vast cathedral of Saint Savior. Our Russian driver yelled, men and vehicles fled from our path, and yet we ran over no one, we killed no one! Our furious horses stopped short on their haunches. Two Russian soldiers now held them by their heads. We drove like nobles. We must be grandees! [Illustration: CATHEDRAL OF ST. SAVIOR, MOSCOW.] The cathedral of Saint Savior has been nearly a century in building. Founded in commemoration of the defeat of Napoleon in 1812, it has been slowly raised by means of the multitudinous contributions of the Russian people. It is a square cross in outline, as lofty as the capitol at Washington, and surmounted by five oriental domes, the central one bigger than the other four, all topped with Greek crosses, and all covered with plates of solid gold, the burnished glittering splendor of which dazzle the eyes long miles away. Within, the interior is tiled with rare marbles of divers colors, while the walls are decorated with priceless paintings by the most illustrious Russian artists of the century, done by them at the command of the Czar, with pillars of malachite and lapis lazuli, green and blue, standing between the splendid pictures. There are altars of solid silver covered with rare embroideries of gold and emblazoned with precious stones. Close by each altar rests an Eikon. A soldier in gold lace uniform opened our carriage door. He led us up the long flight of white steps--white in the golden sunlight--and pushed his way and ours through the bowing, crossing, sweating, stinking (the Russian really never takes a bath) thousands, who, like ourselves, sought to enter the precincts of the most magnificent cathedral of "Holy Russia." We jostled against rich merchants and their wives clad in splendid furs and silks and adorned with many jewels; against military officers in long gray coats, high boots and caps of astrakhan wool or fur; and peasants, in sheepskin coats, belted at the waist, their legs wrapped in cotton cloth tied with leathern thongs, their feet bound up in straw. These farmers from the country are too poor to afford the luxury of socks and shoes. Through all these the soldier with our _pourboire_ in his hand, forced his way--not always gently--and led us up a winding flight of one hundred steps to the series of galleries which run round the immense interior. Here he again forced back the press of people until we might lean over the great brass rail and gaze down below! And what a spectacle! There, were ten thousand, twenty thousand,--I dare not say how many, men and women; all standing; all bowing; all devoutly responding to the intoning of the priests! Three hundred men and boys clad in red and purple and golden vestments were chanting the melancholy music of the Russian Church! No organ is there allowed, no musical instrument, no instrument save that which God has made, the human throat! Then, from the Holy of Holies, the innermost sanctuary, comes out the Archbishop of all the Russias, the Metropolitan of "Holy Moscow," clad in vestments of gold and of silver, intoning the mystery of the mass! Other priests stand close behind him, swinging censers of incense, and also chanting in melancholy mournful harmony with the mighty melody of the choir. Never have my senses apprehended such opulent, refulgent splendor, such a pageant of gold and of purple, of jewels and of fine linen, such clouds of incense, such glorious, mighty music from the human throat! Such fervor, such frenzy, such exaltation as I now beheld in the swaying, worshiping multitude! I was beholding the fervant, fanatical, hysterical religious feeling of the Russian people, a people mediaeval in their blind superstition, mediaeval in their per-fervid ardor for their church! What I am writing of can only be impressions, and yet perhaps the impressions which I receive in my brief sojourn within the Russian Empire may more vividly portray that subtle, almost indefinable, atmosphere which broods over Russia and marks it from all the world, than I might be able to do if I remained so long within her confines that I should lose the power. I have now sojourned in Russia barely seven days, yet I feel as though I had spent a lifetime in another world than that of America. I hear no sound which is familiar. I cannot even count in Russian. I see no street signs which my eyes have before beheld; even the alphabet, though Greek, is yet enigmatically Russianized. Nor do I find that English or Danish, French or German is of much avail. In the largest news emporium or bookstore, in St. Petersburg, upon the Nevsky Prospekt, the other day, where twenty or thirty clerks were serving the public, there was no one of them who spoke or even understood either French, or German, much less English. In the chief bookstore in Moscow, where a large trade is carried on, nothing is spoken but Russian. After much search I did find one small bookshop where a clerk spoke passable French, and another where the Jewish proprietor understood German. And while it is true that the high Russian officer who escorted us from St. Petersburg spoke fluently in German and in French, and while it may also be true that among the bureaucracy, and perhaps nobility, French is still generally understood, yet it is equally true that the present tendency in Russia is to Russify language as well as things, and that foreign tongues are less spoken and less known to-day than they were thirty or forty years ago. The Russian is absorbed in himself, he knows little of the outside world and he cares less. The news of Europe and of America and of all the earth only comes to him in expurgated driblets through the sieve of the Censor. The saying that "there are three continents," the "continent of Europe," the "continent of Russia" and the "continent of Asia," is no mere jest. One feels it here to be a verity. One feels that Russia, despite her pretensions to the contrary, is mediaeval, that she is mentally and morally aloof from all the progress of the present century, from all the thought of modern peoples, and utterly remote from all touch with the progressive nations of to-day. In Scandinavia, the world is abreast of the times, its peoples are advanced and alert, but the instant you cross the dead-line and enter Russia, you feel that the world has taken a back-set of five hundred years, that Russian life is so far behind all modern movement that it never can catch up. Even the bigness of St. Petersburg carries with it an impracticability that is itself mediaeval. St. Petersburg did not grow up because there was need of a city on that spot. It was created as the deliberate act of a despot. Peter the Great feared to live longer in Moscow. He had murdered and tortured too many of its worthy citizens. He had, for one job, hung eight thousand patriots in the Red Square; he had thrown ten thousand more into dungeons, there to rot. Daring no longer to live in Moscow, he founded the new capital, "Petersburg," on the banks of the Neva, which should become a seaport, be protected from his own subjects by the ships he himself would build, and house his government as safe from domestic as from foreign foes. He laid out the city with streets so wide that it has never been possible to pave them well. He provided public buildings so huge that it has never been possible to secure a foundation upon the Neva's miry delta solid enough safely to hold them up. He drove the nobility into this quagmire city, and drew the bureaucracy up to its unstable ground. To-day, St. Petersburg is a city of a million and a half of inhabitants, but if the Russian Czars should choose to reconstitute Moscow their permanent capital, St. Petersburg would again become a wilderness, a waste of marshy islands, desolate and bare. It is the hot-house plant of autocracy. There is no natural reason for it to exist. Everywhere in Russia one feels the certain so childish straining after effect which is mediaeval and barbaric. In the palace of the Kremlin lies the disabled and gigantic cannon which Catherine II commanded to be cast, and which has never fired a shot for the reason that it was so big they could never find a gunner to serve and handle it. Close beside it lies the enormous bell, the "Czar Kolokol"--King of Bells--cast by command of a Czar, so huge that it could never be lifted up into a belfry and which, falling to the ground from a temporary scaffold, cracked itself by sheer weight. It lies there a fit commentary on overleaping ambition. The cars and locomotives of the railways are uncouth from their very size. Russia is like a big, loose-jointed, over-grown boy, a boy so constituted that he may never become a veritable man. The government arsenals and machine shops in Moscow are run by German and English bosses. The Russian makes big plans, but he does not possess the power himself to carry them to successful issue. The great empire is so spread out that pieces of it are even now ready to break off. An intelligent Swede with whom I voyaged from Stockholm, then living in St. Petersburg, declared the day not far distant when not only Finland, but the German provinces of Esthonia and Livonia and Courland along the Baltic, as well as Poland, must inevitably crack off. And he declared that from mere internal cumbersomeness the Russian Empire must soon dissolve. It may be so. And one is here impressed with the fact that Russia now chiefly holds together by reason of the military might of her autocracy, whose strength and permanence under serious defeat may vanish in a night. Another thing I have become cognizant of is the fact that everywhere the men who do not wear a uniform hate the men who do. The cleavage parting the upper and the lower levels of Russian life is immense. Apparently there is no sympathy between them. The _mujik_ upon the street scowls at the uniformed official who drives by in his dashing equipage. He looks with surly countenance upon the grandee who nearly runs him down. He hates the men who so mercilessly wield authority and power, and who order the Cossack to ride him down and knout and saber him into terrified submission. One morning we passed through a great square in Moscow containing nothing but men--wild-eyed, long-haired, long-bearded men; men in rags, most of them, and all of them compelled to come there and wait to be hired to work. To that square must all working men go who seek work. The city feeds them while they wait, a single small piece of black bread each day. Some never leave that square, but wait there their lifetime through. They gazed upon our handsome landau with hungry and wolfish eyes. How glad would they have been to tear us into pieces and divide what little spoil they might obtain! I never before beheld so frightful, unkempt a company of hopeless, hapless, hungry human slaves as these Russian workingmen who waited for a job. [Illustration: A MOSCOW TRAM CAR.] [Illustration: THE OUT-OF-WORKS.] XXI. The First Snows--Moscow to Warsaw--Fat Farm Lands and Frightful Poverty of the Mujiks Who Own them and Till them--I Recover My Passport. HOTEL SAVOY, FRIEDICHS STRASSE, BERLIN, GERMANY, _September 23, 1902_. "_Hoch der Kaiser, Hoch der Kaiser! Gott sei Dank! Ich bin in Deutschland angekommen!_" have my brain and blood and bones been crying out all the last fifty miles, since we safely crossed the Russian border. Until the moment when the last Russian official waked me up, held a light in my face, and, staring at me, compared my visage with what the passport said it ought to be, and handed me back that document to be mine forever, to be framed and hung up in my Kanawha home, and preserved for my children and children's children as evidence that I came safe out of Russia; not till that midnight hour did I realize that I belonged to the common Teutonic brotherhood of men, and that Puritan-descended American though I were, I and my German neighbor were yet really kin! But at that moment when we crossed the German boundary, I knew it and felt it in every fibre and tingling nerve. I was a Teuton, I was a German, I was come again among my blood kindred. "_Hoch der Kaiser_," "_Selig sei Deutschland!_" I had come out of mediaevalism, from the shadows of barbarism, I was emerged into the light of the twentieth century's sun! We left Moscow late Sunday afternoon, in a blinding snow storm, the first of the year. In the morning, after attending mass in the cathedral of Saint Savior, we drove about the city enjoying the cloudless blue sky, the pellucid sunshine. We visited the Gentile and Jewish markets, and watched the pressing concourse of eager traders bartering and chaffering their goods and wares; we passed along the high frowning walls of the debtors' prison, where any man who has incurred a debt of five hundred _rubles_ ($250) may be incarcerated by the creditor, and kept shut up as long as the said creditor puts up for him the very modest sum of about four cents a day for bread. When the creditor quits paying for his debtor's keep, the debtor comes out, but not till then. The fare at that price is not luxurious, and after a few weeks or months of the meagre diet, the debtor joyfully promises anything to escape and, sometimes, persuades his family or friends to compound with the creditor and get him out. But some there are who spend a lifetime within those walls. And our Orthodox driver declared that a Jew liked nothing better than to thrust and hold a hapless Gentile debtor behind those gates. [Illustration: MONASTERY CHURCH, NOVO DIEVITCHY.] [Illustration: CEMETERY NOVO DIEVITCHY.] [Illustration: HOLY BEGGAR, NOVO DIEVITCHY.] The day was lovely and the air had almost the balminess of spring. Men and women and children were going about in summer garments, no overcoats or wraps, and it might as well have been May or June. At the same time, we noticed that the windows of our rooms in the hotel were double-sashed and tight-corked with cotton, and I also observed that similar double windows were fast set on public buildings and dwelling-houses past which we drove. But otherwise, as we looked into the soft blue sky there was no hint of approaching frosts. It was near noon when we drove out to see the famous convent of Novo Dievitchy, and we spent a delightful hour in viewing its towered church, its cloisters, its nuns' cells and children's quarters, and the curious cemetery where are entombed many of Moscow's most illustrious dead, tombs which are set above the ground amidst choice shrubbery and blooming plants. We had just come out, through the old arched gateway, and had encountered a band of holy beggars who absorbed our attention and our _kopeeks_. I had put the ladies into the _landau_, while the driver with great difficulty held back his restive, squealing stallions. My hand was on the carriage door, when I felt something soft and cold upon it. I looked up and behold! the air was full of big flakes of descending snow. The horizon to the north and east was black, the blue sky had grown a leaden gray. Winter had come to Moscow and to us as silently and as suddenly as it once came to Napoleon and his thinclad army, near a century ago. There was no wind; the noises of the city were suddenly hushed; a great silence now brooded over Moscow. The air was thick with big, fluffy, fluttering particles of whiteness which stuck to everything they touched, and never melted when they ceased to fall. We could not see across the road, even the horses were half hid. Our driver gave full rein to the impatient team and we flew homeward, but the snow kept coming down just the same. It never melted anywhere. It grew into piles and mounds and soft feathery masses. It wholly concealed the scarred and rutted unevennesses of the road, it clung to twig and tree and fence, to gable, to window-ledge and lintel. King Winter had breakfasted in Archangel and, speeding across flat and unbarriered Russia, now dined in Moscow and would there permanently remain. And as suddenly all Moscow now bloomed forth into sheepskin overcoats and elaborate furs and winter wraps. The citizens must have had them hanging behind the door upon a handy peg, ready for just such a sudden coming of the snows. By afternoon, sleighs and sledges jingled along the ways and boulevards, and stinking, filthy-streeted Moscow was transformed into a city immaculate and pure. And the snow kept ever falling, falling, falling, steadily, softly, persistently, without let or stop. It was toward two o'clock that we took our final excursion out beyond the borders of the city to the summer palace of the Czars, the favorite Chateau Petrovsky, where prior to the coronation every Czar goes to repose and meditate and prepare himself with fasting and prayer for the ordeal of the tedious ceremonial in the Cathedral of the Assumption within the Kremlin. [Illustration: THE KREMLIN BENEATH THE SNOWS.] The Chateau is a large and rambling building of wood and brick, with extensive suites of big, bare rooms. Behind it there lies a garden, laid out as though it were in France, with many graveled walks, and beds of flowers and edges of close-clipped box. Here the Czarina loves to wander, and here she passes many a quiet hour when escaped from the pomp and pressure of life in the Kremlin's gaudy palace. Here one bed of roses was pointed out to us as her especial joy. The old French gardener looked pathetic as he stood beside it and watched the big white flakes alighting upon each leaf and petal. "The snows are come," he said, "the garden dies, there will be no flowers more till another year!" And then, as if to save his cherished pets, he hastily gathered the finest of the blooms and presented them to H and begged her to accept and keep them, saying, "The snows are come, the Czarina, the Empress, will not now object; to-morrow these will surely all be dead." In the morning of the day before, we were told that, "To-morrow, or next day, or in a week, or a fortnight, will come the snows, we do not know how soon. But when they come, then we know that winter is begun, the long seven months of winter which will not leave us till May or June. It is then you should come to see us. Then are these ill-paved and reeking streets white and hard and clean; the summer's dusts and heats are then forgot, and we quicken with the invigoration of the cold; then does the city gladden with the gay life of those returned from the summer's toil upon the wide estates, or from foreign lands, for winter is the season when all Russians best love to be at home." We settled our hotel bills only after much argument with our host. We would not pay for candles we had not burned; our room was lighted with electric lights. We would not pay for steaks we had not eaten, nor chickens yet alive, nor for sweets we never tasted. No! For these and the like of these we flatly refused to pay. "De Vaiter's meeshtakes, Mein Herr, sie shall kom oudt." One hundred _rubles_ for three days! Moscow was as costly as London! Through the falling snows, thick falling snows, we drove to the Smolensk railway station, whence start the trains going west, for Moscow has not yet arrived at the convenience of a union depot. Although all railroads are owned and run by the government, yet each train starts from that side of the city nearest to the direction it will travel. We entered a long, low brick and wooden building, and passing through a wide dark waiting room, came out upon a wooden platform and were beside our train. We were ready to go. We had our tickets and our passports. Three days before, almost as soon as we arrived, we gave the forty-eight hours' notice of our intention to leave Russia, and the twenty-four hours' notice that we should also leave Moscow. We were permitted to take our passports to the main ticket office up within the city, the Kitai Gorod, and presenting them, secured the tickets. We then returned the passports to the police department to be given back to us just before we left, by the big uniformed official at our hotel. But he did not return them until we first bestowed upon him another ten _rubles_, as we had done when leaving St. Petersburg! Now we were once more to surrender our passports to a new uniformed government official, the train conductor, who would also examine them, _visé_ them, and hand them to another when we came to Warsaw, to be yet again scrutinized and stamped and only returned to us when we at last crossed the German border. Nor even then until we should be finally inspected and compared by yet other officials so as to make dead certain that we were indeed the very self same travelers who now declared they wanted to get out of Russia. The train was a long one. It was the through express carrying the Imperial Mails to Vienna, Berlin and Paris. It would pass Smolensk, Minsk, "Brzesc" (Brest) and Warsaw. It was one of the important trains of the empire. There were many passengers, and we were able to secure only a single stateroom with two berths in the first-class car for the ladies, while Mr. C and I obtained two berths in the second class car adjoining. We might sit together during the day, but for the night we would be in different coaches. The berths in our sleeper were provided each with a mattress, and an extra _ruble_ gave us a pair of blankets, a sheet and a pillow. The cars were warm and double-windowed against the cold. We went about twenty miles an hour over a straight-tracked road, and our sleep was undisturbed. When I awoke in the morning and made my way toward the toilet, though early, I yet found a queue of men and women ahead of me, and had to fall in line and take my turn. A big bearded Jew was just coming out of the little toilet room and a slim young woman was just going in, a young woman comely and with hair tangled and fallen down. This was bad enough, but between the tangled hair and myself stood another dame with locks quite as disheveled and unkempt. But I dared not quit my place, since an increasing number of men and women pressed uneasily behind me. My only chance was to stick it out until those coiffures should be restored to immaculate condition for the day. Within the toilet there was no soap, nor towel, nor comb, nor brush, nor else but ice-cold water, and a wide open channel down into the bitter stinging air. But I had now journeyed somewhat in Russia and had come fitly prepared. All night we had rolled through a dead flat country, passing Smolensk, a large city of fifty thousand inhabitants, and all day we continued to traverse the same wide levels. The sky was blue, the air was cold and keen, there was a slight drifting of snow across the illimitable fields. Peasants in belted sheepskin overcoats, which came down to the heels, were plowing in the fields, each behind a single horse, and women on their knees were planting, or digging out potatoes and turnips and beets. Women were also hoeing everywhere, working like the men--mostly in short skirts, kerchiefs about the head, legs swathed in cotton cloth wrapped around and tied on with strings, feet like the men's, wrapped up in plaited straw. The houses were miserable wooden huts of only one story and with chimneys made of sticks and mud and built on the inside to save heat, and meaner than any cabins of the most "ornery" mountaineers of eastern Kentucky and Tennessee. There were no windows in the hovels, no openings but one single door. For the men and women who tilled the land, it was poverty, bitter poverty everywhere. Yet we were traversing some of the finest, richest, most productive farming lands of Russia; lands on which great and abundant crops are raised, or ought to be raised, and where these men and women ought to be living in ease and comfort by their toil, for these lands are largely owned by those who till and cultivate them, the "free and emancipated" peasantry of Russia! But the great crops are of little avail to the helpless peasant. His industry brings him no cessation of grinding toil. He barely lives, often he starves, sometimes he dies, dies of starvation right on this rich, fat land he himself owns. The government of the Czar knows just what each acre of his land will yield, and knowing this, it takes from the peasant in taxes the product of his sweat and toil, leaving him barely enough to live. There are no schools to teach the peasant. The high Russian officer, the lieutenant colonel who guarded us from St. Petersburg to Moscow, said, "The peasant wants no schools." Thus, he never learns his rights, the rights God wills to him. He keeps on toiling year in and year out, and the government of the Czar squeezes from him his tears, his blood, his _kopeeks_, his life! And these men I saw were white men and owned the land, fat, fertile land, rejoicing ever in abundant crops! [Illustration: A STATION STOP, EN ROUTE TO WARSAW.] A century ago, even thus were also the peasants of France ground down and pillaged by the King, the nobility, the government of the state. As I traveled through the fruitful valley of the Loire two years ago, crossing central France, and beheld the smiling fields and well-planted meadows and perpetual cultivation of every foot of soil, until the whole land bloomed and bore crops like one mighty garden, I could not help wondering, as I looked upon the smiling countenance of the terrain, and upon the contented faces of the sturdy and thrifty peasantry who owned and tilled it, whether this present fecundity and agricultural wealthiness of rural France, does not, after all, repay the world and even France herself, for the terrors and the tears, the blood and the obliteration of the _l'ancien régime_, whose expungement by the Revolution alone made possible to-day a regenerated and rejoicing France. We have passed through Minsk, the ancient capital of Lithuania, a city of more than one hundred thousand inhabitants of whom more than half are Jews, and through Brzesc (pronounced "Brest"), another city as big as Smolensk and renowned as a fortress, taken and retaken, lost and relost, through all the weary centuries of Polish-Muskovite wars. We have crossed the river Bug ("Boog") on a fine steel bridge, and entering pillaged Poland, are now arrived within the borders of her great capital, Warsaw ("Barcoba," "Varsova"), where we change to a train of German cars, of the narrower German gauge, and go on to Berlin. Just after leaving Minsk, I fell into conversation with a most intelligent young Jew from Warsaw, who, among other things, spoke of Russia and her ways, saying that, strange as it may seem, the people of Poland prefer her harsh rule to the fairer dealing of the Germans, for the reason that Pole and Russ both talk a Slavic tongue, and race affinity constitutes a bond. Yet said he at the same time, all Poles dream of the day when a Polish King shall again fill a Polish throne, and the glories of their Fatherland shall be restored. We reached Warsaw only two hours late and pulled into the large stone station close alongside the Berlin train. The porter grabs our bags. Our small steamer trunk is shown to hold no _vodka_, nor contraband effects. "_Nach Berlin_," I shout, and we are transferred to a clean, comfortable German car. _Gott sei Dank!_ we feel a thousand times. We are almost free, almost escaped, almost beyond the Russian pale. For a fortnight, we have been under constant, conscious, persistent surveillance. Our guides have been in the employ of the police; strange men have followed us about upon the streets, have sat beside us in hotels, have scrutinized us with cold eyes upon the trains. We have been under the direct guard of armed soldiers, who have stood outside our stateroom door and slept beside us all the night. We have never, since entering Russia, been free from the weasel-wit and ferret-eye of incessant espionage! And the dirt! Dirty cars! Dirty hotels! Dirty carriages! Dirty streets! Dirty churches! Dirty palaces! Dirty men! Dirty women! Such is Russia, a land where the world knows not water, except to skate upon when turned to ice. Now we are in a German car, immaculately clean! Clean, almost, as it would be in Norway! We are in the modern world again. I feel great pressure in my heart to "_Hoch der Kaiser_", and this despite the fact that, like every right-minded American, I am bred to abhor the assumptions of Hohenzollern Kaisership even as strenuously as Romanoff Autocracy. Yes! I feel great impulse to _Hoch der Kaiser_ and to cheer for Germany and my German kin. XXII. The Slav and the Jew--The Slav's Envy and Jealousy of the Jew. Now that I have had a glimpse of Russia, you ask me, "Why is the Slav always so eager to do to death the Jew?" Wherefore this hatred which so constantly flames out in grievous pillage and wanton murder and blood-thirsty massacre of the children of Israel? You say to me that in America for two centuries we have had the Jew; that we now have millions of Jews, and that they are patriotic and loyal citizens of the Republic; that Jews sit in our highest courts and render able and fair decisions, enter the senate of the United States and sit in congress, are sent to West Point and Annapolis and prove themselves devoted and efficient officers of the army and navy, are lawyers and doctors and distinguished members of the learned professions; that they display intelligence, industry and thrift, and are among the foremost citizens of the Republic, and that many of these Jews, or their fathers and mothers, have come direct from Russia. And you ask me "Why is it then that within the dominion of the Czar the Slav makes such constant war upon the Jew?" If I were briefly to sum up my impressions of the real cause of the Slav's hatred of the Jew, I should say, JEALOUSY and ENVY, and then ask you to remember that the Slav is yet at heart a semi-Asiatic and a barbarian. When journeying from St. Petersburg to Moscow the Russian lieutenant-colonel said to me: "In America you select real men for Presidents of whom Roosevelt is the finest type, but in France the JEWS and financiers set up their tool for President." In a nut shell this high Russian officer expressed the feeling of his own race toward the Jew. The Jew is a Jew and the Jew is a financier. The Russians are jealous of his acquired wealth and of his ability to gather it and they hate him. A few days later, traveling from Moscow to Warsaw, we found ourselves sitting in a dining car with an elaborate bill of fare before us and yet we were like to starve right then and there. The menu was printed in Russian; the attendants and waiters talked nothing but Russian. We knew no Russian and spoke in English, in German, in French, in Danish without avail. The servants just stood there shaking their heads and saying, "_Nyett, Nyett_." ("No, No.") We were famishing but could order no food. Just then a tall woman of courtly manner, elegantly gowned, came toward us from another table and said in perfect English that she had long lived in London, though now she resided in Russia, and then, giving our orders to the waiters, she saved us from impending famine. She afterward told me that her passport had lapsed, and that the Russian Government now refused to let her leave Russia because she was a Jewess, while at the same time, they forbade her to remain longer in Moscow, she having recently become a widow, and under the harsh laws of Russia thereby lost her right of domicile within the city. She hoped to escape to America by bribing the officials at the border. At Vilna, I fell into acquaintance with a young Pole from Warsaw, who spoke seven languages and among them German and English fluently, although he had never been outside the dominions of the Czar. He was a strict Jew, and he expressed great surprise when I assured him that in America a Jew is treated just the same as a Christian. He said he had heard that to be indeed really the fact, and he expressed the intention of some day coming to America to see for himself. He seemed both perplexed and gratified when he found that I showed him the same consideration I did my Gentile acquaintances. In Moscow we drove past the imposing front of the great Jewish Synagogue. The doors were barred. The structure was falling into decay. I learned that it had been closed for nigh twenty years by order of the Imperial Governor of Moscow, Prince Vladimir, uncle of the Czar; nor might any Synagogue now be opened in Moscow; nor might any Jew now worship in any edifice; nor might any outside Jew now come and live in Moscow; nor might any Jew living in Moscow come back if he had once left the limits of the city; nor might he own any land in the city, nor practice a profession; nor might he marry a Christian, nor might a Christian marry him. The Jews were also subjected to extra and particular special taxes, arbitrarily levied and collected by the autocratic government. The Jew, right here in "Holy Moscow," soul and heart-center of the vast Russian Empire, was pillaged under the autocratic rule of the Czar, persecuted under the hand of the Holy Orthodox Church, plagued and preyed upon by a perpetually jealous and malevolent populace. The Russian army officer sneering at Monsieur Loubet, President of France, whom he called the "tool of Jews and Financiers;" the courtly Jewish lady; the intelligent Jewish merchant of Warsaw, who was so much astonished that I should show him the courtesy of an equal, the lowly _izvostchik_ driving me in his _droschky_ and pointing out the closed and moldering Synagogue; each and all discovered in their divers ways the attitude of the Slav toward the Jew; and the officer revealed in his criticism of the ruler of Russia's ally, the Republic of France, the real underlying secret cause of the Russian's animosity and hatred of the Jew. That cause of hatred is the Jew's ability to prosper without and in spite of the fostering care of the autocracy. The Jew was a cultivated citizen-of-the-world when the Slavic ancestors of the Russian were unlettered nomads roving the illimitable wastes of Scythia. In the temples and libraries of ancient Egypt the Jew acquired the culture and the learning of the Pharaohs; amidst the palaces and hanging-gardens of Imperial Babylon and Nineveh the Jew learned the arts and the sciences of the Assyrian and Persian; Plato and Aristotle and the Greek philosophers recognized in the Jew a spiritual culture of exalted type, and granted him to possess a learning as encompassing as their own; the Roman, practical, and master of the then known world, paid homage to the cultivated intelligence of the Jew. [Illustration: CATCHING A KOPEEK--A BEGGAR.] The monotonous plains of Russia were yet filled with nomadic hordes of pagan barbarians when Cordova was a paved city, its streets illuminated by night, its libraries and its University the center of the most advanced learning of the age; when the gigantic and splendid cathedrals of England and France were everywhere raising their mighty walls and spires for the perpetual glory of God and the inspiration of mankind; when the fleets of Lisbon and Genoa were discovering the farthest and most distant splendors of the Orient and Occident; when Venice was mistress of Byzantium and Florence patron of Rome; when Hebrew savants, under the benign influence of Saracen rule, were among the most learned and renowned leaders of Moslem science; when the Israelites of Italy and France were intermarried among the proudest of the nobility and were even counselors of Kings; when Hebrew learning and Hebrew wealth gave added momentum to the impulse of the Renaissance. While during the centuries of the world's reawakening, even as during the preceding centuries of the Crusades, just as throughout the long duration of the dominion of Rome and of the Eastern Empire, the Jew was ever recognized for his learning, culture and wealth. When St. Cyril and his Byzantine monks, in the seventh century, gave Greek Christianity to the Russian Pagan, the Russian yet remained content with outward forms and ceremonies. He continued pagan at heart and persevered in worshiping the ancient ghosts and spirits, even as in many parts of Russia he does to-day. He put on a Christian coat, but he kept his pagan hide; and the Russian Orthodox Christian has always remained a semi-pagan. The great mass of the Russian people were serfs sold with the land up to 1860, when Alexander II gave them nominal freedom, but a freedom without lands and without schools; a so-called freedom which has left the individual peasant, the _mujik_, as landless, as bitterly poor, as benightedly ignorant to-day as he was a thousand years ago; nor does the autocratic-bureaucracy of the Czar give him hope of a better day. I journeyed through some of the richest farming lands in Russia, and the farmers, the _mujiks_, whom I saw tilling the soil, plowing and digging in the fields, were so poor that their feet were wrapped in plaited straw, too impoverished to afford the luxury of a leathern boot! The government absorbs all the profits of the crops in payment for these lands and in taxes, as return for having made the _mujiks_ nominal owners of the soil and emancipating them from serfdom. On the other hand, the nobles are forbidden by caste spirit and tradition to enter into any career except the service of the state. The younger nobles and ruling breeds among the Russian people are all sucked into the employ of the state by the maelstrom of bureaucracy. The youths of the nobility and gentry, and the more or less educated classes, must enter the navy, the army, and the service of the state. A government job for life is their only hope. They are not permitted to make money for themselves independently; they can only make money for the government of the Czar and for themselves through "Graft." The government wishes to do everything in Russia. It deliberately invades the spheres of private enterprise; it deliberately seeks all the profit; it deliberately destroys the ambition and the power of the person; it deliberately annihilates and stifles individual initiative. In Russia, the government runs all the railroads, most of the mines, many of the iron mills. It raises cotton; it raises wheat; it farms and it manufactures. It buys and sells. It runs all the telegraphs and telephones and express business. It opens all private letters and reads all the printed books and newspapers. It permits no letter to go through the mails, nor book nor newspaper to be read, which it deems to express sentiments inimical to the supremacy of the autocracy. I was threatened with imprisonment in Russia for snapping a kodak without government permit. I was under police and military supervision and escort all the time I traveled in Russia, even short as it was. Nor did I dare to send a letter to America from Russia, but wrote my thoughts with locked doors, and mailed my writings only when safe beyond the eye of the Russian government spy. Thus we find that, on the one hand, the peasantry are crushed, thrust down and pitilessly held in ignorance and superstition and bitter poverty; on the other hand, all the best ability and brains of the governing classes are commandeered into the army, or navy, or life-long government service, and with meager salaries and small pay. The big grafts, the soft snaps, the juicy chances must all belong to the government and flow into the coffers of the Czar to keep fat and easy the Imperial family and the swarms of parasitic tid-bit hunters who leech them. But even in autocratic Russia, the grasping clutch of autocracy cannot hold up all the avenues of commerce, however far-reaching its embrace may be. Hence, in those lines of enterprise, not absorbed and appropriated by the government, there is left open a clear path to whosoever may have the acumen to seize the opportunity. Here is the chance of the Jew. Endowed with a keen and subtle intellect, educated by his own masters often to the highest training of the intelligence and disciplined by the hardships of persecution, he is at once an overmatch for the ignorant, brutal, poverty-haunted _mujik_, and fully the equal of the best breeds of governing Slavs. Those intellects which are the equals of his own are not in competition with him. The ablest of the Slavs are earning a small salary in the army, in the navy, or as government officials; making what they can for themselves by more or less open graft, it is true, but without the incentive of other personal gain. So the Jew gets on in Russia. This progress is in spite of the jealousy and the hatred and the pillaging hand of the envious Slav. [Illustration: A COLD DAY.] [Illustration: ALONG THE RIVER MOSKVA, MOSCOW.] There is, here and there, considerable wealth among many of the Jews in Russia. This is not true of all the Jews. Most of the Jews are poor, frightfully poor, made and kept so by the laws; but there is wealth among some of the Jews. The few wealthy Jews do not always keep these riches within the dominions of the Czar. The Russians complain that the rich Jews, while making their money in Russia, yet lay it up in the banks of Berlin, of Vienna, of Paris and particularly of London. When a Russian Governor wishes to squeeze a little extra pocket money out of the Jews of his district, his city, his province, he cannot always lay hands on their money hoards. Sometimes, then, he lets the street urchins plague them a little; the squeezed and squalid peasant is allowed to vent his envy of their wealth, even to knocking a Jew down; now and then, these meanly-minded boys, these pinch-bellied peasants get out of hand and, stung by their blood lust, too hastily massacre more Jews than the Governor intended. This is about the size of the job that Governor Von Raaben found to his credit in Kischineff. The poor Jews suffered for the prosperity of their rich brethren. The embittered and down-crushed _mujik_, galled and soured by reason of his own hapless and seemingly hopeless condition, vented his spleen at the first handy object, and the Jew was handier, though not more hated, than the uniformed official of the governing autocracy. The Russian, as an individual, is of a kindly nature. He is good to his wife, good to his children, good to his beasts. He has none of the Roman-Spanish pitilessness to dumb creatures. But the Russian, after all, is an Asiatic. The old saying, "Scratch a Russian and you'll find a Tartar," is as true to-day as when the Cossacks of Catherine II impaled and crucified men and women and children of the fleeing Mongol horde, when these simply sought to migrate beyond the hectoring reach of Russian rule. No bloodier chapter mars the annals of history than that of the Russian slaughter of nigh the entire Tekke Turkoman race in her warfare of 1881 on the shores of the Caspian, at Geok Tepe, when seven thousand women and children were stricken down in cold blood as they fled from Kuropatkin's ruthless Cossacks. Nor is the world done shuddering yet at the atrocious barbarities under General Gribski, Governor of Blagoveschensk, who commanded the deliberate drowning of the Chinese inhabitants of that city but a few years ago, in 1898, and in a season of prevailing peace, drove them before the knouts and bayonets of his Cossacks into the hopeless waters of the river Amoor by unnumbered thousands, old men and women and little children, so that for many weeks, nay months, the great river was so choked with the swollen bodies of the dead that navigation was at a standstill. [Illustration: A RUSSIAN JEW.] No Roman sack and pillage of a conquered city, not even the taking and wreck of Jerusalem by Titus and his legions, equals in horror and cold blood these late Russian slaughters; not even the fire and sword of Attila and his avenging Huns wrought such woe and terror as have been wrought in these recent years by the servants of the Czar; nor are the tormented souls of Alva and his Spanish veterans more deeply marked with blood-soaked scars than is the Russian autocracy of to-day; nor mediaeval, nor modern times, nor pagan, nor Moslem warfare, have known so monstrous a series of godless massacres of helpless humankind as those now standing to the credit of the Russian autocracy during the last twenty-five years. The crime of Kischineff is no more heinous than have been the slaughters of Geok Tepe, Blagoveschensk and a thousand lesser human killings, nor more heart-sickening than were those awful visitations of Slavic blood-lust upon creatures defenseless, helpless, abjectly terror-struck. It is only that it was committed in a season of profound peace, against a peaceful people, and at a time when all the world had the leisure to hear the dying wails of the hapless women and helpless children raped and ravished and torn asunder in the open day. Notwithstanding these crimes which mar the pages of recent Russian history, none would be more astonished than the Russian himself, if he were made aware of the world-wide condemnation these crimes provoke. He would protest against so harsh an estimate of Russian conquest; at most, when confronted with the facts, he would shrug his shoulders and urge that the responsibility lies not upon Holy Russia, but upon those who oppose her destiny to conquer and absorb. The thoughtful Russian will declare that after all it is no more than the inevitable struggle of the survival of the fittest, and demonstrate that there are no feuds of race, other than the universal hatred of the Jew, within the dominions of the Czar. From the Russian viewpoint these arguments are not unreasonable; the vast military establishment upon which rests the autocracy, necessitates foreign wars with weaker peoples, if for no other reason than to keep a busied soldiery from thinking too much upon grievances at home; through commercial expansion in Asia, won by bayonet and sword, the autocracy has sought to secure compensation for the suppression of commercial opportunity at home! The problems of Russia are, after all, economic rather than racial, and it is up to Russia to solve these in accordance with the lessons and example of the enlightened nations of the west; let the nobility and educated classes, who are now sucked into and absorbed by the bureaucracy, take full part in the commercial and industrial life of the empire and receive full reward for the exercise of their energy, intelligence and skill; let them lift from the _mujik_ the crushing weight of the Imperial taxes, divide with him the almost illimitable acreage of the Imperial domain; and leave to him his fair share of the earnings won by his sweat and toil, and there will be no more Geok Tepes, Blagoveschensks, nor Kischineffs, nor will there be longer hatred of the Jew. [Illustration: TAKEN IN RUSSIA--TAKEN IN AMERICA. JEWISH TYPES.] XXIII. Across Germany and Holland to England--A Hamburg Wein Stube, the "Simple Fisher-Folk" of Maarken--Two Gulden at Den Haag. LONDON, ENGLAND, HOTEL RUSSELL, _September 27, 1902_ Crossing the Russian border in the night, we arrived at Berlin almost before the dawn; the city lies only three hours (by train) beyond the Russian line. The station we entered was spacious and clean, in sharp contrast to the dirty stations of Russia; we were evidently come into a land blessed with a civilization of higher type. Leaving the car, we were instantly beset by a regiment of smartly uniformed porters--old soldiers all of them--and were piloted by one tall veteran to a waiting _fiacre_, which soon carried us to the Hotel Savoy. It was early, not yet five o'clock, but the streets were already alive with an orderly and animated throng, who appeared to be workmen largely, carpenters, masons and day-laborers, each clad in his distinctive laborer's garb. They were on their way to work, for the working day is long in Germany, ten and twelve hours, and the workingman is up betimes. We passed over asphalted streets where men in military-looking uniforms, with hose in hand, were washing down their surfaces, while others with big coarse brooms were sweeping them clean. Berlin is a clean city, clean and neat as the proverbial German in America is known to be. Alighting from our carriage, I was greeted in my own tongue, by the friendly mannered concierge, who instantly marked me for an American, and gave us comfortable quarters such as American dollars usually secure. [Illustration: A DAINTY NURSE MAID, BERLIN.] H and I were now alone, our companions, Mr. and Mrs. C having left us at Warsaw, where they would spend a week or two and learn something of Poland. Perhaps I might tell you right here, that the next morning, as we were leaving the hotel, I felt a hand upon my shoulder and, turning round, faced the two Chicago travelers just then arrived. They had cut short their stay in Warsaw, for the only American-speaking guide in that city was away on a vacation, and German and French to them were as impossible as Polish. They confessed, also, that they had sorely missed their American fellow-travelers, and had hurried after us, hoping they might induce us to sojourn a little while in their good company. We spent our single day without trying to see museums and picture galleries, but taking a guide and a carriage, drove about the city and viewed its avenues and parks, its markets and busy thoroughfares, and noble public buildings, to catch what glimpse we might of the waxing Capital of the German Empire. The first impression Berlin makes upon the stranger, especially the stranger new-come from Russia, is that of its cleanliness and orderliness; and, I think, I here also felt the sympathy of blood-kinship with the well set-up and neatly clad men and women, whose faces might have been those of my fellow countrymen of St. Louis, Cincinnati or New York. Berlin, to-day, fitly typifies modern Germany and the modern German spirit. We drove everywhere over smooth streets, kept scrupulously clean. On either hand stretched miles of new and handsome buildings, modern in architecture and modern in construction, while the signs I saw were in Latin Text, instead of the Gothic, a striking evidence of German progression. When we came to the lovely Unter Den Linden, we left the carriage and wandered beneath its umbrageous trees and enjoyed, as every one must, the beauty of its vistas of greensward and carefully tended flowers. The German loves his flowers almost as devotedly as does his English cousin. We strolled also along the famous Thier Garten, which would be a magnificent boulevard in any city; and which the German Kaiser has sought to ornament with innumerable ponderous groups of sculpture, preserving for the astonished world the commonplace memories of paltry ancestors. How much better would it have been to have adorned this stately thoroughfare with statues of illustrious Germans, whose great deeds and works have contributed to the world's enlightenment and the Fatherland's renown! To a Democrat, bred to contemn the empty glitter and pretense of inherited privilege, it almost stirs one's anger to see so splendid a public highway as the Thier Garten thus arrogantly defaced. In this Capital of an Empire, whose foundation is set on bayonets and swords and the "biggest guns," where militarism runs riot, there is no surprise in finding the streets filled with soldiers and officers, and to meet frequently a marching company, nor does it astonish one to see here the extreme development of the spirit of military caste. Here, the civilian, man as well as woman--no matter how well clad he or she may be--must turn aside for strutting officer and also, as for that, for the common soldier, and all traffic must hold back to let a company of soldiery pass by, even though they are out only on errand of trivial exercise. Here in Germany, perhaps as nowhere else, have the clever supporters of Royal and Imperial pretension worked the army racket to the limit, through creating a perpetual scare that greedy neighbors will devour the Fatherland. The citizen of Berlin is never allowed to forget that little more than a century ago, Cossack hordes pastured their ponies in the parks and gardens of the German capital; and can gallop there again from their Polish camps in a single day. The army has been built up on the pretense that it is necessary for national defense, and thus the Kaiser, who is permitted to occupy the position of army chief, holds at his command these enormous military forces, while he uses them the rather to exalt his own prerogative and subvert the people's inborn rights of individual sovereignty, which is the highest gift of God to man. The splendid building of the Reichstag, where the Socialist party of Germany, to-day, makes its almost vain attempt toward securing to the people a freer exercise of man's natural rights, is thus menaced by the colossal military group which stands before it, as though to teach the lesson that the sword still rules the Fatherland. In the evening, our guide, who had privately confessed to me that within the year he would travel to New York there to become manager of a great hotel, led us to one of the more notable Bier Garten, where we saw a most German vaudeville, the feats of whose performers were greeted with vociferous _hochs_, and where we listened to a splendid band, and where H had her first sight of ponderous Germans absorbing beer, with which spectacle she was much impressed. Wednesday, we were early astir, driving to the Hamburgischer Bahnhoff, where we took the fast nine o'clock express for Hamburg, and flew along over a well-ballasted road-bed through a dead-flat country, in what the Germans proudly call their "fastest" train. The panorama was one of market gardens and intensely cultivated land. It was a monotonous prospect, where the alikeness of the vistas was emphasized by the sentinel stiffness of the ever recurring rows of Lombardy-poplars. As in Russia, men and women were everywhere working in the fields and gardens, but unlike Russia, they were well clad and well fed, and bore an air of thrifty contentment. There was no dilapidation anywhere. We saw no longer the tumbled-down shacks of the _mujik_, but everywhere substantial, neat homesteads of brick and stone. [Illustration: HAMBURG STREET TRAFFIC.] Ours was a through train connecting with the Hamburg-American Line of steamers for New York, and with the through railway express traffic for France and Belgium, via Cologne. The passengers were chiefly of the well-to-do commercial classes, or those substantial travelers who would hasten quickly between Germany and France. None the less, at the few stations where we halted, did the entire company instantly burst forth, hastening to the long counters, where they convulsively swallowed foaming schooners of beer and eagerly devoured sundry dainties, such as rye bread spread with goose grease and over-laid with _kraut_ or _wurst_, and varnished _pretzels_ salted to the limit. Even the babies were held at the open windows and foaming mugs of beer poured into them by their fond parents. The passion of the German for his _bier_ equals the Russian's thirst for _vodka_. We reached Hamburg a little after half past one, when, taking a _fiacre_, we immediately drove to Cook's Tourists' Agency, where I booked to London, via Amsterdam, The Hague, the Hook of Holland, and Harwich. Then, for an hour, we strolled about the city. Hamburg possesses fine retail shops and abounds in restaurants, Bier-Keller and Wein-Stuben, establishments devoted to the solace of the inner man. Stricken with hunger-pangs, and not knowing just where to go, I accosted a tall and prosperous-looking burger, telling him we were Americans in search of food. Lifting his hat, he "begged to be allowed to guide us to the finest Wein Stube" in the town, whither his own steps were at that moment bent. He led the way to a quiet side street, where, descending a flight of stone steps, he introduced us to the portly master of the _stube_. We entered a succession of large cellars, paneled and ceiled in oak and floored with patterned tiles, where small round-topped wooden tables were set about. We were conducted to a cozy corner, and Rhine wine, cheese, sausage and fresh rye bread were set before us, as well as mustard and sour pickles and pats of sweet unsalted butter, and to this was added a palatable stew. The room was filled with men--big, well-fed, well-clothed men, apparently merchants, ship-masters and men of affairs. They fell-to upon their flagons of _wein_, their _wurst_ and _kraut_, their _braten_ and _fisch_ with serious and deliberate devotion. It was that time of day when, in America, the prospering businessman eats lightly, smokes sparingly and touches liquor not at all, holding his intellect alert and whetted to its keenest edge. We watched with wonder these men of Hamburg, while they poured down quart after quart of wine, the air growing thick with the fumes of strong tobacco. This capacity of Hans to eat heavily and mightily liquor-up and yet transact affairs, bespeaks a hardness of head and toughness of stomach which ranks him neck and neck alongside his cousin Bull as co-champion of the bibulating, gastronomizing world. [Illustration: OUR BILL OF FARE.] Although H was the only woman in the _stube_, being recognized as Americans, we were treated by the company with greatest courtesy and that invariable friendliness with which, in Germany, my countrymen are everywhere received. Upon departing, Mein Host presented me with an attractive little ash-tray to add to my collection of souvenirs and, with much ceremony, bestowed also upon mine _frau_ an illuminated catalogue of his store of wines. Later, we entered a comfortable _landau_ and for several hours were driven about the city. Hamburg has always been an important city and one where great volume of business has been transacted. In the Middle Ages it was a member of the Hanseatic League; in after days it was a Free City and, even at this time, its citizens view its absorption within the German Empire not altogether with satisfaction. It bears the marks of great antiquity. Quaint and picturesque are the lofty mediaeval buildings which lean over its canals, where men and women push, with long poles, blunt-ended canal boats and clumsy-looking, but storm-proof, sloops and luggers, among perpetual cries and clamors; where sturdy black tug boats incessantly shove their way; and where is a jam and jostle of inland water-life not unlike that seen in Holland. Many narrow streets cross these canals on high-built bridges, bearing a continuous and deliberately-moving traffic. Hamburg also possesses noble boulevards, long and straight and wide, and well-shaded with umbrageous lindens, where, set back behind high walls and strong-barred gates, are miles of sumptuous mansions, in which her merchant princes maintain their households in unostentatious luxury. The wealth of the merchants of Hamburg is said to exceed that of the aristocratic office-holding classes of Berlin. There are also spacious docks in Hamburg, convenient and modernly equipped, where, year by year, gathers an increasing shipping to fetch and carry the rapidly developing foreign commerce of the German Empire. The wealth and energy of the German Hinterlands pours itself eagerly into Hamburg's lap and the ancient mediaeval city now finds itself, unlike somnolent Copenhagen, at the very forefront of Europe's activity. Hamburg is, commercially, more alive and active than Berlin, and as a port receives more shipping than London. Hamburg is almost as wide awake as is New York. After our drive, we came to the Hotel Europaer, where we dined and rested, and then departed a little before midnight for Amsterdam. Although this is the regular passenger service to Holland, there was no through sleeper, and we were compelled to change at Oestenburg, where we caught the night express from Cologne. Then in a comfortable "_schlafwagen_," wrapped in our sea-rugs, we slept soundly the balance of the night. [Illustration: A KINDER OF MAARKEN.] [Illustration: A GENTLEMAN OF MAARKEN.] We arrived at Amsterdam near eight o'clock and found our way to the Hotel Victoria, near the station, where I enjoyed such delicious coffee two years ago, and there we breakfasted: coffee,--a great pot of fragrant Java,--abundant milk, sweet and delicious,--rolls and big fresh eggs, and a fish which much resembled the Danish _roed spoette_ and English sole. It was a delightful breakfast, such as one is always sure to have in Holland. Two years ago, I devoted my time to viewing the city, so now we resolved to see somewhat of the country beyond the limits of the town. Thus it happened that we boarded a taut little boat in the midmorning and all day long steamed through canals, with many locks, passing above picturesque farmsteads and villages, down upon which we looked from the higher level of the diked-up waters, and floated at last upon the Zuyder Zee. We later visited the Island of Maarken with its fisher-folk in quaint and ancient costume. Once "simple peasants," but now, alas! ruined by the staring, money-shedding tourist. We had scarcely set foot upon the Island, when we were stormed by a horde of men and women, boys and girls, each demanding "mooney," and imploring us to snap the kodak at them for the cash; begging us also to visit their particular homes, where we would be allowed to look inside the door, and perhaps inspect the house, for more Dutch _cents_ and even _gulden_. So persistent were these "simple fisher-folk" that I almost fell into dire mishap. H suggested she should take my photograph, whereupon I arranged myself before the camera, when, just as the kodak clicked, a _vrow_ and several _kinderen_ rushed up and took position by my side, thus necessarily appearing in the picture, as you will see. The lady backed by her brood thereupon demanded, "Mooney, mooney, mooney." Naturally, I refused to pay for what had been given without request. The little company immediately raised a loud lament, at sound of which an immense and bow-legged fisherman appeared upon the scene, lifting a great oar and threatening my annihilation, unless money were put up. However, I was firm and fearless, and finally convinced him that I had not requested the family to stand before the lens, while I showed him I had already added half a _gulden_ to his chest for inspection of the home. Comprehending this at last, his anger then turned upon his spouse, and he sulkily drove her and the _kinderen_ within their door, using language that sounded much like the English damn. Leaving the Island, we came home across the Zee and passed through the huge new locks of the River Amstel, the "_Dam_" of which, keeping out the waters of the Zuyder Zee, gives to the city its name,--_Amstel-dam_. [Illustration: AMONG VROW AND KINDEREN, MAARKEN.] The little boat we sailed upon was chiefly filled with Holland folk, for we were behind the tourist season. They were a quiet, undemonstrative company and, on the deck, sat about in little groups and were served with Schiedam _schnapps_ in small glasses by white-aproned waiters and smoked long, light-colored Sumatra cigars. The proverbial Hollander, fat and chunky with an enormous pipe, is now a mere tradition. The Dutchman of to-day, like his English cousin, is long and lean, and might almost be taken for a New England Yankee. An hour by rail brought us to "Den Haag." We passed among broad meadows, marked by wide black ditches from which gigantic pumps incessantly suck out the seeping waters and pour them into the sea. These meadows were once the bottom of the ocean, the soil being composed of the rich alluvial silt which the continental rivers have for centuries discharged. Indeed, Holland may be said to consist of the submerged deltas of the rivers Scheldt and Rhine, which the indefatigable industry of man has rescued from the sea. These lands are of inexhaustible fertility and upon them, everywhere, we saw grazing herds of black-and-white Holstein cows, whence come the butter and cheese for which Holland is famous, and the delicious milk which is so abundantly offered us at every meal. The roadbed ran high above the meadows, down upon which we looked. Here and there we espied a cluster of neat farm buildings, reminding me much of the Dutch homesteads along the Hudson River valley, and stretching from Albany along the Mohawk, in New York,--with this difference, however, that here, each house and barn and garden lay surrounded with its own diminutive canal, where were little foot-bridges and skiffs fastened near the kitchen door, even a large canal boat being often moored against a barn, the better to float away the loaded hay. The Dutchman finds life intolerable unless he has his own canal right at his threshold. Farther along, the landscape was marked with innumerable windmills turning their ponderous arms slowly to the breeze which crept in from the sea; we counted I do not know how many, there seemed never to be an end. The people we saw were stout and rosy-cheeked, and moved with less alertness than do the Norwegians, nor did they have about them that air of busy-ness which the modern German begins to show. The impression made by the Hollander is that of sureness and deliberation. The cocky strut of the Frenchman, who moves ever as though on dress-parade, is entirely wanting to the Hollander, whose demure exterior gives no hint of the wealth, the talent, the high importance hid within. The journey from Amsterdam to The Hague takes scarcely an hour, and before we knew it we drew in to the large station of the Dutch capital. The soldierly-clad porters are not here as numerous as in Germany, nor did those who served us move with so self-conscious and self-important a gait. Men in quiet, dark-blue uniforms quickly put our baggage into an open _fiacre_ and we drove to the hotel of the "Twe Stadten," a comfortable inn facing a large well-shaded "_park_." We were given a commodious chamber looking out upon a pretty garden and dined, at a later hour, in the long, low-ceilinged dining room. The guests were few, only one other party beside ourselves dining thus late. They were two tall and white-haired dames, gowned in black silk with much old lace round about the throat, and with them a petite and pretty Señorita, who spoke in Spanish and insisted upon puffing cigarettes. She led the way from the dining room smoking jauntily, the two chaperones following respectfully behind. [Illustration: ALONG THE ZUYDER ZEE.] [Illustration: A LOAD OF HAY, HOLLAND.] [Illustration: DUTCH TOILERS.] [Illustration: A WATERY LANE, DEN HAAG.] In the morning we spent delightful hours in the national picture galleries looking at the priceless collections of the Rembrandts and Rubens, which the Dutch government has here assembled; in the afternoon we strolled about the clean, quiet city, beneath the over-spreading elms; and then we supped at Scheveningen, where we saw the sea again and the last of the season's fashionable folk. A moment before leaving our hotel to take the train, which would carry us to The Hook, I had my last adventure among the canny Dutch. Upon the table in our chamber lay an attractive little ash-receiver, which any smoker must needs long to own. Quite naturally, it became entangled with our sundry purchases and scattered belongings and with them was inadvertently put away. Just as we were quitting the apartment, the head waiter of the inn, in whose charge we seemed to be, burst in upon us with wild anxiety in his eye and explained in broken English, that he instantly observed, upon scrutinizing the chamber, that a most valuable piece of Delft ware had mysteriously disappeared. Perhaps we had broken it? At any rate, it was gone and he would be held responsible for its loss. Two _gulden_ would barely replace it! "What should he do?" Naturally, I explained that my wife by mistake had probably packed it up, and begged him to advise the office that, upon settling my bill, it would give me pleasure to deposit two _gulden_ against the loss. At a later time, when exhibiting this relic to wiser eyes, I was forced to recognize that the little ash-receiver was merely common ware, of value perhaps ten Dutch _cents_! So much for the knowing Dutchman who traps the traveler in search of souvenirs! Two hours after leaving The Hague we were upon the ship which would carry us to England. By early morning we were again at Harwich, and we arrived in London by mid-afternoon. Our only fellow passenger upon the train was a tall, dark, silent man, who carried with him an enormous overcoat of fur. We thought him a Russian, and wondered if he also had come directly from the Empire of the Czar. We are now returned to London, whence we departed five weeks ago. We have crossed the North Sea, and journeyed through Denmark, and Norway, and Sweden, and visited their capitals. We have voyaged across the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Finland; we have caught a passing glimpse of Helsingfors, and looked upon St. Petersburg and Moscow, and traveled many hundred _versts_ through the Empire of the Czar. We have sped through Germany and felt at home in the noble cities of Berlin and Hamburg. We have tarried in Amsterdam and Den Haag, where we felt the strangely familiar atmosphere of Dutch New York. We have looked upon many peoples of the Teutonic races and, when among them, have felt that subtle throb of kinship, which common blood and common origin awake; we have also plunged a moment within the mediaeval and yet semi-barbarous dominions of the Slav and found ourselves upon the threshold of mysterious Asia. [Illustration: THE GOSSIPS, DEN HAAG.] [Illustration: THE FISH MARKET, DEN HAAG.] We have everywhere been thankful in our hearts that we were born and bred beneath the Stars and Stripes in the great Republic of the West, where hope and opportunity are not merely our own, but are also the loadstars which beckon thither the youth and vigor of these older peoples of the World. INDEX Aabo Elv, 89 Alexander Nevsky Monastery, 156 Amagertorv, The, 22 American Belles and Viking Beaux, 119 American Dollars and Norse Farms, 111 American Emigration from Norway, 113 American Influence on Norway, 48 American Navy, Norse Sailors in, 53 American Spirit, 112 Amsterdam, 223 Arctic Twilight, The, 115 Ash Receiver, Incident of, 227 Aurdals Vand, The, 60 Baegna Elv, 60 Baltic Sea, Crossing the, 138 Baltic Sea, A Storm on,140 Bandaks Vand, 108 Belts, Big and Little, 11 Berlin, City of, 216 Berlin, Hotel at Moscow, 169 Bier Garten, Berlin, 218 Blagoveschensk, 211 Boerte Dal, 107 Borgund, Ancient Church of, 72 Breifond, Hotel, 93 Bruce Fjord, 75 Brute, A Titled, 82 Brzesc (Brest), 199 Buarbrae Glacier, The, 89 Bug River, 199 Caste, Influence in Russia, 207 Cathedral of the Archangel Michael, 175 Cathedral St. Basil the Blessed, 175 Cathedral St. Savior, 173 Churches and Schools in Norway, 104 Churches, St. Petersburg, 155 Climate of Western Coast Norway, 76 Coasting Down the Laera Dal, 71 Condit, Mr. and Mrs., 138 Copenhagen, 13 Cossack Hordes, 217 Cruelty of Ivan the Terrible, 176 Cruelty of Peter the Great, 187 Cruelty of Past Czars, 174 Cruelty of Modern Russia, 210 Dalen, 106 Danish Friends, Our, 11 Democratic Trend in Sweden, 126 Denmark, A Small Country, 28 Dinner Party, An Evening, 36 Dining Service at Ed., 44 Discontent of Russian Masses, 153 Dogs of Copenhagen, 24 Dutch, Impressions of the, 226 Eida, 84 Eids Elv, 110 Eikon, The, 171 Elsinore, 33 Esbjerg, 9 Etna Elv, Along the, 56 Fagernaes, 63 Farming in Norway, 71 Fat Farm Lands of Russia, 197 Finland, 142 Finland, The Gulf of, 145 Flaa Vand, 110 Fleischer's Hotel, 82 Fog, The, leaving Harwich, 3 Folgefonden, Ice Field, 89 Fosheim, 63 France and the Jews, 202 France, Modern France, Contrasted with Russia, 198 French Fellow-travelers, Our, 90-97 Frydenlund, Night at, 58-60 Gammel Strand, The, Fish-market, 23 Geok Tepe, 210 German Bride, The Lovely, 43 German Fellow-travelers clamor for Bier, Our, 97 German Car, In a, 200 German Ogre Hungry for Denmark, 19 Germany, We Enter, 214 Germany, Journey to Hamburg, 218 Gors Vand, 92 Government Monopoly in Russia, 207 Graft, Mulcted for Passports, 150-159-195 Granheims Vand, 62 Gravens Vand, 84 Gribski, General, 210 Grungedals Vand, 106 Gudvangen, 78 Gulden at Den Haag, Two, 228 Hague, The, 228 Hamburg, 220 Hamlet's Ghost and Grave, 35 Hangoe, We Make Port, 140 Hardanger Fjord, The, 85 Harvesting in Norway, 65 Harwich, Departure from, 1-3 Harwich, Return to, 228 Haukeli Fjeld, The, 97 Haukeli Fjeld, Descending from the, 107 Haymow Flying Through the Air, 71 Height of Land, Crossing above Nystuen, 69 Helsingborg, 41 Helsingfors, 143 Herring Catch at Elsinore, 38 Hoch der Kaiser, 189 Holger Danske, Legend of, 35 Holland, Passing Through, 225 Hollander of Today, The, 225 Hook of Holland, The, 227 Hotel Berlin, Moscow, 169 Hotel Breifond, Horre, 92 Hotel Continental, Stockholm, 122 Hotel Dagmar, Copenhagen, 13 Hotel de'l Europe, St. Petersburg, 149 Hotel Fleischer's, Voss, Norway, 82 Hotel Haukelid, Norway, 97 Hotel Kristiania Missions, 46 Hotel Savoy, Berlin, 214 Hotel Sleibot, Elsinore, 38 Hotel Stalheim, Norway, 75 Hotel Twee Stadten, The Hague, 227 Hotel Victoria, Amsterdam, 223 Imperial Apartments, St. Petersburg, 155 Imperial Mail Train, Russia, 158 Ivan the Terrible, 176 Izvostchiks, 147-149-168 Jew, Cultivated Citizen of the World, 204 Jews' Opportunity, The, 206 Jewess, Russian, 202 Jewish Synagogue, Moscow, 203 Jotunheim, 61 Jutland, to Funen and Zealand, 13 Juno, A Viking, 70 Kilefos, 78 King Oscar II, an Incident, 134 Kischineff, Massacres of, 210 Kremlin, The, 173 Kristiania, 46 Kristiania to Stockholm, 49 Kronborg, 34 Kronstadt, Fortress of, 145 Laera River, The, 72 Laerdalsoeren, 70 Lap Dish-wiper, A, 109 Life and Color of Swedish Capital, 129-132 Loeken Upon the Slidre Vand, 63 London, Departure, 1 London, Return to, 228 Lotefos and Skarsfos, 90 Lubin, The Eating Room at, 162 Maarken, Island of, 223 Maarken, In a Tight Place, 224 Maidens Milking Goats, 101 Maristuen, 69 Militarism, in Germany, 217 Military Guard, 160-163 Minsk, 199 Moscow, En Route to, 158-161 Moscow, Arrive at, 167 Moscow, 168 Moscow, Our Guide in, 169 Moscow, Street Life, 178 Moscow, We Leave, 195 Mujiks, Frightful Poverty of the, 197-208 Mujiks, Hatred of Bureaucrats, 187 Naeroe Fjord, 78 Nelson, U. S. Senator, 81 Neva, Entering the River, 146 Nordsjoe Vand, 110 North Sea, Crossing the, 3 Norwegian Bride, A, 119 Notes and Comments on Norse Life, 103 Notice to Police, 150 Novo Dievitchy, Monastery, 191 Novogorod, 125 Odda, The Voyage to, 87 Odda to Horre, 91 Odnaes, 55 Ole Mon, Our Driver, 56 Ole Mon, I Fall into Rhyme, 74 Opheims Vand, 80 Pageant of Russian Mass, 182 Palaces of St. Petersburg, 154 Passport System of Russia, 136-146 Peat Beds in Norway, 114 Peter the Great, 185 Petrovsky, Chateau, 193 Pixies and Sprites, 100 Poland and the Poles, 199 Police at St. Petersburg, 149 Problems of Russia Economic, 212 Raaben, General von, 210 Railroads--Danish, 10-31 English, 1 German, 218 Norwegian, 41-81 Russian, 160-163-195 Swedish, 118 Rand Fjord, Upon the, 55 Recruiting Farm Hands for America, 113 Red Square, Moscow, 174 Religious Feeling in Russia, 180 Rembrandt, 227 Revolution in Russia Inevitable, 199 Roldals Vand, 92 Roosevelt, Russians Admire, 166 Rubens, 227 Rundals Elv, 82 Rurik, House of, 125-176 Russians Barbarians, 179 Russian Dirt, 200 Russia, How We Entered, 136 Russia, Mediaeval and Pagan, 185 Sandven Vand, 89 Scandinavian State, United, 19-127 Scheveningen, 227 Schools, in Norway, 104 Schools, Lack of, in Russia, 156-165 Seljestad Hotel, Our Hostess, 91 Seljestad Juvet, 91 Serfs, in Russia, 206 Ships, on North Sea, 3 Ships, on Gulf of Finland, 138 Skansen Park, 131 Skien, 108 Skjervefos, The Roaring, 83 Skodshorn, The Legend of the, 65 Skogstad, The Night at, 67 Sleeping Car, Swedish, 118 Slidre Vand, 63 Smidal Fjord, 75 Smolensk, 195 Snow, The First, 191 Snows, Distant, 60 Sogne Fjord, On the, 75 South African Trooper, Incident, 2 Sparrow Hills, 177 Staa Vand, 97 Staavanger, 88 Stalheim to Vossvangen, 81 Stars, We are the, 105 Stockholm, 129 Stockholm and the Swede, 123 Stockholm, The Hotel at, 122 Stockholm, Life and Color of, 128 St. Peter and St. Paul, Church of, 156 St. Petersburg, 148 Stranda Vand, The, 60 Summary of Impressions, 229 Sund, The, 32 Sund, The, Crossing to Sweden, 41 Swede and Norsk, Differentiation of, 124 Swedish Coffee House, A, 133 Swedish Sleeping Car, A, 118 Telemarken Fjords, The, 108-110 Teutonic Kinship, 189 Thier Garten, Berlin, 216 Three Continents, 184 Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen, 26 Tomlevolden, 56 Tonsaasen, Sanitorium of, 57 Trolls and Pixies, 65 Trolls and Witches, 98 Tver, City of, 163 Tvinde Elv, 81 Twilight, the Arctic, 115 Ulivaa Vand, 97 Utro Vand, 69 Vangs Vand, 81 Vangsmjoesen Vand, 60 Valdai Hills, 163 Volga River, 125-163 Voss or Vossvangen, 81 Voxli Vand, 106 Warships, Incident of American, 53 Wealth of Churches, St. Petersburg, 156-157 Wealth of Few, Poverty of Many, Russia, 148-152-157 Wealth of Few, Russia, 209 Wedding Party, A, 120 Wein Stube, Hamburg, 220 Western Alps of Norway, 88 Winter, Preparation for, 115 Workingmen's Square, 187 Zuyder Zee, 223 [Illustration: MAP OF NORTH EUROPE.] [Illustration: MAP OF SCANDINAVIA AND BALTIC RUSSIA, IN PROFILE.] 
21730	----	ERLING THE BOLD, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE. CHAPTER ONE. IN WHICH THE TALE BEGINS SOMEWHAT FURIOUSLY. By the early light of a bright summer morning, long, long ago, two small boats were seen to issue from one of the fiords or firths on the west coast of Norway, and row towards the skerries or low rocky islets that lay about a mile distant from the mainland. Although the morning was young, the sun was already high in the heavens, and brought out in glowing colours the varied characteristics of a mountain scene of unrivalled grandeur. The two shallops moved swiftly towards the islands, their oars shivering the liquid mirror of the sea, and producing almost the only sound that disturbed the universal stillness, for at that early hour Nature herself seemed buried in deep repose. A silvery mist hung over the water, through which the innumerable rocks and islands assumed fantastic shapes, and the more distant among them appeared as though they floated in air. A few seagulls rose startled from their nests, and sailed upwards with plaintive cries, as the keels of the boats grated on the rocks, and the men stepped out and hauled them up on the beach of one of the islets. A wild uncouth crew were those Norsemen of old! All were armed, for in their days the power and the means of self-defence were absolutely necessary to self-preservation. Most of them wore portions of scale armour, or shirts of ring mail, and headpieces of steel, though a few among them appeared to have confidence in the protection afforded by the thick hide of the wolf, which, converted into rude, yet not ungraceful, garments, covered their broad shoulders. All, without exception, carried sword or battle-axe and shield. They were goodly stalwart men every one, but silent and stern. It might have been observed that the two boats, although bound for the same islet, did not row in company. They were beached as far from each other as the little bay into which they ran would admit of, and the crews stood aloof in two distinct groups. In the centre of each group stood a man who, from his aspect and bearing, appeared to be superior to his fellows. One was in the prime of life, dark and grave; the other in the first flush of manhood, full grown, though beardless, fair, and ruddy. Both were taller and stouter than their comrades. The two men had met there to fight, and the cause of their feud was-- Love! Both loved a fair Norse maiden in Horlingdal. The father of the maid favoured the elder warrior; the maid herself preferred the younger. In those days, barbarous though they undoubtedly were, law and justice were more respected and more frequently appealed to in Norway than in almost any other country. Liberty, crushed elsewhere under the deadweight of feudalism, found a home in the bleak North, and a rough but loving welcome from the piratical, sea-roving! She did not, indeed, dwell altogether scathless among her demi-savage guardians, who, if their perceptions of right and wrong were somewhat confused, might have urged in excuse that their light was small. She received many shocks and frequent insults from individuals, but liberty was sincerely loved and fondly cherished by the body of the Norwegian people, through all the period of those dark ages during which other nations scarce dared to mention her name. Nevertheless, it was sometimes deemed more convenient to settle disputes by the summary method of an appeal to arms than to await the issue of a tedious and uncertain lawsuit such an appeal being perfectly competent to those who preferred it, and the belief being strong among the fiery spirits of the age that Odin, the god of war, would assuredly give victory to the right. In the present instance it was not considered any infringement of the law of liberty that the issue of the combat would be the disposal of a fair woman's hand, with or without her heart. Then, as now, women were often forced to marry against their will. Having gone to that island to fight--an island being a naturally circumscribed battlefield whose limits could not conveniently be transgressed--the two champions set to work at once with the cool businesslike promptitude of men sprung from a warlike race, and nurtured from their birth in the midst of war's alarms. Together, and without speaking, they ascended the rock, which was low and almost barren, with a small extent of turf in the centre, level, and admirably suited to their purpose. Here they faced each other; the one drew his sword, the other raised his battle-axe. There was no sentiment in that combat. The times and the men were extremely matter-of-fact. The act of slaying gracefully had not yet been acquired; yet there was much of manly grace displayed as each threw himself into the position that nature and experience had taught him was best suited to the wielding of his peculiar weapon. For one instant each gazed intently into the face of the other, as if to read there his premeditated plan of attack. At that moment the clear blue eye of the younger man dilated, and, as his courage rose, the colour mounted to his cheek. The swart brow of the other darkened as he marked the change; then, with sudden spring and shout, the two fell upon each other and dealt their blows with incredible vigour and rapidity. They were a well-matched pair. For nearly two hours did they toil and moil over the narrow limits of that sea-girt rock--yet victory leaned to neither side. Now the furious blows rained incessant on the sounding shields; anon the din of strife ceased, while the combatants moved round each other, shifting their position with elastic step, as, with wary motion and eagle glances, each sought to catch the other off his guard, and the clash of steel, as the weapons met in sudden onset, was mingled with the shout of anger or defiance. The sun glanced on whirling blade and axe, and sparkled on their coats of mail as if the lightning flash were playing round them; while screaming seamews flew and circled overhead, as though they regarded with intelligent interest and terror the mortal strife that was going on below. Blood ere long began to flow freely on both sides; the vigour of the blows began to abate, the steps to falter. The youthful cheek grew pale; the dark warrior's brow grew darker, while heaving chests, labouring breath, and an occasional gasp, betokened the approaching termination of the struggle. Suddenly the youth, as if under the influence of a new impulse, dropped his shield, sprang forward, raised himself to his full height, grasped his axe with both hands, and, throwing it aloft (thus recklessly exposing his person), brought it down with terrific violence on the shield of his adversary. The action was so sudden that the other, already much exhausted, was for the moment paralysed, and failed to take advantage of his opportunity. He met but failed to arrest the blow with his shield. It was crushed down upon his head, and in another moment the swarthy warrior lay stretched upon the turf. Sternly the men conveyed their fallen chief to his boat, and rowed him to the mainland, and many a week passed by ere he recovered from the effects of the blow that felled him. His conqueror returned to have his wounds dressed by the bride for whom he had fought so long and so valiantly on that bright summer morning. Thus it was that King Haldor of Horlingdal, surnamed the Fierce, conquered King Ulf of Romsdal, acquired his distinctive appellation, and won Herfrida the Soft-eyed for his bride. It must not be supposed that these warriors were kings in the ordinary acceptation of that term. They belonged to the class of "small" or petty kings, of whom there were great numbers in Norway in those days, and were merely rich and powerful free-landholders or udallers. Haldor the Fierce had a large family of sons and daughters. They were all fair, strong, and extremely handsome, like himself. Ulf of Romsdal did not die of his wounds, neither did he die of love. Disappointed love was then, as now, a terrible disease, but not necessarily fatal. Northmen were very sturdy in the olden time. They almost always recovered from that disease sooner or later. When his wounds were healed, Ulf married a fair girl of the Horlingdal district, and went to reside there, but his change of abode did not alter his title. He was always spoken of as Ulf of Romsdal. He and his old enemy Haldor the Fierce speedily became fast friends; and so was it with their wives, Astrid and Herfrida, who also took mightily to each other. They span, and carded wool, and sewed together oftentimes, and discussed the affairs of Horlingdal, no doubt with mutual advantage and satisfaction. Twenty years passed away, and Haldor's eldest son, Erling, grew to be a man. He was very like his father--almost a giant in size; fair, very strong, and remarkably handsome. His silken yellow hair fell in heavy curls on a pair of the broadest shoulders in the dale. Although so young, he already had a thick short beard, which was very soft and curly. His limbs were massive, but they were so well proportioned, and his movements so lithe, that his great size and strength were not fully appreciated until one stood close by his side or fell into his powerful grasp. Erling was lion-like, yet he was by nature gentle and retiring. He had a kindly smile, a hearty laugh, and bright blue eyes. Had he lived in modern days he would undoubtedly have been a man of peace. But he lived "long long ago"--therefore he was a man of war. Being unusually fearless, his companions of the valley called him Erling the Bold. He was, moreover, extremely fond of the sea, and often went on viking cruises in his own ships, whence he was also styled Erling the Sea-king, although he did not at that time possess a foot of land over which to exercise kingly authority. Now, it must be explained here that the words Sea-king and Viking do not denote the same thing. One is apt to be misled by the termination of the latter word, which has no reference whatever to the royal title king. A viking was merely a piratical rover on the sea, the sea-warrior of the period, but a Sea-king was a leader and commander of vikings. Every Sea-king was a viking, but every viking was not a Sea-king; just as every Admiral is a sailor, but every sailor is not an Admiral. When it is said that Erling was a Sea-king, it is much as if we had said he was an admiral in a small way. CHAPTER TWO. INTRODUCES, AMONG OTHERS, THE HERO AND HEROINE, AND OPENS UP A VIEW OF NORSE LIFE IN THE OLDEN TIME. Ulf of Romsdal had a daughter named Hilda. She was fair, and extremely pretty. The young men said that her brow was the habitation of the lily, her eye the mirror of the heavens, her cheek the dwelling-place of the rose. True, in the ardour of their feelings and strength of their imaginations they used strong language; nevertheless it was impossible to overpraise the Norse maiden. Her nut-brown hair fell in luxuriant masses over her shapely shoulders, reaching far below the waist; her skin was fair, and her manners engaging. Hilda was undoubtedly blue-eyed and beautiful. She was just seventeen at this time. Those who loved her (and there were few who did not) styled her the sunbeam. Erling and Hilda had dwelt near each other from infancy. They had been playmates, and for many years were as brother and sister to each other. Erling's affection had gradually grown into a stronger passion, but he never mentioned the fact to anyone, being exceedingly shamefaced and shy in regard to love. He would have given his ears to have known that his love was returned, but he dared not to ask. He was very stupid on this point. In regard to other things he was sharp-witted above his fellows. None knew better than he how to guide the "warship" through the intricate mazes of the island-studded coast of Norway; none equalled him in deeds of arms; no one excelled him in speed of foot, in scaling the fells, or in tracking the wolf and bear to their dens; but all beat him in love-making! He was wondrously slow and obtuse at that, and could by no means discover whether or not Hilda regarded him as a lover or a brother. As uncertainty on this point continued, Erling became jealous of all the young men who approached her, and in proportion as this feeling increased his natural disposition changed, and his chafing spirit struggled fiercely within him. But his native good sense and modesty enabled him pretty well to conceal his feelings. As for Hilda, no one knew the state of her mind. It is probable that at this time she herself had not a very distinct idea on the point. Hilda had a foster-sister named Ada, who was also very beautiful. She was unusually dark for a Norse maiden. Her akin indeed was fair, but her hair and eyes were black like the raven's wing. Her father was King Hakon of Drontheim. It was the custom in those warlike days for parents to send out some of their children to be fostered by others--in order, no doubt, to render next to impossible the total extirpation of their families at a time when sudden descents upon households were common. By thus scattering their children the chances of family annihilation were lessened, and the probability that some members might be left alive to take revenge was greatly increased. Hilda and Ada were warmly attached. Having been brought up together, they loved each other as sisters--all the more, perhaps, that in character they were somewhat opposed. Hilda was grave, thoughtful, almost pensive. Ada was full of vivacity and mirth, fond of fun, and by no means averse to a little of what she styled harmless mischief. Now there was a man in Horlingdal called Glumm, surnamed the Gruff, who loved Ada fervently. He was a stout, handsome man, of ruddy complexion, and second only to Erling in personal strength and prowess. But by nature he was morose and gloomy. Nothing worse, however, could be said of him. In other respects he was esteemed a brave, excellent man. Glumm was too proud to show his love to Ada very plainly; but she had wit enough to discover it, though no one else did, and she resolved to punish him for his pride by keeping him in suspense. Horlingdal, where Ulf and Haldor and their families dwelt was, like nearly all the vales on the west of Norway, hemmed in by steep mountains of great height, which were covered with dark pines and birch trees. To the level pastures high up on mountain tops the inhabitants were wont to send their cattle to feed in summer--the small crops of hay in the valleys being carefully gathered and housed for winter use. Every morning, before the birds began to twitter, Hilda set out, with her pail and her wooden box, to climb the mountain to the upland dairy or "saeter", and fetch the milk and butter required by the family during the day. Although the maid was of noble birth--Ulf claiming descent from one of those who are said to have come over with Odin and his twelve godars or priests from Asia--this was not deemed an inappropriate occupation. Among the Norsemen labour was the lot of high and low. He was esteemed the best man who could fight most valiantly in battle and labour most actively in the field or with the tools of the smith and carpenter. Ulf of Romsdal, although styled king in virtue of his descent, was not too proud, in the busy summertime, to throw off his coat and toss the hay in his own fields in the midst of his thralls [slaves taken in war] and house-carles. Neither he, nor Haldor, nor any of the small kings, although they were the chief men of the districts in which they resided, thought it beneath their dignity to forge their own spearheads and anchors, or to mend their own doors. As it was with the men, so was it with the women. Hilda the Sunbeam was not despised because she climbed the mountainside to fetch milk and butter for the family. One morning, in returning from the fell, Hilda heard the loud clatter of the anvil at Haldorstede. Having learned that morning that Danish vikings had been seen prowling among the islands near the fiord, she turned aside to enquire the news. Haldorstede lay about a mile up the valley, and Hilda passed it every morning on her way to and from the saeter. Ulfstede lay near the shore of the fiord. Turning into the smithy, she found Erling busily engaged in hammering a huge mass of stubborn red-hot metal. So intent was the young man on his occupation that he failed to observe the entrance of his fair visitor, who set down her milk pail, and stood for a few minutes with her hands folded and her eyes fixed demurely on her lover. Erling had thrown off his jerkin and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt of coarse homespun fabric, in order to give his thick muscular arms unimpeded play in wielding the hammer and turning the mass of glowing metal on the anvil. He wore woollen breeches and hose, both of which had been fashioned by the fingers of his buxom mother, Herfrida. A pair of neatly formed shoes of untanned hide--his own workmanship--protected his feet, and his waist was encircled by a broad leathern girdle, from one side of which depended a short hunting-knife, and from the other a flap, with a slit in it, to support his sword. The latter weapon--a heavy double-edged blade--stood leaning against the forge chimney, along with a huge battle-axe, within reach of his hand. The collar of his shirt was thrown well back, exposing to view a neck and chest whose muscles denoted extraordinary power, and the whiteness of which contrasted strikingly with the ruddy hue of his deeply bronzed countenance. The young giant appeared to take pleasure in the exercise of his superabundant strength, for, instead of using the ordinary single-hand hammer with which other men were wont to bend the glowing metal to their will, he wielded the great forehammer, and did it as easily, too, with his right arm as if it had been but a wooden mallet. The mass of metal at which he wrought was thick and unyielding, but under his heavy blows it began to assume the form of an axe--a fact which Hilda noticed with a somewhat saddened brow. Erling's long hair, rolling as it did down his shoulders, frequently straggled over his face and interfered slightly with his vision, whereupon he shook it back with an impatient toss, as a lion might shake his mane, while he toiled with violent energy at his work. To look at him, one might suppose that Vulcan himself had condescended to visit the abodes of men, and work in a terrestrial smithy! During one of the tosses with which he threw back his hair, Erling chanced to raise his eyes, which instantly fell upon Hilda. A glad smile beamed on his flushed face, and he let the hammer fall with a ringing clatter on the anvil, exclaiming: "Ha! good morrow to thee, Hilda! Thou comest with stealthy tread, like the midnight marauder. What news? Does all go well at Ulfstede? But why so sad, Hilda? Thy countenance is not wont to quarrel with the mountain air." "Truly, no!" replied the girl, smiling, "mountain air likes me well. If my looks are sadder than usual, it is because of the form of the weapon thou art fashioning." "The weapon!" exclaimed Erling, as he raised the handle of the hammer, and, resting his arms on it, gazed at his visitor in some surprise. "It is but an axe--a simple axe, perchance a trifle heavier than other axes because it suits my arm better, and I have a weakness that way. What ails thee at a battle-axe, Hilda?" "I quarrel not with the axe, Erling, but it reminds me of thy love of fighting, and I grieve for that. Why art thou so fond of war?" "Fond of war!" echoed the youth. "Now, out upon thee, Hilda! what were a man fit for if he could not fight?" "Nay, I question not thine ability to fight, but I grieve to see thy love for fighting." "Truly there seems to me a close relationship between the love of war and the ability to fight," returned the youth. "But to be plain with thee: I _do not_ love war so much as ye think. Yet I utter this in thine ear, for I would not that the blades of the valley knew it, lest they might presume upon it, and I should have to prove my ability-- despite my want of love--upon some of their carcasses." "I wish there were no such thing as war," said Hilda with a sigh. Erling knitted his brows and gazed into the smithy fire as if he were engaged in pondering some knotty point. "Well, I'm not sure," said he slowly, and descending to a graver tone of address--"I'm not sure that I can go quite so far as that. If we had no war at all, perchance our swords might rust, and our skill, for want of practice, might fail us in the hour of need. Besides, how could men in that case hope to dwell with Odin in Valhalla's bright and merry halls? But I agree with thee in wishing that we had less of war and more of peace _at home_." "I fear," said Hilda, "we seem likely to have more of war and less of peace than usual, if rumours be true. Have you heard that Danish vikings have been seen among the islands?" "Aye, truly, I have heard of them, and it is that which has sent me to the smithy this morning to hasten forward my battle-axe; for I love not too light a weapon. You see, Hilda, when it has not weight one must sometimes repeat the blow; especially if the mail be strong. But with a heavy axe and a stout arm there is no need for that. I had begun this weapon," continued the youth, as if he were musing aloud rather than speaking to his companion, "with intent to try its metal on the head of the King; but I fear me it will be necessary to use it in cracking a viking's headpiece before it cleaves a royal crown." "The King!" exclaimed Hilda, with a look of surprise, not unmingled with terror, "Erling, has ambition led thee to this?" "Not so; but self-preservation urges me to it." The maiden paused a few seconds, ere she replied in a meditative voice--"The old man who came among us a year ago, and who calls himself Christian, tells me that his god is not a god of war, like Odin; he says that his god permits no war to men, save that of self-defence; but, Erling, would slaying the King be indeed an act of self-preservation?" "Aye, in good sooth would it," replied the youth quickly, while a dark frown crossed his brow. "How can that be?" asked the maiden. "Hast such small love for gossip, Hilda, that the foul deeds and ambitious projects of Harald Haarfager have not reached thine ear?" "I have heard," replied Hilda, "that he is fond of war, which, truly, is no news, and that he is just now more busy with his bloody game than usual; but what does that matter to thee?" "Matter!" cried the youth impatiently, as he seized the lump of metal on which he had been at work, and, thrusting it into the smouldering charcoal, commenced to blow the fire energetically, as if to relieve his feelings. "Know ye not that the King--this Harald Fairhair--is not satisfied with the goodly domains that of right belong to him, and the kingly rule which he holds, according to law, over all Norway, but that he means to subdue the whole land to himself, and trample on our necks as he has already trampled on our laws?" "I know somewhat of this," said Hilda. "No one," pursued Erling vehemently, and blowing the fire into a fervent heat--"no one denies to Harald the right to wear the crown of Norway. That was settled at the Ore Thing [see note 1] in Drontheim long ago; but everyone denies his right to interfere with our established laws and privileges. Has he not, by mere might and force of arms, slain many, and enslaved others, of our best and bravest men? And now he proposes to reduce the whole land to slavery, or something like it, and all because of the foolish speech of a proud girl, who says she will not wed him until he shall first subdue to himself the whole of Norway, and rule over it as fully and freely as King Eric rules over Sweden, or King Gorm over Denmark. He has sworn that he will neither clip nor comb his hair, until he has subdued all the land with scatt [taxes] and duties and domains, or die in the attempt. Trust me! he is like to die in the attempt; and since his Kingship is to be so little occupied with his hair, it would please me well if he would use his time and his shears in clipping the tongue of the wench that set him on so foul an errand. All this thou knowest, Hilda, as well as I; but thou dost not know that men have been at the stede to-day, who tell us that the King is advancing north, and is victorious everywhere. Already King Gandalf and Hako are slain; the two sons of King Eystein have also fallen, and many of the upland kings have been burned, with most of their men, in a house at Ringsager. It is not many days since Harald went up Gudbrandsdal, and north over the Doverfielde, where he ordered all the men to be slain, and everything wide around to be given to the flames. King Gryting of Orkadal and all his people have sworn fidelity to him, and now--worst news of all--it is said he is coming over to pay us a visit in Horlingdal. Is not here cause for fighting in self-defence, or rather for country, and laws and freedom, and wives, and children, and--" The excited youth stopped abruptly, and, seizing the tongs, whirled the white mass of semi-molten steel upon the anvil, and fell to belabouring it with such goodwill that a bright shower of sparks drove Hilda precipitately out of the workshop. The wrongs which roused the young Norseman's indignation to such a pitch are matters of history. The government of the country at that time involved the democratic element very largely. No act or expedition of any importance could be done or undertaken without the previous deliberation and consent of a "Thing", or assembly of landed proprietors. There were many different Things--such as General Things, District Things, House Things of the King's counsellors, and Herd Things of the Court, etcetera, and to such of these there was a distinct and well-known trumpet call. There were also four great Things which were legislative, while the small district Things were only administrative. In addition to which there was the Ore Thing of Drontheim, referred to by Erling. At these Things the King himself possessed no greater power than any of the bonders. He was only a "Thing-man" at a Thing. No wonder, then, that the self-governing and warlike Norsemen could not bring themselves tamely to submit to the tyranny of Harald Haarfager, or Fairhair, King of Norway by hereditary right, when he cast aside all the restraints of ancient custom, and, in his effort to obtain more power, commenced those bloody wars with his subjects, which had the effect of causing many of his chief men to expatriate themselves and seek new homes in the islands of the great western sea, and which ultimately resulted in the subjugation (at least during that reign) of all the petty kings of Norway. These small kings, be it observed, were not at that time exercising any illegal power, or in the occupation of any unwarrantable position, which could be pleaded by King Harald in justification of his violent proceedings against them. The title of king did not imply independent sovereignty. They were merely the hereditary lords of the soil, who exercised independent and rightful authority over their own estates and households, and modified authority over their respective districts, subject, however, to the laws of the land--laws which were recognised and perfectly understood by the people and the king, and which were admitted by people and king alike to have more authority than the royal will itself. By law the small kings were bound to attend the meetings of the Stor Things or Parliaments, at the summons of the sovereign, and to abide by the decisions of those assemblies, where all men met on an equal footing, but where, of course, intellectual power and eloquence led the multitude, for good or for evil, then just as they do now, and will continue to do as long as, and wherever, free discussion shall obtain. To say that the possession of power, wealth, or influence was frequently abused to the overawing and coercing of those assemblies, is simply to state that they were composed of human beings possessed of fallen natures. So thoroughly did the Northmen appreciate the importance of having a right to raise their voices and to vote in the national parliaments, and so jealously did they assert and maintain their privileges, that the King himself--before he could, on his accession, assume the crown--was obliged to appear at the "Thing", where a freeborn landholder proposed him, and where his title to the crown was investigated and proved in due form. No war expedition on a large scale could be undertaken until a Thing had been converged, and requisition legally made by the King for a supply of men and arms; and, generally, whenever any act affecting national or even district interests was contemplated, it was necessary to assemble a Thing, and consult with the people before anything could be done. It may be easily understood, then, with what an outburst of indignation a free and warlike race beheld the violent course pursued by Harald Fairhair, who roamed through the country with fire and sword, trampling on their cherished laws and privileges, subduing the petty kings, and placing them, when submissive, as Jarls, i.e. earls or governors over the districts to collect the scatt or taxes, and manage affairs in his name and for his behoof. It is no wonder that Erling the Bold gathered his brow into an ominous frown, pressed his lips together, tossed his locks impatiently while he thought on these things and battered the iron mass on his anvil with the amount of energy that he would have expended in belabouring the head of King Harald himself, had opportunity offered. Erling's wrath cooled, however, almost instantly on his observing Hilda's retreat before the fiery shower. He flung down his hammer, seized his battle-axe, and throwing it on his shoulder as he hurried out, speedily overtook her. "Forgive my rude manners," he said. "My soul was chafed by the thoughts that filled my brain, and I scare knew what I did." "Truly, thou man of fire," replied the girl, with an offended look, "I am of half a mind not to pardon thee. See, my kirtle is destroyed by the shower thou didst bestow upon me so freely." "I will repay thee that with such a kirtle as might grace a queen the next time I go on viking cruise." "Meantime," said Hilda, "I am to go about like a witch plucked somewhat hastily from the fire by a sympathising crone." "Nay; Herfrida will make thee a new kirtle of the best wool at Haldorstede." "So thy mother, it seems, is to work and slave in order to undo thy mischief?" "Then, if nothing else will content thee," said Erling gaily, "I will make thee one myself; but it must be of leather, for I profess not to know how to stitch more delicate substance. But let me carry thy pitcher, Hilda. I will go to Ulfstede to hold converse with thy father on these matters, for it seemed to me that the clouds are gathering somewhat too thickly over the dale for comfort or peace to remain long with us." As the young man and maiden wended their way down the rocky path that skirted the foaming Horlingdal river, Hilda assumed a more serious tone, and sought to convince her companion of the impropriety of being too fond of fighting, in which attempt, as might be supposed, she was not very successful. "Why, Hilda," said the youth, at the close of a speech in which his fair companion endeavoured to point out the extreme sinfulness of viking cruises in particular, "it is, as thou sayest, unjust to take from another that which belongs to him if he be our friend; but if he is our enemy, and the enemy of our country, that alters the case. Did not the great Odin himself go on viking cruise and seize what prey he chose?" Erling said this with the air of a man who deemed his remark unanswerable. "I know not," rejoined Hilda. "There seems to me much mystery in our thoughts about the gods. I have heard it said that there is no such god as Odin." The maiden uttered this in a subdued voice, and her cheek paled a little as she glanced up at Erling's countenance. The youth gazed at her with an expression of extreme surprise, and for a few minutes they walked slowly forward without speaking. There was reason for this silence on both sides. Hilda was naturally of a simple and trustful nature. She had been brought up in the religion of her fathers, and had listened with awe and with deep interest on many a long winter night to the wild legends with which the scalds, or poets of the period, were wont to beguile the evening hours in her father's mansion; but about a year before the time of which we write, an aged stranger had come from the south, and taken up his abode in the valley, in a secluded and dilapidated hut, in which he was suffered to dwell unmolested by its owner, Haldor the Fierce; whose fierceness, by the way, was never exhibited except in time of war and in the heat of battle! With this hermit Hilda had held frequent converse, and had listened with horror, but with a species of fascination which she could not resist, to his calm and unanswerable reasoning on the fallacy of the religion of Odin, and on the truth of that of Jesus Christ. At first she resolved to fly from the old man, as a dangerous enemy, who sought to seduce her from the paths of rectitude; but when she looked at his grave, sad face, and listened to the gentle and--she knew not why--persuasive tones of his voice, she changed her mind, and resolved to hear what he had to say. Without being convinced of the truth of the new religion--of which she had heard rumours from the roving vikings who frequented Horlingdal--she was much shaken in regard to the truth of her own, and now, for the first time, she had ventured to hint to a human being what was passing in her mind. At this period Christianity had not penetrated into Norway, but an occasional wanderer or hermit had found his way thither from time to time to surprise the inhabitants with his new doctrines, and then, perchance, to perish as a warlock because of them. Erling had heard of this old man, and regarded him with no favour, for in his sea rovings he had met with so-called Christians, whose conduct had not prepossessed him in their favour. As for their creed, he knew nothing whatever about it. His mind, however, was of that bold, straightforward, self-reliant, and meditative cast, which happily has existed in all ages and in all climes, and which, in civilised lands, usually brings a man to honour and power, while in barbarous countries and ages, if not associated with extreme caution and reticence, it is apt to bring its possessor into trouble. It was with astonishment that Erling heard sentiments which had long been harboured in his own mind drop from the lips of one whose natural character he knew to be the reverse of sceptical in matters of faith, or speculative in matters of opinion. Instead of making a direct reply to Hilda's remark, he said, after a pause: "Hilda, I have my doubts of the old man Christian; men say he is a warlock, and I partly believe them, for it is only such who shun the company of their fellows. I would caution thee against him. He believes not in Odin or Thor, which is matter of consideration mainly to himself, but methinks he holdeth fellowship with Nikke, [Satan, or the Evil One] which is matter of consideration for all honest men, aye, and women too, who would live in peace; for if the Evil Spirit exists at all, as I firmly believe he does, in some shape or other, it were well to keep as far from him as we may, and specially to avoid those erring mortals who seem to court his company." "The old man is misjudged, believe me," replied the girl earnestly; "I have spoken much with him and oft. It may be he is wrong in some things--how can a woman judge of such matters?--but he is gentle, and has a kind heart." "I like him not," was Erling's curt reply. The youth and maiden had now reached a part of the valley where a small footpath diverged from the main track which led to Ulf's dwelling. The path ran in the direction of the hayfields that bordered the fiord. Just as they reached it, Hilda observed that her father was labouring there with his thralls. "See," she exclaimed, stopping abruptly, and taking her pitcher from Erling, "my father is in the hayfield." The youth was about to remonstrate and insist on being allowed to carry the pitcher to the house before going to the field; but on second thoughts he resigned his slight burden, and, saying "farewell", turned on his heel and descended the path with rapid step and a somewhat burdened heart. "She loves me not," he muttered to himself, almost sternly. "I am a brother, nothing more." Indulging in these and kindred gloomy reflections, he advanced towards a rocky defile where the path diverged to the right. Before taking the turn he looked back. Hilda was standing on the spot where they had parted, but her face was not directed towards her late companion. She was looking steadily up the valley. Presently the object which attracted her attention appeared in view, and Erling felt a slight sensation of anger, he scarce knew why, on observing the old man who had been the subject of their recent conversation issue from among the rocks. His first impulse was to turn back, but, checking himself, he wheeled sharply round and hurried away. Scarcely had he taken three steps, however, when he was arrested by a sound that resembled a crash of thunder. Glancing quickly upwards, he beheld an enormous mass of rock, which had become detached from the mountain side, descending in shattered fragments into the valley. The formation of Horlingdal at that particular point was peculiar. The mountain ranges on either side, which rose to a height of at least four thousand feet, approached each other abruptly, thus forming a dark gloomy defile of a few hundred yards in width, with precipitous cliffs on either side, and the river roaring in the centre of the pass. The water rushed in white-crested billows through its rock-impeded bed, and terminated in a splendid foss, or fall, forty or fifty feet high, which plunged into a seething caldron, whence it issued in a troubled stream to the plain that opened out below. It here found rest in the level fields of Ulfstede, that lay at the head of the fiord. The open amphitheatre above this pass, with its circlet of grand glacier-capped mountains, was the abode of a considerable number of small farmers, in the midst of whose dwellings stood the residence of Haldor, where the meeting in the smithy just described took place. It was in this narrow defile that the landslip happened, a catastrophe which always has been and still is of frequent occurrence in the mountain regions of Norway. Hilda and the old man (whom we shall henceforth call Christian) cast their eyes hastily upwards on hearing the sound that had arrested Erling's steps so suddenly. The enormous mass of rock was detached from the hill on the other side of the river, but the defile was so narrow that falling rocks often rebounded quite across it. The slip occurred just opposite the spot on which Hilda and the old man stood, and as the terrible shower came on, tearing down trees and rocks, the heavier masses being dashed and spurned from the hillside in innumerable fragments, it became evident that to escape beyond the range of the chaotic deluge was impossible. Hilda understood the danger so well that she was panic stricken and rooted to the spot. Erling understood it also, and, with a sudden cry, dashed at full speed to the rescue. His cry was one almost of despair, for the distance between them was so great that he had no chance, he knew, of reaching her in time. In this extremity the hermit looked round for a crevice or a rock which might afford protection, but no such place of safety was at hand. The side of the pass rose behind them like a wall to a height of several hundred feet. Seeing this at a glance the old man planted himself firmly in front of Hilda. His lips moved, and the single word "Jesus" dropped from them as he looked with a calm steady gaze at the avalanche. Scarcely had he taken his stand when the first stones leaped across the gorge, and, striking on the wall of rock behind, burst into fragments and fell in a shower around them. Some of the smaller _debris_ struck the old man's breast, and the hands which he had raised to protect his face; but he neither blanched nor flinched. In another instant the greater part of the hurling rubbish fell with a terrible crash and tore up the earth in all directions round them. Still they stood unhurt! The height from which the ruin had descended was so great that the masses were scattered, and although they flew around over, and close to them, the great shock passed by and left them unscathed. But the danger was not yet past. Several of the smaller masses, which had been partially arrested in their progress by bushes, still came thundering down the steep. The quick eye of the hermit observed one of these flying straight towards his head. Its force had been broken by a tree on the opposite hill, but it still retained tremendous impetus. He knew that there was no escape for him. To have moved aside would have exposed Hilda to almost certain destruction. Once again he murmured the Saviour's name, as he stretched out both hands straight before his face. The rock struck full against them, beat them down on his forehead, and next instant old man and maid were hurled to the ground. Well was it for Erling that all this occurred so quickly that the danger was past before he reached the spot. Part of the road he had to traverse was strewn so thickly with the rocky ruin that his destruction, had he been a few seconds sooner on the ground, would have been inevitable. He reached Hilda just in time to assist her to rise. She was slightly stunned by the shock, but otherwise unhurt. Not so the hermit. He lay extended where he had fallen; his grey beard and thin scattered locks dabbled with blood that flowed from a gash in his forehead. Hilda kneeled at his side, and, raising his head, she laid it in her lap. "Now the gods be praised," said Erling, as he knelt beside her, and endeavoured to stanch the flow of blood from the wound; "I had thought thy last hour was come, Hilda; but the poor old man, I fear much he will die." "Not so; he recovers," said the girl; "fetch me some water from the spring." Erling ran to a rill that trickled down the face of the rock at his side, dipped his leathern bonnet into it, and, quickly returning, sprinkled a little on the old man's face, and washed the wound. "It is not deep," he remarked, after having examined the cut. "His hands are indeed badly bruised, but he will live." "Get thee to the stede, Erling, and fetch aid," said Hilda quickly; "the old man is heavy." The youth smiled. "Heavy he is, no doubt, but he wears no armour; methinks I can lift him." So saying Erling raised him in his strong arms and bore him away to Ulfstede, where, under the tender care of Hilda and her foster-sister Ada, he speedily revived. Erling went out meanwhile to assist in the hayfield. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note 1. The great assembly, or parliament, which was considered the only "Thing" which could confer the sovereignty of the whole of Norway, the other Things having no right or powers beyond their circles. It was convened only for the special purpose of examining and proclaiming the right of the aspirant to the crown, but the King had still to repair to each Law Thing or Small Thing to obtain its acknowledgement of his right and the power of a sovereign within its jurisdiction. CHAPTER THREE. SHOWS HOW CHIEF FRIENDS MAY BECOME FOES, AND CROSS-PURPOSES MAY PRODUCE CROSS CONSEQUENCES, INVOLVING WORRY AND CONFUSION. When Christian had been properly cared for, Hilda sent Ada to the hayfield, saying that she would follow her in a short time. Now it so happened, by one of those curious coincidences which are generally considered unaccountable, that as Ada ascended the track which led to the high field above the foss, Glumm the Gruff descended towards the same point from an opposite direction, so that a meeting between the two, in the secluded dell, where the tracks joined, became inevitable. Whether or not this meeting was anticipated we cannot tell. If it was, the young man and maiden were inimitable actors by nature, for they appeared to be wholly unconscious of aught save the peculiar formation of the respective footpaths along which they slowly moved. There was, indeed, a twinkle in Ada's eyes; but then Ada's eyes were noted twinklers; besides, a refractory eyelash might account for such an expression. As for Glumm, he frowned on the path most unamiably while he sauntered along with both hands thrust into the breast of his tunic, and the point of his sword rasping harshly against rocks and bushes. Glumm was peculiar in his weapons. He wore a double-handed and double-edged sword, which was so long that he was obliged to sling it across his back in order to keep it off the ground. The handle projected above his left shoulder, and the blade, lying diagonally across his person, extended beyond his right calf. The young man was remarkably expert in the use of this immense weapon, and was not only a terror to his foes, but, owing to the enormous sweep of its long blade, an object of some anxiety to his friends when they chanced to be fighting alongside of him. He wore a knife or dagger at his girdle on the right side, which was also of unusual size; in all probability it would have been deemed a pretty good sword by the Romans. There were only two men in the dale who could wield Glumm's weapons. These were Erling and his father, Haldor. The latter was as strong a man as Glumm, Erling was even stronger; though, being an amiable man he could not be easily persuaded to prove his strength upon his friends. Glumm wore his hair very short. It was curly, and lay close to his head. As he sauntered along he kicked the stones out of his way savagely, and appeared to find relief to his feelings in so doing, as well as by allowing his sword to rasp across the rocks and shrubs at his side. It might have been observed, however, that Glumm only kicked the little stones out of his way; he never kicked the big ones. It is interesting to observe how trifling a matter will bring out a trait of human nature! Men will sometimes relieve their angry feelings by storming violently at those of their fellows who cannot hurt them, but, strangely enough, they manage to obtain relief to these same feelings without storming, when they chance to be in the company of stronger men than themselves, thereby proving that they have powers of self-restraint which prudence-- not to say fear--can call into exercise! commend this moral reflection particularly to the study of boys. After Glumm had kicked all the _little_ stones out of his way, carefully letting the big ones alone, he came suddenly face to face with Ada, who saluted him with a look of startled surprise, a slight blush, and a burst of hearty laughter. "Why, Glumm," exclaimed the maiden, with an arch smile, "thou must have risen off thy wrong side this morning. Methinks, now, were I a man, I should have to look to my weapons, for that long blade of thine seems inclined to fight with the rocks and shrubs of its own accord." Poor Glumm blushed as red as if he had been a young girl, at being thus unexpectedly caught giving vent to his ill-humour; he stammered something about bad dreams and evil spirits, and then, breaking into a good-humoured smile, said: "Well, Ada, I know not what it is that ails me, but I do feel somewhat cross-grained. Perchance a walk with thee may cure me, I see thou art bound for the hayfield. But hast thou not heard the news? The Danish vikings are off the coast, burning and murdering wherever they go. It is rumoured, too, that their fleet is under that king of scoundrels, Skarpedin the Red. Surely there is reason for my being angry." "Nay, then, if thou wert a bold man thou wouldst find reason in this for being glad," replied Ada. "Is not the chance of a fight the joy of a true Norseman's heart? Surely a spell must have been laid on thee, if thy brow darkens and thy heart grows heavy on hearing of a stout enemy. It is not thus with Erling the Bold. His brow clears and his eye sparkles when a foe worthy of--But what seest thou, Glumm? Has the Dane appeared in the forest that thy brow becomes so suddenly clouded? I pray thee do not run away and leave me unprotected." "Doubtless if I did, Erling the Bold would come to thine aid," replied the young man with some asperity. "Nay, do not be angry with me, Glumm," said the girl, laughing, as they reached the field where Haldor and his stout son were busily at work assisting Ulf, who, with all his thralls and freemen, was engaged in cutting and gathering in his hay. "Hey! here come cloud and sunshine hand in hand," cried Erling, pausing in his work, as Glumm and his pretty companion approached the scene of labour. "Get on with thy work, then, and make the hay while I am shining," retorted Ada, bestowing on the youth a bright smile, which he returned cheerfully and with interest. This was the wicked Ada's finishing touch. Glumm saw the exchange of smiles, and a pang of fierce jealousy shot through his breast. "The cloud sometimes darts out lightning," he muttered angrily, and, turning on his heel, began to toss the hay with all his might in order to relieve his feelings. Just then Hilda entered the field, and Glumm, putting strong constraint on himself, accosted her with extreme cheerfulness and respect--resolved in his heart to show Ada that there were other girls in Horlingdal worth courting besides herself. In this game he was by no means successful as regarded Ada, who at once discerned his intention, but the shaft which flew harmlessly past her fixed itself deep in the breast of another victim. Glumm's unusual urbanity took the kind-hearted Hilda so much by surprise, that she was interested, and encouraged him, in what she conceived to be a tendency towards improvement of disposition, by bestowing on him her sweetest smiles during the course of the day, insomuch that Erling the Bold became much surprised, and at last unaccountably cross. Thus did these two men, who had for many years been fast and loving friends, become desperately jealous, though each sought to conceal the fact from the other. But the green-eyed monster having obtained a lodgment in their bosoms, could not be easily cast out. Yet the good sense of each enabled him to struggle with some success against the passion, for Glumm, although gruff, was by no means a bad man. The presence of those conflicting feelings did not, however, interrupt or retard the work of the field. It was a truly busy scene. Masters, unfreemen, and thralls, mistresses and maidens, were there, cutting and turning and piling up the precious crop with might and main; for they knew that the weather could not be trusted to, and the very lives of their cattle depended on the successful ingathering of the hay. As we have here mentioned the three different classes that existed in Norway, it may be well to explain that the masters were peasants or "bonders", but not by any means similar to peasants in other lands; on the contrary, they were the udal-born proprietors of the soil--the peasant-nobility, so to speak, the Udallers, or freeholders, without any superior lord, and were entitled to attend and have a voice in the "Things" or assemblies where the laws were enacted and public affairs regulated. The next class was that of the "unfreemen". These were freed slaves who had wrought out or purchased their freedom, but who, although personally free, and at liberty to go where and serve whom they pleased, were not free to attend the legislative assemblies. They were unfree of the Things, and hence their apparently contradictory designation. They, however, enjoyed the protection and civil rights imparted by the laws, and to their class belonged all the cottars on the land paying a rent in work on the farm of the bonder or udaller, also the house-carles or freeborn indoormen, and the tradesmen, labourers, fishermen, etcetera, about villages and farms. Thralls were slaves taken in war, over whom the owners had absolute control. They might sell them, kill them, or do with them as they pleased. Thralls were permitted to purchase their freedom--and all the descendants of those freed thralls, or unfreemen, were free. The clothing of the unfreemen was finer than that of the thralls. The legs and arms of nearly all were bare from the knees and elbows downward, though a few had swathed their limbs in bands of rough woollen cloth, while others used straw for this purpose. Nearly all the men wore shoes of untanned leather, and caps of the same material, or of rough homespun cloth, resembling in form the cap of modern fishermen. The udallers, such as Haldor, Ulf, and their children, were clad in finer garments, which were looped and buttoned with brooches and pendants of gold and silver, the booty gathered on those viking cruises, against which Hilda inveighed so earnestly. The work went on vigorously until the sun began to sink behind the mountain range that lay to the north-westward of the dale. By this time the hay was all cut, and that portion which was sufficiently dry piled up, so Ulf and Haldor left the work to be finished by the younger hands, and stood together in the centre of the field chatting and looking on. Little change had taken place in the personal appearance of Ulf of Romsdal since the occasion of that memorable duel related in the first chapter of our story. Some of his elasticity, but none of his strength, was gone. There was perhaps a little more thought in his face, and a few more wrinkles on his swarthy brow, but his hair was still black and his figure straight as the blade of his good sword. His old enemy but now fast friend, Haldor the Fierce, had changed still less. True, his formerly smooth chin and cheeks were now thickly covered with luxuriant fair hair, but his broad forehead was still unwrinkled, and his clear blue eye was as bright as when, twenty years before, it gleamed in youthful fire at Ulf. Many a battle had Haldor fought since then, at home and abroad, and several scars on his countenance and shoulders gave evidence that he had not come out of these altogether scathless; but war had not soured him. His smile was as free, open, and honest, and his laugh as loud and hearty, as in days of yore. Erling was the counterpart of his father, only a trifle taller and stouter. At a short distance they might have been taken for twin brothers, and those who did not know them could scarcely have believed that they were father and son. Close to the spot where the two friends stood, a sturdy thrall was engaged in piling up hay with an uncommon degree of energy. This man had been taken prisoner on the coast of Ireland by Ulf, during one of his sea-roving expeditions. He had a huge massive frame, with a profusion of red hair on his head and face, and a peculiarly humorous twinkle in his eye. His name was Kettle Flatnose. We have reason to believe that the first part of this name had no connection with that domestic utensil which is intimately associated with tea! It was a mere accidental resemblance of sound no doubt. As to the latter part, that is easily explained. In those days there were no surnames. In order to distinguish men of the same name from each other, it was usual to designate them by their complexions, or by some peculiarity of person or trait of character. A blow from a club in early life had destroyed the shape of Kettle's nose, and had disfigured an otherwise handsome and manly countenance. Hence his name. He was about thirty-five years of age, large-boned, broad-shouldered, and tall, but lean in flesh, and rather ungainly in his motions. Few men cared to grapple with the huge Irish slave, for he possessed a superabundant share of that fire and love of fight which are said to characterise his countrymen even at the present time. He was also gifted with a large share of their characteristic good humour and joviality; which qualities endeared him to many of his companions, especially to the boys of the neighbourhood. In short, there was not a better fellow in the dale than Kettle Flatnose. "Thy labour is not light, Kettle," observed Ulf to the thrall as he paused for a few moments in the midst of his work to wipe his heated brow. "Ill would it become me, master," replied the man, "to take my work easy when my freedom is so nearly gained." "Right, quite right," replied Ulf with an approving nod, as the thrall set to work again with redoubled energy. "That man," he added, turning to Haldor, "will work himself free in a few weeks hence. He is one of my best thralls. I give my slaves, as thou knowest, leave to work after hours to purchase their freedom, and Kettle labours so hard that he is almost a free man already, though he has been with me little more than two years and a half. I fear the fellow will not remain with me after he is free, for he is an unsettled spirit. He was a chief in his own land, it seems, and left a bride behind him, I am told. If he goes, I lose a man equal to two, he is so strong and willing.--Ho! Kettle," continued Ulf, turning to the man, who had just finished the job on which he had been engaged, "toss me yonder stone and let my friend Haldor see what thou art made of." Kettle obeyed with alacrity. He seized a round stone as large as his own head, and, with an unwieldy action of his great frame, cast it violently through the air about a dozen yards in advance of him. "Well cast, well cast!" cried Haldor, while a murmur of applause rose from the throng of labourers who had been instantly attracted to the spot. "Come, I will try my own hand against thee." Haldor advanced, and, lifting the stone, balanced it for a few moments in his right hand, then, with a graceful motion and an apparently slight effort, hurled it forward. It fell a foot beyond Kettle's mark. Seeing this the thrall leaped forward, seized the stone, ran back to the line, bent his body almost to the ground, and, exerting himself to the utmost, threw it into the same hollow from which he had lifted it. "Equal!" cried Ulf. "Come, Haldor, try again." "Nay, I will not try until he beats me," replied Haldor with a good-natured laugh. "But do thou take a cast, Ulf. Thine arm is powerful, as I can tell from experience." "Not so," replied Ulf. "It becomes men who are past their prime to reserve their strength for the sword and battle-axe. Try it once more, Kettle. Mayhap thou wilt pass the mark next time." Kettle tried again and again, but without gaining a hair's-breadth on Haldor's throw. The stalwart thrall had indeed put forth greater force in his efforts than Haldor, but he did not possess his skill. "Will no young man make trial of his strength and skill?" said Haldor, looking round upon the eager faces of the crowd. "Glumm is no doubt anxious to try his hand," said Erling, who stood close to the line, with his arms resting on the head of his long-hafted battle-axe. "The shining of the Sunbeam will doubtless warm thy heart and nerve thine arm." Erling muttered the latter part of his speech in a somewhat bitter tone, alluding to Hilda's smiles; but the jealous and sulky Glumm could appreciate no sunbeams save those that flashed from Ada's dark eyes. He understood the remark as a triumphant and ironical taunt, and, leaping fiercely into the ring formed by the spectators, exclaimed: "I will cast the stone, but I must have a better man than thou, Kettle, to strive with. If Erling the Bold will throw--" "I will not balk thee," interrupted the other quickly, as he laid down his axe and stepped up to the line. Glumm now made a cast. Everyone knew well enough that he was one of the best throwers of the stone in all the dale, and confidently anticipated an easy victory over the thrall. But the unusual tumult of conflicting feelings in the young man's breast rendered him at the time incapable of exerting his powers to the utmost in a feat, to excel in which requires the union of skill with strength. At his first throw the stone fell short about an inch! At this Ada's face became grave, and her heart began to flutter with anxiety; for although willing enough to torment her lover a little herself, she could not brook the idea of his failing in a feat of strength before his comrades. Furious with disappointment and jealousy, and attributing Ada's expression to anxiety lest he should succeed, Glumm cast again with passionate energy, and sent the stone just an inch beyond the thrall's mark. There was a dispute on the point, however, which did not tend to soothe the youth's feelings, but it was ultimately decided in his favour. Erling now stood forth; and as he raised his tall form to its full height, and elevated the stone above his head, he seemed (especially to Hilda) the _beau-ideal_ of manly strength and beauty. He was grieved, however, at Glumm's failure, for he knew him to be capable of doing better than he had done. He remembered their old friendship too, and pity for his friend's loss of credit caused the recently implanted jealousy for a moment to abate. He resolved, therefore, to exert himself just sufficiently to maintain his credit. But, unhappily for the successful issue of this effort of self-denial, Erling happened to cast his eye towards the spot where Hilda stood. The tender-hearted maiden chanced at that moment to be regarding Glumm with a look of genuine pity. Of course Erling misconstrued the look! Next moment the huge stone went singing through the air, and fell with a crash full two yards beyond Glumm's mark. Happening to alight on a piece of rock, it sprang onward, passed over the edge of the hill or brae on the summit of which the field lay, and gathering additional impetus in its descent, went bounding down the slope, tearing through everything in its way, until it found rest at last on the sea beach below. A perfect storm of laughter and applause greeted this unexpected feat, but high above the din rose the voice of Glumm, who, now in a towering passion, seized his double-handed sword, and shouting-- "Guard thee, Erling!" made a furious blow at his conqueror's head. Erling had fortunately picked up his axe after throwing the stone. He immediately whirled the heavy head so violently against the descending sword that the blade broke off close to the hilt, and Glumm stood before him, disarmed and helpless, gazing in speechless astonishment at the hilt which remained in his hands. "My good sword!" he exclaimed, in a tone of deep despondency. At this Erling burst into a hearty fit of laughter. "My bad sword, thou must mean," said he. "How often have I told thee, Glumm, that there was a flaw in the metal! I have advised thee more than once to prove the blade, and now that thou hast consented to do so, behold the result! But be not so cast down, man; I have forged another blade specially for thyself, friend Glumm, but did not think to give it thee so soon." Glumm stood abashed, and had not a word to reply. Fortunately his feelings were relieved by the attention of the whole party being attracted at that moment to the figure of a man on the opposite side of the valley, who ran towards them at full speed, leaping over almost every obstacle that presented itself in his course. In a few minutes he rushed, panting, into the midst of the throng, and presented a baton or short piece of wood to Ulf, at the same time exclaiming: "Haste! King Harald holds a Thing at the Springs. Speed on the token." The import of this message and signal were well understood by the men of Horlingdal. When an assembly or Thing was to be convened for discussing civil matters a wooden truncheon was sent round from place to place by fleet messengers, each of whom ran a certain distance, and then delivered over his "message-token" to another runner, who carried it forward to a third, and so on. In this manner the whole country could be roused and its chief men assembled in a comparatively short time. When, however, the Thing was to be assembled for the discussion of affairs pertaining to war, an arrow split in four parts was the message-token. When the split arrow passed through the land men were expected to assemble armed to the teeth, but when the baton went round it was intended that they should meet without the full panoply of war. As soon as the token was presented, Ulf looked about for a fleet man to carry forward the message. Several of the youths at once stepped forward offering their services. Foremost among them was a stout, deep-chested active boy of about twelve years of age, with long flaxen curls, a round sunburnt face, a bold yet not forward look, a merry smile, and a pair of laughing blue eyes. This was Erling's little brother Alric--a lad whose bosom was kept in a perpetual state of stormy agitation by the conflict carried on therein between a powerful tendency to fun and mischief, and a strong sense of the obedience due to parents. "I will go," said the boy eagerly, holding out his hand for the token. "Thou, my son?" said Haldor, regarding him with a look of ill-suppressed pride. "Go to thy mother's bower, boy. What if a fox, or mayhap even a wolf, met thee on the fell?" "Have I not my good bow of elm?" replied Alric, touching the weapon, which, with a quiver full of arrows, was slung across his back. "Tush! boy; go pop at the squirrels till thou be grown big enough to warrant thy boasting." "Father," said Alric with a look of glee, "I'm sure I did not boast. I did but point to my poor weapons. Besides, I have good legs. If I cannot fight, methinks I can run." "Out upon thee--" "Nay, Haldor," said Ulf, interrupting the discussion, "thou art too hard on the lad. Can he run well?" "I'll answer for that," said Erling, laying his large hand on his brother's flaxen head. "I doubt if there is a fleeter foot in all the dale." "Away then," cried Ulf, handing the token to Alric, "and see that ye deserve all this praise. And now, sirs, let us fare to the hall to sup and prepare for our journey to the Springs." The crowd at once broke up and hurried away to Ulfstede in separate groups, discussing eagerly as they went, and stepping out like men who had some pressing business on hand. Alric had already darted away like a hunted deer. Erling turned hastily aside and went away alone. As soon as he reached a spot where the rugged nature of the ground concealed him from his late companions, he started up the valley at his utmost speed, directing his course so as to enable him to overshoot and intercept his brother. He passed a gorge ahead of the boy; and then, turning suddenly to the left, bore down upon him. So well did he calculate the distance, that on turning round the edge of a jutting cliff he met him face to face, and the two ran somewhat violently into each other's arms. On being relieved from this involuntary embrace, Alric stepped back and opened his eyes wide with surprise, while Erling roared with laughter. "Ye are merry, my brother," said Alric, relaxing into a grin, "but I have seen thee often thus, and may not stop to observe thee now, seeing that it is nothing new." "Give me an arrow, thou rogue! There," said Erling, splitting the shaft into four parts, handing it back to the boy, and taking the baton from him. "Get thee gone, and use thy legs well. We must not do the King the dishonour to appear before him without our weapons in these unsettled times. Let the token be sent out north, south, east, and west; and, harkee, lad, say nothing to anyone about the object of the assembly." Alric's countenance became grave, then it again relaxed into a broad grin. Giving his brother an emphatic wink with one of his large blue eyes, he darted past him, and was soon far up the glen, running with the speed of a deer and waving the war-token over his head. CHAPTER FOUR. DESCRIBES WARLIKE PREPARATIONS, AND A NORSE HALL IN THE OLDEN TIME-- TELLS ALSO OF A SURPRISE. Instead of returning to Ulfstede, Erling directed his steps homeward at a brisk pace, and in a short space of time reached the door of his forge. Here he met one of his father's thralls. "Ho! fellow," said he, "is thy mistress at home?" "Yes, master, she is in the hall getting supper ready against your father's return." "Go tell her there will be no men to eat supper in the hall to-night," said Erling, unfastening the door of the forge. "Say that I am in the forge, and will presently be in to speak with her. Go also to Thorer, and tell him to get the house-carles busked for war. When they are ready let him come hither to me; and, harkee, use thine utmost speed; there may be bloody work for us all to do this night before the birds are on the wing. Away!" The man turned and ran to the house, while Erling blew up the smouldering fire of the forge. Throwing off his jerkin, he rolled up his sleeves, and seizing the axe on which he had been engaged when Hilda interrupted him, he wrought so vigorously at the stubborn metal with the great forehammer that in the course of half an hour it was ready to fit on the haft. There was a bundle of hafts in a corner of the workshop. One of these, a tough thick one without knot or flaw, and about five feet long, he fitted to the iron head with great neatness and skill. The polishing of this formidable weapon he deferred to a period of greater leisure. Having completed this piece of work, Erling next turned to another corner of the forge and took up the huge two-handed sword which he had made for his friend Glumm. The weapon was beautifully executed, and being highly polished, the blade glittered with a flashing light in the ruddy glare of the forge fire. The young giant sat down on his anvil and put a few finishing touches to the sword, regarding it the while with a grim smile, as if he speculated on the probability of his having formed a weapon wherewith his own skull was destined to be cloven asunder. While he was thus engaged his mother Herfrida entered. The soft-eyed dame could scarcely be called a matronly personage. Having married when about sixteen, she was now just thirty-eight years of age; and though the bloom of maidenhood was gone, the beauty of a well-favoured and healthy woman still remained. She wore a cloak of rich blue wool, and under it a scarlet kirtle with a silver girdle. "How now, my son," she said; "why these warlike preparations?" "Because there is rumour of war; I'm sure that is neither strange nor new to you, mother." "Truly no; and well do I know that where war is, there my husband and my son will be found." Herfrida said this with a feeling of pride, for, like most of the women of that time and country, she esteemed most highly the men who were boldest and could use their weapons best. "'Twere well if we were less noted in that way, and more given to peace," said Erling half-jestingly. "For my own part, I have no liking for war, but you women will be for ever egging us on!" Herfrida laughed. She was well aware of what she was pleased to term her son's weakness, namely, an idea that he loved peace, while he was constantly proving to the world that he was just cut out for war. Had he ever shown a spark of cowardice she would have regarded those speeches of his with much anxiety, but as it was she only laughed at them. "Erling, my boy," she said suddenly, as her eye fell on the axe at his side,--"what terrible weapon is this? Surely thou must have purchased Thor's hammer. Can ye wield such a thing?" "I hope so, mother," said Erling curtly; "if not, I shall soon be in Valhalla's halls." "What are these rumours of war that are abroad just now?" asked Herfrida. Erling replied by giving his mother an account of King Harald's recent deeds, and told her of the calling of the Thing, and of the appearance of the Danish vikings off the coast. "May good spirits attend thee, my son!" she said, kissing the youth's forehead fervently, as a natural gush of tenderness and womanly anxiety filled her breast for a moment. But the feeling passed away as quickly as it came; for women who are born and nurtured in warlike times become accustomed and comparatively indifferent to danger, whether it threatens themselves or those most dear to them. While mother and son were conversing, Thorer entered the smithy, bearing Erling's armour. "Are the lads all a-boun?" [armed and ready] enquired Erling as he rose. "Aye, master; and I have brought your war-gear." The man who thus spoke was Haldor's chief house-carle. He was a very short and extremely powerful man of about forty-five years of age, and so sturdy and muscular as to have acquired the title of Thorer the Thick. He wore a shirt of scale armour, rather rusty, and somewhat the worse of having figured in many a tough battle by land and sea. A triangular shield hung at his back, and his headpiece was a simple peaked helmet of iron, with a prolongation in front that guarded his nose. Thorer's offensive armour consisted of a short straight sword, a javelin and a bow, with a quiver of arrows. "How many men hast thou assembled, Thorer?" asked Erling as he donned his armour. "Seventy-five, master; the rest are up on the fells, on what errand I know not." "Seventy-five will do. Haste thee, carle, and lead them to my longship the Swan. Methinks we will skate upon the ocean to-night. [Longships, or war-vessels, were sometimes called ocean-skates.] I will follow thee. Let every man be at his post, and quit not the shore till I come on board. Now fare away as swiftly as may be, and see that everything be done stealthily; above all, keep well out of sight of Ulfstede." Thus admonished, Thorer quickly left the forge; and a few seconds later the clanking tread of armed men was heard as Erling's followers took their way to the fiord. "Now I will to the hall, my son, and pray that thou mayst fare well," said Herfrida, once more kissing the forehead which the youth lowered to receive the parting salute. The mother retired, and left her son standing in the forge gazing pensively at the fire, the dying flames of which shot up fitfully now and then, and gleamed on his shining mail. If Erling the Bold was a splendid specimen of a man in his ordinary costume, when clad in the full panoply of war he was truly magnificent. The rude but not ungraceful armour of the period was admirably fitted to display to advantage the elegant proportions of his gigantic figure. A shirt or tunic of leather, covered with steel rings, hung loosely--yet, owing to its weight, closely--on his shoulders. This was gathered in at the waist by a broad leathern belt, studded with silver ornaments, from which hung a short dagger. A cross belt of somewhat similar make hung from his right shoulder, and supported a two-edged sword of immense weight, which was quite as strong, though not nearly so long, as that which he had forged for Glumm. It was intended for a single-handed weapon, though men of smaller size might have been constrained, in attempting to wield it, to make use of both hands. The youth's lower limbs were clothed in closely-fitting leather leggings, and a pair of untanned leather shoes, laced with a single thong, protected his feet. On his head he wore a small skull-cap, or helmet, of burnished steel, from the top of which rose a pair of hawk's wings expanded, as if in the act of flight. No gloves or gauntlets covered his hands, but on his left arm hung a large shield, shaped somewhat like an elongated heart, with a sharp point at its lower end. Its top touched his shoulder, and the lower part reached to his knee. This shield was made of several plies of thick bull-hide, with an outer coat of iron--the whole being riveted firmly together with iron studs. It was painted pure white, without device of any kind, but there was a band of azure blue round it, near the margin--the rim itself being of polished steel. In addition to his enormous axe, sword, and dagger, Erling carried at his back a short bow and a quiver full of arrows. The whole of this war gear bore evidence of being cherished with the utmost care and solicitude. Every ring on the tunic was polished as highly as the metal would admit of, so that the light appeared to trickle over it as its wearer moved. The helmet shone like a globe of quicksilver, and lines of light gleamed on the burnished edge of the shield, or sparkled on the ornamental points of the more precious metals with which the various parts of his armour were decorated. Above all hung a loose mantle or cloak of dark-blue cloth, which was fastened on the right shoulder with a large circular brooch of silver. The weight of this panoply was enormous, but long habit had so inured the young Norseman to the burthen of his armour that he moved under it as lightly as if it had been no heavier than his ordinary habiliments. Indeed, so little did it impede his movements that he could spring over chasms and mountain streams almost as well with as without it; and it was one of the boasts of his admiring friends that "he could leap his own height with all his war gear on!" We have already referred to Erling's partiality for the axe as an offensive weapon. This preference was in truth--strange though the assertion may appear--owing to the peculiar adaptation of that instrument to the preservation of life as well as the taking of it! There are exceptions to all rules. The rule among the Northmen in former years was to slay and spare not. Erling's tendency, and occasionally his practice, was to spare and not to slay, if he could do so with propriety. From experience he found that, by a slight motion of his wrist, the edge of his axe could be turned aside, and the blow which was delivered by its flat side was invariably sufficient, without killing, to render the recipient utterly incapable of continuing or renewing the combat--at least for a few days. With the sword this delicate manoeuvre could not be so easily accomplished, for a blow from the flat of a sword was not sufficiently crushing, and if delivered with great force the weapon was apt to break. Besides, Erling was a blunt, downright, straightforward man, and it harmonised more with his feelings, and the energy of his character, to beat down sword and shield and headpiece with one tremendous blow, than to waste time in fencing with a lighter weapon. Having completed his toilet and concluded his meditations--which latter filled him with much perplexity, if one might judge from the frequency with which he shook his head--Erling the Bold hung Glumm's long sword at his back, laid his huge axe on his shoulder, and, emerging from the smithy, strode rapidly along the bridle path that led to the residence of Ulf of Romsdal. Suddenly it occurred to him that he had not yet tried the temper of his new weapon, so he stopped abruptly before a small pine tree, about as thick as a man's arm. It stood on the edge of a precipice along the margin of which the track skirted. Swaying the axe once round his head, he brought it forcibly down on the stem, through which it passed as if it had been a willow wand, and the tree went crashing into the ravine below. The youth looked earnestly at his weapon, and nodded his head once or twice as if the result were satisfactory. A benignant smile played on his countenance as he replaced it on his shoulder and continued on his way. A brisk walk of half an hour brought him to Ulfstede, where he found the men of the family making active preparations for the impending journey to the Thing. In the great hall of the house, his father held earnest discussion with Ulf. The house-carles busied themselves in burnishing their mail and sharpening their weapons, while Ada and Hilda assisted Dame Astrid, Ulf's wife, to spread the board for the evening meal. Everything in the hall was suggestive of rude wealth and barbarous warlike times. The hall itself was unusually large--capable of feasting at least two hundred men. At one end a raised hearth sustained a fire of wood that was large enough to have roasted an ox. The smoke from this, in default of a chimney, found an exit through a hole in the roof. The rafters were, of course, smoked to a deep rich coffee colour, and from the same cause the walls also partook not a little of that hue. All round these walls hung, in great profusion, shields, spears, swords, bows, skins, horns, and such like implements and trophies of war and the chase. The centre of the hall was open, but down each side ran two long tables, which were at this time groaning with great haunches of venison, legs of mutton, and trenchers of salmon, interspersed with platters of wild fowl, and flanked by tankards and horns of mead and ale. Most of the drinking cups were of horn, but many of these were edged with a rim of silver, and, opposite the raised seats of honour, in the centre of each table, the tankards were of solid silver, richly though rudely chased--square, sturdy, and massive, like the stout warriors who were wont to quaff their foaming contents. "I tell thee, Ulf," said Haldor, "thou wilt do wrong to fare to the Thing with men fully armed when the token was one of peace. The King is in no mood just now to brook opposition. If we would save our independence we must speak him smoothly." "I care not," replied Ulf gruffly; "this is no time to go about unarmed." "Nay, I did not advise thee to go unarmed, but surely a short sword might suffice, and--" At this moment Erling entered, and Ulf burst into a loud laugh as he interrupted his friend: "Aye, a short sword--something like that," he said, pointing to the huge hilt which rose over the youth's shoulder. "Hey! lad," exclaimed his father, "art going to fight with an axe in one hand and a sword in the other?" "The sword is for Glumm, father. I owe him one after this morning's work. Here, friend Glumm, buckle it on thy shoulder. The best wish that thou and I can exchange is, that thy sword and my axe may never kiss each other." "Truly, if they ever do, I know which will fare worst," said Haldor, taking the axe and examining it, "Thou art fond of a weary arm, my lad, else ye would not have forged so weighty a weapon. Take my advice and leave it behind thee." "Come, come," interrupted Ulf; "see, the tables are spread; let us use our jaws on food and drink, and not on words, for we shall need both to fit us for the work before us, and perchance we may have no longer need of either before many days go by. We can talk our fill at the Thing, an it so please us." "That will depend on the King's pleasure," replied Haldor, laughing. "So much the more reason for taking our arms with us, in order that we may have the means of talking the King's pleasure," retorted Ulf with a frown; "but sit ye down at my right hand, Haldor, and Hilda will wait upon thee. Come, my men all--let us fall to." It is scarcely necessary to say that this invitation was accepted with alacrity. In a few minutes about fifty pairs of jaws were actively employed in the manner which Ulf recommended. Meanwhile Erling the Bold seated himself at the lower end of one of the tables, in such a position that he could keep his eye on the outer door, and, if need be, steal away unobserved. He calculated that his little brother must soon return from his flying journey, and he expected to hear from him some news of the vikings. In this expectation he was right; but when Alric did come, Erling saw and heard more than he looked for. The meal was about half concluded, and Ulf was in the act of pledging, not absent, but defunct, friends, when the door opened slowly, and Alric thrust his head cautiously in. His hair, dripping and tangled, bore evidence that his head at least had been recently immersed in water. He caught sight of Erling, and the head was at once withdrawn. Next moment Erling stood outside of the house. "How now, Alric, what has befallen thee? Hey! thou art soaking all over!" "Come here; I'll show you a fellow who will tell you all about it." In great excitement the boy seized his brother's hand and dragged rather than led him round the end of the house, where the first object that met his view was a man whose face was covered with blood, which oozed from a wound in his forehead, while the heaving of his chest, and an occasional gasp, seemed to indicate that he had run far and swiftly. CHAPTER FIVE. THE VIKING RAID--ALRIC'S ADVENTURE WITH THE DANE--ERLING'S CUTTER, AND THE BATTLE IN THE PASS. "Whom have we here?" exclaimed Erling, looking close into the face of the wounded man. "What! Swart of the Springs!" Erling said this sternly, for he had no liking for Swart, who was a notorious character, belonging to one of the neighbouring fiords--a wild reckless fellow, and, if report said truly, a thief. "That recent mischief has cost thee a cracked crown?" asked Erling, a little more gently, as he observed the exhausted condition of the man. "Mischief enough," said Swart, rising from the stone on which he had seated himself, and wiping the blood, dust, and sweat from his haggard face, while his eyes gleamed like coals of fire; "Skarpedin the Dane has landed in the fiord, my house is a smoking pile, my children and most of the people in the stede are burned, and the Springs run blood!" There was something terrible in the hoarse whisper in which this was hissed out between the man's teeth. Erling's tone changed instantly as he laid his hand on Swart's shoulder. "Can this be true?" he answered anxiously; "are we too late? are _all_ gone?" "_All_," answered Swart, "save the few fighting men that gained the fells." The man then proceeded to give a confused and disjointed account of the raid, of which the following is the substance. Skarpedin, a Danish viking, noted for his daring, cruelty, and success, had taken it into his head to visit the neighbourhood of Horlingdal, and repay in kind a visit which he had received in Denmark the previous summer from a party of Norsemen, on which occasion his crops had been burned, his cattle slaughtered, and his lands "herried", while he chanced to be absent from home. It must be observed that this deed of the Northmen was not deemed unusually wicked. It was their custom, and the custom also of their enemies, to go out every summer on viking cruise to plunder and ravage the coasts of Denmark, Sweden, Britain, and France, carrying off all the booty they could lay hold of, and as many prisoners as they wanted or could obtain. Then, returning home, they made slaves or "thralls" of their prisoners, often married the women, and spent the winter in the enjoyment of their plunder. Among many other simple little habits peculiar to the times was that called "Strandhug". It consisted in a viking, when in want of provisions, landing with his men on any coast--whether that of an enemy or a countryman--and driving as many cattle as he required to the shore, where they were immediately slaughtered and put on board without leave asked or received! Skarpedin was influenced both by cupidity and revenge. Swart had been one of the chief leaders of the expedition which had done him so much damage. To the Springs therefore he directed his course with six "longships", or ships of war, and about five hundred men. In the afternoon of a calm day he reached the fiord at the head of which were the Springs and Swart's dwelling. There was a small hamlet at the place, and upon this the vikings descended. So prompt and silent were they, that the men of the place had barely time to seize their arms and defend their homes. They fought like lions, for well they knew that there was no hope of mercy if they should be beaten. But the odds against them were overwhelming. They fell in heaps, with many of their foes underneath them. The few who remained to the last retreated fighting, step by step, each man towards his own dwelling, where he fell dead on its threshold. Swart himself, with a few of the bravest, had driven back that part of the enemy's line which they attacked. Thus they were separated for a time from their less successful comrades, and it was not till the smoke of their burning homesteads rose up in dense clouds that they became aware of the true state of the fight. At once they turned and ran to the rescue of their families, but their retreat was cut off by a party of the enemy, and the roar of the conflagration told them that they were too late. They drew together, therefore, and, making a last desperate onset, hewed their way right through the ranks of their enemies, and made for the mountains. All were more or less wounded in the _melee_, and only one or two succeeded in effecting their escape. Swart dashed past his own dwelling in his flight, and found it already down on the ground in a blazing ruin. He killed several of the men who were about it, and then, bounding up the mountain side, sought refuge in a ravine. Here he lay down to rest a few moments. During the brief period of his stay he saw several of his captured friends have their hands and feet chopped off by the marauders, while a terrible shriek that arose once or twice told him all too plainly that on a few of them had been perpetrated the not uncommon cruelty of putting out the eyes. Swart did not remain many moments inactive. He descended by a circuitous path to the shore, and, keeping carefully out of sight, set off in the direction of Horlingdal. The distance between the two places was little more than nine or ten miles, but being separated from each other by a ridge of almost inaccessible mountains, that rose to a height of above five thousand feet, neither sight nor sound of the terrible tragedy enacted at the Springs could reach the eyes or ears of the inhabitants of Ulfstede. Swart ran round by the coast, and made such good use of his legs that he reached the valley in little more than an hour. Before arriving at Ulfstede his attention was attracted and his step arrested by the sight of a warship creeping along the fiord close under the shadow of the precipitous cliffs. He at once conjectured that this was one of the Danish vessels which had been dispatched to reconnoitre Horlingdal. He knew by its small size (having only about twenty oars) that it could not be there for the purpose of attack. He crouched, therefore, among the rocks to escape observation. Now, it happened at this very time that Erling's brother Alric, having executed his commission by handing the war-token to the next messenger, whose duty it was to pass it on, came whistling gaily down a neighbouring gorge, slashing the bushes as he went with a stout stick, which in the lad's eyes represented the broadsword or battle-axe he hoped one day to wield, in similar fashion, on the heads of his foes. Those who knew Erling well could have traced his likeness in every act and gesture of the boy. The vikings happened to observe Alric before he saw them, as was not to be wondered at, considering the noise he made. They therefore rowed close in to the rocks, and their leader, a stout red-haired fellow, leaped on shore, ascended the cliffs by a narrow ledge or natural footpath, and came to a spot which overhung the sea, and round which the boy must needs pass. Here the man paused, and leaning on the haft of his battle-axe, awaited his coming up. It is no disparagement to Alric to say that, when he found himself suddenly face to face with this man, his mouth opened as wide as did his eyes, that the colour fled from his cheeks, that his heart fluttered like a bird in a cage, and that his lips and tongue became uncommonly dry! Well did the little fellow know that one of the Danish vikings was before him, for many a time had he heard the men in Haldorstede describe their dress and arms minutely; and well did he know also that mercy was only to be purchased at the price of becoming an informer as to the state of affairs in Horlingdal--perhaps a guide to his father's house. Besides this, Alric had never up to that time beheld a _real_ foe, even at a distance! He would have been more than mortal, therefore, had he shown no sign of trepidation. "Thou art light of heart, lad," said the Dane with a grim smile. Alric would perhaps have replied that his heart was the reverse of light at that moment, but his tongue refused to fulfil its office, so he sighed deeply, and tried to lick his parched lips instead. "Thou art on thy way to Ulfstede or Haldorstede, I suppose?" said the man. Alric nodded by way of reply. "To which?" demanded the Dane sternly. "T-to--to Ulf--" "Ha!" interrupted the man. "I see. I am in want of a guide thither. Wilt guide me, lad?" At this the truant blood rushed back to Alric's cheeks. He attempted to say no, and to shake his head, but the tongue was still rebellious, and the head would not move--at least not in that way--so the poor boy glanced slightly aside, as if meditating flight. The Dane, without altering his position, just moved his foot on the stones, which act had the effect of causing the boy's eyes to turn full on him again with that species of activity which cats are wont to display when expecting an immediate assault. "Escape is impossible," said the Dane, with another grim smile. Alric glanced at the precipice on his left, full thirty feet deep, with the sea below; at the precipice on his right, which rose an unknown height above; at the steep rugged path behind, and at the wild rugged man in front, who could have clutched him with one bound; and admitted in his heart that escape _was_ impossible. "Now, lad," continued the viking, "thou wilt go with me and point out the way to Ulfstede and Haldorstede; if not with a good will, torture shall cause thee to do it against thy will; and after we have plundered and burnt both, we will give thee a cruise to Denmark, and teach thee the use of the pitchfork and reaping-hook." This remark touched a chord in Alric's breast which at once turned his thoughts from himself, and allowed his native courage to rise. During the foregoing dialogue his left hand had been nervously twitching the little elm bow which it carried. It now grasped the bow firmly as he replied: "Ulfstede and Haldorstede may burn, but thou shalt not live to see it." With that he plucked an arrow from his quiver, fitted it to the string, and discharged it full at the Dane's throat. Quick as thought the man of war sprang aside, but the shaft had been well and quickly aimed. It passed through his neck between the skin and the flesh. A cry of anger burst from him as he leaped on the boy and caught him by the throat. He hastily felt for the hilt of his dagger, and in the heat of his rage would assuredly have ended the career of poor Alric then and there; but, missing the hilt at the first grasp, he suddenly changed his mind, lifted the boy as if he had been a little dog, and flung him over the precipice into the sea. A fall of thirty feet, even though water should be the recipient of the shock, is not a trifle by any means, but Alric was one of those vigorous little fellows--of whom there are fortunately many in this world--who train themselves to feats of strength and daring. Many a time had he, when bathing, leaped off that identical cliff into the sea for his own amusement, and to the admiration and envy of many of his companions, and, now that he felt himself tumbling in the air against his will, the sensation, although modified, was nothing new. He straightened himself out after the manner of a bad child that does not wish to sit on nurse's knee, and went into the blue fiord, head foremost, like a javelin. He struck the water close to the vessel of his enemies, and on rising to the surface one of them made a plunge at him with an oar, which, had it taken effect, would have killed him on the spot; but he missed his aim, and before he could repeat it, the boy had dived. The Dane was sensible of his error the instant he had tossed Alric away from him, so he hastened to his boat, leaped into it, and ordered the men to pull to the rocks near to which Alric had dived; but before they could obey the order a loud ringing cheer burst from the cliffs, and in another moment the form of Swart was seen on a ledge, high above, in the act of hurling a huge mass of rock down on the boat. The mass struck the cliff in its descent, burst into fragments, and fell in a shower upon the Danes. At the same time Swart waved his hand as if to someone behind him, and shouted with stentorian voice: "This way, men! Come on! Down into the boats and give chase! huzza!" The enemy did not await the result of the order, but pulled out into the fiord as fast as possible, while Swart ran down to the edge of the water and assisted Alric to land. It was not until they heard both man and boy utter a cheer of defiance, and burst into a fit of laughter, and saw them hastening at full speed towards Horlingdal, that the vikings knew they had been duped. It was too late, however, to remedy the evil. They knew, also, that they might now expect an immediate attack, so, bending to the oars with all their might, they hastened off to warn their comrades at the Springs. "Now, Swart," said Erling, after hearing this tale to its conclusion, "if ye are not too much exhausted to--" "Exhausted!" cried Swart, springing up as though he had but risen from a refreshing slumber. "Well, I see thou art still fit for the fight. Revenge, like love, is a powerful stirrer of the blood. Come along then; I will lead the way, and do thou tread softly and keep silence. Follow us, Alric, I have yet more work for thee, lad." Taking one of the numerous narrow paths that ran from Ulfstede to the shores of the fiord, Erling led his companions to a grassy mound which crowned the top of a beetling cliff whose base was laved by deep water. Although the night was young--probably two hours short of midnight--the sun was still high in the heavens, for in most parts of Norway that luminary, during the height of summer, sinks but a short way below the horizon--they have daylight all night for some time. In the higher latitudes the sun, for a brief period, shines all the twenty-four hours round. Erling could therefore see far and wide over the fiord, as well as if it were the hour of noon. "Nothing in sight!" he exclaimed in a tone of chagrin. "I was a fool to let thee talk so long, Swart; but there is still a chance of catching the boat before it rounds the ness. Come along." Saying this hurriedly, the youth descended into what appeared to be a hole in the ground. A rude zigzag stair cut in the rock conducted them into a subterranean cavern, which at first seemed to be perfectly dark; but in a few seconds their eyes became accustomed to the dim light, and as they advanced rapidly over a bed of pebbles, Swart, who had never been there before, discovered that he was in an ocean-made cave, for the sound of breaking ripples fell softly on his ears. On turning round a corner of rock the opening of the cave towards the sea suddenly appeared with a dazzling light like a great white gem. But another beautiful sight met his astonished gaze. This was Erling's ship of war, the Swan, which, with its figurehead erect, as though it were a living thing, sat gracefully on the water, above its own reflected image. "All ready?" asked Erling, as a man stepped up to him. "All ready," replied Thorer. "Get on board, Swart," said Erling; "we will teach these Danes a lesson they will not forget as long as the Springs flow. Here, Alric--where are ye, lad?" Now, unfortunately for himself, as well as for his friend, Alric was almost too self-reliant in his nature. His active mind was too apt to exert itself in independent thought in circumstances where it would have been wiser to listen and obey. Erling had turned with the intention of telling his little brother that he had started thus quietly in order that he might have the pleasure of capturing the scouting boat, and of beginning the fight at the Springs with a small band of tried men, thus keeping the enemy in play until reinforcements should arrive; for he shrewdly suspected that if the whole valley were to go out at once against the vikings, they would decline the combat and make off. He had intended, therefore, to have warned Alric to watch the Swan past a certain point before sounding the alarm at Ulfstede. But Alric had already formed his own opinions on the subject, and resolved to act on them. He suspected that Erling, in his thirst for glory, meant to have all the fun to himself, and to attack the Danes with his single boat's crew of fifty or sixty men. He knew enough of war to be aware that sixty men against six hundred would have very small chance of success--in fact, that the thing was sheer madness--so he resolved to balk, and by so doing to save, his headstrong brother. When Erling turned, as we have said, he beheld Alric running into the cave at full speed. Instantly suspecting the truth, he dashed after him, but the boy was fleet, and Erling was heavily armed. The result was, that the former escaped, while the latter returned to the beach and embarked in the Swan in a most unenviable state of mind. Erling's "longship" was one of the smaller-sized war vessels of the period. It pulled twenty oars--ten on each side--and belonged to the class named Snekiars, or cutters, which usually had from ten to twenty rowers on a side. To each oar three men were apportioned--one to row, one to shield the rower, and one to throw missiles and fight, so that her crew numbered over sixty men. The forecastle and poop were very high, and the appearance of height was still further increased by the figurehead--the neck and head of a swan--and by a tail that rose from the stern-post, over the steersman's head. Both head and tail were richly gilt; indeed, the whole vessel was gaudily painted. All round the gunwales, from stem to stern, hung a row of shining red and white shields, which resembled the scaly sides of some fabulous creature, so that when the oars, which gave it motion, and not inaptly represented legs, were dipped, the vessel glided swiftly out of the cavern, like some antediluvian monster issuing from its den and crawling away over the dark blue sea. A tall heavy mast rose from the centre of the ship. Its top was also gilded, as well as the tips of the heavy yard attached to it. On this they hoisted a huge square sail, which was composed of alternate stripes of red, white, and blue cloth. It need scarcely be said that Erling's crew pulled with a will, and that the waters of the fiord curled white upon the breast of the Swan that night; but the vikings' boat had got too long a start of them, so that, when they doubled the ness and pulled towards the Springs, they discovered the enemy hurrying into their ships and preparing to push off from the land. Now, this did not fall in with Erling's purpose at all, for he was well aware that his little Swan could do nothing against such an overwhelming force, so he directed his course towards the mouth of a small stream, beside which there was a spit of sand, and, just behind it, a piece of level land, of a few acres in extent, covered with short grass. The river was deep at its mouth. About a hundred yards upstream it flowed out of a rugged pass in the mountains or cliffs which hemmed in the fiord. Into this dark spot the Northman rowed his vessel and landed with his men. The vikings were much surprised at this manoeuvre, and seemed at a loss how to act, for they immediately ceased their hurried embarkation and held a consultation. "Methinks they are mad," said Skarpedin, on witnessing the movements of the Swan. "But we will give them occasion to make use of all the spirit that is in them. I had thought there were more men in the dale, but if they be few they seem to be bold. They have wisely chosen their ground. Rocks, however, will not avail them against a host like ours. Methinks some of us will be in Valhalla to-night." Saying this Skarpedin drew up his men in order of battle on the little plain before referred to, and advanced to the attack. Erling, on the other hand, posted his men among the rocks in such a way that they could command the approach to the pass, which their leader with a few picked men defended. On perceiving the intention of the Danes to attack him, Erling's heart was glad, because he now felt sure that to some extent he had them in his power. If they had, on his first appearance, taken to their ships, they might have easily escaped, or some of the smaller vessels might have pulled up the river and attacked his ship, which, in that case, would have had to meet them on unequal terms; but, now that they were about to attack him on land, he knew that he could keep them in play as long as he pleased, and that if they should, on the appearance of reinforcements, again make for their ships, he could effectively harass them, and retard their embarkation. Meditating on these things the young Norseman stood in front of his men leaning on his battle-axe, and calmly surveying the approaching foe until they were within a few yards of him. "Thorer," he said at length, raising his weapon slowly to his shoulder, "take thou the man with the black beard, and leave yonder fellow with the red hair to me." Thorer drew his sword and glanced along its bright blade without replying. Indeed, there was scarce time for reply. Next moment the combatants uttered a loud shout and met with a dire crash. For some time the clash of steel, the yells of maddened men, the shrieks of the wounded, and the wails of the dying, resounded in horrible commotion among the echoing cliffs. The wisdom of Erling's tactics soon became apparent. It was not until the onset was made, and the battle fairly begun, that the men whom he had placed among the rocks above the approach to the pass began to act. These now sent down such a shower of huge stones and masses of rock that many of the foe were killed, and by degrees a gap was made, so that those who were on the plain dared not advance to the succour of those who were fighting in the pass. Seeing this, Erling uttered his war-cry, and, collecting his men together, acted on the offensive. Wherever his battle-axe swung, or Thorer's sword gleamed, there men fell, and others gave way, till at last they were driven completely out of the pass and partly across the plain. Erling took care, however, not to advance too far, although Skarpedin, by retreating, endeavoured to entice him to do so; but drew off his men by sound of horn, and returned to his old position--one man only having been killed and a few wounded. Skarpedin now held a council of war with his chiefs, and from the length of time they were about it, Erling was led to suspect that they did not intend to renew the attack at the same point or in the same manner. He therefore sent men to points of vantage on the cliffs to observe the more distant movements of the enemy, while he remained to guard the pass, and often gazed anxiously towards the ness, round which he expected every minute to see sweeping the longships of Ulf and his father. CHAPTER SIX. EVENING IN THE HALL--THE SCALD TELLS OF GUNDALF'S WOOING--THE FEAST INTERRUPTED AND THE WAR CLOUDS THICKEN. It is necessary now that we should turn backwards a little in our story, to that point where Erling left the hall at Ulfstede to listen to the sad tale of Swart. Ulf and his friends, not dreaming of the troubles that were hanging over them, continued to enjoy their evening meal and listen to the songs and stories of the Scald, or to comment upon the doings of King Harald Haarfager, and the prospects of good or evil to Norway that were likely to result therefrom. At the point where we return to the hall, Ulf wore a very clouded brow as he sat with compressed lips beside his principal guest. He grasped the arm of his rude chair with his left hand, while his right held a large and massive silver tankard. Haldor, on the other hand, was all smiles and good humour. He appeared to have been attempting to soothe the spirit of his fiery neighbour. "I tell thee, Ulf, that I have as little desire to see King Harald succeed in subduing all Norway as thou hast, but in this world wise men will act not according to what they wish so much, as according to what is best. Already the King has won over or conquered most of the small kings, and it seems to me that the rest will have to follow, whether they like it or no. Common sense teaches submission where conquest cannot be." "And does not patriotism teach that men may die?" said Ulf sternly. "Aye, when by warring with that end in view anything is to be gained for one's country; but where the result would be, first, the embroiling of one's district in prolonged bloody and hopeless warfare, and, after that, the depriving one's family of its head and of the King's favour, patriotism says that to die would be folly, not wisdom." "Tush, man; folk will learn to call thee Haldor the Mild. Surely years are telling on thee. Was there ever anything in this world worth having gained without a struggle?" "Thou knowest, Ulf, that I am not wont to be far from the front wherever or whenever a struggle is thought needful, but I doubt the propriety of it in the present case. The subject, however, is open to discussion. The question is, whether it would be better for Norway that the kings of Horlingdal should submit to the conqueror for the sake of the general good, or buckle on the sword in the hope of retrieving what is lost. Peace or war--that is the question." "I say war!" cried Ulf, striking the board so violently with his clenched fist that the tankards and platters leaped and rang again. At this a murmur of applause ran round the benches of the friends and housemen. "The young blades are ever ready to huzza over their drink at the thought of fighting; but methinks it will not strengthen thy cause much, friend Ulf, thus to frighten the women and spill the ale." Ulf turned round with a momentary look of anger at this speech. The man who uttered it was a splendid specimen of a veteran warrior. His forehead was quite bald, but from the sides and back of his head flowed a mass of luxuriant silky hair which was white as the driven snow. His features were eminently firm and masculine, and there was a hearty good-humoured expression about the mouth, and a genial twinkle in his eyes, especially in the wrinkled corners thereof, that rendered the stout old man irresistibly attractive. His voice was particularly rich, deep, and mellow, like that of a youth, and although his bulky frame stooped a little from age, there was enough of his youthful vigour left to render him a formidable foe, as many a poor fellow had learned to his cost even in days but recently gone by. He was an uncle of Ulf, and on a visit to the stede at that time. The frown fled from Ulf's brow as he looked in the old man's ruddy and jovial countenance. "Thanks, Guttorm," said he, seizing his tankard, "thanks for reminding me that grey hairs are beginning to sprinkle my beard; come, let us drink success to the right, confusion to the wrong! thou canst not refuse that, Haldor." "Nay," said Haldor, laughing; "nor will I refuse to fight in thy cause and by thy side, be it right or wrong, when the Thing decides for war." "Well said, friend! but come, drink deeper. Why, I have taken thee down three pegs already!" said Ulf, glancing into Haldor's tankard. "Ho! Hilda; fetch hither more ale, lass, and fill--fill to the brim." The toast was drunk with right good will by all--from Ulf down to the youngest house-carle at the lowest end of the great hall. "And now, Guttorm," continued Ulf, turning to the bluff old warrior, "since thou hast shown thy readiness to rebuke, let us see thy willingness to entertain. Sing us a stave or tell us a saga, kinsman, as well thou knowest how, being gifted with more than a fair share of the scald's craft." The applause with which this proposal was received by the guests and house-carles who crowded the hall from end to end proved that they were aware of Guttorm's gifts, and would gladly hear him. Like a sensible man he complied at once, without affecting that air of false diffidence which is so common among modern songsters and story-tellers. "I will tell you," said the old man--having previously wet his lips at a silver tankard, which was as bluff and genuine as himself--"of King Gundalf's wooing. Many years have gone by since I followed him on viking cruise, and Gundalf himself has long been feasting in Odin's hall. I was a beardless youth when I joined him. King Gundalf of Orkedal was a goodly man, stout and brisk, and very strong. He could leap on his horse without touching stirrup with all his war gear on; he could fight as well with his left hand as with his right, and his battle-axe bit so deep that none who once felt its edge lived to tell of its weight. He might well be called a Sea-king, for he seldom slept under a sooty roof timber. Withal he was very affable to his men, open-hearted, and an extremely handsome man. "One summer he ordered us to get ready to go on viking cruise. When we were all a-boun we set sail with five longships and about four hundred men, and fared away to Denmark, where we forayed and fought a great battle with the inhabitants. King Gundalf gained the victory, plundered, wasted, and burned far and wide in the land, and made enormous booty. He returned with this to Orkedal. Here he found his wife at the point of death, and soon after she died. Gundalf felt his loss so much that he had no pleasure in Raumsdal after that. He therefore took to his ships and went again a-plundering. We herried first in Friesland, next in Saxland, and then all the way to Flanders; so sings Halfred the scald:-- "`Gundalf's axe of shining steel For the sly wolf left many a meal. The ill-shaped Saxon corpses lay Heap'd up--the witch-wife's horses' prey. She rides by night, at pools of blood, Where Friesland men in daylight stood, Her horses slake their thirst, and fly On to the field where Flemings lie.'" [Note. Ravens were the witch-wife's horses.] The old warrior half recited half sang these lines in a rich full voice, and then paused a few seconds, while a slight murmur arose from the earnest listeners around him. "Thereafter," resumed Guttorm, "we sailed to England, and ravaged far and wide in the land. We sailed all the way north to Northumberland, where we plundered, and thence to Scotland, where we marauded far and wide. Then we went to the Hebrides and fought some battles, and after that south to Man, which we herried. We ravaged far around in Ireland, and steered thence to Bretland, which we laid waste with fire and sword--also the district of Cumberland. Then we went to Valland, [the west coast of France] from which we fared away for the south coast of England, but missed it and made the Scilly Isles. After that we went to Ireland again, and came to a harbour, into which we ran--but in a friendly way, for we had as much plunder as our ships could carry. "Now, while we were there, a summons to a Thing went through the country, and when the Thing was assembled, a queen called Gyda came to it. She was a sister of Olaf Quarram, who was King of Dublin. Gyda was very wealthy, and her husband had died that year. In the territory there was a man called Alfin, who was a great champion and single-combat man. He had paid his addresses to Gyda, but she gave for answer that she would choose a husband for herself; and on that account the Thing was assembled, that she might choose a husband. Alfin came there dressed out in his best clothes, and there were many well-dressed men at the meeting. Gundalf and some of his men had gone there also, out of curiosity, but we had on our bad-weather clothes, and Gundalf wore a coarse over-garment. We stood apart from the rest of the crowd, Gyda went round and looked at each, to see if any appeared to her a suitable man. Now when she came to where we were standing, she passed most of us by with a glance; but when she passed me, I noticed that she turned half round and gave me another look, which I have always held was a proof of her good judgment. However, Gyda passed on, and when she came to King Gundalf she stopped, looked at him straight in the face, and asked what sort of a man he was. "He said, `I am called Gundalf, and am a stranger here!' "Gyda replies, `Wilt thou have me if I choose thee?' He answered, `I will not say No to that;' then he asked her what her name was, and her family and descent. "`I am called Gyda,' said she, `and am daughter of the King of Ireland, and was married in this country to an earl who ruled over this district. Since his death I have ruled over it, and many have courted me, but none to whom I would choose to be married.' "She was a young and handsome woman. They afterwards talked over the matter together and agreed, and so Gundalf and Gyda were betrothed. "Alfin was very ill pleased with this. It was the custom there, as it is sometimes here, if two strove for anything, to settle the matter by holm-gang. [Note: or single combat: so called because the combatants in Norway went to a holm, or uninhabited isle, to fight.] And now Alfin challenged Gundalf to fight about this business. The time and place of combat were settled, and it was fixed that each should have twelve men. I was one of the twelve on our side. When we met, Gundalf told us to do exactly as we saw him do. He had a large axe, and went in advance of us, and when Alfin made a desperate cut at him with his sword, he hewed away the sword out of his hand, and with the next blow hit Alfin on the crown with the flat of his axe and felled him. We all met next moment, and each man did his best; but it was hard work, for the Irishmen fought well, and two of them cut down two of our men, but one of these I knocked down, and Gundalf felled the other. Then we bound them all fast, and carried them to Gundalf's lodging. But Gundalf did not wish to take Alfin's life. He ordered him to quit the country and never again to appear in it, and he took all his property. In this way Gundalf got Gyda in marriage, and he lived sometimes in England and sometimes in Ireland. Thikskul the scald says in regard to this:-- "`King Gundalf woo'd Queen Gyda fair, With whom no woman could compare, And won her, too, with all her lands, By force of looks and might of hands From Ireland's green and lovely isle He carried off the Queen in style. He made proud Alfin's weapon dull, And flattened down his stupid skull-- This did the bold King Gundalf do When he went o'er the sea to woo.'" The wholesale robbery and murder which was thus related by the old Norse viking appeared quite a natural and proper state of things in the eyes of all save two of those assembled in the hall, and the saga was consequently concluded amid resounding applause. It is to be presumed that, never having seen or heard of any other course of life, and having always been taught that such doings were quite in accordance with the laws of the land, the consciences of the Northmen did not trouble them. At all events, while we do not for a moment pretend to justify their doings, we think it right to point out that there must necessarily have been a wide difference between their spirits and feelings, and the spirits and feelings of modern pirates, who know that they are deliberately setting at defiance the laws of both God and man. It has been said there were two in the hall at Ulfstede who did not sympathise with the tale of the old warrior. The reader will scarce require to be told that one of these was Hilda the Sunbeam. The other was Christian the hermit. The old man, although an occasional visitor at the stede, never made his appearance at meal-times, much less at the nightly revels which were held there; but on that day he had arrived with important news, just as Guttorm began his story, and would have unceremoniously interrupted it had not one of the young house-carles, who did not wish to lose the treat, detained him forcibly at the lower end of the hall until it was ended. The moment he was released the hermit advanced hastily, and told Ulf that from the door of his hut on the cliff he had observed bands of men hastening in all directions down the dale. "Thy news, old man, is no news," said Ulf; "the token for a Thing has been sent out, and it is natural that the bonders should obey the summons. We expect them. But come, it is not often thou favourest us with thy company. Sit down by me, and take a horn of mead." The hermit shook his head. "I never taste strong liquor. Its tendency is to make wise men foolish," he said. "Nay, then, thou wilt not refuse to eat. Here, Hilda, fetch thy friend a platter." "I thank thee, but, having already supped, I need no more food. I came but to bring what I deemed news." "Thou art churlish, old man," exclaimed Ulf angrily; "sit down and drink, else--" "Come, come," interrupted Haldor, laying his hand on Ulf's arm, "Let the old man be; he seems to think that he has something worth hearing to tell of; let him have his say out in peace." "Go on," said Ulf gruffly. "Was the token sent out a baton or a split arrow?" asked the hermit. "A baton," said Ulf. "Then why," rejoined the other, "do men come to a peaceful Thing with all their war gear on?" "What say ye? are they armed?" exclaimed Ulf, starting up. "This must be looked to. Ho! my carles all, to arms--" At that moment there was a bustle at the lower end of the hall, and Alric was seen forcing his way towards Ulf's high seat. "Father," he said eagerly, addressing Haldor, "short is the hour for acting, and long the hour for feasting." Haldor cast his eyes upon his son and said-- "What now is in the way?" "The Danes," said Alric, "are on the fiord--more than six hundred men. Skarpedin leads them. One of them pitched me into the sea, but I marked his neck to keep myself in his memory! They have plundered and burnt at the Springs, and Erling has gone away to attack them all by himself, with only sixty house-carles. You will have to be quick, father." "Quick, truly," said Haldor, with a grim smile, as he drew tight the buckle of his sword-belt. "Aye," said Ulf, "with six hundred Danes on the fiord, and armed men descending the vale, methinks--" "Oh! I can explain that" cried Alric, with an arch smile; "Erling made me change the baton for the split arrow when I was sent round with the token." "That is good luck," said Haldor, while Ulf's brow cleared a little as he busked himself for the fight; "we shall need all our force." "Aye, and all our time too," said Guttorm Stoutheart, as he put on his armour with the cheerful air of a man who dons his wedding dress. "Come, my merry men all. Lucky it is that my longships are at hand just now ready loaded with stones:-- "`O! a gallant sight it is to me, The warships darting o'er the sea, A pleasant sound it is to hear The war trump ringing loud and clear.'" Ulf and his friends and house-carles were soon ready to embark, for in those days the Norseman kept his weapons ready to his hands, being accustomed to sudden assaults and frequent alarms. They streamed out of the hall, and while some collected stones, to be used as missiles, others ran down to the shore to launch the ships. Meanwhile Ulf, Haldor, Guttorm, and other chief men held a rapid consultation, as they stood and watched the assembling of the men of the district. It was evident that the split arrow had done its duty. From the grassy mound on which they stood could be seen, on the one hand, the dark recesses of Horlingdal, which were lost in the mists of distance among the glaciers on the fells; and, on the other hand, the blue fiord with branching inlets and numerous holms, while the skerries of the coast filled up the background--looming faint and far off on the distant sea. In whatever direction the eye was turned armed men were seen. From every distant gorge and valley on the fells they issued, singly, or in twos and threes. As they descended the dale they formed into groups and larger bands; and when they gained the more level grounds around Haldorstede, the heavy tread of their hastening footsteps could be distinctly heard, while the sun--for although near midnight now it was still above the horizon--flashed from hundreds of javelins, spears, swords, and bills, glittered on steel headpieces and the rims of shields, or trickled fitfully on suits of scale armour and shirts of ring mail. On the fiord, boats came shooting forth from every inlet or creek, making their appearance from the base of precipitous cliffs or dark-mouthed caves as if the very mountains were bringing forth warriors to aid in repelling the foe. These were more sombre than those on the fells, because the sun had set to them by reason of the towering hills, and the fiord was shrouded in deepest gloom. But all in the approaching host--on water and land--were armed from head to foot, and all converged towards Ulfstede. When they were all assembled they numbered five hundred fighting men-- and a stouter or more valiant band never went forth to war. Six longships were sufficient to embark them. Three of these were of the largest size--having thirty oars on each side, and carrying a hundred men. One of them belonged to Haldor, one to Ulf, and one--besides several smaller ships--to Guttorm, who chanced to be on viking cruise at the time he had turned aside to visit his kinsman. The warlike old man could scarce conceal his satisfaction at his unexpected good fortune in being so opportunely at hand when hard blows were likely to be going! Two of the other ships were cutters, similar to Erling's Swan, and carrying sixty men each, and one was a little larger, holding about eighty men. It belonged to Glumm the Gruff; whose gruffness, however, had abated considerably, now that there was a prospect of what we moderns would call "letting the steam off" in a vigorous manner. Soon the oars were dipped in the fiord, and the sails were set, for a light favourable wind was blowing. In a short time the fleet rounded the ness, and came in sight of the ground where Erling and Skarpedin were preparing to renew the combat. CHAPTER SEVEN. THE TALE RETURNS TO THE SPRINGS--DESCRIBES A GREAT LAND FIGHT, AND TELLS OF A PECULIAR STYLE OF EXTENDING MERCY TO THE VANQUISHED. In a previous chapter we left Skarpedin discussing with his chiefs the best mode of attacking the small band of his opponents in the pass of the Springs. They had just come to a decision, and were about to act on it, when they suddenly beheld six warships sweeping round the ness. "Now will we have to change our plans," said Skarpedin. Thorvold agreed with this, and counselled getting on board their ships and meeting the enemy on the water; but the other objected, because he knew that while his men were in the act of embarking, Erling would sally forth and kill many of them before they could get away. "Methinks," said he, "I will take forty of my best men, and try to entice that fox out of his hole, before he has time to see the ships." "Grief only will come of that," says Thorvold. Skarpedin did not reply, but choosing forty of his stoutest carles he went to the pass and defied Erling to come out and fight. "Now here am I, Erling, with forty men. Wilt thou come forth? or is thy title of Bold ill bestowed, seeing thou hast more men than I?" "Ill should I deserve the title," replies Erling, "if I were to meet thee with superior force." With that he chose thirty men, and, running down to the plain, gave the assault so fiercely that men fell fast on every side, and the Danes gave back a little. When they saw this, and that Erling and Thorer hewed men down wherever they went, the Danes made a shield circle round Skarpedin, as was the custom when kings went into battle; because they knew that if he fell there would be no one so worthy to guide them in the fight with the approaching longships. Thus they retreated, fighting. When Erling and his men had gone far enough, they returned to the pass, and cheered loudly as they went, both because of the joy of victory, and because they saw the warships of their friends coming into the bay. King Haldor and his companions at once ran their ships on the beach near the mouth of the river, and, landing, drew them up, intending to fight on shore. Skarpedin did not try to prevent this, for he was a bold man, and thought that with so large a force he could well manage to beat the Northmen, if they would fight on level ground. He therefore drew up his men in order of battle at one end of the plain, and Haldor the Fierce, to whom was assigned the chief command, drew up the Northmen at the other end. Erling joined them with his band, and then it was seen that the two armies were not equal--that of the Northmen being a little smaller than the other. Then Haldor said, "Let us draw up in a long line that they may not turn our flanks, as they have most men." This was done, and Haldor advanced into the plain and set up his banner. The Danes in like manner advanced and planted their banner, and both armies rushed to the attack, which was very sharp and bloody. Wherever the battle raged most fiercely there King Haldor and Erling were seen, for they were taller by half a head than most other men. Being clothed alike in almost every respect, they looked more like brothers than father and son. Each wore a gilt helmet, and carried a long shield, the centre of which was painted white, but round the edge was a rim of burnished steel. Each had a sword by his side, and carried a javelin to throw, but both depended chiefly on their favourite weapon, the battle-axe, for, being unusually strong, they knew that few men could withstand the weight of a blow from that. The defensive armour of father and son was also the same--a shirt of leather, sewed all over with small steel rings. Their legs were clothed in armour of the same kind, and a mantle of cloth hung from the shoulders of each. Most of the chief men on both sides were armed in a similar way, though not quite so richly, and with various modifications; for instance, the helmet of Thorvold was of plain steel, and for ornament had the tail of the ptarmigan as its crest. Skarpedin's, on the other hand, was quite plain, but partly gilded; his armour was of pieces of steel like fish scales sewed on a leathern shirt, and over his shoulders he wore as a mantle the skin of a wolf. His chief weapon was a bill--a sort of hook or short scythe fixed to a pole, and it was very deadly in his hands. Most of the carles and thralls were content to wear thick shirts of wolf and other skins, which were found to offer good resistance to a sword-cut, and some of them had portions of armour of various kinds. Their arms were spears, bows, arrows with stone heads, javelins, swords, bills, and battle-axes and shields. When both lines met there was a hard fight. The combatants first threw their spears and javelins, and then drew their swords and went at each other in the greatest fury. In the centre Haldor and Erling went together in advance of their banner, cutting down on both sides of them. Old Guttorm Stoutheart went in advance of the right wing, also hewing down right and left. With him went Kettle Flatnose, for that ambitious thrall could not be made to remember his position, and was always putting himself in front of his betters in war; yet it is due to him to say that he kept modestly in the background in time of peace. To these was opposed Thorvold, with many of the stoutest men among the Danes. Now, old Guttorm and Kettle pressed on so hard that they were almost separated from their men; and while Guttorm was engaged with a very tall and strong man, whom he had wounded severely more than once, another stout fellow came between him and Kettle, and made a cut at him with his sword. Guttorm did not observe him, and it seemed as if the old Stoutheart should get his death-wound there; but the thrall chanced to see what was going on. He fought with a sort of hook, like a reaping-hook, fixed at the end of a spear handle, with the cutting edge inside. The men of Horlingdal used to laugh at Kettle because of his fondness for this weapon, which was one of his own contriving; but when they did so, he was wont to reply that it was better than most other weapons, because it could not only make his friends laugh, but his enemies cry! With this hook the thrall made a quick blow at the Dane; the point of it went down through his helmet into his brain, and that was his deathblow. "Well done, Kettle!" cried old Guttorm, who had just cleft the skull of his opponent with his sword. At this Thorvold ran forward and said: "Well done it may be, but well had it been for the doer had it not been done. Come on, thou flatnose!" "Now, thou must be a remarkably clever man," retorted Kettle, with much of that rich tone of voice which, many centuries later, came to be known as "the Irish brogue", "for it is plain ye know my name without being told it!" So saying, with a sudden quick movement he got his hook round Thorvold's neck. "That is an ugly grip," said Thorvold, making a fierce cut at the haft with his sword; but Kettle pulled the hook to him, and with it came the head, and that was Thorvold's end. While this was going on at the right wing, the left wing was led by Ulf of Romsdal and Glumm the Gruff; but Ulf's men were not so good as Haldor's men, for he was not so wise a man as Haldor, and did not manage his house so well. It was a common saying among the people of Horlingdal that Haldor had under him the most valiant men in Norway--and as the master was, so were the men. Haldor never went to sea with less than a fully-manned ship of thirty benches of rowers, and had other large vessels and men to man them as well. One of his ships had thirty-two benches of rowers, and could carry at least two hundred men. He had always at home on his farm thirty slaves or thralls, besides other serving people, and about two hundred house-carles. He used to give his thralls a certain day's work; but after it was done he gave them leave and leisure to work in the twilight and at night for themselves. He gave them arable land to sow corn in, and let them apply their crops to their own use. He fixed a certain quantity of work, by the doing of which his slaves might work themselves free; and this put so much heart into them that many of them worked themselves free in one year, and all who had any luck or pluck could work themselves free in three years. Ulf did this too, but he was not so wise nor yet so kind in his way of doing it. With the money thus procured Haldor bought other slaves. Some of his freed people he taught to work in the herring fishery; to others he taught some handicraft; in short, he helped all of them to prosperity; so that many of the best of them remained fast by their old master, although free to take service where they chose. Thus it was that his men were better than those of his neighbour. Ulf's men were, nevertheless, good stout fellows, and they fought valiantly; but it so happened that the wing of the enemy to which they were opposed was commanded by Skarpedin, of whom it was said that he was equal to any six men. In spite, therefore, of the courage and the strength of Ulf and Glumm, the Northmen in that part of the field began slowly to give back. Ulf and Glumm were so maddened at this that they called their men cowards, and resolved to go forward till they should fall. Uttering their war-cry, they made a desperate charge, hewing down men like stalks of corn; but although this caused the Danes to give way a little, they could not advance, not being well backed, but stood fighting, and merely kept their ground. Now it had chanced shortly before this, that Haldor stayed his hand and drew back with Erling. They went out from the front of the fight, and observed the left wing giving way. "Come, let us aid them," cried Haldor. Saying this he ran to the left wing, with Erling by his side. They two uttered a war-cry that rose high above the din of battle like a roar of thunder, and, rushing to the front, fell upon the foe. Their gilt helmets rose above the crowd, and their ponderous axes went swinging round their heads, continually crashing down on the skulls of the Danes. With four such men as Haldor, Erling, Ulf and Glumm in front, the left wing soon regained its lost ground and drove back the Danes. Nothing could withstand the shock. Skarpedin saw what had occurred, and immediately hastened to the spot where Haldor stood, sweeping down all who stood in his way. "I have been searching for thee, Erling," he cried, going up to Haldor, and launching a javelin. Haldor caught it on his shield, which it pierced through, but did him no hurt. "Mistaken thou art, but thou hast found me now," cried Erling, thrusting his father aside and leaping upon the Dane. Skarpedin changed his bill to his left hand, drew his sword, and made such a blow at his adversary, that the point cut right through his shield. With a quick turn of the shield, Erling broke the sword short off at the hilt. Skarpedin seized his bill and thrust so fiercely that it also went through the shield and stuck fast. Erling forced the lower end or point of his shield down into the earth, and so held it fast, dropped his axe, drew his sword, and made it flash so quick round his head that no one could see the blade. It fell upon Skarpedin's neck and gave him a grievous wound, cutting right through his armour and deep into his shoulder blade. A great cry arose at this. The Danes made a rush towards their chief, and succeeded in dragging him out of the fight. They put him on his shield and bore him off to his ship, which was launched immediately. This was the turning-point in the day. Everywhere the Danes fled to their ships pursued by the victors. Some managed to launch their vessels, others were not so fortunate, and many fell fighting, while a few were taken prisoners. Foreseeing that this would be the result, Haldor and Erling called off their men, hastened on board their ships, and gave chase, while the rest of the force looked after the prisoners and the booty, and dressed their own and their comrades' wounds. "A bloody day this," said Ulf to Guttorm, as the latter came up, wiping the blade of his sword. "I have seen worse," observed the old warrior, carefully returning his weapon to its scabbard. "The Danes will long remember it," observed Glumm. "The ravens will have a good feast to-night." "And Odin's halls a few more tenants," said Guttorm: "The Danes came here all filled with greed, And left their flesh the crows to feed. "But what is to be done with these?" he added, pointing to the prisoners, about twenty of whom were seated on a log with their feet tied together by a long rope, while their hands were loose. "Kill them, I suppose," said Ulf. There were thirty men seated there, and although they heard the words, they did not show by a single glance that they feared to meet their doom. Just then Swart of the Springs came up. He had a great axe in his hands, and was very furious. "Thou hast killed and burned my wife, children, and homestede," he said fiercely, addressing the prisoner who sat at the end of the log, "but thou shalt never return to Denmark to tell it." He cut at him with the axe as he spoke, and the man fell dead. One after another Swart killed them. There was one who looked up and said-- "I will stick this fish bone that I have in my hand into the earth, if it be so that I know anything after my head is cut off." His head was immediately cut off, but the fish bone fell from his hand. Beside him there sat a very handsome young man with long hair, who twisted his hair over his head, stretched out his neck, and said, "Don't make my hair bloody." A man took the hair in his hands and held it fast. Then Swart hewed with his axe, but the Dane twitched his head back so strongly, that he who was holding his hair fell forward; the axe cut off both his hands, and stuck fast in the earth. "Who is that handsome man?" asked Ulf. The man replied with look of scorn, "I am Einar, the son of King Thorkel of Denmark; and know thou for a certainty that many shall fall to avenge my death." Ulf said, "Art thou certainly Thorkel's son? Wilt thou now take thy life and peace?" "That depends," replied the Dane, "upon who it is that offers it." "He offers who has the power to give it--Ulf of Romsdal." "I will take it," says he, "from Ulf's hands." Upon that the rope was loosed from his feet, but Swart, whose vengeance was still unsatisfied, exclaimed-- "Although thou shouldst give all these men life and peace, King Ulf, yet will I not suffer Einar to depart from this place with life." So saying he ran at him with uplifted axe, but one of the viking prisoners threw himself before Swart's feet, so that he tumbled over him, and the axe fell at the feet of a viking named Gills. Gills caught the axe and gave Swart his death-wound. Then said Ulf, "Gills, wilt thou accept life?" "That will I," said he, "if thou wilt give it to all of us." "Loose them from the rope," said Ulf. This was done, and the men were set free. Eighteen of the Danish vikings were killed, and twelve got their lives upon that occasion. CHAPTER EIGHT. TELLS OF DISCUSSIONS AND EXCITING DEEDS AT ULFSTEDE. While the fight at the Springs which we have just described was going on, Christian the hermit sat in the hall at Ulfstede conversing with Hilda and Dame Astrid, and some of the other women. All the fighting men of the place had been taken away--only one or two old men and Alric were left behind--for Ulf, in his impetuosity, had forgotten to leave a guard at home. "I hope it will fare well with our men at the Springs," said Hilda, looking up with an anxious expression from the mantle with which her nimble fingers were busy. "I hope so too," said Christian, "though I would rather that there had been no occasion to fight." "No occasion to fight!" exclaimed Alric, who was dressing the feathers on an arrow which he had made to replace the one he lost in shooting at the Dane,--and the losing of which, by the way, he was particularly careful to bring to remembrance as often as opportunity offered-- sometimes whether opportunity offered or not. "No occasion to fight! What would be the use of weapons if there were no fighting! Where should we get our plunder if there were no fighting, and our slaves? why, what would Northmen find to _do_ if there were no fighting?" The hermit almost laughed at the impetuosity of the boy as he replied-- "It would take a wiser head than mine, lad, to answer all these questions, more particularly to answer them to thy satisfaction. Notwithstanding, it remains true that peace is better than war." "That may be so," said Dame Astrid; "but it seems to me that war is necessary, and what is necessary must be right." "I agree with that," said Ada, with a toss of her pretty head--for it would seem that that method of expressing contempt for an adversary's opinion was known to womankind at least a thousand years ago, if not longer. "But _thou_ dost not fight, Christian: what has war done to thee that thou shouldst object to it so?" "What has war done for me?" exclaimed the old man, springing up with sudden excitement, and clasping his lean hands tight together; "has it not done all that it could do? Woman, it has robbed me of all that makes life sweet, and left me only what I did not want. It has robbed me of wife and children, and left a burdened life. Yet no--I sin in speaking thus. Life was left because there was something worth living for; something still to be done: the truth of God to be proclaimed; the good of man to be compassed. But sometimes I forget this when the past flashes upon me, and I forget that it is my duty as well as my joy to say, `The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.'" The old man sat down again, and leaned his brow on his hand. The women, although sympathetic, were puzzled by some of his remarks, and therefore sat in silence for a little, but presently the volatile Ada looked up and said-- "What thinkest thou, Hilda, in regard to war?" "I know not what to think," replied Hilda. "Nay, then, thy spirit must be flying from thee, for thou wert not wont to be without an opinion on most things. Why, even Erling's sister, Ingeborg, has made up her mind about war I doubt not, though she is too modest to express it." Now this was a sly hit at Ingeborg, who was sitting by, for she was well known to have a shrewish temper, and to be self-willed and opinionated, in so much that most men kept out of her way. She was very unlike Erling, or her father and mother, or her little sisters, in this respect. "I can express my opinion well enough when I have a mind," said Ingeborg sharply; "and as to war, it stands to reason that a Sea-king's daughter must approve of a Sea-king's business. Why, the beautiful cloths, and gold and jewels, that are so plentiful in the dale, would never have delighted our eyes if our men had not gone on viking cruise, and fallen in with those rich traders from the far south lands. Besides, war makes our men brisk and handsome." "Aye," exclaimed Alric, laughing, "especially when they get their noses cut off and their cheeks gashed!" "Sometimes it takes them from us altogether," observed a poor woman of the household, the widow of a man who had been slain on a viking cruise, after having had his eyes put out, and being otherwise cruelly treated. "That is the other side of the question," said Astrid. "Of course everything has two sides. We cannot change the plans of the gods. Sunshine and rain, heat and cold, come as they are sent. We must accept them as they are sent." "That is true," said Christian, "and thou sayest wisely that we must accept things as they are sent; but can it be said that war is sent to us when we rush into it of our own accord? Defensive warfare, truly, is right--else would this world be left in the sole possession of the wicked; but aggressive warfare is not right. To go on viking cruise and take by force that which is not our own is sinful. There is a good way to prove the truth of these things. Let me ask the question, Astrid,-- How would thy husband like to have thee and all his property taken from him, and Ulfstede burned about his ears?" "Methinks he would like it ill." "Then why should he do that to others which he would not like done to himself?" "These are strange words," said Astrid in surprise; "I know not that I have ever heard the like before." "Truly no," said Christian, "because the Word of God has not yet been sounded in the dale. Thou saidst just now that we cannot change the plans of the gods; that would be true if ye had said `the plans of God,' for there is but one God, and His ways are unchangeable. But what if God had revealed some of His plans to man, and told him that this revelation was sufficient to guide him in his walk through this life, and to prepare him for the next?" "Then would I think it man's wisdom to follow that guide carefully," replied Astrid. "Such plans do exist, such a revelation has been made," said the hermit, "and the name that stands on the forefront of it is Jesus Christ." As he spoke the hermit drew from his bosom a scroll of parchment, which he unrolled slowly. This, he said, was a copy, made by himself, of part of the Gospel. He had meant, he said, to have copied the whole of it, but war had put an end to his labours at the same time that it deprived him of his earthly joys, and drove him from his native land to be a wanderer on the earth. "But if," he continued, "the Lord permits me to preach His gospel of truth and love and peace in Norway, I shall count the sufferings of this present time as nothing compared with the glory yet to be revealed." "Christian," said Astrid, who appeared to have been struck by some reminiscence, "methinks I have heard Ulf talk of a religion which the men of the south profess. He saw something of it when he went on viking cruise to the great fiord that runs far into the land, [the Mediterranean] and if my memory is faithful he said that they called themselves by a name that sounds marvellously like thine own." "I suppose Ulf must have met with Christians, after whom I call myself, seeing that my own name is of consequence to no one," said the hermit. "What said he about them?" "That they were a bad set," replied Astrid,--"men who professed love to their fellows, but were guilty of great cruelty to all who did not believe their faith." "All who call themselves Christians deserve not the name, Astrid; some are hypocrites and deceivers, others are foolish and easily deceived." "They all make the same profession, I am told," said Dame Astrid. "The men of Norway are warriors," returned the hermit, "and all profess courage,--nay, when they stand in the ranks and go forth to war, they all show the same stern face and front, so that one could not know but that all were brave; yet are they not all courageous, as thou knowest full well. Some, it may be very few, but some are cowards at heart, and it only requires the test of the fight to prove them. So is it with professing Christians. I would gladly tell the story of Jesus if ye will hear me, Dame Astrid." The matron's curiosity was excited, so she expressed her willingness to listen; and the hermit, reading passages from his manuscript copy of the New Testament, and commenting thereon, unfolded the "old old story" of God's wonderful love to man in Jesus Christ. While he was yet in the midst of his discourse the door of the hall was burst violently open, and one of the serving-girls, rushing in, exclaimed that the Danes were approaching from the fiord! The Danes referred to composed a small party who had been sent off in a cutter by Skarpedin Redbeard to survey the coast beyond Horlingdal fiord, as he had intended, after herrying that district, to plunder still farther north. This party in returning had witnessed, unseen, the departure of the fleet of Northmen. Thinking it probable that the place might have been left with few protectors, they waited until they deemed it safe to send out scouts, and, on their report being favourable, they landed to make an attack on the nearest village or farm. On hearing the news all was uproar in Ulfstede. The women rushed about in a distracted state, imploring the few helpless old men about the place to arm and defend them. To do these veteran warriors justice they did their best. They put the armour that was brought to them on their palsied limbs, but shook their heads sadly, for they felt that although they might die in defence of the household, they could not save it. Meanwhile Christian and Alric proved themselves equal to the occasion. The former, although advanced in years, retained much of his strength and energy; and the latter, still inflated with the remembrance of the fact that he had actually drawn blood from a full-grown bearded Dane, and deeply impressed with the idea that he was the only able-bodied warrior in Ulfstede at this crisis, resolved to seize the opportunity and prove to the whole world that his boasting was at all events not "empty!" "The first thing to be done is to bar the doors," he cried, starting up on hearing the serving-girl's report. "Thou knowest how to do it, Christian; run to the south door, I will bar the north." The hermit smiled at the lad's energy, but he was too well aware of the importance of speed to waste time in talking. He dropped his outer garment and ran to the south door, which was very solid. Closing it, and fastening the ponderous wooden bar which stretched diagonally across it, he turned and ran to the chamber in which the weapons were kept. On the way he was arrested by a cry from Alric-- "Here! here, quick, Christian, else we are lost!" The hermit sprang to the north door with the agility of a youth. He was just in time. Poor Alric, despite the strength of his bold heart and will, had not strength of muscle enough to close the door, which had somehow got jammed. Through the open doorway Christian could see a band of Danish vikings running towards the house at full speed. He flung the door forward with a crash, and drew the bar across just as the vikings ran against it. "Open, open without delay!" cried a voice outside, "else will we tear out the heart of every man and child under this roof." "We will not open; we will defend ourselves to the last; our trust is in God," replied Christian. "And as to tearing out our hearts," cried Alric, feeling emboldened now that the stout door stood between him and his foes, "if ye do not make off as fast as ye came, we will punch out your eyes and roast your livers." The reply to this was a shower of blows on the door, so heavy that the whole building shook beneath them, and Alric almost wished that his boastful threat had been left unsaid. He recollected at that moment, however, that there was a hole under the eaves of the roof just above the door. It had been constructed for the purpose of preventing attacks of this kind. The boy seized his bow and arrows and dashed up the ladder that led to the loft above the hall. On it he found one of the old retainers of the stede struggling up with a weighty iron pot, from which issued clouds of steam. "Let me pass, old Ivor; what hast thou there?" "Boiling water to warm them," gasped Ivor, "I knew we should want it ere long. Finn is gone to the loft above the south door with another pot." Alric did not wait to hear the end of this answer, but pushing past the old man, hastened to the trap-door under the eaves and opened it. He found, however, that he could not use his bow in the constrained position necessary to enable him to shoot through the hole. In desperation he seized a barrel that chanced to be at hand, and overturned its contents on the heads of the foe. It happened to contain rye-flour, and the result was that two of the assailants were nearly blinded, while two others who stood beside them burst into a loud laugh, and, seizing the battle-axes which the others had been using, continued their efforts to drive in the door. By this time old Ivor had joined Alric. He set down the pot of boiling water by the side of the hole, and at once emptied its contents on the heads of the vikings, who uttered a terrific yell and leaped backward as the scalding water flowed over their heads and shoulders. A similar cry from the other door of the house told that the defence there had been equally successful. Almost at the same moment Alric discovered a small slit in the roof through which he could observe the enemy. He quickly sent through it an arrow, which fixed itself in the left shoulder of one of the men. This had the effect of inducing the attacking party to draw off for the purpose of consultation. The breathing-time thus afforded to the assailed was used in strengthening their defences and holding a hurried council of war. Piling several heavy pieces of furniture against the doors, and directing the women to make additions to these, Christian drew Alric into the hall, where the ancient retainers were already assembled. "It will cost them a long time and much labour to drive in the doors, defended as they are," said the hermit. "They will not waste time nor labour upon them," said Ivor, shaking his hoary head. "What think ye, Finn?" The women, who had crowded round the men, looked anxiously at Finn, who was a man of immense bulk, and had been noted for strength in his younger days, but who was now bent almost double with age. "Fire will do the work quicker than the battle-axe," answered Finn, with grim smile, which did not improve the expression of a countenance already disfigured by the scars of a hundred fights, and by the absence of an eye--long ago gouged out and left to feed the ravens of a foreign shore! "If this had only come to pass a dozen years ago," he added, while a gleam of light illumined the sound eye, "I might have gone off to Valhalla with a straight hack and some credit. But mayhap a good onset will straighten it yet, who knows?--and I do feel as if I had strength left to send at least _one_ foe out of the world before me." Ivor the Old nodded. "Yes," he said; "I think they will burn us out." "I had already feared this," said Christian, with a look of perplexity. "What wouldst thou recommend should be done, Ivor?" "Nothing more can be done than to kill as many as possible before we die." "I pray the Lord to help us in our extremity," said Christian; "but I believe it to be His will to help those who are willing to help themselves, depending upon Him for strength, courage, and victory. It may be that Ulf and his men will soon return from the Springs, so that if we could only hold out for a short time all might be well. Have ye nothing to suggest?" "As to Ulf and the men returning from the Springs," said Finn, "there is small chance of that before morning. With regard to holding out, I know of nothing that will cause fire to burn slow once it is well kindled. An hour hence and Ulfstede will be in ashes, as that sound surely tells." He referred to a crashing blow which occurred just then at the north door. Nearly all present knew full well that it was the first bundle of a pile of faggots with which the assailants meant to set the house on fire. "Had this arm retained but a little of the strength it once knew," continued Finn bitterly, as he stretched out the huge but withered limb, "things had not come to this pass so quickly. I remember the day, now forty years ago, when on the roof of this very house I stood alone with my bow and kept thirty men at bay for two full hours. But I could not now draw an arrow of Alric's little bow to its head, to save the lives of all present." "But _I_ can do it," cried Alric, starting forward suddenly; "and if thou wilt show me the window in the roof I will--" "Brave boy," said old Ivor, with a kindly smile, as he laid his hand on Alric's head, "thy heart is large, and it is sad that one so full of promise should come to such an end; but it needs not that ye should fall before thy time. These shafts may do against the crows, but they would avail nothing against men in mail." "Is there not a warrior's bow in the house?" asked Christian quickly. "There is," replied Ivor, "but who will use it?" "I will." "Thou?" exclaimed Ivor, with a slight touch of contempt in his tone. "Hold thy peace, Ivor," said Hilda quickly. "This man has saved my life once, as thou knowest, and well assured am I that what he undertakes to do he will accomplish." "Now thanks to thee, Hilda, for that," said the hermit heartily; "not that I boast of being sure to accomplish what I undertake, yet I never offer to attempt what I have not some reasonable hope of being able to do. But it is not strange that this old warrior should doubt of the courage or capacity of one who preaches the gospel of peace. Nevertheless, when I was a youth I fought in the army of the great Thorfin, and was somewhat expert in the use of the bow. It is possible that some of my ancient skill may remain, and I am willing to use it in a good cause. I pray thee, therefore, let us not waste more time in useless talk, but fetch me a bow and quiver, and show me the window in the roof." Ivor went at once to the place where the armour was kept, and brought out the desired weapons, which he placed in the hands of the hermit, and watched his mode of handling them with some curiosity. Christian, unconscious of the look, strung the bow and examined one of the arrows with the air of a man who was thoroughly accustomed to such weapons. Ivor regarded him with increased respect as he conducted him to the loft, and opened the window. The hermit at once stepped out, and was instantly observed by the Danes, who of course seized the opportunity and let fly several arrows at him, which grazed him or stuck quivering in the roof close to the spot where he stood. He was not slow to reply. One of the vikings, who was approaching the house at the moment with a bundle of faggots on his back, received a shaft in his shoulder, which caused him to drop his bundle and fly to the woods, where he took shelter behind a tree. Almost before that shaft had reached its mark another was on the string, and, in another instant, transfixed the biceps muscle of the right arm of one of the vikings who was preparing to discharge an arrow. He also sought shelter behind a tree, and called to a comrade to come and assist him to extract the shaft. "Mine ancient skill," said the hermit in an undertone, as if the remark were made half to himself and half to Ivor, whose head appeared at the window, and whose old countenance was wrinkled with a grin of delight at this unexpected display of prowess; "mine ancient skill, it would seem, has not deserted me, for which I am thankful, for it is an awful thing, Ivor, more awful than thou thinkest, to send a human being into eternity unforgiven. I am glad, therefore, to be able thus to render our assailants unfit for war without taking away their lives--ha! that was better aimed than usual," he added, as an arrow passed through his jerkin, and stuck deep into the roof. "The man shoots well, he would soon end the fight if I did not--stop--that." At the second-last word the hermit bent his bow; at the last, which was uttered with emphasis, he let the arrow fly, and sent it through the left hand of his adversary, who instantly dropped his bow. At the same moment it seemed as though the whole band of vikings had become suddenly convinced that they stood exposed to the shafts of a man who could use them with unerring certainty, for they turned with one consent and fled into the woods--each man seeking shelter behind the nearest tree. Here they called to one another to stand forth and shoot at the hermit. "Go thou, Arne," cried the leader; "thine aim is true. Surely one old man is not to keep us all at bay. If my left hand were unscathed I would not trouble thee to do it, thou knowest." "I have no desire to get an arrow in mine eye," cried Arne; "see, I did but show the tip of my right elbow just now, and the skin of it is cut up as though the crows had pecked it." In the excess of his wrath Arne extended his clenched fist and shook it at the hermit, who instantly transfixed it with an arrow, causing the foolish man to howl with pain and passion. "I have always held and acted on the opinion," said Christian to Ivor, who was now joined by his comrade Finn, "that whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well. Thou seest," he continued, wiping his brow with the sleeve of his coat, "it is only by being expert in the use of this weapon that I have succeeded in driving bark the Danes without the loss of life. There is indeed a passage in the Book of God (which I hope to be spared to tell thee more about in time to come), where this principle of thoroughness in all things is implied, if not absolutely taught--namely, `Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.'" "A just maxim," said Finn, shading his one eye with his hands and gazing earnestly into the woods, "and if acted upon, makes a man fit for every duty that falls upon him; but it seems to me that while we are talking here, there is some movement going on. See, Christian (since that is thy name), they are retiring in haste, and exposing themselves. Now, I pray thee, as thine eye is so sure, do drop a shaft on the nape of yonder fellow's neck, that we may have something to show of this night's work." "I told thee, Finn, that my desire is to avoid taking life." "Humph," said Finn testily, "whatever thy desire may be matters little now, for he is beyond range. Hark! That shout accounts for the flight of the Danes. Ulf must have returned." As he spoke, a loud cry, as if of men in conflict, arose from the fiord. Immediately after, the vikings who had not already taken to flight left their places of shelter and dashed into the underwood. The hermit let them go without moving a hand; but Alric, who was actuated by no merciful principles, suddenly opened the north door, sprang out, and let fly an arrow with so true an aim that it struck one of the Danes between the shoulders. Fortunately for him, the Dane had, in accordance with the usual custom of the time, hung his shield on his back when he took to flight, so that the shaft rebounded from it and fell harmless to the ground. By this time the hermit had descended from the roof. Running out he seized Alric, and, dragging him into the house, reclosed the door. "Ye know not, foolish boy, whether or not this is Ulf whom we hear." As he spoke, the tramp of approaching footsteps and the voices of excited men were heard outside. The door flew open, and Ulf, Erling, and Haldor, with a number of the house-carles, strode into the hall and flung down their arms. "Not much too soon, it would seem," said Ulf, with a look of stern joy. "Thou wouldst have been altogether too late, Ulf," said Astrid, "had not Christian been here to save us." "How so?" exclaimed Ulf, turning with an enquiring look to the hermit; "hast turned warrior after all thy preaching of peace? But thou art pale. Ho! fetch a horn of ale here; fighting has disagreed with thy stomach, old man." "I think," said Christian, pressing his hand to his side, "that one of these arrows must have--" He paused suddenly, and would have fallen to the ground had not Erling caught him. Letting him gently down at full length, our hero raised his head on his knee, while Hilda came forward with a horn of ale. As she kneeled by the old man's side she glanced anxiously at her lover's face, which was covered with blood and dust, and presented anything but an attractive appearance. "Hast thou been wounded?" whispered Hilda. "No, not wounded," muttered Erling, "but--" "Not wounded!" exclaimed Ulf, who overheard the words, but misunderstood their application, "not wounded! Why, Erling, where have thy wits gone? The man is wellnigh dead from loss of blood. See, his jerkin is soaking. Bring hither bandages; come, let me see the wound. If the old man has indeed saved Ulfstede this day, eternal disgrace would be our due did we let his life slip out under our roof-tree for want of proper care. And hark'ee; get ready all the dressings thou hast, for wounded men enough will be here ere long, and let the boards be spread with the best of meat and ale, for we have gone through hard work to-day, and there is harder yet in store for us, I trow." Thus admonished, the women went to make preparation for the reception of the wounded, and the entertainment of those who had been more fortunate in the recent conflict. Meanwhile the hermit was conveyed to Ulf's own bed, and his wound, which proved to be less serious than had been feared, was carefully dressed by Hilda, to whom Erling, in the most attentive and disinterested manner, acted the part of assistant-surgeon. CHAPTER NINE. SHOWS HOW THE ANCIENT SEA-KINGS TRANSACTED NATIONAL BUSINESS. Scant was the time allowed the men of Horlingdal for refreshment and rest after the battle of the Springs, for the assembling of Thingsmen armed to the teeth, as well as the news that King Harald threatened a descent on them, rendered it necessary that a District Thing or Council should be held without delay. Accordingly, after brief repose, Haldor the Fierce, who had returned with Erling to his own house up the dale, arose and ordered the horn to be sounded for a Thing. Several hundreds of men had by that time assembled, and when they all came together they formed an imposing band of warriors, whom any wise king would have deemed it advisable to hold converse with, if possible, on friendly terms. When the Thing was seated Haldor rose, and, amid profound silence, said: "Men of Horlingdal, King Harald Haarfager has sent round the message-token for a Thing to be held at the Springs. The token sent was one of peace. The token of war was sent round instead, as ye know. Whether this was wise or not does not much concern us now, as ye have seen with your own eyes that there was good fortune in the change; for we knew not, when the token was forwarded, of the urgent need that should arise at the Springs for our weapons. But, now that the Danes have been sent home--excepting that goodly number who have gone to Valhalla's halls to keep company with Odin and departed warriors--it seems to me that we should meet the King in the manner which he desires until he shall give us occasion to assume arms in defence of our laws. And I would here remind you that Harald is our rightful King, udal-born to the Kingdom of Norway, his title having been stated and proved at all the District Things, beginning with the Ore Thing of Drontheim, and having been approved by all the people of Norway. I therefore counsel pacific measures, and that we should go to the Springs unarmed." When Haldor sat down there was a slight murmur of assent, but most of those present remained silent, wishing to hear more. Then up started Ulf, and spoke with great heat. "I agree not with Haldor," he said sternly. "Who does not know that Harald is rightful King of Norway; that he is descended in a direct line from the godars who came over from the east with Odin, and has been fairly elected King of Norway? But who does not know also, that our laws are above our King, that Harald is at this time trampling on these laws, and is everywhere setting at defiance the small kings, who are as truly udal-born to their rights and titles as himself?" At this point Ulf's indignation became so great that he found he could not talk connectedly, so he concluded by counselling that they should go to the Springs fully armed, and ready to brave the worst. There was a loud shout of approval, and then Erling started up. His manner and tone were subdued, but his face was flushed; and men could see, as he went on, that he was keeping down his wrath and his energy. "I like it ill," he said, "to disagree on this point with my father; but Ulf is right. We all know that Harald is King of Norway by _law_, and we do not meet here to dispute his title; but we also know that kings are not gods. Men create a law and place it over their own heads, so that the lawmakers as well as those for whom it is made must bow before it; but when it is found that the law works unfairly, the lawmaker may repeal it, and cast it aside as useless or unworthy. So kings were created for the sole purpose of guiding nations and administering laws, in order that national welfare might be advanced. The moment they cease to act their part, that moment they cease to be worthy kings, and become useless. But if, in addition to this, they dare to ignore and break the laws of the land, then do they become criminal; they deserve not only to be cast aside, but punished. If, in defence of our rights, we find it necessary to dethrone the King, we cannot be charged with disloyalty, because the King has already dethroned himself!" Erling paused a moment at this point, and a murmur of approval ran through the circle of his auditors. "When Harald Haarfager's father," he resumed, "Halfdan the Black, ruled over Norway, he made laws which were approved by the people. He obeyed them himself, and obliged others to observe them; and, that violence should not come in the place of the laws, he himself fixed the number of criminal acts in law, and the compensations, mulcts, or penalties, for each case, according to everyone's birth and dignity, from the King downwards; so that when disputes were settled at the Things the utmost fair play prevailed--death for death, wound for wound; or, if the parties chose, matters could be adjusted by payments in money--each injury being valued at a fixed scale; or matters might be settled and put right by single combat. All this, ye know full well, Halfdan the Black compassed and settled in a _legal manner_, and the good that has flowed from his wise and legal measures (for I hold that a king is not entitled to pass even wise laws illegally) has been apparent to us ever since. But now all this is to be overturned--with or without the consent of the Things--because a foolish woman, forsooth, has the power to stir up the vanity of a foolish king! Shall this be so? Is our manhood to be thus riven from us, and shall we stand aloof and see it done, or, worse still, be consenting unto it? Let death be our portion first! It has been rumoured that the people of southern lands have done this--that they have sold themselves to their kings, so that one man's voice is law, and paid troops of military slaves are kept up in order that this one man may have his full swing, while his favourites and his soldier-slaves bask in his sunshine and fatten on the people of the land! It is impossible for us of Norway to understand the feelings or ideas of the men who have thus sold themselves--for we have never known such tyranny--having, as the scalds tell us, enjoyed our privileges, held our Things, and governed ourselves by means of the collective wisdom of the people ever since our forefathers came from the East; but I warn ye that if this man, Harald Haarfager, is allowed to have his will, our institutions shall be swept away, our privileges will depart, our rights will be crushed, and the time will come when it shall be said of Norsemen that they have utterly forgotten that they once were free! Again I ask, shall we tamely stand aside and suffer this to be? Shall our children ever have it in their power to say, `There was a time when our mean-spirited forefathers might have easily stopped the leak that caused the flood by which we are now borne irresistibly downward?' I repeat, let us rather perish! Let us go armed to the Springs and tell the King that he--equally with ourselves--is subject to the laws of the land!" Erling delivered the last sentence in a voice of thunder, and with a fierce wave of the hand, that drew forth shouts of enthusiastic applause. Instantly Glumm started up, forgetful, in the heat of the moment, of the jealousy that had so recently sprung up between him and his friend. "I am not a speaker," he shouted gruffly, "but poor is the man who cannot back up and egg on his friend. Erling speaks the truth; and all I have to suggest is that he should be sent by us to tell all this to King Harald Haarfager's face!" Glumm sat down with the prompt decision of a man who has thoroughly delivered himself of all that he intends to say; and many in the assembly testified their approval of his sentiments. At this point Ivor the Old arose and gave it as his opinion that the sooner the King should be brought off his high horse the better; whereupon Finn the One-eyed suggested, with a laugh, that the old hermit should be sent with his bow and arrow to teach him due submission to the laws. Then there was a good deal of confused, and not a little passionate discussion, which waxed louder and more vehement until Guttorm Stoutheart stood up, and, although not a dalesman, requested the attention of the assembly for a few minutes. "It is obvious," he said in the hearty tones of a man who knows that he is sure of carrying a large portion of his audience along with him--"it is obvious that you are all pretty much of one mind as to the principle on which we should act at this time; and my good friend Haldor the Fierce (who seems of late to have changed his nature, and should, methinks, in future, be styled Haldor the Mild) is evidently on the losing side. The only thing that concerns us, it seems to me, is the manner in which we shall convey our opinion to the King--how we shall best, as the scald says:-- "`Whisper in the King's unwilling ear That which is wholesome but unsweet to hear.' "Now, to the quick-witted among you various methods will doubtless have already been suggested; and I am perchance only echoing the sentiments of many here, when I say that it would be worthy of the men of Horlingdal that they should fight the King at once, and put a stop to the burnings, hangings, torturings, jarl-makings, and subduings of which he has been so guilty of late, and which I confess is so unlike his free, generous, manly character, that I have found it hard to believe the reports which have reached my ears, and which, after all, can only be accounted for by the fact that he is at present led by the nose by that worst of all creatures, a proud imperious girl, who has the passions of a warrior and the brains of a bairn! Another method, which would signify at least our contempt for Harald's principles, would be the sending of a thrall to him with a reaping-hook, and a request that he would cut off his own head and give it to us in token that, having ceased to be a king, he is resolved no longer to continue to be a dishonoured man! And that reminds me of one of Ulf's thralls named Kettle Flatnose, who could assist Harald nobly in the work of beheading himself, for last night, when he and I fought side by side against the Danes, he used a hook of his own making, with such effect, that I was fain to pause and laugh, while myself in the very act of splitting an iron headpiece. But perchance that is not a suitable method of compassing our ends, besides it would cost the thrall his life, and I should be sorry to aid in bringing about the death of Kettle Flatnose, whose island is a happy one if it counts many such clear-headed and able-bodied warriors. "But another plan was proposed by Glumm the Gruff, which seemed to me to have the approval of many present, and assuredly it has mine, that we should send King Erling at once to Harald, to tell him our opinions to his face, to sound him as to his intentions, and to bring back the news as fast as possible, so that we may go armed or unarmed to the Springs, as prudence may direct. Moreover, as it would be unfair to send a man alone on such a dangerous errand, I would suggest that he should have a comrade to keep him company and share his fortunes, and that for this end none better could be found than Glumm the Gruff himself." This speech settled the mind of the meeting. After a little more talk it was finally arranged that Erling and Glumm should go at once to meet King Harald, who could not yet, it was thought, have arrived at the Springs, and endeavour to find out his temper of mind in regard to the men of Horlingdal. After that the Thing broke up, and the members dispersed to partake of "midag-mad", or dinner, in the dwellings of their various friends. CHAPTER TEN. PROVES THAT THE BEST OF FRIENDS MAY QUARREL ABOUT NOTHING, AND THAT WAR HAS TWO ASPECTS. "Now, Erling," said Glumm, with a face so cheerful, that had the expression been habitual, he never would have been styled the Gruff, "I will go home with thee and wait until thou art busked, after which we will go together to my house and have a bite and a horn of mead before setting out on this expedition. I thank the Stoutheart for suggesting it, for the business likes me well." "Thou wert ever prone to court danger, Glumm," said Erling with a laugh, as they hurried towards Haldorstede, "and methinks thou art going to be blessed with a full share of it just now, for this Harald Haarfager is not a man to be trifled with. Although thou and I could hold our own against some odds, we shall find the odds too much for us in the King's camp, should he set his face against us. However, the cause is a good one, and to say truth, I am not sorry that they had the goodness to pitch on thee and me to carry out the plan." Thus conversing they arrived at Ulfstede, where Herfrida met them at the door, and was soon informed of their mission. She immediately went to an inner closet, where the best garments and arms were kept, and brought forth Erling's finest suit of armour, in order that he might appear with suitable dignity at court. She made him change his ordinary shoes for a pair made of tanned leather, on which he bound a pair of silver spurs, which had been taken from a cavalier of southern lands in one of Haldor's viking cruises. She brought, and assisted him to put on, a new suit of mail, every ring of which had been brightly polished by the busy hands of Ingeborg, who was unusually fond of meddling with everything that pertained to the art of war; also a new sword-belt of yellow leather, ornamented with gold studs. On his head she placed a gilt helmet with his favourite crest, a pair of hawk's wings expanded upwards, and a curtain of leather covered with gilt-steel rings to defend the neck. Over his shoulders she flung a short scarlet cloak, which was fastened at the throat by a large silver brooch, similar to the circular brooches which are still to be found in the possession of the rich bonders of Norway. Then she surveyed her stalwart son from head to foot, and said that he would stand comparison with any king in the land, small or great. At this Erling laughed, and asked for his sword. "Which one, my son?" "The short one, mother. I had indeed thought of taking my good old axe with me, but that would not look well in a man bent on a mission of peace. Would it, Glumm? And if I should have to fight, why, my short sword is not a light one, and by putting to a little more force I can make it bite deep enough. So now, Glumm, I am ready for the road. Farewell, mother." The young men went out and hastened down the valley to Glummstede, near Horlingend. Now it chanced that Hilda and her foster-sister Ada had resolved, about that time of the day, to walk up the dale together, and as there was only one road on that side of the river, of necessity they were met by their lovers; and it so fell out that the meeting took place in a picturesque part of the dale, where the road passed between two high precipitous cliffs. The instant that Ada's eyes fell on Glumm her active brain conceived the idea of treating him to a disappointment, so she said hurriedly to her friend: "Hilda, wilt thou manage to lead Glumm aside and keep talking to him for a short time, while I speak with Erling? I want to ask him something about that sword-belt which I am making for Glumm, and which I intend to send him as the gift of an enemy." "I will do as ye desire," replied Hilda, with a feeling of disappointment; "but with what truth canst thou send it, Ada, as an enemy's gift?" "Simple Hilda!" said the other, with a laugh, "am I not an enemy to his peace of mind? But hush! they will overhear us." It chanced that Hilda was on the same side of the road with Erling, and Ada on that with Glumm, and both youths observed this fact with secret satisfaction as they approached and wished the maids "good day"; but just as they were about to shake hands Ada crossed in front of her companion, and taking Erling's outstretched hand said: "Erling, I am glad to meet thee, because I have a knotty point which I wish thine aid to disentangle. I will turn and walk with thee a short way, because I know thy business is pressing. It is always so with men, is it not?" "I know not," answered Erling, smiling at the girl's arch look, despite his surprise and chagrin at the unexpected turn affairs had taken, for he had noted the readiness with which Hilda had turned towards Glumm, and almost, as he imagined, led him aside purposely! "But it seems to me, Ada, that, however pressing a man's business may be, woman has the power to delay it." "Nay, then, if thine is indeed so pressing just now," said Ada, with a toss of the head (which Glumm, who walked behind with Hilda, took particular note of), "I will not presume to--" "Now, Ada," said Erling, with a light laugh, "thou knowest that it is merely waste of time to affect indignation. I know thee too well to be deceived. Come, what is it that ye would consult me about? not the forging of a battle-axe or spear-head, I warrant me." "Nay, but a portion of armour scarce less important, though not so deadly. What say you to a sword-belt?" "Well, I am somewhat skilled in such gear." "I am ornamenting one for a friend of thine, Erling, but I will not tell his name unless I have thy promise not to mention to him anything about our conversation." "I promise," said Erling, with an amused glance. "It is for Glumm." "For Glumm!" repeated Erling in surprise; "does Glumm then know--" "Know what?" asked Ada, as Erling stopped abruptly. "Does he know that thou art making this belt for him?" "Know it? why, how could it be a secret if he knew it?" "Ah, true, I--well?" "Besides," continued Ada, "I am not _making_ it; I said I was going to ornament it. Now it is with reference to that I would consult thee." Here Ada became so deeply absorbed in the mysteries of ornamental armour that she constrained Erling at least to appear interested, although, poor man, his heart was behind him, and he had much difficulty in resisting the desire to turn round when he heard Hilda's voice--which, by the way, was heard pretty constantly, for Glumm was so uncommonly gruff and monosyllabic in his replies that she had most of the talking to herself. This unpleasant state of things might have lasted a considerable time, had not the party reached the path which diverged to the left, and, crossing the river over a narrow bridge composed of two tall trees thrown across, led to Glummstede. Here Erling stopped suddenly, and wheeling round, said: "I regret that we cannot go farther down the dale to-day, as Glumm and I must fare with all speed to the Springs to meet King Harald." "I trust thine errand is one of peace?" said Hilda in a slightly anxious tone. "To judge by their looks," said Ada, glancing expressively at Glumm, "I should say that their intentions were warlike!" "Despite our looks," replied Erling, with a laugh, "our business with the King is of a peaceful nature, and as it is pressing, ye will excuse us if--" "Oh! it _is_ pressing, after all," cried Ada; "come, sister, let us not delay them." So saying, she hurried away with her friend, and the two youths strode on to Glummstede in a very unenviable frame of mind. Having refreshed themselves with several cuts of fresh salmon--drawn that morning from the foaming river--and with a deep horn of home-brewed ale, the young warriors mounted a couple of active horses, and rode up the mountain path that led in a zigzag direction over the fells to the valley of the Springs. They rode in silence at first--partly because the nature of the track compelled them to advance in single file, and partly because each was in the worst possible humour of which his nature was capable, while each felt indignant at the other, although neither could have said that his friend had been guilty of any definable sin. It may here be mentioned in passing, that Glumm had clothed and armed himself much in the same fashion as his companion, the chief difference being that his helmet was of polished steel, and the centre of his shield was painted red, while that of Erling was white. His only offensive weapons were a dagger and the long two-handed sword which had been forged for him by his friend, which latter was slung across his back. An hour and a half of steady climbing brought the youths to the level summit of the hills, where, after giving their steeds a few minutes to breathe, they set off at a sharp gallop. Here they rode side by side, but the rough nature of the ground rendered it necessary to ride with care, so that conversation, although possible, was not, in the circumstances, very desirable. The silence, therefore, was maintained all the way across the fells. When they came to descend on the other side they were again obliged to advance in single file, so that the silence remained unbroken until they reached the base of the mountains. Here Erling's spirit revived a little, and he began to realise the absurdity of the conduct of himself and his friend. "Why, Glumm," he exclaimed at last, "a dumb spirit must have got hold of us! What possesses thee, man?" "Truly it takes two to make a conversation," said Glumm sulkily. "That is as thou sayest, friend, yet I am not aware that I refused to talk with thee," retorted Erling. "Nor I with thee," said Glumm sharply, "and thy tongue was glib enough when ye talked with Ada in Horlingdal." A light flashed upon Erling as his friend spoke. "Why, Glumm," he said lightly, "a pretty girl will make most men's tongues wag whether they will or no." Glumm remembered his own obstinate silence while walking with Hilda, and deeming this a studied insult he became furious, reined up and said: "Come, Erling, if ye wish to settle this dispute at once we need fear no interruption, and here is a piece of level sward." "Nay, man, be not so hot," said Erling, with a smile that still more exasperated his companion; "besides, is it fair to challenge me to fight with this light weapon while thou bearest a sword so long and deadly?" "That shall be no bar," cried the other, unslinging his two-handed sword; "thou canst use it thyself, and I will content me with thine." "And pray, how shall we give account of our mission," said Erling, "if you and I cut each other's heads off before fulfilling it?" "That would then concern us little," said Glumm. "Nay, thou art more selfish than I thought thee, friend. For my part, I would not that _she_ should think me so regardless of her welfare as to leave undelivered a message that may be the means of preventing the ruin of Horlingdal. My regard for Ada seems to sit more heavily on me than on thee." At this Glumm became still more furious. He leaped off his horse, drew his sword, and flinging it down with the hilt towards Erling, cried in a voice of suppressed passion: "No longer will I submit to be trifled with by man or woman. Choose thy weapon, Erling. This matter shall be settled now and here, and the one who wins her shall prove him worthy of her by riding forth from this plain alone. If thou art bent on equal combat we can fall to with staves cut from yonder tree, or, for the matter of that, we can make shift to settle it with our knives. What! has woman's love unmanned thee?" At this Erling leaped out of the saddle, and drew his sword. "Take up thy weapon, Glumm, and guard thee. But before we begin, perhaps it would be well to ask for whose hand it is that we fight." "Have we not been talking just now of Ada the Dark-eyed?" said Glumm sternly, as he took up his sword and threw himself into a posture of defence, with the energetic action of a man thoroughly in earnest. "Then is our combat uncalled for," said Erling, lowering his point, "for I desire not the hand of Ada, though I would fight even to the death for her blue-eyed sister, could I hope thereby to win her love." "Art thou in earnest?" demanded Glumm in surprise. "I never was more so in my life," replied Erling; "would that Hilda regarded me with but half the favour that Ada shows to thee!" "There thou judgest wrongly," said Glumm, from whose brow the frown of anger was passing away like a thundercloud before the summer sun. "I don't pretend to understand a girl's thoughts, but I have wit enough to see what is very plainly revealed. When I walked with Hilda to-day I noticed that her eye followed thee unceasingly, and although she talked to me glibly enough, her thoughts were wandering, so that she uttered absolute nonsense at times--insomuch that I would have laughed had I not been jealous of what I deemed the mutual love of Ada and thee. No, Erling, thy suit will prosper, depend on't. It is I who have reason to despond, for Ada loves me not." Erling, who heard all this with a certain degree of satisfaction, smiled, shook his head, and said: "Nay, then, Glumm, thou too art mistaken. The dark-eyed Ada laughs at everyone, and besides, I have good reason to know that her interest in thee is so great that she consulted me to-day about--about--a--" The promise of secrecy that he had made caused Erling to stammer and stop. "About what?" asked Glumm. "I may not tell thee, friend. She bound me over to secrecy, and I must hold by my promise; but this I may say, that thou hast fully greater cause for hope than I have." "Then it is my opinion," said Glumm, "that we have nothing to do but shake hands and proceed on our journey." Erling laughed heartily, sheathed his sword, and grasped his friend's hand, after which they remounted and rode forward; but they did not now ride in silence. Their tongues were effectually loosened, and for some time they discussed their respective prospects with all the warmth and enthusiasm of youthful confidants. "But Ada perplexes me," suddenly exclaimed Glumm, in the midst of a brief pause; "I know not how to treat her." "If thou wilt take my advice, Glumm, I will give it thee." "What is that?" asked Glumm. "There is nothing like fighting a woman with her own weapons." "A pretty speech," said Glumm, "to come from the lips of a man who never regards the weapons of his foes, and can scarce be prevailed on to carry anything but a beloved battle-axe." "The case is entirely the reverse when one fights with woman," replied Erling. "In war I confess that I like everything to be straightforward and downright, because when things come to the worst a man can either hew his way by main force through thick and thin, or die. Truly, I would that it were possible to act thus in matters of love also, but this being impossible--seeing that women will not have it so, and insist on dallying--the next best thing to be done is to act on their own principles. Fight them with their own weapons. If a woman is outspoken and straightforward, a man should be the same--and rejoice, moreover, that he has found a gem so precious. But if she _will_ play fast and loose, let a man--if he does not give her up at once--do the same. Give Ada a little taste of indifference, Glumm, and thou wilt soon bring her down. Laugh at her as well as with her. Show not quite so much attention to her as has been thy wont; and be more attentive to the other girls in the dale--" "To Hilda, for instance," said Glumm slyly. "Aye, even so, an it please thee," rejoined Erling; "but rest assured thou wilt receive no encouragement in that quarter; for Hilda the Sunbeam is the very soul of innocence, truth, and straightforwardness." "Not less so is Ada," said Glumm, firing up at the implied contrast. Erling made a sharp rejoinder, to which Glumm made a fierce reply; and it is probable that these hot-blooded youths, having quarrelled because of a misunderstanding in regard to their mistresses, would have come to blows about their comparative excellence, had they not come suddenly upon a sight which, for the time, banished all other thoughts from their minds. During the discussion they had been descending the valley which terminated in the plain where the recent battle of the Springs had been fought. Here, as they galloped across the field, which was still strewn with the bodies of the slain, they came upon the blackened ruins of a hut, around which an old hag was moving, actively engaged, apparently, in raking among the ashes with a forked stick for anything that she could draw forth. Near to her a woman, who had not yet reached middle age, was seated on the burnt earth, with her hands tightly clasped, and her bloodshot eyes gazing with a stony stare at a blackened heap which lay on her lap. As the young men rode up they saw that part of the head and face of a child lay in the midst of the charred heap, with a few other portions of the little one that had been only partially consumed in the fire. The Northmen did not require to be told the cause of what they saw. The story was too plainly written in everything around them to admit of uncertainty, had they even been ignorant of the recent fight and its consequences. These were two of the few survivors of that terrible night, who had ventured to creep forth from the mountains and search among the ashes for the remains of those whose smiles and voices had once made the sunshine of their lives. The terrible silence of these voices and the sight of these hideous remains had driven the grandmother of the household raving mad, and she continued to rake among the still smouldering embers of the old house, utterly regardless of the two warriors, and only complaining, in a querulous tone now and then, that her daughter should sit there like a stone and leave her unaided to do the work of trying to save at least some of the household from the flames. But the daughter neither heard nor cared for her. She had found what was left of her idol--her youngest child--once a ruddy, fearless boy, with curly flaxen hair, who had already begun to carve model longships and wooden swords, and to talk with a joyous smile and flashing eye of war! but now--the fair hair gone, and nothing left save a blackened skull and a small portion of his face, scarcely enough--yet to a mother far more than enough--to recognise him by. Erling and Glumm dismounted and approached the young woman, but received no glance of recognition. To a remark made by Erling no reply was given. He therefore went close to her, and, bending down, laid his large hand on her head, and gently smoothed her flaxen hair, while he spoke soothingly to her. Still the stricken woman took no notice of him until a large hot tear, which the youth could not restrain, dropped upon her forehead, and coursed down her cheek. She then looked suddenly up in Erling's face and uttered a low wail of agony. "Would ye slay her too?" shrieked the old woman at that moment, coming forward with the pole with which she had been raking in the ashes, as if she were going to attack them. Glumm turned aside the point of the pole, and gently caught the old woman by the arm. "Oh! spare her," she cried, falling on her knees and clasping her withered hands; "spare her, she is the last left--the last. I tried to save the others--but, but, they are gone--all gone. Will ye not spare _her_?" "They won't harm us, mother," said the younger woman huskily. "They are friends. I _know_ they are friends. Come, sit by me, mother." The old woman, who appeared to have been subdued by exhaustion, crept on her hands and knees to her side, and laying her head on her daughter's breast, moaned piteously. "We cannot stay to aid thee," said Erling kindly; "but that matters not because those will soon be here who will do their best for thee. Yet if thou canst travel a few leagues, I will give thee a token which will ensure a good reception in my father's house. Knowest thou Haldorstede in Horlingdal?" "I know it well," answered the woman. "Here is a ring," said Erling, "which thou wilt take to Herfrida, the wife of Haldor, and say that her son Erling sent thee, and would have thee and thy mother well cared for." He took from his finger, as he spoke, a gold ring, and placed it in the woman's hand, but she shook her head sadly, and said in an absent tone: "I dare not go. Swart might come back and would miss me." "Art thou the wife of Swart of the Springs?" "Yes; and he told me not to quit the house till he came back. But that seems so long, long ago, and so many things have happened since, that--" She paused and shuddered. "Swart is dead," said Glumm. On hearing this the woman uttered a wild shriek, and fell backward to the earth. "Now a plague on thy gruff tongue," said Erling angrily, as he raised the woman's head on his knee. "Did you not see that the weight was already more than she could bear? Get thee to the spring for water, man, as quickly as may be." Glumm, whose heart had already smitten him for his inconsiderate haste, made no reply, but ran to a neighbouring spring, and quickly returned with his helmet full of water. A little of this soon restored the poor woman, and also her mother. "Now haste thee to Horlingdal," said Erling, giving the woman a share of the small supply of food with which he had supplied himself for the journey. "There may be company more numerous than pleasant at the Springs to-morrow, and a hearty welcome awaits thee at Haldorstede." Saying this he remounted and rode away. "I was told last night by Hilda," said Erling, "that, when we were out after the Danes, and just before the attack was made by the men of their cutter on Ulfstede, the hermit had been talking to the women in a wonderful way about war and the God whom he worships. He thinks that war is an evil thing; that to fight in self-defence--that is, in defence of home and country--is right, but that to go on viking cruise is wrong, and displeasing to God." "The hermit is a fool," said Glumm bluntly. "Nay, he is no fool," said Erling. "When I think of these poor women, I am led to wish that continued peace were possible." "But it is, happily, _not_ possible; therefore it is our business to look upon the bright side of war," said Glumm. "That may be thy business, Glumm, but it is my business to look upon _both_ sides of everything. What would it avail thee to pitch and paint and gild the outside of thy longship, if no attention were given to the timbering and planking of the inside?" "That is a different thing," said Glumm. "Yes, truly; yet not different in this, that it has two sides, both of which require to be looked at, if the ship is to work well. I would that I knew what the men of other lands think on this point, for the hermit says that there are nations in the south where men practise chiefly defensive warfare, and often spend years at a time without drawing the sword." "Right glad am I," said Glumm, with a grim smile, "that my lot has not fallen among these." "Do you know," continued Erling, "that I have more than once thought of going off on a cruise far and wide over the world to hear and see what men say and do? But something, I know not what, prevents me." "Perchance Hilda could tell thee!" said Glumm. Erling laughed, and said there was some truth in that; but checked himself suddenly, for at that moment a man in the garb of a thrall appeared. "Ho! fellow," cried Glumm, "hast heard of King Harald Haarfager of late?" "The King is in guest-quarters in Updal," answered the thrall, "in the house of Jarl Rongvold, my master." "We must speed on," said Erling to Glumm, "if we would speak with the King before supper-time." "If you would speak with the King at all," said the thrall, "the less you say to him the better, for he is in no mood to be troubled just now. He sets out for the Springs to-morrow morning." Without making a reply the youths clapped spurs to their horses and galloped away. CHAPTER ELEVEN. DESCRIBES OUR HERO'S INTERVIEW WITH JARL RONGVOLD AND KING HARALD HAARFAGER. Late in the evening, Erling and Glumm arrived in the neighbourhood of the house of Jarl Rongvold, where King Harald Haarfager was staying in guest-quarters with a numerous retinue. In the days of which we write there were no royal palaces in Norway. The kings spent most of their time--when not engaged in war or out on viking cruises--in travelling about the country, with a band of "herd-men", or men-at-arms, in "guest-quarters". Wherever they went the inhabitants were bound by law to afford them house-room and good cheer at their own cost, and the kings usually made this tax upon their people as light as possible by staying only a few days at each place. Rongvold, who entertained the King at this time, was one of those Jarls or Earls--rulers over districts under himself--of whom he had recently created many throughout the land, to supersede those small independent kings who refused to become subject to him. He was a stout warrior, an able courtier, and a very dear friend of the King. Just before his arrival at Jarl Rongvold's house, King Harald had completed a considerable part of the programme which he had laid down in the great work of subduing the whole of Norway to himself. And wild bloody work it had been. Hearing that several of the small kings had called a meeting in the uplands to discuss his doings, Harald went, with all the men he could gather, through the forests to the uplands, came to the place of meeting about midnight without being observed by the watchmen, set the house on fire, and burnt or slew four kings with all their followers. After that he subdued Hedemark, Ringerige, Gudbrandsdal, Hadeland, Raumarige, and the whole northern part of Vingulmark, and got possession of all the land as far south as the Glommen. It was at this time that he was taunted by the girl Gyda, and took the oath not to clip his hair until he had subdued the whole land--as formerly related. After his somewhat peculiar determination, he gathered together a great force, and went northwards up the Gudbrandsdal and over the Doverfielde. When he came to the inhabited land he ordered all the men to be killed, and everything wide around to be delivered to the flames. The people fled before him in all directions on hearing of his approach--some down the country to Orkadal, some to Gaulerdal, and some to the forests; but many begged for peace, and obtained it on condition of joining him and becoming his men. He met no decided opposition till he came to Orkadal, where a king named Gryting gave him battle. Harald won the victory. King Gryting was taken prisoner, and most of his men were killed. He took service himself, however, under the King, and thereafter all the people of Orkadal district swore fidelity to him. Many other battles King Harald fought, and many other kings did he subdue--all of which, however, we will pass over at present, merely observing that wherever he conquered he laid down the law that all the udal property should belong to him, and that the bonders--the hitherto free landholders--both small and great, should pay him land dues for their possessions. It is due, however, to Harald Fairhair, to say that he never seems to have aimed at despotic power; for it is recorded of him that over every district he set an earl, or jarl, to judge _according to the law of the land and to justice_, and also to collect the land dues and the fines; and for this each earl received a third part of the dues and services and fines for the support of his table and other expenses. Every earl had under him four or more bersers, on each of whom was bestowed an estate of twenty merks yearly, for which he was bound to support twenty men-at-arms at his own expense--each earl being obliged to support sixty retainers. The King increased the land dues and burdens so much that his earls had greater power and income than the kings had before, and when this became known at Drontheim many of the great men of that district joined the King. Wherever Harald went, submission or extinction were the alternatives; and as he carried things with a high hand, using fire and sword freely, it is not a matter of wonder that his conquests were rapid and complete. It has been said of Harald Fairhair by his contemporaries, handed down by the scalds, and recorded in the Icelandic Sagas, that he was of remarkably handsome appearance, great and strong, and very generous and affable to his men. But to return. It was late in the evening, as we have said, when Erling and Glumm reached the vicinity of Jarl Rongvold's dwelling. Before coming in sight of it they were met by two of the mounted guards that were posted regularly as sentries round the King's quarters. These challenged them at once, and, on being informed that they desired to have speech with the King on matters of urgency, conveyed them past the inner guard to the house. The state of readiness for instant action in which the men were kept did not escape the observant eyes of the visitors. Besides an outlying mounted patrol, which they had managed to pass unobserved, and the sentries who conducted them, they found a strong guard round the range of farm buildings where the King and his men lay. These men were all well armed, and those of them who were not on immediate duty lay at their stations sound asleep, each man with his helmet on his head, his sword under it, his right hand grasping the hilt, and his shield serving the purpose of a blanket to cover him. Although the young men observed all this they did not suffer their looks to betray idle curiosity, but rode on with stern countenances, looking, apparently, straight before them, until they reined up at the front door of the house. In a few minutes a stout handsome man with white hair came out and saluted Erling in a friendly way. This was Jarl Rongvold, who was distantly related to him. "I would I could say with truth that I am glad to see thee, cousin," he said, "but I fear me that thine errand to the King is not likely to end in pleasant intercourse, if all be true that is reported of the folk in Horlingdal." "Thanks, kinsman, for the wish, if not for the welcome," replied the youth, somewhat stiffly, as he dismounted; "but it matters little to me whether our intercourse be pleasant or painful, so long as it is profitable. The men of Horlingdal send a message to Harald Haarfager; can my companion and I have speech with him?" "I can manage that for thee, yet would I counsel delay, for the King is not in a sweet mood to-night, and it may go ill with thee." "I care not whether the King's mood be sweet or sour," replied Erling sternly. "Whatever he may become in the future, Harald is not yet the all-powerful king he would wish to be. The men of Horlingdal have held a Thing, and Glumm and I have been deputed to see the King, convey to him their sentiments, and ask his intentions." A grim smile played on the jarl's fine features for a moment, as he observed the blood mantling to the youth's forehead. "No good will come to thee or thine, kinsman, by meeting the King with a proud look. Be advised, Erling," he continued in a more confidential tone; "it is easier to swim with the stream than against it--and wiser too, when it is impossible to turn it. Thou hast heard, no doubt, of Harald's doings in the north." "I have heard," said Erling bitterly. "Well, be he right or be he wrong, it were easier to make the Glommen run up the fells than to alter the King's determination; and it seems to me that it behoves every man who loves his country, and would spare further bloodshed, to submit to what is inevitable." "Every lover of his country deems bloodshed better than slavery," said Erling, "because the death of a few is not so great an evil as the slavery of all." "Aye, when there is hope that good may come of dying," rejoined the jarl, "but now there is no hope." "That is yet to be proved," said the youth; and Glumm uttered one of those emphatic grunts with which men of few words are wont to signify their hearty assent to a proposition. "Tut, kinsman," continued Rongvold, with a look of perplexity, "I don't like the idea of seeing so goodly a youth end his days before his right time. Let me assure thee that, if thou wilt join us and win over thy friends in Horlingdal, a splendid career awaits thee, for the King loves stout men, and will treat thee well; he is a good master." "It grieves me that one whose blood flows in my veins should call any man master!" said Erling. "Now a plague on thee, for a stupid hot-blood," cried the jarl; "if thou art so displeased with the word, I can tell thee that it need never be used, for, if ye will take service with the King, he will give thee the charge and the revenues of a goodly district, where thou shalt be master and a jarl too." "I am a king!" said Erling, drawing himself proudly up. "Thinkest thou I would exchange an old title for a new one, which the giver has no right to create?" Glumm uttered another powerfully emphatic grunt at this point. "Besides," continued Erling, "I have no desire to become a scatt-gatherer." The jarl flushed a little at this thrust, but mastering his indignation said, with a smile-- "Nay, then, if ye prefer a warrior's work there is plenty of that at the disposal of the King." "I have no particular love for war," said Erling. Jarl Rongvold looked at his kinsman in undisguised amazement. "Truly thou art well fitted for it, if not fond of it," he said curtly; "but as thou art bent on following thine own nose, thou art like to have more than enough of that which thou lovest not.--Come, I will bring thee to the King." The jarl led the two young men into his dwelling, where nearly a hundred men-at-arms were carousing. The hall was a long, narrow, and high apartment, with a table running down each side, and one at either end. In the centre of each table was a raised seat, on which sat the chief guests, but, at the moment they entered, the highest of these seats was vacant, for the King had left the table. The fireplace of the hall was in the centre, and the smoke from it curled up among the rafters, which it blackened before escaping through a hole in the roof. As all the revellers were armed, and many of them were moving about the hall, no notice was taken of the entrance of the strangers, except that one or two near whom they passed remarked that Jarl Rongvold owned some stout men-at-arms. The King had retired to one of the sleeping-chambers off the great halt in which he sat at a small window, gazing dreamily upon the magnificent view of dale, fell, fiord, and sea, that lay stretched out before the house. The slanting rays of the sun shone through the window, and through the heavy masses of the King's golden hair, which fell in enormous volumes, like a lion's mane, on a pair of shoulders which were noted, even in that age of powerful men, for enormous breadth and strength. Like his men, King Harald was armed from head to foot, with the exception of his helmet, which lay, with his shield, on the low wolf-skin couch on which he had passed the previous night. He did not move when the jarl and the young men entered, but on the former whispering in his ear he let his clenched fist fall on the window sill, and, turning, with a frown on his bold, handsome face, looked long and steadily at Erling. And well might he gaze, for he looked upon one who bore a singularly strong resemblance to himself. There was the same height and width and massive strength, the same bold, fearless look in the clear blue eyes, and the same firm lips; but Erling's hair fell in softer curls on his shoulders, and his brow was more intellectual. Being a younger man, his beard was shorter. Advancing a step, after Jarl Rongvold had left the room, Erling stated the sentiments of the men of Horlingdal in simple, blunt language, and ended by telling the King that they had no wish to refuse due and lawful allegiance to him, but that they objected to having the old customs of the land illegally altered. During the progress of his statement both Erling and Glumm observed that the King's face flushed more than once, and that his great blue eyes blazed with astonishment and suppressed wrath. After he had concluded, the King still gazed at him in ominous silence. Then he said, sternly: "For what purpose camest thou hither if the men of Horlingdal hold such opinions?" "We came to tell you, King Harald, what the men of Horlingdal think, and to ask what you intend to do." There was something so cool in this speech that a sort of grin curled the King's moustache, and mingled with the wrath that was gathering on his countenance. "I'll tell thee what I will do," he said, drawing his breath sharply, and hissing the words; "I will march into the dale, and burn and s--" He stopped abruptly, and then in a soft tone added, "But what will _they_ do if I refuse to listen to them?" "I know not what the men of Horlingdal will do," replied Erling; "but I will counsel them to defend their rights." At this the King leaped up, and drew his sword half out of its scabbard, but again checked himself suddenly; for, as the Saga tells us, "it was his invariable rule, whenever anything raised his anger, to collect himself and let his passion run off, and then take the matter into consideration coolly." "Go," he said, sitting down again at the window, "I will speak with thee on this subject to-morrow." Erling, who during the little burst of passion had kept his blue eyes unflinchingly fixed on those of the King, bowed and retired, followed by Glumm, whose admiration of his friend's diplomatic powers would have been unbounded, had he only wound up with a challenge to the King, then and there, to single combat! CHAPTER TWELVE. DESCRIBES A TERRIFIC AND UNEQUAL COMBAT. "Now, kinsman, let me endeavour to convince thee of thy folly," said Jarl Rongvold to Erling, on the morning that followed the evening in which the interview with the King had taken place, as they walked in front of the house together. "It needs no great power of speech to convince me of that," said Erling. "The fact that I am still here, after what the King let out last night, convinces me, without your aid, that I am a fool." "And pray what said he that has had such powerful influence on thine obtuse mind?" "Truly he said little, but he expressed much. He gave way to an unreasonable burst of passion when I did but claim justice and assert our rights; and the man must be slow-witted indeed who could believe that subdued passion is changed opinion. However, I will wait for another interview until the sun is in the zenith--after that I leave, whatever be the consequences. So it were well, kinsman, that you should see and advise with your _master_." The jarl bit his lip, and was on the point of turning away without replying, when a remarkably stout and tall young man walked up and accosted them. "This is my son Rolf," said the jarl, turning round hastily.--"Our kinsman, Erling the Bold. I go to attend the King. Make the most of each other, for ye are not likely to be long in company." "Are you that Rolf who is styled Ganger?" enquired Erling with some interest. "Aye," replied the other gruffly. "At least I am Rolf. Men choose to call me Ganger because I prefer to gang on my legs rather than gang on the legs of a horse. They say it is because no horse can carry me; but thou seest that that is a lie, for I am not much heavier than thyself." "I should like to know thee better, kinsman," said Erling. Rolf Ganger did not respond so heartily to this as Erling wished, and he felt much disappointed; for, being a man who did not often express his feelings, he felt all the more keenly anything like a rebuff. "What is your business with the King?" asked Rolf, after a short pause. "To defy him," said our hero, under the influence of a burst of mingled feelings. Rolf Ganger looked at Erling in surprise. "Thou dost not like the King, then?" "I hate him!" "So do I," said Rolf. This interchange of sentiment seemed to break down the barriers of diffidence which had hitherto existed between the two, for from that moment their talk was earnest and confidential. Erling tried to get Rolf to desert the King's cause and join his opponents, but the latter shook his head, and said that they had no chance of success; and that it was of no use joining a hopeless cause, even although he had strong sympathy with it. While they were conversing, Jarl Rongvold came out and summoned Erling to the presence of the King. This was the first and last interview that our hero had with that Rolf Ganger, whose name--although not much celebrated at that time--was destined to appear in the pages of history as that of the conqueror of Normandy, and the progenitor of line of English kings. "I have sent for thee, Erling," said the King, in a voice so soft, yet so constrained, that Erling could not avoid seeing that it was forced, "to tell thee thou art at liberty to return to thy dalesmen with this message--King Harald respects the opinions of the men of Horlingdal, and he will hold a Thing at the Springs for the purpose of hearing their views more fully, stating his own, and consulting with them about the whole matter.--Art satisfied with that?" he asked, almost sternly. "I will convey your message," said Erling. "And the sooner the better," said the King. "By the way, there are two roads leading to the Springs, I am told; is it so?" he added. "There are," said Erling; "one goes by the uplands over the fells, the other through the forest." "Which would you recommend me to follow when I fare to the Springs?" "The forest road is the best." "It is that which thou wilt follow, I suppose?" "It is," replied Erling. "Well, get thee to horse, and make the most of thy time; my berserk here will guide thee past the guards." As he spoke, a man who had stood behind the King motionless as a statue advanced towards the door. He was one of a peculiar class of men who formed part of the bodyguard of the King. On his head there was a plain steel helmet, but he wore no "serk", or shirt of mail (hence the name of berserk, or bare of serk), and he was, like the rest of his comrades, noted for being capable of working himself up into such a fury of madness while in action, that few people of ordinary powers could stand before his terrible onset. He was called Hake, the berserk of Hadeland, and was comparatively short in stature, but looked shorter than he really was, in consequence of the unnatural breadth and bulk of his chest and shoulders. Hake led Erling out to the door of the house, where they found Glumm waiting with two horses ready for the road. "Thou art sharp this morning, Glumm." "Better to be too sharp than too blunt," replied his friend. "It seemed to me that whatever should be the result of the talk with the King to-day, it were well to be ready for the road in good time. What is yonder big-shouldered fellow doing?" "Hush, Glumm," said Erling, with a smile, "thou must be respectful if thou wouldst keep thy head on thy shoulders. That is Hake of Hadeland, King Harald's famous berserk. He is to conduct us past the guards. I only hope he may not have been commissioned to cut off our heads on the way. But I think that perchance you and I might manage him together, if our courage did not fail us!" Glumm replied with that expression of contempt which is usually styled turning up one's nose, and Erling laughed as he mounted his horse and rode off at the heels of the berserk. He had good reason to look grave, however, as he found out a few moments later. Just as they were about to enter the forest, a voice was heard shouting behind, and Jarl Rongvold was seen running after them. "Ho! stay, kinsman, go not away without bidding us farewell. A safe and speedy journey, lad, and give my good wishes to the old folk at Haldorstede. Say that I trust things may yet be happily arranged between the men of Horlingdal and the King." As he spoke the jarl managed to move so that Erling's horse came between him and the berserk; then he said quickly, in a low but earnest whisper: "The King means to play thee false, Erling. I cannot explain, but do thou be sure to take _the road by the fells_, and let not the berserk know. Thy life depends on it. I am ordered to send this berserk with a troop of nineteen men to waylay thee. They are to go _by the forest road_.--There, thou canst not doubt my friendship for thee, for now my life is in thy hands! Haste, thou hast no chance against such odds. Farewell, Glumm," he added aloud; "give my respects to Ulf, when next ye see him." Jarl Rongvold waved his hand as he turned round and left his friends to pursue their way. They soon reached the point where they had met the two guards on the previous day. After riding a little farther, so as to make sure of being beyond the outmost patrol, the berserk reined up. "Here I leave you to guard yourselves," he said. "Truly we are indebted to thee for thy guidance thus far," said Erling. "If you should still chance to meet with any of the guards, they will let you pass, no doubt." "No doubt," replied Erling, with a laugh, "and, should they object, we have that which will persuade them." He touched the hilt of his sword, and nodded good-humouredly to the berserk, who did not appear to relish the jest at all. "Your road lies through the forest, I believe?" said Hake, pausing and looking back as he was about to ride away. "That depends on circumstances," said Erling. "If the sun troubles me, I may go by the forest,--if not, I may go by the fells. But I never can tell beforehand which way my fancy may lead, and I always follow it." So saying he put spurs to his horse and galloped away. The berserk did the same, but it was evident that he was ill at ease, for he grumbled very much, and complained a good deal of his ill luck. He did not, however, slacken his pace on that account, but rather increased it, until he reached Rongvoldstede, where he hastily summoned nineteen armed men, mounted a fresh horse, and, ordering them to follow, dashed back into the forest at full speed. For some time he rode in silence by the side of a stout man who was his subordinate officer. "Krake," he said at length, "I cannot make up my mind which road this Erling and his comrade are likely to have taken, so, as we must not miss our men, the King's commands being very positive, I intend to send thee by the mountain road with nine of the men, and go myself by the forest with the other nine. We will ride each at full speed, and will be sure to overtake them before they reach the split rock on the fells, or the double-stemmed pine in the forest. If thou shalt fall in with them, keep them in play till I come up, for I will hasten to join thee without delay after reaching the double pine. If I meet them I will give the attack at once, and thou wilt hasten to join me after passing the split rock. Now, away, for here our roads part." In accordance with this plan the troop was divided, and each portion rode off at full speed. Meanwhile Erling and Glumm pursued their way, chatting as they rode along, and pausing occasionally to breathe their horses. "What ails thee, Erling?" said Glumm abruptly. "One would fancy that the fair Hilda was behind thee, so often hast thou looked back since the berserk left us." "It is because the fair Hilda is before me that I look so often over my shoulder, for I suspect that there are those behind us who will one day cause her grief," replied Erling sadly; then, assuming a gay air, he added--"Come, friend Glumm, I wish to know thy mind in regard to a matter of some importance. How wouldst thou like to engage, single handed, with ten men?" Glumm smiled grimly, as he was wont to do when amused by anything-- which, to say truth, was not often. "Truly," said he, "my answer to that must depend on thine answer to this--Am I supposed to have my back against a cliff, or to be surrounded by the ten?" "With thy back guarded, of course." "In that case I should not refuse the fight, but I would prefer to be more equally matched," said Glumm, "Two to one, now, is a common chance of war, as thou knowest full well. I myself have had four against me at one time--and when one is in good spirits this is not a serious difficulty, unless there chance to be a berserk amongst them; even in that case, by the use of a little activity of limb, one can separate them, and so kill them in detail. But ten are almost too many for one man, however bold, big, or skilful he may be." "Then what--wouldst thou say to twenty against two?" asked Erling, giving a peculiar glance at his friend. "That were better than ten to one, because two stout fellows back to back are not easily overcome, if the fight be fair with sword and axe, and arrows or spears be not allowed. Thou and I, Erling, might make a good stand together against twenty, for we can use our weapons, and are not small men. Nevertheless, I think that it would be our last fight, though I make no doubt we should thin their number somewhat. But why ask such questions?" "Because I have taken a fancy to know to what extent I might count on thee in case of surprise." "To what extent!" said Glumm, flushing, and looking his friend full in the face. "Hast known me so long to such small purpose, that ye should doubt my willingness to stand by thee to the death, if need be, against any odds?" "Nay, be not so hasty, Glumm. I doubt not thy courage nor thy regard for me, but I had a fancy to know what amount of odds thou wouldst deem serious, for I may tell thee that our powers are likely to be put to the proof to-day. My kinsman, Jarl Rongvold, told me at parting that twenty men--and among them Hake the berserk--are to be sent after us, and are doubtless even now upon our track." "Then why this easy pace?" said Glumm, in a tone of great surprise. "Surely there is no reason why we should abide the issue of such a combat when nothing is to be gained by it and much to be lost; for if we are killed, who will prepare the men of Horlingdal for the King's approach, and tell of his intentions?" "That is wisely spoken, Glumm; nevertheless I feel disposed to meet King Harald's men." "This spirit accords ill with the assertion that thou art not fond of war," returned Glumm, with a smile. "I am not so sure of that," rejoined Erling, with a look of perplexity. "It is more the consequences of war--its evil effects on communities, on women and children--that I dislike, than the mere matter of fighting, which, although I cannot say I long for it, as some of our friends do, I can truly assert I take some pleasure in, when engaged in it. Besides, in this case I do not wish to meet these fellows for a mere piece of brag, but I think it might teach King Harald that he has to do with men who have heart and skill to use their weapons, and show him what he may expect if he tries to subdue this district. However, be that as it may, the question is, shall we hang back and accept this challenge--for such I regard it--or shall we push on?" "Yonder is an answer to that question, which settles it for us," said Glumm quietly, pointing to a ridge on the right of the bridle path, which rose high above the tree tops. A troop of horsemen were seen to cross it and gallop down the slope, where they quickly disappeared in the forest. "How many didst thou count?" asked Erling, with a look of surprise. "Only ten," answered Glumm. "Come," cried Erling cheerfully, as he drew his sword, "the odds are not so great as we had expected. I suppose that King Harald must have thought us poor-looking warriors, or perchance he has sent ten berserkers against us. Anyhow I am content. Only one thing do I regret, and that is, that, among the other foolish acts I have been guilty of at this time, I left my good battle-axe behind me. This is a level piece of sward. Shall we await them here?" "Aye," was Glumm's laconic answer, as he felt the edge of his long two-handed sword, settled himself more firmly on his seat, and carefully looked to the fastenings of his armour. Erling did the same, and both drew up their steeds with their backs towards an impenetrable thicket. In front lay a level stretch of ground, encumbered only here and there with one or two small bushes, beyond which they had a view far into the dark forest, where the armour of the approaching horsemen could be seen glancing among the tree stems. "It is likely," muttered Erling, "that they will try to speak us fair at first. Most assassins do, to throw men off their guard. I counsel that our words be few and our action quick." Glumm gave vent to a deep, short laugh, which sounded, however, marvellously like a growl, and again said-- "Aye." Next moment the ten horsemen galloped towards them, and reined up at the distance of a few yards, while two of them advanced. One of these, who was no other than Krake the berserk, said in a loud, commanding voice-- "Yield thee, Erling, in the name of the King!" "That for the King!" cried Erling, splitting the head of Krake's horse with the edge of his sword, and receiving Krake himself on the point of it as he fell forward, so that it went in at his breast and came out at his back. At the same time Glumm's horse sprang forward, his long sword whistled sharply as it flashed through the air, and, next moment, the head of the second man was rolling on the ground. So sudden was the onset that the others had barely time to guard themselves when Glumm's heavy sword cleft the top of the shield and the helmet of one, tumbling him out of the saddle, while the point of Erling's lighter weapon pierced the throat of another. The remaining six turned aside, right and left, so as to divide their opponents, and then attacked them with great fury--for they were all brave and picked men. At first Erling and Glumm had enough to do to defend themselves, without attempting to attack, but at a critical moment the horse of one of Glumm's opponents stumbled, and his rider being exposed was instantly cut down. Glumm now uttered a shout, for he felt sure of victory, having only two to deal with. Erling's sword proved to be too short for such a combat, for his enemies were armed with long and heavy weapons, and one of them had a spear. He eluded their assaults, however, with amazing activity, and wounded one of them so badly that he was obliged to retire from the fray. Seeing this our hero made a sudden rush at one of the men who fought with a battle-axe, seized the axe by the handle, and with one sweep of his sword lopped off the man's arm. Then did Erling also feel that victory was secure, for he now wielded an axe that was almost as good and heavy as his own, and only one man stood before him. Under the impulse of this feeling he uttered a shout which rang through the forest like the roar of a lion. Now, well would it have been for both Erling and Glumm if they had restrained themselves on that occasion, for the shouts they uttered served to guide two bands of enemies who were in search of them. It will be remembered that Hake the berserk had gone after our heroes by the forest road, but, not finding them so soon as he had anticipated, and feeling a sort of irresistible belief that they had after all gone by the fells, he altered his own plans in so far that he turned towards the road leading by the mountains, before he reached the pine with the double stem. Thus he just missed those whom he sought, and, after some time, came to the conclusion that he was a fool, and had made a great mistake in not holding to his original plan. By way of improving matters he divided his little band into two, and sending five of his men in one direction, rode off with the remaining four in another. Krake, on the contrary, had fulfilled his orders to the letter; had gone to the split rock, and then hastened to the double-stemmed pine, not far from which, as we have seen, he found the men of whom he was in search, and also met his death. One of the bands of five men chanced to be within earshot when Erling shouted, and they immediately bore down in the direction, and cheered as they came in sight of the combatants. The three men who yet stood up to our friends wheeled about at once and galloped to meet them, only too glad to be reinforced at such a critical moment. There was a little stream which trickled over the edge of a rock close to the spot where the combat had taken place. Erling and Glumm leaped off their horses as if by one impulse, and, running to this, drank deeply and hastily. As they ran back and vaulted into their saddles, they heard a faint cheer in the far distance. "Ha!" exclaimed Erling, "Harald doubtless _did_ send twenty men after all, for here come the rest of them. It is good fortune that a berserk is seldom a good leader--he should not have divided his force. These eight must go down, friend Glumm, before the others come up, else are our days numbered." The expression of Glumm's blood-stained visage spoke volumes, but his tongue uttered never a word. Indeed, there was no time for further speech, for the eight men, who had conversed hurriedly together for a few seconds, were now approaching. The two friends did not await the attack, but, setting spurs to their horses, dashed straight at them. Two were overturned in the shock, and their horses rolled on them, so that they never rose again. On the right Erling hewed down one man, and on the left his friend cut down another. They reined up, turned round, and charged again, but the four who were left were too wise to withstand the shock; they swerved aside. In doing so the foot of one of their horses caught in a bramble. He stumbled, and the rider was thrown violently against a tree and stunned, so that he could not remount. This was fortunate, for Erling and Glumm were becoming exhausted, and the three men who still opposed them were comparatively fresh. One of these suddenly charged Glumm, and killed his horse. Glumm leaped up, and, drawing his knife, stabbed the horse of the other to the heart. As it fell he caught his rider by the right wrist, and with a sudden wrench dislocated his arm. Erling meanwhile disabled one of the others, and gave the third such a severe wound that he thought it best to seek safety in flight. Erling now turned to Glumm, and asked if he thought it would be best to ride away from the men who were still to come up, or to remain and fight them also. "If there be five more," said Glumm, leaning against a tree, and removing his helmet in order to wipe his brow, "then is our last battle fought, for, although I have that in me which could manage to slay one, I have not strength for two, much less three. Besides, my good steed is dead, and we have no time to catch one of the others." "Now will I become a berserk," cried Erling, casting his gilt helmet on the ground and undoing the fastenings of his coat of mail. "Armour is good when a man is strong, but when he is worn out it is only an encumbrance. I counsel thee to follow my example." "It is not a bad one," said Glumm, also throwing down his helmet and stripping off his armour. "Ha! there are more of them than we counted on--six." As he spoke six horsemen were seen approaching through the distant glades of the forest. The two friends ran to the fountain before mentioned, slaked their thirst, and hastily bathed their heads and faces; then, seizing their swords and shields, and leaving the rest of their armour on the sward, they ran to a rugged part of the ground, where horses could not act. Mounting to the highest point of a rocky mound, they awaited the approach of their foes. Quickly they came forward, their faces blazing with wrath as they rode over the field of battle, and saw their slaughtered comrades. Hake the berserk rode in front, and, advancing as near as possible to the place where his enemies stood, said tauntingly: "What, are ye so fearful of only six men, after having slain so many?" "Small meat would we make of thee and thy men, so that the crows might pick it easily, if we were only half as fresh as ye are," said Erling; "but we chose to rest here awhile, so if ye would fight ye must come hither to us on foot." "Nay, but methinks it would be well for both parties," returned the berserk, "that they should fight on level ground." Erling and Glumm had thrown themselves on the rocks to get as much rest as possible before the inevitable combat that was still before them. They consulted for a few seconds, and then the former replied: "We will gladly come down, if ye will meet us on foot." "Agreed," cried the berserk, leaping off his horse, and leading it to a neighbouring tree, to which he fastened it. The others followed his example. Then our two heroes arose and stretched themselves. "It has been a good fight," said Erling. "Men will talk of it in days to come, after we are far away in the world of spirits." There was deep pathos in the tone of the young warrior as he spoke these words, and cast his eyes upwards to the blue vault as if he sought to penetrate that spirit world, on the threshold of which he believed himself to stand. "If we had but one hour's rest, or one other man on our side; but--" He stopped suddenly, for the six men now stood in the middle of the little plain where Erling and Glumm had fought so long and so valiantly that day, and awaited their coming. Hastily descending the mound, the two friends strode boldly towards their opponents, scorning to let them see by look or gesture that they were either fatigued or depressed. As they drew near, Erling singled out Hake, and Glumm went towards a tall, powerful man, who stood ready with a huge sword resting on his shoulder, as if eager to begin the combat. Glumm had arranged in his own mind that that man and he should die together. Beside him stood a warrior with a battle-axe, and a steel helmet on his head. Before Glumm could reach his intended victim the tall man's sword flashed in the air like a gleam of light, and the head with the steel helmet went spinning on the ground! "That's the way that Kettle Flatnose pays off old scores," cried the Irish thrall, turning suddenly upon his late friends, and assailing one of them with such fury that he cut him down in a few seconds, and then ran to draw off one of the two who had attacked Erling. Glumm's amazement at this was, as may well be believed, excessive; but it was nothing to the intensity of his joy when he found suddenly that the fight was now equalised, and that there stood only one man to oppose him. His heart leaped up. New life gave spring to his muscles; and to these new feelings he gave vent in one loud shout, as he sprang upon his adversary and cleft him to the chin with one sweep of his sword! Meanwhile Kettle Flatnose had killed his man; and he was about to come up behind Hake and sweep off his head, when he was seized by Glumm and dragged violently back. "Would ye rob Erling of the honour of slaying this noted berserk?" he said sternly. "Truly," replied Kettle, somewhat abashed, "I did not know that he was noted; and as for the honour of it, I do think that Erling seems to have got honour enough to-day (if all this be his work) to content him for some time to come; but as ye will," he added, putting the point of his sword on the ground, and resting his arms on the hilt. Glumm also leaned on his sword; and standing thus, these two watched the fight. Now, it may perhaps seem to some readers that as the other men had been disposed of so summarily, it was strange that Erling the Bold should be so long in dispatching this one; but for our hero's credit, we must point out several facts which may have perhaps been overlooked. In the first place, Kettle Flatnose was a thoroughly fresh man when he began the fight, and although he killed two men, it must be remembered that one of these was slain while off his guard. Then, Glumm did indeed slay his man promptly, but he was one of King Harald's ordinary men-at-arms; whereas Erling was opposed by one of the most celebrated of the King's warriors--Hake, the berserk of Hadeland--a man whose name and prowess were known far and wide, not only in Norway, but in Denmark, and all along the southern shores of the Baltic. It would have been strange indeed had such a man fallen easily before any human arm, much more strange had he succumbed at once to one that had been already much exhausted with fighting. True to the brotherhood to which he belonged, the berserk attacked Erling with incredible fury. He roared more like a mad bull than a man as he made the onset; his eyes glared, his mouth foamed, and he bit his shield as he was driven back. Being fresh, he danced round Erling perpetually, springing in to cut and thrust, and leaping back to avoid the terrific blows which the latter fetched at him with his weighty axe. Once he made a cut at Erling's head, which the latter did not attempt to parry, intending to trust to his helmet to defend him, and forgetting for the moment that he had cast that useful piece of armour on the plain. Luckily the blow was not truly aimed. It shore a lock from Erling's head as he swung his axe against his opponent's shield, and battered him down on his knees; but the berserk leaped up with a yell, and again rushed at him. Hake happened just then to cast his eyes on the two men who were quietly looking on, and he so managed the fight for a few moments afterwards that he got near to them. Then turning towards them with a howl of demoniacal fury, he made a desperate cut at the unsuspecting Glumm, who was taken so thoroughly by surprise that he made no movement whatever to defend himself. Fortunately. Kettle Flatnose was on the alert, but he had only time to thrust his sword awkwardly between Glumm's head and the descending weapon. The act prevented a fatal gash, but it could not altogether arrest the force of the blow, which fell on the flat of his sword, and beat it down on Glumm's skull so violently that he was instantly stretched upon the green sward. Erling's axe fell on the helm of the berserk almost at the same time. Even in that moment of victory a feeling of respect for the courage and boldness of this man touched the heart of Erling, who, with the swiftness of thought, put in force his favourite practice--he turned the edge of the axe, and the broad side of it fell on the steel headpiece with tremendous force, causing the berserk of Hadeland to stretch himself on the green sward beside Glumm the Gruff; thus ending the famous battle of the "Berserkers and the Bold", in regard to which Thikskul the scald writes:-- "The Bold one and his doughty friend, Glumm the Gruff of Horlingsend, Faced, fought, and felled, and bravely slew, Full twenty men--a berserk crew Sent by King Harald them to slay-- But much he rued it--lack-a-day! The heroes cut and hacked them sore, Hit, split, and slashed them back and fore-- And left them lying in their gore." CHAPTER THIRTEEN. SHOWS THAT ELOQUENCE DOES NOT ALWAYS FLOW WHEN IT IS EXPECTED, AND THAT GLUMM BEGINS A NEW COURSE OF ACTION. On examination it was found that Glumm's hurt was not severe. He had merely been stunned by the force of the blow, and there was a trifling wound in the scalp from which a little blood flowed. While Kettle held a helmet full of water, and Erling bathed the wound, the latter said: "How comes it, Kettle, that ye discovered our straits, and appeared so fortunately?" Kettle laughed and said: "The truth is, that accident brought me here. You know that I had all but wrought out my freedom by this time, but in consideration of my services in the battle at the Springs, Ulf set me free at once, and this morning I left him to seek service with King Harald Haarfager." "That was thankless of thee," said Erling. "So said Ulf," rejoined Kettle; "nevertheless, I came off, and was on my way over the fells to go to the King when I fell in with Hake the berserk--though I knew not that it was he--and joined him." Erling frowned, and looked enquiringly at Kettle as he said: "But what possessed thee, that thou shouldst quit so good a master for one so bad, and how comes it thou hast so readily turned against the King's men?" "Little wonder that you are perplexed," said Kettle, "seeing that ye know not my motive. The truth is, that I had a plan in my head, which was to enter Harald's service, that I might act the spy on him, and so do my best for one who, all the time I have been in thraldom, has been as kind to me as if he had been my own father." "Thou meanest Ulf?" said Erling. "I do," replied Kettle with enthusiasm, "and I'd willingly die for him if need be. As ye know full well, it needs no wizard to tell that such men as Ulf and your father will not easily be made to bend their necks to the King's yoke; and for this I honour them, because they respect the law of the land more than they respect the King. Happy is the nation where such men abound; and in saying this I do no dishonour to the King, but the reverse." Erling looked in surprise at Kettle, while he continued to bathe the face of his still unconscious friend, for his language and bearing were much altered from what they had been when he was in thraldom, and there was an air of quiet dignity about him, which seemed to favour the common report that he had been a man of note in his own land. "Well," continued Kettle, "it is equally certain that Harald is not a man who will tamely submit to be thwarted in his plans, so I had made up my mind to take service with him, in order that I might be able to find out his intentions and observe his temper towards the men of Horlingdal, and thus be in a position to give them timely warning of any danger that threatened. On my way hither I met Hake, as I have said. On hearing that he belonged to King Harald, I told him that I had just got my freedom from Ulf, and wished to join the King. He seemed very glad, and said he thought I would make a good berserk; told me that he was out in search of some of the King's enemies, and proposed that I should assist him. Of course this suited me well; but it was only when we found you that I became aware who the King's enemies were, and resolved to act as ye have seen me do. I did not choose to tell Ulf my intention, lest my plan should miscarry; but, now that I find who the King counts his foes, and know how sharply he intends to treat them, it seems to me that I need go no farther." "Truly thou needst not," said Erling, "for Harald is in the worst possible humour with us all, and did his best to stop me from going home to tell the fact." "Then is my mission ended. I will return to Ulfstede," said Kettle, throwing the water out of his helmet, and replacing it on his head, as he rose and grasped his sword. "Meanwhile, I will cut off Hake's head, and take it back with me." "Thou wilt do so at thy peril," said Erling; "Hake fell to my hand, and I will finish the work which I have begun. Do thou go catch three or four of the horses, for I see that Glumm is recovering." "I will not interfere with your business," said Kettle, with a laugh, "only I thought you meant to leave his carcass lying there unheeded, and was unwilling to go off without his head as a trophy." Kettle went to catch the horses--three of which he tied to trees to be ready for them, while he loaded the fourth with the most valuable of the arms and garments of the slain. Meanwhile Glumm groaned, and, sitting up, rubbed his head ruefully. "I thought someone had sent me to Valhalla," he said, fetching a deep sigh. "Not yet, friend Glumm, not yet. There is still work for thee to do on earth, and the sooner ye set about doing it the better, for methinks the King will wonder what has become of his berserkers, and will send out men in search of them ere long. Canst mount thy horse?" "Mount him? aye," said Glumm, leaping up, but staggering when he had gained his legs, so that Erling had to support him for a few minutes. He put his hand to his forehead, and, observing blood on it, asked: "Is the wound deep?" "Only a scratch," said Erling, "but the blow was heavy. If the sword of Kettle Flatnose had not caught it in time, it would have been thy death." "Truly it has not been far from that as it is, for my head rings as if the brain were being battered with Thor's hammer! Come, let us mount." As he spoke, Kettle brought forward the horses. Glumm mounted with difficulty, and they all rode away. But Erling had observed a slight motion of life in the body of Hake, and after they had gone a few yards he said: "Ride on slowly, Glumm, I will go back to get a ring from the finger of the berserk, which I forgot." He turned, and rode quickly back to the place where the berserk's body lay, dismounted, and kneeled beside it. There was a large silver ring on the middle finger of Hake's right hand, which he took off and put on his own finger, replacing it with a gold one of his own. Then he ran to the spring, and, filling his helmet with water, came back and laved the man's temples therewith, at the same time pouring a little of it into his mouth. In a few minutes he began to show symptoms of revival, but before he had recovered sufficiently to recognise who his benefactor was, Erling had vaulted into the saddle and galloped away. They arrived at Glummstede that evening about supper-time, but Glumm was eager to hear the discussion that was sure to take place when the news of the fight and of Harald's state of mind was told, so he rode past his own home, and accompanied his friend to Ulfstede. We cannot say for certain that he was uninfluenced by other motives, for Glumm, as the reader knows, was not a communicative man; he never spoke to anyone on the subject; we incline, however, to the belief that there were mingled ideas in his brain and mixed feelings in his heart as he rode to Ulfstede! Great was the sensation in the hall when Erling, Glumm, and Kettle entered with the marks of the recent fight still visible upon them-- especially on Glumm, whose scalp wound, being undressed, permitted a crimson stream to trickle down his face--a stream which, in his own careless way, he wiped off now and then with the sleeve of his coat, thereby making his aspect conspicuously bloody. Tremendous was the flutter in Ada's heart when she saw him in this plight, for well did she know that deeds of daring had been done before such marks could have been left upon her gruff lover. The hall was crowded with armed men, for many bonders had assembled to await the issue of the decision at the Thing, and much anxiety as well as excitement prevailed. Ulf recognised his late thrall with a look of surprise, but each of them was made to quaff a brimming tankard of ale before being allowed to speak. To say truth, they were very willing to accept the draught, which, after the fatigues they had undergone, tasted like nectar. Erling then stood up, and in the midst of breathless silence began to recount the incidents which had befallen him and his companion while in the execution of their mission. "In the first place," he said, "it is right to let ye all know that the King's countenance towards us is as black as a thundercloud, and that we may expect to see the lightning flash out before long. But it is some comfort to add that Glumm and Kettle and I have slain, or rendered unfit to fight, twenty of Harald's men." In the midst of the murmur of congratulation with which this announcement was received, Erling observed that Hilda, who had been standing near the door, went out. The result of this was, that the poor youth's spirit sank, and it was with the utmost difficulty he plucked up heart to relate the incidents of the fight, in which he said so little about himself that one might have imagined he had been a mere spectator. Passing from that subject as quickly as possible, he delivered his opinion as to the hopes and prospects before them, and, cutting his speech short, abruptly quitted the hall. Any little feeling of disappointment that might have been felt at the lame way in which Erling had recounted his exploits was, however, amply compensated by Glumm, who, although usually a man of few words, had no lack of ideas or of power to express them when occasion required, in a terse, stern style of his own, which was very telling. He gave a faithful account of the fight, making mention of many incidents which his friend had omitted to touch on, and dwelling particularly on the deeds of Kettle. As to that flat-nosed individual himself, when called upon to speak, he addressed the assembly with a dignity of manner and a racy utterance of language which amazed those who had only known him as a thrall, and who now for the first time met him as a freed man. He moreover introduced into his speech a few touches of humour which convulsed his audience with laughter, and commented on the condition of affairs in a way that filled them with respect, so that from that hour he became one of the noted men of the dale. Erling meanwhile hurried towards one of the cliffs overlooking the fiord. He was well acquainted with Hilda's favourite haunts, and soon found her, seated on a bank, with a very disconsolate look, which, however, vanished on his appearing. "Wherefore didst thou hasten away just as I began to speak, Hilda?" he said, somewhat reproachfully, as he sat down beside her. "Because I did not wish to hear details of the bloody work of which thou art so fond. Why wilt thou always be seeking to slay thy fellows?" The girl spoke in tones so sad and desponding, that her lover looked upon her for some time in silent surprise. "Truly, Hilda," he said, "the fight was none of my seeking." "Did I not hear thee say," she replied, "that Kettle and Glumm and thou had slain twenty of the King's men, and that ye regarded this as a comforting thought?" "Aye, surely; but these twenty men did first attack Glumm and me while alone, and we slew them in self-defence. Never had I returned to tell it, had not stout Kettle Flatnose come to our aid." "Thank Heaven for that!" said Hilda, with a look of infinite relief. "How did it happen?" "Come. I will tell thee all from first to last. And here is one who shall judge whether Glumm and I are to blame for slaying these men." As he spoke, the hermit approached. The old man looked somewhat paler than usual, owing to the loss of blood caused by the wound he had received in his recent defence of Ulfstede. Erling rose and saluted him heartily, for, since the memorable prowess in the defence of Ulfstede, Christian had been high in favour among the people of the neighbourhood. "Hilda and I were considering a matter of which we will make thee judge," said Erling, as they sat down on the bank together. "I will do my best," said the hermit, with a smile, "if Hilda consents to trust my judgment." "That she gladly does," said the maid. "Well, then, I will detail the facts of the case," said Erling; "but first tell me what strange marks are those on the skin thou holdest in thy hand?" "These are words," said the hermit, carefully spreading out a roll of parchment, on which a few lines were written. Erling and Hilda regarded the strange characters with much interest. Indeed, the young man's look almost amounted to one of awe, for he had never seen the scroll before, although Hilda, to whom it had several times been shown and explained, had told him about it. "These marks convey thoughts," said Christian, laying his forefinger on the characters. "Can they convey intricate thoughts," asked Erling, "such as are difficult to express?" "Aye; there is no thought which can quit the tongue of one man and enter the understanding of another which may not be expressed by these letters in different combinations." "Dim ideas of this have been in my mind," said Erling, "since I went on viking cruise to the south, when first I heard of such a power being known to and used by many, but I believed it not. If this be as thou sayest, and these letters convey thy thoughts, then, though absent, thy thoughts might be known to me--if I did but understand the tracing of them." "Most true," returned the hermit; "and more than that, there be some who, though dead, yet speak to their fellows, and will continue to do so as long as the records are preserved and the power to comprehend them be maintained." "Mysterious power," said Erling; "I should like much to possess it." "If thou wilt come to my poor abode on the cliff I will teach it thee. A few months, or less, will suffice. Even Hilda knows the names of the separate signs, and she has applied herself to it for little more than a few days." Hilda's face became scarlet when Erling looked at her in surprise, but the unobservant hermit went on to descant upon the immense value of written language, until Hilda reminded him that he had consented to sit in judgment on a knotty point. "True, I had forgotten.--Come now, Erling, let me hear it." The youth at once began, and in a few minutes had so interested his hearers that they gazed in his face and hung upon his words with rapt attention, while he detailed the incidents of the combats with a degree of fluency and fervour that would have thrown the oratory of Glumm and Kettle quite into the shade had it been told in the hall. While Erling was thus engaged, his friend Glumm, having finished the recital of his adventures for the twentieth time, and at the same time eaten a good supper, was advised by his companions to have the wound in his head looked to. "What! hast thou not had it dressed yet?" asked Ulf; "why, that is very foolish. Knowest thou not that a neglected wound may compass thy death? Come hither, Ada; thy fingers are skilled in such offices. Take Glumm to an inner chamber, and see if thou canst put his head to rights." "Methinks," cried Guttorm Stoutheart, with a laugh, "that she is more likely to put his heart wrong than his head right with these wicked black eyes of hers. Have a care, Glumm: they pierce deeper than the sword of the berserk." Ada pretended not to hear this, but she appeared by no means displeased, as she led Glumm to an inner chamber, whither they were followed by Alric, whose pugnacious soul had been quite fascinated by the story of the recent fight, and who was never tired of putting questions as to minute points. As Glumm sat down on a low stool to enable Ada to get at his head, she said (for she was very proud of her lover's prowess, and her heart chanced to be in a melting mood that night), "Thou hast done well to-day, it would seem?" "It is well thou thinkest so," replied Glumm curtly, remembering Erling's advice.--"No, boy," he added, in reply to Alric, "I did not kill the one with the black helmet; it was Erling who gave him his deathblow." "Did Hake the berserk look _dreadfully_ fierce?" asked Alric. "He made a few strange faces," replied Glumm. "The wound is but slight," observed Ada, in a tone that indicated a little displeasure at the apparent indifference of her lover. "It might have been worse," replied Glumm. "Do tell me all about it again," entreated Alric. "Not now," said Glumm; "I'll repeat it when Hilda is by; she has not heard it yet--methinks she would like to hear it." "Hilda like to hear it!" cried the lad, with a shout of laughter; "why, she detests fighting almost as much as the hermit does, though, I must say, for a man who hates it, he can do it wonderfully well himself! But do tell me, Glumm, what was the cut that Erling gave when he brought down that second man, you know--the big one--" "Which? the man whose head he chopped off, with half of the left shoulder?" "No; that was the fourth. I mean the other one, with--" "Oh, the one he split the nose of by accident before battering down with--" "No, no," cried Alric, "I mean the one with the black beard." "Ha!" exclaimed Glumm, "that wasn't the second man; his fall was much further on in the fight, just after Erling had got hold of the battle-axe. He whirled the axe round his head, brought it from over the left down on Blackbeard's right shoulder, and split him to the waist." "Now, that is finished," said Ada sharply, as she put away the things that she had used in the dressing of the wound. "I hope that every foe thou hast to deal with in future may let thee off as well." "I thank thee, Ada, both for the dressing and the good wish," said Glumm gravely, as he rose and walked into the hall, followed by his persevering and insatiable little friend. Ada retired hastily to her own chamber, where she stood for a moment motionless, then twice stamped her little foot, after which she sat down on a stool, and, covering her face with both hands, burst into a passionate flood of tears. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. IN WHICH ALRIC BOASTS A LITTLE, DISCOVERS SECRETS, CONFESSES A LITTLE, AND DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF GREATLY. Next day there was great bustle at Ulfstede, and along the shores of the fiord, for the men of Horlingdal were busy launching their ships and making preparations to go to the Springs to meet and hold council with King Harald Haarfager. It had been finally resolved, without a dissentient voice, that the whole district should go forth to meet him in arms, and thus ensure fair play at the deliberations of the Thing. Even Haldor no longer objected; but, on the contrary, when he heard his son's account of his meeting with the King, and of the dastardly attempt that had been made to assassinate him and his friend, there shot across his face a gleam of that wild ferocity which had procured him his title. It passed quickly away, however, and gave place to a look of sad resignation, which assured those who knew him that he regarded their chance of opposing the King successfully to be very small indeed. The fleet that left the fiord consisted of the longships of Ulf, Haldor, Erling, Glumm, and Guttorm, besides an innumerable flotilla of smaller crafts and boats. Many of the men were well armed, not only with first-rate weapons, but with complete suits of excellent mail of the kinds peculiar to the period--such as shirts of leather, with steel rings sewed thickly over them, and others covered with steel scales-- while of the poorer bonders and the thralls some wore portions of defensive armour, and some trusted to the thick hides of the wolf, which were more serviceable against a sword-cut than many people might suppose. All had shields, however, and carried either swords, bills, spears, javelins, axes, or bows and arrows, so that, numbering as they did, about a thousand men, they composed a formidable host. While these rowed away over the fiord to the Springs to make war or peace--as the case might be--with King Harald, a disappointed spirit was left behind in Horlingdal. "I'm sure I cannot see why I should not be allowed to go too," said little Alric, on returning to Haldorstede, after seeing the fleet set forth. "Of course I cannot fight so well as Erling _yet_, but I can do _something_ in that way; and can even face up to a full-grown man when occasion serves, as that red-haired Dane knows full well, methinks, if he has got any power of feeling in his neck!" This was said to Herfrida, who was in the great hall spreading the board for the midday meal, and surrounded by her maidens, some of whom were engaged in spinning or carding wool, while others wove and sewed, or busied themselves about household matters. "Have patience, my son," said Herfrida. "Thou art not yet strong enough to go forth to battle. Doubtless, in three or four years--" "Three or four years!" exclaimed Alric, to whom such a space of time appeared an age. "Why, there will be no more fighting left to be done at the end of three or four years. Does not father say that if the King succeeds in his illegal plans all the independence of the small kings will be gone for ever, and--and--of course I am old enough to see that if the small kings are not allowed to do as they please, there will be no more occasion for war--nothing but a dull time of constant peace!" Herfrida laughed lightly, while her warlike son strutted up and down the ancestral hall like a bantam cock, frowning and grunting indignantly, as he brooded over the dark prospects of peace that threatened his native land, and thought of his own incapacity, on account of youth, to make glorious hay while yet the sun of war was shining. "Mother," he said, stopping suddenly, and crossing his arms, as he stood with his feet planted pretty wide apart, after the fashion of those who desire to be thought very resolute--"mother, I had a dream last night." "Tell it me, my son," said Herfrida, sitting down on a low stool beside the lad. Now, it must be known that in those days the Northmen believed in dreams and omens and warnings--indeed, they were altogether a very superstitious people, having perfect faith in giants, good and bad; elves, dark and bright; wraiths, and fetches, and guardian spirits-- insomuch that there was scarcely one among the grown-up people who had not seen some of these fabulous creatures, or who had not seen some other people who had either seen them themselves or had seen individuals who _said_ they had seen them! There were also many "clear-sighted" or "fore-sighted" old men and women, who not only saw goblins and supernatural appearances occasionally, and, as it were, accidentally, like ordinary folk, but who also had the gift--so it is said--of seeing such things when they pleased--enjoyed, as it were, an unenviable privilege in that way. It was therefore with unusual interest that Herfrida asked about her son's dream. "It must have been mara [nightmare], I think," he said, "for though I never had it before, it seemed to me very like what Guttorm Stoutheart says he always has after eating too hearty a meal." "Relate it, my son." "Well, you must know," said Alric, with much gravity and importance, for he observed that the girls about the room were working softly that they might hear him, "I dreamed that I was out on the fells, and there I met a dreadful wolf, as big as a horse, with two heads and three tails, or three heads and two tails, I mind not which, but it gave me little time to notice it, for, before I was aware, it dashed at me, and I turned to run, but my feet seemed to cleave to the earth, and my legs felt heavy as lead, so that I could scarce drag myself along, yet, strange to say, the wolf did not overtake me, although I heard it coming nearer and nearer every moment, and I tried to shout, but my voice would not come out." "What hadst thou to supper last night?" asked Herfrida. "Let me think," replied the boy meditatively; "I had four cuts of salmon, three rolls of bread and butter, half a wild-duck, two small bits of salt-fish, some eggs, a little milk, and a horn of ale." "It must have been mara," said she, thoughtfully; "but go on with thy dream." "Well, just as I came to the brink of the river, I looked back and saw the wolf close at my heels, so I dropped suddenly, and the wolf tumbled right over me into the water, but next moment it came up in the shape of another monster with a fish's tail, which made straight at me. Then it all at once came into my head that my guardian spirit was behind me, and I turned quickly round, but did not see it." "Art thou quite sure of that, my son?" Herfrida asked this in a tone of great anxiety, for to see one's own guardian spirit was thought unlucky, and a sign that the person seeing it was "fey", or death-doomed. "I'm quite sure that I did not," replied Alric, to the manifest relief of his mother; "but I saw a long pole on the ground, which I seized, and attacked the beast therewith, and a most notable fight we had. I only wish that it had been true, and that thou hadst been there to see it. Mara fled away at once, for I felt no more fear, but laid about me in a way that minded me of Erling. Indeed, I don't think he could have done it better himself. Oh! how I do wish, sometimes, that my dreams would come true! However, I killed the monster at last, and hurled him into the river, after which I felt tossed about in a strange way, and then my senses left me, and then I awoke." "What thinkest thou of the dream?" said Herfrida to a wrinkled old crone who sat on a low stool beside the fire. The witch-like old creature roused herself a little and said: "Good luck is in store for the boy." "Thanks for that, granny," said Alric; "canst say what sort o' good luck it is?" "No; my knowledge goes no further. It may be good luck in great things, it may be only in small matters; perhaps soon, perhaps a long time hence: I know not." Having ventured this very safe and indefinite prophecy, the old woman let her chin drop on her bosom, and recommenced the rocking to and fro which had been interrupted by the question; while Alric laughed, and, taking up a three-pronged spear, said that, as he had been disappointed in going to see the fun at the Springs, he would console himself by going and sticking salmon at the foss [waterfall]. "Wilt thou not wait for midday meal?" said Herfrida. "No, mother; this roll will suffice till night." "And then thou wilt come home ravening, and have mara again." "Be it so. I'd run the risk of that for the sake of the chance of another glorious battle such as I had last night!" Saying this the reckless youth sallied forth with the spear or leister on his shoulder, and took the narrow bridle path leading up the glen. It was one of those calm bright days of early autumn in which men _feel_ that they draw in fresh life and vigour at each inhalation. With the fragrant odours that arose from innumerable wild flowers, including that sweetest of plants, the lily of the valley, was mingled the pleasant smell of the pines, which clothed the knolls, or hung here and there like eyebrows on the cliffs. The river was swollen considerably by recent heat, which had caused the great glaciers on the mountain tops to melt more rapidly than usual, and its rushing sound was mingled with the deeper roar of the foss, or waterfall, which leaped over a cliff thirty feet high about two miles up the valley. Hundreds of rills of all sizes fell and zigzagged down the mountains on either side, some of them appearing like threads of silver on the precipices, and all, river and rills, being as cold as the perpetual ice-fields above which gave them birth. Birds twittered in the bushes, adding sweetness to the wild music, and bright greens and purples, lit up by gleams of sunshine, threw a charm of softness over the somewhat rugged scene. The Norse boy's nature was sensitive, and peculiarly susceptible of outward influences. As he walked briskly along, casting his eager gaze now at the river which foamed below him, and anon at the distant mountain ridges capped with perennial snows, he forgot his late disappointment, or, which is the same thing, drowned it in present enjoyment. Giving vent to his delight, much as boys did a thousand years later, by violent whistling or in uproarious bursts of song, he descended to the river's edge, with the intention of darting his salmon spear, when his eye caught sight of a woman's skirt fluttering on one of the cliffs above. He knew that Hilda and Ada had gone up the valley together on a visit to a kinswoman, for Herfrida had spoken of expecting them back to midday meal; guessing, therefore, that it must be them, he drew back out of sight, and clambered hastily up the bank, intending to give them a surprise. He hid himself in the bushes at a jutting point which they had to pass, and from which there was a magnificent view of the valley, the fiord, and the distant sea. He heard the voices of the two girls in animated conversation as they drew near, and distinguished the name of Glumm more than once, but, not being a gossip by nature, he thought nothing of this, and was intent only on pouncing out on them when they should reach a certain stone in the path. Truth constrains us to admit that our young friend, like many young folk of the present day, was a practical joker--yet it must also be said that he was not a very bad one, and, to his honour be it recorded, he never practised jokes on old people! It chanced, however, that the two friends stopped short just before reaching the stone, so that Alric had to exercise patience while the girls contemplated the view--at least while Hilda did so, for on Ada's face there was a frown, and her eyes were cast on the ground. "How lovely Horlingdal looks on such a day!" observed Hilda. "I have no eyes for beautiful things to-night," said Ada pettishly; "I cannot get over it--such cool, thankless indifference when I took the trouble to dress his--his--stupid head, and then, not satisfied with telling the whole story over to thee, who cares no more for it than if it were the slaying of half a dozen sheep, he must needs go and pay frequent visits to Ingeborg and to Halgerda of the Foss--and--and--But I know it is all out of spite, and that he does not care a bodkin for either of them, yet I cannot bear it, and I _won't_ bear it, so he had better look to himself. And yet I would not for the best mantle in the dale that he knew I had two thoughts about the matter." "But why play fast and loose with him?" said Hilda, with a laugh at her companion's vehemence. "Because I like it and I choose to do so." "But perchance he does not like it, and does not choose to be treated so." "I care not for that." "Truly thy looks and tone belie thee," said Hilda, smiling. "But in all seriousness, Ada, let me advise thee again to be more considerate with Glumm, for I sometimes think that the men who are most worth having are the most easily turned aside." "Hast thou found it so with Erling?" demanded Ada half-angrily. Hilda blushed scarlet at this and said: "I never thought of Erling in this light; at least I never--he never-- that is--" Fortunately at this point Alric, in his retreat among the bushes, also blushed scarlet, for it only then flashed upon him that he had been acting the mean part of an eavesdropper, and had been listening to converse which he should not have heard. Instead, therefore, of carrying out his original intention, he scrambled into the path with as much noise as possible, and coughed, as he came awkwardly forward. "Why, the wicked boy has been listening," cried Ada, laying her hand upon the lad's shoulder, and looking sternly into his face. "I have," said Alric bluntly. "And art thou not ashamed?" "I am," he replied, with a degree of candour in his self-condemnation which caused Ada and Hilda to burst into a hearty fit of laughter. "But," said Ada, becoming grave again, "thou hast heard too much for thy good." "I know it," he replied, "and I'm sorry, Ada, but cannot help it now. This will I say, however: I had no wish or intention to hear when I hid myself. My desire was only to startle thee and Hilda, and before I thought what thou wert talking of the thing was out, and now I have got it I cannot unget it." "True, but thou canst keep it," said Ada. "I can, and ye may rest assured no word or look of mine shall betray thee. I'll even try to conceal it from myself, and think it was a dream, unless, indeed, I see a good chance of helping thee in this affair!" Alric laughed as he said this, and the girls joined him, after which they all went on towards Haldorstede together. On reaching the place where Alric had intended to fish, Ada suggested that he should go and try his fortune, so he ran down to the river, and the girls followed him to the bank. The spot selected was a rapid which terminated in a small and comparatively quiet but deep pool. We say comparatively, because in the state of the river at that time even in the quietest places there was considerable commotion. Just below the pool the river opened out into a broad shallow, over which it passed in noisy foam, but with little depth, except in the centre. Below this, again, it narrowed, and formed another deep pool. Alric ran into the water till he was about knee-deep, and then plunged his spear. Nothing resulted from the first plunge, but the effect of the second was more tremendous than had ever before happened to the young sportsman, for the pole of the trident received a twist so violent that it would infallibly have been torn from the boy's grasp had he not held on with the tenacity of a vice, and allowed himself to be dragged bodily into the pool. As we have said, the pool was deep, but that was nothing to Alric, who could swim like a duck. The Norse maidens who watched him knew this, and although slightly alarmed, felt on the whole more inclined to laugh than to tremble as his head emerged and sank again several times, while the fish which he had struck dragged him about the pool. After a few seconds of violent and wild exertion it rushed down the pool into the rapid, and then it was that the girls perceived that Alric had struck and was clinging to one of the largest-sized salmon that ever appeared in Horlingdal river. Fortunate it was for the boy that the fish took the rapid, for it had almost choked him in the deep pool; but now he scrambled on his feet, and began to do battle gallantly--endeavouring to thrust the fish downwards and pin it to the stones whenever it passed over a shallow part, on which occasions its back and silver sides became visible, and its great tail--wide spreading, like a modern lady's fan--flashed in the air as it beat the water in terror or fury. Alric's spirit was ablaze with excitement, for the fish was too strong for him, so that every time it wriggled itself he was made to shake and stagger in a most ridiculously helpless manner, and when it tried to bolt he was pulled flat down on his face and had to follow it--sometimes on his knees, sometimes at full length, for, over and over again, when he was about to rise, or had half-risen, there was another pull, and down he went again, quite flat, while the roaring torrent went right over him. But no limpet ever stuck to rock with greater tenacity than did Alric to the handle of that trident; and it is but just to add, for the information of those who know it not, that the difficulty of retaining one's foothold on the pebbly bed of a river when knee-deep in a foaming rapid is very great indeed, even when one has nothing more to do than attend to the balancing of one's own body--much greater, of course, in circumstances such as we describe. At last the salmon made a rush, and was swept over a shallow part of the rapid, close under the bank on which the girls stood. Here Alric succeeded in thrusting it against a large stone. For the first time he managed to stand up erect, and, although holding the fish with all his might, looked up, and breathed, or rather gasped, freely: "Hoch! hah! _what_ a fish! sk-ho!" "Oh, I wish we could help thee!" exclaimed the girls, with flashing eyes and outstretched hands, as if they could hardly restrain themselves from leaping into the water, which was indeed the case! "N-no! ye can't! 's not poss'ble--hah! my! oh there 'e goes again-- s-t-swash!" Down he went, flat, as he spoke, and water stopped his utterance, while the fish wriggled into the centre of the channel, and carried him into the deep pool below! Here the scene was not quite so exciting, because the battle was not so fierce. The salmon had it all his own way in the deep water, and dragged his attached friend hither and thither as he pleased. On the other hand, Alric ceased to contend, and merely held on with his right hand, while with his left he kept his head above water. The pool circled about in large oily wavelets flecked with foam, so that there was a great contrast in all this to the tremendous turmoil of the raging rapid. But the comparative calm did not last long. The huge fish made a frantic, and apparently a last, effort to get free. It rushed down to the foot of the pool, and passed over the edge into the next rapid. The girls shrieked when they saw this, for, unlike the former, this one was a deep rush of the river, between narrower banks, where its course was obstructed by large rocks. Against these the stream beat furiously. Alric knew the spot well, and was aware of the extreme danger of his position. He therefore made a violent effort to drag the fish towards a point where there was a slight break or eddy among a number of boulders, intending to let him go, if necessary, rather than lose his life. He succeeded, however, in getting upon one of the rocks quite close to the bank, and then endeavoured to lift the fish out of the water. In this also he was successful; made a splendid heave, and flung it with all his force towards the bank, on which it alighted, trident and all, at the feet of Hilda. But in letting go his hold of the handle Alric lost his balance, flung his arms above his head in a vain endeavour to recover himself, and, with a loud shout, fell back into the roaring torrent and was swept away. A few moments sufficed to carry him into the pool below, to the edge of which the girls rushed, and found that he was floating round and round in a state of insensibility, every moment passing near to the vortex of the rapid that flowed out of it. Hilda at once rushed in waist-deep and caught him by the collar. She would have been swept away along with him, but Ada also sprang forward and grasped Hilda by the mantle. She could not, however, drag her back; neither could Hilda in any way help herself. Thus they stood for a few moments swaying to and fro in the current, and, doubtless, one or more of them would have soon been carried down had not efficient aid been at hand. High up on the cliff over the scene where this incident occurred, Christian the hermit was seated on a log before his door. He sat gazing dreamily out upon the landscape when Alric began to fish, but, seeing the danger to which the lad exposed himself, after he had speared the fish, and fearing that there might be need of his aid, he quickly descended to the scene of action. He did not arrive a moment too soon, for the whole event occurred very rapidly. Running to the rescue he caught Ada round the waist with both hands, and drew her gently back; she was soon out of danger, after which there was no great difficulty in dragging the others safely to land. At once the hermit stripped off the boy's coat, loosened the kerchief that was round his throat, and sought, by every means in his power, to restore him to consciousness. His efforts were successful. The boy soon began to breathe, and in a short time stood up, swaying himself to and fro, and blinking. The first thing he said was: "Where is the salmon?" "The salmon? Oh, I forgot all about it," said Ada. "Never mind it, dear Alric," said Hilda. "Never mind it?" he cried, starting into sudden animation; "what! have ye left it behind?" Saying this he burst away from his friends, and ran up the bank of the river until he came to where the fish was lying, still impaled on the barbed prongs of the trident. The run so far restored him that he had sufficient strength to shoulder the fish, although it afterwards turned out to be a salmon of thirty-five pounds weight, and he quickly rejoined his friends, who returned with him to Haldorstede, where, you may be quite sure, he gave a graphic account of the adventure to willing and admiring ears. "So, granny," he said, at the conclusion of the narrative, to the old crone who was still seated by the fire, "thy prophecy has come true sooner than ye expected, and it has come doubly true, for though the good luck in store for me was a matter of small general importance, no one can deny that it is a great fish!" CHAPTER FIFTEEN. TREATS OF ANCIENT DIPLOMACY AMONG THE NORSEMEN, AND SHOWS HOW OUR HERO TURNS THE TABLES ON A WOULD-BE ASSASSIN. When King Harald heard the news of the defeat of Hake and the slaughter of his men by Erling and Glumm, great was his wrath at first, and Jarl Rongvold had much ado to appease him and prevent him from going at once to Horlingdal to ravage it with fire and sword. But when he had cooled a little, and heard the details of the fight from Hake himself, his anger against the young warriors changed into admiration of their dauntless courage. Harald Fairhair was a kingly man in spirit as well as in appearance, and was above encouraging a mean or vengeful mood. He was indeed fierce and violent in his rage, and often did things which, when read of in the calm of a comparatively peaceful time, make one shudder; but it must not be forgotten that the age in which he lived was a cruel and bloody one, and, in Norway, without one touch of the gentle religion of Christ to soften its asperities. He could never have retained his power and rule over the stern warriors of his day, had he not possessed much of their own callous indifference to the horrors and cruelties of war. "Thou hadst tougher work than thou countedst on, it would seem," he said to Hake; then, turning to Jarl Rongvold, with a laugh, "Methinks I would fain have this Erling the Bold and his friend Glumm the Gruff among my men-at-arms." "I fear, sire, that they will not be easily induced to enter thy service, for they are both Sea-kings, and independent spirits." "Such men have submitted to us before now," said the King, with a peculiar glance. "Most true," returned the jarl, flushing; "but all men have not the same belief in your wisdom." "That may be, yet methinks I could tame this Sea-king--this Erling. Perchance costly gifts might win him, or it may be that rough blows would suit him better. What thinkest thou, Hake? thou hast had some experience in that way." "If you mean, sire, that you have a mind to receive rough blows at his hand, I will guarantee him both able and willing to gratify you. I know not the weight of Thor's hammer, but I am bound to say that it occurred to my mind when Erling's axe came down on my steel headpiece, and set a host of stars dancing in my brain." "I believe thee," said the King, smiling grimly, "and thy visage speaks for itself." This was indeed the case. The berserk's countenance was very pale. He still suffered from the crashing blow with which he had been felled, and his heart rankled under his defeat, for he was not aware that the blow, heavy though it was, had been delivered in mercy, or that if his enemy had not turned aside the edge of his axe it would have cleft him to the chin. Perchance, if he _had_ known this it would not have improved the state of his feelings; for Hake possessed no nobility of spirit. "It may be," continued Harald, "that thou shalt have another opportunity of measuring swords with this Sea-king. Meanwhile, Jarl Rongvold, go thou with Rolf, and bring round the Dragon and the other longships to the fiord, for I mistrust the men of this district, and will fare to the Springs by sea." In accordance with these instructions the jarl brought the King's fleet round without delay. On the following morning they embarked, and set sail for the appointed place of meeting. Here the fleet under Haldor and Ulf had already cast anchor. The ships lay close to the rocks, near the mouth of the river into which Erling had thrust his cutter just before the battle with the Danes; and a fine sight it was to behold these, with their painted shields and gilded masts and figure-heads, lying in the still water, crowded with armed warriors, while Harald's longship, the Dragon, and all his other vessels, came by twos and threes into the fiord, the oars tossing foam on the blue waters, and the gaily coloured sails swelling out before a gentle breeze. The King laid his ship alongside of a point of rocks on the south side of the bay. Then, when all the fleet had assembled, both parties landed, and the Thing was summoned by sound of horn. It was held on the level ground where the recent battle had been fought. There were still strewn about many evidences of the ferocity of that fight; and when the King looked upon the host of stout and well-armed men who had assembled, not only from Horlingdal, but from the whole of the surrounding district, he felt that, however much he might wish to force obedience on his subjects, "discretion" was at that time "the better part of valour." When the Thing was assembled the King stood up to speak, and there was probably not a man upon the ground who did not in his heart acknowledge that the tall, stout warrior, with the thick mass of golden locks, and the large masculine features, was, as far as physique went, a worthy wearer of the crown of Norway. It may be added that physique went a very long way indeed in those days; yet it is due to the Northmen to say that, at the same time, intellect was held in higher repute among them than among any of the feudally governed nations of Europe. One evidence of this was, that at the Things the best speaker, no matter what his rank, had a better chance of swaying the people than the King himself; while, in other countries, might to a large extent was right, and no one dared to open his mouth against him who chanced to be in power. But King Harald Haarfager's power lay not merely in his personal appearance and indomitable will. He was also a good speaker, and, like all good speakers in a wrong cause, was an able sophist. But he had men to deal with who were accustomed to think and reason closely, as must ever be more or less the case with a self-governed people. There were acute men there, men who had the laws of the land "by heart", in the most literal sense of those words,--for there were no books to consult and no precedents to cite in those days; and his hearers weighed with jealous care each word he said. The King began by complimenting the men of the district for their spirit, and their resolution to defend the laws of the realm; and he enlarged a little on these laws and on the wisdom of his own father, Halfdan the Black, and the men of his time, who had made and modified many of them. Then he went on to say that with time the circumstances of nations altered, and that, with these alterations, there arose a necessity for the alteration and modification of old laws as well as for the making of new ones. He deprecated the idea that he wished, as had been said of him, to trample the laws under his feet, and rule the country according to his own will and pleasure. Nothing was further from his intention or his desire. His wish was to amend the laws, especially those of them that touched on the relative position of King and people. Up to this point the people heard him with respectful attention, and hundreds of those who were more addicted to fighting than to reasoning, especially among the younger men, began to think that after all, Harald entertained exceedingly just opinions, and appeared to possess a spirit of candour and fair play which did not seem to justify the outcry that had been raised against him. Even these, however, remembered that it was not very long since a small king of one of the northern glens had been summoned by Harold to submit to his views of government, and, on his declining to do so, had been burnt, with all his family and followers, in his own house, contrary to law! They therefore knitted their brows and waited to hear more. The King then began to explain his ideas with regard to the royal authority over the chief men of the districts, some of which are already known to the reader. At this point the assembly listened with deep, earnest attention. Some of the men sat with hands clasped on their knees, and with stern downcast brows. Some gazed up at the clouds with the peculiar expression of men who listen and weigh arguments. Others leaned on their swords or shields, and, with compressed lips and suspicious gaze, looked the King full in the face, while a few regarded him with a sneer; but the expression on the faces of the greater part denoted manliness of feeling and honesty of purpose. After Harald had stated his views, and assured them that his great aim was to consolidate the kingdom and to prevent the evils that flowed from the almost unlimited independence of the petty kings, he asked the assembly to aid him in carrying out his wishes, and to set an example of fidelity and obedience, which would restrain others from showing that unseemly opposition to him which had only resulted in severe and merited punishment. He then sat down amid a murmur of mingled applause and disapprobation. After a few minutes of animated converse among themselves, there arose an old man with a bald head, a flowing beard, and sightless eyes. He was the "lagman" or district judge, and law-expounder of Horlingdal. Deep silence ensued, and he said, in a decided though somewhat tremulous tone-- "King Harald, I am a very old man now, and can remember the time when your noble sire, Halfdan the Black, ruled in Norway. I have fought by his side, and lost my eyes in his service--in a fight in which our opponents gave us the tooth-ache. [Norse expression signifying `the worst of it.'] I have also heard him speak those words of wisdom to which you have referred, and have seen him bow to the laws which were made _not_ by himself, but by him in conjunction with the Thing legally assembled for the purpose." There was a loud murmur of applause at this point. "And now that we have heard the King's opinions," continued the old man, turning to the people, "and know that his intentions are good, although the manner in which he has set about carrying them into effect is undoubtedly wrong, my counsel is that we nevertheless submit to him in this matter, for we know that a great number of the small kings have already submitted, and it were better to have a beneficial change--even when not carried out exactly according to law--than to plunge this country into prolonged and useless warfare, in which much blood will, assuredly, be spilt, and nothing of any value gained." The lagman sat down, but only a few of those present indicated their approval of his sentiments. Immediately Haldor the Fierce stood up, and men could see that his spirit was stirred within him, for a dark frown lowered on a brow which was at most times fair and unruffled like the summer sky. There was deep silence in the assembly before he began to speak, and the King, despite the suppressed anger which rankled in his breast, could not choose but look upon his commanding figure with respect, also with surprise, for he recognised the strong resemblance between him and Erling, though he knew not their relationship. "I agree not," said Haldor, "with what has just been said by our respected lagman. A change, even for the better, ought _never_ to be accepted if not made according to law, No one can say that any change will certainly be for the better until it is tried; and should this one, perchance, turn out for the worse, then shall we have neither advantage nor law on our side. For my part I had rather see my country plunged into warfare--which no one, unless he is gifted with the foreknowledge of the gods, can say will be either prolonged or useless--than see her laws trampled under foot; for well do I know that, if the King be permitted to make himself an outlaw, blood will be kept boiling perpetually from one end of the land to the other, and it were better, methinks, that that blood should spill than boil. My counsel is, that the King be advised to call a Thing in the regular way, so that the changes he would make shall be fully considered, and either be made law or rejected; for, if he attempts to enforce his plans on us as he has done on other small kings, we will assuredly resist him as long as there is a man left in the district to wield a battle-axe." There was a great shout and clash of arms when this was said, and the King's face became crimson with rage, for he saw clearly that the feeling of the majority was against him. At this point Jarl Rongvold stood up and spoke in the bland tones of a man who wishes to throw oil on troubled waters. He said that it was his earnest entreaty to the bonders and house-holding men, both great and small, then and there assembled, that they should calmly consider the proposals of the King, and not allow themselves to be carried away by unsound reasoning, although it might seem very plausible, for he was certain that the King's desire was the good of the country; and although circumstances had rendered it necessary that some of the rebellious should be punished, no one could say that the King was not willing and ready to do all that he did in a fair, open, and straightforward manner. At this Erling was unable to restrain himself. He sprang up, and, with a passionate flow of words that burst forth like a mountain torrent, exclaimed-- "Thinkest thou, Jarl Rongvold, that our brains are so addled that we cannot distinguish between black and white? Is thy memory so short, is thy slavery to the King so complete, that thou must say evil is good and good evil? Hast thou and has the King so soon forgotten that two strangers came to the court with a message from one of the legal assemblies of this land,--that, trusting to the honour of the King, they came without following, and with only such arms as were needful for personal defence,--and that the honour to which they trusted was not proof against the temptation to send a noted berserk and nineteen men to waylay and slay them? Is all this clean gone from your memory, Jarl and King? or is your wit so small that ye should think we will believe in soft words about fair play when such foul deeds are so recent that the graves are yet wet with the blood of those whom Glumm and I were compelled to slay in self-defence?" At this the King started up, and his face became white and red by turns, as he said-- "Ye shall, both of you, rue this day, Erling and Glumm!" Erling made no reply, but Glumm started up and was in so great a passion that he could hardly speak; nevertheless he made shift to splutter out-- "Threats, King Harald, are like water spilt on a shield which can only rust if left there; I wipe them off and fling them away!" He could add no more, but with a contemptuous motion of the hand he struck his fist violently against his shirt of mail, and the bonders laughed while they applauded him. Then stood up a man in the troop of the Springdal men, who was of great stature and grim countenance, clad in a leather cloak, with an axe on his shoulder and a great steel hat upon his head. He looked sternly, and said-- "When rights are not respected then the crows flap their wings and caw, for they know that ere long they shall glut themselves with human blood." He sat down, and immediately after Ulf of Romsdal stood up. Ulf had fully as much fire as Erling or Glumm, but he possessed greater power of self-restraint, and, as he spoke with deliberation, his words had all the more weight. He said-- "King Harald, when in the exercise of our udal rights we bonders elected thee to be our King at the Thing held in Drontheim, we stated and traced thy descent from Odin through the Vingling dynasty, proved thy udal right to the crown, and truly thought that we had placed it on the head of one who would walk in the footsteps of his father, and respect that authority and power in virtue of which he held his own high position. But we now find that thou hast constituted thyself a law higher than the law which made thee what thou art, and thou now wouldst have us, of our own free will, bend our necks so low that thou mayest with the more ease set thy foot on them and keep us down. We have served thee in all good faith up to the present time; we have readily met thy demands for men, ships, arms, and money, by calling together our assemblies and voting these supplies; and now thou wouldst rob us of this our old right, and tax us without our consent, so that thou mayest raise men for thyself, and have it all thine own way. This must not, shall not, be. Even now, we bonders will unanimously hold by the law if it be passed in the proper assembly and receives our yea, and we will follow thee and serve thee as our King as long as there is a living man amongst us. But thou, King, must use moderation towards us, and only require of us such things as it is lawful or possible for us to obey thee in. If, however, thou wilt take up this matter with a high hand, and wilt try thy power and strength against us, we have resolved among ourselves to part with thee, and to take to ourselves some other chief who will respect those laws by which alone society can be held together. Now, King Harald, thou must choose one or other of these conditions before the Thing is ended." The loud applause which followed this speech showed that the bonders heartily sympathised with it, and indeed several of them rose and said that it expressed their will exactly, and they would stand or fall by what had been spoken. When silence had been restored, Jarl Rongvold, who had whispered in the King's ear some earnest words, stood forth and said: "It is King Harald's will to give way to you in this matter for he does not wish to separate himself from your friendship." This brought the Thing to a close. Thereafter the two parties returned to their ships, intending to feast and pass the night in them. The King was very affable, and invited Haldor and some of the others whose language had been comparatively moderate to feast with him, but they declined the honour, and retired to their own ships. In the evening, while the sounds of revelry were heard everywhere, a boat approached Erling's ship. It was rowed by a single man, who, when it touched her side, leaped on board and went aft to where Erling was seated with Guttorm Stoutheart. "King Harald would speak with thee," said the man, who was no other than Hake the berserk. "Methinks his intentions can scarce be friendly," said Erling, with a grim smile, "when he sends so trusty a messenger." "It may be so," replied Hake coolly, "but that is nothing to me. My business is to deliver the message and offer to conduct thee to him." "And pray, what surety have I that thou wilt not upset me in the fiord?" asked Erling, laughing. "The surety that if I upset thee we shall be on equal terms in the water," replied Hake gruffly. "Nay, that depends on which of us can swim best," returned Erling; "and, truly, if thou canst fight as well in the water as on the land, we should have a rare struggle, Hake." "Am I to say to the King that thou art afraid of him?" asked the berserk, with a look of scorn. "Yea, truly, if it is thy desire to tell him a lie," retorted Erling. "But get thee into the boat, fellow; I will follow anon." Hake turned on his heel and returned to the boat, while Erling took Guttorm aside. "Now, art thou fey?" [death-doomed] said Guttorm. "What has made thee so tired of life that thou shouldest put thy neck under his heel thus readily?" "Fear not, my friend," said Erling; "now that I have seen King Harald a second time, I think him a better man than at first I did. Ambition will no doubt lead him to do many things that are contrary to his nature; but I do not think he will violate the laws of hospitality after what has passed. However, I may be wrong; so I would ask thee, Guttorm, to go aboard of your ship, which lies nearest to that of the King, and, should ye see anything like a struggle, or hear a shout do thou haste to the rescue. I will have my men also in readiness." While the stout-hearted old Sea-king, in compliance with this request, got into a small boat and rowed to his own vessel, Erling gave particular directions to his chief house-carle to keep a sharp lookout and be ready to act at a moment's notice. Then he went into Hake's boat, and was rowed alongside the Dragon, where the King received him with much condescension, and took him aft to the cabin under the high poop. Here he offered him a horn of ale, which, however, Erling declined, and then began to use his utmost powers of persuasion to induce him to enter his service. At first he tried to influence him by flattery, and commended him for his bold and straightforward conduct at the Thing, which, he said, showed to all men that he merited well his distinctive title; but, on finding that our hero was not to be won by flattery, he quickly and adroitly changed his ground, began to talk of the future prospects of Norway, and the necessity for improved legislation. In this he was so successful that he secured the interest, and to some extent the sympathy, of the young warrior, who entered eagerly and somewhat more respectfully into the discussion. "But, sire," he said, at the close of one of the King's remarks, "if these are your sentiments, why did you not state them more fully to-day at the Thing, and why should you not even now call a meeting of the Stor Thing, and have the matter properly discussed by all in the land who have a right to speak?" "Hadst thou had any experience of kingcraft, Erling, thou hadst not asked the question. If I were now to do as thou dost suggest, the numerous small kings who have already been put down by force would band against me, and bring such a following of opponents to the Thing that fair discussion would be out of the question." Erling thought in his own mind, "One false step always necessitates another; you should have called a meeting of the Thing before putting down anyone;" however, he did not give utterance to the thought, but said-- "I think you are mistaken, sire; there may be many who, out of revenge, might oppose you, but certain am I that those who would vote for that which is for the wellbeing of the land would form a vast majority. Besides, it is the only course left open to you." At this the King flushed with a feeling of anger, and, drawing himself up, touched the hilt of his sword without uttering a word. "When I said the only course," remarked Erling, "I meant the only lawful course. Sorry should I be to see you, King Harald, draw the sword in a bad cause; but if you do, be assured that thousands of good blades will gleam in opposition." At this the King's eyes flashed, and, turning suddenly upon Erling, he shook back the masses of his yellow hair with lion-like ferocity, exclaiming-- "Dost thou dare to speak thus to me in mine own ship, Erling?" "It is because I am in your ship that I dare. Were I in my own, the laws of hospitality had shut my mouth." "Knowest thou not," said the King, waxing still more angry at the rebuke conveyed in this speech, and laying his hand on his sword, "that I have power to shut thy mouth now and for ever?" "It may be so, and it may be not so," replied Erling, stepping back, and laying his hand on the hilt of his own weapon. At this the King laughed sarcastically. "And if," said he, "thou hadst the power and skill to overcome my feeble arm, hast thou the folly to think that ye could clear the Dragon of all her men?" Erling replied: "The remembrance, King Harald, of the way in which I treated some of thy men in the woods not long ago, inclines me to believe that I could give them some trouble to slay me, and the thought of that transaction induced me, before I came hither, to make such arrangements that at all events my fall should not go unavenged." For a moment or two the King's countenance lowered ferociously on the youth, and he ground his teeth together as if unable to restrain his passion; but suddenly he uttered a short laugh, and said-- "Truly thou shouldst have been styled prudent as well as bold. But go, I will take counsel with others, and perhaps thou shalt hear again of this matter." Our hero retired immediately, but he observed in passing that Hake was summoned to attend the King, and that another man stepped into the boat to row him to his own ship. "Is all well?" growled the rich voice of old Guttorm as he passed the vessel of that worthy. Erling told the rower to stop, and, glancing up, beheld the stern yet good-humoured visage of his bluff friend looking over the rows of bright shields that hung on the bulwarks. "All is well," replied Erling. "It is well for the King that it is so," rejoined Guttorm, "for my hand was itching to give him a taste of our northern metal. Assuredly, if a mouse had but squeaked on board the Dragon, I had deemed it sufficient ground on which to have founded an immediate onslaught. But get thee to bed, Erling, and let me advise thee to sleep with thy windward eye open." "Trust me," said Erling, with a laugh, as he pushed off; "I will not sleep with both eyes shut to-night!" Getting on board his own ship, Erling said to his foot-boy-- "I will not sleep in my bed to-night, for I suspect there may be treachery abroad. Thou shalt keep watch, therefore, in case anything may happen in the night; and if thou shalt see me strive with anyone, do not alarm the men. Meanwhile go thou and fetch me a billet of wood, and let it be a large one." The boy quickly brought from the hold one of the largest billets of wood he could find, and gave it to his master, who laid it in his own bed, which was under a small tent spread over the aft part of the vessel, close to the poop. Having covered it up carefully, he sent the boy forward, and went himself to lie down elsewhere. At midnight a boat was rowed stealthily alongside. It was guided by one man, and moved so silently that the lightest sleeper on board could not have been awakened by it. The man stepped on board; lifted up the cloth of the tent over the bulwarks; looked cautiously all round him, and then went up and struck in Erling's bed with a great axe, so that it stuck fast in the billet of wood. Next instant the man felt his neck in a grip like that of an iron vice, and his face was thrust upon the ground and held there, while a heavy knee pressed into the small of his back, so that he was utterly unable to rise. Erling's foot-boy saw the whole of this, and heard what followed, for the curtain of the tent was raised; but he moved neither hand nor foot, though he held a spear ready for instant action if required. "It ill becomes thee, Hake," said Erling, "to seek my life a second time, after making such poor work of it the first. What! wilt thou not lie quiet?" While he was speaking the berserk struggled with the fury of a madman to free himself, but Erling's grip (perhaps his own wisdom also!) prevented him from shouting, and Erling's knee prevented the struggles from making much noise. Finding, however, that he would not be quiet, our hero tightened the pressure of his left hand until the tongue and eyes of the berserk began to protrude, and his face to get black, while with his right hand he drew his knife, and ran the point of it about a quarter of an inch into the fleshy part of Hake's back. The effect was instantaneous! Hake could face danger and death bravely, and could hurl defiance at his foe with the best, when on his legs; but when he felt the point of the cold steel, and knew that the smallest impulse would cause it to find a warm bed in his heart, his fury vanished. Brave and bold though he was, and a berserk to boot, he sank quietly down, and lay perfectly still! Erling at once relaxed the pressure of his fingers, and allowed Hake to breathe, but he let the point of the knife remain, that it might refresh his memory, while he read him a lesson:-- "Now, Hake, let me tell thee that thou richly deservest to lose thy life, for twice hast thou sought to take mine in an unfair way, and once have I spared thine. However, thou art but a tool after all, so I will spare it again--and I do it the more readily that I wish thee to convey a message to thy master, King Harald, who, I doubt not, has sent thee on this foul errand." Erling here signalled to his foot-boy, whom he directed to bind Hake's arms securely behind his back. This having been done, Erling suffered him to rise and stand before him. "See now," he said, taking a silver ring from his finger, "knowest thou this ring, Hake? Ah, I see by thy look that thou dost. Well, I will return it to thee and claim mine own." He turned the berserk round, took off the gold ring which he had placed on his finger on the day of the fight and put the silver one in its place. "By these tokens," said he, "thou mayest know who it was that cared for thee in the wood after the fight, and restored thy consciousness, instead of cutting off thy head, as he might easily have done. I know not why I did it, Hake, save that the fancy seized me, for thou art an undeserving dog. But now we will take thee back to thy master, and as our message can be conveyed without the use of speech, we will bind up thy mouth." So saying, Erling gagged the berserk (who looked dreadfully sulky) with a strip of sailcloth. Then he made him sit down, and tied his legs together with a piece of rope, after which he lifted him in his arms to the side of the ship and laid him down. "Go fetch me a stout carle," he said to the foot-boy, who went forward and immediately returned with a strapping man-at-arms. The man looked surprised, but asked no questions, as Erling directed him in a low tone to assist in lifting the prisoner into the boat as quietly as possible. Then they placed the lump of wood with the axe sticking in it beside him. This accomplished, they rowed silently to the side of the Dragon, where a sentinel demanded what they wanted. "We bring a prisoner to King Harald," answered Erling. "We have him here tied hand and foot." "Who is he?" asked the sentinel; for there was not so much light as is usual at midnight of that time of the year, owing to a mist on the sea. "Thou shalt see when he is aboard." "Hoist him up, then," said the man, Erling and his carle raised Hake over the bulwarks, and let him drop heavily on the deck. Then Erling seized the lump of wood and hurled it on board with considerable force, so that, hitting the sentinel on the head, it bounded onwards to the after part of the ship, and struck against the tent under which Harald lay. The King sprang out, sword in hand, but Erling had pushed off, and was already enveloped in the mist. As they rowed away they heard a great clamour on board the Dragon, but it was quickly hushed by a stern voice, which Erling knew to be that of the King. No pursuit was attempted. Erling got back to his own ship, and, setting a watch, lay down to rest. In the morning no notice was taken of what had occurred during the night. The King evidently pretended that he knew nothing about the matter. He again met with the chief men of the district, and made them many promises and many complimentary speeches, but in his heart he resolved that the day should come when every one of them should either bow before his will or lose his life. The bonders, on the other hand, listened with due respect to all the King said, but it need scarcely be added that their lips did not express all their thoughts; for while the sanguine and more trustful among them felt some degree of hope and confidence, there were others who could not think of the future except with the most gloomy forebodings. In this mood the two parties separated. The King sailed with his warships out among the skerries, intending to proceed north to Drontheim, while Haldor the Fierce, with his friends and men, went back to Horlingdal. CHAPTER SIXTEEN. RELATES TO SUCH ELEMENTARY MATTERS AS THE A B C, AND TOUCHES ON LOVE-MAKING IN THE OLDEN TIME. After the occurrence of the events just narrated, King Harald's attention was diverted from the people of Horlingdal and the neighbouring districts by the doings of certain small kings, against whom it became necessary that he should launch his whole force. These were King Hunthiof, who ruled over the district of More, and his son Solve Klofe; also King Nokve, who ruled over Romsdal, and was the brother of Solve's mother. These men were great warriors. Hearing that King Harald was sailing north, they resolved to give him battle. For this purpose they raised a large force, and went out among the skerries to intercept him. We do not intend here to go into the details of the fight that followed, or its consequences. It is sufficient for the proper development of our tale to say that they met at an island in North More named Solskiel, where a pitched battle was fought, and gained by Harald. The two kings were slain, but Solve Klofe escaped, and afterwards proved a great thorn in Harald's side, plundering in North More, killing many of the King's men, pillaging some places, burning others, and generally making great ravage wherever he went; so that, what with keeping him and similar turbulent characters in check, and establishing law and order in the districts of the two kings whom he had slain, King Harald had his hands fully occupied during the remainder of that summer, and was glad to go north to spend the winter peacefully in Drontheim. The families and neighbours, therefore, of those with whom our tale has chiefly to do had rest during that winter. How some of them availed themselves of this period of repose may be gathered from a few incidents which we shall now relate. In the first place, Erling the Bold spent a large proportion of his time in learning the alphabet! Now this may sound very strange in the ears of many people in modern times, but their surprise will be somewhat abated when we tell them that the art of writing was utterly unknown (though probably not unheard of) in Norway at the end of the ninth century, and long after that; so that Erling, although a gentleman of the period, and a Sea-king to boot, had not up to the time we write of, learned his A B C! It is just possible that antiquaries, recalling to mind the fact that the art of writing was not introduced among the Norse colonists of Iceland until the eleventh century, may be somewhat surprised to learn that our hero acquired the art at all! But the fact is, that there always have been, in all countries, men who were what is popularly termed "born before their time"--men who were in advance, intellectually, of their age--men who, overleaping the barriers of prejudice, managed to see deeper into things in general than their fellows, and to become more or less famous. Now our hero, Erling the Bold, was one of those who could see beyond his time, and who became almost prophetically wise; that is to say, he was fond of tracing causes onwards to their probable effects, to the amusement of the humorous, the amazement of the stupid, and the horrification of the few who, even in those days of turmoil, trembled at the idea of "change"! Everything, therefore, that came under his observation claimed and obtained his earnest attention, and was treated with a species of inductive philosophy that would have charmed the heart of Lord Bacon, had he lived in those times. Of course this new wonder of committing thoughts to parchment, which the hermit had revealed to him, was deeply interesting to Erling, who began to study it forthwith. And we beg leave to tell antiquaries that we have nothing to do with the fact that no record is left of his studies--no scrap of his writing to be found. We are not responsible for the stupidity or want of sympathy in his generation! Doubtless, in all ages there have been many such instances of glorious opportunities neglected by the world--neglected, too, with such contempt, that not even a record of their having occurred has been made. Perchance some such opportunities are before ourselves just now, in regard to our neglect of which the next generation may possibly have to hold up its hands and turn up its eyes in amazement! But be this as it may, the fact remains that although no record is handed down of any knowledge of letters at this period in Norway, Erling the Bold _did_ nevertheless become acquainted with them to some extent. Erling began his alphabet after he had passed the mature age of twenty years, and his teacher was the fair Hilda. It will be remembered that in one of their meetings the hermit had informed Erling of his having already taught the meaning of the strange characters which covered his parchments to the Norse maiden, and that she had proved herself an apt scholar. Erling said nothing at the time, except that he had a strong desire to become better acquainted with the writing in question, but he settled it then and there in his heart that Hilda, and not the hermit, should be his teacher. Accordingly, when the fishings and fightings of the summer were over, the young warrior laid by his sword, lines, and trident, and, seating himself at Hilda's feet, went diligently to work. The schoolroom was the hermit's hut on the cliff which overlooked the fiord. It was selected of necessity, because the old man guarded his parchments with tender solicitude, and would by no means allow them to go out of his dwelling, except when carried forth by his own hand. On the first occasion of the meeting of the young couple for study, Christian sat down beside them, and was about to expound matters, when Erling interposed with a laugh. "No, no, Christian, thou must permit Hilda to teach me, because she is an old friend of mine, who all her life has ever been more willing to learn than to teach. Therefore am I curious to know how she will change her character." "Be it so, my son," said the hermit, with a smile, folding his hands on his knee, and preparing to listen, and, if need be, to correct. "Be assured, Erling," said Hilda, "that I know very little." "Enough for me, no doubt," returned the youth. "For a day or two, perhaps," said the too-literal Hilda; "but after that Christian will have--" "After that," interrupted Erling, "it will be time enough to consider that subject." Hilda laughed, and asked if he were ready to begin. To which Erling replied that he was, and, sitting down opposite to his teacher, bent over the parchment, which for greater convenience she had spread out upon her knee. "Well," began Hilda, with a slight feeling of that pardonable self-importance which is natural to those who instruct others older than themselves, "that is the first letter." "Which?" asked Erling, gazing up in her face. "That one there, with the long tail to it. Dost thou see it?" "Yes," replied the youth. "How canst thou say so, Erling," remonstrated Hilda, "when thou art looking all the time straight in my face!" "But I _do_ see it," returned he, a little confused; "I am looking at it _now_." "Well," said she, "that is--" "Thou art looking at it upside down, my son," said the hermit, who had been observing them with an amused expression of countenance. "Oh, so he is; I never thought of that," cried Hilda, laughing; "thou must sit beside me, Erling, so that we may see it in the same way." "This one, now, with the curve _that_ way," she went on, "dost thou see it?" "See it!" thought Erling, "of course I see it: the prettiest little hand in all the dale!" But he only said-- "How can I see it, Hilda, when the point of thy finger covers it?" "Oh! well," drawing the finger down a little, "thou seest it now?" "Yes." "Well, that is--why! where is Christian?" she exclaimed, looking up suddenly in great surprise, and pointing to the stool on which the hermit certainly had been sitting a few minutes before, but which was now vacant. "He must have gone out while we were busy with the--the parchment," said Erling, also much surprised. "He went like a mouse, then," said Hilda, "for I heard him not." "Nor I," added her companion. "Very strange," said she. Now there was nothing particularly strange in the matter. The fact was that the old man had just exercised a little of Erling's philosophy in the way of projecting a cause to its result. As we have elsewhere hinted, the hermit was not one of those ascetics who, in ignorance of the truth, banished themselves out of the world. His banishment had not been self-imposed. He had fled before the fierce persecutors. They managed to slay the old man's wife, however, before they made him take to flight and seek that refuge and freedom of conscience among the Pagan Northmen which were denied him in Christian Europe. In the first ten minutes after the A B C class began he perceived how things stood with the young people, and, wisely judging that the causes which were operating in their hearts would proceed to their issue more pleasantly in his absence, he quietly got up and went out to cut firewood. After this the hermit invariably found it necessary to go out and cut firewood when Erling and Hilda arrived at the school, which they did regularly three times a week. This, of course, was considered a very natural and proper state of things by the two young people, for they were both considerate by nature, and would have been sorry indeed to have interrupted the old man in his regular work. But Erling soon began to feel that it was absolutely essential for one of them to be in advance of the other in regard to knowledge, if the work of teaching was to go on; for, while both remained equally ignorant, the fiction could not be kept up with even the semblance of propriety. To obviate this difficulty he paid solitary nocturnal visits to the hut, on which occasions he applied himself so zealously to the study of the strange characters that he not only became as expert as his teacher, but left her far behind, and triumphantly rebutted the charge of stupidity which she had made against him. At the same time our hero entered a new and captivating region of mental and spiritual activity when the hermit laid before him the portions of Holy Scripture which he had copied out before leaving southern lands, and expounded to him the grand, the glorious truths that God had revealed to man through Jesus Christ our Lord. And profoundly deep, and startling even to himself, were the workings of the young Norseman's active mind while he sat there, night after night, in the lone hut on the cliff, poring over the sacred rolls, or holding earnest converse with the old man about things past, present, and future. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. IN WHICH GLUMM TAKES TO HUNTING ON THE MOUNTAINS FOR CONSOLATION, AND FINDS IT UNEXPECTEDLY, WHILE ALRIC PROVES HIMSELF A HERO. "I go to the fells to-day," said Glumm to Alric one morning, as the latter opened the door of Glummstede and entered the hall. "I go also," said Alric, leaning a stout spear which he carried against the wall, and sitting down on a stool beside the fire to watch Glumm as he equipped himself for the chase. "Art ready, then? for the day is late," said Glumm. "All busked," replied the boy.--"I say, Glumm, is that a new spear thou hast got?" "Aye; I took it from a Swedish viking the last fight I had off the coast. We had a tough job of it, and left one or two stout men behind to glut the birds of Odin, but we brought away much booty. This was part of it," he added, buckling on a long hunting-knife, which was stuck in a richly ornamented sheath, "and that silver tankard too, besides the red mantle that my mother wears, and a few other things--but my comrades got the most of it." "I wish I had been there, Glumm," said Alric. "If Hilda were here, lad, she would say it is wrong to wish to fight." "Hilda has strange thoughts," observed the boy. "So has Erling," remarked his companion. "And so has Ada," said Alric, with a sly glance. Glumm looked up quickly. "What knowest _thou_ about Ada?" said he. The sly look vanished before Glumm had time to observe it, and an expression of extreme innocence took its place as the lad replied-- "I know as much about her as is usual with one who has known a girl, and been often with her, since the day he was born." "True," muttered Glumm, stooping to fasten the thongs that laced the untanned shoes on his feet. "Ada has strange thoughts also, as thou sayest. Come now, take thy spear, and let us be gone." "Where shall we go to-day?" asked Alric. "To the wolf's glen." "To the wolf's glen? that is far." "Is it too far for thee, lad?" "Nay, twice the distance were not too far for me," returned the boy proudly; "but the day advances, and there is danger without honour in walking on the fells after dark." "The more need for haste," said Glumm, opening the door and going out. Alric followed, and for some time these two walked in silence, as the path was very steep, and so narrow for a considerable distance, that they could not walk abreast. Snow lay pretty thickly on the mountains, particularly in sheltered places, but in exposed parts it had been blown off, and the hunters could advance easily. In about ten minutes after setting out they lost sight of Glummstede. As they advanced higher and deeper into the mountains, the fiord and the sea, with its innumerable skerries, was lost to view, but it was not until they had toiled upwards and onwards for nearly two hours that they reached those dark recesses of the fells to which the bears and wolves were wont to retreat after committing depredations on the farms in the valleys far below. There was something in the rugged grandeur of the scenery here, in the whiteness of the snow, the blackness of the rocks which peeped out from its voluminous wreaths, the lightness of the atmosphere, and, above all, the impressive silence, which possessed an indescribable charm for the romantic mind of Alric, and which induced even the stern matter-of-fact Glumm to tread with slower steps, and to look around him with a feeling almost akin to awe. No living thing was to be seen, either among the stupendous crags which still towered above, or in the depths which they had left below; but there were several footprints of wolves, all of which Glumm declared, after careful examination, to be old. "See here, lad," he said, turning up one of these footprints with the butt of his spear; "observe the hardish ball of snow just under the print; that shows that the track is somewhat old. If it had been quite fresh there would have been no such ball." "Thou must think my memory of the shortest, Glumm, for I have been told that every time I have been out with thee." "True, but thou art so stupid," said Glumm, laying his spear lightly across the boy's shoulders, "that I have thought fit to impress it on thee by repetition, having an interest in thine education, although thou dost not deserve it." "I deserve it, mayhap, more than ye think." "How so, boy?" "_Why_, because I have for a long time past taken an uncommon interest in thy welfare." Glumm laughed, and said he did not know that there was any occasion to concern himself about his welfare. "Oh yes, there is!" cried Alric, "for, when a man goes moping about the country as if he were fey, or as if he had dreamed of seeing his own guardian spirit, his friends cannot help being concerned about him." "Why, what is running in the lad's head?" said Glumm, looking with a perplexed expression at his young companion. "Nothing runs in my head, save ordinary thoughts. If there be any unusual running at all, it must be in thine own." "Speak, thou little fox," said Glumm, suddenly grasping Alric by the nape of the neck and giving him a shake. "Nay then, if that is thy plan," said the boy, "give it a fair trial. Shake away, and see what comes of it. Thou mayest shake out blood, bones, flesh, and life too, and carry home my skin as a trophy, but be assured that thou shalt not shake a word off my tongue!" "Boldly spoken," said Glumm, laughing, as he released the lad; "but I think thy tone would change if I were to take thee at thy word." "That it would not. Thou art not the first man whom I have defied, aye, and drawn blood from, as that red-haired Dane--" Alric stopped suddenly. He had reached that age when the tendency to boast begins, at least in manly boys, to be checked by increasing good sense and good taste. Yet it is no disparagement of Alric's character to say that he found it uncommonly difficult to refrain, when occasion served, from making reference to his first warlike exploit, even although frequent rebukes and increasing wisdom told him that boasting was only fit for the lips of cowards. "Why do ye stop?" asked Glumm, who quite understood the boy's feelings, and admired his exercise of self-control. "Be--because I have said enough." "Good is it," observed the other, "when man or boy knows that he has said enough, and has the power to stop when he knows it. But come, Alric, thou hast not said enough to me yet on the matter that--that--" "What matter?" asked Alric, with a sly look. "Why, the matter of my welfare, to be sure." "Ah, true. Well, methinks, Glumm, that I could give thee a little medicine for thy mind, but I won't, unless ye promise to keep thy spear off my back." "I promise," said Glumm, whose curiosity was aroused. "It is a sad thing when a man looks sweet and a maid looks sour, but there is a worse thing; that is when the maid _feels_ sour. Thou lovest Ada--" "Hold!" cried Glumm, turning fiercely on his companion, "and let not thy pert tongue dare to speak of such things, else will I show thee that there are other things besides spears to lay across thy shoulders." "Now art thou truly Glumm the Gruff," cried Alric, laughing, as he leaped to the other side of a mass of fallen rock; "but if thy humour changes not, I will show thee that I am not named Lightfoot for nothing. Come, don't fume and fret there like a bear with a headache, but let me speak, and I warrant me thou wilt be reasonably glad." "Go on, then, thou incorrigible." "Very well; but none of thy hard names, friend Glumm, else will I set my big brother Erling at thee. There now, don't give way again. What a storm-cloud thou art! Will the knowledge that Ada loves thee as truly as thou lovest her calm thee down?" "I see thou hast discovered my secret," said Glumm, looking at his little friend with a somewhat confused expression, "though how the knowledge came to thee is past my understanding. Yet as thou art so clever a warlock I would fain know what ye mean about `Ada's love for me.' Hadst thou said her hatred, I could have believed thee without explanation." "Let us go on, then," said Alric, "for there is nothing to be gained and only time to be lost by thus talking across a stone." The path which they followed was broad at that part, and not quite so rugged, so that Alric could walk alongside of his stout friend as he related to him the incident that was the means of enlightening him as to Ada's feelings towards her lover. It was plain from the expression on the Norseman's face that his soul was rejoiced at the discovery, and he strode forward at such a pace that the boy was fain to call a halt. "Thinkest thou that my legs are as long as thine?" he said, stopping and panting. Glumm laughed; and the laugh was loud and strong. He would have laughed at anything just then, for the humour was upon him, and he felt it difficult to repress a shout at the end of it! "Come on, Alric, I will go slower. But art thou sure of all this? Hast not mistaken the words?" "Mistaken the words!" cried the boy; "why, I tell thee they were as plain to my ears and my senses as what thou hast said this moment." "Good," said Glumm; "and now the question comes up, how must I behave to her? But thou canst not aid me herein, for in such matters thou hast had no experience." "Out upon thee for a stupid monster!" said the boy; "have I not just proved that my experience is very deep? I have not, indeed, got the length thou hast--of wandering about like a poor ghost or a half-witted fellow, but I have seen enough of such matters to know what common sense says." "And, pray, what does common sense say?" "Why, it says, Act towards the maid like a sane man, and, above all, a true man. Don't go about the land gnashing thy teeth until everyone laughs at thee. Don't go staring at her in grim silence as if she were a wraith; and, more particularly, don't pretend to be fond of other girls, for thou didst make a pitiful mess of that attempt. In short, be Glumm without being Gruff, and don't try to be anybody else. Be kind and straightforward to her, worship her, or, as Kettle Flatnose said the other day, `kiss the ground she walks on,' if thou art so inclined, but don't worry her life out. Show that thou art fond of her, and willing to bide _her_ time. Go on viking cruise, for the proverb says that an `absent body makes a longing spirit,' and bring her back shiploads of kirtles and mantles and armlets, and gold and silver ornaments--that's what common sense says, Glumm, and a great deal more besides, but I fear much that it is all wasted on thee." "Heyday!" exclaimed Glumm, "what wisdom do I hear? Assuredly we must call thee Alric hinn Frode hereafter. One would think thou must have been born before thine own grandfather." "Truly that is not so difficult to fancy," retorted Alric. "Even now I feel like a great-grandfather while I listen to thee. There wants but a smooth round face and a lisping tongue to make thine appearance suitable to thy wisdom! But what is this that we have here?" The boy pointed to a track of some animal in the snow a few yards to one side of the path. "A wolf track," said Glumm, turning aside. "A notably huge one," remarked the boy. "And quite fresh," said the man. "Which is proved," rejoined Alric in a slow, solemn voice, "by the fact that there is no ball of snow beneath the--" "Hold thy pert tongue," said Glumm in a hoarse whisper, "the brute must be close to us. Do thou keep in the lower end of this gorge--see, yonder, where it is narrow. I will go round to the upper end; perchance the wolf is there. If so, we stand a good chance of killing him, for the sides of the chasm are like two walls all the way up. But," added Glumm, hesitating a moment, and looking fixedly at the small but sturdy frame of his companion, whose heightened colour and flashing eyes betokened a roused spirit, "I doubt thy--that is--I have no fear of the spirit, if the body were a little bigger." "Take thine own big body off, Glumm," said Alric, "and leave me to guard the pass." Glumm grinned as he turned and strode away. The spot which the hunters had reached merits particular notice. It was one of those wild deep rents or fissures which are usually found near the summits of almost inaccessible mountains. It was not, however, at the top of the highest range in that neighbourhood, being merely on the summit of a ridge which was indeed very high--perhaps five or six thousand feet--but still far below the serried and shattered peaks which towered in all directions round Horlingdal, shutting it out from all communication with the rest of the world, except through the fiord and the pass leading over to the Springs. On the place where Alric parted from his friend the rocks of the gorge or defile rose almost perpendicularly on both sides, and as he advanced he found that the space between became narrower, until, at the spot where he was to take his stand, there was an opening of scarcely six feet in width. Beyond this the chasm widened a little, until, at its higher end, it was nearly twenty yards broad; but, owing to the widening nature of the defile, the one opening could not be seen from the other, although they were little more than four hundred yards apart. The track of the wolf led directly through the pass into the gorge. As the lad took his stand he observed with much satisfaction that it was that of an unusually large animal. This feeling was tempered, however, with some anxiety lest it should have escaped at the other opening. It was also mixed with a touch of agitation; for although Alric had seen his friend and Erling kill wolves and bears too, he had never before been left to face the foe by himself, and to sustain the brunt of the charge in his own proper person. Beyond an occasional flutter of the heart, however, there was nothing to indicate, even to himself, that he was not as firm as the rock on which he stood. Now, let it not be supposed that we are here portraying a hero of romance in whom is united the enthusiasm of the boy with the calm courage of the man. We crave attention, more particularly that of boys, to the following observations:-- In the highly safe and civilised times in which we live, many thousands of us never have a chance, from personal experience, of forming a just estimate of the powers of an average man or boy, and we are too apt to ascribe that to heroism which is simply due to knowledge. A man _knows_ that he can do a certain thing that seems extremely dangerous, therefore he does it boldly, not because he is superlatively bold by any means, but because he knows there is no risk--at least none to him. The proverb that "Familiarity breeds contempt" applies as truly to danger as to anything else; and well is it for the world that the majority of human beings are prone to familiarise themselves with danger in spite of those well-meaning but weak ones who have been born with a tendency to say perpetually, "Take care," "Don't run such risk", etcetera. "Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might;" and man has echoed the sentiment in the proverb, "Whatever is worth doing is worth doing well". Do you climb?--then do it well--do it in such circumstances that your spirit will get used to seeing profound depths below you without your heart melting into hot water and your nerves quaking. Do you leap?--then do it well--do it so that you may be able to turn it to some good account in the day of trial; do it so that you may know _how_ to leap off a runaway carriage, for instance, without being killed. Learn to jump off high cliffs into deep water, so that, should the opportunity ever offer, you may be able to plunge off the high bulwarks of a vessel to save a sister, or mother, or child, with as little thought about yourself as if you were jumping off a sofa. Observe, we do not advocate recklessness. To leap off a cliff so high that you will be sure to be killed is not leaping "well"; but neither is it well to content yourself with a jump of three or four feet as your utmost attainment, because that is far short of many a leap which may have to be taken in this world to save even your own life, not to mention the lives of others. But enough of this disquisition, which, the reader will observe, has been entered upon chiefly in order to prove that we do not ascribe heroic courage to Alric when we say that, having been familiar with danger from his birth, he prepared to face a wolf of unknown size and ferocity with considerable coolness, if not indifference to danger. Glumm meanwhile reached the other end of the ravine, and there, to his intense disappointment, found the track of the wolf leading away towards the open mountains beyond. Just where it left the ravine, however, the animal had run about so much that the track was crossed and recrossed in confusion. Glumm therefore had difficulty at first in following it up, but when he did so, great was his joy to find that it doubled back and re-entered the defile. Pressing quickly forward, he came to a broken part, near the centre, where, among a heap of grey, weather-worn rocks he perceived two sharp-pointed objects, like a pair of erect ears! To make certain, he hurled a stone towards the place. The objects instantly disappeared! Immediately afterwards, a long grey back and a bushy tail were visible as the wolf glided among the rocks, making for the side of the precipice, with the intention, doubtless, of rushing past this bold intruder. Glumm observed the movement, and promptly went in the same direction. The wolf noticed this, and paused abruptly--remaining still, as if uncertain what to do. The hunter at once put to flight his uncertainty by gliding swiftly towards him. Seeing this, the wolf abandoned the attempt at concealment and bounded into the centre of the ravine, where, with his bristles erect, his back slightly arched, and all his glittering teeth and blood-red gums exposed, he stood for a moment or two the very picture of intensified fury. The hunter advanced with his spear levelled, steadily, but not hastily, because there was sufficient space on either hand to render the meeting of the animal in its rush a matter of extreme difficulty, while at every step he took, the precipices on either side drew closer together. The brute had evidently a strong objection to turn back, and preferred to run the risk of passing its foe, for it suddenly sprang to one side and ran up the cliff as far as possible, like a cat, while it made for the upper end of the ravine. The Norseman, whose powerful frame was by this time strung to intensity of action, leaped to the same side with the agility of a panther, and got in before it. The wolf did not stop, but with a ferocious growl it swerved aside, and bounded to the other side of the ravine. Again the hunter leaped across, and stood in its way. He bent forward to resist the animal's weight and impetus, but the baffled wolf was cowed by his resolute front. It turned tail, and fled, followed by Glumm with a wild halloo! When the first growl was heard by Alric, it strung him up to the right pitch instantly, and the next one caused the blood to rush to his face, for he heard the halloo which Glumm uttered as he followed in pursuit. The distance was short. Another moment and the boy saw the infuriated animal springing towards him, with Glumm rushing madly after it. Alric was already in the centre of the pass with the spear levelled, and his body bent in anticipation of the shock. The wolf saw him, but did not check its pace--with a furious Norseman bounding behind there was no room for hesitation. It lowered its head, increased its speed, and ran at the opening like a thunderbolt. When within three yards of the boy it swerved, and, leaping up, pawed the cliff on the left while in the air. Alric had foreseen this--his only doubt had been as to which side the brute would incline to. He sprang at the same moment, and met it full in the face as it came down. The point of his spear entered the wolf's chest, and penetrated deep into its body. A terrific yell followed. The spear handle broke in the middle, and the boy fell on his face, while the wolf went right over him, yelling and biting the spear, as, carried on by its impetus, it rolled head over heels for several yards among the rocks. Alric jumped up unhurt, and, for want of a better weapon, seized a mass of stone, which he raised above his head, and hurled at the wolf, hitting it fairly on the skull. At the same moment Glumm ran up, intending to transfix the brute with his spear. "Hold thy hand, Glumm," gasped the boy. Glumm checked himself. "In truth it needs no more," he said, bringing the butt of his weapon to the ground, and leaning on it, while he looked on at the last struggles of the dying wolf. "Fairly done, lad," he added, with a nod of approval, "this will make a man of thee." The boy did not speak, but stood with his chest still heaving, his breath coming fast, and the expression of triumph on his countenance showing that for him a new era had opened up--that the days of boasting had ended, and those of manly action had fairly and auspiciously begun. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. SHOWS WHAT SOME OF THE MEN OF OLD COULD DO IN COLD BLOOD, AND TREATS OF HEATHEN FESTIVITIES AT HARALD'S COURT, MINGLED WITH PLOT AND COUNTER PLOT. Winter--with its frost and snow, its long nights and its short days, its feasts in the great halls, and its tales round the roaring wood fires-- at length began to pass away, and genial spring advanced to gladden the land of Norway. The white drapery melted in the valleys, leaving brilliant greens and all the varied hues of rugged rocks to fill the eyes with harmonious colour. High on the mighty fells the great glaciers--unchanging, almost, as the "everlasting hills"--gleamed in the sunlight against the azure sky, and sent floods of water down into the brimming rivers. The scalds ceased, to some extent, those wild legendary songs and tales with which they had beguiled the winter nights, and joined the Norsemen in their operations on the farms and on the fiords. Men began to grow weary of smoked rafters and frequent festivities, and to long for the free, fresh air of heaven. Some went off to drive the cattle to the "saeters" or mountain pastures, others set out for the fisheries, and not a few sailed forth on viking cruises over the then almost unknown sea. Our friends of Horlingdal bestirred themselves, like others, in these varied avocations, and King Harald Fairhair, uprising from his winter lair in Drontheim like a giant refreshed, assembled his men, and prepared to carry out his political plans with a strong hand. But resolute men cannot always drive events before them as fast as they would wish. Summer was well advanced before the King was ready to take action. There was a man of the Drontheim district named Hauskuld, who was noted for ferocity and wickedness. He was also very strong and courageous, so that King Harald made him one of his berserks. One morning the King sent for this man, and said to him-- "Hauskuld, I have a business for thee to do, which requires the heart of a brave fellow. There is a man near Horlingdal who has not only refused to submit to my will, but has gathered a band of seventy men or more about him, and threatens to raise the country against me. It does not suit me to go forth to punish this dog just now, for my preparations are not yet complete. Nevertheless it is important that he should be crushed, as he dwells in the heart of a disaffected district. It is therefore my purpose to send thee with a small body of picked men to do thy worst by him." "That suits me well," said Hauskuld; "what is his name?" "Atli," answered the King. "He is my foster-brother!" said Hauskuld, with a peculiar and unpleasant smile. The King looked a little perplexed. "Thou wilt not have much heart to the business if that be so," he said. "When you command, sire, it is my duty to obey," replied Hauskuld. "Nay, but I can find other stout men for this thing. There is Hake of Hadeland. Go, send him hither. I will not put this on thy shoulders." "Sire, you are considerate," said Hauskuld, "but this foster-brother of mine I count an enemy, for reasons that I need not tell. Besides, he is said to be a warlock, and for my part I firmly believe that he is in league with Nikke, so that it would be a service to the gods to rid the world of him. If you will permit me, I will gladly go on this errand, and as this Atli is a stout man, it would be well to take Hake and a few of the berserkers along with me." "Do as thou wilt," replied the King, with a wave of his hand, as he turned away; "only, what thou doest, see thou do it well and quickly." The berserk shouldered his battle-axe and left the hall. As he walked away the King stood in the doorway looking after him with a mingled expression of admiration and dislike. "A stalwart knave," he muttered to himself, while a grim smile played on his large handsome features; "a good fighting brute, no doubt, but, with such a spirit, a bad servant, I fear." "There are many such in your army," said a deep, stern voice behind him. The King turned quickly round, with a look of anger, and fixed a searching glance on the huge form of Rolf Ganger, who stood leaning on the hilt of his sword with a quiet, almost contemptuous smile on his face. "It is well known that birds of a feather are fond of flying in company," said the King, with a flushed countenance; "no doubt thou speakest from personal knowledge and experience." It was now Rolf's turn to flush, but the King did him injustice, having no ground for such a speech, further than a knowledge that there existed between them mutual antipathy which neither was particularly careful to conceal. "Have I done aught to merit such words?" demanded Rolf sternly. Harald was on the point of making an angry rejoinder, but, placing a powerful restraint upon himself, he said-- "It may be that thine actions are loyal, but, Rolf, thy words are neither wise nor true. It is not wise to attempt to shake my confidence in my followers, and it is not true that many of them are untrustworthy. But, if thou wouldst prove thyself a real friend, go, get thy longships ready with all speed, for we fare south a few days hence, and there will be work for the weapons of stout men ere long." "I go to prepare myself for the fight, King Harald," returned Rolf, "but I have no occasion to give thee further proof of friendship. The world is wide enough for us both. My ocean steeds are on the fiord. Henceforth I will fight for my own hand." For one moment the King felt an almost irresistible impulse to draw his sword and hew down the bold Rolf, but with characteristic self-restraint he crushed down his wrath at the time and made no reply, good or bad, as the other turned on his heel and left him. When he had gone some distance the King muttered between his set teeth-- "Another good fighting brute and bad servant! Let him go! Better an open foe than an unwilling friend." That night Hauskuld and Hake set sail southward with a small body of picked men; and Rolf Ganger, with a large body of devoted followers, left Harald's camp and travelled eastward. In the course of several days Hauskuld and his men arrived at the small fiord near the head of which stood the dwelling of Atli. This Atli was an unusually intelligent man, a man of great influence in his district, and one who, like Erling the Bold, was determined to resist the tyranny of Harald Fairhair. A large force had been gathered by him towards the end of winter, and at the time of Hauskuld's visit he was living in his own house with about seventy chosen men. Unfortunately for these, the peaceful winter had induced them to relax a little in vigilance. Knowing from the report of spies that the King was still feasting in the Drontheim district, they felt quite safe, and for some time past had neglected to set the usual night watch, which, in time of war, was deemed indispensable. Thus it happened that when Hauskuld and his men came upon them in the dead of a dark night, they found everything quiet, and went up to the door of the house unchallenged. On trying the latch they found it fast, but from the sounds within they knew that a great many men were sleeping there. Hauskuld and Hake had approached the house alone. They now returned to their companions, who were concealed in the deep shades of the neighbouring woods. "What dost thou advise?" asked Hake of his brother berserk. "That we burn them all in their nest," replied Hauskuld. "What! foster-brother too?" said the other. "Aye, wherefore not? He is a warlock. So are most of the men with him. Burning is their due." "There is wood enough here for that purpose," said Hake, with a grim smile. Hauskuld immediately directed the greater part of his force to gather dry wood, and silently pile it all round the house, while he and Hake with a few men stood in front of the doors and windows to guard them. The work was accomplished in a much shorter time than might have been expected, for those who performed it were strong and active, and well accustomed to such deeds. In less than an hour the whole of Atli's house was surrounded by a thick pile of dry inflammable brushwood. When it was all laid the men completely surrounded the house, and stood with arrows fitted to the strings, and swords loosened in the sheaths. Then Hauskuld and several others applied lights to the brushwood at various points. For a few seconds there was an ominous crackling, accompanied by little flashes of flame, then a dense smoke rose up all round. Presently the rushing fire burst through the black pall with a mighty roar, and lit up the steading with the strength of the sun at noonday, while flame and smoke curled in curious conflict together over the devoted dwelling, and myriads of sparks were vomited up into the dark sky. At the same instant doors and windows were burst open with a crash, and a terrible cry arose as men, half clad and partly armed, leaped out and rushed through the circle of fire, with the flame kindling on their hair and garments. Not less relentless than the fire was the circling foe outside. Whizzing arrows pierced the scorched breasts of some, and many fell dead. Others rushed madly on sword or spear point, and were thrust violently back into the fire, or fell fighting desperately for their lives. Some of the attacking party were killed, and a few wounded, but not one of the assailed succeeded in bursting through the line. Atli and all his followers perished there! It is dreadful to think that such diabolical deeds were ever done; but still more dreadful is it to know that the spirit which dictated such atrocities still haunts the breast of fallen men, for the annals of modern warfare tell us all too plainly that unregenerate man is as capable of such deeds now as were the Norsemen in days of old. Having fulfilled his mission, Hauskuld left the place as quickly as possible, and hastened back to Drontheim; not, however, without learning on the way that preparations were being secretly made all over that district to resist the King, and that, in particular, Solve Klofe was in the fiord at Horlingdal, with several ships of war, doing his best to fan the flame of discontent, which was already burning there briskly enough of its own accord! On returning again to King Harald's quarters, Hauskuld found that energetic monarch engaged in celebrating one of the heathen feasts, and deemed it prudent for some hours to avoid his master, knowing that when heated with deep potations he was not in the best condition to receive or act upon exasperating news. He therefore went into the great hall, where the King and his guests were assembled, and quietly took his place at the lower end of one of the long tables near the door. As is usual with men of inferior and debased minds, the berserk misunderstood and misjudged his master. He had counted on escaping notice, but the King's eye fell on him the instant he entered the hall, and he was at once summoned before him, and bidden tell his tale. While he related the details of the dreadful massacre Hauskuld felt quite at ease, little dreaming that the King's fingers twitched with a desire to cut him down where he stood; but when he came to speak of the widespread disaffection of the people in the south, he stammered a little, and glanced uneasily at the flushed countenance of the King, fearing that the news would exasperate him beyond endurance. Great, therefore, was his surprise when Harald affected to treat the matter lightly, made some jesting allusion to the potent efficacy of the sword in bringing obstinate people to reason, and ordered one of the waiting-girls to fetch the berserk a foaming tankard of ale. "There, drink, Hauskuld, my bold berserk! drink down to a deeper peg, man. After such warm work as thou hast had, that will serve to cool thy fiery spirit. Drink to the gods, and pray that thou mayest never come to die, like an old woman, in thy bed--drink, I say, drink deep!" The King laughed jovially, almost fiercely, in his wild humour, as he made this allusion to the well-known objection that the Norse warriors of old had to dying peacefully in bed; but for the life of him he could not resist the temptation, as he turned on his seat, to touch with his elbow the huge silver tankard which the berserk raised to his lips! The instantaneous result was that a cataract of beer flowed down Hauskuld's face and beard, while the rafters rang with a shout of laughter from the Sea-kings and court-men who sat in the immediate neighbourhood of the King's high seat. Of course Harald blamed himself for his clumsiness, but he too laughed so heartily that the masses of his fair hair shook all over his shoulders, while he ordered another tankard to be filled for his "brave berserk". That brave individual, however, protested that he had had quite enough, and immediately retired with a very bad grace to drink his beer in comfort out of a horn cup among kindred spirits. Immediately after he was gone the King sent for Hake, for whom he also ordered a silver tankard of ale; but to him the King spoke earnestly, and in a low whispering voice, while his courtiers, perceiving that he wished his converse with the berserk to be private, quaffed their liquor and talked noisily. The young woman who filled Hake's tankard at the King's bidding was no other than Gunhild, the unfortunate widow of Swart of the Springs. For some time after the death of her husband she had dwelt at Haldorstede, and had experienced much kindness at the hands of the family; but having taken a longing to visit her relatives, who belonged to the Drontheim district, she was sent thither, and had become a member of Harald's household, through the influence of King Hakon of Drontheim, the father of Ada of Horlingdal. Hakon had from necessity, and much against his inclination, become one of Harald Fairhair's jarls. During the feast of which we write, he sat on the King's left hand. After filling Hake's tankard Gunhild retired, but remained within earshot. "Hake," said the King, leaning over the arm of his high seat, "it is now time that we were moving south; and the news thou hast brought decides me to complete my arrangements without delay. It seems that Ulf of Romsdal and that fellow Erling the Bold, with his fierce father, are making great preparations for war?" "Truly they are," said Hake. "I saw as much with my own eyes." "But may this not be for the purpose of going on viking cruise?" "Had that been so, mine ears would have guided me, and we had brought a different report, but when men talk loudly and ill of the King, and knit their brows, and wish for a south wind, it needs not the wisdom of a warlock to fathom their meaning. Moreover," he continued earnestly, "I have heard that news has come from the southland that the people of Hordaland and Rogaland, Agder and Thelemark, are gathering, and bringing together ships, men, and arms--what can all this mean if it be not resistance to the King?" "Right," said Harald thoughtfully. "Now, Hake, I will tell thee what to do, and see thou waste not time about it. Most of my ships are ready for sea. A few days more will suffice to complete them for a cruise, and then will I sail forth to teach these proud men humility. Meanwhile do thou get ready the ships under thy charge, and send Hauskuld in a swift boat with a few chosen men south to Horlingdal fiord. There let him watch the proceedings of the people--particularly of that fellow Erling and his kin--and when he has seen enough let him sail north to give me warning of their movements. They shall be saved the trouble of coming here to meet me, for I will fare south and slay them all, root and branch. Let thy tongue be quiet and thy motions swift, and caution Hauskuld also to be discreet. Another draught of ale, Hake, and then-- to thy duty." These last words the King spoke aloud, and while the berserk was drinking he turned to converse with Hakon of Drontheim, but finding that that chief had left the board, he turned to one of the courtiers, and began to converse on the news recently brought from the south. Gunhild meanwhile slipped out of the hall, and found King Hakon hasting to his house. "Ye heard what the King threatened?" she said, plucking him by the sleeve. "I did, and will--but why dost thou speak to me on this subject?" asked Hakon warily. "Because I know your daughter Ada is among the doomed and ye would not see her perish. My heart is in the house of Haldor the Fierce. Great kindness have I received there, therefore would I go and warn them of what is coming. I have friends here, and can get a swift cutter to bear me south. Shall I tell them to expect aid from you?" Hakon was glad to hear this, and told her to inform Haldor that he would soon be in the fiord with his longship, that he would aid the people of Horlingdal in resisting Harald, and that it was probable Rolf Ganger would also join them. Bearing these tidings Gunhild left Drontheim secretly, and in a swift boat with a stout crew set off for the south a considerable time before Hauskuld sailed, although that worthy did his best to carry out his master's commands without delay. King Hakon also pushed forward his preparations, and that so briskly that he too was enabled to start before the berserk. Meanwhile King Harald gave himself up entirely to festivity--laughed and talked with his courtiers, and seemed so light of heart that the greater part of his followers thought him to be a careless, hearty man, on whom the weighty matters of the kingdom sat very lightly. But Jarl Rongvold knew that this free-and-easy spirit was affected, and that the King's mind was much troubled by the state of things in several parts of the kingdom. He also knew, however, that Harald had an iron will, which nothing could bend from its purpose, and he felt convinced that the course which his sovereign pursued would end either in his total overthrow, or in the absolute subjection of Norway. It happened that at this time one of the festivals of sacrifice was being celebrated by the people of the Drontheim country. It was an old custom that, when there was sacrifice, all the bonders should come to the spot where the heathen temple stood, and bring with them all that they required while the festival of the sacrifice lasted. The men were expected to bring ale with them, and all kinds of cattle as well as horses, which were to be slaughtered, boiled, and eaten. In order to conciliate the people, the King on this occasion issued a proclamation that he meant to pay all the expenses of the festival. This had the double effect of attracting to the locality a vast concourse of people, and of putting them all in great good humour, so that they were quite ready to listen to, and fall in with, the plans of the King, whatever these might be. Of course there were many freeborn noble-spirited udallers who could not thus be tickled into the selling of their birthright; but Harald's tremendous energy and power, coupled with his rigorous treatment of all who resisted him, had the effect of reducing many of these to sullen silence, while some made a virtue of necessity, and accepted the fate which they thought it impossible to evade. On the evening of the day of which we write, the fire was kindled in the middle of the floor of the temple, and over it hung the kettles. Full goblets were handed across the fire, and the King blessed the full goblets and all the meat of the sacrifice. Then, first, Odin's goblet was emptied for victory and power to the King; thereafter Niord's and Freya's goblets for peace and a good season. After that there was much feasting; and when the ale began to mount to the brains of the revellers, many of them stood up, and raising aloft the "braga goblet"-- that over which vows were wont to be made--began, in more or less bombastic strains, to boast of what they meant to do in the future. Having exhausted all other sentiments, the guests then emptied the "remembrance goblet" to the memory of departed friends. Soon the desire for song and story began to be felt, and there was a loud call for the scald. Whereupon, clearing his throat and glancing round on the audience with a deprecatory air--just as amateur scalds of the present day are wont to do--Thiodolph hinn Frode of Huina stood up to sing. His voice was mellow, and his music wild. The subject chosen showed that he understood how to humour both King and people, and if the song was short it was much to the point. Song of the Scald. Of cup and platter need has none, The guest who seeks the generous one-- Harald the bounteous--who can trace His lineage from the giant race; For Harald's hand is liberal, free. The guardian of the temple he. He loves the gods, his open hand Scatters his sword's gains o'er the land. The scald sat down with the prompt energy of a man who believes he has said a good thing, and expects that it will be well received. He was not disappointed, for the rafters rang with the wild huzzas of the revellers as they leaped to their feet and shouted "Victory to the King!" This was just what the King wanted, and he carefully fanned the flame which the scald had so judiciously kindled. The result was that when he afterwards called for men to go forth with him to do battle with the turbulent spirits of Horlingdal, hundreds of those who would otherwise have been malcontent, or lukewarm followers, busked themselves eagerly for the fight, and flocked to his standard. His longships were crowded with picked men, and war vessels of all sizes--from little boats to dragons with thirty banks of rowers--augmented his fleet. At length he sailed from Drontheim with perhaps the strongest armament that had ever swept over the northern sea. CHAPTER NINETEEN. TELLS SOMETHING OF THE DOINGS OF SOLVE KLOFE AND OTHERS, AND TREATS OF A FEW OF THE MARVELLOUS ADVENTURES OF GUTTORM STOUTHEART. The scene is changed. It is night; yet how different from night in most other inhabited parts of the earth! The midnight sun is just sinking beneath the horizon, close to the spot whence, in about twenty minutes, he will rise, to repeat his prolonged course of nearly four-and-twenty hours through the northern sky. But if the darkness of night is absent, its deep quietude is there. The mighty cliffs that rise like giant walls to heaven, casting broad, heavy shadows over the sea, send forth no echoes, for the innumerable birds that dwell among them are silently perched like snowflakes on every crag, or nestled in every crevice, buried in repose. The sea resembles glass, and glides with but a faint sigh upon the shore. All is impressively still on mountain and fiord. Everything in nature is asleep, excepting the wakeful eye of day, the hum of distant rills, the boom of inland cataracts, and the ripple on the shore. These sounds, however, do but render the universal silence more profound by suggesting the presence of those stupendous forces which lie latent everywhere. A white mist floats over the sea like a curtain of gauze, investing insignificant objects with grandeur, and clothing caverns, cliffs, and mountain gorges with unusual sublimity. Only one object suggestive of man is visible through the haze. It is a ship--of the old, old-fashioned build--with high stem and stern, and monstrous figurehead. Its forefoot rests upon the strip of gravel in yonder bay at the foot of the cliff, whose summit is lost in the clouds. The hull reposes on its own reflected image, and the taper mast is repeated in a wavy but distinct line below. It is the "longship"; the "war vessel"; the "sea horse" of Solve Klofe, the son of King Hunthiof of More, whom Harald Fairhair slew. Solve had, as we have before said, spent the winter in taking his revenge by herrying the coast in his longship, and doing all in his power to damage the King's men, as well as those who were friendly to his cause. Among other things he had, early in spring, persuaded Haldor the Fierce to let him have the use of one of his warships, with a few of his best men, to accompany him on a viking cruise. Erling had resisted his pressing invitation to bear him company, because of important business, the nature of which he did not think it necessary to disclose. His friend Glumm the Gruff also declined from similar reasons. At all events, he was similarly pre-engaged and taciturn. Thorer the Thick, however, and Kettle Flatnose, and young Alric--the latter by special and importunate request--were allowed to accompany him on this expedition. We do not intend to give the details of this foray, although it was unusually stirring and prolific of adventure. Suffice it to say, that they had several hard fights both with Swedish and Danish vikings, in all of which Alric distinguished himself for reckless daring, and would certainly have been carried home dead upon his own shield had not Kettle Flatnose watched over him with the solicitude of a father, and warded off many a blow that was aimed at his pugnacious head. We fear it must be added that Alric was not sufficiently impressed with his friend's services in this way. The truth is that he entertained the firm belief that nobody could kill him, and that he could kill anybody--which was all very well as far as it went, but would not have carried him scathless through the cruise, had not the stout Irishman been at his back. Immense and valuable booty was gained at this time, for one of the vessels which they captured had been cruising in southern lands, and was returning with a large quantity of gold and silver ornaments when Solve Klofe attacked it. A misfortune befell them, however. On their way home a storm drove Thorer's vessel on the rocks in a fog, and it became a total wreck. The crew were all saved, however, and much of the lading, by Solve, who stowed the goods in his own ship, and brought home the men. They were within a day's sail of Horlingdal, when they put ashore to take a few hours' repose. Three hours after midnight Solve Klofe, whose breathing up to that time had resembled that of an infant, gave vent to a prolonged bass snore, and opened his eyes. This was followed by the shutting of his mouth, and with one of those satisfactory stretchings of the body with which a sound sleeper is wont in the morning to dismiss repose and recall his energies. Having lain still a few moments to enjoy the result, Solve sat up, and stretching forth his hand, drew aside the curtain of the tent under which he slept, and looked out. The sight that gladdened his eyes was beautiful beyond description, for the sun was up in all his northern glory, and shone on the silver sea with dazzling light, while he scattered away the mists of morning. But the best sight of all to the bold viking was the splendid warship which, with painted sides and shields, and gilded masts and prow, glowed and glittered like a beautiful gem in a setting of the brightest azure blue. Turning his eyes inside his tent again, Solve gazed with the expressionless aspect of a still drowsy man upon the countenance of Kettle, whose flat nose and open mouth gave vent to tones resembling those of a bassoon. Beside him, and nestling close to him, lay the youthful Alric, with his curly head resting on Kettle's broad bosom; for the lad, albeit manly enough when awake, had sufficient of the child still about him to induce a tendency on his part, when asleep, to make use of any willing friend as a pillow. Thorer the Thick was also there, with his head on his arm, his body sprawling indescribably, his shield above him like a literal coverlet, and his right hand on his sword-hilt. "Ho!" exclaimed Solve, in a tone that marvellously resembled the tones of modern men in similar circumstances. Kettle and Thorer, however, sprang up to a sitting posture with very primitive alacrity, for in those days a man's life often depended on his being and keeping very wide-awake. Poor Alric was tumbled somewhat unceremoniously to one side, but that failed to awaken him, for he was not yet sufficiently trained to sleep in the midst of alarms, and felt very naturally inclined to growl and bite when shaken or told to "get up!" In a few minutes, however, his lethargy was overcome; the men were aroused; the tents were struck; the longship was pushed off, and, under the influence of thirty pair of oars, it crept like a monstrous insect away over the sea. Those who had not to work at the oars sat at first quietly on the thwarts, or leaned over the gunwale gazing into the deep, or up at the sky, enjoying the warm air and their own fancies. But after a time talkative spirits began to loose their tongues, and ere long a murmur of quiet conversation pervaded the ship. "I wonder what news we shall hear at the stede when we arrive?" said Thorer to Kettle, who with several others sat on the poop beside Solve. "I hope it won't be bad news," answered Kettle. "Harald is not the man to sleep through the summer when there is work to be done. If it wasn't that I expect to give him the tooth-ache before I go, surely I should have been in Ireland long ago." "Whom didst thou serve under, Kettle, before we brought thee to Norway?" asked Alric. "Under the King of Dublin," replied Kettle. "Was he a great king?" "A great king? Aye, never was there a greater; and a great king he is yet, if he's alive, though I have my own fears on that point, for he was taking badly to ale when I left." There was something pathetic yet humorous in the tone and expression with which Kettle said this which caused Alric to laugh. The Irishman started, and for an instant his huge countenance blazed with a look of wrath which was quite majestic, and overawed the boy, bold though he was. But it passed away in a moment, and was replaced by a sorrowful look as Kettle shook his head and said-- "Ah! boy, your laugh reminded me of the laugh of the villain Haabrok who took the old king's throne at the time I was carried off, bound hand and foot. Lucky was it for him that my hands were not free then.--Well, well, this sounds like bragging," he added with a smile, "which is only fit for boys and cowards." Alric winced a little at this, for he was quite aware of his own tendency to boast, and for a moment he felt a strong inclination to stand up for "boys", and assert, that although boasting was common enough with cowardly boys, it was not so with all boys; but on consideration he thought it best to hold his tongue, on that point, at least until he should have freed himself of the evil of boasting. To change the subject he said-- "Was the old king fond of thee, Kettle?" "Aye, as fond of me as of his own son." "Was he like my father?" pursued the boy. "No; there are not many men like thy father, lad; but he was a stout and brave old man, and a great warrior in his day. Now I think of it, he was very like Guttorm Stoutheart." "Then he was a handsome man," said Solve Klofe with emphasis. "He was," continued Kettle, "but not quite so desperate. Old Guttorm is the most reckless man I ever did see. Did I ever tell ye of the adventure I had with him when we went on viking cruise south to Valland?" "No," said Solve; "let us hear about it; but stay till I change the oarsmen." He went forward and gave the order to relieve the men who had rowed from the land, and when the fresh men were on the benches he returned and bade Kettle go on. "'Tis a fine country," said the Irishman, glancing round him with a glowing eye, and speaking in a low tone, as if to himself--"one to be proud of." And in truth there was ground for his remark, for the mists had by that time entirely cleared away, leaving unveiled a sea so calm and bright that the innumerable islets off the coast appeared as if floating in air. "That is true," said Thorer. "I sometimes wonder, Kettle, at thy longing to return to Ireland. I am in the same case with thyself--was taken from my home in Jemteland, laboured as a thrall, wrought out my freedom, and remained in Haldor's service, but have never wished to return home." "Didst thou leave a wife and children behind thee?" asked Kettle. "Nay; I was carried away while very young." "Is thy father alive, or thy mother?" "No, they are both dead." "Then I wonder not that ye have no desire to return home. My father and mother are both alive--at least I have good reason to believe so--my wife and children are waiting for me. Canst wonder, man, that I long to behold once more the green hills of Ireland?" "Nay, if that be so, I wonder not," replied Thorer. "Come, Kettle, thou forgettest that we wait for the story about old Guttorm Stoutheart," said Solve Klofe, arranging the corner of a sail so as to protect his back from the sun. "'Tis an old story now in Horlingdal," said Kettle; "but as thou hast not been in this quarter for a long time, no doubt it is new to thee. Thorer there knows it well; but I find that it bears telling more than once. Well, it was, as I have said, two years past that Guttorm went south to Valland on viking cruise. He called at Horlingdal in passing, and got some of the dalesmen. Among others, I was allowed to go. He and I got on very well together, and we were fortunate in getting much booty. One day we came to a part of the coast where we saw a strong castle of stone on the top of a hill a short way inland. We also saw plenty of cattle on a plain near the sea, so Guttorm ordered his longship to be steered for the shore, and we began to drive some of the cattle down to the beach, intending to slaughter them there, as our provisions were getting low. On seeing this, a party of men came out from the castle and bade us begone. We told them to be easy in their minds, for we only wanted a little food. We even went so far as to ask it of them civilly, but the men were such surly fellows that they refused to listen to reason, and attacked us at once. Of course we drove them back into their castle, but in doing so we lost one or two of our best men. This angered old Guttorm, who is not a quarrelsome man, as ye know. He would have gone away peaceably enough if he had been let alone to help himself to a few beasts; but his blood was set up by that time, so he ordered all the men on shore, and we pitched our tents and besieged the castle. Being made of stone, there was no chance of setting it on fire, and as the walls were uncommonly high, it was not possible to take it by assault. Well, we sat down before it, and for two days tried everything we could think of to take it, but failed, for there were plenty of men in it, and they defended the walls stoutly. Besides this, to say the truth, we had already lost a number of good men on the cruise and could ill afford to lose more. "On the third day some of our chief men advised Guttorm to give it up, but that made him so furious that no one dared speak to him about it for another two days. At the end of that time his nephew plucked up heart, and going to him, said-- "`Uncle, do you see the little birds that fly back and forward over the castle walls so freely, and build their nests in the thatch of the housetops?' "`I do, nephew,' says Guttorm. `What then?' "`My advice is,' says the nephew, `that you should order the men to make each a pair of wings like those the birds have, and then we shall all fly over the walls, for it seems to me that there is no other way of getting into the castle.' "`Thou art a droll knave,' replies Guttorm, for he was ever fond of a joke; `but thou art wise also, therefore I advise thee to make a pattern pair of wings for the men; and when they are ready--' "Here Guttorm stopped short, and fell to thinking; and he thought so long that his nephew asked him at last if he had any further commands for him. "`Yes, boy, I have. There is more in this matter of the wings than thou dreamest of. Go quickly and order the men to make snares, and catch as many of these little birds as they can before sunset. Let them be careful not to hurt the birds, and send Kettle Flatnose and my house-carle hither without delay.' "When I came to the old man I found him walking to and fro briskly, with an expression of eagerness in his eye. "`Kettle,' he said smartly, `go and prepare two hundred pieces of cord, each about one foot long, and to the end of each piece tie a small chip of wood as long as the first joint of thy thumb, and about the size of a goose quill. Smear these pieces of wood over with pitch, and have the whole in my tent within three hours.' "As I walked away to obey this order, wondering what it could all be about, I heard him tell his chief house-carle to have all the men armed and ready for action a little after sunset, as quietly as possible. "Before the three hours were out, I returned to the tent with the two hundred pieces of cord prepared according to orders, and found old Guttorm sitting with a great sack before him, and a look of perplexity on his face that almost made me laugh. He was half-inclined to laugh too, for the sack moved about in a strange way, as if it were alive! "`Kettle,' said he, when I came forward, `I need thy help here. I have got some three hundred little birds in that sack, and I don't know how to keep them in order, for they are fluttering about and killing themselves right and left, so that I shall soon have none left alive for my purpose. My thought is to tie one of these cords to a leg of each bird, set the bit of stick on fire and let it go, so that when it flies to its nest in the thatch it will set the houses in the castle on fire. Now, what is thy advice?' "`Call as many of the men into the tent as it will hold, and let each catch a bird, and keep it till the cords are made fast; says I.' "This was done at once, but we had more trouble than we expected, for when the mouth of the sack was opened, out flew a dozen of the birds before we could close it! The curtain of the tent was down, however, so, after a good deal of hunting, we caught them again. When the cords were tied to these the men were sent out of the tent, each with a little bird in his hand, and with orders to go to his particular post and remain there till further orders. Then another batch of men came in, and they were supplied with birds and cords like the others; but ye have no notion what trouble we had. I have seen a hundred viking prisoners caught and held fast with half the difficulty and less noise! Moreover, while some of the men squeezed the birds to death in their fear lest they should escape, others let theirs go in their anxiety not to hurt them, and the little things flew back to their nests with the cords and bits of chip trailing after them. At last, however, all was ready. The men were kept in hiding till after dark; then the little chips were set on fire all at the same time, and the birds were let go. It was like a shower of stars descending on the castle, for each bird made straight for its own nest; but just as we were expecting to behold the success of our plan, up jumped a line of men on the castle walls, and by shouting and swinging their arms scared the birds away. We guessed at once that the little birds which had escaped too soon with the strings tied to their legs had been noticed, and the trick suspected, for the men in the castle were well prepared. A few of the birds flew over their heads, and managed to reach the roofs, which caught fire at once; but wherever this happened, a dozen men ran at the place and beat the fire out. The thing was wisely contrived, but it was cleverly met and repelled, so we had only our trouble and the disappointment for our pains. "After this," continued Kettle, "old Guttorm became like a wolf. He snarled at everyone who came near him for some time, but his passion never lasted long. He soon fell upon another plan. "There was a small river which ran at the foot of the mound on which the castle stood, and there were mudbanks on the side next to it, One night we were all ordered to go to the mudbanks as quiet as mice, with shovels and picks in our hands, and dig a tunnel under the castle. We did so, and the first night advanced a long way, but we had to stop a good while before day to let the dirt wash away and the water get clear again, so that they might not suspect what we were about. The next night we got under the castle wall, and on the fifth night had got well under the great hall, for we could hear the men singing and shouting as they sat at meat above us. We had then to work very carefully for fear of making a noise, and when we thought it ready for the assault we took our swords and shields with us, and Guttorm led the way. His chief house-carle was appointed to drive through the floor, while Guttorm and I stood ready to egg him on and back him up. "We heard the men above singing and feasting as usual, when suddenly there was a great silence, for one of the big stones over our heads was loosened, and they had evidently felt or seen it. Now was the time come; so, while the house-carle shovelled off the earth, some of us got our fingers in about the edge of the stone, and pulled with all our force. Suddenly down it came and a man along with it. We knocked him on the head at once, and gave a loud huzza as the house-carle sprang up through the hole, caught a shower of blows on his shield, and began to lay about him fiercely. Guttorm was very mad at the carle for going up before him, but the carle was light and the old man was heavy, so he could not help it. I was about to follow, when a man cut at my head with a great axe as I looked up through the hole. I caught the blow on my shield, and thrust my sword up into his leg, which made him give back; but just at that moment the earth gave way under our feet, and a great mass of stones and rubbish fell down on us, driving us all back into the passage through which we had come, except the house-carle, who had been caught by the enemy and dragged up into the hall. As soon as we could get on our feet we tried to make for the hole again, but it was so filled with earth and stones that we could not get forward a step. Knowing, therefore, that it was useless to stay longer there, we ran back to the entrance of the tunnel, but here we found a body of men who had been sent out of the castle to cut off our retreat. We made short work of these. Disappointment and anger had made every man of us equal to two, so we hewed our way right through them, and got back to the camp with the loss of only two men besides the house-carle. "Next morning when it was daylight, the enemy brought the poor prisoner to the top of the castle wall, where they lopped off his head, and, having cut his body into four pieces, they cast them down to us with shouts of contempt. "After this Guttorm Stoutheart appeared to lose all his fire and spirit. He sent for his chief men, and said that he was going to die, and that it was his wish to be left to do so undisturbed. Then he went into his tent, and no one was allowed after that to go near him except his nephew. "A week later we were told that Guttorm was dying, and that he wanted to be buried inside the castle; for we had discovered that the people were what they called Christians, and that they had consecrated ground there. "When this was made known to the priests in the castle they were much pleased, and agreed to bury our chief in their ground, if we would bring his body to a spot near the front gateway, and there leave it and retire to a safe distance from the walls. There was some objection to this at first, hit it was finally agreed to--only a request was made that two of the next of kin to Guttorm might be allowed to accompany the body to the burial-place, as it would be considered a lasting disgrace to the family if it were buried by strange hands when friends were near. This request was granted on the understanding that the two relations were to go into the castle unarmed. "On the day of the funeral I was summoned to Guttorm's tent to help to put him into his coffin, which had been made for him after the pattern of the coffins used in that part of the country. When I entered I found the nephew standing by the side of the coffin, and the old Sea-king himself sitting on the foot of it. "`Thou art not quite dead yet?' says I, looking hard in his face. "`Not yet,' says he, `and I don't expect to be for some time.' "`Are we to put you into the coffin?' I asked. "`Yes,' says he, `and see that my good axe lies ready to my hand. Put thy sword on my left side, nephew, that thou mayst catch it readily. They bury me in consecrated ground to-day, Kettle; and thou, being one of my nearest of kin, must attend me to the grave! Thou must go unarmed too, but that matters little, for thy sword can be placed on the top of my coffin, along with thy shield, to do duty as the weapons of the dead. When to use them I leave to thy well-known discretion. Dost understand?' "`Your speech is not difficult for the understanding to take in,' says I. "`Ha! especially the understanding of an Irishman,' says he, with a smile. `Well, help me to get into this box, and see that thou dost not run it carelessly against gate-posts; for it is not made to be roughly handled!' "With that old Guttorm lay back in the coffin, and we packed in the nephew's sword and shield with him, and his own axe and shield at his right side. Then we fastened down the lid, and two men were called to assist us in carrying it to the appointed place. "As we walked slowly forward I saw that our men were drawn up in a line at some distance from the castle wall, with their heads hanging down, as if they were in deep grief,--and so they were, for only a _few_ were aware of what was going to be done; yet all were armed, and ready for instant action. The appointed spot being reached, we put the coffin on the ground, and ordered the two men, who were armed, to retire. "`But don't go far away, lads,' says I; `for we have work for ye to do.' "They went back only fifty ells or so, and then turned to look on. "At the same time the gate of the castle opened, and twelve priests came out dressed in long black robes, and carrying a cross before them. One of them, who understood the Norse language, said, as they came forward-- "`What meaneth the sword and shield?' "I told him that it was our custom to bury a warrior's arms along with him. He seemed inclined to object to this at first, but thinking better of it, he ordered four of his men to take up the coffin, which they did, shoulder high, and marched back to the castle, closely followed by the two chief mourners. "No sooner had we entered the gateway, which was crowded with warriors, than I stumbled against the coffin, and drove it heavily against one of the posts, and, pretending to stretch out my hands to support it, I seized my sword and shield. At the same moment the lid of the coffin flew into the air, the sides burst out, and old Guttorm dropped to the ground, embracing two of the priests so fervently in his descent that they fell on the top of him. I had only time to observe that the nephew caught up his sword and shield as they fell among the wreck, when a shower of blows from all directions called for the most rapid action of eye and limb. Before Guttorm could regain his feet and utter his war-cry, I had lopped off two heads, and the nephew's sword was whirling round him like lightning flashes, but of course I could not see what he did. The defenders fought bravely, and in the first rush we were almost borne back; but in another moment the two men who had helped us to carry the coffin were alongside of us; and now, having a front of five stout men, we began to feel confident of success. This was turned into certainty when we heard, a minute later, a great rushing sound behind us, and knew that our men were coming on. Old Guttorm swung his battle-axe as if it had been a toy, and, uttering a tremendous roar, cut his way right into the middle of the castle. We all closed in behind him; the foe wavered--they gave way--at last they turned and fled; for remembering, no doubt, how they had treated the poor house-carle, they knew they had no right to expect mercy. In a quarter of an hour the place was cleared, and the castle was ours." "And what didst thou do with it?" asked Alric, in much excitement. "Do with it? Of course we feasted in it till we were tired; then we put as much of its valuables into our ships as they could carry, after which we set the place on fire and returned to Norway." "'Twas well done, and a lucky venture," observed Solve Klofe. Alric appeared to meditate for a few minutes, and then said with a smile-- "If Christian the hermit were here he would say it was ill done, and an unlucky venture for the men of the castle." "The hermit is a fool," said Solve. "That he is not," cried the boy, reddening. "A braver and better man never drew bow. But he has queer thoughts in his head." "That may be so. It matters naught to me," retorted Solve, rising and going forward to the high prow of the ship, whence he looked out upon the island-studded sea.--"Come, lads, change hands again, and pull with a will. Methinks a breeze will fill our sails after we pass yonder point, and if so, we shall sleep to-night in Horlingdal." CHAPTER TWENTY. IN WHICH THE SKY AGAIN BECOMES OVERCAST--THE WAR-TOKEN IS SENT OUT-- ALRIC GETS A SURPRISE, AND A BERSERK CATCHES A TARTAR. Erling the Bold was very fond of salmon-fishing, and it was his wont, when the weather suited, and nothing of greater importance claimed his attention, to sally forth with a three-pronged spear to fish in the Horlingdal river, which swarmed with salmon in the summer season of the year. One evening he left Haldorstede with his fishing-spear on his shoulder, and went up to the river, accompanied by one of the house-carles. They both wore shirts of mail, and carried shield and sword, for these were not times in which men could venture to go about unarmed. On reaching a place where the stream ran shallow among rocks, our hero waded in, and at the first dart of his spear struck a fish of about fifteen pounds weight, which he cast, like a bar of burnished silver, on the grassy bank. "That will be our supper to-night," observed the carle, as he disengaged the spear. Erling made no reply, but in a few minutes he pulled out another fish, and said, as he threw it down-- "That will do for a friend, should one chance to turn in to us to-night." After that he tried again, but struck no more, although he changed his ground frequently; so he cast his eyes upwards as if to judge of the time of evening, and appeared to doubt whether or not he should persevere any longer. "Try the foss," suggested the house-carle; "you seldom fail to get one there." "Well, I will try it. Do thou leave the fish under that bush, and follow me. It needs three big fish to make a good feast for my father's household." "Besides," said the carle, "there is luck in an odd number, as Kettle Flatnose is fond of telling us." They were about to ascend the bank to the track which led to the waterfall, about half a mile farther up the river, when their attention was arrested by a shout; looking down the stream in the direction whence it came, they saw a figure approaching them at full speed. "That must be my brother Alric," said Erling, on hearing the shout repeated. "It looks like him," said the carle. All doubt on the point was quickly set at rest by the lad, who ran at a pace which soon brought him near. Waving his cap above his head he shouted-- "News! news! good news!" "Out with thy news, then," said Erling, as Alric stood before him, panting violently, "though I dare say the best news thou hast to give is that thou hast come back to us safe and well." "Hah! let me get wind! nay, I have better news than that," exclaimed Alric; "Harald is coming--King Harald Haarfager--with a monstrous fleet of longships, cutters, dragons, and little boats, and a mighty host of men, to lay waste Horlingdal with fire and sword, and burn us all alive, perhaps eat us too, who knows!" "Truly if this be good news," said Erling, with a laugh, "I hope I may never hear bad news. But where got ye such news, Alric?" "From the widow Gunhild, to be sure, who is true to us as steel, and comes all the way from Drontheim, out of love to thee, Erling, to tell it. But, I say, _don't_ you think this good news? I always thought you would give your best battle-axe to have a chance of fighting Harald!" "Aye, truly, for a chance of fighting Harald, but not for that chance coupled with the other chance of seeing Horlingdal laid waste with fire and sword, to say nothing of being eaten alive, which, I suppose, is thine own addition to the news, boy. But come, if this be so, we do not well to waste time chattering here. Fetch the two fish, carle. To-night we must be content with what luck lies in an even number in spite of the opinion of Kettle Flatnose.--Come, Alric, thou canst tell me more of this as we hasten home." "But I have more good news than that to tell," said the lad, as they hurried towards Haldorstede. "Solve Klofe with his men have come back with us--indeed, I may rather say that we have come back with Solve, for our own ship has been wrecked and lost, but Kettle and I and Thorer and all the men were saved by Solve, with nearly everything belonging to us, and all the booty. It is not more than an hour since we sailed into the fiord, loaded to the shield-circle with, oh! _such_ splendid things-- gold, silver, cups, tankards, gems, shawls--and--and I know not what all, besides captives. It was just after we landed that a small boat came round the ness from the north with the widow Gunhild in it, and she jumped ashore, and told what she had seen and heard at Drontheim, and that we may expect Ada's father, King Hakon, in his longship, to our aid; perhaps he may be coming into the fiord even now while we are talking. And--and, she said also that Rolf Ganger had left the King in a huff, and perhaps we might look for help from him too. So methinks I bring good news, don't I?" "Good, aye, and stirring news, my boy," cried Erling striding onward at such a pace that the carle with the fish was left behind, and Alric was compelled to adopt an undignified trot in order to keep up with his huge brother. "From this I see," continued Erling in a tone of deep seriousness, "that the long-looked-for time is at last approaching. This battle that must surely come will decide the fate of freemen. King Harald Haarfager must now be crushed, or Norway shall be enslaved. Alric, my boy, thou hast been styled Lightfoot. If ever thou didst strive to merit that title, strive this night as ye have never striven before, for there is urgent need that every friendly blade in the land should assemble in the dale without delay. I will send thee forth with the split arrow as soon as I have seen and spoken with my father.--Ha! I see him coming. Go into the house, lad, and sup well and quickly, for no sleep shall visit thine eyelids this night." Alric's breast swelled with gratification at being spoken to thus earnestly and made of such importance by his brother, whom he admired and loved with an intensity of feeling that no words can convey. Looking up in his face with sparkling eyes, he gave him a little nod. Erling replied with another little nod and a sedate smile, and the boy, turning away, dashed into the house, at which they had now arrived. "Hast heard the news, Erling?" asked Haldor, as his son drew near. "Aye, Alric has told it me." "What thinkest thou?" "That the game is about to be played out." Haldor looked full in Erling's face, and his own noble countenance glowed with an expression of majesty which cannot be described, and which arose from the deep conviction that one of the most momentous eras in his life had arrived--a period in which his own fate and that of all he held most dear would in all probability be sealed. Death or victory, he felt assured, were now the alternatives; and when he reflected on the great power of the King, and the stern necessity there was for the exertion of not only the utmost bravery, but the most consummate skill, his whole being glowed with suppressed emotion, while his bearing betokened the presence, and bore the dignified stamp, of a settled purpose to do his best, and meet his fate, for weal or woe, manfully. "Come," said he, putting his arm within that of his stout son, "let us turn into the wood awhile. I would converse with thee on this matter." "Alric is ready to start with the token," said Erling. "I know it, my son. Let him sup first; the women will care well for him, for they will guess the work that lies before him. The people of Ulfstede are with us to-night, and Glumm is here; but Glumm is not of much use as a counsellor just now, poor fellow. It were kind to let him be, until it is time to rouse him up to fight!" A quiet smile played on Haldor's lips as he thus alluded to the impossibility of getting Glumm to think of anything but love or fighting at that time. While the father and son strolled in the wood conversing earnestly, a noisy animated scene was presented in the great hall of Haldorstede; for in it were assembled, besides the ordinary household, the family from Ulfstede, a sprinkling of the neighbours, Gunhild and her men, Guttorm Stoutheart, and Solve Klofe, with Kettle Flatnose, Thorer the Thick, and the chief men who had arrived from the recent viking cruise; all of whom were talking together in the utmost excitement, while the fair Herfrida and her daughters and maids prepared a sumptuous meal. In those days, and at such an establishment as that of Haldor the Fierce, it was not possible for friends to appear inopportunely. A dozen might have "dropped in" to breakfast, dinner, or supper, without costing Dame Herfrida an anxious thought as to whether the cold joint of yesterday "would do", or something more must be procured, for she knew that the larder was always well stocked. When, therefore, a miniature army of hungry warriors made a sudden descent upon her, she was quite prepared for them--received them with the matronly dignity and captivating smile for which she was celebrated, and at once gave directions to her commissariat department to produce and prepare meat and drink suitable to the occasion. The evening which had thus grown so unexpectedly big with present facts and future portents had begun in a very small way--in a way somewhat equivalent to the modern "small tea party". Ulf of Romsdal, feeling a disposition "to make a night of it", had propounded to Dame Astrid the idea of "going up to Haldorstede for the evening." His wife, being amiably disposed, agreed. Hilda and Ada were equally willing, and Glumm, who by a mere chance happened to be there at the time, could not choose but accompany them! The family at Haldorstede were delighted to see their friends. Dame Herfrida carried off Dame Astrid to her apartment to divest her of her hat and mantle. Ingeborg bore off Ada, and the younger girls of the household made away with Hilda, leaving Ulf to talk the politics of the day with Haldor, while Glumm pretended to listen to them, but listened, in reality, for Ada's returning footsteps. In a short time the fair ones re-entered the hall, and there they had supper, or, more properly, an interlude supper--a sort of supperlet, so to speak, composed of cold salmon, scones, milk, and ale, which was intended, no doubt, to give them an appetite for the true supper that should follow ere long. Over this supperlet they were all very talkative and merry, with the exception, poor fellow, of Glumm, who sat sometimes glancing at, and always thinking of, Ada, and pendulating, as usual, between the condition of being miserably happy or happily miserable. No mortal, save Glumm himself, could have told or conceived what a life Ada led him. She took him up by the neck, figuratively speaking, and shook him again and again as a terrier shakes a rat, and dropped him! But here the simile ceases, for whereas the rat usually crawls away, if it can, and evidently does not want more, Glumm always wanted more, and never crawled away. On the contrary, he crawled humbly back to the feet of his tormentor, and by looks, if not words, craved to be shaken again! It was while Glumm was drinking this cup of mingled bliss and torment, and the others were enjoying their supperlet, that Solve Klofe and his men, and Kettle Flatnose, Thorer the Thick, and the house-carles, burst clamorously into the hall, with old Guttorm Stoutheart, who had met them on the beach. Scarcely had they got over the excitement of this first invasion when the widow Gunhild and her niece arrived to set the household ablaze with her alarming news. The moment that Haldor heard it he dispatched Alric in search of Erling, who, as we have seen, immediately returned home. Shortly afterwards he and Haldor entered the hall. "Ho! my men," cried the latter, "to arms, to arms! Busk ye for the fight, and briskly too, for when Harald Haarfager lifts his hand he is not slow to strike. Where is Alric?" "Here I am, father." "Hast fed well, boy?" "Aye, famously," answered Alric, wiping his mouth and tightening his belt. "Take the war-token, my son, and see that thou speed it well. Let it not fail for want of a messenger. If need be, go all the round thyself, and rest not as long as wind and limb hold out. Thy fighting days have begun early," he added in a softer tone, as he passed his large hand gently over the fair head of the boy, "perchance they will end early. But, whatever betide, Alric, quit thee like a man--as thou art truly in heart if not in limb." Such words from one who was not at any time lavish of praise might, a short time before, have caused the boy to hold up his head proudly, but the last year of his life had been fraught with many lessons. He listened with a heaving breast and beating heart indeed, but with his head bent modestly down, while on his flushed countenance there was a bright expression, and on his lips a glad smile which spoke volumes. His father felt assured, as he looked at him, that he would never bring discredit on his name. "Ye know the course," said Haldor; "away!" In another minute Alric was running at full speed up the glen with the war-token in his hand. His path was rugged, his race was wild, and its results were striking. He merely shouted as he passed the windows of the cottages low down in the dale, knowing that the men there would be roused by others near at hand; but farther on, where the cottages were more scattered, he opened the door of each and showed the token, uttering a word or two of explanation, during the brief moment he stayed to swallow a mouthful of water or to tighten his belt. At first his course lay along the banks of the river, every rock and shrub of which he knew. Farther on he left the stream on the right, and struck into the mountains just as the sun went down. High up on the fells a little cottage stood perched on a cliff. It was one of the "saeters" or mountain dairies where the cattle were pastured in summer long ago--just as they are at the present day. Alric ran up the steep face of the hill, doubled swiftly round the corner of the enclosure, burst open the door, and, springing in, held up the token, while he wiped the streaming perspiration from his face. A man and his wife, with three stout sons and a comely daughter, were seated on a low bench eating their supper of thickened milk. "The war-token!" exclaimed the men, springing up, and, without a moment's delay, taking down and girding on the armour which hung round the walls. "King Harald is on his way to the dale," said Alric; "we assemble at Ulfstede." "Shall I bear on the token?" asked the youngest of the men. "Aye; but go thou with it up the Wolf's Den Valley. I myself will bear it round by the Eagle Crag and the coast." "That is a long way," said the man, taking his shield down from a peg in the wall. Alric replied not, for he had already darted away, and was again speeding along the mountain side. Night had begun to close in, for the season had not yet advanced to the period of endless daylight. Far away in an offshoot vale, a bright ruddy light gleamed through the surrounding darkness. Alric's eye was fixed on it. His untiring foot sped towards it. The roar of a mighty cataract grew louder on his ear every moment. He had to slacken his pace a little, and pick his steps as he went on, for the path was rugged and dangerous. "I wonder if Old Hans of the Foss is at home?" was the thought that passed through his mind as he approached the door. Old Hans himself answered the thought by opening the door at that moment. He was a short, thick-set, and very powerful man, of apparently sixty years of age, but his eye was as bright and his step as light as that of many a man of twenty. "The war-token," he said, almost gaily, stepping back into the cottage as Alric leaped in. "What is doing, son of Haldor?" "King Harald will be upon us sooner than we wish. Ulfstede is the meeting-place. Can thy son speed on the token in the next valley?" The old warrior shook his head sadly, and pointed to a low bed, where a young man lay with the wasted features and bright eyes that told of a deadly disease in its advanced stage. An exclamation of regret and sympathy escaped from Alric. "I cannot go," he said; "my course lies to the left, by the Stor foss. Hast no one to send?" "I will go, father," said a smart girl of fifteen, who had been seated behind her mother, near the couch of the sick man. "Thou, bairn?" "Yes, why not? It is only a league to Hawksdal, where young Eric will gladly relieve me." "True," said the old warrior, with a smile, as he began to don his armour. "Go; I need not tell thee to make haste!" Alric waited to hear no more, but darted away as the little maid tripped off in another direction. Thus hour by hour the night passed by and Alric ran steadily on his course, rousing up all the fighting men in his passage through the district. As he advanced, messengers with war-tokens were multiplied, and, ere the morning's sun had glinted on the mountain peaks or lighted up the white fields of the Justedal glacier, the whole country was in arms, and men were crowding to the rendezvous. Daylight had just commenced to illumine the eastern sky, when Alric, having completed his round, found himself once more on the cliffs above the sea. But he was still six or eight miles from Ulfstede, and the path to it along the top of the cliffs was an extremely rugged one. Earnestly then did the poor boy wish that he had remembered to put a piece of bread in his wallet before leaving home, but in his haste he had forgotten to do so, and now he found himself weary, foot-sore, and faint from exertion, excitement, and hunger, far from any human habitation. As there was no remedy for this, he made up his mind to take a short rest on the grass, and then set off for home as fast as possible. With this end in view he selected a soft spot, on a cliff overlooking the sea, and lay down with a sigh of satisfaction. Almost instantly he fell into a deep slumber, in which he lay, perfectly motionless, for some hours. How long that slumber would have lasted it is impossible to say, for it was prematurely and unpleasantly interrupted. In his cat-like creepings about the coast, Hauskuld the berserk, having obtained all the information that he thought would be of use to his royal master, landed for the last time to reconnoitre the position of Ulfstede, and see as much as he could of the doings of the people before turning his prow again to the north. The spot where he ran his boat ashore was at the foot of a steep cliff, up which he and a comrade ascended with some difficulty. At the top, to his surprise, he found a lad lying on the grass sound asleep. After contemplating him for a few minutes, and whispering a few words to his comrade, who indulged in a broad grin, Hauskuld drew his sword and pricked Alric on the shoulder with it. An electric shock could not have been more effective. The poor boy sprang up with a loud cry, and for a few seconds gazed at the berserks in bewilderment. Then it flashed upon his awakening faculties that he was standing before enemies, so he suddenly turned round and fled, but Hauskuld sprang after him, and, before he had got three yards away, had caught him by the nape of the neck with a grip that made him gasp. "Ho, ho! my young fox, so ye thought to leave the hounds in the lurch? Come, cease thy kicking, else will I give thee an inch of steel to quiet thee. Tell me thy name, and what thou art about here, and I will consider whether to make use of thee or hurl thee over the cliffs." By this time Alric had fully recovered his senses and his self-possession. He stood boldly up before the berserk and replied-- "My name is Alric--son of Haldor the Fierce, out of whose way I advise thee to keep carefully, if thou art not tired of life. I have just been round with the war-token rousing the country." "A most proper occupation for an eaglet such as thou," said Hauskuld; "that is to say, if the cause be a good one." "The cause is one of the best," said Alric. "Prithee, what may it be?" "Self-defence against a tyrant." Hauskuld glanced at his comrade, and smiled sarcastically as he asked-- "And who may this tyrant be?" "Harald Haarfager, tyrant King of Norway," replied the lad stoutly. "I thought so," said Hauskuld, with a grim twist of his features. "Well, young eaglet, thou art worthy to be made mincemeat of to feed the crows, but it may be that the tyrant would like to dispose of thee himself. Say now, whether will ye walk down that cliff quietly in front of me, or be dragged down?" "I would rather walk, if I _must_ go." "Well, thou _must_ go, therefore--walk, and see thou do it as briskly as may be, else will I apply the spur, which thou hast felt once already this morning. Lead the way, comrade; I will bring up the rear to prevent the colt from bolting." As he knew that resistance would be useless, the boy promptly and silently descended the cliff with his captors, and entered the boat, which was immediately pushed off and rowed along-shore. "Now listen to me, Alric, son of Haldor," said Hauskuld, seating himself beside his captive: "King Harald is not the tyrant you take him for; he is a good king, and anxious to do the best he can for Norway. Some mistaken men, like your father, compel him to take strong measures when he would fain take mild. If you will take me to a spot where I may safely view the valley of Horlingdal, and tell me all you know about their preparations for resistance, I will take you back to Drontheim, and speak well of you to the King, who will not only reward you with his favour, but make good terms, I doubt not, with your father." The wily berserk had changed his tone to that of one who addresses a superior in rank while he thus tempted the boy; but he little guessed the spirit of his captive. "What!" he exclaimed scornfully; "wouldst thou have me turn traitor to my own father?" "Nay, I would have you turn wise for the sake of your father and yourself. Think well of what I say, and all I ask of you is to guide me to a good point of observation. There is a cave, they say, near Ulfstede, with its mouth to the sea, and a secret entrance from the land. No doubt I could find it myself with a little trouble, but it would save time if you were to point it out." "Never!" exclaimed Alric sternly. "Truly thou art a chip of the old tree," said Hauskuld, taking Alric's ear between his finger and thumb; "but there are means to take which have been known to bend stouter hearts than thine. Say, wilt thou show me the cave?" He pinched the ear with gradually increasing force as he spoke, but Alric neither spoke nor winced, although the blood which rushed to his face showed that he felt the pain keenly. "Well, well," said the berserk, relaxing his grip, "this is a torture only fit for very small boys after all. Hand me the pincers, Arne." One of the men drew in his oar, and from a locker pulled out a pair of large pincers, which he handed to his chief, who at once applied them to the fleshy part at the back of Alric's arm, between the elbow and the shoulder. "When thou art willing to do as I bid thee, I will cease to pinch," said Hauskuld. Poor Alric had turned pale at the sight of the pincers, for he knew well the use they would be put to; but he set his teeth tightly together, and determined to endure it. As the pain increased the blood rushed again to his face, but an extra squeeze of the instrument of torture sent it rushing back with a deadly chill to his heart. In spite of himself, a sharp cry burst from his lips. Turning suddenly round, he clenched his right hand, and hit his tormentor on the mouth with such force that his head was knocked violently against the steering oar, and two or three of his front teeth were driven out. "Thou dog's whelp!" shouted Hauskuld, as soon as he could speak. "I'll--" He could say no more; but, grasping the boy by the hair of the head, he seized his sword, and would certainly have slain him on the spot, had not the man named Arne interposed. "The King will not thank thee for his slaying," said he, laying his hand on Hauskuld's arm. The latter made no reply except to utter a curse, then, dropping his sword, he struck Alric a blow on the forehead with his fist, which knocked him insensible into the bottom of the boat. "Yonder is the mouth of the cave," exclaimed one of the men. "It may be the one we look for," muttered Hauskuld. "Pull into it." So saying, he steered the boat into the cavern, and its keel soon grated on the gravelly beach inside. The sound aroused Alric, who at first could not see, owing to the gloom of the place, and the effects of the blow; but he was brought suddenly to a state of mental activity and anxiety when he recognised the sides of the well-known cave. Rising quickly but cautiously, he listened, and knew by the sounds that the boatmen, of whom there were eight, were searching for an outlet towards the land. He therefore slipped over the side of the boat, and hastened towards the darkest side of the cave, but Hauskuld caught sight of him. "Ha! is the little dog trying to get away?" he shouted, running after him. The lad formed his plan instantly. "Come on, Hauskuld," he shouted, with a wild laugh; "I will show thee the outlet, and get out before thee too." He then ran to the inner part of the cave that was farthest from the secret opening, shouting as he ran, and making as much noise as possible. The berserk and his men followed. The instant he reached the extremity of the place Alric became as silent as a mouse, kicked off his shoes, and ran nimbly round by the intricate turnings of the inner wall, until he came to the foot of the dark natural staircase, which has been referred to at the beginning of our tale. Up this he bounded, and reached the open air above, while his pursuers were still knocking their shins and heads on the rocks at the wrong end of the cave below. Without a moment's pause the exulting boy dashed away towards Ulfstede. He had not run two hundred yards, however, when he observed three men standing on the top of the little mound to which the people of Ulfstede were wont to mount when they wished to obtain an uninterrupted view of the valley and the fiord. They hailed him at that moment, so he turned aside, and found, on drawing near, that they were his brother Erling, Glumm the Gruff, and Kettle Flat-nose. "Why, Alric!" exclaimed Erling in surprise, on seeing the boy's swelled and bloody face, "what ails thee?" "Quick, come with me, all of ye! There is work for your swords at hand. Lend me thy sword, Erling. It is the short one, and the axe will be enough for thee." The excited lad did not wait for permission, but snatched the sword from his brother's side, and without further explanation, ran back towards the cliffs, followed closely by the astonished men. He made straight for the hole that led to the cave, and was about to leap into it when Hauskuld stepped out and almost received him in his arms. Before the berserk could plant his feet firmly on the turf, Alric heaved up his brother's sword and brought it down on Hauskuld's head with right good will. His arm, however, had not yet received power to cleave through a steel helmet, but the blow was sufficient to give it such a dint that its wearer tumbled back into the hole, and went rattling down the steep descent heels over head into the cave. The boy leaped down after him, but Hauskuld, although taken by surprise and partially stunned, had vigour enough left to jump up and run down to the boat. His men, on hearing the noise of his fall, had also rushed to the boat, and pushed off. The berserk sprang into the water, and swam after them, just as his pursuers reached the cave. Seeing this, his men being safe beyond pursuit, lay on their oars and waited for him. But Hauskuld's career had been run out. Either the fall had stunned him, or he was seized with a fit, for he suddenly raised himself in the water, and, uttering a cry that echoed fearfully in the roof of the cavern, he sank to the bottom. Still his men waited a minute or two, but seeing that he did not rise again, they pulled away. "It is unlucky that they should have escaped thus," said Alric, "for they go to tell King Harald what they have seen." "Friends," said Erling, "I have a plan in my head to cheat the King. I shall send Thorer round with my Swan to this cave, and here let it lie, well armed and provisioned, during the battle that we shall have to fight with Harald ere long. If ill luck should be ours, those of us who survive will thus have a chance of escaping with the women." "What need is there of that?" said Glumm; "we are sure to give him the tooth-ache!" "We are sure of nothing in this world," replied Erling, "save that the sun will rise and set and the seasons will come and go. I shall do as I have said, chiefly for the sake of the women, whom I should not like to see fall into the hands of King Harald; and I counsel thee to do the same with thy small ship the Crane. It can well be spared, for we are like to have a goodly force of men and ships, if I mistake not the spirit that is abroad." "Well, I will do it," said Glumm. "And Alric will not object, I dare say, to stand sentinel over the ships in the cave with two or three men till they are wanted," said Erling. "That will not I," cried Alric, who was delighted to be employed in any service rather than be left at home, for his father, deeming him still too young, had strictly forbidden him to embark in the fleet. "Well then, the sooner this is set about the better," said Erling, "for there is no counting on the movements of the King." "Humph!" ejaculated Glumm. "Ill luck to the tyrant!" said Kettle Flatnose, as they turned and left the cave. CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. GLUMM GAINS A GREAT PRIVATE VICTORY--THE DALESMEN ASSEMBLE TO FIGHT FOR FREEDOM--THE FOE APPEARS, AND THE SIGNAL OF BATTLE IS SOUNDED. Again we return to the mound near Ulfstede, the top of which was now bathed in the rays of the morning sun--for the day had only begun, the events narrated at the end of the last chapter having occurred within a period of less than three hours. Here stood the fair Hilda and the volatile Ada, the former leaning on the arm of the latter, and both gazing intently and in silence on the heart-stirring scene before them. Once again Horlingdal with its fiord was the scene of an assembly of armed men, but this time the concourse was grander, because much greater, than on a previous occasion. Men had learned by recent events that momentous changes were taking place in the land. The news of the King's acts had been carried far and wide. Everyone felt that a decisive blow was about to be struck somewhere, and although many hundreds had little or no opinion of their own as to what was best for the interests of the kingdom, they knew that a side must be taken, and were quite willing to take that which appeared to be the right, or which seemed most likely to win, while a large proportion of them were intelligently and resolutely opposed to the King's designs. Thus, when the war-token was sent round, it was answered promptly. Those who dwelt nearest to the place of rendezvous were soon assembled in great numbers, and, from the elevated point on which the girls stood, their glittering masses could be seen on the shore, while they launched their longships and loaded them with stones--the ammunition of those days--or passed briskly to and fro with arms and provisions; while all up the valley, as far as the eye could see, even to the faint blue distance, in the haze of which the glaciers and clouds and mountain tops seemed to commingle, troops of armed men could be seen pouring down from gorge and glen, through wood and furze and fen. On the fiord, too, the same activity and concentration prevailed, though not quite to the same extent. Constantly there swept round the promontories to the north and south, boat after boat, and ship after ship, until the bay close below Ulfstede was crowded with war-craft of every size--their gay sails, and in some cases gilded masts and figureheads, glancing in the sunshine, and their shield-circled gunwales reflected clearly in the sea. "What a grand sight!" exclaimed Ada with enthusiasm, as she listened to the deep-toned hum of the busy multitude below. "Would God I had never seen it!" said her companion. "Out upon thee, Hilda! I scarce deem thee fit to be a free Norse maiden. Such a scene would stir the heart of stone." "It _does_ stir my heart strangely, sister," replied Hilda, "I scarcely can explain how. I feel exultation when I see the might of our district, and the bold bearing of our brave and brisk men; but my heart sinks again when I think of what is to come--the blood of men flowing like water, death sweeping them down like grain before the sickle; and for what? Ada, these go not forth to defend us from our enemies, they go to war with brothers and kindred--with Norsemen." Ada beat her foot impatiently on the sod, and frowned a little as she said-- "I know it well enough, but it is a grand sight for all that, and it does no good to peep into the future as thou art doing continually." "I do not peep," replied Hilda; "the future stares me full in the face." "Well, let it stare, sister mine," said Ada, with a laugh, as she cleared her brow, "and stare past _its_ face at what lies before thee at present, which is beautiful enough, thou must allow." At that moment there seemed to be increasing bustle and energy on the part of the warriors on the shore, and the murmur of their voices grew louder. "What can that mean, I wonder?" said Ada. "Fresh news arrived, perhaps," replied her friend. "The Christians' God grant that this war may be averted!" "Amen, if it be His will," said a deep voice behind the girls, who turned and found the hermit standing at their side. "But, Hilda," he continued, "God does not always answer our prayers in the way we expect--sometimes because we pray for the wrong thing, and sometimes because we pray that the right thing may come to us in the wrong way. I like best to end my petitions with the words of my dear Saviour Jesus Christ--`Thy will be done.' Just now it would seem as if war were ordained to go on, for a scout has just come in to say that King Harald with his fleet is on the other side of yonder point, and I am sent to fetch thee down to a place of safety without delay." "Who sent thee?" demanded Ada. "Thy foster-father." "Methinks we are safe enough here," she said, with a gesture of impatience. "Aye, if we win the day, but not if we lose it," said the old man. "Come," said Hilda, "we must obey our father." "I have no intention of disobeying him," retorted the other, tossing her head. Just then Alric ran up with a look of anxiety on his swelled and blood-stained face. "Come, girls, ye are in the way here. Haste--ah! here comes Erling--and Glumm too." The two young men ran up the hill as he spoke. "Come with us quickly," cried Erling; "we do not wish the King's people to see anyone on this mound. Let me lead thee down, Hilda." He took her by the hand and led her away. Glumm went forward to Ada, whose old spirit was evidently still alive, for she glanced at the hermit, and appeared as if inclined to put herself under his protection, but there was something in Glumm's expression that arrested her. His gruffness had forsaken him, and he came forward with an unembarrassed and dignified bearing. "Ada," he said, in a gentle but deliberate voice, while he gazed into her face so earnestly that she was fain to drop her eyes, "thou must decide my fate _now_. To-day it is likely I shall fight my last battle in my fatherland. Death will be abroad on the fiord, more than willing to be courted by all who choose to woo him. Say, dear maid, am I to be thy protector or not?" Ada hesitated, and clasped her hands tightly together, while the tell-tale blood rushed to her cheeks. Glumm, ever stupid on these matters, said no other word, but turned on his heel and strode quickly away. "Stay!" she said. She did not say this loudly, but Glumm heard it, turned round, and strode back again. Ada silently placed her hand in his--it trembled as she did so--and Glumm led her down the hill. The girls were escorted by their lovers only as far as Ulfstede. With all the other women of the place, and the old people, they were put under the care of the hermit, who conveyed them safely to Haldorstede, there to await the issue of the day. Meanwhile, Haldor, Erling, Glumm, Hakon of Drontheim, Ulf, Guttorm Stoutheart, and all the other Sea-kings, not only of Horlingdal, but of the surrounding valleys, with a host of smaller bonders, unfreemen, and thralls, went down to the shores of the bay and prepared for battle. It is needless to say that all were armed to the teeth--with coats of mail and shirts of wolf-skin; swords and battle-axes, bows and arrows, halberds and spears, "morning stars" and bills, scythes, javelins, iron-shod poles--and many other weapons. The principal ships of the fleet were of course those belonging to Haldor, Ulf, and the wealthier men of the district. Some of these were very large--having thirty benches of rowers, and being capable of carrying above a hundred and fifty men. All of them were more or less decorated, and a stately brilliant spectacle they presented, with their quaint towering figureheads, their high poops, shield-hung sides, and numerous oars. Many proud thoughts doubtless filled the hearts of these Sea-kings as they looked at their ships and men, and silently wended their way down to the strand. In the case of Haldor and Erling, however, if not of others, such thoughts were tempered with the feeling that momentous issues hung on the fate of the day. Well was it for all concerned that the men who led them that day were so full of forethought and energy, for scarcely had they completed their preparations and embarked their forces when the ships of Harald Fairhair swept round the northern promontory. If the fleet of the small kings of Horlingdal and the south was imposing, that of the King of Norway was still more so. Besides, being stronger in numbers, and many of the warships being larger--his own huge vessel, the Dragon, led the van, appearing like a gorgeous and gigantic sea-monster. The King was very proud of this longship. It had recently been built by him, and was one of the largest that had ever been seen in Norway. The exact dimensions of it are not now known, but we know that it had thirty-two banks for rowers, from which we may infer that it must have been of nearly the same size with the Long Serpent, a war vessel of thirty-four banks, which was built about the end of the tenth century, and some of the dimensions of which are given in the Saga of Olaf Tryggvesson. The length of her keel that rested on the grass, we are told, was about 111 feet, which is not far short of the length of the keel of one of our forty-two gun frigates. As these warships were long in proportion to their breadth, like our modern steamers, this speaks to a size approaching 400 tons burden. As we have said, the Dragon was a gorgeous vessel. It had a high poop and forecastle, a low waist, or middle part, and a splendidly gilt and painted stern, figurehead, and tail. The sides, which were, as usual, hung round with the red and white painted shields of the crew, were pierced for sixty-four oars, that is, thirty-two on each side, being two oars to each bank or bench, and as there were three men to each oar, this gave a total crew of 192 men; but in truth the vessel contained, including steersmen and supernumeraries, above 200 men. Under the feet of the rowers, in the waist, were chests of arms, piles of stones to be used as missiles, provisions, clothing, goods, and stores, all of which were protected by a deck of movable hatches. On this deck the crew slept at nights, sheltered by an awning or sail, when it was not convenient for them to land and sleep on the beach in their tents, with which all the vessels of the Norsemen were usually supplied. There was but one great mast, forty feet high, and one enormous square sail to this ship. The mast was tipped with gilding, and the sail was of alternate strips of red, white, and blue cloth. Each space between the banks served as the berth of six or eight men, and was divided into half berths--starboard and larboard--for the men who worked the corresponding oars. On the richly ornamented poop stood the King himself, surrounded by his bodyguard and chief men of the Court, including Jarl Rongvold and Thiodolph the scald. From the stem to the mid-hold was the forecastle, on which were stationed the King's berserkers, under Hake of Hadeland. All the men of Hake's band were splendid fellows; for King Harald, having a choice of men from the best of every district, took into his house troop only such as were remarkable for strength, courage, and dexterity in the use of their weapons. It must not be supposed that the rest of Harald's fleet was composed of small vessels. On the contrary, some of them were not far short of his own in point of size. Many of his jarls were wealthy men, and had joined him, some with ten or twenty, and others with thirty, or even forty, ships of various sizes. Many of them had from twenty to thirty banks for rowers, with crews of 100 or 150 men. There were also great numbers of cutters with ten or fifteen banks, and from thirty to fifty men in each, besides a swarm of lesser craft, about the size of our ordinary herring boats. There were many men of note in this fleet, such as King Sigurd of Royer and Simun's sons; Onund and Andreas; Nicolas Skialdvarsson; Eindrid, a son of Mornef, who was the most gallant and popular man in the Drontheim country, and many others; the whole composing a formidable force of seven or eight thousand warriors. With Haldor the Fierce, on the other hand, there was a goodly force of men and ships; for the whole south country had been aroused, and they came pouring into the fiord continuously. Nevertheless they did not number nearly so large a force as that under King Harald. Besides those who have been already named, there were Eric, king of Hordaland; Sulke, king of Rogaland, and his brother Jarl Sote; Kiotve the Rich, king of Agder, and his son Thor Haklang; also the brothers Roald Ryg, and Hadd the Hard, of Thelemark, besides many others. But their whole number did not exceed four thousand men; and the worst of it all was that among these there were a great many of the smaller men, and a few of the chiefs whose hearts were not very enthusiastic in the cause, and who had no very strong objection to take service under Harald Fairhair. These, however, held their peace, because the greater men among them, and the chief leaders, such as Haldor and Ulf, were very stern and decided in their determination to resist the King. Now, when the report was brought that Harald's fleet had doubled the distant cape beyond Hafurdsfiord, the people crowded to the top of the cliffs behind Ulfstede to watch it; and when it was clearly seen that it was so much larger than their own, there were a few who began to say that it would be wiser to refrain from resistance; but Haldor called a Thing together on the spot by sound of horn, and a great many short pithy speeches were made on both sides of the question. Those who were for war were by far the most able men, and so full of fire that they infused much of their own spirit into those who heard them. Erling in particular was very energetic in his denunciation of the illegality of Harald's proceedings; and even Glumm plucked up heart to leap to his feet and declare, with a face blazing with wrath, that he would rather be drowned in the fiord like a dog, or quit his native land for ever, than remain at home to be the slave of any man! Glumm was not, as the reader is aware, famed for eloquence; nevertheless the abruptness of his fiery spirit, the quick rush of his few sputtered words, and the clatter of his arms, as he struck his fist violently against his shield, drew from the multitude a loud burst of applause. He had in him a good deal of that element which we moderns call "go". Whatever he did was effectively done. The last who spoke was Solve Klofe. That redoubtable warrior ascended the hill just as Glumm had finished his remarks. He immediately stood forward, and raised his hand with an impassioned gesture. "Glumm is right," he cried. "It is now clear that we have but one course to take; and that is to rise all as one man against King Harald, for although outnumbered, we still have strength enough to fight for our ancient rights. Fate must decide the victory. If we cannot conquer, at all events we can die. As to becoming his servants, that is no condition for _us_! My father thought it better to fall in battle than to go willingly into King Harald's service, or refuse to abide the chance of weapons like the Numedal kings." "That is well spoken," cried Haldor, after the shout with which this was received had subsided. "The Thing is at an end, and now we shall make ready, for it can be but a short time until we meet. Let the people take their weapons, and every man be at his post, so that all may be ready when the war-horn sounds the signal to cast off from the land. [See note 1.] Then let us throw off at once, and together, so that none go on before the rest of the ships, and none lag behind when we row out of the fiord. When we meet, and the battle begins, let people be on the alert to bring all our ships in close order, and ready to bind them together. Let us spare ourselves in the beginning, and take care of our weapons, that we do not cast them into the sea, or shoot them away in the air to no purpose. But when the fight becomes hot, and the ships are bound together, _then_ let each man show what spirit is in him, and how well he can fight for country, law, and freedom!" A loud ringing cheer was the answer to this speech, and then the whole concourse hurried down the hill and embarked; the vessels were quickly arranged in order according to their size; the war-horn sounded; thousands of oars dipped at the same moment, the blue waters of the fiord were torn into milky foam, and slowly, steadily, and in good order the fleet of the Sea-kings left the strand, doubled the cape to the north of Horlingfiord, and advanced in battle array to meet the foe. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note 1. Signals by call of trumpet were well understood in those times. We read, in the ancient Sagas, of the trumpet-call to arm, to advance, to attack, to retreat, to land, and also to attend a Court Thing, a House Thing, a General Thing. These instruments were made of metal, and there were regular trumpeters. CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. DESCRIBES A GREAT SEA FIGHT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. Harald Fairhair stood on the poop of the great Dragon, and held the steering oar. When he saw the fleet of the Sea-kings approaching, he called Jarl Rongvold to him and said-- "Methinks, jarl, that I now see the end of this war with the small kings. It is easy to perceive that the utmost force they are able to raise is here. Now, I intend to beat them to-day, and break their strength for ever. But when the battle is over, many of them will seek to escape. I would prevent that as much as may be." The King paused, as if engaged in deep thought. "How do you propose to do it, sire?" "By means of a boom," said the King. "Go thou, summon hither the trustiest man in the fleet for such a purpose, let him detach as many men and ships as he deems needful, and go into yonder small fiord where there is a pine wood on the hillside. There let him make a long and strong boom of timber, while we are engaged in the fight. I will drive as many of the ships as I can into Horlingfiord, and when that is done let him come out and stretch the boom right across, so that none of them shall escape. And, harkee, see that the man thou choosest for this duty is an able man, and does it well, else shall his head be lopped off." After issuing this command the King resigned the helm, and ordered his banner to be set up, which was done immediately. At the same time his opponents shook out their banners, and both fleets were put in order of battle. As both were arrayed much in the same way, it will be sufficient to describe the arrangements made by Haldor the Fierce, who had been elected commander-in-chief of the small kings' fleet. When Haldor saw the King's banner displayed, he unfurled his own in the centre of the fleet, and arranged his force for attack right against it. Alongside of him on the right was Ulf of Romsdal with thirty ships, and on his left was old Guttorm Stoutheart with twenty-five ships. These composed the centre of the line. Kettle Flatnose commanded the men on the forecastle in Ulf's longship, and Thorer the Thick was over those in Haldor's vessel. The right wing was commanded by Solve Klofe, under whom were Eric of Hordaland with fifteen ships; Sulke of Rogaland and his brother Sote with thirty ships, as well as Kiotve of Agder, and some others with many ships--all of large size. The left wing was led by King Hakon of Drontheim, under whom were Roald Ryg and Hadd the Hard, and Thor Haklang, with a good many ships. Solve Klofe laid his ships against King Harald's left wing, which was under Eindrid, son of Mornef, and Hakon laid his against King Sigurd of Royer, who led Harald's right wing. All the chiefs on either side laid their ships according as they were bold or well equipped. When all was ready, they bound the ships together by the stems, and advanced towards each other at the sound of the war-trumpet. But as the fleets were so large, many of the smaller vessels remained loose, and, as it were, went about skirmishing independently. These were laid forward in the fight, according to the courage of their commanders, which was very unequal. Among these roving warriors were our heroes Erling and Glumm, each in one of his own small cutters, with about forty men. As soon as the war-blast sounded the men rode forward to the attack, and soon narrowed the small space that lay between the hostile fleets. Then Haldor and the other commanders went down to the sides of their ships, where the men stood so thick that their shields touched all round, and encouraged them to fight well for the freedom of old Norway--to which they replied with loud huzzas. Immediately after the air was darkened with a cloud of arrows, and the fight began. There were scalds in both fleets at that fight, these afterwards wrote a poem descriptive of it, part of which we now quote: "With falcon eye and courage bright, Haldor the Fierce prepared for fight; `Hand up the arms to one and all!' He cries. `My men, we'll win or fall! Sooner than fly, heaped on each other, Each man will fall across his brother!' Thus spake, and through his vessels' throng His mighty warship moved along. He ran her gaily to the front, To meet the coming battle's brunt-- Then gave the word the ships to bind And shake his banner to the wind. Our oars were stowed, our lances high Swung to and fro athwart the sky. Haldor the Fierce went through the ranks, Drawn up beside the rowers' banks, Where rows of shields seemed to enclose The ship's deck from the boarding foes, Encouraging his chosen crew, He tells his brave lads to stand true, And rows against--while arrows sing-- The Dragon of the tyrant King. With glowing hearts and loud huzzas, His men lay on in freedom's cause. The sea-steeds foam; they plunge and rock: The warriors meet in battle shock; The ring-linked coats of strongest mail Could not withstand the iron hail. The fire of battle raged around; Odin's steel shirts flew all unbound. The pelting shower of stone and steel, Caused many a Norseman stout to reel, The red blood poured like summer rain; The foam was scarlet on the main; But, all unmoved like oak in wood, Silent and grim fierce Haldor stood, Until his axe could reach the foe-- Then--swift he thundered blow on blow. And ever, as his axe came down, It cleft or crushed another crown. Elsewhere the chiefs on either side Fought gallantly above the tide. King Hakon pressed King Sigurd sore, And Ulf made Hake the berserk roar, And Kettle Flatnose dared to spring On board the ship of Norway's King. Old Guttorm Stoutheart's mighty shout Above the din was heard throughout, And Solve Klofe, 'gainst Mornef's son, Slew right and left till day was done. While, all around the loose ships rowed-- Where'er they went the red stream flowed. Chief among these was Erling bold And Glumm the Gruff, of whom 'tis told They rushed in thickest of the fray-- Whatever part the line gave way-- And twice, and thrice, retrieved the day. But heart, and strength, and courage true, Could not avail where one fought two. King Harald, foremost in the fight, With flashing sword, resistless might, Pushed on and slew, and dyed with red The bright steel cap on many a head. Against the hero's shield in vain, The arrow-storm sends forth its rain. The javelins and spear-thrusts fail To pierce his coat of ringed mail. The King stands on the blood-stained deck; Trampling on many a foeman's neck; And high above the dinning stound Of helm and axe, and ringing sound Of blade, and shield, and raven's cry Is heard the shout of--`Victory!'" In this poem the scald gives only an outline of the great fight. Let us follow more closely the action of those in whom we are peculiarly interested. For more than two hours the battle raged with unabated fury--victory inclining to neither side; but as the day advanced, the energy with which Solve Klofe pushed the right wing began to tell, and the King's men gave way a little at that part. Harald, however, was on the alert. He sent some of his loose ships to reinforce them, and so regained his position. A short time after that, some of Solve's ships were boarded, but at that moment Erling and Glumm chanced to pass in their cutters-- for they kept always close together--and they gave such a shout, while they turned and pulled to the rescue, that the men, who were wavering, took heart again and drove the foe overboard. Just then the ship on the right of Solve Klofe's vessel was also boarded by the enemy. Seeing this, Erling called to Glumm that there was need of succour there, and they rowed swiftly to the spot. "Art thou hard pressed, Solve?" asked Erling, as he ranged up to the stern of his friend's ship. Solve was so furious that he could not answer, but pointed to the ship next his, and sprang on the edge of his own, intending to leap into that of the enemy, and get to the forefront. At the same time Eindrid, son of Mornef, stood up on the high foredeck of his ship with a large stone in his hand. He was a very powerful man, and hurled the stone with such force against Solve's shield that it battered him down, and he fell back into his own ship much stunned. Seeing this, Erling bade two of his men follow him, leaped into Solve's ship, and thence into the one where the fight was sharpest. Glumm followed him closely with his long two-handed sword, and these two fought so dreadfully that Eindrid's men were driven back into their own ship again. Then Erling ran to the place where the high stern was wedged between two of the enemy's ships, and sprang on the forecastle of Eindrid's ship. "Thou art a bold man!" said Eindrid, turning on him. "That may be as thou sayest," replied Erling, at the same time catching a thrust on his shield, which he returned with such interest with his axe that Eindrid's head was nearly severed from his body. At the same moment Glumm cut down a famous berserk who ran at him, and in a few minutes they had cleared the deck of the ship, and taken possession of it. But this was scarcely accomplished when a cry arose that the left wing under King Hakon was giving way. At once Erling and Glumm ran back to their cutters, and made towards that part of the line, followed by several of the loose ships. Here they found that King Hakon was very hard pressed by Sigurd of Royer, so they pushed in among the ships, and soon Erling's well-known war-cry was heard, and his tall form was seen sweeping men down before him with his great axe, like a mower cutting grass. Glumm, however, did not keep close to him this time, but made direct for Hakon's ship, for he remembered that he was Ada's father, and thought he might do him some service. As he was coming near he saw Swankie, a famous berserk, fighting furiously on board Hakon's ship, and roaring, as was the wont of berserkers sometimes, like a wild bull. Hakon's men had formed a shield-circle round their chief, and were defending him bravely; but the berserk was an uncommonly stout man, very brisk and active, and exceedingly furious, as well as dexterous with his weapons. He slew so many men that the shield-circle was broken, and he made at Hakon just as Glumm leaped into the ship at the stern. King Hakon was a stout man and brave, but he was getting old, and not so active as he used to be. Nevertheless he met Swankie like a man, and dealt him a blow on his helmet which made him stagger. The berserk uttered a fearful roar, and struck at Hakon so fiercely that he split the upper part of his shield and cut open his helmet. Hakon fell, but before he could repeat the blow Glumm was upon him. "What! is it thou, Swankie?" he cried. "Dog, methought I had killed thee long ago!" "That is yet to be done," cried the berserk, leaping upon Glumm with a sweeping blow of his sword. Glumm stooped quickly, and the blow passed over his head; then he fetched a sudden cut at Swankie, and split him down from the neck to the waist, saying, "It is done now, methinks," as he drew out his sword. Glumm did not go forward, but let his men drive back the foe, while he turned and kneeled beside Hakon. "Has the dog hurt thee badly?" he asked, raising the old warrior's head on his knee, and speaking in a voice of almost womanly tenderness. Hakon made an effort to speak, but for some time was unable to do so, and Glumm held his shield over him to keep off the stones and arrows which fell thickly around them. After a few moments Hakon wiped away the blood which flowed from a deep wound in his forehead, and looked up wildly in Glumm's face. He tried again to speak, and Glumm, misunderstanding the few words he muttered, said: "Thou art already avenged, King Hakon; Swankie the berserk is dead." The dying man made another effort to speak, and was successful. "That concerns me little, Glumm. Thou lovest Ada, I know. This ring-- take it to her, say her father's last thoughts were of her. Be a good husband, Glumm. The brooch--see." "Which?" asked Glumm, looking at several silver brooches with which the old warrior's armour was fastened--"this one on thy breast?" "Aye, take it--it was--her mother's." The warrior's spirit seemed to be relieved when he had said this. He sank down into a state resembling sleep. Once or twice afterwards he opened his eyes and gazed up into the bright sky with a doubtful yet earnest and enquiring gaze. Gradually the breathing became fainter, until it ceased altogether, and Glumm saw that the old man was dead. Fastening the brooch on his own broad chest, and putting the ring on his finger, Glumm rose, seized his sword, and rushed again into the thick of the fight with tenfold more fury than he had yet displayed, and ere long the danger that threatened the left wing was for the time averted. Meanwhile in the centre there was an equally uncertain and obstinate conflict--for the chiefs on either side were mighty men of valour. Wherever Old Guttorm's voice was heard, there victory inclined. Haldor, on the other hand, did not shout, but he laid about him with such wild ferocity that many men quailed at the very sight of him, and wherever he went he was victorious. It was some time before he managed to get alongside of King Harald Fairhair's ship, but when he did so the fight became sharp in the extreme. All the men in King Harald's ship, except the berserks, were clad in coats of ring mail, and wore foreign helmets, and most of them had white shields. Besides, as has been said, each man was celebrated for personal strength and daring, so that none of those who were opposed to them could make head against them. The arrows and spears fell harmless from their shields, casques, and coats of mail, and it was only now and then--as when a shaft happened to enter a man's eye--that any fell. When Haldor's forecastle men attacked the berserkers on the high fore deck of the Dragon, the fighting was terrible, for the berserkers all roared aloud and fought with the wild fury of madmen, and so fierce was their onslaught that Haldor's men were forced at first to give back. But Thorer the Thick guarded himself warily, and being well armed escaped injury for a time. When he saw the berserkers beginning to flag, he leaped forward like a lion, and hewed them down right and left, so that his men drove the enemy back into the Dragon. Some of them slipped on the gun-wales, and so did some of Haldor's men, all of whom fell into the sea, and a few of them were drowned, while others were killed, but one or two escaped by swimming. Ulf's ship was also pretty close to the Dragon, and he wished greatly to board it, but was so hard beset by the ship of Nicolas Skialdvarsson that he could not do so for a long time. Here Kettle Flatnose did prodigies of valour. He stood on the high fore-deck with his favourite weapon, the hook, and therewith pulled a great number of men off the enemy's deck into the sea. At last he got a footing on their gunwale, dropped his hook, drew his sword, and soon cleared his way aft. Ulf leaped after him, drove the men into the waist, and then the most of them were slain, and lay in heaps one upon another. After that it was not difficult to clear the poop. Skialdvarsson defended it well, but he could not stand before Ulf, who finally cut off his head, and so the ship was won. This vessel lay alongside that of King Harald; and although the King was fully engaged with Haldor at the time, he observed the conquest of Skialdvarsson by Ulf, and also perceived that Ulf's men were crowding the side of the vessel, and throwing grappling-irons into his own ship with a view to board it; for there was a space between the ships a little too wide for men to leap. Springing to the side, the King cut the grappling-irons with a sweep of his sword. "That was well tried," he said. "It shall be tried again," cried Ulf, heaving another iron, which nearly struck the King, but Harald's sword flashed through the air, and again the iron was cut. At that moment Kettle Flatnose stepped back a few paces, and with a mighty rush leaped right over the space in all his war gear, and alighted on the Dragon's deck within a yard of the King. It was a tremendous leap, and so nearly beyond the compass of Kettle's powers that he was scarcely able to retain his foothold, but stood for a moment on the edge of the vessel with shield and sword upheaved, as he staggered to regain his balance. Thus exposed, he might have easily been slain; but the King, instead of using his sword, stepped forward, and with his left hand pushed the Irishman overboard. The cheer which greeted his daring leap had scarcely ceased to ring when he fell heavily into the sea. "A goodly man, and a bold attempt," said the King, with a smile, as he turned to Jarl Rongvold. "'Twould have been a pity to slay him outright. If he can swim he may yet live to fight another battle." "True, sire," replied the jarl, who was looking over the side at the place where Kettle fell; "but methinks he has struck his head on an oar, and will never succeed in swimming towards a friendly hand." This indeed seemed to be true; for Kettle lay with his arm over an oar, and his head hanging down in the water, like a dead man. Yet there was life in him, for his fingers moved. Ulf had witnessed all this, and was on the point of attempting to leap across to Harald's ship when Kettle fell. He paused, and, seeing that his comrade was apparently being drowned, at once dropped sword and shield, and sprang into the sea after him. At that moment a number of the King's boldest and best armed men observed that the two ships had drawn a little nearer to each other. In a moment they leaped across the intervening space, took their opponents by surprise, and quickly regained the ship. While this had been going on at the poop, the fight on the forecastle had raged with extreme fury, for Haldor the Fierce had gained a footing on the Dragon's deck, and was engaged in mortal combat with Hake the berserk, whom he was slowly but surely driving back. His son Erling the Bold, who observed what was going on, had run his cutter along the stern of his father's ship, and was hastening to his aid, when King Harald became aware that his men were giving way, and rushed to their support. He went forward raging with anger, and as he ran he picked up a huge stone, which he hurled before him. Haldor was at the moment in the act of fetching a deadly cut at Hake, whom he had disarmed. The stone struck him full in the chest, and he fell backward just as Erling reached his side. A great cheer arose at this time on the right; for there the wing of the Southland men was broken, and everywhere King Harald's men were victorious. "Hold thou them in check, Glumm," cried Erling to his friend, as he quickly raised his father in his arms and bore him away to his cutter. Glumm, who had followed his friend like his shadow, sprang forward and engaged Hake, who had recovered his sword, and who found this new enemy little, if at all, less formidable than the other. Erling placed his father carefully in the cutter. "Here, Thorer," he said, "do thou guard my father, and hold thyself and the carles in readiness to push off. The day is lost, I see. I go to slay the King, and will return presently." He leaped away as he spoke, and regained the foredeck of the Dragon, where Glumm and his men were still engaged with the berserkers, just as the King came to the front. The instant he saw Erling he leaped upon him with a fierce shout, and shook back his shaggy flaxen locks as a lion might shake his mane. Erling was not a whit behind him in anxiety to meet. He sprang upon him with a crashing blow of his great pole-axe, which rang loudly on the King's shield, but did him no hurt. They were a well-matched pair. Harald was fully as stout, though not quite so tall as his opponent, whose fine silky hair was almost as bushy as that of the King, though neither so long nor so tangled. Men drew back and stood aside when they heard the shock and shout of their onset, and suspended the fight around them, while they gazed on in silent awe. For a time it seemed doubtful which was the better man; for the King's blade whirled incessantly around his head like flashing light, and rang on Erling's shield, which was ever upraised to meet it. At the same time the axe of our hero, if not so swift in its gyrations, was more tremendous in its action; more than once the King was seen to stagger beneath its thundering blows, and once he was beaten down on one knee. How long this might have lasted it is impossible to tell; but, seeing that the King was likely to get the worst of it, one of his men crept round by the outside of the ship, and coming suddenly up behind Erling, put out his hand and caught him by the leg, causing him to stagger backwards, so that he fell overboard. In falling our hero caught the man by the throat, and both fell into the sea together. It was seen that Erling dived with his foe and dragged him down as if to force him to perish along with him, and everyone looked for a few moments at the water, expecting to see them rise. Glumm gazed among the rest; and he had leaped down into Haldor's ship to be ready to lend a hand. But Erling did not rise again. Seeing this, Glumm sprang up with sudden fury and dashed at the enemy, but by this time they had recovered from their surprise, and now poured into the ship in such overwhelming numbers that the men were driven back and slain, or they leaped overboard and trusted to escape by swimming. Meanwhile Erling the Bold having choked off his antagonist, dived under his father's ship and came up at the stern of his own cutter, into which he speedily clambered by means of a rope which hung over the side. He found that his father was seated on the poop with his head resting on the gunwale, recovering consciousness slowly, and Thorer was engaged in the difficult task of preventing the men from leaving the vessel to succour their comrades. "Keep back, men," cried Erling in a voice which none dared to disobey. "Stay where ye are and get out the oars.--Come, Thorer, follow me with a stout man, and keep them back while I rescue Glumm." He jumped into Haldor's ship, and ran to the fore part of the poop, where Glumm was fighting against overwhelming odds, with the blind desperation of a man who has resolved to sell his life as dearly as he can. Thorer and a tall stout man followed him, and instantly assailed King Harald's men with such fury that they gave back a little. At the same moment Erling seized Glumm by the neck; almost strangled him; dragged him violently to the stern, and half sprang, half tumbled with him into the cutter, where, despite his frantic struggles to rise, he held him down. "Now, my brisk lads," shouted Erling, who was gasping by this time, "come back and jump in! Push off an ell or so. Steady!" Thorer and the other man heard the shout, and, turning at once, ran to the stern and leaped into the cutter, which was instantly thrust off, so that one or two of their opponents who ventured to jump after them were left floundering in the sea. By this time King Harald's victory was complete. Both wings had been beaten for some time, and now the centre had given way--only one or two of the more desperate leaders were still keeping up the fight. As Erling rowed towards the shore he could see that all the loose vessels of the fleet were flying up the fiord, pursued by a few of the loose vessels of the enemy. But the greater part of both fleets being tied together, could take no part in the chase until they were cut asunder. "The day is lost, father," said Erling, as he stood by the steering oar. "I know it, my son," replied Haldor, who was now able to sit up and look about him; "Norway is henceforth enthralled." He said this in a tone of such deep sadness that Erling forbore to continue the subject. "They are cutting asunder the fleet," observed Glumm, who had recovered self-possession, and stood looking back at the scene of the recent conflict; "surely some of them are trying to escape." As he spoke, one of the large vessels shot out from among the others, and rowed rapidly away. There was desperate fighting on board of it for a few minutes, and then a number of men were pushed or thrown overboard, and a loud cheer of victory arose. "Well done, Solve Klofe!" cried Erling with enthusiasm. "That is his shout. I should know it among a thousand. He at least is bent on being free!" Several of Harald's ships, which had been also cut loose, immediately gave chase, but Solve's men pulled so well that they soon left them behind, and hoisting their sail to a light breeze which was blowing just off the mouth of the fiord, soon doubled the point and bore away to the south. "Is that someone swimming in the water?" asked Erling, pointing as he spoke to an object which moved forward among the debris of oars, portions of clothing, and wreck, which was floating about everywhere. One of the men at the bow oar stood up, and after a short glance, said that he thought it was a man. "Look out on the starboard bow. Mind your oars and be ready, someone, to lean over the waist and catch hold of him." As he spoke, the cutter ranged up to the object, which appeared to be the dishevelled and blood-bespattered head of a man. He suddenly gave vent to a wild shout--"Come on, thou tyrant! Down with ye, dog--huzza!" At the last shout a pair of arms were swung wildly in the air, and the next moment the man's voice was stifled in the water as he sank, while another head appeared beside him. "That is the voice of Kettle Flatnose, or his wraith," exclaimed Erling; "pull gently, lads; hold water." "Why, Ulf, is it thou?" "Truly," exclaimed Ulf, grasping the extended hand of Glumm, "I don't feel quite sure! Haul gently, Glumm. I've got Kettle here. Another hand or two. Now then, heave together!" Several stout men leaned over the side, and, acting in accordance with these instructions, hauled Ulf and Kettle out of the sea; the former in a state of great exhaustion, the latter almost dead, for his last dip had well-nigh choked him. "It has been a long swim," said Ulf, sitting down and leaning languidly against the bulwarks, while Glumm and Haldor proceeded to chafe the Irishman into a state of consciousness. "Once or twice I sank under him, for he was very wild when he came to himself, after I got hold of him, and struggled to be up and fight the King; but I held him fast. Yet methought once or twice," added Ulf, with a smile, "that I had at last got into Valhalla." A horn of ale refreshed Ulf, and another of the same was shortly after given to Kettle, by which his wandering faculties were soon restored. By this time they were drawing near the bay at Ulfstede, and Erling urged on the rowers, for they could see that Harald's ships were now cast loose, and giving chase to those that endeavoured to escape, while several of the largest, including the Dragon, made direct for the land. "Our whole effort now," said Haldor, "must be to rescue the women." "That will not be easy," observed Ulf gloomily. "But it is not impossible," said Erling with decision. "We shall have time to get into the woods, and so round to the cave. By the way, does anyone know aught of Hakon of Drontheim?" "He is dead," said Glumm. "Dead!" At that moment Haldor started up with a wild exclamation, and pointed towards the spot on which his own dwelling stood, where, above the trees, there arose a cloud of dense black smoke. The truth was soon all too plain, for, on rounding the point which had hitherto concealed the bay from their view, several of the enemy's largest ships were seen with their bows on the shore. It was evident that part of the left wing of the enemy, which was first victorious, had, unobserved by them, made for the shore, and landed a large force of men, who had hastened to Ulfstede, and, finding it deserted, had pushed on to Haldorstede, which they had set on fire. "Now indeed would death be welcome!" cried Haldor, stamping fiercely on the deck, while every feature of his face blazed with wrath. We need scarcely say that the hearts of all had sunk within them, but Erling said--"Death would be unwelcome yet, father. The men, no doubt, are killed, but be sure they will not hurt the women while King Harald is on his way to the stede. We may yet die in defending them, if we cannot save them." "True, my son," said Haldor, clasping his hands, and looking upwards with a solemnity of expression that was in strong contrast with his recent burst of passion; "we may perchance save them, as thou sayest; but woe is me for poor Alric!" "Alric is safe, I am certain," said Erling energetically, as he turned a meaning glance on Glumm. "How knowest thou that?" asked Haldor. Erling hesitated to reply, not wishing to raise hopes that after all might prove to be fallacious. Before the question could be repeated the cutter's keel grated on the sand of a small bay which was close to the large one, and concealed from it by a small rocky islet. Here they all jumped ashore--all except Kettle Flatnose, who, on attempting to rise, found himself so weak that he fell down again, and nearly fainted. "This is bad," said Erling. "But come, we have no time to waste. Give me the chief command of our men, father; I have a plan in my head." "Do as thou wilt," said Haldor, with a strange mixture of despair, resignation, and ferocity in his tone. "Come then, form up, men, and follow me!" So saying, Erling lifted Kettle in his arms, and hurried away with him as if he had been no heavier than a little boy! He led the way to the secret entrance to the cave, where, true as steel to his trust, little Alric was found with a few men guarding the two warships of Erling and Glumm. CHAPTER TWENTY THREE. THE END OF AN OLD SEA-KING. Haldor the Fierce said nothing when he heard Alric's blithe voice in the cavern, but he caught him up in his arms, and gave him a hug that almost made him cry out. "Why, father, what ails thee?" asked the boy in surprise, when Haldor set him free. "Never mind, lad," interposed Erling, "but lend a hand to keep Kettle in order. He is a little wild just now, and as I intend to leave him in thy charge we must restrain him a bit. Hand me that rope." The boy obeyed in silence, but with much wonder depicted on his face while Erling lashed Kettle's hands together, and, lifting him in a half-unconscious state into his ship, bound him in as comfortable a position as he could, to one of the rowers' banks. "Now, Alric, come aside with me, quick! I have only time for a few words. It is enough to tell thee that the day is lost. I go with our father and the men to save our mother and the other women, or to die. Thou wilt stay here with a few men to guard the ships, and be ready to cast off at a moment's notice. If we return not before night, do thou creep out and try to ascertain what has become of us, and if ye have reason to think we are killed, cut Kettle's bonds and let him do what he will, poor fellow. At present his head has got a knock that renders him a dangerous comrade, so he must remain tied. Of course, if the cave is attacked thou wilt set him free at once. There is a little boat at the stern of my Swan. Escape if thou canst. But be watchful. We may return in a few hours. If so, all shall yet be well. Dost understand me, boy?" "I do, but methinks ill luck awaits us." Erling made no reply, but, kissing Alric's forehead, he returned to his men, of whom there were about sixty, and led them out of the cave, leaving six with his little brother to guard the ships. While our hero is thus hastening to the rescue, let us turn aside for a little to follow the course of Guttorm Stoutheart. That brave old Sea-king had escaped scathless throughout the whole of the disastrous day until near the end, when he received his death-wound from a javelin which pierced his thigh, and cut some important blood vessel, to stanch which defied the skill of his attendants. He immediately ordered his ship to be cut loose, and his was among the first to escape round the southern point of the fiord, just before the battle ended. At first the men pulled as if their lives depended on it. So great was their haste that they did not take time to throw their dead comrades overboard, but left them lying in a ghastly heap on the lower deck. When, however, they got round the next point, and found that no pursuit was made, they slackened speed and began to heave out the dead, when Guttorm, who reclined near the helm, steering the vessel, ordered them to desist. "My men," said he, in a voice which had already lost much of its deep richness of tone, "we will land on the next point. My days are run out. I go to Odin's halls, and I am glad, for it becomes not an old warrior to die in his bed, which I had begun to fear was going to be my fate; besides, now that Norway is to be no longer a free land, it is time that the small kings should be going home. Ye will carry me to the top of yonder headland cliff, and leave me where I can see the setting sun, and the fords and fells of my native land. Would that my bones might have been burned, as those of my fathers were! but this may not be. Ye can lay beside me the comrades who have gone before, and then push off and leave me with the dead." There was a low murmur among the men as they again dipped their oars, but not a word was spoken in reply. Just as they reached the point a vessel came in sight behind them under sail. "Too late!" muttered Guttorm bitterly, as he looked back; "we are pursued, and must hold on." "Not so," answered one of his chief men; "that is Solve Klofe's ship." "Is that so?" cried Guttorm, while the colour mounted to his pale cheek, and the fire shone in his old eyes; "then have I better luck than I had looked for. Quick, get to land! The breeze that brings Solve down will reach us soon. Get out your arms, and go hail Solve as he passes. Ye shall sail with him to-night. I will hie me out upon the sea." He spoke somewhat like his former self for a moment, but soon his voice sank, for the life-blood was draining fast away. Ere many minutes had passed, the breeze freshened into a squall of considerable force. It came off the land, and swept down the fiord, lashing its waters into seething waves. Solve answered the hail of Guttorm's men, and landed. "What news?" he asked: "there is but short space for converse." The men told him that old Guttorm was dying in his ship. He walked up the plank that lay from the shore to the gunwale, and found the old warrior lying on the poop beside the helm, wrapped in his mantle, and giving directions to his men, who were piling brushwood on the deck. "This is an ill sight," said Solve, with much feeling, as he knelt beside the dying chief, who received him with a smile, and held out his hand. "Ha! Solve, I am glad thou art here. My last battle has been fought, and it has been a good one, though we did get the tooth-ache. If it had only been a victory, I had recked little of this wound." "Can nothing be done for thee?" asked Solve. "Perchance I may be able to stop the bleeding." Guttorm shook his head, and pointed to the blood which had already flowed from him, and lay in a deep pool in the sides of the ship. "No, no, Solve, my fighting days are over, and, as I have said, the last fight has been a good one! Ye see what I am about, and understand how to carry out my will. Go, relieve me of the trouble, and see that it is done well. I would rest now." Solve pressed the hand of his friend in silence, and then went forward to assist actively in the preparations already referred to. The men heaped up the funeral pile round the mast, fastened the stern ropes to the shore, plied the dead upon the deck, and, when all was ready, hoisted sail. The squall had increased so that the mast bent, and the ship strained at her stern ropes like an impatient charger. Then the men went on shore, and Solve, turning to Guttorm, bent over him, and spoke a few words in a low, earnest tone, but the old man's strength was almost gone. He could only utter the single word "Farewell", and wave his hand as if he wished to be left alone. Solve rose at once, and, applying a light to the pile, leaped ashore. Next moment the cables were cut; the brushwood crackled with a fierce noise as the fire leaped up and the "ocean steed" bounded away over the dark blue sea. Guttorm was still seated by the helm, his face pale as death, but with a placid smile on his mouth, and a strange, almost unearthly, fire in his eyes. The longship rushed over the waves with the foam dashing on her bows, a long white track in her wake, and a dense black cloud curling overhead. Suddenly the cloud was rent by a fork of flame, which was as suddenly quenched, but again it burst upwards, and at last triumphed; shooting up into the sky with a mighty roar, while below there glowed a fierce fiery furnace, against which was strongly depicted the form of the grand old Sea-king, still sitting motionless at the helm. Swiftly the blazing craft dashed over the waves, getting more and more enveloped in smoke and flame. Ere long it could be seen in the far distance, a rushing ball of fire. Gradually it receded, becoming less and less, until at last it vanished, like a setting star, into the unknown waste of the great western sea. CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR. HOPES AND FEARS--THE BURNING OF HALDORSTEDE, AND ESCAPE OF THE FAMILY. Meanwhile the family at Haldorstede had made a narrow escape, and some members of it were still in great peril. When Hilda and Ada were sent thither, with the females of Ulfstede, under the charge of Christian the hermit, as already related, they found Dame Herfrida and her maidens busily engaged in making preparations for a great feast. "I prithee," said Dame Astrid, in some surprise, "who are to be thy guests to-night?" "Who should be," replied Herfrida, with a smile, "but the stout fellows who back my husband in the fight to-day! Among them thine own goodman, Dame Astrid, and his house-carles; for if no one is left at Ulfstede there can be no supper there for them; and as the poor lads are likely to be well worn out, we must have something wherewith to cheer them." "But what if ill luck betide us?" suggested Astrid. "Ill luck never betides us," replied Herfrida, with an expression of bland assurance on her handsome face. "Besides, if it does, we shall be none the worse for having done our part." "_Some_ people are always forecasting evil," muttered Ingeborg, with a sour look, as she kneaded viciously a lump of dough which was destined to form cakes. "And some other people are always forecasting good," retorted Ada, with a smile, "so that things are pretty well balanced after all. Come now, Ingeborg, don't be cross, but leave the dough, and let us go to thy room, for I want to have a little gossip with thee alone." Ingeborg was fond of Ada, and particularly fond of a little gossip, either public or private. She condescended, therefore, to smile, as it were under protest, and, rubbing the dough from her fingers, accompanied her friend to her chamber, while the others broke into several groups, and chatted more or less energetically as they worked, or idled about the house. "Is there any fear of our men losing the day?" asked Hilda of the hermit, who stood looking out of a window which commanded a view of the fiord, where the ships of the opposing fleets could be seen engaged in the battle, that had just begun. Poor Hilda asked the question with a look of perplexity in her face; for hitherto she had been so much accustomed to success attending the expeditions of her warlike father and friends, that she had never given much thought to the idea of defeat and its consequences. "It is not easy to answer that question," replied the hermit; "for the success or failure of thy father's host depends on many things with which I am not acquainted. If the forces on both sides are about equal in numbers, the chances are in his favour; for he is a mighty man of valour, as well as his son, and also thy father. Besides, there are many of his men who are not far behind them in strength and courage; but they may be greatly outnumbered. If so, defeat is possible. I would say it is probable, did I not know that the Ruler of events can, if He will, give victory to the weak and disaster to the strong. Thy father deems his cause a righteous one--perhaps it is so." "Well, then," said Hilda, "will not God, who, you say, is just and good, give victory to the righteous cause?" "He may be pleased to do so; but He does not always do so. For His own good and wise ends He sometimes permits the righteous to suffer defeat, and wrongdoers to gain the victory. This only do I know for certain, that good shall come out of all things to His people, whether these things be grievous or joyful; for it is written, `All things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called, according to His purpose.' This is my consolation when I am surrounded by darkness which I cannot understand, and which seems all against me. That things often pass my understanding does not surprise me; for it is written, `His ways are wonderful--past finding out.'" "Past finding out indeed!" said Hilda thoughtfully. "Would that I had faith like thine, Christian; for it seems to enable thee to trust and rejoice in darkness as well as in sunshine." "Thou mayst have it, daughter," answered the hermit earnestly, "if thou wilt condescend to ask it in the name of Jesus; for it is written, `Faith is the gift of God;' and again it is written, `Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it you.' One of our chief sins consists in our desire to produce, by means of our own will, that faith which God tells us we cannot attain to by striving after, but which He is willing to bestow as a free gift on those who ask." The conversation was interrupted here by the old house-carle Finn the One-eyed, who said in passing that he was going down to the cliffs to see and hear what was doing, and would return ere long to report progress. For an hour after that, the people at Haldorstede continued to watch the fight with intense interest; but although they could see the motion of the ships on the fiord, and could hear the shout of war, as it came floating down on the breeze like a faint murmur, the distance was too great to permit of their distinguishing the individual combatants, or observing the progress of the fight. That it was likely to go ill with their friends, however, was soon made known by Finn, who returned in hot haste to warn them to prepare for flight. "Be sure," said Dame Herfrida, "that there is no need to flee until Haldor or Erling come to tell us to get ready." "That may be so," said Finn; "but if Haldor and Erling should chance to be slain, ill will it be for you if ye are not ready to fly." "Now it seems to me," said Dame Astrid, who was of an anxious temperament, "that thou art too confident, Herfrida. It would be wise at all events to get ready." "Does anyone know where Alric is?" asked Ingeborg. As everyone professed ignorance on this point, his mother said that she had no doubt he was safe enough; for he was a bold little man, and quite able to take care of himself. "If he has had his own way," observed Ivor the Old, who came in at that moment, "he is in the fleet for he is a true chip of the old tree; but we are not like to see him again, methinks, for I have seen the fleet giving back on the right wing, and hasted hither to tell ye." This report had the effect of shaking Herfrida's confidence to the extent of inducing her to give up her preparations for the feast, and assist the others in making arrangements for a hasty flight with such household valuables as could be easily carried about the person. Some time after they had begun this work, a young man, who was a cripple, and therefore a non-combatant, hobbled into the hall, and announced the fact that Haldor's fleet was routed everywhere, and fleeing. He had seen it from the cliff behind the stede, and indeed it could partly be seen from the hall window. "Now," cried Finn the One-eyed bitterly, "all is lost, and I must carry out Erling's last instructions. He told me, if the fight went against us, and the King's men gained the day, I was to lead ye down by the forest path to the cave behind Ulfstede, where there is a ship big enough to carry the whole household. If alive, he and his friends are to meet us there. Come, we must make haste; some of the ships are already on the beach, and if they be the King's men we shall soon see them here." Everyone was now so thoroughly convinced of their desperate case that without reply each went to complete arrangements as fast as possible. "Wilt thou go with us?" said Finn to the hermit, when all were assembled in front of the house at the edge of the forest. "I will, since God seems to order it so," said the hermit; "but first I go to my hut for the rolls of the Book. As ye have to pass the bottom of the cliff on which my dwelling is perched, I will easily overtake you." "Let us go with him," said Hilda to Ada. "There is a roll in the hut which Erling and I have been trying to copy; Christian may not be able to find it, as I hid it carefully away--and," she continued, blushing slightly, "I should not like to lose it." "You had better go with _us_," said Finn gravely. "We will do what seems best to ourselves," replied Ada; "go on, Christian, we follow." The hermit advised the girls to go with Finn, but as they were self-willed he was fain to conduct them up the steep and narrow path that led to his hut upon the cliff, while Finn put himself at the head of a sad band of women, children, and aged retainers, who could advance but slowly along the rugged and intricate path which he thought it necessary to take through the forest. Not twenty minutes after they had left Haldorstede the first band of King Harald's men came rushing up the banks of the river, enraged at having found Ulfstede deserted, and thirsting for plunder. They ran tumultuously into the house, sword in hand, and a yell of disappointment followed when they discovered that the inmates had fled. There is no doubt that they would have rushed out again and searched the woods, had not the feast which Herfrida had been preparing proved too attractive. The cold salmon and huge tankards of ale proved irresistible to the tired and thirsty warriors, who forthwith put the goblets to their bearded lips and quaffed the generous fluid so deeply that in a short time many of them were reeling, and one, who seemed to be more full of mischief than his fellows, set the house on fire by way of a joke. It was the smoke which arose after the perpetration of this wanton act that had attracted the attention of Haldor and his friends, when they were making for the shore after the battle. Of course the hermit and the two girls heard the shouts of the marauders, and knew that it was now too late to escape along with the baud under Finn, for the only practicable path by which they could join them passed in full view of Haldorstede, and it was so hemmed in by a precipice that there was no other way of getting into the wood--at least without the certainty of being seen. Their retreat up the river was also cut off, for the hermit, in selecting the spot for his dwelling, had chosen a path which ascended along the rugged face of a precipice, so that, with a precipice above and another below, it was not possible to get to the bank of the river without returning on their track. There was no alternative, therefore, but to ascend to the hut, and there wait patiently until the shades of night should favour their escape. Finn pushed on as fast as was possible with a band in which there were so many almost helpless ones. He carried one of the youngest children in his arms, and Ivor the Old brought up the rear with a very old woman leaning on his arm. They were a long time in descending the valley, for the route Finn had chosen was circuitous, and the first part of it was extremely trying to the cripples, running as it did over a somewhat high spur of the mountain which extended down from the main ridge to the river. Gradually, however, they drew near to the coast, and Finn was in the act of encouraging them with the assurance that they had now only a short way to go, when the hearts of all sank within them at the sight of a band of armed men who suddenly made their appearance in their path. The wail of despair which burst from some of them at sight of these, was, however, changed into an exclamation of joy when four of the band ran hastily towards them, and were recognised to be Haldor, Erling, Ulf, and Glumm! "Now thanks be to the gods," said Haldor, stooping to print a kiss on his wife's lips. "But--but--where are Hilda and Ada?" Erling and Glumm, glancing quickly round the group with looks of intense disappointment and alarm, had already put this question to Finn, who explained the cause of their absence. "Now this is the worst luck of all," cried Glumm, grinding his teeth together in passion, and looking at Finn with a dark scowl. Erling did not speak for a few minutes, but his heaving chest and dilated nostrils told of the storm that raged within him. "Art thou sure they went to the hermit's hut?" asked Ulf in a stern voice. "Quite sure," replied Finn. "I cautioned them not to go, but--" "Enough," cried Erling. "Father, wilt thou go back to the cave with the women, and a few of the men to guard them?" "I will, my son, and then will I rejoin thee." "That do, an it please thee. It matters little. Death must come sooner or later to all.--Come, men, we will now teach this tyrant that though he may conquer our bodies he cannot subdue our spirits. Up! and if we fail to rescue the girls, everlasting disgrace be to him who leaves this vale alive!" Haldor had already selected a small detachment of men, and turned back with the women and others, while Erling and his men went on as fast as they could run. A short time sufficed to bring them to the edge of the wood near Haldorstede. The old place was now a smoking ruin, with swarms of men around it, most of whom were busily engaged in trying to put out the fire, and save as much as possible from its fury. The man who had kindled it had already paid dearly for his jest with his life. His body was seen swinging to the limb of a neighbouring tree. Harald Fairhair himself, having just arrived, was directing operations. There were by that time one or two thousand of the King's men on the ground, while others were arriving every moment in troops--all bloodstained, and covered with marks of the recent conflict--and Erling saw at once he had no chance whatever of accomplishing his aim by an open attack with only fifty men. He therefore led his force silently by a path that he well knew to an adjacent cliff, over the edge of which they could see all that went on below, while they were themselves well concealed. Here the three leaders held a consultation. "What dost thou advise, Ulf?" asked Erling. "_My_ advice," interposed Glumm fiercely, "is that we should make a sudden assault without delay, kill the King, and then sell our lives dearly." "And thus," observed Ulf, with something like a sneer, "leave the girls without protectors, and without a chance of deliverance. No," he continued, turning to our hero, "my advice is to wait here as patiently as we can until we ascertain where the girls are. Few, perhaps none, of our men are known to Harald's men; one of them we can send down to mingle with the enemy as a spy. Whatever we do must be done cautiously, for the sake of the girls." "That is good advice," said a voice behind them, which was that of the hermit, who had crept towards them on his hands and knees. "Why, Christian, whence comest thou?" said Ulf. "From my own hut," replied the hermit, raising himself, "where I have just left Hilda and Ada safe and well. We had deemed ourselves prisoners there till night should set us free; but necessity sharpens the wit even of an old man, and I have discovered a path through the woods, which, although difficult, may be traversed without much chance of our being seen, if done carefully. I have just passed along it in safety, and was on the point of returning to the hut when I came upon you here." "Lead us to them at once," cried Glumm, starting up. "Nay," said the hermit, laying his hand on the youth's arm, "restrain thine ardour. It would be easier to bring the girls hither, than to lead a band of armed men by that path without their being discovered. If ye will take the advice of one who was a warrior in his youth, there is some hope that, God permitting, we may all escape. Ye know the Crow Cliff? Well, the small boat is lying there. It is well known that men dare not swim down the rapid, unless they are acquainted with the run of the water and the formation of the rock. Thy men know it well, the King's men know it not. With a boat the maidens may descend in safety. The men can leap into the river and escape before the enemy could come at them by the hill road." "Excellently planned," exclaimed Erling in an eager tone; "but, hermit, how dost thou propose to fetch the maidens hither?" "By going and conducting them. There is much risk, no doubt, but their case is desperate, for their retreat is certain to be discovered." "Away then," said Ulf, "minutes are precious. We will await thee here, and, at the worst, if they should be captured, we can but die in attempting their rescue." Without uttering another word the hermit rose, re-entered the underwood, sank down on his hands and knees, and disappeared with a cat-like quietness that had been worthy of one of the red warriors of America. CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE. IN WHICH IS DESCRIBED A DESPERATE ATTEMPT AT RESCUE, A BOLD LEAP FOR FREEDOM, AND A TRIUMPHANT ESCAPE. The Crow Cliff, to which Christian had referred, was a high precipitous rock that jutted out into the river just below Haldorstede. It was the termination of the high ridge on the face of which Erling had posted his men, and could be easily reached from the spot where they lay concealed, as well as from the stede itself, but there was no possibility of passing down the river in that direction by land, owing to the precipitous nature of the ground. The ordinary path down the valley, which elsewhere followed the curvatures of the river, made at this point a wide detour into the woods, went in a zigzag form up the steep ascent of the ridge, descended similarly on the other side, and did not rejoin the river for nearly half a mile below. The waters were so pent up by the Crow Cliff that they rushed along its base in a furious rapid, which, a hundred yards down, descended in a perpendicular fall of about fifteen feet in depth. The descent of this rapid by a boat was quite possible, for there was a little bay at the lower end of Crow Cliff, just above the foss, into which it could be steered by a dexterous rower; but this mode of descent was attended with the imminent risk of being swept over the fall and dashed to pieces, so that none except the daring young spirits of the glen ever attempted it, while all the rest were content to cross the ridge by the longer and more laborious, but safe, path which we have just described. To descend this rapid by swimming was one of the feats which the youths of the place delighted to venture, and often had Erling and Glumm dared it together, while not a few of their companions had lost their lives in the attempt. A few words from Erling gave the men to understand what was expected of them. It was arranged that while he, Ulf, Glumm, and the hermit should put the girls into the little boat and guide them down the rapid, the men were to leap into the water and swim down. All were to land in the little bay, and then make for the cave on the coast in a body, and fight their way thither, if need be; but it was believed there would be no occasion for that, because before the plan was carried out most of the King's men would probably be assembled above the Crow Cliff at the stede. A few who could not swim were sent off at once by the track to warn Haldor. All these well-laid plans, however, were suddenly frustrated, for, while Erling was still consulting with Ulf and Glumm as to details, and peeping through the underwood, they beheld a sight which caused their hearts almost to stand still. From the elevated spot where they lay they could see the hermit advancing rapidly towards them in a crouching attitude, closely followed by the maidens, while at the same time there advanced from the stede a large band of men under a chief, who was evidently commissioned to execute some order of the King. Erling and his friends could clearly see these two parties unwittingly approaching each other, at right angles, each making for a point where the two paths crossed, and where they were certain to meet. They could see their friends quietly but swiftly gliding towards the very fate they sought to avoid, and experienced all the agony of being unable to give a shout of warning, or to prevent the foe from capturing them; for, even if there had been time to rush upon them before the meeting, which there was not, Erling by so doing would have been obliged to place the whole of Harald's host between him and the boat at Crow Cliff. This consideration, however, would not have deterred him, but another idea had flashed upon his mind. What that was shall be seen presently. Before the two parties met, the ears of the hermit, albeit somewhat dulled by age, became aware of the tramp of armed men, and at once he drew the girls hastily aside into the bushes; but the bushes at that part happened to be not very thick, and part of Ada's dress, which was a gay one with a good deal of scarlet about it, caught the attention of a sharp-eyed warrior. The man uttered a shout and sprang towards them; several others joined in the pursuit, a loud scream from one of the girls was heard, and next moment the fugitives were captured! "Up and at them!" cried Glumm, endeavouring to rise, but he found himself pinned to the earth by Erling's powerful arms. "Stay, Glumm, be quiet, I beseech thee," entreated Erling, as his comrade struggled violently but fruitlessly to escape from his powerful embrace.--"Do listen, Ulf; ye will spoil all by inconsiderate haste. I have a plan: listen--these men are not devils, but Norsemen, and will not hurt the girls; they will take them before the King. Hear me, and they shall yet be rescued!" While the power of Erling's muscles restrained Glumm, the deep-toned impassioned earnestness of his voice held back Ulf, who had leaped up and drawn his sword; but it was with evident reluctance that he paused and listened. "Now hear me," cried Erling; "I and Glumm will go down and mingle with Harald's men. Our faces are doubtless not known to any of them; besides, we are so bespattered with the blood and dust of battle that even friends might fail to recognise us. We will go boldly about among the men, and keep near to the girls until a fitting opportunity offers, when we will seize them and bear them off. This will not be so difficult as ye may think." "Difficult!" cried Glumm, grinding his teeth; "I think nothing difficult except sitting still!" "Because," continued Erling, "the King's men will be taken by surprise, and we shall be through the most of them before they are aware that there is need to draw their blades. But (and on this everything will depend) thou must be ready, Ulf, with all the men, to rush, in the twinkling of an eye, to our aid, the moment my shout is heard, for, if this be not done, we cannot fail to be overpowered by numbers. If thou dost but keep them well in play while we make for the boat, and then follow and leap into the river, we shall all escape." "Come along, then," cried Glumm, in desperate impatience. "Does the plan like thee, Ulf?" asked Erling. "Not much," he replied, shaking his head, "but it is the only chance left, so get thee gone. I will not fail thee in the moment of need-- away! See, the girls are already being led before the King." Erling and Glumm instantly pulled their helmets well down on their brows, wrapped their mantles round them so as to conceal their figures as much as possible, then entered the wood and disappeared. Meanwhile, on the open space in front of Haldor's ruined dwelling, King Harald Haarfager stood surrounded by his court men. He was still bespattered with the blood and dust of battle, and furiously angry at the escape of Haldor and the burning of the stede. His gilt helmet restrained the exuberance of his shaggy locks, and he stood on the top of a slight elevation or mound, from the base of which his men extended in a dense ring in front of him, eager to ascertain who it was that had been so unexpectedly captured. Erling and Glumm mingled with the crowd unnoticed, for so many of the men assembled there had been collected from various districts, that, to each, strange faces were the rule instead of the exception. When the girls were led into the ring there was a murmur of admiration, and many complimentary remarks were made about them. The old hermit was dragged in after them, and excited a little attention for a few moments. He had experienced rough handling from his captors. His grey hair was dishevelled and his face bloodstained, for, although he had offered no resistance, some of the men who seized him were so much out of humour in consequence of the burning of the stede and the escape of its inmates, that they were glad to vent their anger on anyone. "Good-looking girls, both of them," remarked the King to Jarl Rongvold, as they were being led forward.--"Who are ye?" he added, addressing them. Ada looked round on the circle of men with a frightened glance, and cast down her eyes, but did not reply, while Hilda raised her eyes timidly to the King's face, but lacked courage to speak. "Come," said the King sternly, "let us have no false modesty. Ye are before Norway's King, therefore speak, and to the point. Who art thou?" He addressed himself to Hilda, who replied-- "I am Hilda, daughter of Ulf of Romsdal." "And thou?" he added, turning to her companion. "My name is Ada. My father is Hakon of Drontheim." "Ha!" exclaimed the King, with a bitter smile. "Is it so? Thy father has met his desert, then, for he now lies at the bottom of the fiord." Ada turned deadly pale, but made no reply. "Know ye where Haldor the Fierce is, and his insolent son Erling?" asked the King. Hilda flushed at this, and answered with some spirit that she did not know, and that if she did she would not tell. "Of course not," said the King; "I might have guessed as much, and do but waste my time with ye.--Stand aside--bring forward yonder fellow." The hermit was immediately led forward. "Who art thou?" asked the King. "An old wanderer on the face of the earth," replied Christian. "That is easily seen," answered the King; "but not too old, it would seem, to do a little mischief when the chance falls in thy way." "Methinks, sire," whispered Jarl Rongvold, "that this fellow is one of those strange madmen who have taken up with that new religion, which I do not profess to understand." "Sayest thou so?" exclaimed Harald, "then will I test him.--Ho! fetch me a piece of horse flesh." A piece of horse flesh was brought without delay, for some that had been sacrificed in the Drontheim temple had been packed up and carried off among other provisions when the expedition set forth. "Here, old man, eat thou a portion of that," said Harald, holding the flesh towards him. "I may not eat what has been sacrificed to idols," said the hermit. "Ho! ho! then thou art not a worshipper of Odin? Say, dog, what art thou?" "I am a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is my Saviour. To Him I live, and for Him I can die." "Can He save you from _me_?" demanded Harald. "He can," answered the hermit earnestly, "and will save you too, King Harald, from your sins, and all who now hear me, if they will but turn to Him." "Now will I test him," said the King. "Stand forth, Hake of Hadeland, and hew me the old man's head from his body." "Spare him! O spare him!" cried Hilda, throwing herself suddenly between Hake and his victim, who stood with the resigned air of a man who had made up his mind to die. "He has twice saved _my_ life, and has never done you evil in thought or deed." "Stand aside, my pretty maid. Nay, then, if thou wilt not, I must grant thy request; but it is upon one condition: that this Saviour shall either come himself or send a champion to deliver the old man.--Come," he added, turning fiercely to the hermit, "pray that thy God shall send thee a champion now, for if He does not, as I live thou shalt die." "I may not pray at thy bidding," said the hermit calmly; "besides, it needs not that I should, because I have already prayed--before dawn this morning--that He would grant me His blessing in the form that seemed best to Himself." "And hast thou got it?" "I have--in that I possess a quiet spirit, and do not fear to die, now that His time has come." "'Tis something this, I admit," returned the King; "yet methinks 'tis but a poor blessing, after all, with death as the end of it." "Death is not the end of it," said the hermit, with a kindling eye, "for after death is everlasting joy and glory with the Lord. Besides, King Harald, which were better, think you: to die with a willing spirit and bright hope, or to live full of restless ambition, disappointment, and rage, even although victorious and King of Norway?" The King's countenance grew livid with anger as he turned to the berserk and said, in a voice of suppressed passion--"Go forward, Hake, and slay him!" "Now--the time has come," whispered Erling to Glumm. "Get as near to Ada as thou canst; for the rest, may Christian's God be with us!" As he spoke he sprang into the circle, sword in hand, and stood suddenly between the astonished Hake and the hermit. There was a loud murmur of amazement at this unexpected apparition, and not a few of the spectators were awestricken, supposing that this was actually a champion sent from the spirit world. "Harald," cried Erling, for the berserk had shrunk back dismayed, "I do now accept the challenge, and come here to champion the old man." At the sound of his voice the King's face lighted up with intelligence. "Ha!" he exclaimed suddenly; "has the old man's God sent Erling the Bold?" "Truly I think he has," replied Erling; "at all events it was not for this purpose that I came hither to-day. But now that I have come, and of mine own free will put myself in thy power, I claim the right to do battle for my old friend with thy stoutest man--so set him forth, King Harald." "What sayest thou, Hake?" said the King, turning to his berserk with a smile; "art willing to join issue with the Bold one?--bold enough, truly, and insolent as well." Hake, who had recovered his self-possession the instant he recognised Erling's voice, and who was by no means wanting in courage, suddenly uttered one of his terrible roars, and rushed upon Erling like a thunderbolt. Our hero was too well accustomed to the ways of his class to be caught off his guard. Although Hake rained blows upon him so fast that it was almost impossible for the spectators to follow the motions of his flashing sword, Erling received them all on his shield, or parried them with his short sword--which, as being more manageable in a _melee_, he had selected for his present enterprise. The instant, however, that the berserk's furious onset began to slacken, Erling fetched him such a tremendous cut on the sword that the weapon was broken close off at the hilt. Disdaining to slay an unarmed foe, he leaped upon the berserk, and struck him a blow with the hilt of his sword, which drove the casque down upon his head and stretched him flat upon the sward. Without waiting an instant Erling flung down his shield and walked to the place where Hilda stood, took her by the hand, and whispered, "Courage! come with me and thou shalt be saved." At the same moment Glumm stepped to Ada's side, and took her right hand in his left. No sword was drawn, for Glumm had not drawn his, and no one present had the faintest idea of what the young men intended to attempt. Indeed, they were all so amazed at the sudden termination of the fight, that the men of the inner part of the ring actually stood aside to let them pass, before the King had time to shout:-- "Seize them!" In other circumstances, at Harald's word a thousand swords would have been drawn, and the doom of Erling and his friends at once been sealed; but the natural ferocity of the tyrant's followers had been spellbound, and for the time paralysed by the calm bearing of old Christian and the prowess of his champion, whose opportune appearance had all the effect of a supernatural interposition, as it might well be deemed: and it will be readily believed that our hero and Glumm did not fail to use the advantage thus offered. Leading those whom they had come to rescue, and closely followed by the hermit, they passed completely through the circle of men. But at the repetition, in a voice of thunder, of the royal mandate, some hundreds of the King's men surrounded them, and, notwithstanding their wondrous strength and skill, they were being gradually overpowered by numbers, when suddenly a tremendous shout was heard, and next moment Ulf with his fifty men in battle array rushed out of the forest. King Harald endeavoured hastily to draw up his men in something like order. Hearing the cry in rear, the men in front of Erling and Glumm fell aside, so that they quickly cut down those who still stood in their way, and ran towards their friends, who opened their ranks to let them pass--then reclosed, and fell upon the King's men with incredible fury. Although outnumbered by at least twenty to one, the disparity did not at first tell against them, owing to the confusion in the enemy's ranks, and the confined space of ground on which they fought. They were thus enabled to act with great vigour, and, being animated by the spirit of desperate men, they actually for some time kept driving back the King's forces. But the continual assault of fresh foes began to tell, and several of Ulf's men had already fallen, when Erling's voice was heard ringing high above the din of battle. Instantly every man turned on his heel and fled towards the river madly pursued by the whole of the King's host. By this time Erling and Glumm had got the girls into the boat, and steered them safely down the rapid into the little bay, where they waited for their companions as patiently as they could. Meanwhile Ulf's men reached the foot of the Crow Cliff and one by one sprang into the boiling rapid. Ulf was among the first there, but he stayed to see them all pass. Before the last could do so their enemies were upon them, but Ulf kept them at bay for a few moments; and when the last of his men took the water he retreated fighting, and leaped backwards into the flood. One or two of the King's men followed, but they failed to catch him, were carried down stream, and, being ignorant of the dangers of the place, were swept over the foss and killed. Most of the host, however, turned suddenly, and set off at full speed to cross the ridge and pursue their enemies, by the path to which we have already referred. Before they had crossed it, Erling and his men were far on their way down the valley; and when the pursuers reached the coast there was no sign of the fugitives anywhere. On reaching the cave Erling found that his father had got everything in readiness to start; so, assembling the people together without delay, he divided them into two bands, one of which he sent into the Swan, the other into Glumm's vessel, the Crane. Haldor also went in the Swan, along with Ulf of Romsdal, Thorer the Thick, Kettle Flatnose, Alric, and the hermit, besides Dames Herfrida and Astrid, and the widow Gunhild, Ingeborg, and all Haldor's younger children. With Glumm there were also several women besides Ada. Ivor the Old and Finn the One-eyed also went with him; but most of the old and crippled hangers-on of both families, as well as Glumm's mother, were taken by Erling into the Swan, as the accommodation there was better than on board the Crane. "Now, Glumm," said Erling, when all were on board, "we must say farewell to Norway. Keep close in my wake. If they give chase we will do our best to escape, but if that may not be, we will fight and fall together." The friends shook hands; then, each getting into his ship, the stern ropes were cast off, the oars were dipped, and they shot out upon the blue fiord, which the sinking sun had left in a solemn subdued light, although his beams still glowed brightly on the snow-clad mountain peaks. They had proceeded some distance down the fiord before their pursuers observed them. Then a mighty shout told that they were discovered; and the grinding of the heavy ships' keels was distinctly heard upon the shore, as they were pushed off into deep water. Immediately after, the splash of hundreds of oars warned them to make haste. "Pull, my lads,--pull with heart," cried Erling; "and let these slaves see how freemen can make their ocean steeds leap across the sea! Pull! I see a breeze just off the mouth of the fiord. If we reach that, we may laugh at the tyrant King." "What may yonder line on the water be?" said Haldor, with an anxious look, as he pointed towards the mouth of the fiord. Erling caught his breath, and the blood rushed to his temples as he gazed for a moment in silence. "'Tis a boom," cried Kettle, who had recovered by this time, and who now leaped towards the fore deck with terrible energy. "All is lost!" exclaimed Ulf, in a tone of bitterness which words cannot express. "Are ye sure it is a boom?" cried Erling quickly. Everyone looked with intense earnestness at the black line that stretched completely across the mouth of the fiord, and each gave it as his opinion that it was a boom. There could not indeed be any doubt on the point. King Harald's berserk, although somewhat tardy, had fulfilled his orders but too well; and now a succession of huge logs, or tree trunks, joined together by thick iron chains, completely barred their progress seaward. "Surely we can burst through," suggested Kettle, returning to the poop, his huge frame quivering with contending emotions. "Impossible," said Haldor; "I have tried it before, and failed. Of course we must make the attempt, but I have no hope except in this," he added, touching his sword, "and not much in that either, _now_." "But I have tried it before, and did not fail, and I'll try it again," cried Erling heartily. "Come aft, men, quick, all of ye; every man except the rowers. Women, children, and cripples, get ye into the waist. The stoutest men to the oars--jump!" These orders were obeyed at once. All the best men in the ship seized the oars, Erling himself, Kettle, and Haldor setting the example, while Thorer took the helm, and, hailing Glumm, bade him do as they did. The effect of this was that the stern of the Swan was so weighed down with the weight of people on the poop, that her bows and a third of her keel were raised high out of the water, while the men, straining with every fibre of their muscles at the oars, sent her careering forward with trebled speed, and the foam rolled in milky billows in her wake. "When I give the word `Forward,'" cried Erling, "leap like lightning, all of ye, to the fore deck." The pursuers, elated by this time with the certainty of success, pulled also with unwonted energy. When the Swan came within about twenty yards of the boom, which floated almost on a level with the water, Thorer gave the word-- "One stroke for freedom!" "Ho! ho!" shouted Erling and Haldor, straining until their oars cracked again. The foam hissed from the blades, and the Swan rushed as if she had been suddenly endued with true vitality. Next moment she stuck fast--with the boom amidships beneath her! "Forward!" shouted Erling. All the unengaged men sprang instantly to the forecastle, and their weight sank it slowly down, but it seemed inclined for a moment to remain balanced on the boom. Hereupon the men at the oars jumped up and also ran forward. The bow dipped at once, the good ship slid over with a plunge, and glided out upon the sea! A great shout or yell told that this had been noticed by their foes, who still rowed madly after them; but heedless of this, Erling backed water and waited for Glumm, who had made similar preparations, and was now close on the boom. His vessel went fairly on, and stuck halfway, as the other had done; but when she was balanced and about to turn over, there was a terrible rending sound in the hull, then a crash, and the Crane broke in two, throwing half of her crew into the sea on the inner side of the boom, and the other half outside. Well was it for them all then that the Swan had waited! She was at once backed towards the scene of disaster, and as many as possible were picked up. Among the rescued was Glumm, with Ada in his arms. But many were drowned, and a few stuck to the boom, refusing to let go, or to make any attempt to reach the Swan. Erling knew, however, that these were sure to be picked up by the King's ships, so he once more ordered the rowers to give way, and the vessel sprang forth on her voyage some time before the pursuers reached the boom. When these did so, most of them attempted to leap it as the fugitives had done--for none of the Norsemen there lacked spirit. Some, however, failed to get on to it at all, others got on a short way and stuck fast, while two or three ships broke their backs, as Glumm's had done, and threw their crews into the water--but not one got over. The men then leaped on the boom, and the sound of axes was heard as they laboured to cut it through, or to dash away its iron fastenings. It was, however, a thoroughly well-executed piece of work, and for a long time resisted their utmost efforts. When at length it did give way, and the King's ships passed through, the Swan was beyond pursuit--far away on the horizon, with all sail set, and running before a stiff breeze, while the shades of evening were closing in around her! That night there was silence in the Norsemen's little ship as she ploughed her adventurous course over the northern sea, for the thoughts of all were very sad at being thus rudely driven from their native land to seek a home where best they might in the wide world. Yet in the hearts of some of them there was also much happiness. Hilda's sanguine mind pictured many sweet and peaceful abodes, far from the haunts of warlike men. Alric was happy, because he was beginning, as he fondly hoped, a life of wild adventure. So was Kettle Flatnose, for he was now sailing westward, and he knew that Ireland was somewhere in that direction. But Glumm the Gruff was perhaps the happiest of all on board, for, besides the delight of having at last got possession of his bride, he enjoyed, for the first time in his life, the pleasure of comforting a woman in distress! Ada's wild spirit was--we dare not say eradicated, but--thoroughly subdued at last. When she thought of her father she laid her head on Glumm's broad chest and wept bitterly. Thus did those Sea-kings sail away from and forsake the land of Norway. On their voyage westward they fell in with many ships from other quarters containing countrymen, Sea-kings and vikings like themselves, who had also left their native land to seek new homes in Shetland, Orkney, and the other isles north of Scotland, rather than submit to the yoke of Harald Haarfager. They joined company with these, and all sailed westward together. Among them was a man named Frode, who was celebrated for daring and wisdom, especially for his knowledge of the stars, and his power of navigating the unknown ocean of the west. To this man was assigned the direction of the fleet, and all submitted to his guidance; but the Sea-kings invariably assembled together in council when it was intended to decide, what they should do or to what part of the world they should steer. "My advice is," said Kettle Flatnose, the first time they assembled thus in council, "that we steer first to Ireland, where I can promise ye all a hearty welcome, for it is well known that the Irish are a hospitable people, and my father is a great man there." "I fall in with that," said Glumm, glancing at Ada, whose eyes had now become his guiding stars! "The advice is good," said Erling, "for, wherever we may finally come to an anchor, we will be none the worse of getting some provisions on the way." As Haldor, Ulf, Frode, and all the rest were of one mind on this point, the ships were steered to Ireland; and when they reached that country they put ashore in a small bay not far from Dublin, where was a log hut. To this Kettle went up with Erling and Glumm, and asked the man of the house how things were going on in Ireland. "As ill as can be in this district," said the man; "there is nothing but vengeance in the hearts of the people." "That is a bad state," said Kettle, with a look of anxiety; "what may be the cause of discontent? Is the old King hard on ye?" "Thou must have been long away to ask that. The old King is dead," said the man. At this Kettle uttered a great and bitter cry; but, restraining himself, asked eagerly if the old Queen were alive. The man replied that she was. Then Kettle asked how the King met his death. With a dark frown the man replied that Haabrok the Black had murdered him and seized the throne. On hearing this Kettle became pale, but was very calm, and listened attentively while the man went on to say that Haabrok was such a tyrant that the whole district was ready to start up as one man and dethrone him, if they had only someone who was fit to lead them. "That they shall not long want for," said Kettle. After some more earnest conversation he turned away, and went down to the shore. "Now, Erling and Glumm," said he, "we must do a little fighting before I can offer ye the hospitality I spoke of. Will ye aid me in a venture I have in my mind?" "That will we," they replied heartily. Kettle thereupon explained his views, and said that he had learned from the man that his wife was still alive and well, but in the hands of the king of the district, who was a regicide and a tyrant. It was then arranged that the Swan should be rowed quietly up towards the town, and the men landed in the night at a spot where they could be ready to answer the summons of Kettle, Erling, Glumm, and Ulf, who were to go up unattended to the King's house in Dublin, with no other arms than their short swords. On drawing near, these four found the hall of the King's house brilliantly lighted, for great festivities were going on there. No one interfered with them, because none guessed that so small a party would dare to go up half-armed for any other than peaceful purposes. They therefore went through the streets unmolested, and easily passed the guards, because Kettle plied them with a good deal of that which has since come to be known by the name of "blarney." When they got into the hall, Kettle went straight up to the high seat or throne on which Haabrok the Black was seated. "Ye are presumptuous knaves," said the tyrant, eyeing the strangers sternly; "is it thus that ye have been taught to approach the King? What is your errand?" "For the matter of that, thou well-named villain," said Kettle, "our errand will but add to our presumption, for we have come to slay thee." With that Kettle whipped out his sword and cut off Haabrok's head, so that it went rolling over the floor, while the body fell back and spouted blood all over the horrified court men! Instantly every man drew his sword; but Erling, Ulf, and Glumm leaped on the low platform of the throne, and presented such a bold front, that the bravest men there hesitated to attack them. At the same moment Kettle raised his sword and shouted, "If there be yet a true man in this hall who loves his country and reveres the memory of the good old King whom this dead dog slew, let him come hither. It is the voice of the King's son that calls!" "Sure, 'tis Kettle; I'd know his red head anywhere!" exclaimed a shrivelled old woman near the throne. "Aye, nurse, it is Kettle himself--come back again," he said, glancing towards the old woman with a kindly smile. A ringing cheer burst from the crowd and filled the hall; again and again it rose, as nearly all the men present rushed round the throne and waved their swords frantically over their heads, or strove to shake hands with the son of their old King. In the midst of the tumult a wild shriek was heard; and the crowd, opening up, allowed a beautiful dark-eyed woman to rush towards Kettle, with a stalwart boy of about five years of age clinging to her skirts. We need scarcely pause to say who these were, nor who the handsome matron was who afterwards went and clung round Kettle's neck, and heaped fervent blessings on the head of her long-lost son. It is sufficient to say that the feast of that night was not interrupted; that, on the contrary, it was prolonged into the morning, and extended into every loyal home in the city; and that Kettle Flatnose entertained his Norse friends right royally for several days, after which he sent them away laden with gifts and benedictions. They did not quit Ireland, however, until they had seen him happily and securely seated on the throne of Dublin. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sailing northward, the fleet touched at the Orkney and Shetland Islands, where they found that a number of the expatriated Sea-kings had comfortably settled themselves. Here some of Haldor's people would fain have remained, but Frode, who was a man of enterprise, resolved to penetrate farther into the great unknown sea, to lands which rumour said did certainly exist there. Accordingly they left Shetland, and went on until they came to the Faroe Islands. Here they thought of settling, but on landing they found that a few of the Sea-kings had taken up their abode there before them. "Now," said Frode, "it is my great desire to break new ground. Shall we go and search farther to the west for that new island which has been lately discovered by Ingoll?" To this Haldor and Ulf said they were agreed. Hilda plucked Erling by the sleeve, and whispered in his ear, after which he said that he too was agreed. Glumm glanced at Ada, who, with a little blush and smile, nodded. A nod was as good as a word to Glumm, so he also said he was agreed, and as no one else made objection, the ships' prows were again turned towards the setting sun. North-westward they sailed over the world of waters, until they came one fine morning in sight of land. As they drew near they saw that it was very beautiful, consisting partly of snow-capped mountains, with green fertile valleys here and there, and streams flowing through them. They ran the vessels into a bay and landed, and the country looked so peaceful, and withal so desirable, that it was at once resolved they should make this place their abode. Accordingly, while most of the men set themselves to work to land the goods, put up the tents, and make the women and children comfortable, a select band, well armed, prepared to go on an expedition into the country, to ascertain whether or not it was inhabited. Before these set out, however, Christian the hermit stood up on a rising ground, and, raising his eyes and hands to heaven, prayed for God's blessing on their enterprise. Thereafter plots of land were marked out, houses were built, "Things" were held, a regular government was established, and the island--for such it proved to be--was regularly taken possession of. The exploring party found that this was indeed the island which they were in search of. It had been discovered about the middle of the ninth century, and a settlement had been made on it by Ingoll in the year 874; but the band of immigrants under Frode and Haldor was by far the most important that had landed on it up to that time. In this manner, and under these circumstances, was Iceland colonised by expatriated Norsemen about the beginning of the tenth century! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Good reader, our tale is told. Gladly would we follow, step by step, the subsequent career of Erling and Glumm, for the lives of such men, from first to last, are always fraught with interest and instruction; but this may not be. We have brought them, with the other chief actors in this little tale, to a happy point in their adventurous career, and there we feel that we ought to leave them in peace. Yet we would fain touch on one or two prominent points in their subsequent history before bidding them a final farewell. Let it be recorded, then, that many years after the date of the closing scene of our tale, there might have been seen in Iceland, at the head of a small bay, two pretty cottages, from the doors of which there was a magnificent view of as sweet a valley as ever filled the eye or gladdened the heart of man, with a distant glimpse of the great ocean beyond. On the sward before these cottages was assembled a large party of young men and maidens, the latter of whom were conspicuous for the sparkle of their blue eyes and the silky gloss of their fair hair, while the former were notable because of the great size and handsome proportions of their figures; some, however, of the men and maidens were dark and ruddy. The youths were engaged in putting the stone and throwing the hammer; the maidens looked on with interest--as maidens were wont to do on manly pastimes in days of old, and as they are not unwilling to do occasionally, even in modern times. Around these romped a host of children of all ages, sizes, and shades. These were the descendants of Erling the Bold and Glumm the Gruff. The two families had, as it were, fused into one grand compound, which was quite natural, for their natures were diverse yet sympathetic; besides, Glumm was dark, Erling fair; and it is well known that black and white always go hand in hand, producing that sweet-toned grey, which Nature would seem to cherish with a love quite as powerful as the abhorrence with which she is supposed to regard a vacuum. Beside each other, leaning against a tree, and admiring the prowess of the young men, stood Erling and Glumm, old, it is true, and past the time when men delight to exercise their muscles, but straight and stalwart, and still noble specimens of manhood. The most interesting group, however, was to be seen seated on a rustic bench near the door. There, sometimes conversing gravely with a silver-haired old man at his side, or stooping with a quiet smile to caress the head of a child that had rushed from its playmates for a little to be fondled by the "old one"--sat Haldor the Fierce, with Christian the hermit on one side, and Ulf of Romsdal on the other. Their heads were pure white, and their frames somewhat bent, but health still mantled on the sunburnt cheeks, and sparkled in the eyes of the old Norse Sea-kings. Within the house might have been seen two exceedingly handsome matrons-- such as one may see in Norway at the present time--who called each other Hilda and Ada, and who vied with a younger Hilda and Ada in their attentions upon two frail but cheery old women whom they called "Granny Heff" and "Granny Ast". How very unlike--and yet how like--were these to the Herfrida and Astrid of former days! Between the old dames there sat on a low stool a man of gigantic proportions, who had scarcely reached middle age, and who was still overflowing with the fun and fire of youth. He employed himself in alternately fondling and "chaffing" the two old women, and he was such an exact counterpart of what Erling the Bold was at the age of thirty, that his own mother was constantly getting confused, and had to be reminded that he was _Alric_, and not Erling! Alric's wife, a daughter of Glumm, was with the young people on the lawn, and his six riotous children were among the chief tormentors of old Haldor. Ingeborg was there too, sharp as ever, but not quite so sour. She was not a spinster. There were few spinsters in those days! She had married a man of the neighbouring valley, whom she loved to distraction, and whom she led the life of a dog! But it was her nature to be cross-grained. She could not help it, and the poor man appeared to grow fonder of her the more she worried him! As for Ivor the Old and Finn the One-eyed, they, with most of their contemporaries, had long been gathered to their fathers, and their bones reposed on the grassy slopes of Laxriverdale. As for the other personages of our tale, we have only space to remark that King Harald Haarfager succeeded in his wish to obtain the undivided sovereignty of Norway, but he failed to perpetuate the change; for the kingdom was, after his death, redivided amongst his sons. The last heard of Hake the berserk was, that he had been seen in the midst of a great battle to have both his legs cut off at one sweep, and that he died fighting on his stumps! Jarl Rongvold was burnt by King Harald's sons, but his stout son, Rolf Ganger, left his native land, and conquered Normandy, whence his celebrated descendant, William the Conqueror, came across the Channel and conquered England. Yes, there is perhaps more of Norse blood in your veins than you wot of, reader, whether you be English or Scotch; for those sturdy sea rovers invaded our lands from north, south, east, and west many a time in days gone by, and held it in possession for centuries at a time, leaving a lasting and beneficial impress on our customs and characters. We have good reason to regard their memory with respect and gratitude, despite their faults and sins, for much of what is good and true in our laws and social customs, much manly and vigorous in the British Constitution, of our intense love of freedom and fairplay, are pith, pluck, enterprise, and sense of justice that dwelt in the breasts of the rugged old Sea-kings of Norway! 
12481	----	Proofreading Team HERO TALES OF THE FAR NORTH By JACOB A. RIIS AUTHOR OF "HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES" "THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN" "THE OLD TOWN," ETC. New York, 1921 [Illustration: FREDERIKSBORG] THIS BOOK OF MY DEAD HEROES I DEDICATE TO MY LIVING HERO THEODORE ROOSEVELT MAY IT BE MANY YEARS BEFORE THE LAST CHAPTER OF HIS SPLENDID WHOLESOME LIFE IS WRITTEN IN THE PAGES OF OUR COUNTRY'S HISTORY FOREWORD When a man knocks at Uncle Sam's gate, craving admission to his house, we ask him how much money he brings, lest he become a hindrance instead of a help. If now we were to ask what he brings, not only in his pocket, but in his mind and in his heart, this stranger, what ideals he owns, what company he kept in the country he left that shaped his hopes and ambitions,--might it not, if the answer were right, be a help to a better mutual understanding between host and guest? For the _Mayflower_ did not hold all who in this world have battled for freedom of home, of hope, and of conscience. The struggle is bigger than that. Every land has its George Washington, its Kosciusko, its William Tell, its Garibaldi, its Kossuth, if there is but one that has a Joan d'Arc. What we want to know of the man is: were its heroes his? This book is an attempt to ask and to answer that question for my own people, in a very small and simple way, it is true, but perhaps abler pens with more leisure than mine may follow the trail it has blazed. I should like to see some Swede write of the heroes of his noble, chivalrous people, whom lack of space has made me slight here, though I count them with my own. I should like to hear the epic of United Italy, of proud and freedom-loving Hungary, the swan-song of unhappy Poland, chanted to young America again and again, to help us all understand that we are kin in the things that really count, and help us pull together as we must if we are to make the most of our common country. These were my--our--heroes, then. Every lad of Northern blood, whose heart is in the right place, loves them. And he need make no excuses for any of them. Nor has he need of bartering them for the great of his new home; they go very well together. It is partly for his sake I have set their stories down here. All too quickly he lets go his grip on them, on the new shore. Let him keep them and cherish them with the memories of the motherland. The immigrant America wants and needs is he who brings the best of the old home to the new, not he who threw it overboard on the voyage. In the great melting-pot it will tell its story for the good of us all. To those who wonder that I have left the Saga era of the North untouched, I would say that I have preferred to deal here only with downright historic figures. For valuable aid rendered in insuring accuracy I am indebted to the services of Dr. P.A. Rydberg, Dr. J. Emile Blomén, Gustaf V. Lindner, and Professor Joakim Reinhard. My thanks are due likewise to many friends, Danes by birth like myself, who have helped me with the illustrations. J. A. R. RICHMOND HILL, June, 1910. CONTENTS A KNIGHT ERRANT OF THE SEA HANS EGEDE, THE APOSTLE TO GREENLAND GUSTAV VASA, THE FATHER OF SWEDEN ABSALON, WARRIOR BISHOP OF THE NORTH KING VALDEMAR, AND THE STORY OF THE DANNEBROG HOW THE GHOST OF THE HEATH WAS LAID KING CHRISTIAN IV GUSTAV ADOLF, THE SNOW-KING KING AND SAILOR, HEROES OF COPENHAGEN THE TROOPER WHO WON A WAR ALONE CARL LINNÉ, KING OF THE FLOWERS NIELS FINSEN, THE WOLF-SLAYER A KNIGHT ERRANT OF THE SEA The Eighteenth Century broke upon a noisy family quarrel in the north of Europe. Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, the royal hotspur of all history, and Frederik of Denmark had fallen out. Like their people, they were first cousins, and therefore all the more bent on settling the old question which was the better man. After the fashion of the lion and the unicorn, they fought "all about the town," and, indeed, about every town that came in their way, now this and now that side having the best of it. On the sea, which was the more important because neither Swedes nor Danes could reach their fighting ground or keep up their armaments without command of the waterways, the victory rested finally with the Danes. And this was due almost wholly to one extraordinary figure, the like of which is scarce to be found in the annals of warfare, Peder Tordenskjold. Rising in ten brief years from the humblest place before the mast, a half-grown lad, to the rank of admiral, ennobled by his King and the idol of two nations, only to be assassinated on the "field of honor" at thirty, he seems the very incarnation of the stormy times of the Eleven Years' War, with which his sun rose and set; for the year in which peace was made also saw his death. Peder Jansen Wessel was born on October 28, 1690, in the city of Trondhjem, Norway, which country in those days was united with Denmark under one king. His father was an alderman with eighteen children. Peder was the tenth of twelve wild boys. It is related that the father in sheer desperation once let make for him a pair of leathern breeches which he would not be able to tear. But the lad, not to be beaten so easily, sat on a grind-stone and had one of his school-fellows turn it till the seat was worn thin, a piece of bravado that probably cost him dear, for doubtless the exasperated father's stick found the attenuated spot. Since he would have none of the school, his father had him apprenticed out to a tailor with the injunction not to spare the rod. But sitting cross-legged on a tailor's stool did not suit the lad, and he took it out of his master by snowballing him thoroughly one winter's day. Next a barber undertook to teach him his trade; but Peder ran away and was drifting about the streets when the King came to Norway. The boy saw the splendid uniforms and heard the story of the beautiful capital by the Öresund, with its palaces and great fighting ships. When the King departed, he was missing, and for a while there was peace in Trondhjem. Down in Copenhagen the homeless lad was found wandering about by the King's chaplain, who, being himself a Norwegian, took him home and made him a household page. But the boy's wanderings had led him to the navy-yard, where he saw mid-shipmen of his own size at drill, and he could think of nothing else. When he should have been waiting at table he was down among the ships. For him there was ever but one way to any goal, the straight cut, and at fifteen he wrote to the King asking to be appointed a midshipman. "I am wearing away my life as a servant," he wrote. "I want to give it, and my blood, to the service of your Majesty, and I will serve you with all my might while I live!" The navy had need of that kind of recruits, and the King saw to it that he was apprenticed at once. And that was the beginning of his strangely romantic career. Three years he sailed before the mast and learned seamanship, while Charles was baiting the Muscovite and the North was resting on its arms. Then came Pultava and the Swedish King's crushing defeat. The storm-centre was transferred to the North again, and the war on the sea opened with a splendid deed, fit to appeal to any ardent young heart. At the battle in the Bay of Kjöge, the _Dannebrog_, commanded by Ivar Hvitfeldt, caught fire, and by its position exposed the Danish fleet to great danger. Hvitfeldt could do one of two things: save his own life and his men's by letting his ship drift before the wind and by his escape risking the rest of the fleet and losing the battle, or stay where he was to meet certain death. He chose the latter, anchored his vessel securely, and fought on until the ship was burned down to the water's edge and blew up with him and his five hundred men. Ivar Hvitfeldt's name is forever immortal in the history of his country. A few years ago they raised the wreck of the _Dannebrog_, fitly called after the Danish flag, and made of its guns a monument that stands on Langelinie, the beautiful shore road of Copenhagen. Fired by such deeds, young Wessel implored the King, before he had yet worn out his first midshipman's jacket, to give him command of a frigate. He compromised on a small privateer, the _Ormen_, but with it he did such execution in Swedish waters and earned such renown as a dauntless sailor and a bold scout whose information about the enemy was always first and best, that before spring they gave him a frigate with eighteen guns and the emphatic warning "not to engage any enemy when he was not clearly the stronger." He immediately brought in a Swedish cruiser, the _Alabama_ of those days, that had been the terror of the sea. In a naval battle in the Baltic soon after, he engaged with his little frigate two of the enemy's line-of-battle ships that were trying to get away, and only when a third came to help them did he retreat, so battered that he had to seek port to make repairs. Accused of violating his orders, his answer was prompt: "I promised your Majesty to do my best, and I did." King Frederik IV, himself a young and spirited man, made him a captain, jumping him over fifty odd older lieutenants, and gave him leave to war on the enemy as he saw fit. The immediate result was that the Governor of Göteborg, the enemy's chief seaport in the North Sea, put a price on his head. Captain Wessel heard of it and sent word into town that he was outside--to come and take him; but to hurry, for time was short. While waiting for a reply, he fell in with two Swedish men-of-war having in tow a Danish prize. That was not to be borne, and though they together mounted ninety-four guns to his eighteen, he fell upon them like a thunderbolt. They beat him off, but he returned for their prize. That time they nearly sank him with three broad-sides. However, he ran for the Norwegian coast and saved his ship. In his report of this affair he excuses himself for running away with the reflection that allowing himself to be sunk "would not rightly have benefited his Majesty's service." However, the opportunity came to him swiftly of "rightly benefiting" the King's service. After the battle of Kolberger Heide, that had gone against the Swedes, he found them beaching their ships under cover of the night to prevent their falling into the hands of the victors. Wessel halted them with the threat that every man Jack in the fleet should be made to walk the plank, saved the ships, and took their admiral prisoner to his chief. When others slept, Wessel was abroad with his swift sailer. If wind and sea went against him, he knew how to turn his mishap to account. Driven in under the hostile shore once, he took the opportunity, as was his wont, to get the lay of the land and of the enemy. He learned quickly that in the harbor of Wesensö, not far away, a Swedish cutter was lying with a Danish prize. She carried eight guns and had a crew of thirty-six men; but though he had at the moment only eighteen sailors in his boat, he crept up the coast at once, slipped quietly in after sundown, and took ship and prize with a rush, killing and throwing overboard such as resisted. In Sweden mothers hushed their crying children with his dreaded name; on the sea they came near to thinking him a troll, so sudden and unexpected were his onsets. But there was no witchcraft about it. He sailed swiftly because he was a skilled sailor and because he missed no opportunity to have the bottom of his ship scraped and greased. And when on board, pistol and cutlass hung loose; for it was a time of war with a brave and relentless foe. His reconnoitring expeditions he always headed himself, and sometimes he went alone. Thus, when getting ready to take Marstrand, a fortified seaport of great importance to Charles, he went ashore disguised as a fisherman and peddled fish through the town, even in the very castle itself, where he took notice, along with the position of the guns and the strength of the garrison, of the fact that the commandant had two pretty daughters. He was a sailor, sure enough. Once when ashore on such an expedition, he was surprised by a company of dragoons. His men escaped, but the dragoons cut off his way to the shore. As they rode at him, reaching out for his sword, he suddenly dashed among them, cut one down, and, diving through the surf, swam out to the boat, his sword between his teeth. Their bullets churned up the sea all about him, but he was not hit. He seemed to bear a charmed life; in all his fights he was wounded but once. That was in the attack on the strongly fortified port of Strömstad, in which he was repulsed with a loss of 96 killed and 246 wounded, while the Swedish loss footed up over 1500, a fight which led straight to the most astonishing chapter in his whole career, of which more anon. All Denmark and Norway presently rang with the stories of his exploits. They were always of the kind to appeal to the imagination, for in truth he was a very knight errant of the sea who fought for the love of it as well as of the flag, ardent patriot that he was. A brave and chivalrous foe he loved next to a loyal friend. Cowardice he loathed. Once when ordered to follow a retreating enemy with his frigate _Hvide Örnen_ (the White Eagle) of thirty guns, he hugged him so close that in the darkness he ran his ship into the great Swedish man-of-war _Ösel_ of sixty-four guns. The chance was too good to let pass. Seeing that the _Ösel's_ lower gun-ports were closed, and reasoning from this that she had been struck in the water-line and badly damaged, he was for boarding her at once, but his men refused to follow him. In the delay the _Ösel_ backed away. Captain Wessel gave chase, pelted her with shot, and called to her captain, whose name was _Söstjerna_ (sea-star), to stop. "Running away from a frigate, are you? Shame on you, coward and poltroon! Stay and fight like a man for your King and your flag!" Seeing him edge yet farther away, he shouted in utter exasperation, "Your name shall be dog-star forever, not sea-star, if you don't stay." "But all this," he wrote sadly to the King, "with much more which was worse, had no effect." However, on his way back to join the fleet he ran across a convoy of ten merchant vessels, guarded by three of the enemy's line-of-battle ships. He made a feint at passing, but, suddenly turning, swooped down upon the biggest trader, ran out his boats, made fast, and towed it away from under the very noses of its protectors. It meant prize-money for his men, but their captain did not forget their craven conduct of the night, which had made him lose a bigger prize, and with the money they got a sound flogging. The account of the duel between his first frigate, _Lövendahl's Galley_, of eighteen guns, and a Swede of twenty-eight guns reads like the doings of the old vikings, and indeed both commanders were likely descended straight from those arch fighters. Wessel certainly was. The other captain was an English officer, Bactman by name, who was on the way to deliver his ship, that had been bought in England, to the Swedes. They met in the North Sea and fell to fighting by noon of one day. The afternoon of the next saw them at it yet. Twice the crew of the Swedish frigate had thrown down their arms, refusing to fight any more. Vainly the vessel had tried to get away; the Dane hung to it like a leech. In the afternoon of the second day Wessel was informed that his powder had given out. He had a boat sent out with a herald, who presented to Captain Bactman his regrets that he had to quit for lack of powder, but would he come aboard and shake hands? The Briton declined. Meanwhile the ships had drifted close enough to speak through the trumpet, and Captain Wessel shouted over from his quarter-deck that "if he could lend him a little powder, they might still go on." Captain Bactman smilingly shook his head, and then the two drank to one another's health, each on his own quarter-deck, and parted friends, while their crews manned what was left of the yards and cheered each other wildly. Wessel's enemies, of whom he had many, especially among the nobility, who looked upon him as a vulgar upstart, used this incident to bring him before a court-martial. It was unpatriotic, they declared, and they demanded that he be degraded and fined. His defence, which with all the records of his career are in the Navy Department at Copenhagen, was brief but to the point. It is summed up in the retort to his accusers that "they themselves should be rebuked, and severely, for failing to understand that an officer in the King's service should be promoted instead of censured for doing his plain duty," and that there was nothing in the articles of war commanding him to treat an honorable foe otherwise than with honor. It must be admitted that he gave his critics no lack of cause. His enterprises were often enough of a hair-raising kind, and he had scant patience with censure. Thus once, when harassed by an Admiralty order purposely issued to annoy him, he wrote back: "The biggest fool can see that to obey would defeat all my plans. I shall not do it. It may suit folk who love loafing about shore, but to an honest man such talk is disgusting, let alone that the thing can't be done." He was at that time twenty-six years old, and in charge of the whole North Sea fleet. No wonder he had enemies. However, the King was his friend. He made him a nobleman, and gave him the name Tordenskjold. It means "thunder shield." "Then, by the powers," he swore when he was told, "I shall thunder in the ears of the Swedes so that the King shall hear of it!" And he kept his word. Charles had determined to take Denmark with one fell blow. He had an army assembled in Skaane to cross the sound, which was frozen over solid. All was ready for the invasion in January 1716. The people throughout Sweden had assembled in the churches to pray for the success of the King's arms, and he was there himself to lead; but in the early morning hours a strong east wind broke up the ice, and the campaign ended before it was begun. Charles then turned on Norway, and laid siege to the city of Frederikshald, which, with its strong fort, Frederiksteen, was the key to that country. A Danish fleet lay in the Skagerak, blocking his way of reënforcements by sea. Tordenskjold, with his frigate, _Hvide Örnen_, and six smaller ships (the frigate _Vindhunden_ of sixteen guns, and five vessels of light draught, two of which were heavily armed), was doing scouting duty for the Admiral when he learned that the entire Swedish fleet of forty-four ships that was intended to aid in the operations against Frederikshald lay in the harbor of Dynekilen waiting its chance to slip out. It was so well shielded there that its commander sent word to the King to rest easy; nothing could happen to him. He would join him presently. Tordenskjold saw that if he could capture or destroy this fleet Norway was saved; the siege must perforce be abandoned. And Norway was his native land, which he loved with his whole fervid soul. But no time was to be lost. He could not go back to ask for permission, and one may shrewdly guess that he did not want to, for it would certainly have been refused. He heard that the Swedish officers, secure in their stronghold, were to attend a wedding on shore the next day. His instructions from the Admiralty were: in an emergency always to hold a council of war, and to abide by its decision. At daybreak he ran his ship alongside _Vindhunden_, her companion frigate, and called to the captain: "The Swedish officers are bidden to a wedding, and they have forgotten us. What do you say--shall we go unasked?" Captain Grip was game. "Good enough!" he shouted back. "The wind is fair, and we have all day. I am ready." That was the council of war and its decision. Tordenskjold gave the signal to clear for action, and sailed in at the head of his handful of ships. The inlet to the harbor of Dynekilen is narrow and crooked, winding between reefs and rocky steeps quite two miles, and only in spots more than four hundred feet wide. Halfway in was a strong battery. Tordenskjold's fleet was received with a tremendous fire from all the Swedish ships, from the battery, and from an army of four thousand soldiers lying along shore. The Danish ships made no reply. They sailed up grimly silent till they reached a place wide enough to let them wear round, broadside on. Then their guns spoke. Three hours the battle raged before the Swedish fire began to slacken. As soon as he noticed it, Tordenskjold slipped into the inner harbor under cover of the heavy pall of smoke, and before the Swedes suspected their presence they found his ships alongside. Broadside after broadside crashed into them, and in terror they fled, soldiers and sailors alike. While they ran Tordenskjold swooped down upon the half-way battery, seized it, and spiked its guns. The fight was won. But the heaviest part was left--the towing out of the captured ships. All the afternoon Tordenskjold led the work in person, pulling on ropes, cheering on his men. The Swedes, returning gamely to the fight, showered them with bullets from shore. One of the abandoned vessels caught fire. Lieutenant Tönder, of Tordenskjold's staff, a veteran with a wooden leg, boarded it just as the quartermaster ran up yelling that the ship was full of powder and was going to blow up. He tried to jump overboard, but the lieutenant seized him by the collar and, stumping along, made him lead the way to the magazine. A fuse had been laid to an open keg of powder, and the fire was sputtering within an inch of it when Lieutenant Tönder plucked it out, smothered it between thumb and forefinger, and threw it through the nearest port-hole. There were two hundred barrels of powder in the ship. Tordenskjold had kept his word to the King. Not as much as a yawl of the Dynekilen fleet was left to the enemy. He had sunk or burned thirteen and captured thirty-one ships with his seven, and all the piled-up munitions of war were in his hands. King Charles gave up the siege, marched his army out of Norway, and the country was saved. The victory cost Tordenskjold but nineteen killed and fifty-seven wounded. On his own ship six men were killed and twenty wounded. Of infinite variety was this sea-fighter. After a victory like this, one hears of him in the next breath gratifying a passing whim of the King, who wanted to know what the Swedish people thought of their Government after Charles's long wars that are said to have cost their country a million men. Tordenskjold overheard it, had himself rowed across to Sweden, picked up there a wedding party, bridegroom, minister, guests, and all, including the captain of the shore watch who was among them, and returned in time for the palace dinner with his catch. King Frederik was entertaining Czar Peter the Great, who had been boasting of the unhesitating loyalty of his men which his Danish host could not match. He now had the tables turned upon him. It is recorded that the King sent the party back with royal gifts for the bride. One would be glad to add that Tordenskjold sent back, too, the silver pitcher and the parlor clock his men took on their visit. But he didn't. They were still in Copenhagen a hundred years later, and may be they are yet. It was not like his usual gallantry toward the fair sex. But perhaps he didn't know anything about it. Then we find him, after an unsuccessful attack on Göteborg that cost many lives, sending in his adjutant to congratulate the Swedish commandant on their "gallant encounter" the day before, and exchanging presents with him in token of mutual regard. And before one can turn the page he is discovered swooping down upon Marstrand, taking town and fleet anchored there, and the castle itself with its whole garrison, all with two hundred men, swelled by stratagem into an army of thousands. We are told that an officer sent out from the castle to parley, issuing forth from a generous dinner, beheld the besieging army drawn up in street after street, always two hundred men around every corner, as he made his way through the town, piloted by Tordenskjold himself, who was careful to take him the longest way, while the men took the short cut to the next block. The man returned home with the message that the town was full of them and that resistance was useless. The ruse smacks of Peder Wessel's boyish fight with a much bigger fellow who had beaten him once by gripping his long hair, and so getting his head in chancery. But Peder had taken notice. Next time he came to the encounter with hair cut short and his whole head smeared with soft-soap, and that time he won. The most extraordinary of all his adventures befell when, after the attack on Strömstad, he was hastening home to Copenhagen. Crossing the Kattegat in a little smack that carried but two three-pound guns, he was chased and overtaken by a Swedish frigate of sixteen guns and a crew of sixty men. Tordenskjold had but twenty-one, and eight of them were servants and non-combatants. They were dreadfully frightened, and tradition has it that one of them wept when he saw the Swede coming on. Her captain called upon him to surrender, but the answer was flung back: "I am Tordenskjold! Come and take me, if you can." With that came a tiny broadside that did brisk execution on the frigate. Tordenskjold had hauled both his guns over on the "fighting side" of his vessel. There ensued a battle such as Homer would have loved to sing. Both sides banged away for all they were worth. In the midst of the din and smoke Tordenskjold used his musket with cool skill; his servants loaded while he fired. At every shot a man fell on the frigate. Word was brought that there was no more round shot. He bade them twist up his pewter dinner service and fire that, which they did. The Swede tried vainly to board. Tordenskjold manoeuvred his smack with such skill that they could not hook on. Seeing this, Captain Lind, commander of the frigate, called to him to desist from the useless struggle; he would be honored to carry such a prisoner into Göteborg. Back came the taunt: "Neither you nor any other Swede shall ever carry me there!" And with that he shot the captain down.[1] [Footnote 1: He was not mortally wounded, and Tordenskjold took him prisoner later at the capture of Marstrand.] When his men saw him fall, they were seized with panic and made off as quickly as they could, while Tordenskjold's crew, of whom only fourteen were left, beat their drums and blew trumpets in frantic defiance. Their captain was for following the Swede and boarding her, but he couldn't. Sails, rigging, and masts were shot to pieces. Perhaps the terror of the Swedes was increased by the sight of Tordenskjold's tame bear making faces at them behind his master. It went with him everywhere till that day, and came out of the fight unscathed. But during the night the crew ran the vessel on the Swedish shore, whence Tordenskjold himself reached Denmark in an open boat which he had to keep bailing all night, for the boat was shot full of holes, and though he and his companions stuffed their spare clothing into them it leaked badly. The enemy got the smack, after all, and the bear, which, being a Norwegian, proved so untractable on Swedish soil that, sad to relate, in the end they cut him up and ate him. King Charles, himself a knightly soul and an admirer of a gallant enemy, gave orders to have all Tordenskjold's belongings sent back to him, but he did not live to see the order carried out. He was found dead in the rifle-pits before Frederiksteen on December 11, 1718, shot through the head. It was Tordenskjold himself who brought the all-important news to King Frederik in the night of December 28,--they were not the days of telegraphs and fast steamers,--and when the King, who had been roused out of bed to receive him, could not trust his ears, he said with characteristic audacity, "I wish it were as true that your Majesty had made me a schoutbynacht,"--the rank next below admiral. And so he took the step next to the last on the ladder of his ambition. Within seven months he took Marstrand. It is part of the record of that astonishing performance that when the unhappy Commandant hesitated as the hour of evacuation came, not sure that he had done right in capitulating, Tordenskjold walked up to the fort with a hundred men, half his force, banged on the gate, went in alone and up to the Commandant's window, thundering out: "What are you waiting for? Don't you know time is up?" In terror and haste, Colonel Dankwardt moved his Hessians out, and Tordenskjold marched his handful of men in. When he brought the King the keys of Marstrand, Frederik made him an admiral. It was while blockading the port of Göteborg in the last year of the war that he met and made a friend of Lord Carteret, the English Ambassador to Denmark, and fell in love with the picture of a young Englishwoman, Miss Norris, a lady of great beauty and wealth, who, Lord Carteret told him, was an ardent admirer of his. It was this love which indirectly sent him to his death. Lord Carteret had given him a picture of her, and as soon as peace was made he started for England; but he never reached that country. The remnant of the Swedish fleet lay in the roadstead at Göteborg, under the guns of the two forts, New and Old Elfsborg. While Tordenskjold was away at Marstrand, the enemy sallied forth and snapped up seven of the smaller vessels of his blockading fleet. The news made him furious. He sent in, demanding them back at once, "or I will come after them." He had already made one ineffectual attempt to take New Elfsborg that cost him dear. In Göteborg they knew the strength of his fleet and laughed at his threat. But it was never safe to laugh at Tordenskjold. The first dark night he stole in with ten armed boats, seized the shore batteries of the old fort, and spiked their guns before a shot was fired. The rising moon saw his men in possession of the ships lying at anchor. With their blue-lined coats turned inside out so that they might pass for Swedish uniforms, they surprised the watch in the guard-house and made them all prisoners. Now that there was no longer reason for caution, they raised a racket that woke the sleeping town up in a fright. The commander of the other fort sent out a boat to ascertain the cause. It met the Admiral's and challenged it, "Who goes there?" "Tordenskjold," was the reply, "come to teach you to keep awake." It proved impossible to warp the ships out. Only one of the seven lost ones was recovered; all the rest were set on fire. By the light of the mighty bonfire Tordenskjold rowed out with his men, hauling the recovered ship right under the guns of the forts, the Danish flag flying at the bow of his boat. He had not lost a single man. A cannon-ball swept away all the oars on one side of his boat, but no one was hurt. At Marstrand they had been up all night listening to the cannonading and the crash upon crash as the big ships blew up. They knew that Tordenskjold was abroad with his men. In the morning, when they were all in church, he walked in and sat down by his chief, the old Admiral Judicher, who was a slow-going, cautious man. He whispered anxiously, "What news?" but Tordenskjold only shrugged his shoulders with unmoved face. It is not likely that either the old Admiral or the congregation heard much of that sermon, if indeed they heard any of it. But when it was over, they saw from the walls of the town the Danish ships at anchor and heard the story of the last of Tordenskjold's exploits. It fitly capped the climax of his life. Sweden's entire force on the North Sea, with the exception of five small galleys, had either been captured, sunk, or burned by him. The King would not let Tordenskjold go when peace was made, but he had his way in the end. To his undoing he consented to take with him abroad a young scalawag, the son of his landlord, who had more money than brains. In Hamburg the young man fell in with a gambler, a Swedish colonel by name of Stahl, who fleeced him of all he had and much more besides. When Tordenskjold heard of it and met the Colonel in another man's house, he caned him soundly and threw him out in the street. For this he was challenged, but refused to fight a gambler. "Friends," particularly one Colonel Münnichhausen, who volunteered to be his second, talked him over, and also persuaded him to give up the pistol, with which he was an expert. The duel was fought at the Village of Gledinge, over the line from Hanover, on the morning of November 12, 1720. Tordenskjold was roused from sleep at five, and, after saying his prayers, a duty he never on any account omitted, he started for the place appointed. His old body-servant vainly pleaded with his master to take his stout blade instead of the flimsy parade sword the Admiral carried. Münnichhausen advised against it; it would be too heavy, he said. Stahl's weapon was a long fighting rapier, and to this the treacherous second made no objection. Almost at the first thrust he ran the Admiral through. The seconds held his servant while Stahl jumped on his horse and galloped away. Tordenskjold breathed out his dauntless soul in the arms of his faithful servant and friend. His body lies in a black marble sarcophagus in the "Navy Church" at Copenhagen. The Danish and Norwegian peoples have never ceased to mourn their idol. He was a sailor with a sailor's faults. But he loved truth, honor, and courage in foe and friend alike. Like many seafaring men, he was deeply religious, with the unquestioning faith of a child. There is a letter in existence written by him to his father when the latter was on his death-bed that bears witness to this. He thanks him with filial affection for all his care, and says naïvely that he would rather have his prayers than fall heir to twenty thousand daler. His pictures show a stocky, broad-shouldered youth with frank blue eyes, full lips, and an eagle nose. His deep, sonorous voice used to be heard, in his midshipman days, above the whole congregation in the Navy Church. In after years it called louder still to Denmark's foes. When things were at their worst in storm or battle, he was wont to shout to his men, "Hi, _now_ we are having a fine time!" and his battle-cry has passed into the language. By it, in desperate straits demanding stout hearts, one may know the Dane after his own heart, the real Dane, the world over. Among his own Tordenskjold is still and always will be "the Admiral of Norway's fleet." HANS EGEDE, THE APOSTLE TO GREENLAND When in the fall of 1909 the statement was flashed around the world that the North Pole had at last been reached, a name long unfamiliar ran from mouth to mouth with that of the man who claimed to be its discoverer. Dr. Cook was coming to Copenhagen, the daily despatches read, on the Danish Government steamer _Hans Egede_. A shipload of reporters kept an anxious lookout from the Skaw for the vessel so suddenly become famous, but few who through their telescopes made out the name at last upon the prow of the ship gave it another thought in the eager welcome to the man it brought back from the perils of the Farthest North. Yet the name of that vessel stood for something of more real account to humanity than the attainment of a goal that had been the mystery of the ages. No such welcome awaited the explorer Hans Egede, who a hundred and seventy-two years before sailed homeward over that very route, a broken, saddened man, and all he brought was the ashes of his best-beloved that they might rest in her native soil. No gold medal was struck for him; the people did not greet him with loud acclaim. The King and his court paid scant attention to him, and he was allowed to live his last days in poverty. Yet a greater honor is his than ever fell to a discoverer: the simple natives of Greenland long reckoned the time from his coming among them. To them he was in their ice-bound home what Father Damien was to the stricken lepers in the South seas, and Dr. Grenfell is to the fishermen of Labrador. Hans Poulsen Egede, the apostle of Greenland, was a Norwegian of Danish descent. He was born in the Northlands, in the parish of Trondenäs, on January 31, 1686. His grandfather and his father before him had been clergymen in Denmark, the former in the town of West Egede, whence the name. Graduated in a single year from the University of Copenhagen, "at which," his teachers bore witness, "no one need wonder who knows the man," he became at twenty-two pastor of a parish up in the Lofoden Islands, where the fabled maëlstrom churns. Eleven years he preached to the poor fisherfolk on Sunday, and on week-days helped his parishioners rebuild the old church. When it was finished and the bishop came to consecrate it, he chided Egede because the altar was too fine; it must have cost more than they could afford. "It did not cost anything," was his reply. "I made it myself." No wonder his fame went far. When the church bell of Vaagen called, boats carrying Sunday-clad fishermen were seen making for the island from every point of the compass. Great crowds flocked to his church; great enough to arouse the jealousy of neighboring preachers who were not so popular, and they made it so unpleasant that his wife at last tired of it. They little dreamed that they were industriously paving the way for his greater work and for his undying fame. The sea that surges against that rockbound coast ever called its people out in quest of adventure. Some who went nine hundred years ago found a land in the far Northwest barred by great icebergs; but once inside the barrier, they saw deep fjords like their own at home, to which the mountains sloped down, covered with a wealth of lovely flowers. On green meadows antlered deer were grazing, the salmon leaped in brawling brooks, and birds called for their mates in the barrens. Above it all towered snow-covered peaks. They saw only the summer day; they did not know how brief it was, and how long the winter night, and they called the country Greenland. They built their homes there, and other settlers came. They were hardy men, bred in a harsh climate, and they stayed. They built churches and had their priests and bishops, for Norway was Christian by that time. And they prospered after their fashion. They even paid Peter's Pence to Rome. There is a record that their contribution, being in kind, namely, walrus teeth, was sold in 1386 by the Pope's agent to a merchant in Flanders for twelve livres, fourteen sous. They kept up communication with their kin across the seas until the Black Death swept through the Old World in the Fourteenth Century; Norway, when it was gone, was like a vast tomb. Two-thirds of its people lay dead. Those who were left had enough to do at home; and Greenland was forgotten. The seasons passed, and the savages, with whom the colonists had carried on a running feud, came out of the frozen North and overwhelmed them. Dim traditions that were whispered among the natives for centuries told of that last fight. It was the Ragnarok of the Northmen. Not one was left to tell the tale. Long years after, when fishing vessels landed on that desolate coast, they found a strange and hostile people in possession. No one had ever dared to settle there since. This last Egede knew, but little more. He believed that there were still settlements on the inaccessible east coast of Greenland where descendants of the old Northmen lived, cut off from all the world, sunk into ignorance and godlessness,--men and women who had once known the true light,--and his heart yearned to go to their rescue. Waking and dreaming, he thought of nothing else. The lamp in his quiet study shone out over the sea at night when his people were long asleep. Their pastor was poring over old manuscripts and the logs of whalers that had touched upon Greenland. From Bergen he gathered the testimony of many sailors. None of them had ever seen traces of, or heard of, the old Northmen. To his bishop went Egede with his burden. Ever it rang in his ears: "God has chosen you to bring them back to the light." The bishop listened and was interested. Yes, that was the land from which seafarers in a former king's time had brought home golden sand. There might be more. It couldn't be far from Cuba and Hispaniola, those golden coasts. If one were to go equipped for trading, no doubt a fine stroke of business might be done. Thus the Right Reverend Bishop Krog of Trondhjem, and Egede went home, disheartened. At home his friends scouted him, said he was going mad to think of giving up his living on such a fool's chase. His wife implored him to stay, and with a heavy heart Egede was about to abandon his purpose when his jealous neighbor, whose parishioners had been going to hear Egede preach, stirred up such trouble that his wife was glad to go. She even urged him to, and he took her at her word. They moved to Bergen, and from that port they sailed on May 3, 1721, on the ship _Haabet_ (the Hope), with another and smaller vessel as convoy, forty-six souls all told, bound for the unknown North. The Danish King had made Egede missionary to the Greenlanders on a salary of three hundred daler a year, the same amount which Egede himself contributed of his scant store toward the equipment. The bishop's plan had prevailed; the mission was to be carried by the expected commerce, and upon that was to be built a permanent colonization. Early in June they sighted land, but the way to it was barred by impassable ice. A whole month they sailed to and fro, trying vainly for a passage. At last they found an opening and slipped through, only to find themselves shut in, with towering icebergs closing around them. As they looked fearfully out over the rail, their convoy signalled that she had struck, and the captain of _Haabet_ cried out that all was lost. In the tumult of terror that succeeded, Egede alone remained calm. Praying for succor where there seemed to be none, he remembered the One Hundred and Seventh Psalm: "He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and brake their bands in sunder." And the morning dawned clear, the ice was moving and their prison widening. On July 3, _Haabet_ cleared the last ice-reef, and the shore lay open before them. The Eskimos came out in their kayaks, and the boldest climbed aboard the ship. In one boat sat an old man who refused the invitation. He paddled about the vessel, mumbling darkly in a strange tongue. He was an Angekok, one of the native medicine-men of whom presently Egede was to know much more. As he stood upon the deck and looked at these strangers for whose salvation he had risked all, his heart fell. They were not the stalwart Northmen he had looked for, and their jargon had no homelike sound. But a great wave of pity swept over him, and the prayer that rose to his lips was for strength to be their friend and their guide to the light. Not at once did the way open for the coveted friendship with the Eskimos. While they thought the strangers came only to trade they were hospitable enough, but when they saw them build, clearly intent on staying, they made signs that they had better go. They pointed to the sun that sank lower toward the horizon every day, and shivered as if from extreme cold, and they showed their visitors the icebergs and the snow, making them understand that it would cover the house by and by. When it all availed nothing and the winter came on, they retired into their huts and cut the acquaintance of the white men. They were afraid that they had come to take revenge for the harm done their people in the olden time. There was nothing for it, then, but that Egede must go to them, and this he did. They seized their spears when they saw him coming, but he made signs that he was their friend. When he had nothing else to give them, he let them cut the buttons from his coat. Throughout the fifteen years he spent in Greenland Egede never wore furs, as did the natives. The black robe he thought more seemly for a clergyman, to his great discomfort. He tells in his diary and in his letters that often when he returned from his winter travels it could stand alone when he took it off, being frozen stiff. After a while he got upon neighborly terms with the Eskimos; but, if anything, the discomfort was greater. They housed him at night in their huts, where the filth and the stench were unendurable. They showed their special regard by first licking off the piece of seal they put before him, and if he rejected it they were hurt. Their housekeeping, of which he got an inside view, was embarrassing in its simplicity. The dish-washing was done by the dogs licking the kettles clean. Often, after a night or two in a hut that held half a dozen families, he was compelled to change his clothes to the skin in an open boat or out on the snow. But the alternative was to sleep out in a cold that sometimes froze his pillow to the bed and the tea-cup to the table even in his own home. Above all, he must learn their language. It proved a difficult task, for the Eskimo tongue was both very simple and very complex. In all the things pertaining to their daily life it was exceedingly complex. For instance, to catch one kind of fish was expressed by one word, to catch another kind in quite different terms. They had one word for catching a young seal, another for catching an old one. When it came to matters of moral and spiritual import, the language was poor to desperation. Egede's instruction began when he caught the word "kine"--what is it? And from that time on he learned every day; but the pronunciation was as varied as the workaday vocabulary, and it was an unending task. It proceeded with many interruptions from the Angekoks, who tried more than once to bewitch him, but finally gave it up, convinced that he was a great medicine-man himself, and therefore invulnerable. But before that they tried to foment a regular mutiny, the colony being by that time well under way, and Egede had to arrest and punish the leaders. The natives naturally clung to them, and when Egede had mastered their language and tried to make clear that the Angekoks deceived them when they pretended to go to the other world for advice, they demurred. "Did you ever see them go?" he asked. "Well, have you seen this God of yours of whom you speak so much?" was their reply. When Egede spoke of spiritual gifts, they asked for good health and blubber: "Our Angekoks give us that." Hell-fire was much in theological evidence in those days, but among the Eskimos it was a failure as a deterrent. They listened to the account of it eagerly and liked the prospect. When at length they became convinced that Egede knew more than their Angekoks, they came to him with the request that he would abolish winter. Very likely they thought that one who had such knowledge of the hot place ought to have influence enough with the keeper of it to obtain this favor. It was not an easy task, from any point of view, to which he had put his hands. As that first winter wore away there were gloomy days and nights, and they were not brightened when, with the return of the sun, no ship arrived from Denmark. The Dutch traders came, and opened their eyes wide when they found Egede and his household safe and even on friendly terms with the Eskimos. Pelesse--the natives called the missionary that, as the nearest they could come to the Danish _präst_ (priest)--Pelesse was not there after blubber, they told the Dutchmen, but to teach them about heaven and of "Him up there," who had made them and wanted them home with Him again. So he had not worked altogether in vain. But the brief summer passed, and still no relief ship. The crew of _Haabet_ clamored to go home, and Egede had at last to give a reluctant promise that if no ship came in two weeks, he would break up. His wife alone refused to take a hand in packing. The ship was coming, she insisted, and at the last moment it did come. A boat arriving after dark brought the first word of it. The people ashore heard voices speaking in Danish, and flew to Egede, who had gone to bed, with the news. The ship brought good cheer. The Government was well disposed. Trading and preaching were to go on together, as planned. Joyfully then they built a bigger and a better house, and called their colony Godthaab (Good Hope). The work was now fairly under way. Of the energy and the hardships it entailed, even we in our day that have heard so much of Arctic exploration can have but a faint conception. Shut in on the coast of eternal ice and silence,--silence, save when in summer the Arctic rivers were alive, and crash after crash announced that the glaciers coming down from the inland mountains were "casting their calves," the great icebergs, upon the ocean,--the colonists counted the days from the one when that year's ship was lost to sight till the returning spring brought the next one, their only communication with their far-off home. In summer the days were sometimes burning hot, but the nights always bitterly cold. In winter, says Egede, hot water spilled on the table froze as it ran, and the meat they cooked was often frozen at the bone when set on the table. Summer and winter Egede was on his travels between Sundays, sometimes in the trader's boat, more often the only white man with one or two Eskimo companions, seeking out the people. When night surprised him with no native hut in sight, he pulled the boat on some desert shore and, commending his soul to God, slept under it. Once he and his son found an empty hut, and slept there in the darkness. Not until day came again did they know that they had made their bed on the frozen bodies of dead men who had once been the occupants of the house, and had died they never knew how. Peril was everywhere. Again and again his little craft was wrecked. Once the house blew down over their heads in one of the dreadful winter storms that ravage those high latitudes. Often he had to sit on the rail of his boat, and let his numbed feet hang into the sea to restore feeling in them. On land he sometimes waded waist-deep in snow, climbed mountains and slid down into valleys, having but the haziest notion of where he would land. At home his brave wife sat alone, praying for his safety and listening to every sound that might herald his return. Tremble and doubt they did, Egede owns, but they never flinched. Their work was before them, and neither thought of turning back. The Eskimos soon came to know that Egede was their friend. When his boat entered a fjord where they were fishing, and his rowers shouted out that the good priest had come who had news of God, they dropped their work and flocked out to meet him. Then he spoke to a floating congregation, simply as if they were children, and, as with Him whose message he bore, "the people heard him gladly." They took him to their sick, and asked him to breathe upon them, which he did to humor them, until he found out that it was an Angekok practice, whereupon he refused. Once, after he had spoken of the raising of Lazarus from the dead, they took him to a new-made grave and asked him, too, to bring back their dead. They brought him a blind man to be healed. Egede looked upon them in sorrowful pity. "I can do nothing," he said; "but if he believes in Jesus, He has the power and can do it." "I do believe," shouted the blind man: "let Him heal me." It occurred to Egede, perhaps as a mere effort at cleanliness, to wash his eyes in cognac, and he sent him away with words of comfort. He did not see his patient again for thirteen years. Then he was in a crowd of Eskimos who came to Godthaab. The man saw as well as Egede. "Do you remember?" he said, "you washed my eyes with sharp water, and the Son of God in whom I believed, He made me to see." Children the Eskimos were in their idolatry, and children they remained as Christians. By Egede's prayers they set great store. "You ask for us," they told him. "God does not hear us; He does not understand Eskimo." Of God they spoke as "Him up there." They believed that the souls of the dead went up on the rainbow, and, reaching the moon that night, rested there in the moon's house, on a bench covered with the white skins of young polar bears. There they danced and played games, and the northern lights were the young people playing ball. Afterward they lived in houses on the shore of a big lake overshadowed by a snow mountain. When the waters ran over the edge of the lake, it rained on earth. When the "moon was dark," it was down on earth catching seal for a living. Thunder was caused by two old women shaking a dried sealskin between them; the lightning came when they turned the white side out. The "Big Nail" we have heard of as the Eskimos' Pole, was a high-pointed mountain in the Farthest North on which the sky rested and turned around with the sun, moon, and stars. Up there the stars were much bigger. Orion's Belt was so near that you had to carry a whip to drive him away. The women were slaves. An Eskimo might have as many wives as he saw fit; they were his, and it was nobody's business. But adultery was unknown. The seventh commandment in Egede's translation came to read, "One wife alone you shall have and love." The birth of a girl was greeted with wailing. When grown, she was often wooed by violence. If she fled from her admirer, he cut her feet when he overtook her, so that she could run no more. The old women were denounced as witches who drove the seals away, and were murdered. An Eskimo who was going on a reindeer hunt, and found his aged mother a burden, took her away and laid her in an open grave. Returning on the third day, he heard her groaning yet, and smothered her with a big stone. He tried to justify himself to Egede by saying that "she died hard, and it was a pity not to speed her." Yet they buried a dog's head with a child, so that the dog, being clever, could run ahead and guide the little one's steps to heaven. They could count no further than five; at a stretch they might get to twenty, on their fingers and toes, but there they stopped. However, they were not without resources. It was the day of long Sunday services, and the Eskimos were a restless people. When the sermon dragged, they would go up to Egede and make him measure on their arms how much longer the talk was going to be. Then they tramped back to their seats and sat listening with great attention, all the time moving one hand down the arm, checking off the preacher's progress. If they got to the finger-tips before he stopped, they would shake their heads sourly and go back for a remeasurement. No wonder Egede put his chief hope in the children, whom he gathered about him in flocks. For all that, the natives loved him. There came a day that brought this message from the North: "Say to the speaker to come to us to live, for the other strangers who come here can only talk to us of blubber, blubber, blubber, and we also would hear of the great Creator." Egede went as far as he could, but was compelled by ice and storms to turn back after weeks of incredible hardships. The disappointment was the more severe to him because he had never quite given up his hope of finding remnants of the ancient Norse settlements. The fact that the old records spoke of a West Bygd (settlement) and an East Bygd had misled many into believing that the desolate east coast had once been colonized. Not until our own day was this shown to be an error, when Danish explorers searched that coast for a hundred miles and found no other trace of civilization than a beer bottle left behind by the explorer Nordenskjold. Egede's hope had been that Greenland might be once more colonized by Christian people. When the Danish Government, after some years, sent up a handful of soldiers, with a major who took the title of governor, to give the settlement official character as a trading station, they sent with them twenty unofficial "Christians," ten men out of the penitentiary and as many lewd and drunken women from the treadmill, who were married by lot before setting sail, to give the thing a halfway decent look. They were good enough for the Eskimos, they seem to have thought at Copenhagen. There followed a terrible winter, during which mutiny and murder were threatened. "It is a pity," writes the missionary, "that while we sleep secure among the heathen savages, with so-called Christian people our lives are not safe." As a matter of fact they were not, for the soldiers joined in the mutiny against Egede as the cause of their having to live in such a place, and had not sickness and death smitten the malcontents, neither he nor the governor would have come safe through the winter. On the Eskimos this view of the supposed fruits of Christian teaching made its own impression. After seeing a woman scourged on shipboard for misbehavior, they came innocently enough to Egede and suggested that some of their best Angekoks be sent down to Denmark to teach the people to be sober and decent. There came a breathing spell after ten years of labor in what had often enough seemed to him the spiritual as well as physical ice-barrens of the North, when Egede surveyed a prosperous mission, with trade established, a hundred and fifty children christened and schooled, and many of their elders asking to be baptized. In the midst of his rejoicing the summer's ship brought word from Denmark that the King was dead, and orders from his successor to abandon the station. Egede might stay with provisions for one year, if there was enough left over after fitting out the ship; but after that he would receive no further help. When the Eskimos heard the news, they brought their little children to the mission. "These will not let you go," they said; and he stayed. His wife, whom hardship and privation and the lonely waiting for her husband in the long winter nights had at last broken down, refused to leave him, though she sadly needed the care of a physician. A few of the sailors were persuaded to stay another year. "So now," Egede wrote in his diary when, on July 31, 1731, he had seen the ship sail away with all his hopes, "I am left alone with my wife and three children, ten sailors and eight Eskimos, girls and boys who have been with us from the start. God let me live to see the blessed day that brings good news once more from home." His prayer was heard. The next summer brought word that the mission was to be continued, partly because Egede had strained every nerve to send home much blubber and many skins. But it was as a glimpse of the sun from behind dark clouds. His greatest trials trod hard upon the good news. To rouse interest in the mission Egede had sent home young Eskimos from time to time. Three of these died of smallpox in Denmark. The fourth came home and brought the contagion, all unknown, to his people. It was the summer fishing season, when the natives travel much and far, and wherever he went they flocked about him to hear of the "Great Lord's land," where the houses were so tall that one could not shoot an arrow over them, and to ask a multitude of questions: Was the King very big? Had he caught many whales? Was he strong and a great Angekok? and much more of the same kind. In a week the disease broke out among the children at the mission, and soon word came from islands and fjords where the Eskimos were fishing, of death and misery unspeakable. It was virgin soil for the plague, and it was terribly virulent, striking down young and old in every tent and hut. More than two thousand natives, one-fourth of the whole population, died that summer. Of two hundred families near the mission only thirty were left alive. A cry of terror and anguish rose throughout the settlements. No one knew what to do. In vain did Egede implore them to keep their sick apart. In fever delirium they ran out in the ice-fields or threw themselves into the sea. A wild panic seized the survivors, and they fled to the farthest tribes, carrying the seeds of death with them wherever they went. Whole villages perished, and their dead lay unburied. Utter desolation settled like a pall over the unhappy land. Through it all a single ray of hope shone. The faith that Egede had preached all those years, and the life he had lived with them, bore their fruit. They had struck deeper than he thought. They crowded to him, all that could, as their one friend. Dying mothers held their suckling babes up to him and died content. In a deserted island camp a half-grown girl was found alone with three little children. Their father was dead. When he knew that for him and the baby there was no help, he went to a cave and, covering himself and the child with skins, lay down to die. His parting words to his daughter were, "Before you have eaten the two seals and the fish I have laid away for you, Pelesse will come, no doubt, and take you home. For he loves you and will take care of you." At the mission every nook and cranny was filled with the sick and the dying. Egede and his wife nursed them day and night. Childlike, when death approached, they tried to put on their best clothes, or even to have new ones made, that they might please God by coming into His presence looking fine. When Egede had closed their eyes, he carried the dead in his arms to the vestibule, where in the morning the men who dug the graves found them. At the sight of his suffering the scoffers were dumb. What his preaching had not done to win them over, his sorrows did. They were at last one. That dreadful year left Egede a broken man. In his dark moments he reproached himself with having brought only misery to those he had come to help and serve. One thorn which one would think he might have been spared rankled deep in it all. Some missionaries of a dissenting sect--Egede was Lutheran--had come with the smallpox ship to set up an establishment of their own. At their head was a man full of misdirected zeal and quite devoid of common-sense, who engaged Egede in a wordy dispute about justification by faith and condemned him and his work unsparingly. He had grave doubts whether he was in truth a "converted man." It came to an end when they themselves fell ill, and Egede and his wife had the last word, after their own fashion. They nursed the warlike brethren through their illness with loving ministrations and gave them back to life, let us hope, wiser and better men. At Christmas, 1735, Egede's faithful wife, Gertrude, closed her eyes. She had gone out with him from home and kin to a hard and heathen land, and she had been his loyal helpmeet in all his trials. Now it was all over. That winter scurvy laid him upon a bed of pain and, lying there, his heart turned to the old home. His son had come from Copenhagen to help, happily yet while his mother lived. To him he would give over the work. In Denmark he could do more for it than in Greenland, now he was alone. On July 29, 1736, he preached for the last time to his people and baptized a little Eskimo to whom they gave his name, Hans. The following week he sailed for home, carrying, as all his earthly wealth, his beloved dead and his motherless children. The Eskimos gathered on the shore and wept as the ship bore their friend away. They never saw him again. He lived in Denmark eighteen years, training young men to teach the Eskimos. They gave him the title of bishop, but so little to live on that he was forced in his last days to move from Copenhagen to a country town, to make both ends meet. His grave was forgotten by the generation that came after him. No one knows now where it is; but in ice-girt Greenland, where the northern lights on wintry nights flash to the natives their message from the souls that have gone home, his memory will live when that of the North Pole seeker whom the world applauds is long forgotten. Hans Egede was their great man, their hero. He was more,--he was their friend. GUSTAV VASA, THE FATHER OF SWEDEN A great and wise woman had, after ages of war and bloodshed, united the crowns of the three Scandinavian kingdoms upon one head. In the strong city of Kalmar, around which the tide of battle had ever raged hottest, the union was declared in the closing days of the Thirteenth Century. Norwegian, Swede, and Dane were thenceforth to stand together, to the end of time; so they resolved. It was all a vain dream. Queen Margaret was not cold in her grave before the kingdoms fell apart. Norway clung to Denmark, but Sweden went her own way. In the wars of two generations the Danish kings won back the Swedish crown and lost it, again and again, until in 1520 King Christian II clutched it for the last time, at the head of a conquering army. He celebrated his victory with a general amnesty, and bade the Swedish nobles to a great feast, held at the capital in November. Christian is one of the unsolved riddles of history. Ablest but unhappiest of all his house, he was an instinctive democrat, sincerely solicitous for the welfare of the plain people, but incredibly cruel and faithless when the dark mood seized him. The coronation feast ended with the wholesale butchery of the unsuspecting nobles. Hundreds were beheaded in the public square; for days it was filled with the slain. It is small comfort that the wicked priest who egged the King on to the dreadful deed was himself burned at the stake by the master he had betrayed. The Stockholm Massacre drowned the Kalmar Union in its torrents of blood. Retribution came swiftly. Above the peal of the Christmas bells rose the clash and clangor of armed hosts pouring forth from the mountain fastnesses to avenge the foul treachery. They were led by Gustav[1] Eriksson Vasa, a young noble upon whose head Christian had set a price. [Footnote 1: The older spelling of this name is followed here in preference to the more modern Gustaf. Gustav Vasa himself wrote his name so.] The Vasas were among the oldest and best of the great Swedish families. It was said of them that they ever loved a friend, hated a foe, and never forgot. Gustav was born in the castle of Lindholmen, when the news that the world had grown suddenly big by the discovery of lands beyond the unknown seas was still ringing through Europe, on May 12, 1496. He was brought up in the home of his kinsman, the Swedish patriot Sten Sture, and early showed the fruits of his training. "See what I will do," he boasted in school when he was thirteen, "I will go to Dalecarlia, rouse the people, and give the Jutes (Danes) a black eye." Master Ivar, his Danish teacher, gave him a whaling for that. White with anger, the boy drove his dirk through the book, nailing it to the desk, and stalked out of the room. Master Ivar's eyes followed the slim figure in the scarlet cloak, and he sighed wearily "_nobilium nati nolunt aliquid pati_,--the children of the great will put up with nothing." Hardly yet of age, he served under the banner of Sten Sture against King Christian, and was one of six hostages sent to the King when he asked an interview of the Swedish leader. But Christian stayed away from the meeting and carried the hostages off to Denmark against his plighted faith. There Gustav was held prisoner a year. All that winter rumors of great armaments against Sweden filled the land. He heard the young bloods from the court prate about bending the stiff necks in the country across the Sound, and watched them throw dice for Swedish castles and Swedish women,--part of the loot when his fatherland should be laid under the yoke. Ready to burst with anger and grief, he sat silent at their boasts. In the spring he escaped, disguised as a cattle-herder, and made his way to Lübeck, where he found refuge in the house of the wealthy merchant Kort König. They soon heard in Denmark where he was, and the King sent letters demanding his surrender; but the burghers of the Hanse town hated Christian with cause, and would not give him up. Then came Gustav's warder who had gone bail for him in sixteen hundred gulden, and pleaded for his prisoner. "I am not a prisoner," was Gustav's retort, "I am a hostage, for whom the Danish king pledged his oath and faith. If any one can prove that I was taken captive in a fight or for just cause, let him stand forth. Ambushed was I, and betrayed." The Lübeck men thought of the plots King Christian was forever hatching against them. Now, if he succeeded in getting Sweden under his heel, their turn would come next. Better, they said, send this Gustav home to his own country, perchance he might keep the King busy there; by which they showed their good sense. His ex-keeper was packed off back home, and Gustav reached Sweden, sole passenger on a little coast-trader, on May 31, 1520. A stone marks the spot where he landed, near Kalmar; for then struck the hour of Sweden's freedom. But not yet for many weary months did the people hear its summons. Swedish manhood was at its lowest ebb. Stockholm was held by the widow of Sten Sture with a half-famished garrison. In Kalmar another woman, Anna Bjelke, commanded, but her men murmured, and the fall of the fortress was imminent. When Gustav Vasa, who had slipped in unseen, exhorted them to stand fast, they would have mobbed him. He left as he had come, the day before the surrender. Travelling by night, he made his way inland, finding everywhere fear and distrust. The King had promised that if they would obey him "they should never want for herring and salt," so they told Gustav, and when he tried to put heart into them and rouse their patriotism, they took up bows and arrows and bade him be gone. Indeed, there were not wanting those who shot at him. Like a hunted deer he fled from hamlet to hamlet. Such friends as he had left advised him to throw himself upon the King's mercy; told him of the amnesty proclaimed. But Gustav's thoughts dwelt grimly among the Northern mountaineers whom as a boy he had bragged he would set against the tyrant. Insensibly he shaped his course toward their country. He was with his brother-in-law, Joachim Brahe, when the King's message bidding him to the coronation came. Gustav begged him not to go, but Brahe's wife and children were within Christian's reach, and he did not dare stay away. When he left, the fugitive hid in his ancestral home at Räfsnäs on lake Mälar. There one of Brahe's men brought him news of the massacre in which his master and Gustav's father had perished. His mother, grandmother, and sisters were dragged away to perish in Danish dungeons. On Gustav's head the King had set a price, and spies were even then on his track. Gustav's mind was made up. What was there now to wait for? Clad as a peasant, he started for Dalecarlia with a single servant to keep him company, but before he reached the mines the man stole all his money and ran away. He had to work now to live, and hired out to Anders Persson, the farmer of Rankhyttan. He had not been there many days when one of the women saw an embroidered sleeve stick out under his coat and told her master that the new hand was not what he pretended to be. The farmer called him aside, and Gustav told him frankly who he was. Anders Persson kept his secret, but advised him not to stay long in any one place lest his enemies get wind of him. He slipped away as soon as it was dark, nearly lost his life by breaking through the ice, but reached Ornäs on the other side of Lake Runn, half dead with cold and exposure. He knew that another Persson who had been with him in the war lived there, and found his house. Arendt Persson was a rascal. He received him kindly, but when he slept harnessed his horse and went to Måns Nilsson, a neighbor, with the news: the King's reward would make them both rich, if he would help him seize the outlawed man. Måns Nilsson held with the Danes, but he was no traitor, and he showed the fellow the door. He went next to the King's sheriff; he would be bound to help. To be sure, he would claim the lion's share of the blood-money, but something was better than nothing. The sheriff came soon enough with a score of armed men. But Arendt Persson had not reckoned with his honest wife. She guessed his errand and let Gustav down from the window to the rear gate, where she had a sleigh and team in waiting. When the sheriff's posse surrounded the house, Gustav was well on his way to Master Jon, the parson of Svärdsjö, who was his friend. Tradition has it that while Christian was King, the brave little woman never dared show her face in the house again. Master Jon was all right, but news of the man-hunt had run through the country, and when the parson's housekeeper one day saw him hold the wash-bowl for his guest she wanted to know why he was so polite to a common clod. Master Jon told her that it was none of her business, but that night he piloted his friend across the lake to Isala, where Sven Elfsson lived, a gamekeeper who knew the country and could be trusted. The good parson was hardly out of sight on his way back when the sheriff's men came looking for Gustav. It did not occur to them that the yokel who stood warming himself by the stove might be the man they were after. But the gamekeeper's wife was quick to see his peril. She was baking bread and had just put the loaves into the oven with a long-handled spade. "Here, you lummox!" she cried, and whacked him soundly over the back with it, "what are ye standing there gaping at? Did ye never see folks afore? Get back to your work in the barn." And Gustav, taking the hint, slunk out of the room. For three days after that he lay hidden under a fallen tree in the snow and bitter cold; but even there he was not safe, and the gamekeeper took him deeper into the forest, where a big spruce grew on a hill in the middle of a frozen swamp. There no one would seek him till he could make a shift to get him out of the country. The hill is still there; the people call it the King's Hill, and not after King Christian, either. But in those long nights when Gustav Vasa listened to the hungry wolves howling in the woods and nosing about his retreat, it was hardly kingly conceits his mind brooded over. His father and kinsmen were murdered; his mother and sister in the pitiless grasp of the tyrant who was hunting him to his death; he, the last of his race, alone and forsaken by his own. Bitter sorrow filled his soul at the plight of his country that had fallen so low. But the hope of the young years came to the rescue: all was not lost yet. And in the morning came Sven, the gamekeeper, with a load of straw, at the bottom of which he hid him. So no one would be the wiser. It was well he did it, for half-way to the next town some prowling soldiers overtook them, and just to make sure that there was nothing in the straw, prodded the load with their spears. Nothing stirred, and they went on their way. But a spear had gashed Gustav's leg, and presently blood began to drip in the snow. Sven had his wits about him. He got down, and cut the fetlock of one of the beasts with his jack-knife so that it bled and no one need ask questions. When they got to Marnäs, Gustav was weak from the loss of blood, but a friendly surgeon was found to bind up his wounds. Farther and farther north he fled, keeping to the deep woods in the day, until he reached Rättwik. Feeling safer there, he spoke to the people coming from church one Sunday and implored them to shake off the Danish yoke. But they only shook their heads. He was a stranger among them, and they would talk it over with their neighbors. Not yet were his wanderings over. To Mora he went next, where Parson Jakob hid him in a lonely farm-house. Evil chance led the spies direct to his hiding-place, and once more it was the housewife whose quick wit saved him. Dame Margit was brewing the Yule beer when she saw them coming. In a trice she had Gustav in the cellar and rolled the brewing vat over the trap-door. Then they might search as they saw fit; there was nothing there. The first blood was spilled for Gustav Vasa while he was at Mora, and it was a Dane who did it. He was the kind that liked to see fair play; when an under-sheriff came looking for the hunted man there, the Dane waylaid and killed him. Christmas morning, when Master Jakob had preached his sermon in the church, Gustav spoke to the congregation out in the snow-covered churchyard. A gravestone was his pulpit. Eloquent always, his sorrows and wrongs and the memory of the hard months lent wings to his words. His speech lives yet in Dalecarlia, for now he was among its mountains. "It is good to see this great meeting," he said, "but when I think of our fatherland I am filled with grief. At what peril I am here with you, you know who see me hounded as a wild beast day by day, hour by hour. But our beloved country is more to me than life. How long must we be thralls, we who were born to freedom? Those of you who are old remember what persecution Swedish men and women have suffered from the Danish kings. The young have heard the story of it and have learned from they were little children to hate and resist such rule. These tyrants have laid waste our land and sucked its marrow, until nothing remains for us but empty houses and lean fields. Our very lives are not safe." He called upon them to rise and drive the invaders out. If they wanted a leader, he was ready. His words stirred the mountaineers deeply. Cries of anger were heard in the crowd; it was not the first time they had taken up arms in the cause of freedom. But when they talked it over, the older heads prevailed; there had not been time enough to hear both sides. They told him that they would not desert the King; he must expect nothing of them. Broken-hearted and desperate, Gustav Vasa turned toward the Norwegian frontier. He would leave the country for which there was no hope. While the table in the poorest home groaned with Yuletide cheer, Sweden's coming king hid under an old bridge, outcast and starving, till it was safe to leave. Then he took up his weary journey alone. The winter cold had grown harder as the days grew shorter. Famished wolves dogged his steps, but he outran them on his snow-shoes. By night he slept in some wayside shelter, such as they build for travellers in that desolate country, or in the brush. The snow grew deeper, and the landscape wilder, as he went. For days he had gone without food, when he saw the sun set behind the lofty range that was to bar him out of home and hope forever. Even there was no abiding place for him. What thoughts of his vanished dream, perchance of the distant lands across the seas where the tyrant's hand could not reach him, were in his mind, who knows, as he bent his strength to the last and hardest stage of his journey? He was almost there, when he heard shouts behind him and turned to sell his life dear. Two men on skis were calling to him. They were unarmed, and he waited to let them come up. Their story was soon told. They had come to call him back. After he left, an old soldier whom they knew in Mora had come from the south and told them worse things than even Gustav knew. It was all true about the Stockholm murder; worse, the King was having gallows set up in every county to hang all those on who said him nay; a heavy tax was laid upon the peasants, and whoever did not pay was to have a hand or foot cut off; they could still follow the plow. And now they had sent away the one man who could lead against the Danes, with the forests full of outlawed men who would have enlisted under him as soon as ever the cry was raised! While the men of Dalecarlia were debating the news among themselves orders came from the bailiff at Westerås that the tax was to be paid forthwith. That night runners were sent on the trail of Gustav to tell him to come back; they were ready. When he came, it was as if a mighty storm swept through the mountains. The people rose in a body. Every day whole parishes threw off their allegiance to King Christian. Sunday after Sunday Gustav spoke to the people at their meeting-houses, and they raised their spears and swore to follow him to death. Two months after the murder in Stockholm an army of thousands that swelled like an avalanche was marching south, and province after province joined in the rebellion. King Christian's host met them at Brunbäck in April. One of its leaders asked the country folk what kind of men the Dalecarlians were, and when he was told that they drank water and ate bread made of bark, he cried out, "Such a people the devil himself couldn't whip; let us get out." But his advice was not taken and the Danish army was wiped out. Gustav halted long enough to drill his men and give them time to temper their arrows and spears, then he fell upon Westerås and beat the Danes there. The peasant mob scattered too soon to loot the town, and the King's men came back with a sudden rush. Only Gustav's valor and presence of mind saved the day that had been won once from being lost again. When it was seen that the Danes were not invincible, the whole country rose, took the scattered castles, and put their defenders to the sword. Gustav bore the rising on his shoulders from first to last. He was everywhere, ordering and leading. His fiery eloquence won over the timorous; his irresistible advance swept every obstacle aside. In May he took Upsala; by midsummer he was besieging Stockholm itself. Most of the other cities were in his hands. The Hanse towns had found out what this Gustav could do at home. They sang his praise, but as for backing him with their purse, that was another matter. They refused to lend Gustav two siege-guns when he lay before Stockholm, though he offered to pledge a castle for each. He had no money. Happily his enemy, Christian, was even worse off. Neither pledges nor promises could get him the money he needed. His chief men were fighting among themselves and made peace only to turn upon him. Within a year after the Swedish people had chosen Gustav Vasa to be Regent at the Diet of Vadstena, Christian went into exile and, when he tried to get his kingdom back, into prison, where he languished the rest of his life. He fully deserved his fate. Yet he meant well and had done some good things in his day. Had he been able to rule himself, he might have ruled others with better success. Schoolboys remember with gratitude that he forbade teachers to "spank their pupils overmuch and without judgment, as was their wont." At the Diet of Vadstena the people had offered Gustav the crown, but he put it from him. Scarce eight months had passed since he hid under the bridge, hunted and starving. When Stockholm had fallen after a siege of two years and all Sweden was free, the people met (1523) and made him King, whether or no. He still objected, but gave in at last and was crowned. Popular favor is fickle. Hard times came that were not made easier by Gustav's determination to fill the royal coffers, and the very Dalecarlians who had put him in the high seat rose against him and served notice that if things did not mend they would have none of him. Gustav made sure that they had no backing elsewhere, then went up and persuaded them to be good by cutting off the heads of their leaders, who both happened to be priests: one was even a bishop. He had been taught in a school that always found an axe ready to hand. Let those who lament the savagery of modern warfare consider what happened then to a Danish fleet that tried to bring relief to hard-pressed Stockholm. It was beaten in a fight in which six hundred men were taken prisoners. They were all, say the accounts, "tied hand and foot and flung overboard amid the beating of drums and blowing of trumpets to drown their cries." The clergy fared little better than the laymen in that age, but then it was their own fault. In plotting and scrapping they were abreast of the worst and took the consequences. They were the days of the Reformation, and Gustav would not have been human had he failed to see a way out of his money troubles by confiscating church property. He had pawned the country's trade to the merchants of Lübeck and there was nothing else left. Naturally the church opposed him. The King took the bull by the horns. He called a meeting and told the people that he was sick of it all. He had encouraged the Reformation for their good; now, if they did not stand by him, they might choose between him and his enemies. The oldest priest arose at that and said that the church's property was sacred. The King asked if the rest of them thought the same way. Only one voice was raised, and to say yes. "Then," said Gustav, "I don't want to be your King any more. If it does not rain, you blame me; if the sun does not shine, you do the same. It is always so. All of you want to be masters. After all my trouble and labor for you, you would as lief see my head split with an axe, though none of you dare lay hold of the handle. Give me back what I have spent in your service and I will go away and never come back." And go he did, to his castle, with half a dozen of his nearest friends. They sat and looked at one another when he was gone, and then priests and nobles fell to arguing among themselves, all talking at once. The plain people, the burghers and the peasants, listened awhile, but when they got no farther, let them know that if they couldn't settle it, they, the people, would, and in a way that would give them little joy. The upshot of it all was that messengers were sent to bring the King back. He made them go three times, and when he came at last, it was as absolute master. In the ordering of the kingdom that was made there, he became the head of the church as well as of the state. Gustav's pen was as sharp as his tongue. When Hans Brask, the oldest prelate in the land, who had stood stoutly by the old régime, left the country and refused to come back, he wrote to him: "As long as you might milk and shear your sheep, you staid by them. When God spake and said you were to feed them, not to shear and slaughter them, you ran away. Every honest man can judge if you have done well." Hard words to a good old man; but there were plenty of others who deserved them. That was the end of the hierarchy in Sweden. But not of the unruly peasants who had tasted the joys of king-making. How kindly they took to the Reformation at the outset one can judge from the demand of some of them that the King should "burn or otherwise kill such as ate meat on Friday." They rose again and again, and would listen only to the argument of force. When the Lübeckers pressed hard for the payment of old debts, and the treasury was empty as usual, King Gustav hit upon a new kind of revenue. He demanded of every church in the land that it give up its biggest bell to the funds. It was the last straw. The Dalecarlians rose against what they deemed sacrilege, under the leadership of Måns Nilsson and Anders Persson of Rankhyttan, the very men who had befriended Gustav in his need, and the insurrection spread. The "War of the Bells" was settled with the sword, and the peasants gave in. But Gustav came of a stock that "never forgot." Two years later, when his hands were free at home, he suddenly invaded Dalecarlia with a powerful army, determined to "pull those weeds up by the roots." He summoned the peasants to Thing, made a ring around them of armed men, and gave them their choice: "Submit now for good and all," he said, "or I will spoil the land so that cock shall not crow nor hound bark in it again forever!" The frightened peasants fell on their knees and begged for mercy. He made them give up their leaders, including his former friends, and they were all put to the sword. After that there was peace in Dalecarlia. Gustav Vasa's long reign ended in 1560. Like his enemy, Christian II, he was a strange mixture of contradictions. He was brave in battle, wise in council, pious, if not a saint, clean, and merciful when mercy fitted into his plans. His enemies called him a greedy, suspicious despot. Greedy he was. More than eleven thousand farms were confiscated by the crown during his reign, and he left four thousand farms and a great fortune to his children as his personal share. But historians have called him "the great housekeeper" who found waste and loss and left an ordered household. He gave all for Sweden, and all he had was at her call. It was share and share alike, in his view. Despotic he could be, too. _L'état c'est moi_ might have been said by him. But he did not exploit the state; he built it. He fashioned Sweden out of a bunch of quarrelsome provincial governments into a hereditary monarchy, as the best way--indeed, the only way then--of giving it strength and stability. He was suspicious because everybody had betrayed him, or had tried to. With all that, his steady purpose was to raise and enlighten his people and make them keep the peace, if he had to adopt the Irishman's plan of keeping it himself with an axe. He was the father of a line of great warriors. Gustav Adolf was his grandson. Bent under the burden of years, he bade his people good-by at the Diet of Stockholm, a few weeks before his death. His old eloquence rings unimpaired in the farewell. He thanked God, who had chosen him as His tool to set Sweden free from thralldom. Almost might he liken himself to King David, whom God from a shepherd had made the leader of his people. No such hope was in his heart when, forty years before, he hid in the woods from a bloodthirsty enemy. For what he had done wrong as king, he asked the people's pardon; it was not done on purpose. He knew well that many thought him a hard ruler, but the time would come when they would gladly dig him up from his grave if they only could. And with that he went out, bowing deeply to the Diet, the tears streaming down his face. They saw him no more; but on his tomb the Swedish people, forgetting all else, have written that he was the "Father of his Country." ABSALON, WARRIOR BISHOP OF THE NORTH A welcome change awaits the traveller who, having shaken off the chill of the German Dreadnaughts at Kiel, crosses the Baltic to the Danish Islands--a change from the dread portents of war to smiling peace. There can be nothing more pastoral and restful than the Seeland landscape as framed in a car window; yet he misses its chief charm whom its folk-lore escapes--the countless legends that cling to field and forest from days long gone. The guide-book gives scarce a hint of them; but turn from its page and they meet you at every step, hail you from every homestead, every copse. Nor is their story always of peace. Here was Knud Lavard slain by his envious kinsman for the crown, and a miraculous spring gushed forth where he fell. Of the church they built for the pilgrims who sought it from afar they will show you the site, but the spring dried up with the simple old faith. Yonder, under the roof of Ringsted church, lie Denmark's greatest dead. Not half an hour from the ferry landing at Korsör, your train labors past a hill crowned by a venerable cross, Holy Anders' Hill. So saintly was that masterful priest that he was wont, when he prayed, to hang his hat and gloves on a sunbeam as on a hook. And woe to the land if his cross be disturbed, for then, the peasant will tell you, the cattle die of plague and the crops fail. A little further on, just beyond Sorö, a village church rears twin towers above the wheat-field where the skylark soars and sings to its nesting mate. For seven hundred years the story of that church and its builder has been told at Danish firesides, and the time will never come when it is forgotten. Fjenneslev is the name of the village, and Asker Ryg[1] ruled there in the Twelfth Century, when the king summoned his men to the war. Bidding good-by to his wife, Sir Asker tells her to build a new church while he is away, for the old, "with wall of clay, straw-thatched and grim," is in ruins. And let it be worthy of the Master: "The roof let make of tiling red; Of stone thou build the wall;" and then he whispers in her ear: "Hear thou, my Lady Inge, Of women thou art the flower; An' thou bearest to me a son so bold, Set on the church a tower." [Footnote 1: Pronounce Reeg.] Should the child be a girl, he tells her to build only a spire, for "modesty beseemeth a woman." Well for Sir Asker that he did not live in our day of clamoring suffragists. He would have "views" without doubt. But no such things troubled him while he battled in foreign lands all summer. It was autumn when he returned and saw from afar the swell behind which lay Fjenneslev and home. Impatiently he spurred his horse to the brow of the hill, for no news had come of Lady Inge those many months. The bard tells us what he saw there: "It was the good Sir Asker Ryg; Right merrily laughed he, When from that green and swelling hill Two towers did he see." Two sons lay at the Lady Inge's breast, and all was well. "The first one of the brothers two They called him Esbern Snare.[2] He grew as strong as a savage bear And fleeter than any hare. "The second him called they Absalon, A bishop he at home. He used his trusty Danish sword As the Pope his staff at Rome." [Footnote 2: Pronounce Snaré, with a as in are. In the Danish hare rhymes with snare, so pronounced.] Absalon and Esbern were not twins, as tradition has it. They were better than that. They became the great heroes of their day, and the years have not dimmed their renown. And Absalon reached far beyond the boundaries of little Denmark to every people that speaks the English tongue. For it was he who, as archbishop of the North, "strictly and earnestly" charged his friend and clerk Saxo to gather the Danish chronicles while yet it was time, because, says Saxo, in the preface of his monumental work, "he could no longer abide that his fatherland, which he always honored and magnified with especial zeal, should be without a record of the great deeds of the fathers." And from the record Saxo wrote we have our Hamlet. It was when they had grown great and famous that Sir Asker and his wife built the church in thanksgiving for their boys, not when they were born, and the way that came to light was good and wholesome. They were about to rebuild the church, on which there had been no towers at all since they crumbled in the middle ages, and had decided to put on only one; for the sour critics, who are never content in writing a people's history unless they can divest it of all its flesh and make it sit in its bones, as it were, sneered at the tradition and called it an old woman's tale. But they did not shout quite so loud when, in peeling off the whitewash of the Reformation, the mason's hammer brought forth mural paintings that grew and grew until there stood the whole story to read on the wall, with Sir Asker himself and the Lady Inge, clad in garments of the Twelfth Century, bringing to the Virgin the church with the twin towers. So the folk-lore was not so far out after all, and the church was rebuilt with two towers, as it should be. Under its eaves, whether of straw or tile, the two boys played their childish games, and before long there came to join in them another of their own age, young Valdemar, whose father, the very Knud Lavard mentioned above, had been foully murdered a while before. It was a time, says Saxo, in which "he must be of stout heart and strong head who dared aspire to Denmark's crown. For in less than a hundred years more than sixteen of her kings and their kin were either slain without cause by their own subjects, or otherwise met a sudden death." Sir Asker and the murdered Knud had been foster brothers, and throughout the bloody years that followed, he and his brothers, sons of the powerful Skjalm Hvide,[3] espoused his cause in good and evil days, while they saw to it that no harm came to the young prince under their roof. [Footnote 3: Pronounced Veethé.] The three boys, as they grew up, were bred to the stern duties of fighting men, as was the custom of their class. Absalon, indeed, was destined for the church; but in a country so recently won from the old war gods, it was the church militant yet, and he wielded spear and sword with the best of them. When, at eighteen, they sent him to France to be taught, he did not for his theological studies neglect the instruction of his boyhood. There he became the disciple and friend of the Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux, more powerful then than prince or Pope, and when the abbot preached the second great crusade, promising eternal salvation to those who took up arms against the unbelievers, whether to wrest from them the Holy Sepulchre or to plant the cross among the wild heathen on the Baltic, his heart burned hot within him. It was a long way to the Holy Land, but with the Baltic robbers his people had a grievous score to settle. Their yells had sounded in his boyish ears as they ravished the shores of his fatherland, penetrating with murder and pillage almost to his peaceful home. And so, while he lent a diligent ear to the teachings of the church, earning the name of the "most learned clerk" in the cloister of Ste. Geneviève in Paris, daily he laid the breviary aside and took up sword and lance, learning the arts of modern warfare with the graces of chivalry. In the old way of fighting, man to man, the men of the North had been the equals of any, if not their betters; but against the new methods of warfare their prowess availed little. Absalon, the monk, kept his body strong while soul and mind matured. When nothing more adventurous befell, he chopped down trees for the cloister hearths. But oftener the clash of arms echoed in the quiet halls, or the peaceful brethren crossed themselves as they watched him break an unruly horse in the cloister fen. Saxo tells us that he swam easily in full armor, and in more than one campaign in later years saved drowning comrades who were not so well taught. The while he watched rising all about some of the finest churches in Christendom. It was the era of cathedral building in Europe. The Romanesque style of architecture had reached its highest development in the very France where he spent his young manhood's years, and the Gothic, with its stamp of massive strength, was beginning to displace its gentler curve. Ten years of such an environment, in a land teeming with historic traditions, rounded out the man who set his face toward home, bent on redeeming his people from the unjust reproach of being mere "barbarians of the North." It was a stricken Denmark to which he came back. Three claimants were fighting for the crown. The land was laid waste by sea-rovers, who saw their chance to raid defenceless homes while the men able to bear arms were following the rival kings. The people had lost hope. Just when Absalon returned, peace was made between the claimants. Knud, Svend, and Valdemar, his foster brother of old, divided up the country between them. They swore a dear oath to keep the pact, but for all that "the three kingdoms did not last three days." The treacherous Svend waited only for a chance to murder both his rivals, and it came quickly, when he and Valdemar were the guests of Knud at Roskilde. They had eaten and drunk together and were gathered in the "Storstue," the big room of the house, when Knud saw Svend whispering aside with his men. With a sudden foreboding of evil, he threw his arms about Valdemar's shoulders and kissed him. The young King, who was playing chess with one of his men, looked up in surprise and asked what it meant. Just then Svend left the hall, and his henchmen fell upon the two with drawn swords. Knud was cut down at once, his head cleft in twain. Valdemar upset the table with the candles and, wrapping his cloak about his arm to ward off the blows that showered upon him, knocked his assailants right and left and escaped, badly wounded. Absalon came into the room as Knud fell and, thinking it was Valdemar, caught him in his arms and took his wounded head in his lap. Sitting there in utter sorrow and despair, heedless of the tumult that raged in the darkness around him, he felt the King's garment and knew that the man who was breathing his last in his arms was not his friend. He laid the lifeless body down gently and left the hall. The murderers barred his way, but he brushed their swords and spears aside and strode forth unharmed. Valdemar had found a horse and made for Fjenneslev, twenty miles away, with all speed, and there Absalon met him and his brother Esbern in the morning. King Svend sought him high and low to finish his dastardly work, while on Thing he wailed loudly before the people that Valdemar and Knud had tried to kill him, showing in proof of it his cloak, which he had rent with his own sword. But Valdemar's friends were wide awake. Esbern flew through the island on his fleet horse in Valdemar's clothes, leading his pursuers a merry dance, and when the young King's wound was healed, he found him a boat and ferried him across to the mainland, where the people flocked to his standard. When Svend would have followed, it was the Lady Inge who scuttled his ship by night and gave her foster son the start he needed. There followed a short and sharp struggle that ended on Grathe Heath with the utter rout of Svend's forces. He himself was killed, and Valdemar at last was King of all Denmark. From that time the three friends were inseparable as in the old days when they played about the fields of Fjenneslev. Absalon was the keeper of the King's conscience who was not afraid to tell him the truth when he needed to hear it. And where they were Esbern was found, never wavering in his loyalty to either. Within a year Absalon was made bishop of Roskilde, the chief See of Denmark. Saxo innocently discovers to us King Valdemar's little ruse to have his friend chosen. He was yet a very young man, scarce turned thirty, and had not been considered at all for the vacancy. There were three candidates, all of powerful families, and, according to ecclesiastical law, the brethren of the chapter were the electors. The King went to their meeting and addressed them in person. Nothing was farther from him, he said, than to wish to interfere with their proper rights. Each must do as his conscience dictated, unhindered. And with that he laid on the table _four_ books with blank leaves and bade them write down their names in them, each for his own choice, to get the matter right on the record. The brethren thanked him kindly and all voted "nicely together" for Absalon. So three of the books were wasted. But presently Saxo found good use for them. For now had come the bishop's chance of putting in practice the great abbot's precepts. "Pray and fight" was the motto he had written into the Knights Templars' rule, and Absalon had made it his own. Of what use was it to build up the church at home, when any day might see it raided by its enemies who were always watching their chance outside? The Danish waters swarmed with pirates, the very pagans against whom Abbot Bernard had preached his crusade. Of them all the Wends were the worst, as they were the most powerful of the Slav tribes that still resisted the efforts of their neighbors, the Christian Germans, to dislodge them from their old home on the Baltic. They lived in the island of Rügen, fairly in sight of the Danish shores. Every favoring wind blew them across the sea in shoals to burn and ravage. The Danes, once the terror of the seas, had given over roving when they accepted the White Christ in exchange for Thor and his hammer, and now, when they would be at peace, they were in turn beset by this relentless enemy, who burned their homes and their crops and dragged the peaceful husbandman away to make him a thrall or offer him up as a sacrifice to heathen idols. More than a third of all Denmark lay waste under their ferocious assault. Here was the blow to be struck if the country was to have peace and the church prosperity. The chance to strike came speedily. Absalon had been bishop only a few months when, on the evening before Palm Sunday, word was brought that the enemy had landed, twenty-four ship-crews strong, and were burning and murdering as usual. Absalon marshalled his eighteen house-carles and such of the country-folk as he could, and fell upon the Wends, routing them utterly. A bare handful escaped, the rest were killed, while the bishop lost but a single man. He said mass next morning, red-handed it is true, but one may well believe that for all that his Easter message reached hearts filled with a new, glad hope for their homes and for the country. That was a bishop they could understand. So the first blow Absalon struck for his people was at home. But he did not long wait for the enemy to come to him. Half his long and stirring life he lived on the seas, seeking them there. Saxo mentions, in speaking of his return from one of his cruises, that he had then been nine months on shipboard. And in a way he was shepherding his flock there, if it was with a scourge; for, many years before, a Danish king had punished the Wends in their own home and laid their lands under the See of Roskilde, though little good it did them or any one else then. But when Absalon had got his grip, there were days when he baptized as many as a thousand of them into the true faith. He was not altogether alone in the stand he took. Here and there, from very necessity, the people had organized to resist the invaders, but as no one could tell where they would strike next, they were not often successful, and fear and discouragement sat heavy on the land. From his own city of Roskilde a little fleet of swift sailers under the bold Wedeman had for years waged relentless war upon the freebooters and had taken four times the number of their own ships. Their crews were organized into a brotherhood with vows like an order of fighting monks. Before setting out on a cruise they were shriven and absolved. Their vows bound them to unceasing vigilance, to live on the plainest of fare, to sleep on their arms, ready for instant attack, and to the rescue of Christians, wherever they were found in captivity. The Roskilde guild became the strong core of the King's armaments in his score of campaigns against the Wends. Perhaps it was not strange that Valdemar should be of two minds about venturing to attack so formidable an enemy in his own house. The nation was cowed and slow to move. In fact, from the first expedition, that started with 250 vessels, only seven returned with the standard, keeping up a running fight all the way across the Baltic with pursuing Wends. The rest had basely deserted. On the way over, the King, listening to their doubts and fears, turned back himself once, but Absalon, who always led in the attack and was the last on the homeward run, overtook him and gave him the talking to be deserved. Saxo, who was very likely there and heard, for there is little doubt that he accompanied his master on many of the campaigns he so vividly describes, gives us a verbatim report of the lecture: "What wonder," said the bishop, "if the words stick in our throats and are nigh to stifling us, when such grievous dole is ours! Grieve we must, indeed, to find in you such a turncoat that naught but dishonor can come of it. You follow where you should lead, and those you should rule over, you make your peers. There is nothing to stop us but our own craven souls, hunt as we may for excuses. Is it with such laurel you would bind your crown? with such high deed you would consecrate your reign?" The King was hard hit, and showed it, but he walked away without a word. In the night a furious storm swept the sea and kept the fleet in shelter four whole days, during which Valdemar's anger had time to cool. He owned then that Absalon was right, and the friends shook hands. The King gave order to make sail as soon as the gale abated. If there was still a small doubt in Absalon's mind as he turned, on taking leave, and asked, "What now, if we must turn back once more?" Valdemar set it at rest: "Then you write me from Wendland," he laughed, "and tell me how things are there." If little glory or gain came to the Danes from this first expedition, at least they landed in the enemy's country and made reprisal for past tort. The spirit of the people rose and shamed them for their cowardice. When the King's summons went round again, as it did speedily, there were few laggards. Attacked at home, the Wends lost much of the terror they had inspired. Before many moons, the chronicle records, the Danes cut their spear-shafts short, that they might the more handily get at the foe. Scarce a year passed that did not see one or more of these crusades. Absalon preached them all, and his ship was ever first in landing. In battle he and the King fought shoulder to shoulder. In the spring of 1169, he had at last his wish: the heathen idols were destroyed and their temples burned. The holy city of the Wends, Arcona, stood on a steep cliff, inaccessible save from the west, where a wall a hundred feet high defended it. While the sacred banner Stanitza waved over it the Danes might burn and kill, but the power of Svantevit was unbroken. Svantevit was the god of gods in whose presence his own priests dared not so much as breathe. When they had to, they must go to the door and breathe in the open, a good enough plan if Saxo's disgust at the filth of the Wendish homes was justified. Svantevit was a horrid monster with four heads, and girt about with a huge sword. Up till then the Christian arms had always been stayed at his door, but this time the King laid siege to Arcona, determined to make an end of him. Some of the youngsters in his army, making a mock assault upon the strong walls, discovered an accidental hollow under the great tower over which the Stanitza flew and, seizing upon a load of straw that was handy, stuffed it in and set it on fire. It was done in a frolic, but when the tower caught fire and was burned and the holy standard fell, Absalon was quick to see his advantage, and got the King to order a general assault. The besieged Wends, having no water, tried to put out the fire with milk, but, says the chronicle, "it only fed the flames." They fought desperately till, between fire and foe, they were seized with panic and, calling loudly upon Absalon in their extremity, offered to give up their city. The army clamored for the revenge that was at last within their grasp, and the King hesitated; but Absalon met the uproar firmly, reminding them that they had crossed the seas to convert the heathen, not to sack their towns. The city was allowed to surrender and the people were spared, but Svantevit and his temple were destroyed. A great crowd of his followers had gathered to see him crush his enemies at the last, and Absalon cautioned the men who cut the idol down to be careful that he did not fall on them and so seem to justify their hopes. "He fell with so great a noise that it was a wonder," says Saxo, naïvely; "and in the same moment the fiend ran out of the temple in a black shape with such speed that no eye could follow him or see where he went." Svantevit was dragged out of the town and chopped into bits. That night he fed the fires of the camp. So fickle is popular favor that when the crowd saw that nothing happened, they spurned the god loudly before whom they had grovelled in the dust till then. When they heard of Arcona's fall in the royal city of Karents, they hastened with offers of surrender, and Absalon went there with a single ship's crew to take possession. They were met by 6000 armed Wends, who guarded the narrow approach to the city. In single file they walked between the ranks of the enemy, who stood with inverted spears, watching them in sullen silence. His men feared a trap, but Absalon strode ahead unmoved. Coming to the temple of their local god, Rygievit, he attacked him with his axe and bade his guard fall to, which they did. Saxo has left us a unique description of this idol that stood behind purple hangings, fashioned of oak "in every evil and revolting shape. The swallows had made their nests in his mouths and throats" (there were seven in so many faces) "and filled him up with all manner of stinking uncleanness. Truly, for such god was such sacrifice fit." He had a sword for every one of his seven faces, buckled about his ample waist, but for all that he went the way of the others, and even had to put up with the indignity of the Christian priests standing upon him while he was being dragged out. That seems to have helped cure his followers of their faith in him. They delivered the temple treasure into the hands of the King--seven chests filled with money and valuables, among them a silver cup which the wretched King Svend had sent to Svantevit as a bribe to the Wends for joining him against his own country and kin. But those days were ended. It was the Danes' turn now, and Wendland was laid waste until "the swallows found no eaves of any house whereunder to build their nests and were forced to build them on the ships." A sad preliminary to bringing the country under the rule of the Prince of Peace; but in the scheme of those days the sword was equal partner with the cross in leading men to the true God. The heathen temples were destroyed and churches built on their sites of the timber gathered for the siege of Arcona. The people, deserted by their own, accepted the Christians' God in good faith, and were baptized in hosts, thirteen hundred on one day and nine hundred on the next. Three days and nights Absalon saw no sleep. He did nothing half-way. No sooner was he back home than he sent over priests and teachers supplied with everything, even food for their keep, so that they "should not be a burden to the people whom they had come to show the way to salvation." The Wends were conquered, but the end was not yet. They had savage neighbors, and many a crusade did Absalon lead against them in the following years, before the new title of the Danish rulers, "King of the Slavs and Wends," was much more than an empty boast. He organized a regular sea patrol of one-fourth of the available ships, of which he himself took command, and said mass on board much oftener than in the Roskilde church. It is the sailor, the warrior, the leader of men one sees through all the troubled years of his royal friend's life. Now the Danish fleet is caught in the inland sea before Stettin, unable to make its way out, and already the heathen hosts are shouting their triumph on shore. It is Absalon, then, who finds the way and, as one would expect, he forces it. The captains wail over the trap and abuse him for getting them into it. Absalon, disdaining to answer them, leads his ships in single file straight for the gap where the Wendish fleet lies waiting, and gets the King to attack with his horsemen on shore. Between them the enemy is routed, and the cowards are shamed. But when they come to make amends, he is as unmoved as ever and will have none of it. Again, when he is leading his men to the attack on a walled town, a bridge upon which they crowd breaks, and it is the bishop who saves his comrades from drowning, swimming ashore with them in full armor. Resting in his castle at Haffn, the present Copenhagen, which he built as a defence against the sea-rovers, he hears, while in his bath, his men talking of strange ships that are sailing into the Sound, and, hastily throwing on his clothes, gives chase and kills their crews, for they were pirates whose business was murder, and they merely got their deserts. In the pursuit his archers "pinned the hands of the rowers to the oars with their arrows" and crippled them, so skilful had much practice made them. Turn the leaf of Saxo's chronicle, and we find him under Rügen with his fleet, protecting the now peaceful Wendish fishermen in their autumn herring-catch, on which their livelihood depended. Of such stuff was made the bishop who "Used his trusty Danish sword As the Pope his staff in Rome." Wherever danger threatens Valdemar and Absalon, Esbern is found, too, earning the name of the Fleet (Snare), which the people had fondly given to their favorite. Where the fighting was hardest, he was sure to be. The King's son had ventured too far and was caught in a tight place by an overwhelming force, when Esbern pushed his ship in between him and the enemy and bore the brunt of a fight that came near to making an end of him. He had at last only a single man left, but the two made a stand against a hundred. "When the heathen saw his face they fled in terror." At last they knocked him senseless with a stone and would have killed him, but in the nick of time the King's men came to the rescue. Coming home from Norway he ran afoul of forty pirate ships under the coast of Seeland. He tried to steal past; forty against one were heavy odds. But it was moonlight and he was discovered. The pirates lay across his course and cut him off. Esbern made ready for a fight and steered straight into the middle of them. The steersman complained that he had no armor, and he gave him his own. He beat his pursuers off again and again, but the wind slackened and they were closing in once more, swearing by their heathen gods that they would have him dead or alive, for a Danish prisoner on one of their ships had told who he was. But Esbern had more than one string to his bow. He sent a man aloft with flint and steel to strike fire in the top, and the pirates, believing that he was signalling to a fleet he had in ambush, fled helter-skelter. Esbern got home safe. The German emperors' fingers had always itched for the over-lordship of the Danish isles, and they have not ceased to do so to this day. When Frederick Barbarossa drove Alexander III from Rome and set up a rival Pope in his place, Archbishop Eskild of Lund, who was the Primate of the North, championed the exiled Pope's case, and Valdemar, whose path the ambitious priest had crossed more than once, let it be known that he inclined to the Emperor's cause, in part probably from mere pique, perhaps also because he thought it good politics. The archbishop in a rage summoned Absalon and bade him join him in a rising against the King. Absalon's answer is worthy the man and friend: "My oath to you I will keep, and in this wise, that I will not counsel you to your own undoing. Whatever your cause against the King, war against him you cannot, and succeed. And this know, that never will I join with you against my liege lord, to whom I have sworn fealty and friendship with heart and soul all the days of my life." He could not persuade the archbishop, who went his own way and was beaten and exiled for a season, nor could he prevent the King from yielding to the blandishments of Frederick and getting mixed up in the papal troubles; but he went with him to Germany and saved him at the last moment from committing himself by making him leave the church council just as the anti-pope was about to pronounce sentence of excommunication against Alexander. He commanded Absalon to remain, as a servant of the church, but Absalon replied calmly that he was not there in that capacity, but as an attendant on his King, and must follow where he went. It appeared speedily that the Emperor's real object was to get Valdemar to own him as his over-lord, and this he did, to Absalon's great grief, on the idle promise that Frederick would join him in his war upon all the Baltic pagans. However, it was to be a purely personal matter, in nowise affecting his descendants. That much was saved, and Absalon lived long enough to fling back, as the counsellor of Valdemar's son, from behind the stout wall he built at Denmark's southern gate, the Emperor's demand for homage, with the reply that "the King ruled in Denmark with the same right as the Emperor in Germany, and was no man's subject." However grievously Absalon had offended the aged archbishop, when after forty years in his high office illness compelled him to lay it down, he could find no one so worthy to step into his shoes. He sent secretly to Rome and got the Pope's permission to name his own successor, before he called a meeting of the church. The account of what followed is the most singular of all Saxo's stories. Valdemar did not know what was coming and, fearing fresh trouble, got the archbishop to swear on the bones of the saints before them all that he was not moved to abdication by hate of the King, or by any coercion whatever. Then the venerable priest laid his staff, his mitre, and his ring on the altar and announced that he had done with it all forever. But he had made up his mind not to use the power given him by the Pontiff. They might choose his successor themselves. He would do nothing to influence their action. The bishops and clergy went to the King and asked him if he had any choice. The King said he had, but if he made it known he would get no thanks for it and might estrange his best friend. If he did not, he would certainly be committing a sin. He did not know what to do. "Name him," said they, and Valdemar told them it was the bishop of Roskilde. At that the old archbishop got up and insisted on the election then and there; but Absalon would have none of it. The burden was too heavy for his shoulders, he said. However, the clergy seized him, "being," says Saxo, who without doubt was one of them, "the more emboldened to do so as the archbishop himself laid hands upon him first." Intoning the hymn sung at archiepiscopal consecrations, they tried to lead him to the altar. He resisted with all his might and knocked several of the brethren down. Vestments were torn and scattered, and a mighty ruction arose, to which the laity, not to be outdone, added by striking up a hymn of their own. Archbishop and King tried vainly to make peace; the clamor and battle only rose the higher. Despite his struggles, Absalon was dragged to the high seat, but as they were about to force him into it, he asked leave to say a single word, and instantly appealed his case to the Pope. So there was an end; but when the aged Eskild, on the plea of weakness, begged him to pronounce the benediction, he refused warily, because so he would be exercising archiepiscopal functions and would be _de facto_ incumbent of the office.[4] [Footnote 4: That all this in no way affected the personal relations of the two men Saxo assures us in one of the little human touches with which his chronicle abounds. When Eskild was going away to end his days as a monk in the monastery of Clairvaux, he rested awhile with Absalon at his castle Haffn, where he was received as a father. The old man suffered greatly from cold feet, and Absalon made a box with many little holes in, and put a hot brick in it. With this at his feet, Eskild was able to sleep, and he was very grateful to Absalon, both because of the comfort it gave him and "because that he perceived that filial piety rather than skill in the healer's art" prompted the invention.] Here, as always, Absalon thought less of himself than of his country, so the event showed. For when the Pope heard his plea, though he decided against him, he allowed him to hold the bishopric of Roskilde together with the higher office, and so he was left at Valdemar's side to help finish their work of building up Denmark within and without. At Roskilde he spent, as a matter of fact, most of his time while Valdemar lived. At Lund he would have been in a distant part of the country, parted from his friend and out of touch with the things that were the first concern of his life. They were preparing to aim a decisive blow against the Pomeranian pagans when Valdemar died, on the very day set for the sailing. The parting nearly killed Absalon. Saxo draws a touching picture of him weeping bitterly as he said the requiem mass over his friend, and observes: "Who can doubt that his tears, rising with the incense, gave forth a peculiar and agreeable savour in high heaven before God?" The plowmen left their fields and carried the bier, with sobs and lamentations, to the church in Ringsted, where the great King rests. His sorrow laid Absalon on a long and grievous sick-bed, from which he rose only when Valdemar's son needed and called him. In the fifteen years that follow we see his old warlike spirit still unbroken. Thus his defiance of the German Emperor, whose anger was hot. Frederick, in revenge, persuaded the Pomeranian duke Bugislav to organize a raid on Denmark with a fleet of five hundred sail. Scant warning reached Absalon of the danger. King Knud was away, and there was no time to send for him. Mustering such vessels as were near, he sailed across the Baltic and met the enemy under Rügen the day after Whitsuntide (1184). The bishop had gone ashore to say mass on the beach, when word was brought that the great fleet was in sight. Hastily pulling off his robe and donning armor instead, he made for his ship with the words: "Now let our swords sing the praise of God." The Pomeranians were taken completely by surprise. They did not know the Danes were there, and when they heard the archbishop's dreaded war-cry raised, they turned and fled in such terror and haste that eighteen of their ships were run down and sunk with all on board. On one, a rower hanged himself for fear of falling into the hands of the Danes. Absalon gave chase, and the rout became complete. Of the five hundred ships only thirty-five escaped; all the rest were either sunk or taken. Duke Bugislav soon after became a vassal of Denmark, and of the Emperor's plots there was an end. It was the last blow, and the story of it went far and wide. Absalon's work was nearly done. Denmark was safe from her enemies. The people were happy and prosperous. Valdemar's son ruled unchallenged, and though he was childless, by his side stood his brother, a manly youth who, not yet full grown, had already shown such qualities of courage and sagacious leadership that the old archbishop could hang up the sword with heart at ease. The promise was kept. The second Valdemar became Denmark's royal hero for all time. Absalon's last days were devoted to strengthening the Church, around which he had built such a stout wall. He built churches and cloisters, and guided them with a wise and firm hand. And he made Saxo, his clerk, set it all down as an eye-witness of these things, and as one who came to the task by right; for, says the chronicler, "have not my grandfather and his father before him served the King well on land and sea, hence why should not I serve him with my book-learning?" He bears witness that the bishop himself is his authority for much that he has written. Archbishop Absalon closed his eyes on St. Benedict's Day, March 21, 1201, in the cloister at Sorö which Sir Asker built and where he lived his last days in peace. Absalon's statue of bronze, on horseback, battle-axe in hand, stands in the market square in Copenhagen, the city he founded and of which he is the patron saint; but his body lies within the quiet sanctuary where, in the deep forest glades, one listens yet for the evensong of the monks, long silent now. When his grave was opened, in 1826, the lines of his tall form, clad in clerical robes, were yet clearly traceable. The strong hands, turned to dust, held a silver chalice in which lay his episcopal ring. They are there to be seen to-day, with remnants of his staff that had partly crumbled away. No Dane approaches his grave without emotion. "All Denmark grieved for him," says a German writer of that day, "and commended his soul to Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, for that in his lifetime he had led many who were enemies to peace and concord." In his old cathedral, in Roskilde town, lies Saxo, according to tradition under an unmarked stone. When he went to rest his friend and master had slept five years. Esbern outlived his brother three years. The hero of so many battles met his death at last by an accidental fall in his own house. The last we hear of him is at a meeting in the Christmas season, 1187, where emissaries of Pope Gregory VIII preached a general crusade. Their hearers wept at the picture they drew of the sufferings Christians were made to endure in the Holy Land. Then arose Esbern and reminded them of the great deeds of the fathers at home and abroad. The faith and the fire of Absalon were in his words: "These things they did," he said, "for the glory of their name and race, knowing nothing of our holy religion. Shall we, believing, do less? Let us lay aside our petty quarrels and take up this greater cause. Let us share the sufferings of the saints and earn their reward. Perhaps we shall win--God keeps the issue. Let him who cannot give himself, give of his means. So shall all we, sharing the promise, share also the reward." The account we have says that many took the cross, such was the effect of his words, more likely of the man and what he was and had been in the sight of them all throughout his long life. KING VALDEMAR, AND THE STORY OF THE DANNEBROG To the court of King Ottocar of Bohemia there came in the year 1205 a brilliant embassy from far-off Denmark to ask the hand of his daughter Dragomir for King Valdemar, the young ruler of that country. Sir Strange[1] Ebbesön and Bishop Peder Sunesön were the spokesmen, and many knights, whose fame had travelled far in the long years of fighting to bring the Baltic pagans under the cross, rode with them. The old king received them with delight. Valdemar was not only a good son-in-law for a king to have, being himself a great and renowned ruler, but he was a splendid knight, tall and handsome, of most courteous bearing, ambitious, manly, and of ready wit. So their suit prospered well. The folk-song tells how they fared; how, according to the custom of those days, Sir Strange wedded the fair princess by proxy for his lord, and how King Ottocar, when he bade her good-by, took this promise of her: In piety, virtue, and fear of God, Let all thy days be spent; And ever thy subjects be thy thought, Their hopes on thy care be bent. [Footnote 1: Pronounce as Strangle, with the l left out.] The daughter kept her vow. Never was queen more beloved of her people than Dagmar. That was the name they gave her in Denmark, for the Bohemian Dragomir was strange to them. Dagmar meant daybreak in their ancient tongue, and it really seemed as if a new and beautiful day dawned upon the land in her coming. The dry pages of history have little enough to tell of her beyond the simple fact of her marriage and untimely death, though they are filled with her famous husband's deeds; but not all of his glorious campaigns that earned for him the name of "The Victor" have sunk so deep into the people's memory, or have taken such hold of their hearts, as the lovely queen who Came without burden, she came with peace; She came the good peasant to cheer. Through all the centuries the people have sung her praise, and they sing it yet. Of the many folk-songs that have come down from the middle ages, those that tell of Queen Dagmar are the sweetest, as they are the most mournful, for her happiness was as brief as her life was beautiful. They sailed homeward over sunny seas, until they came to the shore where the royal lover awaited his bride, impatiently scanning the horizon for the gilded dragon's head of the ship that bore her. The minstrel sings of the great wedding that was held in the old city of Ribe.[2] The gray old cathedral in which they knelt together still stands; but of Valdemar's strong castle only a grass-grown hill is left. It was the privilege of a bride in those days to ask a gift of her husband on the morning after the wedding, and have it granted without question. Two boons did Dagmar crave, "right early in the morning, long before it was day": one, that the plow-tax might be forgiven the peasant, and that those who for rising against it had been laid in irons be set free; the other, that the prison door of Bishop Valdemar be opened. Bishop Valdemar was the arch-enemy of the King. The first request he granted; but the other he refused for cause: An' he comes out, Bishop Valdemar, Widow he makes you this year. And he did his worst; for in the end the King yielded to Dagmar's prayers, and much mischief came of it. [Footnote 2: Pronounced Reebe, in two syllables.] Seven years the good queen lived. Seven centuries have not dimmed the memory of them, or of her. The King was away in a distant part of the country when they sent to him in haste with the message that the queen was dying. The ballad tells of his fears as he sees Dagmar's page coming, and they proved only too true. The king his checker-board shut in haste, The dice they rattled and rung. Forbid it God, who dwells in heaven, That Dagmar should die so young. In the wild ride over field and moor, the King left his men far behind: When the king rode out of Skanderborg Him followed a hundred men. But when he rode o'er Ribe bridge, Then rode the king alone. The tears of weeping women told him as he thundered over the drawbridge of the castle that he was too late. But Dagmar had only swooned. As he throws himself upon her bed she opens her eyes, and smiles upon her husband. Her last prayer, as her first, is for mercy and peace. Her sin, she says, is not great; she has done nothing worse than to lace her silken sleeves on a Sunday. Then she closes her eyes with a tired sigh: The bells of heaven are chiming for me; No more may I stay to speak. Thus the folk-song. Long before Dagmar went to her rest, Bishop Valdemar had stirred up all Germany to wreak his vengeance upon the King. He was an ambitious, unscrupulous priest, who hated his royal master because he held himself entitled to the crown, being the natural son of King Knud, who was murdered at Roskilde, as told in the story of Absalon. While they were yet young men, when he saw that the people followed his rival, he set the German princes against Denmark, a task he never found hard. But young Valdemar made short work of them. He took the strong cities on the Elbe and laid the lands of his adversaries under the Danish crown. The bishop he seized, and threw him into the dungeon of Söborg Castle, where he had sat thirteen years when Dagmar's prayers set him free. He could hardly walk when he came out, but he could hate, and all the world knew it. The Pope bound him with heavy oaths never to return to Denmark, and made him come to Italy so that he could keep an eye on him himself. But two years had not passed before he broke his oath, and fled to Bremen, where the people elected him to the vacant archbishopric and its great political power. Forthwith he began plotting against his native land. In the bitter feud between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines he found his opportunity. One of the rival emperors marched an army north to help the perjured priest. King Valdemar hastened to meet them, but on the eve of battle the Emperor was slain by one of his own men. On Sunday, when the archbishop was saying mass in the Bremen cathedral, an unknown knight, the visor of whose helmet was closed so that no one saw his face, strode up to the altar, and laying a papal bull before him, cried out that he was accursed, and under the ban of the church. The people fled, and forsaken by all, the wretched man turned once more to Rome in submission. But though the Pope forgave him on condition that he meddle no more with politics, war, or episcopal office, another summer found him wielding sword and lance against the man he hated, this time under the banner of the Guelphs. The Germans had made another onset on Denmark, but again King Valdemar defeated them. The bishop intrenched himself in Hamburg, and made a desperate resistance, but the King carried the city by storm. The beaten and hopeless man fled, and shut himself up in a cloister in Hanover, where daily and nightly he scourged himself for his sins. If it is true that "hell was fashioned by the souls that hated," not all the penance of all the years must have availed to save him from the torments of the lost. Denmark now had peace on its southern border. Dagmar was dead, and Valdemar, whose restless soul yearned for new worlds to conquer, turned toward the east where the wild Esthland tribes were guilty of even worse outrages than the Wends before Absalon tamed them. The dreadful cruelties practised by these pagans upon christian captives cried aloud to all civilized Europe, and Valdemar took the cross "for the honor of the Virgin Mary and the absolution of his sins," and gathered a mighty fleet, the greatest ever assembled in Danish waters. With more than a thousand ships he sailed across the Baltic. The Pope sped them with his apostolic blessing, and took king and people into his especial care, forbidding any one to attack the country while they were away converting the heathen. Archbishop Anders led the crusade with the king. As the fleet approached the shore they saw it covered with an innumerable host of the enemy. So great was their multitude that the crusaders quailed before the peril of landing; but the archbishop put heart into them, and led the fleet in fervent prayer to the God of battle. Then they landed without hindrance. There was an old stronghold there called Lyndanissa that had fallen into decay. The crusaders busied themselves for two days with building another and better fort. On the third day, being St. Vitus' Day, they rested, fearing no harm. The Esthlanders had not troubled them. Some of their chiefs had even come in with an offer of surrender. They were willing to be converted, they said, and the priests were baptizing them after vespers, while the camp was making ready for the night, when suddenly the air was filled with the yells of countless savages. On every side they broke from the woods, where they had been gathering unsuspected, and overwhelmed the camp. The guards were hewn down, the outposts taken, and the King's men were falling back in confusion, their standard lost, when Prince Vitislav of Rügen who had been camping with his men in a hollow between the sand-hills, out of the line of attack, threw himself between them and the Esthlanders, and gave the Danes time to form their lines. In the twilight of the June evening the battle raged with great fury. With the King at their head, who had led them to victory on so many hard-fought fields, the Danes drove back their savage foes time after time, literally hewing their way through their ranks with sword and battle-axe. But they were hopelessly outnumbered. Their hearts misgave them as they saw ten heathen spring out of the ground for every one that was felled. The struggle grew fiercer as night came on. The Christians were fighting for life; defeat meant that they must perish to a man, by the sword or upon pagan altars; escape there was none. Upon the cliff overlooking the battle-field the archbishop and his priests were praying for success to the King's arms. Tradition that has been busy with this great battle all through the ages tells how, while the aged bishop's hands were raised toward heaven, victory leaned to the Danes; but when he grew tired, and let them fall, the heathen won forward, until the priests held up his hands and once more the tide of battle rolled back from the shore, and the Christian war-cry rose higher. Suddenly, in the clash of steel upon steel and the wild tumult of the conflict, there arose a great and wondering cry "the banner! the banner! a miracle!" and Christian and pagan paused to listen. Out of the sky, as it seemed, over against the hill upon which the priests knelt, a blood-red banner with a great white cross was seen falling into the ranks of the Christian knights, and a voice resounded over the battle-field, "Bear this high, and victory shall be yours." With the exultant cry, "For God and the King," the crusaders seized it, and charged the foe. Terror-stricken, the Esthlanders wavered, then turned, and fled. The battle became a massacre. Thousands were slain. The chronicles say that the dead lay piled fathom-high on the field that ran red with blood. Upon it, when the pursuit was over, Valdemar knelt with his men, and they bowed their heads in thanksgiving, while the venerable archbishop gave praise to God for the victory. That is the story of the Dannebrog which has been the flag of the Danes seven hundred years. Whether the archbishop had brought it with him intending to present it to King Valdemar, and threw it down among the fighting hordes in the moment of extreme peril, or whether, as some think, the Pope himself had sent it to the crusaders with a happy inspiration, the fact remains that it came to the Danes in this great battle, and on the very day which, fifty years before, had seen the fall of Arcona, and the end of idol-worship among the western Slavs. Three hundred years the standard flew over the Danes fighting on land and sea. Then it was lost in a campaign against the Holstein counts and, when recovered half a century later, was hung up in the cathedral at Slesvig, where gradually it fell to pieces. In the first half of the Nineteenth Century, when national feeling and national pride were at their lowest ebb, it was taken down with other moth-eaten old banners, one day when they were cleaning up, and somebody made a bonfire of them in the street. Such was the fate of "the flag that fell from heaven," the sacred standard of the Danes. But it was not the end of it. The Dannebrog flies yet over the Denmark of the Valdemars, no longer great as then, it is true, nor master of its ancient foes; but the world salutes it with respect, for there was never blot of tyranny or treason upon it, and its sons own it with pride wherever they go. King Valdemar knighted five and thirty of his brave men on the battle-field, and from that day the Order of the Dannebrog is said to date. It bears upon a white crusader's cross the slogan of the great fight "For God and the King," and on its reverse the date when it was won, "June 15, 1219." The back of paganism was broken that day, and the conversion of all Esthland followed soon. King Valdemar built the castle he had begun before he sailed home, and called it Reval, after one of the neighboring tribes. The Russian city of that name grew up about it and about the church which Archbishop Anders reared. The Dannebrog became its arms, and its people call it to this day "the city of the Danes." Denmark was now at the height of her glory. Her flag flew over all the once hostile lands to the south and east, clear into Russia. The Baltic was a Danish inland sea. King Valdemar was named "Victor" with cause. His enemies feared him; his people adored him. In a single night foul treachery laid the whole splendid structure low. The King and young Valdemar, Dagmar's son, with a small suite of retainers had spent the day hunting on the little island of Lyö. Count Henrik of Schwerin,--the Black Count they called him,--who had just returned from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, was his guest. The count hated Valdemar bitterly for some real or fancied injury, but he hid his hatred under a friendly bearing and smooth speech. He brought the King gifts from the Holy Sepulchre, hunted with him, and was his friend. But by night, when the King and his son slept in their tent, unguarded, since no enemy was thought to be near, he fell upon them with his cutthroats, bound and gagged them despite their struggles, and gathering up all the valuables that lay around, to put the finishing touch upon his villainy, fled with his prisoners "in great haste and fear," while the King's men slept. When they awoke, and tried to follow, they found their ships scuttled. The count's boat had been lying under sail all day, hidden in a sheltered cove, awaiting his summons. Germany at last had the lion and its whelp in her grasp. In chains and fetters they were dragged from one dungeon to another. The traitors dared not trust them long in any city, however strong. The German Emperor shook his fist at Count Henrik, but secretly he was glad. He would have liked nothing better than to have the precious spoil in his own power. The Pope thundered in Rome and hurled his ban at the thugs. But the Black Count's conscience was as swarthy as his countenance; and besides, had he not just been to the Holy Land, and thereby washed himself clean of all his sins, past and present? Behind prison walls, comforted only by Dagmar's son, sat the King, growing old and gray with anger and grief. Denmark lay prostrate under the sudden blow, while her enemies rose on every side. Day by day word came of outbreaks in the conquered provinces. The people did not know which way to turn; the strong hand that held the helm was gone, and the ship drifted, the prey of every ill wind. It was as if all that had been won by sixty years of victories and sacrifice fell away in one brief season. The forests filled with out-laws; neither peasant nor wayfarer, nor yet monk or nun in their quiet retreat, was safe from outrage; and pirates swarmed again in bay and sound, where for two generations there had been peace. The twice-perjured Bishop Valdemar left his cloister cell once more and girt on the sword, to take the kingdom he coveted by storm. He was met by King Valdemar's kinsman and friend, Albert of Orlamunde, who hastened to the frontier with all the men he could gather. They halted him with a treaty of peace that offered to set Valdemar free if he would take his kingdom as a fief of the German crown. He, Albert, so it was written, was to keep all his lands and more, would he but sign it. He did not stop to hear the rest, but slashed the parchment into ribbons with his sword, and ordered an instant advance. The bishop he made short work of, and he was heard of no more. But in the battle with the German princes Albert was defeated and taken prisoner. The door of King Valdemar's dungeon was opened only to let his friend in. After two years and a half in chains, Valdemar was ransomed by his people with a great sum of gold. The Danish women gave their rings and their jewels to bring back their king. They flocked about him when he returned, and received him like the conqueror of old; but he rode among them gray and stern, and his thoughts were far away. They had made him swear on oath upon the sacrament, and all Denmark's bishops with him, before they set him free, that he would not seek revenge. But once he was back in his own, he sent to Pope Gregory, asking him to loose him from an oath wrung from him while he was helpless in the power of bandits. And the Pope responded that to keep faith with traitors was no man's duty. Then back he rode over the River Eider into the enemy's land--for they had stripped Denmark of all her hard-won possessions south of the ancient border of the kingdom, except Esthland and Rügen--and with him went every man who could bear arms in all the nation. He crushed the Black Count who tried to block his way, and at Bornhöved met the German allies who had gathered from far and near to give him battle. Well they knew that if Valdemar won, the reckoning would be terrible. All day they fought, and victory seemed to lean toward the Danes, when the base Holsteiners, the Danish rear-guard whom the enemy had bought to betray their king, turned their spears upon his army, and decided the day. The battle ended in utter rout of Valdemar's forces. Four thousand Danish men were slain. The King himself fell wounded on the field, his eye pierced by an arrow, and would have fallen into the hands of the enemy once more but for an unknown German knight, who took him upon his horse and bore him in the night over unfrequented paths to Kiel, where he was safe. "But all men said that this great hurt befell the King because that he brake the oath he swore upon the sacred body of the Lord." The wars of Valdemar were over, but his sorrows were not. Four years later the crushing blow fell when Dagmar's son, who was crowned king to succeed him, lost his life while hunting. With him, says the folk-song, died the hope of Denmark. The King had other sons, but to Dagmar's boy the people had given their love from the first, as they had to his gentle mother. The old King and his people grieved together. But Valdemar rose above his sorrows. Great as he had been in the days of victory, he was greater still in adversity. The country was torn by the wars of three-score years, and in need of rest. He gave his last days to healing the wounds the sword had struck. Valdemar, the Victor, became Valdemar, the Law-giver. The laws of the country had hitherto made themselves. They were the outgrowths of the people's ancient customs, passed down by word of mouth through the generations, and confirmed on Thing from time to time. King Valdemar gave Denmark her first written laws that judged between man and man, in at least one of her provinces clear down into our day. "With law shall land be built" begins his code. "The law," it says, "must be honest, just, reasonable, and according to the ways of the people. It must meet their needs, and speak plainly so that all men may know and understand what the law is. It is not to be made in any man's favor, but for the needs of all them who live in the land." That is its purpose, and "no man shall judge (condemn) the law which the King has given and the country chosen; neither shall he (the King) take it back without the will of the people." That tells the story of Valdemar's day, and of the people who are so near of kin with ourselves. They were not sovereign and subjects; they were a chosen king and a free people, working together "with law land to build." King Valdemar was married twice. The folk-song represents Dagmar as urging the King with her dying breath "that Bengerd, my lord, that base bad dame you never to wife will take." Bengerd, or Berengaria, was a Portuguese princess whom Valdemar married in spite of the warning, two years later. As the people had loved the fair Dagmar, so they hated the proud Southern beauty, whether with reason or not. The story of her "morning gift," as it has come down to us through the mists of time, is very different from the other. She asks the King, so the ballad has it, to give her Samsö, a great and fertile island, and "a golden crown[3] for every maid," but he tells her not to be quite so greedy: There be full many an honest maid with not dry bread to eat. [Footnote 3: A coin, probably.] Undismayed, Bengerd objects that Danish women have no business to wear silken gowns, and that a good horse is not for a peasant lad. The King replies patiently that what a woman can buy she may wear for him, and that he will not take the lad's horse if he can feed it. Bengerd is not satisfied. "Let bar the land with iron chains" is her next proposal, that neither man nor woman enter it without paying tax. Her husband says scornfully that Danish kings have never had need of such measures, and never will. He is plainly getting bored, and when she keeps it up, and begrudges the husbandman more than "two oxen and a cow," he loses his temper, and presumably there is a matrimonial tiff. Very likely most of this is fiction, bred of the popular prejudice. The King loved her, that is certain. She was a beautiful high-spirited woman, so beautiful that many hundreds of years after, when her grave was opened, the delicate oval of her skull excited admiration yet. But the people hated her. Twenty generations after her death it was their custom when passing her grave to spit on it with the exclamation "Out upon thee, Bengerd! God bless the King of Denmark"; for in good or evil days they never wavered in their love and admiration for the king who was a son of the first Valdemar, and the heir of his greatness and of that of the sainted Absalon. Tradition has it that Bengerd was killed in battle, having gone with her husband on one of his campaigns. "It was not heard in any place," says the folk-song wickedly, "that any one grieved for her." But the King mourned for his beautiful queen to the end of his days. Bengerd bore Valdemar three sons upon whom he lavished all the affection of his lonely old age. Erik he chose as his successor, and to keep his brothers loyal to him he gave them great fiefs and thus, unknowing, brought on the very trouble he sought to avoid, and set his foot on the path that led to Denmark's dismemberment after centuries of bloody wars. For to his second son Abel he gave Slesvig, and Abel, when his brother became king, sought alliance with the Holstein count Adolf,[4] the very one who had led the Germans at the fatal battle of Bornhöved. The result was a war between the brothers that raged seven years, and laid waste the land. Worse was to follow, for Abel was only "Abel in name, but Cain in deed." But happily the old King's eyes were closed then, and he was spared the sight of one brother murdering the other for the kingdom. [Footnote 4: That was the beginning of the Slesvig-Holstein question that troubled Europe to our day; for the fashion set by Abel other rulers of his dukedom followed, and by degrees Slesvig came to be reckoned with the German duchies, whereas up till then it had always been South-Jutland, a part of Denmark proper.] Some foreboding of this seems to have troubled him in his last years. It is related that once when he was mounting his horse to go hunting he fell into a deep reverie, and remained standing with his foot in the stirrup a long time, while his men wondered, not daring to disturb him. At last one of them went to remind him that the sun was low in the west. The King awoke from his dream, and bade him go at once to a wise old hermit who lived in a distant part of the country. "Ask him," he said, "what King Valdemar was thinking of just now, and bring me his answer." The knight went away on his strange errand, and found the hermit. And this was the message he brought back: "Your lord and master pondered as he stood by his horse, how his sons would fare when he was dead. Tell him that war and discord they shall have, but kings they will all be." When the King heard the prophecy he was troubled in mind, and called his sons and all his great knights to a council at which he pleaded with them to keep the peace. But though they promised, he was barely in his grave when riot and bloodshed filled the land. The climax was reached when Abel inveigled his brother to his home with fair words and, once he had him in his power, seized him and gave him over to his men to do with "as they pleased." They understood their master only too well, and took King Erik out on the fjord in an open boat, and killed him there, scarce giving him time to say his prayers. They weighted his body with his helmet, and sank it in the deep. Abel made oath with four and twenty of his men that he was innocent of his brother's blood, and took the crown after him. But the foul crime was soon avenged. Within a few years he was himself slain by a peasant in a rising of his own people. For a while his body lay unburied, the prey of beast and bird, and when it was interred in the Slesvig cathedral there was no rest for it. "Such turmoil arose in the church by night that the monks could not chant their vigils," and in the end they took him out, and buried him in a swamp, with a stake driven through the heart to lay his ghost. But clear down to our time when people ceased to believe in ghosts, the fratricide was seen at night hunting through the woods, coal-black and on a white horse, with three fiery dogs trailing after; and blue flames burned over the sea where they vanished. That was how the superstition of the people judged the man whom the nobles and the priests made king, red-handed. Christopher, the youngest of the three brothers, was king last. His end was no better than that of the rest. Indeed, it was worse. Hardly yet forty years old, he died--poisoned, it was said, by the Abbot Arnfast, in the sacrament as he knelt at the altar-rail in the Ribe cathedral. He was buried in the chancel where the penitents going to the altar walk over his grave. So, of all Valdemar's four sons, not one died a peaceful, natural death. But kings they all were. Valdemar was laid in Ringsted with his great father. He sleeps between his two queens. Dagmar's grave was disturbed in the late middle ages by unknown vandals, and the remains of Denmark's best-loved queen were scattered. Only a golden cross, which she had worn in life, somehow escaped, and found its way in course of time into the museum of antiquities at Copenhagen, where it now is, its chief and priceless treasure. There also is a braid of Queen Bengerd's hair that was found when her grave was opened in 1855. The people's hate had followed her even there, and would not let her rest. The slab that covered her tomb had been pried off, and a round stone dropped into the place made for her head. Otherwise her grave was undisturbed. "Truly then fell the crown from the heads of Danish men," says the old chronicle of King Valdemar's death, and black clouds were gathering ominously even then over the land. But in storm and stress, as in days that were fair, the Danish people have clung loyally to the memory of their beloved King and of his sweet Dagmar. HOW THE GHOST OF THE HEATH WAS LAID On the map of Europe the mainland of Denmark looks like a beckoning finger pointing due north and ending in a narrow sand-reef, upon which the waves of the North Sea and of the Kattegat break with unceasing clamor and strife. The heart of the peninsula, quite one-fourth of its area, was fifty years ago a desert, a barren, melancholy waste, where the only sign of life encountered by the hunter, gunning for heath-fowl and plover, was a rare shepherd tending a few lonesome sheep, and knitting mechanically on his endless stocking. The two, the lean sheep and the long stocking, together comprised the only industries which the heath afforded and was thought capable of sustaining. A great change has taken place within the span of a single life, and it is all due to the clear sight and patient devotion of one strong man, the Gifford Pinchot of Denmark. The story of that unique achievement reads like the tale of the Sleeping Beauty who was roused from her hundred years' sleep by the kiss of her lover prince. The prince who awoke the slumbering heath was a captain of engineers, Enrico Dalgas by name. Not altogether fanciful is the conceit. Barren, black, and desolate, the great moor gripped the imagination as no smiling landscape of field and forest could--does yet, where enough of it remains. Far as eye reaches the dun heather covers hill and plain with its sombre pall. Like gloomy sentinels, furry cattails nod in the bog where the blue gentian peeps timidly into murky pools; the only human habitation in sight some heath boer's ling-thatched hut, flanked by rows of peat stacks in vain endeavor to stay the sweep of the pitiless west wind. On the barrows where the vikings sleep their long sleep, the plover pipes its melancholy lay; between steep banks a furtive brook steals swiftly by as if anxious to escape from the universal blight. Over it all broods the silence of the desert, drowsy with the hum of many bees winging their swift way to the secret feeding-places they know of, where mayflower and anemone hide under the heather, witness that forests grew here in the long ago. In midsummer, when the purple is on the broom, a strange pageant moves on the dim horizon, a shifting mirage of sea and shore, forest, lake, and islands lying high, with ships and castles and spires of distant churches--the witchery of the heath that speaks in the tales and superstitions of its simple people. High in the blue soars the lark, singing its song of home and hope to its nesting mate. This is the heath which, denying to the hardest toil all but the barest living, has given of its poetry to the Danish tongue some of its sweetest songs. But in this busy world day-dreams must make way for the things that make the day count, castles in the air to homes upon the soil. The heath had known such in the dim past. It had not always been a desert. The numberless cairns that lie scattered over it, sometimes strung out for miles as if marking the highways of the ancients, which they doubtless do, sometimes grouped where their villages stood, bear witness to it. Great battles account for their share, and some of them were fought in historic times. On Grathe Heath the young King Valdemar overcame his treacherous rival Svend. Alone and hunted, the beaten man sought refuge, Saxo tells us, behind a stump, where he was found and slain by one of the King's axemen. A chapel was built on the spot. More than seven centuries later (in 1892) they dug there, and found the bones of a man with skull split in two. The stump behind which the wretched Svend hid was probably the last representative of great forests that grew where now is sterile moor. In the bogs trunks of oak and fir are found lying as they fell centuries ago. The local names preserve the tradition, with here and there patches of scrub oak that hug the ground close, to escape the blast from the North Sea. There is one such thicket near the hamlet of Taulund--the name itself tells of long-forgotten groves--and the story runs among the people yet that once squirrels jumped from tree to tree without touching ground all the way from Taulund to Gjellerup church, a stretch of more than five miles to which the wild things of the woods have long been strangers. In the shelter of the old forests men dwelt through ages, and made the land yield them a living. Some cairns that have been explored span over more than a thousand years. They were built in the stone age, and served the people of the bronze and iron ages successively as burial-places, doubtless the same tribes who thus occupied their homesteads from generation to generation. That they were farmers, not nomads, is proved by the clear impression of grains of wheat and barley in their burial urns. The seeds strayed into the clay and were burned away, but the impression abides, and tells the story. Clear down to historic times there was a thrifty population in many of the now barren spots. But a change was slowly creeping over the landscape. The country was torn by long and bloody wars. The big men fought for the land and the little ones paid the score, as they always do. They were hunted from house and home. Next the wild hordes of the Holstein counts overran Jutland. Its towns were burned, the country laid waste. Great fires swept the forests. What ravaging armies had left was burned in the smelteries. In the sandy crust of the heath there is iron, and swords and spears were the grim need of that day. The smelteries are only names now. They went, but they took the forests with them, and where the ground was cleared the west wind broke through, and ruin followed fast. Last of all came the Black Death, and set its seal of desolation upon it all. When it had passed, the country was a huge graveyard. The heath had moved in. Rovers and smugglers found refuge there; honest folk shunned it. Under the heather the old landmarks are sometimes found yet, and deep ruts made by wheels that long since ceased to turn. In the Eighteenth Century men began to think of reclamation. A thousand German colonists were called in and settled on the heath, but it was stronger than they, and they drifted away until scarce half a hundred families remained. The Government tried its hand, but there was no one who knew just how, and only discouragement resulted. Then came the war with Germany in 1864, that lost to Denmark a third of her territory. The country lay prostrate under the crushing blow. But it rose above defeat and disaster, and once more expectant eyes were turned toward the ancient domain that had slipped from its grasp. "What was lost without must be won within" became the national slogan. And this time the man for the task was at hand. Enrico Mylius Dalgas was by the accident of birth an Italian, his father being the Danish consul in Naples; by descent a Frenchman; by choice and training a Dane, typical of the best in that people. He came of the Huguenot stock that left France after the repeal of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 and scattered over Europe, to the great good of every land in which it settled. They had been tillers of the soil from the beginning, and at least two of the family, who found homes in Denmark, made in their day notable contributions to the cause of advanced, sensible husbandry. Enrico's father, though a merchant, had an open eye for the interests which in later years claimed the son's life-work. In the diary of a journey through Sweden he makes indignant comment upon the reckless way in which the people of that country dealt with their forests. That he was also a man of resolution is shown by an incident of the time when Jew-baiting was having its sorry day in Denmark. An innkeeper mistook the dark-skinned little man for a Jew, and set before him a spoiled ham, retorting contemptuously, when protest was made, that it was "good enough for a Sheeny." Without further parley Mr. Dalgas seized the hot ham by its shank and beat the fellow with it till he cried for mercy. The son tells of the first school he attended, when he was but five years old. It was kept by the widow of one of Napoleon's generals, a militant lady who every morning marshalled the school, a Lilliputian army with the teachers flanking the line like beardless sergeants in stays and petticoats, and distributed rewards and punishments as the great Emperor was wont to do after a battle. For the dunces there was a corner strewn with dried peas on which they were made to kneel with long-eared donkey caps adorning their luckless heads. Very likely it was after an insult of this kind that Enrico decided to elope to America with his baby sister. They were found down by the harbor bargaining with some fishermen to take them over to Capri _en route_ for the land of freedom. The elder Dalgas died while the children were yet little, and the widow went back to Denmark to bring up her boys there. They were poor, and the change from the genial skies of sunny Italy to the bleak North did not make it any easier for them. Enrico's teacher saw it, and gave him his overcoat to be made over. But the boys spotted it and squared accounts with their teacher by snowballing the wearer of the big green plaid until he was glad to leave it at home, and go without. He was in the military school when war broke out with Germany in 1848. Both of his brothers volunteered, and fell in battle. Enrico was ordered out as lieutenant, and put on the shoulder-straps joyfully, to the great scandal of his godfather in Milan, who sympathized with the German cause. When the young soldier refused to resign he not only cut him off in his will, but took away a pension of four hundred kroner he had given his mother in her widowhood. If he had thoughts of bringing them over by such means, he found out his mistake. Mother and son were made of sterner stuff. Dalgas fought twice for his country, the last time in 1864, as a captain of engineers. It was no ordinary class, the one of 1851 that resumed its studies in the military high school. Two of the students did not answer roll-call; their names were written among the nation's heroic dead. Some had scars and wore the cross for valor in battle. All were first lieutenants, to be graduated as captains. Dalgas had himself transferred from the artillery to the engineers, and was detailed as road inspector. So the opportunity of his life came to him. There were few railways in those days; the highways were still the great arteries of traffic. Dalgas built roads that crossed the heath, and he learned to know it and the strong and independent, if narrow, people who clung to it with such a tenacious grip. He had a natural liking for practical geology and for the chemistry of the soil, and the deep cuts which his roads sometimes made gave him the best of chances for following his bent. The heath lay as an open book before him, and he studied it with delight. He found the traces of the old forests, and noted their extent. Occasionally the pickaxe uncovered peat deposits of unsuspected depth and value. Sometimes the line led across the lean fields, and damages had to be discussed and assessed. He learned the point of view of the heath farmer, sympathized with his struggles, and gained his confidence. Best of all, he found a man of his own mind, a lawyer by the name of Morville, himself a descendant of the exiled Huguenots. It is not a little curious that when the way was cleared for the Heath Society's great work, in its formal organization with M. Mourier-Petersen, a large landowner, as their associate in its management, the three men who for a quarter of a century planned the work and marked out the groove in which it was to run were all of that strong stock which is by no means the most common in Denmark. With his lawyer friend Captain Dalgas tramped the heath far and wide for ten years. Then their talks had matured a plan. Dalgas wrote to the Copenhagen newspapers that the heath could be reclaimed, and suggested that it should be done by the State. They laughed at him. "Nothing better could have happened," he said in after years, "for it made us turn to the people themselves, and that was the road to success, though we did not know it." In the spring of 1866 a hundred men, little and big landowners most of them, met at his call, and organized the Heath Society[1] with the object of reclaiming the moor. Dalgas became its managing director. [Footnote 1: Danske Hedeselskab.] To restore to the treeless waste its forest growth was the fundamental idea, for until that was done nothing but the heather could grow there. The west wind would not let it. But the heath farmer shook his head. It would cost too much, and give too little back. What he needed was water and marl. Could the captain help them to these?--that was another matter. The little streams that found their way into the heath and lost it there, dire need had taught them to turn to use in their fields; not a drop escaped. But the river that ran between deep banks was beyond their reach. Could he show them how to harness that? Dalgas saw their point. "We are working, not for the dead soil, but for the living men who find homes upon it," he told his associates, and tree planting was put aside for the time. They turned canal diggers instead. Irrigation became their aim and task; the engineer was in his right place. The water was raised from the stream and led out upon the moor, and presently grass grew in the sand which the wiry stems of the heather had clutched so long. Green meadows lined the water-runs, and fragrant haystacks rose. To the lean sheep was added a cow, then two. The farmer laid by a little, and took in more land for cultivation. That meant breaking the heath. Also, it meant marl. The heath is lime-poor; marl is lime in the exact form in which it best fits that sandy soil. It was known to exist in some favored spots, but the poor heath farmer could not bring it from a distance. So the marl borer went with the canal digger. Into every acre he drove his auger, and mapped out his discoveries. At last accounts he had found marl in more than seventeen hundred places, and he is not done yet. Where there was none, Dalgas's Society built portable railways into the moor far enough to bring it to nearly every farmer's door. It was as if a magic wand had been waved over the heath. With water and marl, the means were at hand for fighting it and winning out. Heads that had drooped in discouragement were raised. The cattle keep increased, and with it came the farmer's wealth. Marl changes the character of the heath soil; with manure to fertilize it there was no reason why it should not grow crops--none, except the withering blast of the west wind. The time for Dalgas to preach tree planting had come. While the canal digger and marl seeker were at work, there had been neighborhood meetings and talks at which Captain Dalgas did the talking. When he spoke the heath boer listened, for he had learned to look upon him as one of them. He wore no gold lace. A plain man in every-day gray tweeds, with his trousers tucked into his boots, he spoke to plain people of things that concerned them vitally, and in a way they could understand. So when he told them that the heath had once been forest-clad, at least a large part of it, and pointed them to the proofs, and that the woods could be made to grow again to give them timber and shelter and crops, they gave heed. It was worth trying at any rate. The shelter was the immediate thing. They began planting hedges about their homesteads; not always wisely, for it is not every tree that will grow in the heath. The wind whipped and wore them, the ahl cramped their roots, and they died. The ahl is the rusty-red crust that forms under the heather in the course of the ages where the desert rules. Sometimes it is a loose sandstone formation; sometimes it carries as much as twenty per cent of iron that is absorbed from the upper layers of the sand. In any case, it must be broken through; no tree root can do it. The ahl, the poverty of the sand, and the wind, together make the "evil genius" of the heath that had won until then in the century-old fight with man. But this time he had backing, and was not minded to give up. The Heath Society was there to counsel, to aid. And soon the hedges took hold, and gardens grew in their shelter. There is hardly a farm in all west Jutland to-day that has not one, even if the moor waits just beyond the gate. Out in the desert the Society had made a beginning with plantations of Norway spruce. They took root, but the heather soon overwhelmed the young plants. Not without a fight would this enemy let go its grip upon the land. It had smothered the hardy Scotch pine in days past, and now the spruce was in peril. Searching high and low for something that would grow fast and grow green, Dalgas and his associates planted dwarf pine with the spruce. Strangely, it not only grew itself, but proved to be a real nurse for the other. The spruce took a fresh start, and they grew vigorously together--for a while. Then the pine outstripped its nursling, and threatened to smother it. The spruce was the more valuable; the other was at best little more than a shrub. The croaker raised his voice: the black heath had turned green, but it was still heath, of no value to any one, then or ever. He had not reckoned with Dalgas. The captain of engineers could use the axe as well as the spade. He cut the dwarf pine out wherever the spruce had got its grip, and gave it light and air. And it grew big and beautiful. The Heath Society has now over nineteen hundred plantations that cover nearly a hundred thousand acres, and the State and private individuals, inspired by the example it set, have planted almost as large an area. The ghost of the heath has been laid for all time. Go now across the heath and see the change forty years have wrought. You shall seek in vain the lonely shepherd with his stocking. The stocking has grown into an organized industry. In grandfather's day the farmer and his household "knitted for the taxes"; if all hands made enough in the twelvemonth to pay the tax-gatherer, they had done well. Last year the single county of Hammerum, of which more below, sold machine-made underwear to the value of over a million and a half kroner. The sheep are there, but no longer lean; no more the ling-thatched hut, but prosperous farms backed by thrifty groves, with hollyhock and marigold in the dooryards, heaps of gray marl in the fields, tiny rivulets of water singing the doom of the heath in the sand; for where it comes the heather moves out. A resolute, thrifty peasantry looks hopefully forward. Not all of the heath is conquered yet. Roughly speaking, thirty-three hundred square miles of heath confronted Dalgas in 1866. Just about a thousand remain for those who come after to wrestle with; but already voices are raised pleading that some of it be preserved untouched for its natural beauty, while yet it is time. Meanwhile the plow goes over fresh acres every year--once, twice, then a deeper plowing, this time to break the stony crust, and the heath is ready for its human mission. From the Society's nurseries that are scattered through the country come thousands of tiny trees, and are set out in the furrows, two of the spruce for each dwarf pine till the nurse has done her work. Then she is turned into charcoal, into tar, and a score of other things of use. The men who do the planting in summer find chopping to do in winter in the older plantations, at good wages. Money is flowing into the moor in the wake of the water and the marl. Roads are being made, and every day the mail-carrier comes. In the olden time a stranger straying into the heath often brought the first news of the world without for weeks together. Game is coming, too,--roebuck and deer,--in the young forests. The climate itself is changing; more rain falls in midsummer, when it is needed. The sand-blast has been checked, the power of the west wind broken. The shrivelled soil once more takes up and holds the rains, and the streams will deepen, fish leap in them as of yore. Groves of beech and oak are springing up in the shelter of their hardier evergreen kin. "Make the land furry," Dalgas said, with prophetic eye beholding great forests taking the place of sand and heather, and in his lifetime the change was wrought that is transforming the barren moor into the home-land of a prosperous people. To the most unlikely of places, through the very prison doors, his gospel of hope has made its way. For the last dozen years the life prisoners in the Horsens penitentiary have been employed in breaking and reforesting the heath, and their keepers report that the effect upon them of the hard work in the open has been to notably cheer and brighten them. The discipline has been excellent. There have been few attempts at escape, and they have come to nothing through the vigilance of the other prisoners. While the population in the rest of Denmark is about stationary, in west Jutland it grows apace. The case of Skåphus farm in the parish of Sunds shows how this happens. Prior to 1870 this farm of three thousand acres was rated the "biggest and poorest" in Denmark. Last year it had dwindled to three hundred and fifty acres, but upon its old land thirty-three homesteads had risen that kept between them sixty-two horses and two hundred and fifty-two cows, beside the sheep, and the manor farm was worth twice as much as before. The town of Herning, sometimes called "the Star of the Heath," is the seat of Hammerum county, once the baldest and most miserable on the Danish mainland. In 1841 twenty-one persons lived in Herning. To-day there are more than six thousand in a town with handsome buildings, gas, electric lighting, and paved streets. The heath is half a dozen miles away. And this is not the result of any special or forced industry, but the natural, healthy growth of a centre for an army of industrious men and women winning back the land of their fathers by patient toil. All through the landscape one sees from the train the black giving way to the green. Churches rear their white gables; bells that have been silent since the Black Death stalked through the land once more call the people to worship on the old sites. More churches were built in the reign of "the good King Christian," who has just been gathered to his fathers, than in all the centuries since the day of the Valdemars. Bog cultivation is the Heath Society's youngest child. The heath is full of peat-bogs that only need the sand, so plentiful on the uplands, to make their soil as good as the best, the muck of the bog being all plant food, and they have a surplus of water to give in exchange. With hope the keynote of it all, the State has taken up the herculean task of keeping down the moving sands of the North Sea coast. All along it is a range of dunes that in the fierce storms of that region may change shape and place in a single night. The "sand flight" at times reached miles inland, and threatened to bury the farmer's acres past recovery. Austrian fir and dwarf pine now grow upon the white range, helping alike to keep down the sand and to bar out the blast. With this exception, the great change has been, is being, wrought by the people themselves. It was for their good, in the apathy that followed 1864, that it should be so, and Dalgas saw it. The State aids the man who plants ten acres or more, and assumes the obligation to preserve the forest intact; the Heath Society sells him plants at half-price, and helps him with its advice. It disposes annually of over thirteen million young trees. The people do the rest, and back the Society with their support. The Danish peasant has learned the value of coöperation since he turned dairy farmer, and associations for irrigation, for tree planting, and garden planting are everywhere. They even reach across the ocean. This year a call was issued to sons of the old soil, who have found a new home in America, to join in planting a Danish-American forest in the desert where hill and heather hide a silvery lake in their deep shadows and returning wanderers may rest and dream of the long ago. Soldier though he was, Enrico Dalgas's pick and spade brigade won greater victories for Denmark than her armies in two wars. He literally "won for his country within what she had lost without." A natural organizer, a hard worker who found his greatest joy in his daily tasks, a fearless and lucid writer who yet knew how to keep his cause out of the rancorous politics that often enough seemed to mistake partisanship for patriotism, he was the most modest of men. Praise he always passed up to others. At the "silver wedding" of the Society he founded they toasted him jubilantly, but he sat quiet a long time. When at last he arose, it was to make this characteristic little speech: "I thank you very much. His Excellency the Minister of the Interior, who is present here, will see from this how much you think of me, and possibly my recommendation that the State make a larger contribution to the Heath Society's treasury may thereby acquire greater weight with him. I drink to an increased appropriation." On the heath Dalgas was prophet, prince, and friend of the people. In the crowds that flocked about his bier homespun elbowed gold lace in the grief of a common loss. Boughs of the fragrant spruce decked his coffin, the gift of the heath to the memory of him who set it free. To Dalgas apply the words of the seer with which he himself characterized the Society that was the child of his heart and brain: "The good men are those who plant and water," for they add to the happiness of mankind. KING CHRISTIAN IV [Illustration: Musical notation with lyrics] _Maestoso_. King Christian stood by loft-y mast In mist and smoke; His sword was ham-mer-ing so fast, Thro' Goth-ic helm and brain it passed; Then sank each hos-tile hulk and mast. In mist and smoke. "Fly," shout-ed they, "fly, he who can! Who braves of Denmark's Christ-i-an, Who braves of Denmark's Christian The stroke?" Deep in the beech-woods between Copenhagen and Elsinore, upon the shore of a limpid lake, stands Frederiksborg, one of the most beautiful castles in Europe. In its chapel the Danish kings were crowned for two centuries, and here was born on April 12, 1577, King Christian of the Danish national hymn which Longfellow translated into our tongue. No Danish ruler since the days of the great Valdemars made such a mark upon his time; none lives as he in the imagination of the people. He led armies to war and won and lost battles; indeed, he lost more than he won on land when matched against the great generals of that fighting era. On the sea he sailed his own ship and was the captain of his own fleet, and there he had no peer. He made laws in the days of peace and reigned over a happy, prosperous land. In his old age misfortune in which he had no share overwhelmed Denmark, but he was ever greatest in adversity, and his courage saved the country from ruin. The great did not love him overmuch; but to the plain people he was ever, with all his failings, which were the failings of his day, a great, appealing figure, and lives in their hearts, not merely in the dry pages of musty books. He was eleven years old when his father died, and until he came of age the country was governed by a council of happily most able men who, with his mother, gave him such a schooling as few kings have had. He not only became proficient in the languages, living and dead, and in mathematics which he put to such practical use that he was among the greatest of architects and ship-builders; he was the best all-round athlete among his fellows as well, and there was some sense in the tradition that survives to this day that whoever was touched by him in wrath did not live long, for he was very tall with a big, strong body, and when he struck, he struck hard. He was a dauntless sailor who knew as much about sailing a ship as any one of his captains, and much more about building it. Danger appealed to him always. When the spire on the great cathedral in Copenhagen threatened to fall, he was the one who went up in it alone and gave orders where and how to brace it. As he grew, he sat in the council of state, learning kingcraft, and showed there the hard-headed sense of fairness and justice that went with him through life. He was hardly fourteen when the case of three brothers of the powerful Friis family came before the council. They had attacked another young nobleman in the street, struck off one of his hands, and crippled the other. Because of their influence, the council was for being lenient, atrocious as the crime was. A fine was deemed sufficient. The young prince asked if there were not some law covering the case with severer punishment, and was told that in the province of Skaane there was such a law that applied to serfs. But the assault had not been committed in Skaane, and these were high noblemen. "All the worse for them," said the prince. "Is then a serf in Skaane to have more rights under the law than a nobleman in the rest of Denmark? Let the law for the serf be theirs." And the judgment stood. He had barely attained his majority, when the young king was called upon to judge between another great noble and a widow whom he sued for 9000 daler, money he claimed to have lent to her husband. In proof he laid before the judges two bonds bearing the signatures of husband and wife. The widow denounced them as forgeries, but the court decided that she must pay. She went straight to the King with her story, assuring him that she had never heard of the debt. The King sent for the bonds and upon close scrutiny discovered that one of them was on paper bearing the water-mark of a mill that was not built till two years after the date written in the bond. The noble was arrested and the search of his house brought to light several similar documents waiting their turn. He went to the scaffold. His rank only aggravated his offence in the eyes of the King. No wonder the fame of this judge spread quickly through the land. A dozen contented years he reigned in peace, doing justice between man and man at home. Then the curse of his house gripped him. In two centuries, since the brief union between the three Scandinavian kingdoms was broken by the secession of Sweden, only two of sixteen kings in either country had gone to their rest without ripping up the old feud. It was now Christian's turn. The pretext was of little account: there was always cause enough. Gustav Adolf, whose father was then on the throne of Sweden, said in after years that there was no one he had such hearty admiration for and whose friend he would like so well to be as Christian IV: "The mischief is that we are neighbors." King Christian crossed over into Sweden and laid siege to the strong fortress of Kalmar where he first saw actual war and showed himself a doughty campaigner of intrepid courage. It came near costing him his life when a cannoneer with whom he had often talked on his rounds deserted to the enemy and picked the King out as his especial target. Twice he killed an officer attending upon him, but the King he never hit. It is almost a pleasure to record that when he tried it again, in another fight, Christian caught him and dealt with him as the traitor he was, though the rough justice of those days is not pleasant to dwell on. The besieged tried to create a diversion by sneaking into camp at night and burying wax images of the King and his generals in the earth, where they were afterwards found and spread consternation through the army; for such things were believed to be wrought by witchcraft and to bring bad luck to those whom they represented. However, neither the real courage of the defenders, nor their dallying with the black art, helped them any. King Christian stormed the town at the head of his army and took it. The burgomaster hid in the church, disguised as a priest, and pretended to be shriving some women when the crash came, but it did not save him. When the Swedish king came with a host twice the size of his own, there was a battle royal, but Christian drove him off and laid siege to the castle where dissension presently arose between the garrison and its commander who was for surrendering. In the midst of their noisy quarrel, King Christian was discovered standing upon the wall, calmly looking on. He had climbed up alone on a rope ladder which the sentinel let down at his bidding. At the sight they gave it up and opened the gates, and the King wrote home, proudly dating his letter from "our castle Kalmar." Its loss so angered the Swedish king who was old and sick, that he challenged Christian to single combat, without armor. The letters that passed between them were hardly kingly. King Christian wrote that he had other things to do: "Better catch a doctor, old man, and have your head-piece looked after." Helpless anger killed Karl, and Gustav Adolf, of whom the world was presently to hear, took the command and the crown. After that Christian had a harder road to hoe. A foretaste of it came to him when he tried to surprise the fortress of Gullberg near the present Götaborg. Its commander was wounded early in the fight, but his wife who took his place more than filled it. She and her women poured boiling lye upon the attacking Danes until they lay "like scalded pigs" under the walls. Their leader knew when he had enough and made off in haste, with the lady commandant calling after him, "You were a little unexpected for breakfast, but come back for dinner and we will receive you properly." She would not even let them take their dead away. "Since God gave us luck to kill them," she said, "we will manage to bury them too." They were very pious days after their own fashion, and God was much on the lips of his servants. Troubles rarely come singly. Soon after, King Christian met the enemy unexpectedly and was so badly beaten that for the second time he had to run for it, though he held out till nearly all his men had fallen. His horse got mired in a swamp with the pursuers close behind. The gay and wealthy Sir Christen Barnekow, who had been last on the field, passed him there, and at once got down and gave him his horse. It meant giving up his life, and when Sir Christen could no longer follow the fleeing King he sat down on a rock with the words, "I give the King my horse, the enemy my life, and God my soul." The rock is there yet and the country folk believe that the red spots in the granite are Christen Barnekow's blood which all the years have not availed to wash out. They tired of fighting at last and made it up. Sweden paid Denmark a million daler; for the rest, things stayed as they had been before. King Christian had shown himself no mean fighter, but the senseless sacking and burning of town and country that was an ugly part of those days' warfare went against his grain, and he tried to persuade the Swedes to agree to leave that out in future. Gustav Adolf had not yet grown into the man he afterward became. "As to the burning," was his reply, "seeing that it is the usage of war, and we enemies, why we will each have to do the best we can," which meant the worst. Had the two kings, who had much in common, got together in the years of peace that followed, much misery might have been saved Denmark, and a black page of history might read very differently. For those were the days of the Thirty Years' War, in which together they might have dictated peace to harassed Europe. Now King Christian's ambition, his piety, for he was a sincerely religious man, as well as his jealousy of his younger rival and of the growing power of Sweden--so mixed are human motives--made him yield to the entreaties of the hard-pressed Protestant princes to take up alone their cause against the German Emperor. He had tried for half a dozen years to make peace between them. At last he drew the sword and went down to force it. After a year of fighting Tilly and Wallenstein, the Emperor's great generals, he met the former in a decisive battle at Lutter-am-Baremberg. King Christian's army was beaten and put to rout. He himself fled bareheaded through the forests of the Hartz Mountains, pursued by the enemy's horsemen. It was hardly necessary for the Emperor to make him promise as the price of peace to keep out of German affairs thenceforth. His allies had left him to fight it out alone. All their fine speeches went for nothing when it came to the test, and King Christian rode back to Denmark, a sadder and wiser man. It was left to Gustav Adolf, after all, to teach the German generals the lesson they needed. In the years of peace before that unhappy war, Danish trade and Danish culture had blossomed exceedingly, thanks to the wisdom, the clever management, and untiring industry of the King. He built factories, cloth-mills, silk-mills, paper-mills, dammed the North Sea out from the rich marshlands with great dikes, taught the farmers profitable ways of tilling their fields; for he was a wondrous manager for whom nothing was too little and nothing too big. He kept minute account of his children's socks and little shirts, and found ways of providing money for his war-ships and for countless building schemes he had in hand both in Denmark and Norway. For many of them he himself drew the plans. Wherever one goes to this day, his monogram, which heads this story, stares at him from the splendid buildings he erected. The Bourse in Copenhagen and the Round Tower, the beautiful palace of Rosenborg, a sort of miniature of his beloved Frederiksborg which also he rebuilt on a more magnificent scale--these are among his works which every traveller in the North knows. He built more cities and strongholds than those who went before or came after him for centuries. Christiania and Christiansand in Norway bear his name. He laid out a whole quarter of Copenhagen for his sailors, and the quaint little houses still serve that purpose. Regentsen, a dormitory for poor students at the university, was built by him. He created seven new chairs of learning and saw to it that all the professors got better pay. He ferreted out and dismissed in disgrace all the grafting officials in Norway, and administered justice with an even hand. At the same time he burned witches without end, or let it be done for their souls' sake. That was the way of his time; and when he needed fireworks for his son's wedding (he made them himself, too), he sent around to all the old cloisters and cathedral churches for the old parchments they had. Heaven only knows what treasures that can never be replaced went up in fire and smoke for that one night's fun. King Christian founded a score of big trading companies to exploit the East, taking care that their ships should have their bulwarks pierced for at least six guns, so that they might serve as war-ships in time of need. He sent one expedition after another to the waters of Greenland in search of the Northwest Passage. It was on the fourth of these, in 1619, that Jens Munk with two ships and sixty-four sailors was caught in the ice of Hudson Bay and compelled to winter there. One after another the crew died of hunger and scurvy. When Jens Munk himself crept out from what he had thought his death-bed, he found only two of them all alive. Together they burrowed in the snow, digging for roots until spring came when they managed to make their way down to Bergen in the smallest of the two vessels. Jens Munk had deserved a better end than he got. He spun his yarns so persistently at court that he got to be a tiresome bore, and at last one day the King told him that he had no time to listen to him. Whereat the veteran took great umbrage and, slapping his sword, let the King know that he had served him well and was entitled to better treatment. Christian snatched the weapon in anger and struck him with the scabbard. The sailor never got over it. "He withered away and died," says the tradition. It was the old superstition; but whether that killed him or not, the King lost a good man in Jens Munk. He was not averse to hearing the truth, though, when boldly put. When Ole Vind, a popular preacher, offended some of the nobles by his plain speech and they complained to the King, he bade him to the court and told him to preach the same sermon over. Master Vind was game and the truths he told went straight home, for he knew well where the shoe pinched. But King Christian promptly made him court preacher. "He is the kind we need here," he said. There was never a day that the King did not devoutly read his Bible, and he was determined that everybody should read it the same way. The result was a kind of Puritanism that filled the churches and compelled the employment of men to go around with long sticks to rap the people on the head when they fell asleep. Christian the Fourth was not the first ruler who has tried to herd men into heaven by battalions. But his people would have gladly gone in the fire for him. He was their friend. When on his tramps, as likely as not he would come home sitting beside some peasant on his load of truck, and would step off at the palace gate with a "So long, thanks for good company!" He was everywhere, interested in everything. In his walking-stick he carried a foot-rule, a level, and other tools, and would stop at the bench of a workman in the navy-yard and test his work to see how well he was doing it. "I can lie down and sleep in any hut in the land," was his contented boast. And he would have been safe anywhere. Gustav Adolf was a wise and generous foe. While he lived he refused to listen to proposals for the partition of Denmark after King Christian's defeat in Germany. He knew well that she was a barrier against the ambition of the German princes and that, once she was out of the way, Sweden's turn would come next. But when he had fallen on the battle-field of Lützen, and his generals, following in his footsteps, had achieved fame and lands and the freedom of worship for which he gave his life, the Swedish statesmen lost their heads and dreamed of the erection of a great northern Protestant state by the conquest of Denmark and Norway, to balance the power of the German empire. Without warning or declaration of war a great army was thrown into the Danish peninsula from the south. Another advanced from Sweden upon the eastern provinces, and a fleet hired in Holland for Swedish money came through the North Sea to help them over to the Danish islands. If the two armies met, Denmark was lost. In Swedish harbors a still bigger fleet was fitting out for the Baltic. King Christian was well up in the sixties, worn with the tireless activities of a long reign; but once more he proved himself greater than adversity. When the evil tidings reached him, in the midst of profound peace, the enemy was already within the gates. The country lay prostrate. The name of Torstenson, the Swedish general, spread terror wherever it was heard. In the German campaigns he had been known as the "Swedish Lightning." Beset on every side, never had Denmark's need been greater. The one man who did not lose his head was her king. By his personal example he put heart into the people and shamed the cowardly nobles. He borrowed money wherever he could, sent his own silver to the mint, crowded the work in the navy-yard by night and by day, gathered an army, and hurried with it to the Sounds where the enemy might cross. When the first ships were ready he sailed around the Skaw to meet the Dutch hirelings. "I am old and stiff," he said, "and no good any more to fight on land. But I can manage the ships." And he did. He met the Dutchmen in the North Sea, in under the Danish coast, and whipped them, almost single-handed, for his own ship _Trefoldigheden_ was for a long while the only one that wind and tide would let come up with them. That done, he left one of his captains to watch lest they come out from among the islands where their ships of shallower draught had sought refuge, and sailed for Copenhagen. Everything that could carry sail was ready for him by that time; also the news that the Swedish fleet of forty-six fighting ships under Klas Fleming had sailed for the coast of Holstein to take on board Torstenson's army. King Christian lost no time. He hoisted his flag on _Trefoldigheden_ and made after them with thirty-nine ships, vowing that he would win this fight or die. At Kolberger Heide, the water outside the Fjord of Kiel, he caught up with them and attacked at once. The battle that then ensued is the one of which the poet sings and with which the name of Christian IV is forever linked. At the outset the Danish fleet was in great peril. The Swedes fought gallantly as was their wont, and they were three or four against one, for most of the King's ships came up slowly, some of them purposely, so it seems. The King said after the battle of certain of his captains, "They used me as a screen between them and the enemy." His own ship and that of his chief admiral's bore the brunt of the battle for a long time. _Trefoldigheden_ fired 315 shots during the engagement, and at one time had four hostile, ships clustering about her. King Christian was on the quarter-deck when a cannon-ball shivered the bulwark and one of his guns, throwing a shower of splintered iron and wood over him and those near him, killing and wounding twelve of the crew. The King himself fell, stunned and wounded in twenty-three places. His right eye was knocked out, two of his teeth, and his left ear hung in shreds. The cry was raised that the King was dead and panic spread on board. The story has it that a sailor was sent aloft to strike the flag but purposely entangled it in the rigging so that it could not fall; he could not bear to see the King's ship strike its colors. In the midst of the tumult the aged monarch rose to his feet, torn and covered with blood. "I live yet," he cried, "and God has left me strength to fight on for my country. Let every man do his duty." Leaning on his sword, he led the fight until darkness fell and the battle was won. Denmark was saved. The danger of an invasion was averted. In the palace of Rosenborg the priceless treasure they show to visitors is the linen cloth, all blood-stained, that bound the King's face as he fought and won his last and biggest fight that day. Half blind, his body black and blue and sore from many bruises, King Christian yet refused to sail for Copenhagen to have his wounds attended. Three weeks he lay watching the narrow inlet behind which the beaten enemy was hiding, to destroy his ships when he came out. Then he gave over the command to another and hastened to the province of Skaane on the Swedish mainland, from which he expelled a hostile army. But when his back was turned, the men he had set to watch fell asleep and let the Swedish admiral steal out into the open. There he found and joined the Dutch ships that had slipped around the Skaw during the rumpus. Together they overwhelmed the Danish fleet, being now three to one, and crushed it. The slothful admiral paid for it with his life, but the harm was done. It was the last and heaviest blow. The old King sheathed his sword and set his name to a peace that took from Denmark some of her ancient provinces, with the bitter sigh: "God knows I had no share in this," and he had not. Even at the last he appealed to the country to try the fortunes of war with him once more. The people were willing, but the nobles wanted peace, "however God send it," and he had to yield. The treaty was made at Brömsebro, where a bridge crossed the river dividing the two kingdoms. In the middle of the river was an island and the negotiations were carried on in a tent erected there, the French and the Dutch being the arbitrators. The envoys of Sweden and Denmark sat on opposite sides of the boundary post where the line cut through, each on the soil of his own country. So bitterly did they hate one another that they did not speak but wrote their messages, though they could have shaken hands where they sat. Even that was too close quarters, and they ended up by negotiating at second hand through the foreign ambassadors, all at the same table, but each looking straight past the other as if he were not there. Another touch of comedy relieves the gloom of that heavy day. It was the conquest of the Särnadal, a mountain valley in Norway just over the Swedish frontier, by Pastor Buschovius who, Bible in hand, at the head of two hundred ski-men invaded and captured it one winter's day without a blow. He came over the snow-fields into the valley that had not seen a preacher in many a long day, had the church bells rung to summon the people, preached to them, married and christened them, and gave them communion. The simple mountaineers had hardly heard of the war and had nothing against their neighbors over the mountain. They joined Sweden then and there at the request of the preacher, and they stayed Swedes too, for in the final muster they were forgotten with their valley. Very likely the treaty-makers did not know that it existed. King Christian died four years later, in 1648, past the three score and ten allotted to man. He was not a great leader like Gustav Adolf, and he was very human in some of his failings. But he was a strong man, a just king, and a father of his people who still cling to his memory with more than filial affection. GUSTAV ADOLF, THE SNOW-KING The city of Prague, the capital of Bohemia, went wild with excitement one spring morning in the year 1618. The Protestant Estates of Germany had met there to protest against the aggressions of the Catholic League and the bad faith of the Emperor, who had guaranteed freedom of worship in the land and had now sent two envoys to defy the meeting and declare it illegal. In the old castle they delivered their message and bade the convention disperse; and the delegates, when they had heard, seized them and their clerk and threw them out of the window "in good old Bohemian fashion." They fell seventy feet and escaped almost without a scratch, which fact was accepted by the Catholics of that strenuous day as proof of their miraculous preservation; by the Protestants as evidence that the devil ever takes care of his own. It was the tiny spark that set Europe on fire. Out of it grew the Thirty Years' War, the most terrible that ever scourged the civilized world. When Catholic League and Evangelical Union first mustered their armies, Bohemia had a prosperous population of four million souls; when the war was over there were less than eight hundred thousand alive in that unhappy land, and the wolves that roamed its forests were scarcely more ferocious than the human starvelings who skulked among the smoking ruins of burned towns and hamlets. Other states fared little better. Two centuries did not wipe out the blight of those awful years when rapine and murder, inspired by bigotry and hate, ran riot in the name of religion. In the gloom and horror of it all a noble figure stands forth alone. It were almost worth the sufferings of a Thirty Years' War for the world to have gained a Gustav Adolf. The "snow-king" the Emperor's generals named him when he first appeared on German soil at the head of his army of Northmen, and they prophesied that he would speedily melt, once the southern sun shone upon his host. They little knew the man. He went from victory to victory, less because he was the greatest general of his day than because he, and all his army with him, believed himself charged by the Almighty with the defence of his country and of his faith. The Emperor had attacked both, the first by attempting to extend his dominion to the Baltic; but Pommerania and the Baltic provinces were regarded by the Swedish ruler as the outworks of his kingdom; and Sweden was Protestant. Hence he drew the sword. "Our brethren in the faith are sighing for deliverance from spiritual and bodily thraldom," he said to his people. "Please God, they shall not sigh long." That was his warrant. Axel Oxenstjerna, his friend and right hand who lived to finish his work, said of him, "He felt himself impelled by a mighty spirit which he was unable to resist." As warrior, king, and man, he was head and shoulders above his time. Gustav Adolf saved religious liberty to the world. He paid the price with his life, but he would have asked no better fate. A soldier of God, he met a soldier's death on the field of battle, in the hour of victory. A man of destiny he was to his people as to himself. Long years before his birth, upon the appearance of the comet of 1577, Tycho Brahe, the astronomer, who was deep in the occultism of his day, had predicted that a prince would appear in Finland who would do great things in Germany and deliver the Protestant peoples from the oppression of the popes, and the prophecy was applied to Gustav Adolf by his subjects all through his life. He was born on December 9, 1594, old style, as they still reckon time in Russia. Very early he showed the kind of stuff he was made of. When he was yet almost a baby he was told that there were snakes in the park, and showed fight at once: "Give me a stick and I will kill them." With the years he grew into a handsome youth who read his books, knew his Seneca by heart, was fond of the poets and the great orators, and mastered eight languages, living and dead. At seventeen he buckled on the sword and put the books away, but kept Xenophon as his friend; for he was a military historian after his own heart. He was then Duke of Finland. The King, his father, was a stern but observant man who, seeing his bent, threw him with soldiers to his heart's content, glad to have it so, for it was a warlike age. From his tenth year he let him sit in council with him and early delegated to him the duty of answering ambassadors from foreign countries. The lad was the only one who dared oppose the king when he was in a temper, and often he made peace and healed wounds struck in anger. The people worshipped the fair young prince, and his father, when he felt the palsy of old age and bodily infirmities creeping upon him and thought of his unfinished tasks, would murmur as his eyes rested upon the bonny youth: "_Ille faciet_--He will do it." There is still in existence a document in which he laid down to him his course as a sovereign. "First of all," he writes, "you shall fear God and honor your father and mother. Give your brothers and sisters brotherly affection; love your father's faithful servants and requite them after their due. Be gracious to your subjects; punish evil and love the good. Believe in men, but find out first what is in them. Hold by the law without respect of person." It was good advice to a prince, and the king took it to heart. On the docket of the Supreme Court at Stockholm is a letter written by Gustav Adolf to the judges and ordered by him to be entered there, which tells them plainly that if any of them is found perverting justice to suit him, the King, or any one else, he will have him flayed alive and his hide nailed to the judgment-seat, his ears to the pillory! Not a nice way of talking to dignified judges, perhaps, but then the prescription was intended to suit the practice, if there was need. The young king earned his spurs in a war with Denmark that came near being his last as it was his first campaign. He and his horsemen were surprised by the Danes on a winter's night as they were warming themselves by a fire built of the pews in the Wittsjö church, and they cut their way through only after a desperate fight on the frozen lake. The ice broke under the king's horse and he was going down when two of his men caught him in the nick of time. He got away with the loss of his sword, his pistols, and his gloves. "I will remember you with a crust that shall do for your bairns too," he promised one of his rescuers, a stout peasant lad, and he kept his word. Thomas Larsson's descendants a generation ago still tilled the farm the King gave him. When the trouble with Denmark was over for the time being, he settled old scores with Russia and Poland in a way that left Sweden mistress of the Baltic. In the Polish war he was wounded twice and was repeatedly in peril of his life. Once he was shot in the neck, and, as the bullet could not be removed, it ever after troubled him to wear armor. His officers pleaded with him to spare himself, but his reply was that Cæsar and Alexander did not skulk behind the lines; a general must lead if he expected his men to follow. In this campaign he met the League's troops, sent to chase him back to his own so that Wallenstein, the leader of the imperial armies, might be "General of the Baltic Sea," unmolested. "Go to Poland," he commanded one of his lieutenants, "and drive the snow-king out; or else tell him that I shall come and do it myself." The proud soldier never knew how near he came to entertaining the snow-king as his unwilling guest then. In a fight between his rear-guard and the imperial army Gustav Adolf was disarmed and taken prisoner by two troopers. There was another prisoner who had kept his pistol. He handed it to the King behind his back and with it he shot one of his captors and brained the other. For all that they nearly got him. He saved himself only by wriggling out of his belt and leaving it in the hands of the enemy. Eight years he campaigned in Poland and Prussia, learning the arts of war. Then he was ready for his life-work. He made a truce with Poland that freed his hands for a season, and went home to Sweden. That spring (1629) he laid before the Swedish Estates his plan of freeing the Protestants. To defend Sweden, he declared, was to defend her faith, and the Estates voted supplies for the war. To gauge fully the splendid courage of the nation it must be remembered that the whole kingdom, including Finland, had a population of only a million and a half at the time and was preparing to attack the mighty Roman empire. In the first year of the war the Swedish budget was thirteen millions of dollars, of which nine and a half went for armaments. The whole army which Gustav Adolf led into Germany numbered only 14,000 soldiers, but it was made up of Swedish veterans led by men whose names were to become famous for all time, and welded together by an unshakable belief in their commander, a rigid discipline and a religious enthusiasm that swayed master and men with a common impulse. Such a combination has in all days proven irresistible. The King's farewell to his people--he was never to see Sweden again--moved a nation to tears. He spoke to the nobles, the clergy and to the people, admonishing them to stand together in the hard years that were coming and gave them all into the keeping of God. They stood on the beach and watched his ships sail into the sunset until they were swallowed up in glory. Then they went back home to take up the burden that was their share. On the Rügen shore the King knelt with his men and thanked God for having brought them safe across the sea, then seized a spade, and himself turned the first sod in the making of a camp. "Who prays well, fights well," he said. He was not exactly hospitably received. The old Duke of Pommerania would have none of him, begged him to go away, and only when the King pointed to his guns and hinted that he had keys well able to open the gates of Stettin, his capital, did he give in and promise help. The other German princes, with one or two exceptions, were as cravenly short-sighted. They held meetings and denounced the Emperor and his lawless doings, but Gustav they would not help. The princes of Brandenburg and of Saxony, the two Protestant Electors of the empire, were rather disposed to hinder him, if they might, though Brandenburg was his brother-in-law. Only when the King threatened to burn the city of Berlin over his head did he listen. While he was yet laboring with them, recruiting his army and keeping it in practice by driving the enemy out of Pommerania, news reached him of the fall of Magdeburg, the strongest city in northern Germany, that had of its own free will joined his cause. The sacking of Magdeburg is one of the black deeds of history. In a night the populous city was reduced to a heap of smoking ruins under which twenty thousand men, women, and children lay buried. Not since the fall of Jerusalem, said Pappenheim, Tilly's famous cavalry leader to whom looting and burning were things of every day, had so awful a visitation befallen a town. Only the great cathedral and a few houses near it were left standing. The history of warfare of the Christian peoples of that day reads like a horrid nightmare. The fighting armies left a trail of black desolation where they passed. "They are not made up of birds that feed on air," sneered Tilly. Peaceful husbandmen were murdered, the young women dragged away to worse than slavery, and helpless children spitted upon the lances of the wild landsknechts and tossed with a laugh into the blazing ruins of their homes. But no such foul blot cleaves to the memory of Gustav Adolf. While he lived his men were soldiers, not demons. In his tent the work of Hugo Grotius on the rights of the nations in war and peace lay beside the Bible and he knew them both by heart. When he was gone, the fame of some of his greatest generals was smirched by as vile orgies as Tilly's worst days had witnessed. It is told of John Banér, one of the most brilliant of them, that he demanded ransom of the city of Prix, past which his way led. The city fathers permitted themselves an untimely jest: "Prix giebt nichts--Prix gives nothing," they said. Banér was as brief: "Prix wird zu nichts--Prix comes to nothing," and his army wiped it out. Grief and anger almost choked the King when he heard of Magdeburg's fate. "I will avenge that on the Old Corporal (Tilly's nickname)," he cried, "if it costs my life." Without further ado he forced the two Electors to terms and joined the Saxon army to his own. On September 7, 1631, fifteen months after he had landed in Germany, he met Tilly face to face at Breitenfeld, a village just north of Leipzig. The Emperor's host in its brave show of silver and plumes and gold, the plunder of many campaigns under its invincible leader, looked with contempt upon the travel-worn Swedes in their poor, soiled garb. The stolid Finns sat their mean but wiry little horses very unlike Pappenheim's dreaded Walloons, descendants of the warlike Belgæ of Gaul who defied the Germans of old in the forest of the Ardennes and joined Cæsar in his victorious march. But Tilly himself was not deceived. He knew how far this enemy had come and with what hardships cheerfully borne; how they had routed the Russians, written laws for the Poles in their own land, and overthrown armies and forts that barred their way. He would wait for reinforcements; but his generals egged him on, said age had made him timid and slow, and carried the day. The King slept in an empty cart the night before the battle and dreamed that he wrestled with Tilly and threw him, but that he tore his breast with his teeth. When all was ready in the morning he rode along the front and told his fusiliers not to shoot till they saw the white in the enemy's eyes, the horsemen not to dull their swords by hacking the helmets of the Walloons: "Cut at their horses and they will go down with them." In the pause before the onset he prayed with head uncovered and lowered sword, and his voice carried to the farthest lines: "Thou, God, in whose hands are victory and defeat, look graciously upon thy servants. From distant lands and peaceful homes have we come to battle for freedom, truth and thy gospel. Give us victory for thy holy name's sake, Amen!" Tilly had expected the King to attack, but the fiery Pappenheim upset his plans. The smoke of the guns drifted in the faces of the Swedes and the King swung his army to the south to get the wind right. In making the turn they had to cross a brook and this moment Pappenheim chose for his charge. Like a thunderbolt his Walloons fell upon them. The Swedish fire mowed them down like ripened grain and checked their impetuous rush. They tried to turn the King's right and so outflank him; but the army turned with them and stood like a rock. The extreme mobility of his forces was Gustav Adolf's great advantage in his campaigns. He revised the book of military tactics up to date. The imperial troops were massed in solid columns, after the old Spanish fashion, the impact of which was hard to resist when they struck. The King's, on the contrary, moved in smaller bodies, quickly thrown upon the point of danger, and his artillery was so distributed among them as to make every shot tell on the compact body of the enemy. Whichever way Pappenheim turned he found a firm front, bristling with guns, opposing him. Seven times he threw himself upon the living wall; each time his horsemen were flung back, their lines thinned and broken. The field was strewn with their dead. Tilly, anxiously watching, threw up his hands in despair. "This man will lose me honor and fame, and the Emperor his lands," he cried. The charge ended in wild flight, and Tilly saw that he must himself attack, to turn the tide. On the double-quick his columns of spearmen charged down the heights, swept the Saxons from the field, and fell upon the Swedish left. The shock was tremendous. General Gustav Horn gave back to let his second line come up, and held the ground stubbornly against fearful odds. Word was brought the King of his danger. With the right wing that had crushed Pappenheim he hurried to the rescue. In the heat of the fight the armies had changed position, and the Swedes found themselves climbing the hill upon which Tilly's artillery was posted. Seeing this, the King made one of the rapid movements that more than once won him the day. Raising the cry, "Remember Magdeburg!" he carried the position with his Finns by a sudden overwhelming assault, and turned the guns upon the dense masses of the enemy fighting below. In vain they stormed the heights. Both wings and the centre closed in upon them, and the day was lost. Tilly fled, wounded, and narrowly escaped capture. A captain in the Swedish army, who was called Long Fritz because of his great height, was at his heels hammering him on the head with the butt of his pistol. A staff officer shot him down in passing, and freed his chief. Twilight fell upon a battle-field where seven thousand men lay dead, two-thirds of them the flower of the Emperor's army. Blood-stained and smoke-begrimed, Gustav Adolf and his men knelt on the field and thanked God for the victory. Had the King's friend and adviser, Axel Oxenstjerna, been with him he might have marched upon Vienna then, leaving the Protestant Estates to settle their own affairs, and very likely have ended the war. Gustav Adolf thought of Tilly who would return with another army. Oxenstjerna saw farther, weighing things upon the scales of the diplomatist. "How think you we would fare," asked the King once, when the chancellor saw obstacles in their way which he would brush aside, "if my fire did not thaw the chill in you?" "But for my chill cooling your Majesty's fire," was his friend's retort, "you would have long since been burned up." The King laughed and owned that he was right. Instead of bearding the Emperor in his capital he turned toward the Rhine where millions of Protestants were praying for his coming and where his army might find rest and abundance. The cathedral city of Würzburg he took by storm. The bishop who ruled it fled at his approach, but the full treasury of the Jesuits fell into his hands. The Madonna of beaten gold and the twelve solid silver apostles, famous throughout Europe, were sent to the mint and coined into money to pay his army. In the cellar they found chests filled with ducats. The bottom fell out of one as they carried it up and the gold rolled out on the pavement. The soldiers swarmed to pick it up, but a good many coins stuck to their pockets. The King saw it and laughed: "Since you have them, boys, keep them." The dead were still lying in the castle yard after the siege, a number of monks among them. The color of some of them seemed high for corpses. "Arise from the dead," he said waggishly, "no one will hurt you," and the frightened monks got upon their feet and scampered away. Frankfort opened its gates to his victorious host and Nürnberg received him as a heaven-sent liberator. But Tilly was in the field with a fresh army, burning to avenge Breitenfeld. He had surprised General Horn at Bamberg and beaten him. At the approach of the King he camped where the river Lech joins the Danube, awaiting attack. There was but one place to cross to get at him, and right there he stood. The king seized Donauworth and Ulm, and under cover of the fire of seventy guns threw a bridge across the Lech. Three hundred Finns carrying picks and spades ran across the shaky planks upon which the fire of Tilly's whole artillery park was concentrated. Once across, they burrowed in the ground like moles and, with bullets raining upon them, threw up earthworks for shelter. Squad after squad of volunteers followed. Duke Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar swam his horsemen across the river farther up-stream and took the Bavarian troops in the flank, beating them back far enough to let him join the Finns at the landing. The King himself was directing the artillery on the other shore, aiming the guns with his own hand. The Walloons, Tilly's last hope, charged, but broke under the withering fire. In desperation the old field-marshal seized the standard and himself led the forlorn hope. Half-way to the bridge he fell, one leg shattered by a cannon-ball, and panic seized his men. The imperialists fled in the night, carrying their wounded leader. He died on the march soon after. Men said of him that he had served his master well. The snow-king had not melted in the south. He was master of the Roman empire from the Baltic to the Alps. The way to Austria and Italy lay open before him. Protestant princes crowded to do him homage, offering him the imperial crown. But Gustav Adolf did not lose his head. Toward the humbled Catholics he showed only forbearance and toleration. In Munich he visited the college of the Jesuits, and spoke long with the rector in the Latin tongue, assuring him of their safety as long as they kept from politics and plotting. The armory in that city was known to be the best stocked in all Europe and the King's surprise was great when he found gun-carriages in plenty, but not a single cannon. Looking about him, he saw evidence that the floor had been hastily relaid and remembered the "dead" monks at Würzburg. He had it taken up and a dark vault appeared. The King looked into it. "Arise!" he called out, "and come to judgment," and amid shouts of laughter willing hands brought out a hundred and forty good guns, welcome reënforcements. The ignorant Bavarian peasants had been told that the King was the very anti-Christ, come to harass the world for its sins, and carried on a cruel guerilla warfare upon his army. They waylaid the Swedes by night on their foraging trips and maimed and murdered those they caught with fiendish tortures. The bitterest anger filled Gustav Adolf's soul when upon his entry into Landshut the burgomaster knelt at his stirrup asking mercy for his city. "Pray not to me," he said harshly, "but to God for yourself and for your people, for in truth you have need." For once thoughts of vengeance seemed to fill his soul. "No, no!" he thundered when the frightened burgomaster pleaded that his townsmen should not be held accountable for the cruelty of the country-folk, "you are beasts, not men, and deserve to be wiped from the earth with fire and sword." From out the multitude there came a warning voice: "Will the King now abandon the path of mercy for the way of vengeance and visit his wrath upon these innocent people?" No one saw the speaker. The day was oppressively hot and the King came near fainting in the saddle. As he rode out of the city toward the camp, a bolt of lightning struck the ground beside him and a mighty crash of thunder rolled overhead. Pale and thoughtful, he rode on. But Landshut was spared. That evening General Horn brought the anxious citizens the King's promise of pardon. A few weeks later tidings reached Gustav Adolf that Wallenstein and the Elector of Bavaria were marching to effect a junction at Nürnberg. If they took the city, his line of communication was cut and his army threatened. Wallenstein, who was a traitor, had been in disgrace; but he was a great general and in his dire need Emperor Ferdinand had no one else to turn to. So he took him back on his own terms, and in the spring he had an army of forty thousand veterans in the field. This was the host he was leading against Nürnberg. But the King got there first and intrenched himself so strongly that there was no ousting him. Wallenstein followed suit and for eleven weeks the enemies eyed one another from their "lagers," neither willing to risk an attack. In the end Gustav Adolf tried, but even his Finns could not take the impregnable heights the enemy held. At last he went away with colors flying and bands playing, right under the enemy's walls, in the hope of tempting him out. But he never stirred. When Wallenstein was sure he had gone, he burned his camp and turned toward Saxony to punish the Elector for joining the Swedes. A wail of anguish went up from that unhappy land and the King heard it clear across the country. By forced marches he hurried to the rescue of his ally, picking up Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar on the way. At Naumburg the people crowded about him and sought to kiss or even to touch his garments. The King looked sadly at them. "They put their trust in me, poor weak mortal, as if I were the Almighty. It may be that He will punish their folly soon upon the object of their senseless idolatry." He had come to stay, but when he learned that Wallenstein had sent Pappenheim away to the west, thus weakening his army, and was going into winter quarters at Lützen, near Leipzig, a half-day's march from the memorable Breitenfeld, he broke camp at once and hastened to attack him. Starting early, his army reached Lützen at nightfall on November 15, 1632. Wallenstein believed the campaign was over for that year and the Swedes in winter quarters, and was taken completely by surprise. Had the King given battle that night, he would have wiped the enemy out. Two things, in themselves of little account, delayed him: a small brook that crossed his path, and the freshly plowed fields. His men were tired after the long march and he decided to let them rest. It was Wallenstein's chance. Overnight he posted his army north of the highway that leads from Lützen to Leipzig, dug deep the ditches that enclosed it, and made breastworks of the dirt. Sunrise found sheltered behind them twenty-seven thousand seasoned veterans to whom Gustav Adolf could oppose but twenty thousand; but he had more guns and they were better served. As the day broke the Swedish army, drawn up in battle array, intoned Luther's hymn, "A mighty fortress is our God," and cheered the King. He wore a leathern doublet and a gray mantle. To the pleadings of his officers that he put on armor he replied only, "God is my armor." "To-day," he cried as he rode along the lines, "will end all our hardships." He himself took command of the right wing, the gallant Duke Bernhard of the left. As at Breitenfeld, the rallying cry was, "God with us!" The King hoped to crush his enemy utterly, and the whole line attacked at once with great fury. From the start victory leaned toward the Swedish army. Then suddenly in the wild tumult of battle a heavy fog settled upon the field. What followed was all confusion. No one knows the rights of it to this day. The King led his famous yellow and blue regiments against the enemy's left. "The black fellows there," he shouted, pointing to the Emperor's cuirassiers in their black armor, "attack them!" Just then an adjutant reported that his infantry was hard pressed. "Follow me," he commanded, and, clapping spurs to his horse, set off at full speed for the threatened quarter. In the fog he lost his way and ran into the cuirassiers. His two attendants were shot down and a bullet crushed the King's right arm. He tried to hide the fact that he was wounded, but pain and loss of blood made him faint and he asked the Duke of Lauenburg who rode with him to help him out of the crush. At that moment a fresh troop of horsemen bore down upon them and their leader, Moritz von Falkenberg, shot the King through the body with the exultant cry, "You I have long sought!" The words had hardly left his lips when he fell with a bullet through his head. The King swayed in the saddle and lost the reins. "Save yourself," he whispered to the Duke, "I am done for." The Duke put his arm around him to support him, but the cuirassiers surged against them and tore them apart. The King's horse was shot in the neck and threw its rider. Awhile he hung by the stirrup and was dragged over the trampled field. Then the horse shook itself free and ran through the lines, spreading the tidings of the King's fall afar. A German page, Leubelfing, a lad of eighteen, was alone with the King. He sprang from his horse and tried to help him into the saddle but had not the strength to do it. Gustav Adolf was stout and very heavy. While he was trying to lift him some Croats rode up and demanded the name of the wounded man. The page held his tongue, and they ran him through. Gustav Adolf, to save him, said that he was the King.[1] At that they shot him through the head, and showered blows upon him. When the body was found in the night it was naked. They had robbed and stripped him. [Footnote 1: This is the story as the page told it. He lived two days.] The King was dead. Through the Swedish ranks Duke Bernhard shouted the tidings. "Who now cares to live? Forward, to avenge his death!" With the blind fury of the Berserkers of old the Swedes cleared the ditches, stormed the breastworks, and drove the foe in a panic before them. The Duke's arm was broken by a bullet. He hardly knew it. With his regiment he rode down the crew of one of the enemy's batteries and swept on. In the midst of it all a cry resounded over the plain that made the runaways halt and turn back. "Pappenheim! Pappenheim is here!" He had come with his Walloons in answer to the general's summons. "Where is the King?" he asked, and they pointed to the Finnish brigade. With a mighty crash the two hosts that had met so often before came together. Wallenstein mustered his scattered forces and the King's army was attacked from three sides at once. The yellow brigade fell where it stood almost to the last man. The blue fared little better. Slowly the Swedish infantry gave back. The battle seemed lost. But the tide turned once more. In the hottest fight Pappenheim fell, pierced by three bullets. The "man of a hundred scars" died, exulting that the King whom he hated had gone before. With his death the Emperor's men lost heart. The Swedes charged again and again with unabated fury. Night closed in with Wallenstein's centre still unbroken; but he had lost all his guns. Under cover of the darkness he made his escape. The King's army camped upon the battle-field. The carnage had been fearful; nine thousand were slain. It was Wallenstein's last fight. With the remnants of his army he retreated to Bohemia, sick and sore, and spent his last days there plotting against his master. He died by an assassin's hand. The cathedrals of Vienna, Brussels, and Madrid rang with joyful Te Deums at the news of the King's death. The Spanish capital celebrated the "triumph" with twelve days of bull-fighting. Emperor Ferdinand was better than his day; he wept at the sight of the King's blood-stained jacket. The Protestant world trembled; its hope and strength were gone. But the Swedish people, wiping away their tears, resolved stoutly to carry on Gustav Adolf's work. The men he had trained led his armies to victory on yet many a stricken field. Peace came at length to Europe; the last religious war had been fought and won. Freedom of worship, liberty of conscience, were bought at the cost of the kingliest head that ever wore a crown. The great ruler's life-work was done. Gustav Adolf was in his thirty-eighth year when he fell. Of stature he was tall and stout, a fair-haired, blue-eyed giant, stern in war, gentle in the friendships of peace. He was a born ruler of men. Though he was away fighting in foreign lands all the years of his reign, he kept a firm grasp on the home affairs of his kingdom. One traces his hand everywhere, ordering, shaping, finding ways, or making them where there was none. The valuable mines of Sweden were ill managed. The metal was exported in coarse pigs to Germany for very little, worked up there, and resold to Sweden at the highest price. He created a Board of Mines, established smelteries, and the day came when, instead of going abroad for its munitions of war, Sweden had for its customers half Europe. Like Christian of Denmark with whom he disagreed, he encouraged industries and greatly furthered trade and commerce. He built highways and canals, and he did not forget the cause of instruction. Upon the university at Upsala he bestowed his entire personal patrimony of three hundred and thirteen farms as a free gift. His people honor him with cause as the real founder of the Swedish system of education. The master he was always. Sweden had, on one hand, a powerful, able nobility; on the other, a strong, independent peasantry,--a combination full of pitfalls for a weak ruler, but with equal promise of great things under the master hand. His father had cowed the stubborn nobles with the headsman's axe. Gustav Adolf drew them to him and imbued them with his own spirit. He found them a contentious party within the state; he left them its strongest props in the conduct of public affairs. Nor was it always with persuasion he worked. His reward for the unjust judge has been quoted. When the council failed to send him supplies in Germany, pleading failure of crops as their excuse, he wrote back: "You speak of the high prices of corn. Probably they are high because those who have it want to profit by the need of others." And he set a new chief over the finances. On the other hand, he gave shape to the relations between king and people. The Riksdag held its sessions, but the laws that ruled it were so vague that it was no unusual thing for men who were not members at all to attend and join in the debates. Gustav Adolf put an abrupt end to "a state of things that exposed Sweden to the contempt of the nations." As he ordered it, the initiative remained with the crown; it was the right of the Riksdag to complain and discuss; of the King to "choose the best" after hearing all sides. As a young prince, Gustav Adolf fell deeply in love with Ebba Brahe, the beautiful daughter of one of Sweden's most powerful noblemen. The two had been play-mates and became lovers. But the old queen frowned upon the match. He was the coming king, she was a subject, and the queen managed, with the help of Oxenstjerna, who was Gustav's best friend all through his life, to make him give up his love. "Then I will never marry," he cried in a burst of tempestuous grief. But when the queen had got Ebba Brahe safely married to one of his father's famous generals, he wedded the lovely sister of the Elector of Brandenburg. She adored her royal husband, but never took kindly to Sweden, and the people did not like her. They clung to the great king's early love, and to this day they linger before the picture of the beautiful Ebba in the Stockholm castle when they come from his grave in the Riddarholm church, while they pass the queen's by with hardly a glance. It is recorded that Ebba made her husband a good and dutiful wife. If her thoughts strayed at times to the old days and what might have been, it is not strange. In one of those moods she wrote on a window-pane in the castle: I am happy in my lot, And thanks I give to God. The queen-mother saw it and wrote under it her own version: You wouldn't, but you must. 'Tis the lot of the dust. KING AND SAILOR, HEROES OF COPENHAGEN Of all the foolish wars that were ever waged, it would seem that the one declared by Denmark against Sweden in 1657 had the least excuse. A century before, the two countries had fought through eight bitter years over the momentous question whether Denmark should carry in her shield the three lions that stood for the three Scandinavian kingdoms, the Swedish one having set up for itself in the dissolution of the union between them, and at the end of the fight they were where they had started: each of them kept the whole brood. But this war was without even that excuse. Denmark was helplessly impoverished. Her trade was ruined; the nobles were sucking the marrow of the country. Of the freehold farms that had been its strength scarce five thousand were left in the land. It could hardly pay its way in days of peace. Its strongholds lay in ruins; it had neither arms, ammunition, nor officers. On its roster of thirty thousand men for the national defence were carried the dead and the yet unborn, while the Swedish army of tried veterans had gone from victory to victory under a warlike king. To cap the climax, Copenhagen had been harassed by pestilence that had killed one-fifth of its fifty thousand people. So ill matched were they when a stubborn king forced a war that could end only in disaster. When one of his councillors advised against the folly, he caned him and sent him into exile. Yet out of the fiery trial this king came a hero; his queen, whose pride and wasteful vanity[1] had done its full share in bringing the country to the verge of ruin, became the idol of the nation. In the hour of its peril she grew to the stature of a great woman who shared danger and hardship with her people and by her example put hope and courage into their hearts. [Footnote 1: It is of record that Queen Sofie Amalie used one-third of the annual revenues of the country for her household. The menu of a single "rustic dinner" of the court mentions 200 courses and nearly as many kinds of preserves and dessert, served on gold, with wines in corresponding abundance.] Karl Gustav, the Swedish king, was campaigning in Poland, but as soon as he could turn around he marched his army against Denmark, scattered the forces that opposed him, and before news of his advance had reached Copenhagen knocked at the gate of Denmark demanding "speech of brother Frederik in good Swedish." A winter of great severity had bridged the Baltic and the sounds of the island kingdom. In two weeks he led his army, horse, foot, and guns, over the frozen seas where hardly a wagon had dared cross before. Great rifts yawned in their way, and whole companies were swallowed up; his own sleigh sank in the deep, but nothing stopped him. Danish emissaries came pleading for peace. He met them on the way to the capital, surrounded by his Finnish horsemen, and gave scant ear to their speeches while he drove on. Before the city he halted and dictated a peace so humiliating that one of the Danish commissioners exclaimed when he came to sign, "I wish I could not write." Perhaps the same wish troubled the conqueror's ambitious dreams. The peace was broken as swiftly as made. In five months he was back before Frederik's capital with his whole army, while a Swedish fleet anchored in the roadstead outside. "What difference does it make to you," was the contemptuous taunt flung at the anxious envoys who sought his camp, "whether the name of your king is Karl or Frederik so long as you are safe?" He had come to make an end of Denmark. Copenhagen was almost without defences. The old earth walls mounted only six guns, with breastworks scarce knee-high. In places King Karl could have driven his sleigh into the heart of the city at the head of his army. But for the second time he hesitated when a swift blow would have won all--and lost. Overnight the Danish nation awoke to a fight for its life. King and people, till then strangers, in that hour became one. Frederik the Third met the craven counsel that he fly to Norway with the proud answer, "I will die in my nest, if need be, and my wife with me." With a shout the burghers swore to fight to the last man. The walls of the city rose as if by magic. Nobles and mechanics, clergy and laborers, students, professors and sailors worked side by side; high-born women wheeled barrows. Every tree was cut down and made into palisades. The crops ripening in the fields were gathered in haste and the cattle driven in. The city had been provisioned for barely a week and garrisoned by four hundred raw recruits. Sailors from the useless ships took out their guns and mounted them in the redoubts. Peasants flocked in and were armed with battle-axes, clubs, and boat-hooks when the supply of muskets gave out. When Karl Gustav drew his lines tight he faced six thousand determined men behind strong walls. The city stood in a ring of blazing fires. Its defenders were burning down the houses and woods beyond the moats to clear the way for their gunners. The King watched the sight from his horse in silence. He knew what it meant; he had fought in the Thirty Years' War: "Now, I vow, we shall have fighting," was all he said. It was not long in coming. On the second night the garrison made a sortie and drove back the invaders, destroying their works with great slaughter. Night after night, and sometimes in the broad day, they returned to the charge, overwhelming the Swedes where least expected, capturing their guns, their supplies, and their outposts. Short of arms and ammunition, they took them in the enemy's lines. In one of these raids Karl Gustav himself was all but made prisoner. A horseman had him by the shoulder, but he wrenched himself loose and spurred his horse into the sea where a boat from one of the ships rescued him. The defence took on something of the fervor of religious frenzy. Twice a day services were held on the walls of the city; within, the men who could not bear arms, and the women, barricaded the streets with stones and iron chains for the last fight, were it to come. In his place on the wall every burgher had a hundred brickbats or stones piled up for ammunition, and by night when the enemy rained red-hot shot upon the city, he fought with a club or spear in one hand, a torch in the other. Eleven weeks the battle raged by night and by day. Then a Dutch fleet forced its way through the blockade after a fight in which it lost six ships and two admirals. It brought food, ammunition, and troops. The joy in the city was great. All day the church bells were rung, and the people hailed the Dutch as the saviours of the nation. But when they, too, would thank God for the victory and asked for the use of the University's hall, they were refused. They were followers of Calvin and their heresies must not be preached in the place set apart for teaching the doctrines of the "pure faith," said the professors, who were Lutheran. It was the way of the day. The Reformation had learned little from the bigotry of the Inquisition. The Dutchmen had to be content with the court-house. But the siege was not over. Another hard winter closed in with the enemy at the door, burrowing hourly nearer the outworks, and food and fire-wood grew scarcer day by day in the hard-pressed city. When things were at the worst pass in February, the Swedes gathered their hosts for a final assault. In the midnight hour they came on with white shirts drawn over their uniforms to make it hard to tell them from the snow. Karl Gustav himself led the storming party and at last was in the way of "getting speech of brother Frederik," for the Danish King was as good as his word. He had said that he would die in his nest, and time and again he had to be sternly reasoned with to prevent him from exposing himself overmuch. Where the danger was greatest he was, and beside him ever the queen, all her frivolity gone and forgotten. She who had danced at the court fêtes and followed the hounds on the chase as if the world had no other cares, became the very incarnation of the spirit of the bitter and bloody struggle. All through that winter the royal couple lived in a tent among their men, and when the alarm was sounded they were first on foot to lead them. Now that the hour had come, they were in the forefront of the fight. Where the famous pleasure garden Tivoli now is, the strength of the enemy was massed against the redoubts at the western gate. The name of "Storm Street" tells yet of the doings of that night. King Karl had promised to give over the captured town to be sacked by his army three days and nights, and like hungry wolves they swarmed to the attack, a mob of sailors and workmen with scaling ladders in the van. The moats they crossed in spite of the gaps that had been made in the ice to stop them, but the garrison had poured water over the walls that froze as it ran, until they were like slippery icebergs. A bird could have found no foothold on them. Showers of rocks and junk and clubs fell upon the laddermen. Three times Karl Gustav hurled his columns against them; as often they were driven back, broken and beaten. A few gained a foothold on the walls only to be dashed down to death. The burghers fought for their lives and their homes. Their women carried boiling pitch and poured it over the breastworks, and when they had no more, dragged great beams and rolled them down upon the ladders, sweeping them clear of the enemy. In the hottest fight Gunde Rosenkrantz, one of the king's councillors, trod on a fallen soldier and, looking into his face, saw that it was his own son breathing his last. He bent over and kissed him, and went on fighting. In the early morning hour Karl Gustav gave the order to retreat. The attack had failed. Many of his general officers were slain; nearly half of his army was killed, disabled, or captured. Six Swedish standards were taken by the Danes. The moats were filled with the dead. The Swedes had "come in their shrouds." The guns of the city thundered out a triple salute of triumph and the people sang Te Deums on the walls. Their hardships were not over. Fifteen months yet the city was invested and the home of daily privation; but their greatest peril was past. Copenhagen was saved, and with it the nation; the people had found itself and its king. That autumn a second Swedish army under the veteran Stenbock was massacred in the island of Fyen, and Karl Gustav exclaimed when the beaten general brought him the news, "Since the devil took the sheep he might have taken the buck too." He never got over it. Three months later he lay dead, and the siege of Copenhagen was raised in May, 1660. It had lasted twenty months. * * * * * Seven score years and one passed, and the morning of Holy Thursday[2] saw a British fleet sailing slowly up the deep before Copenhagen, the deck of every ship bristling with guns, their crews at quarters, Lord Nelson's signal to "close for action" flying from the top of the flag-ship _Elephant_. Between the fleet and the shore lay a line of dismantled hulks on which men with steady eyes and stout hearts were guarding Denmark's honor. Once more it had been jeopardized by foolish counsel in high places. Danish statesmen had trifled and temporized while England, facing all Europe alone in the fight for her life, made ready to strike a decisive blow against the Armed Neutrality that threatened her supremacy on the sea. Once more the city had been caught unprepared, defenceless, and once more its people rose as one man to meet the danger. But it was too late. Outside, in the Sound, a fleet as great as that led by Nelson waited, should he fail, to finish his work. That was to destroy the Danish ships, if need be to bombard the city and so detach Denmark from the coalition of England's foes. So she chose to consider such as were not her declared friends. [Footnote 2: The battle of Copenhagen was fought April 2, 1801.] Denmark had no fighting ships at home to pit against her. Her sailors were away serving in the merchant marine. She had no practised gunners, nothing but a huddle of dismantled vessels in her navy-yard, most of them half-rotten hulks without masts. Those that had standing rigging were even worse, for none of them had sails and the falling spars in battle lumbered up the decks and menaced the crew. But such as they were she made the most of them. Eighteen hulks were hauled into the channel and moored head and stern. Where they lay they could not be moved. Only the guns on one side were therefore of use, while the enemy could turn and manoeuvre. They were manned by farm lads, mechanics, students, enlisted in haste, not one of whom had ever smelt powder, and these were matched against Nelson's grim veterans. Even their commander, J. Olfert Fischer, had not been under fire before that day, for Denmark had had peace for eighty years. But his father had served as a midshipman with Tordenskjold and the son did not flinch, outnumbered though his force was, two to one, in men and guns. The sun shone fair upon the blue waters as the great fleet of thirty-odd fighting ships sailed up from the south. From the city's walls and towers a mighty multitude watched it come, unmindful of peril from shot and shell; the Danish line was not half a mile away. In the churches whose bells were still ringing when the first gun was fired from the block-ship _Prövestenen_, the old men and women prayed through the long day, for there were few homes in Copenhagen that did not have son, brother, or friend fighting out there. A single gun answered the challenge, now two and three at once, then broadside crashed upon broadside with deafening roar. When at length all was quiet a tremendous report shook the city. It was the flag-ship _Dannebrog_ that blew up. She was on fire with only three serviceable guns left when she struck her colors, but no ship of her name might sail with an enemy's prize crew on board, and she did not. The story of that bloody day has been told many times. Briton and Dane hoist their flags on April 2 with equal right, for never was challenge met with more dauntless valor. Lord Nelson owned that of all the hundred and five battles he had fought this was hottest. On the _Monarch_, which for hours was under the most galling fire from the Danish ships, two hundred and twenty of the crew were killed or wounded. "There was not a single man standing," wrote a young officer on board of her, "the whole way from the mainmast forward, a district containing eight guns a side, some of which were run out ready for firing, others lay dismounted, and others remained as they were after recoiling.... I hastened down the fore ladder to the lower deck and felt really relieved to find somebody alive." The slaughter on the Danish ships was even greater. More than one-fifth of their entire strength of a little over five thousand men were slain or wounded. Of the eighteen hulls they lost thirteen, but only one were the British able to take home with them. The rest were literally shot to pieces and were burned where they lay. As one after another was silenced, those yet alive on board spiked their last guns, if indeed there were any left worth the trouble, threw their powder overboard and made, for the shore. Twice the Danish Admiral abandoned his burning ship, the last time taking up his post in the island battery Tre Kroner. Each time one of the old hulls was crushed, a Briton pushed into the hole made in the line and raked the remaining ones fore and aft until their decks were like huge shambles. The block-ship _Indfödsretten_ bore the concentrated fire of five frigates and two smaller vessels throughout most of the battle. Her chief was killed. When the news reached head-quarters on shore, Captain von Schrödersee, an old naval officer who had been retired because of ill health, volunteered to take his place. He was rowed out, but as he came over the side of the ship a cannon-ball cut him in two. _Prövestenen_, as it was the first to fire a shot, held out also to the last. One-fourth of her crew lay dead, and her flag had been shot away three times when the decks threatened to cave in and Captain Lassen spiked his last guns and left the wreck to be burned. All through the fight she was the target of ninety guns to which she could oppose only twenty-nine of her own sixty. Nelson had promised Admiral Parker to finish the fight in an hour. When the battle had lasted three, Parker signalled to him to stop. Every school-boy knows the story of how Lord Nelson put the glass to his blind eye and, remarking that he could see no signal, kept right on. In the end he had to resort to stratagem to force a truce so that he might disentangle some of his ships that were drifting into great danger in the narrow channel. The ruse succeeded. Crown Prince Frederik, moved by compassion for the wounded whom Nelson threatened to burn with the captured hulks if firing did not stop, ordered hostilities to cease without consulting the Admiral of the fleet, and the battle was over. Denmark's honor was saved. "Nothing," wrote our own Captain Mahan, "could place a nation's warlike fame higher than did her great deeds that day." All else was lost; for "there had come upon Denmark one of those days of judgment to which nations are liable who neglect in time of peace to prepare for war." It had been long coming, but it had overtaken her at last and found all the bars down. Alongside the _Dannebrog_ throughout her fight with Nelson's flag-ship, and edging ever closer in under the _Elephant's_ side until at last the marines were sent to man her rail and keep it away with their muskets, lay a floating battery mounting twenty guns under command of a beardless second lieutenant. The name of Peter Willemoes will live as long as the Danish tongue is spoken. Barely graduated from the Naval Academy, he was but eighteen when the need of officers thrust the command of "Floating Battery No. 1" upon him. So gallantly did he acquit himself that Nelson took notice of the young man who, every time a broadside crashed into his ship or overhead, swung his cocked hat and led his men in a lusty cheer. When after the battle he met the Crown Prince on shore, the English commander asked to be introduced to his youthful adversary. "You ought to make an admiral of him," he said, and Prince Frederik smiled: "If I were to make admirals of all my brave officers, I should have no captains or lieutenants left." When the _Dannebrog_ drifted on the shoals, abandoned and burning, Willemoes cut his cables and got away under cover of the heavy smoke. Having neither sails nor oars, he was at the mercy of the tide, but luckily it carried him to the north of the Tre Kroner battery, and he reached port with forty-nine of his crew of one hundred and twenty-nine dead or wounded. The people received him as a conqueror returning with victory. His youth and splendid valor aroused the enthusiasm of the whole country. Wherever he went crowds flocked to see him as the hero of "Holy Thursday's Battle." Especially was he the young people's idol. Sailor that he was, he was "the friend of all pretty girls," sang the poet of that day. He danced and made merry with them, but the one of them all on whom his heart was set, so runs the story, would have none of him, and sent him away to foreign parts, a saddened lover. Meanwhile much praise had not made him vain. "I did my duty," he wrote to his father, a minor government official in the city of Odense where four years later Hans Christian Andersen was born on the anniversary day of the battle, "and I have whole limbs which I least expected. The Crown Prince and the Admiral have said that I behaved well." He was to have one more opportunity of fighting his country's enemy, and this time to the death. In the summer of 1807, England was advised that by the treaty of Tilsit Russia and Prussia had secretly joined Napoleon in his purpose of finally crushing his mortal enemy by uniting all the fleets of Europe against her, Denmark's too, by compulsion if persuasion failed. Without warning a British fleet swooped down upon the unsuspecting nation, busy with the pursuits of peace, bombarded and burned Copenhagen when the Commandant refused to deliver the ships into the hands of the robbers as a "pledge of peace," and carried away ships, supplies, even the carpenters' tools in the navy-yard. Nothing was spared. Seventy vessels, sixteen of them ships of the line, fell into their hands, and supplies that filled ninety-two transports beside. A single fighting ship was left to Denmark of all her fleet,--the _Prince Christian Frederik_ of sixty-eight guns. She happened to be away in a Norwegian port and so escaped. Willemoes was on leave serving in the Russian navy, but hastened home when news came of the burning of Copenhagen, and found a berth under Captain Jessen. On March 22, 1808, the _Prince Christian_, so she was popularly called, hunting a British frigate that was making Danish waters insecure, met in the Kattegat the _Stately_ and the _Nassau_, each like herself of sixty-eight guns. The _Nassau_ was the old _Holsteen_, renamed,--the single prize the victors had carried home from the battle of Copenhagen. Three British frigates were working up to join them. The coast of Seeland was near, but wind and tide cut off escape to the Sound. Captain Jessen ran his ship in close under the shore so that at the last he might beach her, and awaited the enemy there. The sun had set, but the night was clear when the fight between the three ships began. With one on either side, hardly a pistol-shot away, Jessen returned shot for shot, giving as good as they sent, and with such success that at the end of an hour and a half the Britons dropped astern to make repairs. The _Prince Christian_ drifted, helpless, with rudder shot to pieces, half a wreck, rigging all gone, and a number of her guns demolished. But when the enemy returned he was hailed with a cheer and a broadside, and the fight was on once more. This time they were three to one; one of the British frigates of forty-four guns had come up and joined in. When the hull of the _Prince Christian_ was literally knocked to pieces, and of her 576 men 69 lay dead and 137 wounded, including the chief and all of his officers who were yet alive, Captain Jessen determined as a last desperate chance to run one of his opponents down and board her with what remained of his crew. But his officers showed him that it was impossible; the ship could not be manoeuvred. There was a momentary lull in the fire and out of the night came a cry, "Strike your colors!" The Danish reply was a hurrah and a volley from all the standing guns. Three broad-sides crashed into the doomed ship in quick succession, and the battle was over. The _Prince Christian_ stood upon the shore, a wreck. Young Willemoes was spared the grief of seeing the last Danish man-of-war strike its flag. In the hottest of the fight, as he jumped upon a gun the better to locate the enemy in the gloom, a cannon-ball took off the top of his head. He fell into the arms of a fellow officer with the muttered words, "Oh God! my head--my country!" and was dead. In his report of the fight Captain Jessen wrote against his name: "Fell in battle--honored as he is missed." They made his grave on shore with the fallen sailors, and as the sea washed up other bodies they were buried with them. The British captured the wreck, but they could only set fire to it after removing the wounded. In the night it blew up where it stood. That was the end of the last ship of Denmark's proud navy. THE TROOPER WHO WON A WAR ALONE Jens Kofoed was the name of a trooper who served in the disastrous war of Denmark against Sweden in Karl Gustav's day. He came from the island of Bornholm in the Baltic, where he tilled a farm in days of peace. When his troop went into winter quarters, he got a furlough to go home to receive the new baby that was expected about Christmas. Most of his comrades were going home for the holidays, and their captain made no objection. The Swedish king was fighting in far-off Poland, and no one dreamed that he would come over the ice with his army in the depth of winter to reckon with Denmark. So Jens Kofoed took ship with the promise that he would be back in two weeks. But they were to be two long weeks. They did not hear of him again for many moons, and then strange tidings came of his doings. Single-handed he had bearded the Swedish lion, and downed it in a fair fight--strangest of all, almost without bloodshed. The winter storms blew hard, and it was Christmas eve when he made land, but he came in time to receive, not one new heir, but twin baby girls. Then there were six of them, counting Jens and his wife, and a merry Christmas they all had together. On Twelfth Night the little ones were christened, and then the trooper bethought himself of his promise to get back soon. The storms had ceased, but worse had befallen; the sea was frozen over as far as eye reached, and the island was cut off from all communication with the outer world. There was nothing for it but to wait. It proved the longest and hardest winter any one then living could remember. Easter was at hand before the ice broke up, and let a fishing smack slip over to Ystad, on the mainland. It came back with news that set the whole island wondering. Peace had been made, and Denmark had ceded all its ancient provinces east of the Öresund to Karl Gustav. Ystad itself and Skaane, the province in which Jens Kofoed had been campaigning, were Swedish now, and so was Bornholm. All unknown to its people, the island had changed hands in the game of war overnight, as it were. A Swedish garrison was coming over presently to take charge. When Jens Kofoed heard it, he sat down and thought things over. If there was peace, his old captain had no use for him, that was certain; but there might be need of him at home. What would happen there, no one could tell. And there were the wife and children to take care of. The upshot of it all was that he stayed. Only, to be on the safe side, he got the Burgomaster and the Aldermen in his home town, Hasle, to set it down in writing that he could not have got back to his troop for all he might have tried. Kofoed, it will be seen, was a man with a head on his shoulders, which was well, for presently he had need of it. There were no Danish soldiers in the island, only a peasant militia, ill-armed and untaught in the ways of war; so no one thought of resisting the change of masters. The people simply waited to see what would happen. Along in May a company of one hundred and twenty men with four guns landed, and took possession of Castle Hammershus, on the north shore, the only stronghold on the island, in the name of the Swedish king. Colonel Printzensköld, who had command, summoned the islanders to a meeting, and told them that he had come to be their governor. They were to obey him, and that was all. The people listened and said nothing. Perhaps if the new rulers had been wise, things might have kept on so. The people would have tilled their farms, and paid their taxes, and Jens Kofoed, with all his hot hatred of the enemy he had fought, might never have been heard of outside his own island. But the Swedish soldiers had been through the Thirty Years' War and plunder had become their profession. They rioted in the towns, doubled the taxes, put an embargo on trade and export, crushed the industries; worse, they took the young men and sent them away to Karl Gustav's wars in foreign lands. They left only the old men and the boys, and these last they kept a watchful eye on for drafts in days to come. When the conscripts hid in the woods, so as not to be torn from their wives and sweethearts, they organized regular man-hunts as if the quarry were wild beasts, and, indeed, the poor fellows were not treated much better when caught. All summer they did as they pleased; then came word that Karl Gustav had broken the peace he made, and of the siege of Copenhagen. The news made the people sit up and take notice. Their rightful sovereign had ceded the island to the Swedish king, that was one thing. But now that they were at war again, these strangers who persecuted them were the public enemy. It was time something were done. In Hasle there was a young parson with his heart in the right place, Poul Anker by name. Jens Kofoed sat in his church; he had been to the wars, and was fit to take command. Also, the two were friends. Presently a web of conspiracy spread quietly through the island, gripping priest and peasant, skipper and trader, alike. Its purpose was to rout out the Swedes. The Hasle trooper and parson were the leaders; but their secret was well kept. With the tidings that the Dutch fleet had forced its way through to Copenhagen with aid for the besieged, and had bottled the Swedish ships up in Landskrona, came a letter purporting to be from King Frederik himself, encouraging the people to rise. It was passed secretly from hand to hand by the underground route, and found the island ready for rebellion. Governor Printzensköld had seen something brewing, but he was a fearless man, and despised the "peasant mob." However, he sent to Sweden for a troop of horsemen, the better to patrol the island and watch the people. Early in December, 1658, just a year after Jens Kofoed, the trooper, had set out for his home on furlough, the governor went to Rönne, the chief city in the island, to start off a ship for the reinforcements. The conspirators sought to waylay him at Hasle, where he stopped to give warning that all who had not paid the heavy war-tax would be sold out forthwith; but they were too late. Master Poul and Jens Kofoed rode after him, expecting to meet a band of their fellows on the way, but missed them. The parson stayed behind then to lay the fuse to the mine, while Kofoed kept on to town. By the time he got there he had been joined by four others, Aage Svendsön, Klavs Nielsen, Jens Laurssön, and Niels Gummelöse. The last two were town officers. As soon as the report went around Rönne that they had come, Burgomaster Klaus Kam went to them openly. The governor had ridden to the house of the other burgomaster, Per Larssön, who was not in the plot. His horse was tied outside and he just sitting down to supper when Jens Kofoed and his band crowded into the room, and took him prisoner. They would have killed him there, but his host pleaded for his life. However, when they took him out in the street, Printzensköld thought he saw a chance to escape in the crowd and the darkness, and sprang for his horse. But his great size made him an easy mark. He was shot through the head as he ran. The man who shot him had loaded his pistol with a silver button torn from his vest. That was sure death to any goblin on whom neither lead nor steel would bite, and it killed the governor all right. The place is marked to this day in the pavement of the main street as the spot where fell the only tyrant who ever ruled the island against the people's will. The die was cast now, and there was need of haste. Under cover of the night the little band rode through the island with the news, ringing the church bells far and near to call the people to arms. Many were up and waiting; Master Poul had roused them already. At Hammershus the Swedish garrison heard the clamor, and wondered what it meant. They found out when at sunrise an army of half the population thundered on the castle gates summoning them to surrender. Burgomaster Kam sat among them on the governor's horse, wearing his uniform, and shouted to the officers in command that unless they surrendered, he, the governor, would be killed, and his head sent in to his wife in the castle. The frightened woman's tears decided the day. The garrison surrendered, only to discover that they had been tricked. Jens Kofoed took command in the castle. The Swedish soldiers were set to doing chores for the farmers they had so lately harassed. The ship that was to have fetched reënforcements from Sweden was sent to Denmark instead, with the heartening news. They needed that kind there just then. But the ex-trooper, now Commandant, knew that a day of reckoning was coming, and kept a sharp lookout. When the hostile ship _Spes_ was reported steering in from the sea, the flag of Sweden flew from the peak of Hammershus, and nothing on land betrayed that there had been a change. As soon as she anchored, a boat went out with an invitation from the governor to any officers who might be on board, to come ashore and arrange for the landing of the troops. The captain of the ship and the major in charge came, and were made prisoners as soon as they had them where they could not be seen from the ship. It blew up to a storm, and the _Spes_ was obliged to put to sea, but as soon as she returned boats were sent out to land the soldiers. They sent only little skiffs that could hold not over three or four, and as fast as they were landed they were overpowered and bound. Half of the company had been thus disposed of when the lieutenant on board grew suspicious, and sent word that without the express orders of the major no more would come. But Jens Kofoed's wit was equal to the emergency. The next boat brought an invitation to the lieutenant to come in and have breakfast with the officers, who would give him his orders there. He walked into the trap; but when he also failed to return, his men refused to follow. He had arranged to send them a sign, they said, that everything was all right. If it did not come, they would sail away to Sweden for help. It took some little persuasion to make the lieutenant tell about the sign, but in the end Jens Kofoed got it. It turned out to be his pocket-knife. When they saw that, the rest came, and were put under lock and key with their fellows. The ship was left. If that went back, all was lost. Happily both captain and mate were prisoners ashore. Four boat-loads of islanders, with arms carefully stowed under the seats, went out with the mate of the _Spes_, who was given to understand that if he as much as opened his mouth he would be a dead man. They boarded the ship, taking the crew by surprise. By night the last enemy was comfortably stowed, and the ship on her way to Rönne, where the prisoners were locked in the court-house cellar, with shotted guns guarding the door. Perhaps it was the cruelties practised by Swedish troops in Denmark that preyed upon the mind of Jens Kofoed when he sent the parson to prepare them for death then and there; but better counsel prevailed. They were allowed to live. The whole war cost only two lives, the governor's and that of a sentinel at the castle, who refused to surrender. The mate of the _Spes_ and two of her crew contrived to escape after they had been taken to Copenhagen, and from them Karl Gustav had the first tidings of how he lost the island. The captured ship sailed down to Copenhagen with greeting to King Frederik that the people of Bornholm had chosen him and his heirs forever to rule over them, on condition that their island was never to be separated from the Danish Crown. The king in his delight presented them with a fine silver cup, and made Jens Kofoed captain of the island, beside giving him a handsome estate. He lived thirty-three years after that, the patriarch of his people, and raised a large family of children. Not a few of his descendants are to-day living in the United States. In the home of one of them in Brooklyn, New York, is treasured a silver drinking cup which King Frederik gave to the ex-trooper; but it is not the one he sent back with his deputation. That one is still in the island of Bornholm. CARL LINNÉ, KING OF THE FLOWERS Years ago there grew on the Jonsboda farm in Småland, Sweden, a linden tree that was known far and wide for its great age and size. So beautiful and majestic was the tree, and so wide the reach of its spreading branches, that all the countryside called it sacred. Misfortune was sure to come if any one did it injury. So thought the people. It was not strange, then, that the farmer's boys, when they grew to be learned men and chose a name, should call themselves after the linden. The peasant folk had no family names in those days. Sven Carlsson was Sven, the son of Carl; and his son, if his given name were John, would be John Svensson. So it had always been. But when a man could make a name for himself out of the big dictionary, that was his right. The daughter of the Jonsboda farmer married; and her son played in the shadow of the old tree, and grew so fond of it that when he went out to preach he also called himself after it. Nils Ingemarsson was the name he received in baptism, and to that he added Linnæus, never dreaming that in doing it he handed down the name and the fame of the friend of his play hours to all coming days. But it was so; for Parson Nils' eldest son, Carl Linné, or Linnæus, became a great man who brought renown to his country and his people by telling them and all the world more than any one had ever known before about the trees and the flowers. The King knighted him for his services to science, and the people of every land united in acclaiming him the father of botany and the king of the flowers. They were the first things he learned to love in his baby world. If he was cross, they had but to lay him on the grass in the garden and put a daisy in his hand, and he would croon happily over it for hours. He was four years old when his father took him to a wedding in the neighborhood. The men guests took a tramp over the farm, and in the twilight they sat and rested in the meadow, where the spring flowers grew. The minister began telling them stories about them; how they all had their own names and what powers for good or ill the apothecary found in the leaves and root of some of them. Carl's father, though barely out of college, was a bright and gifted man. One of his parishioners said once that they couldn't afford a whole parson, and so they took a young one; but if that was the way of it, the men of Stenbrohult made a better bargain than they knew. They sat about listening to his talk, but no one listened more closely than little Carl. After that he had thought for nothing else. In the corner of the garden he had a small plot of his own, and into it he planted all the wild flowers from the fields, and he asked many more questions about them than his father could answer. One day he came back with one whose name he had forgotten. The minister was busy with his sermon. "If you don't remember," he said impatiently, "I will never tell you the name of another flower." The boy went away, his eyes wide with terror at the threat; but after that he did not forget a single name. When he was big enough, they sent him to the Latin school at Wexiö, where the other boys nicknamed him "the little botanist." His thoughts were outdoors when they should have been in the dry books, and his teachers set him down as a dunce. They did not know that his real study days were when, in vacation, he tramped the thirty miles to his home. Every flower and every tree along the way was an old friend, and he was glad to see them again. Once in a while he found a book that told of plants, and then he was anything but a dunce. But when his father, after Carl had been eight years in the school, asked his teachers what they thought of him, they told him flatly that he might make a good tailor or shoemaker, but a minister--never; he was too stupid. That was a blow, for the parson of Stenbrohult and his wife had set their hearts on making a minister of Carl, and small wonder. His mother was born in the parsonage, and her father and grandfather had been shepherds of the parish all their lives. There were tears in the good minister's eyes as he told Carl to pack up and get ready to go back home; he had an errand at Dr. Rothman's, but would return presently. The good doctor saw that his patient was heavy of heart and asked him what was wrong. When he heard what Carl's teachers had said, he flashed out: "What! he not amount to anything? There is not one in the whole lot who will go as far as he. A minister he won't be, that I'll allow, but I shall make a doctor of him such as none of them ever saw. You leave him here with me." And the parson did, comforted in spite of himself. But Carl's mother could not get over it. It was that garden, she declared, and when his younger brother as much as squinted that way, she flew at him with a "You dare to touch it!" and shook him. When Dr. Rothman thought his pupil ready for the university, he sent him up to Lund, and the head-master of the Latin School gave him the letter he must bring, to be admitted. "Boys at school," he wrote in it, "may be likened to young trees in orchard nurseries, where it sometimes happens that here and there among the saplings there are some that make little growth, or even appear as wild seedlings, giving no promise; but when afterwards transplanted to the orchard, make a start, branch out freely, and at last yield satisfactory fruit." By good luck, though, Carl ran across an old teacher from Wexiö, one of the few who had believed in him and was glad to see him. He took him to the Rector and introduced him with warm words of commendation, and also found him lodgings under the roof of Dr. Kilian Stobæus. Dr. Stobæus was a physician of renown, but not good company. He was one-eyed, sickly, lame in one foot, and a gloomy hypochondriac to boot. Being unable to get around to his patients, he always had one or two students to do the running for him and to learn as best they might, in doing it. Carl found a young German installed there as the doctor's right hand. He also found a library full of books on botany, a veritable heaven for him. But the gate was shut against him; the doctor had the key, and he saw nothing in the country lad but a needy student of no account. Perhaps the Rector had passed the head-master's letter along. However, love laughs at locksmiths, and Carl Linnæus was hopelessly in love with his flowers. He got on the right side of the German by helping him over some hard stiles in the _materia medica_. In return, his fellow student brought him books out of the library when the doctor had gone to bed, and Carl sat up studying the big tomes till early cockcrow. Before the house stirred, the books were back on their shelves, the door locked, and no one was the wiser. No one except the doctor's old mother, whose room was across the yard. She did not sleep well, and all night she saw the window lighted in her neighbor's room. She told the doctor that Carl Linnæus fell asleep with the candle burning every single night, and sometime he would upset it and they would all be burned in their beds. The doctor nodded grimly; he knew the young scamps. No doubt they both sat up playing cards till dawn; but he would teach them. And the very next morning, at two o'clock, up he stumped on his lame foot to Carl's room, in which there was light, sure enough, and went in without knocking. Carl was so deep in his work that he did not hear him at all, and the doctor stole up unperceived and looked over his shoulder. There lay his precious books, which he thought safely locked in the library, spread out before him, and his pupil was taking notes and copying drawings as if his life depended upon it. He gave a great start when Dr. Stobæus demanded what he was doing, but owned up frankly, while the doctor frowned and turned over his notes, leaf by leaf. "Go to bed and sleep like other people," he said gruffly, yet kindly, when he had heard it all, "and hereafter study in the daytime;" and he not only gave him a key to his library, but took him to his own table after that. Up till then Carl had merely been a lodger in the house. When he was at last on the home stretch, as it seemed, an accident came near upsetting it all. He was stung by an adder on one of his botanizing excursions, so far from home and help that the bite came near proving fatal. However, Dr. Stobæus' skill pulled him through, and in after years he got square by labelling the serpent _furia infernalis_--hell-fury--in his natural history. It was his way of fighting back. All through his life he never wasted an hour on controversy. He had no time, he said. But once when a rival made a particularly nasty attack upon him, he named a new plant after him, adding the descriptive adjective _detestabilis_--the detestable so-and-so. On the whole, he had the best of it; for the names he gave stuck. It was during his vacation after the year at Lund that Linnæus made a catalogue of the plants in his father's garden at Stenbrohult that shows us the country parson as no mean botanist himself; for in the list, which is preserved in the Academy of Sciences at Stockholm, are no less than two hundred and twenty-four kinds of plants. Among them are six American plants that had found their way to Sweden. The poison ivy is there, though what they wanted of that is hard to tell, and the four-o'clock, the pokeweed, the milkweed, the pearly everlasting, and the potato, which was then (1732) classed as a rare plant. Not until twenty years later did they begin to grow it for food in Sweden. When Carl Linnæus went up to Upsala University, his parents had so far got over their disappointment at his deserting the ministry that they gave him a little money to make a start with; but they let him know that no more was coming--their pocket-book was empty. And within the twelvemonth, for all his scrimping and saving, he was on the point of starvation. He tells us himself that he depended on chance for a meal and wore his fellow students' cast-off clothes. His boots were without soles, and in his cheerless attic room he patched them with birch bark and card board as well as he could. He was now twenty-three years old, and it seemed as if he would have to give up the study that gave him no bread; but still he clung to his beloved flowers. They often made him forget the pangs of hunger. And when the cloud was darkest the sun broke through. He was sitting in the Botanical Garden sketching a plant, when Dean Celsius, a great orientalist and theologian of his day, passed by. The evident poverty of the young man, together with his deep absorption in his work, arrested his attention; he sat down and talked with him. In five minutes Carl had found a friend and the Dean a helper. He had been commissioned to write a book on the plants of the Holy Land and had collected a botanical library for the purpose, but the work lagged. Here now was the one who could help set it going. That day Linnæus left his attic room and went to live in the Dean's house. His days of starvation were over. In the Dean's employ his organizing genius developed the marvellous skill of the cataloguer that brought order out of the chaos of groping and guessing and blundering in which the science of botany had floundered up till then. Here and there in it all were flashes of the truth, which Linnæus laid hold of and pinned down with his own knowledge to system and order. Thus the Frenchman, Sebastian Vaillant, who had died a dozen years before, had suggested a classification of flowers by their seed-bearing organs, the stamens and pistils, instead of by their fruits, the number of their petals, or even by their color, as had been the vague practice of the past. Linnæus seized upon this as the truer way and wrote a brief treatise developing the idea, which so pleased Dr. Celsius that he got his young friend a license to lecture publicly in the Botanical Garden. The students flocked to hear him. His message was one that put life and soul into the dry bones of a science that had only wearied them before. The professor of botany himself sat in the front row and hammered the floor with his cane in approval. But his very success was the lecturer's undoing. Envy grew in place of the poverty he had conquered. The instructor, Nils Rosén, was abroad taking his doctor's degree. He came home to find his lectures deserted for the irresponsible teachings of a mere undergraduate. He made grievous complaint, and Linnæus was silenced, to his great good luck. For so his friend the professor, though he was unable to break the red tape of the university, got him an appointment to go to Lapland on a botanical mission. His enemies were only too glad to see him go. Linnæus travelled more than three thousand miles that summer through a largely unknown country, enduring, he tells us, more hardships and dangers than in all his subsequent travels. Again and again he nearly lost his life in swollen mountain streams, for he would not wait until danger from the spring freshets was over. Once he was shot at as he was gathering plants on a hillside, but happily the Finn who did it was not a good marksman. Fish and reindeer milk were his food, a pestilent plague of flies his worst trouble. But, he says in his account of the trip, which is as fascinating a report of a scientific expedition as was ever penned, they were good for something, after all, for the migrating birds fed on them. From his camps on lake or river bank he saw the water covered far and near with swarms of ducks and geese. The Laplander's larder was easily stocked. He came back from the dangers of the wild with a reputation that was clinched by his book "The Flora of Lapland," to find the dragon of professional jealousy rampant still at Upsala. His enemy, Rosén, persuaded the senate of the university to adopt a rule that no un-degreed man should lecture there to the prejudice of the regularly appointed instructors. Tradition has it that Linnæus flew into a passion at that and drew upon Rosén, and there might have been one regular less but for the interference of bystanders. It may be true, though it is not like him. Men wore side-arms in those days just as some people carry pistols in their hip-pockets to-day, and with as little sense. At least they had the defence, such as it was, that it was the fashion. However, it made an end of Linnæus at Upsala for the time. He sought a professorship at Lund, but another got it. Then he led an expedition of his former students into the Dalecarlia mountains and so he got to Falun, where Baron Reuterholm, one of Sweden's copper magnates, was seeking a guide for his two sons through the region where his mines were. Linnæus was not merely a botanist, but an all around expert in natural science. He took charge of the boys and, when the trip was ended, started a school at Falun, where he taught mineralogy. It had been hit or miss with the miners up till then. There was neither science nor system in their work. What every-day experience or the test of fire had taught a prospector, in delving among the rocks, was all there was of it. Linnæus was getting things upon a scientific basis, when he met and fell in love with the handsome daughter of Dr. Moræus. The young people would marry, but the doctor, though he liked the mineralogist, would not hear of it till he could support a wife. So he gave him three years in which to go abroad and get a degree that would give him the right to practise medicine anywhere in Sweden. The doctor's daughter gave him a hundred dollars she had saved, and her promise to wait for him. He went to Harderwyk in Holland and got his degree at the university there on the strength of a thesis on the cause of malarial fever, with the conclusions of which the learned doctors did not agree; but they granted the diploma for the clever way in which he defended it. On the way down he tarried in Hamburg long enough to give the good burghers a severe jolt. They had a seven-headed serpent that was one of the wonders of the town. The keen sight of the young naturalist detected the fraud at once; the heads were weasels' heads, covered with serpent's skin and cunningly sewed on the head of the reptile. The shape of the jaws betrayed the trick. But the Hamburgers were not grateful. The serpent was an asset. There was a mortgage on it of ten thousand marks; now it was not worth a hundred. They took it very ill, and Linnæus found himself suddenly so unpopular that he was glad to get out of town overnight. What became of the serpent history does not record. Linnæus had carried more than his thesis on malarial fever with him to Holland. At the bottom of his trunk were the manuscripts of two books on botany which, he told his sweetheart on parting, would yet make him famous. Probably she shook her head at that. Pills and powders, and broken legs to set, were more to her way of thinking, and her father's, too. If only he had patients, fame might take care of itself. But now he put them both to shame. At Leyden he found friends who brought out his first book, "Systema Naturæ," in which he divides all nature into the three kingdoms known to every child since. It was hardly more than a small pamphlet, but it laid the foundation for his later fame. To the enlarged tenth edition zoölogists point back to this day as to the bed-rock on which they built their science. The first was quickly followed by another, and yet another. Seven large volumes bearing his name had come from the press before he set sail for home, a whole library in botany, and a new botany at that, so simple and sensible that the world adopted it at once. Dr. Hermann Boerhaave was at that time the most famous physician in Europe. He was also the greatest authority on systematic botany. Great men flocked to his door, but the testy old Dutchman let them wait until it suited him to receive them. Peter the Great had to cool his heels in his waiting-room two long hours before his turn came. Linnæus he would not see at all--until he sent him a copy of his book. Then he shut the door against all others and summoned the author. The two walked through his garden, and the old doctor pointed proudly to a tree which was very rare, he said, and not in any of the books. Yes, said Linnæus, it was in Vaillant's. The doctor knew better; he had annotated Vaillant's botany himself, and it was not there. Linnæus insisted, and the doctor, in a temper, went for the book to show him. But there it was; Linnæus was right. Nothing would do then but he must stay in Holland. Linnæus demurred; he could not afford it. But Dr. Boerhaave knew a way out of that. He had for a patient Burgomaster Cliffort, a rich old hypochondriac with whom he could do nothing because he would insist on living high and taking too little exercise. When he came again he told him that what he needed was a physician in daily attendance upon him, and handed him over to Linnæus. "He will fix your diet and fix your garden, too," was his prescription. The Burgomaster was a famous collector and had a wondrous garden that was the apple of his eye. He took Linnæus into his house and gave him a ducat a day for writing his menu and cataloguing his collection. That was where his books grew, and the biggest and finest of them was "Hortus Cliffortianus," the account of his patron's garden. Armed with letters from Dr. Boerhaave and the Burgomaster, he took one stronghold of professional prejudice after another. Not without a siege. One of them refused flatly to surrender. That was Sir Hans Sloan, the great English naturalist, to whom Dr. Boerhaave wrote in a letter that is preserved in the British Museum: "Linnæus, who bears this letter, is alone worthy of seeing you, alone worthy of being seen by you. He who shall see you both together shall see two men whose like will scarce ever be found in the world." And the doctor was no flatterer, as may be inferred from his treatment of Peter the Great. But the aged baronet had had his own way so long, and was so well pleased with it, that he would have nothing to do with Linnæus. At Oxford the learned professor Dillenius received him with no better grace. "This," he said aside to a friend, "is the young man who confounds all botany," and he took him rather reluctantly into his garden. A plant that was new to him attracted Linnæus' attention and he asked to what family it belonged. "That is more than you can tell me," was the curt answer. "I can, if you will let me pluck a flower and examine it." "Do, and be welcome," said the professor, and his visitor after a brief glance at the flower told its species correctly. The professor stared. "Now," said Linnæus, who had kept his eyes open, "what did you mean by the crosses you had put all through my book?" He had seen it lying on the professor's table, all marked up. "They mark the errors you made," declared the other. "Suppose we see about that," said the younger man and, taking the book, led the way. They examined the flowers together, and when they returned to the study all the pride had gone out of the professor. He kept Linnæus with him a month, never letting him out of his sight and, when he left, implored him with tears to stay and share his professorship; the pay was enough for both. A letter that reached him from home on his return to Holland made him realize with a start that he had overstayed his leave. It was now in the fourth year since he had left Sweden. All the while he had written to his sweetheart in the care of a friend who proved false. He wanted her for himself and, when the three years had passed, told her that Carl would never come back. Dr. Moræus was of the same mind, and had not a real friend of the absent lover turned up in the nick of time Linnæus would probably have stayed a Dutchman to his death. Now, on the urgent message of his friend, he hastened home, found his Elisabeth holding out yet, married her and settled down in Stockholm to practise medicine. Famous as he had become, he found the first stretch of the row at home a hard one to hoe. His books brought him no income. Nobody would employ him, "even for a sick servant," he complained. Envious rivals assailed him and his botany, and there were days when herring and black bread was fare not to be despised in Dr. Linnæus' household. But he kept pegging away and his luck changed. One well-to-do patient brought another, and at last the queen herself was opportunely seized with a bad cough. She saw one of her ladies take a pill and asked what it was. Dr. Linnæus' prescription for a cold, she said, and it always cured her right up. So the doctor was called to the castle and his cure worked there, too. Not long after that he set down in his diary that "Now, no one can get well without my help." But he was not happy. "Once, I had flowers and no money," he said; "now, I have money and no flowers." That they appointed him professor of medicine at Upsala did not mend matters. His lectures were popular and full of common sense. Diet and the simple life were his hobbies, temperance in all things. He ever insisted that where one man dies from drinking too much, ten die from overeating. Children should eat four times a day, grown-ups twice, was his rule. The foolish fashions and all luxury he abhorred. He himself in his most famous years lived so plainly that some said he was miserly, and his clothes were sometimes almost shabby. The happiest day of his life came when he and his old enemy Rosén, whom he found filling the chair of botany at the university, and with whom he made it up soon after they became fellow members of the faculty, exchanged chairs with the ready consent of the authorities. So, at last, Linnæus had attained the place he coveted above all others, and the goal of his ambition was reached. He lived at Upsala thirty-seven years and wrote many books. His students idolized him. They came from all over the world. Twice a week in summer, on Wednesday and Saturday, they sallied forth with him to botanize in field and forest, and when they had collected specimens all the long day they escorted the professor home through the twilight streets with drums and trumpets and with flowers in their hats. But however late they left him at his door, the earliest dawn saw him up and at his work, for the older he grew the more precious the hours that remained. In summer he was accustomed to rise at three o'clock; in the dark winter days at six. He found biology a chaos and left it a science. In his special field of botany he was not, as some think, the first. He himself catalogued fully a thousand books on his topic. But he brought order into it; he took what was good and, rejecting the false, fashioned it into a workable system. In the mere matter of nomenclature, his way of calling plants, like men, by a family name and a given name wrought a change hard to appreciate in our day. The common blue grass of our lawns, for instance, he called, and we call it still, _Poa pratensis_. Up to his time it had three names and one of them was _Gramen pratense paniculatum majus latiore folio poa theophrasti_. Dr. Rydberg, of the New York Botanical Gardens, said aptly at the bicentenary of his birth, that it was as if instead of calling a girl Grace Darling one were to say "Mr. Darling's beautiful, slender, graceful, blue-eyed girl with long, golden curls and rosy cheeks." The binomial system revolutionized the science. What the lines of longitude and latitude did for geography Linnæus' genius did for botany. And he did not let pride of achievement persuade him that he had said the last word. He knew his system to be the best till some one should find a better, and said so. The King gave him a noble name and he was proud of it with reason--vain, some have said. But vanity did not make the creature deny the Creator. He ever tried to trace science to its author. When the people were frightened by the "water turning to blood" and overzealous priests cried that it was a sign of the wrath of God, he showed under the magnifying glass the presence of innumerable little animals that gave the water its reddish tinge, and thereby gave offence to some pious souls. But over the door of his lecture room were the words in Latin: "Live guiltless--God sees you!" and in his old age, seeing with prophetic eye the day of bacteriology that dawned a hundred years after his death, he thanked God that He had permitted him to "look into His secret council room and workshop." He was one of the clear thinkers of all days, uniting imagination with sound sense. It was Linnæus who discovered that plants sleep like animals. The Pope ordered that his books, wherever they were found in his dominions, should be burned as materialistic and heretical; but Linnæus lived to see a professor in botany at Rome dismissed because he did not understand his system, and another put in his place who did, and whose lectures followed his theories. When he was seventy he was stricken with apoplexy, while lecturing to his students, and the last year of his life was full of misery. "Linnæus limps," is one of the last entries in his diary, "can hardly walk, speaks unintelligibly, and is scarce able to write." Death came on January 10, 1778. Under the white flashes of the northern lights in the desolate land he explored in his youth, there grows in the shelter of the spruce forests a flower which he found and loved beyond any other, the _Linnæa borealis_, named after him. In some pictures we have of him, he is seen holding a sprig of it in his hand. It is the twin flower of the northern Pacific coast and of Labrador, indeed of the far northern woods from Labrador all the way to Alaska, that lifts its delicate, sweet-scented pink bells from the moss with gentle appeal, "long overlooked, lowly, flowering early" despite cold and storm, typical of the man himself. NIELS FINSEN, THE WOLF-SLAYER Hard by the town of Thorshavn, in the Faröe islands, a little lad sat one day carving his name on a rock. His rough-coated pony cropped the tufts of stunted grass within call. The grim North Sea beat upon the shore below. What thoughts of the great world without it stirred in the boy he never told. He came of a people to whom it called all through the ages with a summons that rarely went unheeded. If he heard he gave no sign. Slowly and laboriously he traced in the stone the letters N.R.F. When he had finished he surveyed his work with a quiet smile. "There!" he said, "that is done." The years went by, and a distant city paused in its busy life to hearken to bells tolling for one who lay dead. Kings and princes walked behind his coffin and a whole people mourned. Yet in life he had worn no purple. He was a plain, even a poor man. Upon his grave they set a rock brought from the island in the North Sea, just like the other that stands there yet, and in it they hewed the letters N.R.F., for the man and the boy were one. And he who spoke there said for all mankind that what he wrought was well done, for it was done bravely and in love. Niels Ryberg Finsen was born in 1860 in the Faröe islands, where his father was an official under the Danish Government. His family came of the sturdy old Iceland stock that comes down to our time unshorn of its strength from the day of the vikings, and back to Iceland his people sent him to get his education in the Reykjavik Latin school, after a brief stay in Denmark where his teachers failed to find the key to the silent, reserved lad. There he lived the seven pregnant years of boyhood and youth, from fourteen to twenty-one, and ever after there was that about him that brought to mind the wild fastnesses of that storm-swept land. Its mountains were not more rugged than his belief in the right as he saw it. The Reykjavik school had a good name, but school and pupils were after their own kind. Conventional was hardly the word for it. Some of the "boys" were twenty and over. Finsen loved to tell of how they pursued the studies each liked best, paying scant attention to the rest. In their chosen fields they often knew much more than the curriculum called for, and were quite able to instruct the teacher; the things they cared less about they helped one another out with, so as to pass examinations. For mere proficiency in lessons they cherished a sovereign contempt. To do anything by halves is not the Iceland way, and it was not Niels Finsen's. All through his life he was impatient with second-hand knowledge and borrowed thinking. So he worked and played through the long winters of the North. In the summer vacations he roamed the barren hills, helped herd the sheep, and drank in the rough freedom of the land and its people. At twenty-one the school gave him up to the university at Copenhagen. Training for life there was not the heyday of youthful frolicking we sometimes associate with college life in our day and land. Not until he was thirty could he hang up his sheepskin as a physician. Yet the students had their fun and their sports, and Finsen was seldom missing where these went on. He was not an athlete because already at twenty-three the crippling disease with which he battled twenty years had got its grip on him, but all the more he was an outdoor man. He sailed his boat, and practised with the rifle until he became one of the best shots in Denmark. And it is recorded that he got himself into at least one scrape at the university by his love of freedom. The country was torn up at that time by a struggle between people and government over constitutional rights, and it had reached a point where a country parish had refused to pay taxes illegally assessed, as they claimed. It was their Boston tea-party. A delegation of the "tax refusers" had come to Copenhagen, where the political pot was boiling hot over the incident. The students were enthusiastic, but the authorities of the university sternly unsympathetic. The "Reds" were for giving a reception to the visitors in Regentsen, the great dormitory where, as an Iceland student, Finsen had free lodging; but it was certain that the Dean would frown upon such a proposition. So they applied innocently for permission to entertain some "friends from the country," and the party was held in Finsen's room. Great was the scandal when the opposition newspapers exploited the feasting of the tax refusers in the sacred precincts of the university. To the end of his days Finsen chuckled over the way they stole a march on the Dean. For two or three years after getting his degree he taught in the medical school as demonstrator, eking out his scant income by tutoring students in anatomy. His sure hand and clear decision in any situation marked him as a practitioner of power, and he had thoughts once of devoting himself to the most delicate of all surgery,--that of the eye. He was even then groping for his life-work, without knowing it, for it was always light, light--the source or avenue or effect of it--that held him. And presently his work found him. It has been said that Finsen was a sick man. A mysterious malady[1] with dropsical symptoms clutched him from the earliest days with ever tightening grip, and all his manhood's life he was a great but silent sufferer. Perhaps it was that; perhaps it was the bleak North in which his young years had been set that turned him to the light as the source of life and healing. He said it himself: "It was because I needed it so much, I longed for it so." Probably it was both. Add to them his unique power of turning the things of everyday life to account in his scientific research, and one begins to understand at once his success and his speedy popularity. He dealt with the humble things of life, and got to the heart of things on that road. And the people comprehended; the wise men fell in behind him--sometimes a long way behind. [Footnote 1: The autopsy which he himself ordered on his death-bed as his last contribution to medical knowledge, showed it to be a slow ossification of the membrane of the heart, involving the liver and all the vital organs. He was "tapped" for dropsy more than twenty times.] In the yard of Regentsen there grows a famous old linden tree. Standing at his window one day and watching its young leaf sprout, Finsen saw a cat sunning itself on the pavement. The shadow of the house was just behind it and presently crept up on pussy who got up, stretched herself, and moved into the sunlight. In a little while the shadow overtook her there, and pussy moved once more. Finsen watched the shadow rout her out again and again. It was clear that the cat liked the sunlight. A few days later he stood upon a bridge and saw a little squad of insects sporting on the water. They drifted down happily with the stream till they came within the shadow of the bridge, when they at once began to work their way up a piece to get a fresh start for a sunlight sail. Finsen knew just how they felt. His own room looked north and was sunless; his work never prospered as it did when he sat with a friend whose room was on the south side, where the sun came in. It was warm and pleasant; but was that all? Was it only the warmth that made the birds break into song when the sun came out on a cloudy day, made the insects hum joyously and man himself walk with a more springy step? The housekeeper who "sunned" the bed-clothes and looked with suspicion on a dark room had something else in mind; the sun "disinfected" the bedding. Finsen wanted to know what it was in the sunlight that had this power, and how we could borrow it and turn it to use. The men of science had long before analyzed the sunlight. They had broken it up into the rays of different color that together make the white light we see. Any boy can do it with a prism, and in the band or spectrum of red, yellow, green, blue, and violet that then appears, he has before him the cipher that holds the key to the secrets of the universe if we but knew how to read it aright; for the sunlight is the physical source of all life and of all power. The different colors represent rays with different wave-lengths; that is, they vibrate with different speed and do different work. The red vibrate only half as fast as the violet, at the other end of the spectrum, and, roughly speaking, they are the heat carriers. The blue and violet are cold by comparison. They are the force carriers. They have power to cause chemical changes, hence are known as the chemical or actinic rays. It is these the photographer shuts out of his dark room, where he intrenches himself behind a ruby-colored window. The chemical ray cannot pass that; if it did it would spoil his plate. This much was known, and it had been suggested more than once that the "disinfecting" qualities of the sunlight might be due to the chemical rays killing germs. Finsen, experimenting with earthworms, earwigs, and butterflies, in a box covered with glass of the different colors of the spectrum, noted first that the bugs that naturally burrowed in darkness became uneasy in the blue light. As fast as they were able, they got out of it and crawled into the red, where they lay quiet and apparently content. When the glass covers were changed they wandered about until they found the red light again. The earwigs were the smartest. They developed an intelligent grasp of the situation, and soon learned to make straight for the red room. The butterflies, on the other hand, liked the red light only to sleep in. It was made clear by many such experiments that the chemical rays, and they only, had power to stimulate, to "stir life." Finsen called it that himself. In the language of the children, he was getting "warm." That this power, like any other, had its perils, and that nature, if not man, was awake to them, he proved by some simple experiments with sunburn. He showed that the tan which boys so covet was the defence the skin puts forth against the blue ray. The inflammation of sunburn is succeeded by the brown pigmentation that henceforth stands guard like the photographer's ruby window, protecting the deeper layers of the skin. The black skin of the negro was no longer a mystery. It is his protection against the fierce sunlight of the tropics and the injurious effect of its chemical ray. Searching the libraries in Copenhagen for the records of earlier explorers in his field, and finding little enough there, Finsen came across the report of an American army surgeon on a smallpox epidemic in the South in the thirties of the last century. There were so many sick in the fort that, every available room being filled, they had to put some of the patients into the bomb-proof, to great inconvenience all round, as it was entirely dark there. The doctor noted incidentally that, as if to make up for it, the underground patients got well sooner and escaped pitting. To him it was a curious incident, nothing more. Upon Dr. Finsen, sitting there with the seventy-five-year-old report from over the sea in his hand, it burst with a flood of light: the patients got well without scarring _because_ they were in the dark. Red light or darkness, it was all the same. The point was that the chemical rays that could cause sunburn on men climbing glaciers, and had power to irritate the sick skin, were barred out. Within a month he jolted the medical world by announcing that smallpox patients treated under red light would recover readily and without disfigurement. The learned scoffed. There were some of them who had read of the practice in the Middle Ages of smothering smallpox patients in red blankets, giving them red wine to drink and hanging the room with scarlet. Finsen had not heard of it, and was much interested. Evidently they had been groping toward the truth. How they came upon the idea is not the only mystery of that strange day, for they knew nothing of actinic rays or sunlight analyzed. But Finsen calmly invited the test, which was speedy in coming. They had smallpox in Bergen, Norway, and there the matter was put to the proof with entire success; later in Sweden and in Copenhagen. The patients who were kept under the red light recovered rapidly, though some of them were unvaccinated children, and bad cases. In no instance was the most dangerous stage of the disease, the festering stage, reached; the temperature did not rise again, and they all came out unscarred. Finsen pointed out that where other methods of treatment such as painting the face with iodine or lunar caustic, or covering it with a mask or with fat, had met with any success in the past, the same principle was involved of protecting the skin from the light, though the practitioner did not know it. He was doing the thing they did in the middle ages, and calling them quacks. It is strange but true that Dr. Finsen had never seen a smallpox patient at that time, but he knew the nature of the disease, and that the sufferer was affected by its eruption first and worst on the face and hands--that is to say, on the parts of the body exposed to the light--and he was as sure of his ground as was Leverrier when, fifty years before, he bade his fellow astronomers look in a particular spot of the heavens for an unknown planet that disturbed the movements of Uranus. And they found the one we call Neptune there. Presently all the world knew that the first definite step had been taken toward harnessing in the service of man the strange force in the sunlight that had been the object of so much speculation and conjecture. The next step followed naturally. In the published account of his early experiments Finsen foreshadows it in the words, "That the beginning has been made with the hurtful effects of this force is odd enough, since without doubt its beneficial effect is far greater." His clear head had already asked the question: if the blue rays of the sun can penetrate deep enough into the skin to cause injury, why should they not be made to do police duty there, and catch and kill offending germs--in short, to heal? Finsen had demonstrated the correctness of the theory that the chemical rays have power to kill germs. But it happens that these are the rays that possess the least penetration. How to make them go deeper was the problem. By an experiment that is, in its simplicity, wholly characteristic of the man, he demonstrated that the red blood in the deeper layers of the skin was the obstacle. He placed a piece of photographic paper behind the lobe of his wife's ears and concentrated powerful blue rays on the other side. Five minutes of exposure made no impression on the paper; it remained white. But when he squeezed all the blood out of the lobe, by pressing it between two pieces of glass, the paper was blackened in twenty seconds. That night Finsen knew that he had within his grasp that which would make him a rich man if he so chose. He had only to construct apparatus to condense the chemical rays and double their power many times, and to apply his discovery in medical practice. Wealth and fame would come quickly. He told the writer in his own simple way how he talked it over with his wife. They were poor. Finsen's salary as a teacher at the university was something like $1200 a year. He was a sick man, and wealth would buy leisure and luxury. Children were growing up about them who needed care. They talked it out together, and resolutely turned their backs upon it all. Hand in hand they faced the world with their sacrifice. What remained of life to him was to be devoted to suffering mankind. That duty done, what came they would meet together. Wealth never came, but fame in full measure, and the love and gratitude of their fellow-men. There is a loathsome disease called lupus, of which, happily, in America with our bright skies we know little. Lupus is the Latin word for wolf, and the ravenous ailment is fitly named, for it attacks by preference the face, and gnaws at the features, at nose, chin, or eye, with horrible, torturing persistence, killing slowly, while the patient shuts himself out from the world praying daily for death to end his misery. In the north of Europe it is sadly common, and there had never been any cure for it. Ointments, burning, surgery--they were all equally useless. Once the wolf had buried its fangs in its victim, he was doomed to inevitable death. The disease is, in fact, tuberculosis of the skin, and is the most dreadful of all the forms in which the white plague scourges mankind--was, until one day Finsen announced to the world his second discovery, that lupus was cured by the simple application of light. It was not a conjecture, a theory, like the red-light treatment for smallpox; it was a fact. For two years he had been sending people away whole and happy who came to him in despair. The wolf was slain, and by this silent sufferer whose modest establishment was all contained within a couple of small shanties in a corner of the city hospital grounds, at Copenhagen. There was a pause of amazed incredulity. The scientific men did not believe it. Three years later, when the physician in charge of Finsen's clinic told at the medical congress in Paris of the results obtained at the Light Institute, his story was still received with a polite smile. The smile became astonishment when, at a sign from him, the door opened and twelve healed lupus patients came in, each carrying a photograph of himself as he was before he underwent the treatment. Still the doctors could not grasp it. The thing was too simple as matched against all their futile skill. But the people did not doubt. There was a rush from all over Europe to Copenhagen. Its streets became filled with men and women whose faces were shrouded in heavy bandages, and it was easy to tell the new-comers from those who had seen "the professor." They came in gloom and misery; they went away carrying in their faces the sunshine that gave them back their life. Finsen never tired, when showing friends over his Institute, of pointing out the joyous happiness of his patients. It was his reward. For not "science for science's sake," or pride in his achievement, was his aim and thought, but just the wish to do good where he could. Then, in three more years, they awarded him the great Nobel prize for signal service to humanity, and criticism was silenced. All the world applauded. "They gave it to me this year," said Finsen, with his sad little smile, "because they knew that next year it would have been too late." And he prophesied truly. He died nine months later. All that is here set down seems simple enough. But it was achieved with infinite toil and patience, by the most painstaking experiments, many times repeated to make sure. In his method of working Finsen was eminently conservative and thorough. Nothing "happened" with him. There was ever behind his doings a definite purpose for which he sought a way, and the higher the obstacles piled up the more resolutely he set his teeth and kept right on. "The thing is not in itself so difficult," he said, when making ready for his war upon the wolf, "but the road is long and the experiments many before we find the right way." He took no new step before he had planted his foot firmly in the one that went before; but once he knew where he stood, he did not hesitate to question any scientific dogma that opposed him, always in his own quiet way, backed by irrefutable facts. In a remarkable degree he had the faculty of getting down through the husk to the core of things, but he rejected nothing untried. The little thing in hand, he ever insisted, if faithfully done might hold the key to the whole problem; only let it be done _now_ to get the matter settled. Whatever his mind touched it made perfectly clear, if it was not so already. As a teacher of anatomy he invented a dissecting knife that was an improvement on those in use, and clamps for securing the edges of a wound in an operation. As a rifle shot he made an improved breech; as a physician, observing the progress of his own disease, an effective blood powder for anæmia. At the Light Institute, which friends built for him, and the government endowed, he devised the powerful electric lamps to which he turned in the treatment of lupus, for the sun does not shine every day in Copenhagen; and when it did not, the lenses that gathered the blue rays and concentrated them upon the swollen faces were idle. And gradually he increased their power, checking the heat rays that would slip through and threatened to scorch the patient's skin, by cunning devices of cooling streams trickling through the tubes and the hollow lenses. Nothing was patented; it was all given freely to the world. The decision which he and his wife made together was made once for all. When the great Nobel prize was given to him he turned it over to the Light Institute, and was with difficulty persuaded to keep half of it for himself only when friends raised an equal amount and presented it to the Institute. Finsen knew that his discoveries were but the first groping steps upon a new road that stretched farther ahead than any man now living can see. He was content to have broken the way. His faith was unshaken in the ultimate treatment of the whole organism under electric light that, by concentrating the chemical rays, would impart to the body their life-giving power. He himself was beyond their help. Daily he felt life slipping from him, but no word of complaint passed his lips. He prescribed for himself a treatment that, if anything, was worse than the disease. Only a man of iron will could have carried it through. A set of scales stood on the table before him, and for years he weighed every mouthful of food he ate. He suffered tortures from thirst because he would allow no fluid to pass his lips, on account of his tendency to dropsy. Through it all he cheerfully kept up his labors, rejoicing that he was allowed to do so much. His courage was indomitable; his optimism under it all unwavering. His favorite contention was that there is nothing in the world that is not good for something, except war. That he hated, and his satire on the militarism of Europe as its supreme folly was sharp and biting. Of such quality was this extraordinary man of whom half the world was talking while the fewest, even in his own home city, ever saw him. Fewer still knew him well. It suited his temper and native modesty, as it did the state of his bodily health, to keep himself secluded. His motto was: "_bene vixit qui bene latuit_--he has lived well who has kept himself well hidden"--and his contention was always that in proportion as one could keep himself in the background his cause prospered, if it was a good cause. When kings and queens came visiting, he could not always keep in hiding, though he often tried. On one of his days of extreme prostration the dowager empress of Russia knocked vainly at his door. She pleaded so hard to be allowed to see Dr. Finsen that they relented at last, and she sat by his bed and wept in sympathy with his sufferings, while he with his brave smile on lips that would twitch with pain did his best to comfort her. She and Queen Alexandra, both daughters of King Christian, carried the gospel of hope and healing from his study to their own lands, and Light Institutes sprang up all over Europe. In his own life he treated nearly nineteen hundred sufferers, two-thirds of them lupus patients, and scarce a handful went from his door unhelped. When his work was done he fell asleep with a smile upon his lips, and the "universal judgment was one of universal thanksgiving that he had lived." He was forty-three years old. When the news of his death reached the Rigsdag, the Danish parliament, it voted his widow a pension such as had been given to few Danes in any day. The king, his sons and daughters, and, as it seemed, the whole people followed his body to the grave. The rock from his native island marks the place where he lies. His work is his imperishable monument. His epitaph he wrote himself in the speech another read when the Nobel prize was awarded him, for he was then too ill to speak. "May the Light Institute grasp the obligation that comes with its success, the obligation to maintain what I account the highest aim in science--truth, faithful work, and sound criticism." 
1150	----	THE DANISH HISTORY, BOOKS I-IX by Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned") fl. Late 12th - Early 13th Century A.D. PREPARER'S NOTE: Originally written in Latin in the early years of the 13th Century A.D. by the Danish historian Saxo, of whom little is known except his name. The text of this edition is based on that published as "The Nine Books of the Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus", translated by Oliver Elton (Norroena Society, New York, 1905). This edition is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN in the United States. This electronic edition was edited, proofed, and prepared by Douglas B. Killings. The preparer would like to thank Mr. James W. Marchand and Mr. Jessie D. Hurlbut for their invaluable assistance in the production of this electronic text. Thank you. I am indebted to you both. Although Saxo wrote 16 books of his "Danish History", only the first nine were ever translated by Mr. Oliver Elton; it is these nine books that are here included. As far as the preparer knows, there is (unfortunately) no public domain English translation of Books X-XVI. Those interested in the latter books should search for the translation mentioned below. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY: ORIGINAL TEXT-- Olrik, J and Raeder (Ed.): "Saxo Grammaticus: Gesta Danorum" (Copenhagen, 1931). Dansk Nationallitteraert Arkiv: "Saxo Grammaticus: Gesta Danorum" (DNA, Copenhagen, 1996). Web-based Latin edition of Saxo, substantiallly based on the above edition; currently at the OTHER TRANSLATIONS-- Fisher, Peter (Trans.) and Hilda Ellis Davidson (Ed.): "Saxo Grammaticus: History of the Danes" (Brewer, Cambridge, 1979). RECOMMENDED READING-- Jones, Gwyn: "History of the Vikings" (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1968, 1973, 1984). Sturlson, Snorri: "The Heimskringla" (Translation: Samual Laing, London, 1844; released as Online Medieval and Classical Library E-text #15, 1996). Web version at the following URL: http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/OMACL/Heimskringla/ INTRODUCTION. SAXO'S POSITION. Saxo Grammaticus, or "The Lettered", one of the notable historians of the Middle Ages, may fairly be called not only the earliest chronicler of Denmark, but her earliest writer. In the latter half of the twelfth century, when Iceland was in the flush of literary production, Denmark lingered behind. No literature in her vernacular, save a few Runic inscriptions, has survived. Monkish annals, devotional works, and lives were written in Latin; but the chronicle of Roskild, the necrology of Lund, the register of gifts to the cloister of Sora, are not literature. Neither are the half-mythological genealogies of kings; and besides, the mass of these, though doubtless based on older verses that are lost, are not proved to be, as they stand, prior to Saxo. One man only, Saxo's elder contemporary, Sueno Aggonis, or Sweyn (Svend) Aageson, who wrote about 1185, shares or anticipates the credit of attempting a connected record. His brief draft of annals is written in rough mediocre Latin. It names but a few of the kings recorded by Saxo, and tells little that Saxo does not. Yet there is a certain link between the two writers. Sweyn speaks of Saxo with respect; he not obscurely leaves him the task of filling up his omissions. Both writers, servants of the brilliant Bishop Absalon, and probably set by him upon their task, proceed, like Geoffrey of Monmouth, by gathering and editing mythical matter. This they more or less embroider, and arrive in due course insensibly at actual history. Both, again, thread their stories upon a genealogy of kings in part legendary. Both write at the spur of patriotism, both to let Denmark linger in the race for light and learning, and desirous to save her glories, as other nations have saved theirs, by a record. But while Sweyn only made a skeleton chronicle, Saxo leaves a memorial in which historian and philologist find their account. His seven later books are the chief Danish authority for the times which they relate; his first nine, here translated, are a treasure of myth and folk-lore. Of the songs and stories which Denmark possessed from the common Scandinavian stock, often her only native record is in Saxo's Latin. Thus, as a chronicler both of truth and fiction, he had in his own land no predecessor, nor had he any literary tradition behind him. Single-handed, therefore, he may be said to have lifted the dead-weight against him, and given Denmark a writer. The nature of his work will be discussed presently. LIFE OF SAXO. Of Saxo little is known but what he himself indicates, though much doubtful supposition has gathered round his name. That he was born a Dane his whole language implies; it is full of a glow of aggressive patriotism. He also often praises the Zealanders at the expense of other Danes, and Zealand as the centre of Denmark; but that is the whole contemporary evidence for the statement that he was a Zealander. This statement is freely taken for granted three centuries afterwards by Urne in the first edition of the book (1514), but is not traced further back than an epitomator, who wrote more than 200 years after Saxo's death. Saxo tells us that his father and grandfather fought for Waldemar the First of Denmark, who reigned from 1157 to 1182. Of these men we know nothing further, unless the Saxo whom he names as one of Waldemar's admirals be his grandfather, in which case his family was one of some distinction and his father and grandfather probably "King's men". But Saxo was a very common name, and we shall see the licence of hypothesis to which this fact has given rise. The notice, however, helps us approximately towards Saxo's birth-year. His grandfather, if he fought for Waldemar, who began to reign in 1157, can hardly have been born before 1100, nor can Saxo himself have been born before 1145 or 1150. But he was undoubtedly born before 1158, since he speaks of the death of Bishop Asker, which took place in that year, as occurring "in our time". His life therefore covers and overlaps the last half of the twelfth century. His calling and station in life are debated. Except by the anonymous Zealand chronicler, who calls him Saxo "the Long", thus giving us the one personal detail we have, he has been universally known as Saxo "Grammaticus" ever since the epitomator of 1431 headed his compilation with the words, "A certain notable man of letters ("grammaticus"), a Zealander by birth, named Saxo, wrote," etc. It is almost certain that this general term, given only to men of signal gifts and learning, became thus for the first time, and for good, attached to Saxo's name. Such a title, in the Middle Ages, usually implied that its owner was a churchman, and Saxo's whole tone is devout, though not conspicuously professional. But a number of Saxos present themselves in the same surroundings with whom he has been from time to time identified. All he tells us himself is, that Absalon, Archbishop of Lund from 1179 to 1201, pressed him, who was "the least of his companions, since all the rest refused the task", to write the history of Denmark, so that it might record its glories like other nations. Absalon was previously, and also after his promotion, Bishop of Roskild, and this is the first circumstance giving colour to the theory--which lacks real evidence--that Saxo the historian was the same as a certain Saxo, Provost of the Chapter of Roskild, whose death is chronicled in a contemporary hand without any mark of distinction. It is unlikely that so eminent a man would be thus barely named; and the appended eulogy and verses identifying the Provost and the historian are of later date. Moreover, the Provost Saxo went on a mission to Paris in 1165, and was thus much too old for the theory. Nevertheless, the good Bishop of Roskild, Lave Urne, took this identity for granted in the first edition, and fostered the assumption. Saxo was a cleric; and could such a man be of less than canonical rank? He was (it was assumed) a Zealander; he was known to be a friend of Absalon, Bishop of Roskild. What more natural than that he should have been the Provost Saxo? Accordingly this latter worthy had an inscription in gold letters, written by Lave Urne himself, affixed to the wall opposite his tomb. Even less evidence exists for identifying our Saxo with the scribe of that name--a comparative menial--who is named in the will of Bishop Absalon; and hardly more warranted is the theory that he was a member, perhaps a subdeacon, of the monastery of St. Laurence, whose secular canons formed part of the Chapter of Lund. It is true that Sweyn Aageson, Saxo's senior by about twenty years, speaks (writing about 1185) of Saxo as his "contubernalis". Sweyn Aageson is known to have had strong family connections with the monastery of St. Laurence; but there is only a tolerably strong probability that he, and therefore that Saxo, was actually a member of it. ("Contubernalis" may only imply comradeship in military service.) Equally doubtful is the consequence that since Saxo calls himself "one of the least" of Absalon's "followers" ("comitum"), he was probably, if not the inferior officer, who is called an "acolitus", at most a sub-deacon, who also did the work of a superior "acolitus". This is too poor a place for the chief writer of Denmark, high in Absalon's favor, nor is there any direct testimony that Saxo held it. His education is unknown, but must have been careful. Of his training and culture we only know what his book betrays. Possibly, like other learned Danes, then and afterwards, he acquired his training and knowledge at some foreign University. Perhaps, like his contemporary Anders Suneson, he went to Paris; but we cannot tell. It is not even certain that he had a degree; for there is really little to identify him with the "M(agister) Saxo" who witnessed the deed of Absalon founding the monastery at Sora. THE HISTORY. How he was induced to write his book has been mentioned. The expressions of modesty Saxo uses, saying that he was "the least" of Absalon's "followers", and that "all the rest refused the task", are not to be taken to the letter. A man of his parts would hardly be either the least in rank, or the last to be solicited. The words, however, enable us to guess an upward limit for the date of the inception of the work. Absalon became Archbishop in 1179, and the language of the Preface (written, as we shall see, last) implies that he was already Archbishop when he suggested the History to Saxo. But about 1185 we find Sweyn Aageson complimenting Saxo, and saying that Saxo "had `determined' to set forth all the deeds" of Sweyn Estridson, in his eleventh book, "at greater length in a more elegant style". The exact bearing of this notice on the date of Saxo's History is doubtful. It certainly need not imply that Saxo had already written ten books, or indeed that he had written any, of his History. All we call say is, that by 1185 a portion of the history was planned. The order in which its several parts were composed, and the date of its completion, are not certainly known, as Absalon died in 1201. But the work was not then finished; for, at the end of Bk. XI, one Birger, who died in 1202, is mentioned as still alive. We have, however, a yet later notice. In the Preface, which, as its whole language implies, was written last, Saxo speaks of Waldemar II having "encompassed (`complexus') the ebbing and flowing waves of Elbe." This language, though a little vague, can hardly refer to anything but an expedition of Waldemar to Bremen in 1208. The whole History was in that case probably finished by about 1208. As to the order in which its parts were composed, it is likely that Absalon's original instruction was to write a history of Absalon's own doings. The fourteenth and succeeding books deal with these at disproportionate length, and Absalon, at the expense even of Waldemar, is the protagonist. Now Saxo states in his Preface that he "has taken care to follow the statements ("asserta") of Absalon, and with obedient mind and pen to include both his own doings and other men's doings of which he learnt." The latter books are, therefore, to a great extent, Absalon's personally communicated memoirs. But we have seen that Absalon died in 1201, and that Bk. xi, at any rate, was not written after 1202. It almost certainly follows that the latter books were written in Absalon's life; but the Preface, written after them, refers to events in 1208. Therefore, unless we suppose that the issue was for some reason delayed, or that Saxo spent seven years in polishing--which is not impossible--there is some reason to surmise that he began with that portion of his work which was nearest to his own time, and added the previous (especially the first nine, or mythical) books, as a completion, and possibly as an afterthought. But this is a point which there is no real means of settling. We do not know how late the Preface was written, except that it must have been some time between 1208 and 1223, when Anders Suneson ceased to be Archbishop; nor do we know when Saxo died. HISTORY OF THE WORK. Nothing is stranger than that a work of such force and genius, unique in Danish letters, should have been forgotten for three hundred years, and have survived only in an epitome and in exceedingly few manuscripts. The history of the book is worth recording. Doubtless its very merits, its "marvellous vocabulary, thickly-studded maxims, and excellent variety of images," which Erasmus admired long afterwards, sealed it to the vulgar. A man needed some Latin to appreciate it, and Erasmus' natural wonder "how a Dane at that day could have such a force of eloquence" is a measure of the rarity both of the gift and of a public that could appraise it. The epitome (made about 1430) shows that Saxo was felt to be difficult, its author saying: "Since Saxo's work is in many places diffuse, and many things are said more for ornament than for historical truth, and moreover his style is too obscure on account of the number of terms ("plurima vocabula") and sundry poems, which are unfamiliar to modern times, this opuscle puts in clear words the more notable of the deeds there related, with the addition of some that happened after Saxo's death." A Low-German version of this epitome, which appeared in 1485, had a considerable vogue, and the two together "helped to drive the history out of our libraries, and explains why the annalists and geographers of the Middle Ages so seldom quoted it." This neglect appears to have been greatest of all in Denmark, and to have lasted until the appearance of the "First Edition" in 1511. The first impulse towards this work by which Saxo was saved, is found in a letter from the Bishop of Roskild, Lave Urne, dated May 1512, to Christian Pederson, Canon of Lund, whom he compliments as a lover of letters, antiquary, and patriot, and urges to edit and publish "tam divinum latinae eruditionis culmen et splendorem Saxonem nostrum". Nearly two years afterwards Christian Pederson sent Lave Urne a copy of the first edition, now all printed, with an account of its history. "I do not think that any mortal was more inclined and ready for" the task. "When living at Paris, and paying heed to good literature, I twice sent a messenger at my own charges to buy a faithful copy at any cost, and bring it back to me. Effecting nothing thus, I went back to my country for this purpose; I visited and turned over all the libraries, but still could not pull out a Saxo, even covered with beetles, bookworms, mould, and dust. So stubbornly had all the owners locked it away." A worthy prior, in compassion offered to get a copy and transcribe it with his own hand, but Christian, in respect for the prior's rank, absurdly declined. At last Birger, the Archbishop of Lund, by some strategy, got a copy, which King Christian the Second allowed to be taken to Paris on condition of its being wrought at "by an instructed and skilled graver (printer)." Such a person was found in Jodocus Badius Ascenshls, who adds a third letter written by himself to Bishop Urne, vindicating his application to Saxo of the title Grammaticus, which he well defines as "one who knows how to speak or write with diligence, acuteness, or knowledge." The beautiful book he produced was worthy of the zeal, and unsparing, unweariable pains, which had been spent on it by the band of enthusiasts, and it was truly a little triumph of humanism. Further editions were reprinted during the sixteenth century at Basic and at Frankfort-on-Main, but they did not improve in any way upon the first; and the next epoch in the study of Saxo was made by the edition and notes of Stephanus Johansen Stephanius, published at Copenhagen in the middle of the seventeenth century (1644). Stephanius, the first commentator on Saxo, still remains the best upon his language. Immense knowledge of Latin, both good and bad (especially of the authors Saxo imitated), infinite and prolix industry, a sharp eye for the text, and continence in emendation, are not his only virtues. His very bulkiness and leisureliness are charming; he writes like a man who had eternity to write in, and who knew enough to fill it, and who expected readers of an equal leisure. He also prints some valuable notes signed with the famous name of Bishop Bryniolf of Skalholt, a man of force and talent, and others by Casper Barth, "corculum Musarum", as Stephanius calls him, whose textual and other comments are sometimes of use, and who worked with a MS. of Saxo. The edition of Klotz, 1771, based on that of Stephanius, I have but seen; however, the first standard commentary is that begun by P. E. Muller, Bishop of Zealand, and finished after his death by Johan Velschow, Professor of History at Copenhagen, where the first part of the work, containing text and notes, was published in 1839; the second, with prolegomena and fuller notes, appearing in 1858. The standard edition, containing bibliography, critical apparatus based on all the editions and MS. fragments, text, and index, is the admirable one of that indefatigable veteran, Alfred Holder, Strasburg, 1886. Hitherto the translations of Saxo have been into Danish. The first that survives, by Anders Soffrinson Vedel, dates from 1575, some sixty years after the first edition. In such passages as I have examined it is vigorous, but very free, and more like a paraphrase than a translation, Saxo's verses being put into loose prose. Yet it has had a long life, having been modified by Vedel's grandson, John Laverentzen, in 1715, and reissued in 1851. The present version has been much helped by the translation of Seier Schousbolle, published at Copenhagen in 1752. It is true that the verses, often the hardest part, are put into periphrastic verse (by Laurentius Thura, c. 1721), and Schousbolle often does not face a difficulty; but he gives the sense of Saxo simply and concisely. The lusty paraphrase by the enthusiastic Nik. Fred. Sev. Grundtvig, of which there have been several editions, has also been of occasional use. No other translations, save of a scrap here and there into German, seem to be extant. THE MSS. It will be understood, from what has been said, that no complete MS. of Saxo's History is known. The epitomator in the fourteenth century, and Krantz in the seventeenth, had MSS. before them; and there was that one which Christian Pedersen found and made the basis of the first edition, but which has disappeared. Barth had two manuscripts, which are said to have been burnt in 1636. Another, possessed by a Swedish parish priest, Aschaneus, in 1630, which Stephenhis unluckily did not know of, disappeared in the Royal Archives of Stockholm after his death. These are practically the only MSS. of which we have sure information, excepting the four fragments that are now preserved. Of these by far the most interesting is the "Angers Fragment." This was first noticed in 1863, in the Angers Library, where it was found degraded into the binding of a number of devotional works and a treatise on metric, dated 1459, and once the property of a priest at Alencon. In 1877 M. Gaston Paris called the attention of the learned to it, and the result was that the Danish Government received it next year in exchange for a valuable French manuscript which was in the Royal Library at Copenhagen. This little national treasure, the only piece of contemporary writing of the History, has been carefully photographed and edited by that enthusiastic and urbane scholar, Christian Bruun. In the opinion both of Dr. Vigfusson and M. Paris, the writing dates from about 1200; and this date, though difficult to determine, owing to the paucity of Danish MSS. of the 12th and early lath centuries, is confirmed by the character of the contents. For there is little doubt that the Fragment shows us Saxo in the labour of composition. The MSS. looks as if expressly written for interlineation. Besides a marginal gloss by a later, fourteenth century hand, there are two distinct sets of variants, in different writings, interlined and running over into the margin. These variants are much more numerous in the prose than in the verse. The first set are in the same hand as the text, the second in another hand: but both of them have the character, not of variants from some other MSS., but of alternative expressions put down tentatively. If either hand is Saxo's it is probably the second. He may conceivably have dictated both at different times to different scribes. No other man would tinker the style in this fashion. A complete translation of all these changes has been deemed unnecessary in these volumes; there is a full collation in Holder's "Apparatus Criticus". The verdict of the Angers-Fragment, which, for the very reason mentioned, must not be taken as the final form of the text, nor therefore, despite its antiquity, as conclusive against the First Edition where the two differ, is to confirm, so far as it goes, the editing of Ascensius and Pederson. There are no vital differences, and the care of the first editors, as well as the authority of their source, is thus far amply vindicated. A sufficient account of the other fragments will be found in Holder's list. In 1855 M. Kall-Rasmussen found in the private archives at Kronborg a scrap of fourteenth century MS., containing a short passage from Bk. vii. Five years later G. F. Lassen found, at Copenhagen, a fragment of Bk. vi believed to be written in North Zealand, and in the opinion of Bruun belonging to the same codex as Kall-Rasmussen's fragment. Of another longish piece, found in Copenhagen at the end of the seventeenth century by Johannes Laverentzen, and belonging to a codex burnt in the fire of 1728, a copy still extant in the Copenhagen Museum, was made by Otto Sperling. For fragments, either extant or alluded to, of the later books, the student should consult the carefully collated text of Holder. The whole MS. material, therefore, covers but a little of Saxo's work, which was practically saved for Europe by the perseverance and fervour for culture of a single man, Bishop Urne. SAXO AS A WRITER. Saxo's countrymen have praised without stint his remarkable style, for he has a style. It is often very bad; but he writes, he is not in vain called Grammaticus, the man of letters. His style is not merely remarkable considering its author's difficulties; it is capable at need of pungency and of high expressiveness. His Latin is not that of the Golden Age, but neither is it the common Latin of the Middle Ages. There are traces of his having read Virgil and Cicero. But two writers in particular left their mark on him. The first and most influential is Valerius Maximus, the mannered author of the "Memorabilia", who lived in the first half of the first century, and was much relished in the Middle Ages. From him Saxo borrowed a multitude of phrases, sometimes apt but often crabbed and deformed, as well as an exemplary and homiletic turn of narrative. Other idioms, and perhaps the practice of interspersing verses amid prose (though this also was a twelfth century Icelandic practice), Saxo found in a fifth-century writer, Martianus Capella, the pedantic author of the "De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii" Such models may have saved him from a base mediaeval vocabulary; but they were not worthy of him, and they must answer for some of his falsities of style. These are apparent. His accumulation of empty and motley phrase, like a garish bunch of coloured bladders; his joy in platitude and pomposity, his proneness to say a little thing in great words, are only too easy to translate. We shall be well content if our version also gives some inkling of his qualities; not only of what Erasmus called his "wonderful vocabulary, his many pithy sayings, and the excellent variety of his images"; but also of his feeling for grouping, his barbaric sense of colour, and his stateliness. For he moves with resource and strength both in prose and verse, and is often only hindered by his own wealth. With no kind of critical tradition to chasten him, his force is often misguided and his work shapeless; but he stumbles into many splendours. FOLK LORE INDEX. The mass of archaic incidents, beliefs, and practices recorded by the 12th-century writer seemed to need some other classification than a bare alphabetic index. The present plan, a subject-index practically, has been adopted with a view to the needs of the anthropologist and folk-lorist. Its details have been largely determined by the bulk and character of the entries themselves. No attempt has been made to supply full parallels from any save the more striking and obvious old Scandinavian sources, the end being to classify material rather than to point out its significance of geographic distribution. With regard to the first three heads, the reader who wishes to see how Saxo compares with the Old Northern poems may be referred to the Grimm Centenary papers, Oxford, 1886, and the Corpus Poeticurn Boreale, Oxford, 1883. POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. King--As portrayed by Saxo, the ideal king should be (as in "Beowulf's Lay") generous, brave and just. He should be a man of accomplishments, of unblemished body, presumably of royal kin (peasant-birth is considered a bar to the kingship), usually a son or a nephew, or brother of his foregoer (though no strict rule of succession seems to appear in Saxo), and duly chosen and acknowledged at the proper place of election. In Denmark this was at a stone circle, and the stability of these stones was taken as an omen for the king's reign. There are exceptional instances noted, as the serf-king Eormenric (cf. Guthred-Canute of Northumberland), whose noble birth washed out this blot of his captivity, and there is a curious tradition of a conqueror setting his hound as king over a conquered province in mockery. The king was of age at twelve. A king of seven years of age has twelve Regents chosen in the Moot, in one case by lot, to bring him up and rule for him till his majority. Regents are all appointed in Denmark, in one case for lack of royal blood, one to Scania, one to Zealand, one to Funen, two to Jutland. Underkings and Earls are appointed by kings, and though the Earl's office is distinctly official, succession is sometimes given to the sons of faithful fathers. The absence of a settled succession law leads (as in Muslim States) to rebellions and plots. Kings sometimes abdicated, giving up the crown perforce to a rival, or in high age to a kinsman. In heathen times, kings, as Thiodwulf tells us in the case of Domwald and Yngwere, were sometimes sacrificed for better seasons (African fashion), and Wicar of Norway perishes, like Iphigeneia, to procure fair winds. Kings having to lead in war, and sometimes being willing to fight wagers of battle, are short-lived as a rule, and assassination is a continual peril, whether by fire at a time of feast, of which there are numerous examples, besides the classic one on which Biarea-mal is founded and the not less famous one of Hamlet's vengeance, or whether by steel, as with Hiartuar, or by trick, as in Wicar's case above cited. The reward for slaying a king is in one case 120 gold lbs.; 19 "talents" of gold from each ringleader, 1 oz. of gold from each commoner, in the story of Godfred, known as Ref's gild, "i.e., Fox tax". In the case of a great king, Frode, his death is concealed for three years to avoid disturbance within and danger from without. Captive kings were not as a rule well treated. A Slavonic king, Daxo, offers Ragnar's son Whitesark his daughter and half his realm, or death, and the captive strangely desires death by fire. A captive king is exposed, chained to wild beasts, thrown into a serpent-pit, wherein Ragnar is given the fate of the elder Gunnar in the Eddic Lays, Atlakvida. The king is treated with great respect by his people, he is finely clad, and his commands are carried out, however abhorrent or absurd, as long as they do not upset customary or statute law. The king has slaves in his household, men and women, besides his guard of housecarles and his bearsark champions. A king's daughter has thirty slaves with her, and the footmaiden existed exactly as in the stories of the Wicked Waiting Maid. He is not to be awakened in his slumbers (cf. St. Olaf's Life, where the naming of King Magnus is the result of adherence to this etiquette). A champion weds the king's leman. His thanes are created by the delivery of a sword, which the king bolds by the blade and the thane takes by the hilt. (English earls were created by the girding with a sword. "Taking treasure, and weapons and horses, and feasting in a hall with the king" is synonymous with thane-hood or gesith-ship in "Beowulf's Lay"). A king's thanes must avenge him if he falls, and owe him allegiance. (This was paid in the old English monarchies by kneeling and laying the head down at the lord's knee.) The trick by which the Mock-king, or King of the Beggars (parallel to our Boy-bishop, and perhaps to that enigmatic churls' King of the "O. E. Chronicle", s.a. 1017, Eadwiceorla-kyning) gets allegiance paid to him, and so secures himself in his attack on the real king, is cleverly devised. The king, besides being a counsel giver himself, and speaking the law, has "counsellors", old and wise men, "sapientes" (like the 0. E. Thyle). The aged warrior counsellor, as Starcad here and Master Hildebrand in the "Nibelungenlied", is one type of these persons, another is the false counsellor, as Woden in guise of Bruni, another the braggart, as Hunferth in "Beowulf's Lay". At "moots" where laws are made, kings and regents chosen, cases judged, resolutions taken of national importance, there are discussions, as in that armed most the host. The king has, beside his estates up and down the country, sometimes (like Hrothgar with his palace Heorot in "Beowulf's Lay") a great fort and treasure house, as Eormenric, whose palace may well have really existed. There is often a primitive and negroid character about dwellings of formidable personages, heads placed on stakes adorn their exterior, or shields are ranged round the walls. The provinces are ruled by removable earls appointed by the king, often his own kinsmen, sometimes the heads of old ruling families. The "hundreds" make up the province or subkingdom. They may be granted to king's thanes, who became "hundred-elders". Twelve hundreds are in one case bestowed upon a man. The "yeoman's" estate is not only honourable but useful, as Starcad generously and truly acknowledges. Agriculture should be fostered and protected by the king, even at the cost of his life. But gentle birth and birth royal place certain families above the common body of freemen (landed or not); and for a commoner to pretend to a king's daughter is an act of presumption, and generally rigorously resented. The "smith" was the object of a curious prejudice, probably akin to that expressed in St. Patrick's "Lorica", and derived from the smith's having inherited the functions of the savage weapon-maker with his poisons and charms. The curious attempt to distinguish smiths into good and useful swordsmiths and base and bad goldsmiths seems a merely modern explanation: Weland could both forge swords and make ornaments of metal. Starcad's loathing for a smith recalls the mockery with which the Homeric gods treat Hephaistos. Slavery.--As noble birth is manifest by fine eyes and personal beauty, courage and endurance, and delicate behaviour, so the slave nature is manifested by cowardice, treachery, unbridled lust, bad manners, falsehood, and low physical traits. Slaves had, of course, no right either of honour, or life, or limb. Captive ladies are sent to a brothel; captive kings cruelly put to death. Born slaves were naturally still less considered, they were flogged; it was disgraceful to kill them with honourable steel; to accept a slight service from a slave-woman was beneath old Starcad's dignity. A man who loved another man's slave-woman, and did base service to her master to obtain her as his consort, was looked down on. Slaves frequently ran away to escape punishment for carelessness, or fault, or to gain liberty. CUSTOMARY LAW. The evidence of Saxo to archaic law and customary institutions is pretty much (as we should expect) that to be drawn from the Icelandic Sagas, and even from the later Icelandic rimur and Scandinavian kaempe-viser. But it helps to complete the picture of the older stage of North Teutonic Law, which we are able to piece together out of our various sources, English, Icelandic, and Scandinavian. In the twilight of Yore every glowworm is a helper to the searcher. There are a few MAXIMS of various times, but all seemingly drawn from custom cited or implied by Saxo as authoritative:-- "It is disgraceful to be ruled by a woman."--The great men of Teutonic nations held to this maxim. There is no Boudicea or Maidhbh in our own annals till after the accession of the Tudors, when Great Eliza rivals her elder kins-women's glories. Though Tacitus expressly notices one tribe or confederacy, the Sitones, within the compass of his Germania, ruled by a woman, as an exceptional case, it was contrary to the feeling of mediaeval Christendom for a woman to be emperor; it was not till late in the Middle Ages that Spain saw a queen regnant, and France has never yet allowed such rule. It was not till long after Saxo that the great queen of the North, Margaret, wielded a wider sway than that rejected by Gustavus' wayward daughter. "The suitor ought to urge his own suit."--This, an axiom of the most archaic law, gets evaded bit by bit till the professional advocate takes the place of the plaintiff. "Njal's Saga", in its legal scenes, shows the transition period, when, as at Rome, a great and skilled chief was sought by his client as the supporter of his cause at the Moot. In England, the idea of representation at law is, as is well known, late and largely derived from canon law practice. "To exact the blood-fine was as honourable as to take vengeance."--This maxim, begotten by Interest upon Legality, established itself both in Scandinavia and Arabia. It marks the first stage in a progress which, if carried out wholly, substitutes law for feud. In the society of the heathen Danes the maxim was a novelty; even in Christian Denmark men sometimes preferred blood to fees. MARRIAGE.--There are many reminiscences of "archaic marriage customs in Saxo." The capture marriage has left traces in the guarded king's daughters, the challenging of kings to fight or hand over their daughters, in the promises to give a daughter or sister as a reward to a hero who shall accomplish some feat. The existence of polygamy is attested, and it went on till the days of Charles the Great and Harold Fairhair in singular instances, in the case of great kings, and finally disappeared before the strict ecclesiastic regulations. But there are evidences also of later customs, such as "marriage by purchase", already looked on as archaic in Saxo's day; and the free women in Denmark had clearly long had a veto or refusal of a husband for some time back, and sometimes even free choice. "Go-betweens" negotiate marriages. Betrothal was of course the usage. For the groom to defile an espoused woman is a foul reproach. Gifts made to father-in-law after bridal by bridegroom seem to denote the old bride-price. Taking the bride home in her car was an important ceremony, and a bride is taken to her future husband's by her father. The wedding-feast, as in France in Rabelais' time, was a noisy and drunken and tumultuous rejoicing, when bone-throwing was in favor, with other rough sports and jokes. The three days after the bridal and their observance in "sword-bed" are noticed below. A commoner or one of slave-blood could not pretend to wed a high-born lady. A woman would sometimes require some proof of power or courage at her suitor's hands; thus Gywritha, like the famous lady who weds Harold Fairhair, required her husband Siwar to be over-king of the whole land. But in most instances the father or brother betrothed the girl, and she consented to their choice. Unwelcome suitors perish. The prohibited degrees were, of course, different from those established by the mediaeval church, and brother weds brother's widow in good archaic fashion. Foster-sister and foster-brother may marry, as Saxo notices carefully. The Wolsung incest is not noticed by Saxo. He only knew, apparently, the North-German form of the Niflung story. But the reproachfulness of incest is apparent. Birth and beauty were looked for in a bride by Saxo's heroes, and chastity was required. The modesty of maidens in old days is eulogised by Saxo, and the penalty for its infraction was severe: sale abroad into slavery to grind the quern in the mud of the yard. One of the tests of virtue is noticed, "lac in ubere". That favourite "motif", the "Patient Grizzle", occurs, rather, however, in the Border ballad than the Petrarcan form. "Good wives" die with their husbands as they have vowed, or of grief for their loss, and are wholly devoted to their interests. Among "bad wives" are those that wed their husband's slayer, run away from their husbands, plot against their husbands' lives. The penalty for adultery is death to both, at husband's option--disfigurement by cutting off the nose of the guilty woman, an archaic practice widely spread. In one case the adulterous lady is left the choice of her own death. Married women's Homeric duties are shown. There is a curious story, which may rest upon fact, and not be merely typical, where a mother who had suffered wrong forced her daughter to suffer the same wrong. Captive women are reduced to degrading slavery as "harlots" in one case, according to the eleventh century English practice of Gytha. THE FAMILY AND BLOOD REVENGE.--This duty, one of the strongest links of the family in archaic Teutonic society, has left deep traces in Saxo. To slay those most close in blood, even by accident, is to incur the guilt of parricide, or kin-killing, a bootless crime, which can only be purged by religious ceremonies; and which involves exile, lest the gods' wrath fall on the land, and brings the curse of childlessness on the offender until he is forgiven. BOOTLESS CRIMES.--As among the ancient Teutons, botes and were-gilds satisfy the injured who seek redress at law rather than by the steel. But there are certain bootless crimes, or rather sins, that imply "sacratio", devotion to the gods, for the clearing of the community. Such are treason, which is punishable by hanging; by drowning in sea. Rebellion is still more harshly treated by death and forfeiture; the rebels' heels are bored and thonged under the sinew, as Hector's feet were, and they are then fastened by the thongs to wild bulls, hunted by hounds, till they are dashed to pieces (for which there are classic parallels), or their feet are fastened with thongs to horses driven apart, so that they are torn asunder. For "parricide", i.e., killing within near degrees, the criminal is hung up, apparently by the heels, with a live wolf (he having acted as a wolf which will slay its fellows). Cunning avoidance of the guilt by trick is shown. For "arson" the appropriate punishment is the fire. For "incestuous adultery" of stepson with his stepmother, hanging is awarded to the man. In the same case Swanwhite, the woman, is punished, by treading to death with horses. A woman accomplice in adultery is treated to what Homer calls a "stone coat." Incestuous adultery is a foul slur. For "witchcraft", the horror of heathens, hanging was the penalty. "Private revenge" sometimes deliberately inflicts a cruel death for atrocious wrong or insult, as when a king, enraged at the slaying of his son and seduction of his daughter, has the offender hanged, an instance famous in Nathan's story, so that Hagbard's hanging and hempen necklace were proverbial. For the slayer by a cruel death of their captive father, Ragnar's sons act the blood-eagle on Ella, and salt his flesh. There is an undoubted instance of this act of vengeance (the symbolic meaning of which is not clear as yet) in the "Orkney Saga". But the story of Daxo and of Ref's gild show that for such wrongs were-gilds were sometimes exacted, and that they were considered highly honourable to the exactor. Among OFFENCES NOT BOOTLESS, and left to individual pursuit, are:-- "Highway robbery".--There are several stories of a type such as that of Ingemund and Ioknl (see "Landnamaboc") told by Saxo of highwaymen; and an incident of the kind that occurs in the Theseus story (the Bent-tree, which sprung back and slew the wretch bound to it) is given. The romantic trick of the mechanic bed, by which a steel-shod beam is let fall on the sleeping traveller, also occurs. Slain highwaymen are gibbeted as in Christian days. "Assassination", as distinct from manslaughter in vengeance for a wrong, is not very common. A hidden mail-coat foils a treacherous javelin-cast (cf. the Story of Olaf the Stout and the Blind King, Hrorec); murderers lurk spear-armed at the threshold, sides, as in the Icelandic Sagas; a queen hides a spear-head in her gown, and murders her husband (cf. Olaf Tryggvason's Life). Godfred was murdered by his servant (and Ynglingatal). "Burglary".--The crafty discovery of the robber of the treasury by Hadding is a variant of the world-old Rhampsinitos tale, but less elaborate, possibly abridged and cut down by Saxo, and reduced to a mere moral example in favour of the goldenness of silence and the danger of letting the tongue feed the gallows. Among other disgraceful acts, that make the offender infamous, but do not necessarily involve public action:-- "Manslaughter in Breach of Hospitality".--Probably any gross breach of hospitality was disreputable and highly abhorred, but "guest-slaughter" is especially mentioned. The ethical question as to whether a man should slay his guest or forego his just vengeance was often a "probleme du jour" in the archaic times to which these traditions witness. Ingeld prefers his vengeance, but Thuriswend, in the Lay cited by Paul the Deacon, chooses to protect his guest. Heremod slew his messmates in his wrath, and went forth alone into exile. ("Beowulf's Lay".) "Suicide".--This was more honourable than what Earl Siward of Northumberland called a "cow-death." Hadding resolves to commit suicide at his friend's death. Wermund resolves to commit suicide if his son be slain (in hopelessness of being able to avenge him, cf. "Njal's Saga", where the hero, a Christian, prefers to perish in his burning house than live dishonoured, "for I am an old man and little fitted to avenge my sons, but I will not live in shame"). Persons commit suicide by slaying each other in time of famine; while in England (so Baeda tells) they "decliffed" themselves in companies, and, as in the comic little Icelandic tale Gautrec's birth, a Tarpeian death is noted as the customary method of relieving folks from the hateful starvation death. It is probable that the violent death relieved the ghost or the survivors of some inconveniences which a "straw death" would have brought about. "Procedure by Wager of Battle".--This archaic process pervades Saxo's whole narrative. It is the main incident of many of the sagas from which he drew. It is one of the chief characteristics of early Teutonic custom-law, and along with "Cormac's Saga", "Landnamaboc", and the Walter Saga, our author has furnished us with most of the information we have upon its principles and practice. Steps in the process are the Challenge, the Acceptance and Settlement of Conditions, the Engagement, the Treatment of the vanquished, the Reward of the conqueror, and there are rules touching each of these, enough almost to furnish a kind of "Galway code". A challenge could not, either to war or wager of battle, be refused with honor, though a superior was not bound to fight an inferior in rank. An ally might accept for his principal, or a father for a son, but it was not honourable for a man unless helpless to send a champion instead of himself. Men were bound to fight one to one, and one man might decline to fight two at once. Great champions sometimes fought against odds. The challenged man chose the place of battle, and possibly fixed the time. This was usually an island in the river. The regular weapons were swords and shields for men of gentle blood. They fought by alternate separate strokes; the senior had the first blow. The fight must go on face to face without change of place; for the ground was marked out for the combatants, as in our prize ring, though one can hardly help fancying that the fighting ground so carefully described in "Cormac's Saga", ch. 10, may have been Saxo's authority. The combatants change places accidentally in the struggle in one story. The combat might last, like Cuchullin's with Ferdia, several days; a nine days' fight occurs; but usually a few blows settled the matter. Endurance was important, and we are told of a hero keeping himself in constant training by walking in a mail coat. The conqueror ought not to slay his man if he were a stripling, or maimed, and had better take his were-gild for his life, the holmslausn or ransom of "Cormac's Saga" (three marks in Iceland); but this was a mere concession to natural pity, and he might without loss of honor finish his man, and cut off his head, though it was proper, if the slain adversary has been a man of honor, to bury him afterward. The stakes are sometimes a kingdom or a kingdom's tribute, often a lady, or the combatants fought for "love" or the point of honor. Giants and noted champions challenge kings for their daughters (as in the fictitious parts of the Icelandic family sagas) in true archaic fashion, and in true archaic fashion the prince rescues the lady from a disgusting and evil fate by his prowess. The champion's fee or reward when he was fighting for his principal and came off successful was heavy--many lands and sixty slaves. Bracelets are given him; a wound is compensated for at ten gold pieces; a fee for killing a king is 120 of the same. Of the incidents of the combat, beside fair sleight of fence, there is the continual occurrence of the sword-blunting spell, often cast by the eye of the sinister champion, and foiled by the good hero, sometimes by covering his blade with thin skin, sometimes by changing the blade, sometimes by using a mace or club. The strength of this tradition sufficiently explains the necessity of the great oath against magic taken by both parties in a wager of battle in Christian England. The chief combats mentioned by Saxo are:-- Sciold v. Attila. Sciold v. Scate, for the hand of Alfhild. Gram v. Swarin and eight more, for the crown of the Swedes. Hadding v. Toste, by challenge. Frode v. Hunding, on challenge. Frode v. Hacon, on challenge. Helge v. Hunding, by challenge at Stad. Agnar v. Bearce, by challenge. Wizard v. Danish champions, for truage of the Slavs. Wizard v. Ubbe, for truage of the Slavs. Coll v. Horwendill, on challenge. Athisl v. Frowine, meeting in battle. Athisl v. Ket and Wig, on challenge. Uffe v. Prince of Saxony and Champion, by challenge. Frode v. Froger, on challenge. Eric v. Grep's brethren, on challenge, twelve a side. Eric v. Alrec, by challenge. Hedin v. Hogni, the mythic everlasting battle. Arngrim v. Scalc, by challenge. Arngrim v. Egtheow, for truage of Permland. Arrow-Odd and Hialmar v. twelve sons of Arngrim Samsey fight. Ane Bow-swayer v. Beorn, by challenge. Starkad v. Wisin, by challenge. Starkad v. Tanlie, by challenge. Starkad v. Wasce--Wilzce, by challenge. Starkad v. Hame, by challenge. Starkad v. Angantheow and eight of his brethren, on challenge. Halfdan v. Hardbone and six champions, on challenge. Halfdan v. Egtheow, by challenge. Halfdan v. Grim, on challenge. Halfdan v. Ebbe, on challenge, by moonlight. Halfdan v. Twelve champions, on challenge. Halfdan v. Hildeger, on challenge. Ole v. Skate and Hiale, on challenge. Homod and Thole v. Beorn and Thore, by challenge. Ref. v. Gaut, on challenge. Ragnar and three sons v. Starcad of Sweden and seven sons, on challenge. CIVIL PROCEDURE.--"Oaths" are an important art of early procedure, and noticed by Saxo; one calling the gods to witness and therefor, it is understood, to avenge perjury if he spake not truth. "Testification", or calling witnesses to prove the steps of a legal action, was known, "Glum's Saga" and "Landnamaboc", and when a manslayer proceeded (in order to clear himself of murder) to announce the manslaughter as his act, he brings the dead man's head as his proof, exactly as the hero in the folk-tales brings the dragon's head or tongue as his voucher. A "will" is spoken of. This seems to be the solemn declaration of a childless man to his kinsfolk, recommending some person as his successor. Nothing more was possible before written wills were introduced by the Christian clergy after the Roman fashion. STATUTE LAWS. "Lawgivers".--The realm of Custom had already long been curtailed by the conquests of Law when Saxo wrote, and some epochs of the invasion were well remembered, such as Canute's laws. But the beginnings were dim, and there were simply traditions of good and bad lawyers of the past; such were "Sciold" first of all the arch-king, "Frode" the model lawgiver, "Helge" the tyrant, "Ragnar" the shrewd conqueror. "Sciold", the patriarch, is made by tradition to fulfil, by abolishing evil customs and making good laws, the ideal of the Saxon and Frankish Coronation oath formula (which may well go back with its two first clauses to heathen days). His fame is as widely spread. However, the only law Saxo gives to him has a story to it that he does not plainly tell. Sciold had a freedman who repaid his master's manumission of him by the ingratitude of attempting his life. Sciold thereupon decrees the unlawfulness of manumissions, or (as Saxo puts it), revoked all manumissions, thus ordaining perpetual slavery on all that were or might become slaves. The heathen lack of pity noticed in Alfred's preface to "Gregory's Handbook" is illustrated here by contrast with the philosophic humanity of the Civil Law, and the sympathy of the mediaeval Church. But FRODE (known also to the compiler of "Beowulf's Lay", 2025) had, in the Dane's eyes, almost eclipsed Sciold as conqueror and lawgiver. His name Frode almost looks as if his epithet Sapiens had become his popular appellation, and it befits him well. Of him were told many stories, and notably the one related of our Edwin by Bede (and as it has been told by many men of many rulers since Bede wrote, and before). Frode was able to hang up an arm-ring of gold in three parts of his kingdom that no thief for many years dared touch. How this incident (according to our version preserved by Saxo), brought the just king to his end is an archaic and interesting story. Was this ring the Brosinga men? Saxo has even recorded the Laws of Frode in four separate bits, which we give as A, B, C, D. A. is mainly a civil and military code of archaic kind: (a) The division of spoil shall be--gold to captains, silver to privates, arms to champions, ships to be shared by all. Cf. Jomswickinga S. on the division of spoil by the law of the pirate community of Jom. (b) No house stuff to be locked; if a man used a lock he must pay a gold mark. (c) He who spares a thief must bear his punishment. (d) The coward in battle is to forfeit all rights (cf. "Beowulf", 2885). (e) Women to have free choice (or, at least, veto) in taking husbands. (f) A free woman that weds a slave loses rank and freedom (cf. Roman Law). (g) A man must marry a girl he has seduced. (h) An adulterer to be mutilated at pleasure of injured husband. (i) Where Dane robbed Dane, the thief to pay double and peace-breach. (k) Receivers of stolen goods suffer forfeiture and flogging at most. (l) Deserter bearing shield against his countrymen to lose life and property. (m) Contempt of fyrd-summons or call to military service involves outlawry and exile. (n) Bravery in battle to bring about increase in rank (cf. the old English "Ranks of Men"). (o) No suit to lie on promise and pledge; fine of a gold lb. for asking pledge. (p) Wager of battle is to be the universal mode of proof. (q) If an alien kill a Dane two aliens must suffer. (This is practically the same principle as appears in the half weregild of the Welsh in West Saxon Law.) B. An illustration of the more capricious of the old enactments and the jealousy of antique kings. (a) Loss of gifts sent to the king involves the official responsible; he shall be hanged. (This is introduced as illustration of the cleverness of Eric and the folly of Coll.) C. Saxo associates another set of enactments with the completion of a successful campaign of conquest over the Ruthenians, and shows Frode chiefly as a wise and civilising statesman, making conquest mean progress. (a) Every free householder that fell in war was to be set in his barrow with horse and arms (cf. "Vatzdaela Saga", ch. 2). The body-snatcher was to be punished by death and the lack of sepulture. Earl or king to be burned in his own ship. Ten sailors may be burnt on one ship. (b) Ruthenians to have the same law of war as Danes. (c) Ruthenians must adopt Danish sale-marriage. (This involves the abolition of the Baltic custom of capture-marriage. That capture-marriage was a bar to social progress appears in the legislation of Richard II, directed against the custom as carried out on the borders of the Palatine county of Chester, while cases such as the famous one of Rob Roy's sons speak to its late continuance in Scotland. In Ireland it survived in a stray instance or two into this century, and songs like "William Riley" attest the sympathy of the peasant with the eloping couple.) (d) A veteran, one of the Doughty, must be such a man as will attack one foe, will stand two, face three without withdrawing more than a little, and be content to retire only before four. (One of the traditional folk-sayings respecting the picked men, the Doughty or Old Guard, as distinguished from the Youth or Young Guard, the new-comers in the king's Company of House-carles. In Harald Hardrede's Life the Norwegians dread those English house-carles, "each of whom is a match for four," who formed the famous guard that won Stamford Bridge and fell about their lord, a sadly shrunken band, at Senlake.) (f) The house-carles to have winter-pay. The house-carle three pieces of silver, a hired soldier two pieces, a soldier who had finished his service one piece. (The treatment of the house-carles gave Harald Harefoot a reputation long remembered for generosity, and several old Northern kings have won their nicknames by their good or ill feeding and rewarding their comitatus.) D. Again a civil code, dealing chiefly with the rights of travellers. (a) Seafarers may use what gear they find (the "remis" of the text may include boat or tackle). (b) No house is to be locked, nor coffer, but all thefts to be compensated threefold. (This, like A, b, which it resembles, seems a popular tradition intended to show the absolute security of Frode's reign of seven or three hundred years. It is probably a gloss wrongly repeated.) (c) A traveller may claim a single supper; if he take more he is a thief (the mark of a prae-tabernal era when hospitality was waxing cold through misuse). (d) Thief and accomplices are to be punished alike, being hung up by a line through the sinews and a wolf fastened beside. (This, which contradicts A, i, k, and allots to theft the punishment proper for parricide, seems a mere distorted tradition.) But beside just Frode, tradition spoke of the unjust Kinge HELGE, whose laws represent ill-judged harshness. They were made for conquered races, (a) the Saxons and (b) the Swedes. (a) Noble and freedmen to have the same were-gild (the lower, of course, the intent being to degrade all the conquered to one level, and to allow only the lowest were-gild of a freedman, fifty pieces, probably, in the tradition). (b) No remedy for wrong done to a Swede by a Dane to be legally recoverable. (This is the traditional interpretation of the conqueror's haughty dealing; we may compare it with the Middle-English legends of the pride of the Dane towards the conquered English. The Tradition sums up the position in such concrete forms as this Law of Helge's.) Two statutes of RAGNAR are mentioned:-- (a) That any householder should give up to his service in war the worst of his children, or the laziest of his slaves (a curious tradition, and used by Saxo as an opportunity for patriotic exaltation). (b) That all suits shall be absolutely referred to the judgment of twelve chosen elders (Lodbroc here appearing in the strange character of originator of trial by jury). "Tributes".--Akin to laws are the tributes decreed and imposed by kings and conquerors of old. Tribute infers subjection in archaic law. The poll-tax in the fourteenth century in England was unpopular, because of its seeming to degrade Englishmen to the level of Frenchmen, who paid tribute like vanquished men to their absolute lord, as well as for other reasons connected with the collection of the tax. The old fur tax (mentioned in "Egil's Saga") is here ascribed to FRODE, who makes the Finns pay him, every three years, a car full or sledge full of skins for every ten heads; and extorts one skin per head from the Perms. It is Frode, too (though Saxo has carved a number of Frodes out of one or two kings of gigantic personality), that made the Saxons pay a poll-tax, a piece of money per head, using, like William the Conqueror, his extraordinary revenue to reward his soldiers, whom he first regaled with double pay. But on the conquered folks rebelling, he marked their reduction by a tax of a piece of money on every limb a cubit long, a "limb-geld" still more hateful than the "neb-geld." HOTHERUS (Hodr) had set a tribute on the Kurlanders and Swedes, and HROLF laid a tribute on the conquered Swedes. GODEFRIDUS-GOTRIC is credited with a third Saxon tribute, a heriot of 100 snow-white horses payable to each Danish king at his succession, and by each Saxon chief on his accession: a statement that, recalling sacred snow-white horses kept in North Germany of yore makes one wish for fuller information. But Godefridus also exacted from the Swedes the "Ref-gild", or Fox-money; for the slaying of his henchman Ref, twelve pieces of gold from each man of rank, one from every commoner. And his Friesland tribute is stranger still, nor is it easy to understand from Saxo's account. There was a long hall built, 240 feet, and divided up into twelve "chases" of 20 feet each (probably square). There was a shield set up at one end, and the taxpayers hurled their money at it; if it struck so as to sound, it was good; if not, it was forfeit, but not reckoned in the receipt. This (a popular version, it may be, of some early system of treasury test) was abolished, so the story goes, by Charles the Great. RAGNAR'S exaction from Daxo, his son's slayer, was a yearly tribute brought by himself and twelve of his elders barefoot, resembling in part such submissions as occur in the Angevin family history, the case of the Calais burgesses, and of such criminals as the Corporation of Oxford, whose penance was only finally renounced by the local patriots in our own day. WAR. "Weapons".--The sword is the weapon par excellence in Saxo's narrative, and he names several by name, famous old blades like our royal Curtana, which some believed was once Tristrem's, and that sword of Carlus, whose fortunes are recorded in Irish annals. Such are "Snyrtir", Bearce's sword; "Hothing", Agnar's blade; "Lauf", or "Leaf", Bearce's sword; "Screp", Wermund's sword, long buried and much rust-eaten, but sharp and trusty, and known by its whistle; Miming's sword ("Mistletoe"), which slew Balder. Wainhead's curved blade seems to be a halbert; "Lyusing" and "Hwiting", Ragnald of Norway's swords; "Logthe", the sword of Ole Siward's son. The "war-club" occurs pretty frequently. But it is usually introduced as a special weapon of a special hero, who fashions a gold-headed club to slay one that steel cannot touch, or who tears up a tree, like the Spanish knight in the ballad, or who uses a club to counteract spells that blunt steel. The bat-shapen archaic rudder of a ship is used as a club in the story of the Sons of Arngrim. The "spear" plays no particular part in Saxo: even Woden's spear Gungne is not prominent. "Bows and arrows" are not often spoken of, but archer heroes, such as Toki, Ane Bow-swayer, and Orwar-Odd, are known. Slings and stones are used. The shield, of all defensive armour, is far the most prominent. They were often painted with devices, such as Hamlet's shield, Hildiger's Swedish shield. Dr. Vigfusson has shown the importance of these painted shields in the poetic history of the Scandinavians. A red shield is a signal of peace. Shields are set round ramparts on land as round ships at sea. "Mail-coats" are worn. Frode has one charmed against steel. Hother has another; a mail-coat of proof is mentioned and their iron meshes are spoken of. "Helmets" are used, but not so carefully described as in "Beowulf's Lay"; crested helmets and a gilded helmet occur in Bearca-mal and in another poem. "Banners" serve as rallying points in the battle and on the march. The Huns' banners are spoken of in the classic passage for the description of a huge host invading a country. Bearcamal talks of golden banners. "Horns" (1) were blown pp at the beginning of the engagement and for signalling. The gathering of the host was made by delivery of a wooden arrow painted to look like iron. "Tactics".--The hand-to-hand fight of the wager of battle with sword and shield, and the fighting in ranks and the wedge-column at close quarters, show that the close infantry combat was the main event of the battle. The preliminary hurling of stones, and shooting of arrows, and slinging of pebbles, were harassing and annoying, but seldom sufficiently important to affect the result of the main engagement. Men ride to battle, but fight on foot; occasionally an aged king is car-borne to the fray, and once the car, whether by Saxo's adorning hand, or by tradition, is scythe-armed. The gathered host is numbered, once, where, as with Xerxes, counting was too difficult, by making each man as he passed put a pebble in a pile (which piles survive to mark the huge size of Frode's army). This is, of course, a folktale, explaining the pebble-hills and illustrating the belief in Frode's power; but armies were mustered by such expedients of old. Burton tells of an African army each man of whom presented an egg, as a token of his presence and a means of taking the number of the host. We hear of men marching in light order without even scabbards, and getting over the ice in socks. The war equipment and habits of the Irish, light armoured, clipped at back of head, hurling the javelin backwards in their feigned flight; of the Slavs, small blue targets and long swords; of the Finns, with their darts and skees, are given. Watches are kept, and it is noted that "uht", the early watch after midnight, is the worst to be attacked in (the duke's two-o'clock-in-the-morning courage being needed, and the darkness and cold helping the enemy). Spies were, of course, slain if discovered. But we have instances of kings and heroes getting into foeman's camps in disguise (cf. stories of Alfred and Anlaf). The order of battle of Bravalla fight is given, and the ideal array of a host. To Woden is ascribed the device of the boar's head, hamalt fylking (the swine-head array of Manu's Indian kings), the terrible column with wedge head which could cleave the stoutest line. The host of Ring has men from Wener, Wermland, Gotaelf, Thotn, Wick, Thelemark, Throndham, Sogn, Firths, Fialer, Iceland; Sweden, Gislamark, Sigtun, Upsala, Pannonia. The host of Harold had men from Iceland, the Danish provinces, Frisia, Lifland; Slavs, and men from Jom, Aland, and Sleswick. The battle of Bravalla is said to have been won by the Gotland archers and the men of Throndham, and the Dales. The death of Harald by treachery completed the defeat, which began when Ubbe fell (after he had broken the enemy's van) riddled with arrows. The defeated, unless they could fly, got little quarter. One-fifth only of the population of a province are said to have survived an invasion. After sea-battles (always necessarily more deadly) the corpses choke the harbours. Seventy sea-kings are swept away in one sea-fight. Heads seem to have been taken in some cases, but not as a regular Teutonic usage, and the practice, from its being attributed to ghosts and aliens, must have already been considered savage by Saxo, and probably by his informants and authorities. Prisoners were slaves; they might be killed, put to cruel death, outraged, used as slaves, but the feeling in favour of mercy was growing, and the cruelty of Eormenric, who used tortures to his prisoners, of Rothe, who stripped his captives, and of Fro, who sent captive ladies to a brothel in insult, is regarded with dislike. Wounds were looked on as honourable, but they must be in front or honourably got. A man who was shot through the buttocks, or wounded in the back, was laughed at and disgraced. We hear of a mother helping her wounded son out of battle. That much of human interest centered round war is evident by the mass of tradition that surrounds the subject in Saxo, both in its public and private aspects. Quaint is the analysis of the four kinds of warriors: (a) The Veterans, or Doughty, who kill foes and spare flyers; (b) the Young men who kill foes and flyers too; (c) the well-to-do, landed, and propertied men of the main levy, who neither fight for fear nor fly for shame; (d) the worthless, last to fight and first to fly; and curious are the remarks about married and unmarried troops, a matter which Chaka pondered over in later days. Homeric speeches precede the fight. "Stratagems of War" greatly interested Saxo (probably because Valerius Maximus, one of his most esteemed models, was much occupied with such matters), so that he diligently records the military traditions of the notably skillful expedients of famous commanders of old. There is the device for taking a town by means of the "pretended death" of the besieging general, a device ascribed to Hastings and many more commanders (see Steenstrup Normannerne); the plan of "firing" a besieged town by fire-bearing birds, ascribed here to Fridlev, in the case of Dublin to Hadding against Duna (where it was foiled by all tame birds being chased out of the place). There is the "Birnam Wood" stratagem, by which men advanced behind a screen of boughs, which is even used for the concealment of ships, and the curious legend (occurring in Irish tradition also, and recalling Capt. B. Hall's "quaker gun" story) by which a commander bluffs off his enemy by binding his dead to stakes in rows, as if they were living men. Less easy to understand are the "brazen horses" or "machines" driven into the close lines of the enemy to crush and open them, an invention of Gewar. The use of hooked weapons to pull down the foes' shields and helmets was also taught to Hother by Gewar. The use of black tents to conceal encampment; the defence of a pass by hurling rocks from the heights; the bridge of boats across the Elbe; and the employment of spies, and the bold venture, ascribed in our chronicles to Alfred and Anlaf, of visiting in disguise the enemy's camp, is here attributed to Frode, who even assumed women's clothes for the purpose. Frode is throughout the typical general, as he is the typical statesman and law-giver of archaic Denmark. There are certain heathen usages connected with war, as the hurling of a javelin or shooting of an arrow over the enemy's ranks as a "sacratio" to Woden of the foe at the beginning of a battle. This is recorded in the older vernacular authorities also, in exact accordance with the Homeric usage, "Odyssey" xxiv, 516-595. The dedication of part of the spoils to the god who gave good omens for the war is told of the heathen Baltic peoples; but though, as Sidonius records, it had once prevailed among the Saxons, and, as other witnesses add, among the Scandinavian people, the tradition is not clearly preserved by Saxo. "Sea and Sea Warfare."--As might be expected, there is much mention of Wicking adventure and of maritime warfare in Saxo. Saxo tells of Asmund's huge ship (Gnod), built high that he might shoot down on the enemy's craft; he speaks of a ship (such as Godwin gave as a gift to the king his master), and the monk of St. Bertin and the court-poets have lovingly described a ship with gold-broidered sails, gilt masts, and red-dyed rigging. One of his ships has, like the ships in the Chansons de Geste, a carbuncle for a lantern at the masthead. Hedin signals to Frode by a shield at the masthead. A red shield was a peace signal, as noted above. The practice of "strand-hewing", a great feature in Wicking-life (which, so far as the victualling of raw meat by the fishing fleets, and its use raw, as Mr. P. H. Emerson informs me, still survives), is spoken of. There was great fear of monsters attacking them, a fear probably justified by such occasional attacks of angry whales as Melville (founding his narrative on repeated facts) has immortalised. The whales, like Moby Dick, were uncanny, and inspired by troll-women or witches (cf. "Frithiof Saga" and the older "Lay of Atle and Rimegerd"). The clever sailing of Hadding, by which he eludes pursuit, is tantalising, for one gathers that, Saxo knows the details that he for some reason omits. Big fleets of 150 and a monster armada of 3,000 vessels are recorded. The ships were moved by oars and sails; they had rudders, no doubt such as the Gokstad ship, for the hero Arrow-Odd used a rudder as a weapon. "Champions".--Professed fighting men were often kept by kings and earls about their court as useful in feud and fray. Harald Fairhair's champions are admirably described in the contemporary Raven Song by Hornclofe-- "Wolf-coats they call them that in battle Bellow into bloody shields. They wear wolves' hides when they come into the fight, And clash their weapons together." and Saxo's sources adhere closely to this pattern. These "bear-sarks", or wolf-coats of Harald give rise to an O. N. term, "bear-sarks' way", to describe the frenzy of fight and fury which such champions indulged in, barking and howling, and biting their shield-rims (like the ferocious "rook" in the narwhale ivory chessmen in the British Museum) till a kind of state was produced akin to that of the Malay when he has worked himself up to "run-a-muck." There seems to have been in the 10th century a number of such fellows about unemployed, who became nuisances to their neighbours by reason of their bullying and highhandedness. Stories are told in the Icelandic sagas of the way such persons were entrapped and put to death by the chiefs they served when they became too troublesome. A favourite (and fictitious) episode in an "edited" Icelandic saga is for the hero to rescue a lady promised to such a champion (who has bullied her father into consent) by slaying the ruffian. It is the same "motif" as Guy of Warwick and the Saracen lady, and one of the regular Giant and Knight stories. Beside men-warriors there were "women-warriors" in the North, as Saxo explains. He describes shield-maidens, as Alfhild, Sela, Rusila (the Ingean Ruadh, or Red Maid of the Irish Annals, as Steenstrup so ingeniously conjectures); and the three she-captains, Wigbiorg, who fell on the field, Hetha, who was made queen of Zealand, and Wisna, whose hand Starcad cut off, all three fighting manfully at Bravalla fight. SOCIAL LIFE AND MANNERS. "Feasts".--The hall-dinner was an important feature in the old Teutonic court-life. Many a fine scene in a saga takes place in the hall while the king and his men are sitting over their ale. The hall decked with hangings, with its fires, lights, plate and provisions, appears in Saxo just as in the Eddic Lays, especially Rigsmal, and the Lives of the Norwegian Kings and Orkney Earls. The order of seats is a great point of archaic manners. Behaviour at table was a matter of careful observance. The service, especially that of the cup-bearer, was minutely regulated by etiquette. An honoured guest was welcomed by the host rising to receive him and giving him a seat near himself, but less distinguished visitors were often victims to the rough horseplay of the baser sort, and of the wanton young gentleman at court. The food was simple, boiled beef and pork, and mutton without sauce, ale served in horns from the butt. Roast meat, game, sauces, mead, and flagons set on the table, are looked on by Starcad as foreign luxuries, and Germany was credited with luxurious cookery. "Mimes and jugglers", who went through the country or were attached to the lord's court to amuse the company, were a despised race because of their ribaldry, obscenity, cowardice, and unabashed self-debasement; and their newfangled dances and piping were loathsome to the old court-poets, who accepted the harp alone as an instrument of music. The story that once a king went to war with his jugglers and they ran away, would represent the point of view of the old house-carle, who was neglected, though "a first-class fighting man", for these debauched foreign buffoons. SUPERNATURAL BEINGS. GODS AND GODDESSES.--The gods spring, according to Saxo's belief, from a race of sorcerers, some of whom rose to pre-eminence and expelled and crushed the rest, ending the "wizard-age", as the wizards had ended the monster or "giant-age". That they were identic with the classic gods he is inclined to believe, but his difficulty is that in the week-days we have Jove : Thor; Mercury : Woden; whereas it is perfectly well known that Mercury is Jove's son, and also that Woden is the father of Thor--a comic "embarras". That the persians the heathens worshipped as gods existed, and that they were men and women false and powerful, Saxo plainly believes. He has not Snorre's appreciation of the humorous side of the mythology. He is ironic and scornful, but without the kindly, naive fun of the Icelander. The most active god, the Dane's chief god (as Frey is the Swede's god, and patriarch), is "Woden". He appears in heroic life as patron of great heroes and kings. Cf. "Hyndla-Lay", where it is said of Woden:-- "Let us pray the Father of Hosts to be gracious to us! He granteth and giveth gold to his servants, He gave Heremod a helm and mail-coat, And Sigmund a sword to take. He giveth victory to his sons, to his followers wealth, Ready speech to his children and wisdom to men. Fair wind to captains, and song to poets; He giveth luck in love to many a hero." He appears under various disguises and names, but usually as a one-eyed old man, cowled and hooded; sometimes with another, bald and ragged, as before the battle Hadding won; once as "Hroptr", a huge man skilled in leechcraft, to Ragnar's son Sigfrid. Often he is a helper in battle or doomer of feymen. As "Lysir", a rover of the sea, he helps Hadding. As veteran slinger and archer he helps his favourite Hadding; as charioteer, "Brune", he drives Harald to his death in battle. He teaches Hadding how to array his troops. As "Yggr" the prophet he advises the hero and the gods. As "Wecha" (Waer) the leech he woos Wrinda. He invented the wedge array. He can grant charmed lives to his favourites against steel. He prophesies their victories and death. He snatches up one of his disciples, sets him on his magic horse that rides over seas in the air, as in Skida-runa the god takes the beggar over the North Sea. His image (like that of Frey in the Swedish story of Ogmund dytt and Gunnar helming, "Flatey book", i, 335) could speak by magic power. Of his life and career Saxo gives several episodes. Woden himself dwelt at Upsala and Byzantium (Asgard); and the northern kings sent him a golden image ring-bedecked, which he made to speak oracles. His wife Frigga stole the bracelets and played him false with a servant, who advised her to destroy and rob the image. When Woden was away (hiding the disgrace brought on him by Frigga his wife), an imposter, Mid Odin, possibly Loke in disguise, usurped his place at Upsala, instituted special drink-offerings, fled to Finland on Woden's return, and was slain by the Fins and laid in barrow. But the barrow smote all that approached it with death, till the body was unearthed, beheaded, and impaled, a well-known process for stopping the haunting of an obnoxious or dangerous ghost. Woden had a son Balder, rival of Hother for the love of Nanna, daughter of King Gewar. Woden and Thor his son fought for him against Hother, but in vain, for Hother won the laity and put Balder to shameful flight; however, Balder, half-frenzied by his dreams of Nanna, in turn drove him into exile (winning the lady); finally Hother, befriended hy luck and the Wood Maidens, to whom he owed his early successes and his magic coat, belt, and girdle (there is obvious confusion here in the text), at last met Balder and stabbed him in the side. Of this wound Balder died in three days, as was foretold by the awful dream in which Proserpina (Hela) appeared to him. Balder's grand burial, his barrow, and the magic flood which burst from it when one Harald tried to break into it, and terrified the robbers, are described. The death of Balder led Woden to seek revenge. Hrossthiof the wizard, whom he consulted, told him he must beget a son by "Wrinda" (Rinda, daughter of the King of the Ruthenians), who should avenge his half-brother. Woden's wooing is the best part of this story, half spoilt, however, by euhemeristic tone and lack of epic dignity. He woos as a victorious warrior, and receives a cuff; as a generous goldsmith, and gets a buffet; as a handsome soldier, earning a heavy knock-down blow; but in the garb of a women as Wecha (Wakr), skilled in leechcraft, he won his way by trickery; and ("Wale") "Bous" was born, who, after some years, slew Hother in battle, and died himself of his wounds. Bous' barrow in Bohusland, Balder's haven, Balder's well, are named as local attestations of the legend, which is in a late form, as it seems. The story of Woden's being banished for misbehaviour, and especially for sorcery and for having worn woman's attire to trick Wrinda, his replacement by "Wuldor" ("Oller"), a high priest who assumed Woden's name and flourished for ten years, but was ultimately expelled by the returning Woden, and killed by the Danes in Sweden, is in the same style. But Wuldor's bone vessel is an old bit of genuine tradition mangled. It would cross the sea as well as a ship could, by virtue of certain spells marked on it. Of "Frey", who appears as "satrapa" of the gods at Upsala, and as the originator of human sacrifice, and as appeased by black victims, at a sacrifice called Froblod (Freys-blot) instituted by Hadding, who began it as an atonement for having slain a sea-monster, a deed for which he had incurred a curse. The priapic and generative influences of Frey are only indicated by a curious tradition mentioned. It almost looks as if there had once been such an institution at Upsala as adorned the Phoenician temples, under Frey's patronage and for a symbolic means of worship. "Thunder", or "Thor", is Woden's son, strongest of gods or men, patron of Starcad, whom he turned, by pulling off four arms, from a monster to a man. He fights by Woden's side and Balder's against Hother, by whose magic wand his club (hammer) was lopped off part of its shaft, a wholly different and, a much later version than the one Snorre gives in the prose Edda. Saxo knows of Thor's journey to the haunt of giant Garfred (Geirrod) and his three daughters, and of the hurling of the iron "bloom", and of the crushing of the giantesses, though he does not seem to have known of the river-feats of either the ladies or Thor, if we may judge (never a safe thing wholly) by his silence. Whether "Tew" is meant by the Mars of the Song of the Voice is not evident. Saxo may only be imitating the repeated catch-word "war" of the original. "Loke" appears as Utgard-Loke, Loke of the skirts of the World, as it were; is treated as a venomous giant bound in agony under a serpent-haunted cavern (no mention is made of "Sigyn" or her pious ministry). "Hela" seems to be meant by Saxo's Proserpina. "Nanna" is the daughter of Gewar, and Balder sees her bathing and falls in love with her, as madly as Frey with Gertha in Skirnismal. "Freya", the mistress of Od, the patroness of Othere the homely, the sister of Frey-Frode, and daughter of Niord-Fridlaf, appears as Gunwara Eric's love and Syritha Ottar's love and the hair-clogged maiden, as Dr. Rydberg has shown. The gods can disguise their form, change their shape, are often met in a mist, which shrouds them save from the right person; they appear and disappear at will. For the rest they have the mental and physical characteristics of the kings and queens they protect or persecute so capriciously. They can be seen by making a magic sign and looking through a witch's arm held akimbo. They are no good comates for men or women, and to meddle with a goddess or nymph or giantess was to ensure evil or death for a man. The god's loves were apparently not always so fatal, though there seems to be some tradition to that effect. Most of the god-sprung heroes are motherless or unborn (i.e., born like Macduff by the Caesarean operation)--Sigfred, in the Eddic Lays for instance. Besides the gods, possibly older than they are, and presumably mightier, are the "Fates" (Norns), three Ladies who are met with together, who fulfil the parts of the gift-fairies of our Sleeping Beauty tales, and bestow endowments on the new-born child, as in the beautiful "Helge Lay", a point of the story which survives in Ogier of the Chansons de Geste, wherein Eadgar (Otkerus or Otgerus) gets what belonged to Holger (Holge), the Helga of "Beowulf's Lay". The caprices of the Fates, where one corrects or spoils the others' endowments, are seen in Saxo, when beauty, bounty, and meanness are given together. They sometimes meet heroes, as they met Helgi in the Eddic Lay (Helgi and Sigrun Lay), and help or begift them; they prepare the magic broth for Balder, are charmed with Hother's lute-playing, and bestow on him a belt of victory and a girdle of splendour, and prophesy things to come. The verse in Biarca-mal, where "Pluto weaves the dooms of the mighty and fills Phlegethon with noble shapes," recalls Darrada-liod, and points to Woden as death-doomer of the warrior. "Giants".--These are stupid, mischievous, evil and cunning in Saxo's eyes. Oldest of beings, with chaotic force and exuberance, monstrous in extravagant vitality. The giant nature of the older troll-kind is abhorrent to man and woman. But a giantess is enamoured of a youth she had fostered, and giants carry off king's daughters, and a three-bodied giant captures young children. Giants live in caves by the sea, where they keep their treasure. One giant, Unfoot (Ofoti), is a shepherd, like Polyphemus, and has a famous dog which passed into the charge of Biorn, and won a battle; a giantess is keeping goats in the wilds. A giant's fury is so great that it takes twelve champions to control him, when the rage is on him. The troll (like our Puss-in-Boots Ogre) can take any shape. Monstrous apparitions are mentioned, a giant hand (like that in one story of Finn) searching for its prey among the inmates of a booth in the wilds. But this Grendel-like arm is torn off by a giantess, Hardgrip, daughter of Wainhead and niece possibly of Hafle. The voice heard at night prophesying is that of some god or monster, possibly Woden himself. "Dwarves".--These Saxo calls Satyrs, and but rarely mentions. The dwarf Miming, who lives in the desert, has a precious sword of sharpness (Mistletoe?) that could even pierce skin-hard Balder, and a ring (Draupnir) that multiplied itself for its possessor. He is trapped by the hero and robbed of his treasures. FUNERAL RITES AND MAN'S FUTURE STATE. "Barrow-burials".--The obsequies of great men (such as the classic funeral of "Beowulf's Lay", 3138-80) are much noticed by Saxo, and we might expect that he knew such a poem (one similar to Ynglingatal, but not it) which, like the Books of the Kings of Israel and Judah, recorded the deaths and burials, as well as the pedigrees and deeds, of the Danish kings. The various stages of the "obsequy by fire" are noted; the byre sometimes formed out of a ship; the "sati"; the devoted bower-maidens choosing to die with their mistress, the dead man's beloved (cf. The Eddic funerals of Balder, Sigfred, and Brunhild, in the Long "Brunhild's Lay", Tregrof Gudrumar and the lost poem of Balder's death paraphrased in the prose Edda); the last message given to the corpse on the pyre (Woden's last words to Balder are famous); the riding round the pyre; the eulogium; the piling of the barrow, which sometimes took whole days, as the size of many existing grass mounds assure us; the funeral feast, where an immense vat of ale or mead is drunk in honor of the dead; the epitaph, like an ogham, set up on a stone over the barrow. The inclusion of a live man with the dead in a barrow, with the live or fresh-slain beasts (horse and bound) of the dead man, seems to point to a time or district when burning was not used. Apparently, at one time, judging from Frode's law, only chiefs and warriors were burnt. Not to bury was, as in Hellas, an insult to the dead, reserved for the bodies of hated foes. Conquerors sometimes show their magnanimity (like Harald Godwineson) by offering to bury their dead foes. The buried "barrow-ghost" was formidable; he could rise and slay and eat, vampire-like, as in the tale of Asmund and Aswit. He must in such case be mastered and prevented doing further harm by decapitation and thigh-forking, or by staking and burning. So criminals' bodies were often burnt to stop possible haunting. Witches and wizards could raise corpses by spells to make them prophesy. The dead also appeared in visions, usually foretelling death to the person they visited. OTHER WORLDS.--The "Land of Undeath" is spoken of as a place reached by an exiled hero in his wanderings. We know it from Eric the traveller's S., Helge Thoreson's S., Herrand and Bose S., Herwon S., Thorstan Baearmagn S., and other Icelandic sources. But the voyage to the Other Worlds are some of the most remarkable of the narratives Saxo has preserved for us. "Hadding's Voyage Underground".--(a) A woman bearing in her lap angelica fresh and green, though it was deep winter, appears to the hero at supper, raising her head beside the brazier. Hadding wishes to know where such plants grow. (b) She takes him with her, under cover of her mantle, underground. (c) They pierce a mist, get on a road worn by long use, pass nobly-clad men, and reach the sunny fields that bear the angelica:-- "Through griesly shadowes by a beaten path, Into a garden goodly garnished." --F.Q. ii. 7, 51. (d) Next they cross, by a bridge, the "River of Blades", and see "two armies fighting", ghosts of slain soldiers. (e) Last they came to a high wall, which surrounds the land of Life, for a cock the woman brought with her, whose neck she wrung and tossed over this wall, came to life and crowed merrily. Here the story breaks off. It is unfinished, we are only told that Hadfling got back. Why he was taken to this under-world? Who took him? What followed therefrom? Saxo does not tell. It is left to us to make out. That it is an archaic story of the kind in the Thomas of Ercildoune and so many more fairy-tales, e.g., Kate Crack-a-Nuts, is certain. The "River of Blades" and "The Fighting Warriors" are known from the Eddic Poems. The angelica is like the green birk of that superb fragment, the ballad of the Wife of Usher's Well--a little more frankly heathen, of course-- "It fell about the Martinmas, when nights are long and mirk, The carline wife's three sons cam hame, and their hats were o' the birk. It neither grew in syke nor dyke, nor yet in ony sheugh, But at the gates o' Paradise that birk grew fair eneuch." The mantel is that of Woden when he bears the hero over seas; the cock is a bird of sorcery the world over; the black fowl is the proper gift to the Underground powers--a heriot really, for did not the Culture god steal all the useful beasts out of the underground world for men's use? Dr. Rydberg has shown that the "Seven Sleepers" story is an old Northern myth, alluded to here in its early pre-Christian form, and that with this is mixed other incidents from voyages of Swipdag, the Teutonic Odusseus. "Thorkill's Second Voyage to Outgarth-Loke to get Knowledge".--(a) Guthrum is troubled as to the immortality and fate of the soul, and the reward of piety after death. To spite Thorkill, his enviers advised the king to send him to consult Outgarth-Loke. He required of the king that his enemies should be sent with him. (b) In one well-stored and hide-defended ship they set out, reached a sunless, starless land, without fuel; ate raw food and suffered. At last, after many days, a fire was seen ashore. Thorkill, setting a jewel at the mast-head to be able to regain his vessel easily, rows ashore to get fire. (c) In a filthy, snake-paved, stinking cavern he sees two horny-nebbed giants, (2) making a fire. One of the giants offers to direct him to Loke if he will say three true things in three phrases, and this done, tells him to row four days and then he would reach a Dark and Grassless Land. For three more true sayings he obtains fire, and gets back to his vessel. (d) With good wind they make Grassless Land, go ashore, find a huge, rocky cavern, strike a flint to kindle a fire at the entrance as a safeguard against demons, and a torch to light them as they explored the cavern. (e) First appears iron seats set amid crawling snakes. (f) Next is sluggish water flowing over sand. (g) Last a steep, sloping cavern is reached, in a chamber of which lay Outgarth-Loke chained, huge and foul. (h) Thorkill plucks a hair of his beard "as big as a cornel-wood spear." The stench that arose was fearful; the demens and snakes fell upon the invaders at once; only Thorkill and five of the crew, who had sheltered themselves with hides against the virulent poison the demons and snakes cast, which would take a head off at the neck if it fell upon it, got back to their ship. (i) By vow to the "God that made the world", and offerings, a good voyage was made back, and Germany reached, where Thorkill became a Christian. Only two of his men survived the effects of the poison and stench, and he himself was scarred and spoilt in the face. (k) When he reached the king, Guthrum would not listen to his tale, because it was prophesied to him that he would die suddenly if he heard it; nay, he even sent men to smite him as he lay in bed, but, by the device of laying a log in his place, he escaped, and going to the king as he sat at meat, reproached him for his treachery. (l) Guthrum bade him tell his story, but died of horror at hearing his god Loke foully spoken of, while the stench of the hair that Thorkill produced, as Othere did his horn for a voucher of his speech, slew many bystanders. This is the regular myth of Loke, punished by the gods, lying bound with his own soils' entrails on three sharp stones and a sword-blade, (this latter an addition, when the myth was made stones were the only blades), with snakes' venom dripping on to him, so that when it falls on him he shakes with pain and makes earthquakes--a Titan myth in answer to the question, "Why does the earth quake?" The vitriolic power of the poison is excellently expressed in the story. The plucking of the hair as a token is like the plucking of a horn off the giant or devil that occurs in some folk-tale. MAGIC AND FOLK-SCIENCE. There is a belief in magic throughout Saxo's work, showing how fresh heathendom still was in men's minds and memories. His explanations, when he euhemerizes, are those of his day. By means of spells all kinds of wonders could be effected, and the powers of nature forced to work for the magician or his favourite. "Skin-changing" (so common in "Landnamaboc") was as well known as in the classic world of Lucian and Apuleius; and, where Frode perishes of the attacks of a witch metamorphosed into a walrus. "Mist" is induced by spells to cover and hide persons, as in Homer, and "glamour" is produced by spells to dazzle foemen's sight. To cast glamour and put confusion into a besieged place a witch is employed by the beleaguerer, just as William the Conqueror used the witch in the Fens against Hereward's fortalice. A soothsayer warns Charles the Great of the coming of a Danish fleet to the Seine's mouth. "Rain and bad weather" may be brought on, as in a battle against the enemy, but in this, as in other instances, the spell may be counteracted. "Panic Terror" may be induced by the spell worked with a dead horse's head set up on a pole facing the antagonist, but the spell may be met and combatted by silence and a counter-curse. "Magic help" may be got by calling on the friendly magician's name. The magician has also the power of summoning to him anyone, however unwilling, to appear. Of spells and magic power to blunt steel there are several instances; they may be counteracted (as in the Icelandic Sagas) by using the hilt, or a club, or covering the blade with fine skin. In another case the champion can only be overcome by one that will take up some of the dust from under his feet. This is effected by the combatants shifting their ground and exchanging places. In another case the foeman can only be slain by gold, whereupon the hero has a gold-headed mace made and batters the life out of him therewith. The brothers of Swanhild cannot be cut by steel, for their mail was charmed by the witch Gudrun, but Woden taught Eormenric, the Gothic king, how to overcome them with stones (which apparently cannot, as archaic weapons, be charmed against at all, resisting magic like wood and water and fire). Jordanis tells the true history of Ermanaric, that great Gothic emperor whose rule from the Dnieper to the Baltic and Rhine and Danube, and long reign of prosperity, were broken by the coming of the Huns. With him vanished the first great Teutonic empire. Magic was powerful enough even to raise the dead, as was practised by the Perms, who thus renewed their forces after a battle. In the Everlasting battle the combatants were by some strange trick of fate obliged to fulfil a perennial weird (like the unhappy Vanderdecken). Spells to wake the dead were written on wood and put under the corpses' tongue. Spells (written on bark) induce frenzy. "Charms" would secure a man against claw or tooth. "Love philtres" (as in the long "Lay of Gudrun) appear as everywhere in savage and archaic society. "Food", porridge mixed with the slaver of tortured snakes, gives magic strength or endues the eater with eloquence and knowledge of beast and bird speech (as Finn's broiled fish and Sigfred's broiled dragon-heart do). "Poison" like these hell-broths are part of the Witch or Obi stock-in-trade, and Frode uses powdered gold as an antidote. "Omens" are observed; tripping as one lands is lucky (as with our William the Norman). Portents, such as a sudden reddening of the sea where the hero is drowned, are noticed and interpreted. "Dreams" (cf. Eddic Lays of Attila, and the Border ballads) are prophetic (as nine-tenths of Europeans firmly believe still); thus the visionary flame-spouting dragon is interpreted exactly as Hogne's and Attila's dreams. The dreams of the three first bridals nights (which were kept hallowed by a curious superstition, either because the dreams would then bold good, or as is more likely, for fear of some Asmodeus) were fateful. Animals and birds in dreams are read as persons, as nowadays. A "curse" is powerful unless it can be turned back, when it will harm its utterer, for harm someone it must. The "curse" of a dying man on his slayer, and its lack of effect, is noted. Sometimes "magic messengers" are sent, like the swans that bore a token and uttered warning songs to the hero. "Witches and wizards" (as belonging to the older layer of archaic beliefs) are hateful to the gods, and Woden casts them out as accursed, though he himself was the mightiest of wizards. Heathen Teutonic life was a long terror by reason of witchcraft, as is the heathen African life to-day, continual precautions being needful to escape the magic of enemies. The Icelandic Sagas, such as Gretter's, are full of magic and witchcraft. It is by witchcraft that Gretter is first lamed and finally slain; one can see that Glam's curse, the Beowulf motif, was not really in the original Gretter story. "Folk-medicine" is really a branch of magic in old days, even to such pioneers of science as Paracelsus. Saxo's traditions note drinking of a lion's blood that eats men as a means of gaining might and strength; the drinking of bear's blood is also declared to give great bodily power. The tests for "madness" are of a primitive character, such as those applied to Odusseus, who, however, was not able, like Hamlet, to evade them. The test for death is the red-hot iron or hot brand (used by the Abyssinians of to-day, as it was supposed in the thirteenth century to have been used by Grimhild. "And now Grimhild goes and takes a great brand, where the house had burnt, and goes to Gernot her brother, and thrusts the burning brand in his mouth, and will know whether he is dead or living. But Gernot was clearly dead. And now she goes to Gislher and thrusts the firebrand in his mouth. He was not dead before, but Gislher died of that. Now King Thidrec of Bern saw what Grimhild is doing, and speaks to King Attila. `See how that devil Grimhild, thy wife, is killing her brothers, the good warriors, and how many men have lost their lives for her sake, and how many good men she has destroyed, Huns and Amalungs and Niflungs; and in the same way would she bring thee and me to hell, if she could do it?' Then spake King Attila, `Surely she is a devil, and slay thou her, and that were a good work if thou had done it seven nights ago! Then many a gallant fellow were whole that is now dead.' Now King Thidrec springs at Grimhild and swings up his sword Eckisax, and hews her asunder at the middle"). It was believed (as in Polynesia, where "Captain Cook's path" was shown in the grass) that the heat of the hero's body might blast the grass; so Starcad's entrails withered the grass. It was believed that a severed head might bite the ground in rage, and there were certainly plenty of opportunities for observation of such cases. It was believed that a "dumb man" might be so wrought on by passion that he would speak, and wholly acquire speech-power. Little is told of "surgery", but in one case of intestines protruding owing to wounds, withies were employed to bind round the trunk and keep the bowels from risk till the patient could be taken to a house and his wounds examined and dressed. It was considered heroic to pay little heed to wounds that were not dangerous, but just to leave them to nature. Personal "cleanliness" was not higher than among savages now. A lover is loused by his lady after the mediaeval fashion. CHRISTIANITY--In the first nine books of Saxo, which are devoted to heathendom, there is not much save the author's own Christian point of view that smacks of the New Faith. The apostleships of Ansgarius in Denmark, the conversion of King Eric, the Christianity of several later Danish Kings, one of whom was (like Olaf Tryggwason) baptised in Britain are also noticed. Of "Christian legends" and beliefs, besides the euhemerist theory, widely held, of the heathen gods there are few hints, save the idea that Christ was born in the reign of Frode, Frode having been somehow synchronised with Augustus, in whose reign also there was a world-peace. Of course the christening of Scandinavia is history, and the mythic books are little concerned with it. The episode in Adam of Bremen, where the king offers the people, if they want a new god, to deify Eric, one of their hero-kings, is eminently characteristic and true. FOLK-TALES. There might be a classification of Saxo's stories akin to that of the Irish poets, Battles, Sieges, Voyages, Rapes, Cattle Forays, etc.; and quite apart from the historic element, however faint and legendary, there are a set of stories ascribed by him, or rather his authorities, to definite persons, which had, even in his day, probably long been the property of Tis, their original owners not being known owing to lapse of time and the wear of memory, and the natural and accidental catastrophies that impair the human record. Such are the "Dragon-Slayer" stories. In one type of these the hero (Frithlaf) is cast on a desolate island, and warned by a dream to attack and slay a dragon guarding treasure. He wakes, sees the dragon arise out of the waves, apparently, to come ashore and go back to the cavern or mound wherein the treasure lay. His scales are too hard to pierce; he is terribly strong, lashing trees down with his tail, and wearing a deep path through the wood and over the stones with his huge and perpetual bulk; but the hero, covered with hide-wrapped shield against the poison, gets down into the hollow path, and pierces the monster from below, afterward rifling its underground store and carrying off its treasure. Again the story is repeated; the hero (Frode Haddingsson) is warned by a countryman of the island-dragon and its hoard, is told to cover his shield and body with bulls' hides against the poison, and smite the monster's belly. The dragon goes to drink, and, as it is coming back, it is attacked, slain, and its treasure lifted precisely as before. The analogies with the Beowulf and Sigfred stories are evident; but no great poet has arisen to weave the dragon-slaying intimately into the lives of Frode and Frithlaf as they have been woven into the tragedy of Sigfred the wooer of Brunhild and, if Dr. Vigffisson be right the conqueror of Varus, or into the story of Beowulf, whose real engagements were with sea-monsters, not fiery dragons. Another type is that of the "Loathly Worm". A king out hunting (Herod or Herraud, King of Sweden), for some unexplained reason brings home two small snakes as presents for his daughter. They wax wonderfully, have to be fed a whole ox a day, and proceed to poison and waste the countryside. The wretched king is forced to offer his daughter (Thora) to anyone who will slay them. The hero (Ragnar) devises a dress of a peculiar kind (by help of his nurse, apparently), in this case, woolly mantle and hairy breeches all frozen and ice-covered to resist the venom, then strapping his spear to his hand, he encounters them boldly alone. The courtiers hide "like frightened little girls", and the king betakes him to a "narrow shelter", an euphemism evidently of Saxo's, for the scene is comic. The king comes forth when the hero is victorious, and laughing at his hairy legs, nick-names him Shaggy-breech, and bids him to the feast. Ragnar fetches up his comrades, and apparently seeks out the frightened courtiers (no doubt with appropriate quip, omitted by Saxo, who hurries on), feasts, marries the king's daughter, and begets on her two fine sons. Of somewhat similar type is the proud "Maiden guarded" by Beasts. Here the scene is laid in Gaulardale in Norway. The lady is Ladgerda, the hero Ragnar. Enamoured of the maiden by seeing her prowess in war, he accepts no rebuffs, but leaving his followers, enters the house, slays the guardian Bear and Dog, thrusting one through with a spear and throttling the other with his hand. The lady is won and wed, and two daughters and a son (Frithlaf) duly begotten. The story of Alf and Alfhild combines several types. There are the tame snakes, the baffled suitors' heads staked to terrify other suitors, and the hero using red-hot iron and spear to slay the two reptiles. The "Proud Lady", (cf. Kudrun and the Niebelungen, and Are's story of the queen that burnt her suitors) appears in Hermintrude, Queen of Scotland, who battles and slays her lovers, but is out-witted by the hero (Hamlet), and, abating her arrogance, agrees to wed him. This seems an obvious accretion in the original Hamlet story, and probably owing not to Saxo, but to his authority. The "Beggar that stole the Lady" (told of Snio Siwaldson and the daughter of the King of the Goths), with its brisk dialogue, must have been one of the most artful of the folk-tales worked on by Saxo or his informants; but it is only half told, unfortunately. The "Crafty Soaker" is another excellent comic folk-tale. A terrible famine made the king (Snio) forbid brewing to save the barley for bread, and abolished all needless toping. The Soaker baffled the king by sipping, never taking a full draught. Rebuked, he declared that he never drank, but only sucked a drop. This was forbidden him for the future, so he sopped his bread in ale, and in that inconvenient manner continued to get drunk, excusing himself with the plea that though it was forbidden to drink or sip beer, it was not forbidden to eat it. When this was in turn prohibited, the Soaker gave up any pretence, and brewed and drank unabashed, telling the angry king that he was celebrating his approaching funeral with due respect, which excuse led to the repeal of the obnoxious decree. A good Rabelaisian tale, that must not have been wide-spread among the Danish topers, whose powers both Saxo and Shakespeare have celebrated, from actual experience no doubt. The "Magician's tricks to elude pursuit", so common an incident in our fairy tales, e.g., Michael Scot's flight, is ascribed here to the wonder-working and uncanny Finns, who, when pursued, cast behind them successively three pebbles, which become to their enemies' eyes mountains, then snow, which appeared like a roaring torrent. But they could not cast the glamour on Arngrim a third time, and were forced to submit. The glamour here and in the case of the breaking of Balder's barrow is akin to that which the Druid puts on the sons of Uisnach. The tale of the king who shuts up his daughter in an "earth-house" or underground chamber with treasures (weapons and gold and silver), in fear of invasion, looks like a bit of folk-tale, such as the "Hind in the Wood", but it may have a traditional base of some kind here. A folk-tale, very imperfectly narrated, is the "Clever King's Daughter", who evidently in the original story had to choose her suitor by his feet (as the giantess in the prose Edda chooses her husband), and was able to do so by the device she had practised of sewing up her ring in his leg sometime before, so that when she touched the flesh she could feel the hardness of the ring beneath the scar. Bits of folk-tales are the "Device for escaping threatened death by putting a log in one's bed" (as in our Jack the Giant-Killer). The device, as old as David's wife, of dressing up a dummy (here a basket with a dog inside, covered outside with clothes), while the hero escapes, is told of Eormenric, the mighty Gothic King of Kings, who, like Walter of Aquitaine, Theodoric of Varona, Ecgherht, and Arminius, was an exile in his youth. This traditional escape of the two lads from the Scyths should be compared with the true story in Paul the Deacon of his little ancestor's captivity and bold and successful stroke for freedom. "Disguise" plays a great part in the folk-tales used by Saxo. Woden disguises himself in a cowl on his earthly travels, and heroes do the same; a king disguises himself as a slave at his rival's court, to try and find occasion of slaying him; a hero wraps himself up in skins, like Alleleirah. "Escaped recognition" is accordingly a feature in many of these simple but artistic plots. A son is not known by his mother in the story of Hrolf. Other "Devices" are exemplified, such as the "booby-trap" loaded with a millstone, which slays a hateful and despised tyrant, imposed by a foreign conqueror; evasion by secret passages, and concealment in underground vaults or earth-houses. The feigning of madness to escape death occurs, as well as in the better-known Hamlet story. These stratagems are universal in folk-history. To Eric, the clever and quick of speech, is ascribed an excellent sailor's smuggling trick to hide slaughtered cattle, by sinking them till the search is over. The "Hero's Mighty Childhood" (like David's) of course occurs when he binds a bear with his girdle. Sciold is full grown at fifteen, and Hadding is full grown in extreme youth. The hero in his boyhood slays a full-grown man and champion. The cinder-biting, lazy stage of a mighty youth is exemplified. The "fierce eyes" of the hero or heroine, which can daunt an assassin as could the piercing glance of Marius, are the "falcon eyes" of the Eddic Lays. The shining, effulgent, "illuminating hair" of the hero, which gives light in the darkness, is noticed here, as it obtains in Cuaran's thirteenth century English legend. The wide-spread tale of the "City founded on a site marked out by a hide cut into finest thongs", occurs, told of Hella and Iwarus exactly as our Kentishmen told it of Hengist, and as it is also told of Dido. The incidents of the "hero sleeping by a rill", of the guarded king's daughter, with her thirty attendants, the king's son keeping sheep, are part of the regular stock incidents in European folk-tales. So are the Nausicaa incident of the "king's daughter going a washing", the hero disguising himself as a woman and winding wool (like a second Heracles). There are a certain number of stories, which only occur in Saxo and in our other Northern sources with attributions, though they are of course legendary; such are: The "Everlasting Battle" between Hedhin and Hogne, a legend connected with the great Brisinga-men story, and paralleled by the Cordelia-tale among the Britons. The story of the "Children preserved" is not very clearly told, and Saxo seems to have euhemerized. It is evidently of the same type as the Lionel-Lancelot story in the Arthurian cycle. Two children, ordered to be killed, are saved by the slaying of other children in their place; and afterwards by their being kept and named as dogs; they come to their own and avenge their wrongs. The "Journey to Hell" story is told of Eric, who goes to a far land to fetch a princess back, and is successful. It is apparently an adventure of Swipdag, if everyone had their rights. It is also told of Thorkill, whose adventures are rather of the "True Thomas" type. The "Test of Endurance" by sitting between fires, and the relief of the tortured and patient hero by a kindly trick, is a variant of the famous Eddic Lays concerning Agnar. The "Robbers of the Island", evidently comes from an Icelandic source (cf. The historic "Holmveria Saga" and Icelandic folk-tales of later date), the incident of the hero slaying his slave, that the body might be mistaken for his, is archaic in tone; the powerful horse recalls Grani, Bayard, and even Sleipner; the dog which had once belonged to Unfoot (Ofote), the giant shepherd (cf. its analogues in old Welsh tales), is not quite assimilated or properly used in this story. It seems (as Dr. Rydberg suspects) a mythical story coloured by the Icelandic relater with memory full of the robber-hands of his own land. The stratagem of "Starcad", who tried even in death to slay his slayer, seems an integral part of the Starcad story; as much as the doom of three crimes which are to be the price for the threefold life that a triple man or giant should enjoy. The noose story in Starcad (cf. that told of Bicce in the Eormenric story), is also integral. SAXO'S MYTHOLOGY. No one has commented upon Saxo's mythology with such brilliancy, such minute consideration, and such success as the Swedish scholar, Victor Rydberg. More than occasionally he is over-ingenious and over-anxious to reduce chaos to order; sometimes he almost loses his faithful reader in the maze he treads so easily and confidently, and sometimes he stumbles badly. But he has placed the whole subject on a fresh footing, and much that is to follow will be drawn from his "Teutonic Mythology" (cited here from the English version by Rasmus B. Anderson, London, 1889, as "T.M."). Let us take first some of the incontestable results of his investigations that affect Saxo. SCIOLD is the father of Gram in Saxo, and the son of Sceaf in other older authorities. Dr. Rydberg (97-101) forms the following equations for the Sciolding patriarchs:-- a. Scef--Heimdal--Rig. b. Sciold--Borgar--Jarl. c. Gram--Halfdan--Koming. Chief among the mythic tales that concern Saxo are the various portions of the Swipdag-Myth, which Dr. Rydberg has been able to complete with much success. They may be resumed briefly as follows:-- Swipdag, helped by the incantations of his dead mother, whom he had raised from the dead to teach him spells of protection, sets forth on his quests. He is the Odusseus of the Teutonic mythology. He desires to avenge his father on Halfdan that slew him. To this end he must have a weapon of might against Halfdan's club. The Moon-god tells him of the blade Thiasse has forged. It has been stolen by Mimer, who has gone out into the cold wilderness on the rim of the world. Swipdag achieves the sword, and defeats and slays Halfdan. He now buys a wife, Menglad, of her kinsmen the gods by the gift of the sword, which thus passes into Frey's hands. How he established a claim upon Frey, and who Menglad was, is explained in Saxo's story of Eric, where the characters may be identified thus:-- Swipdag--Eric Freya--Gunwara Frey--Frode III Niord--Fridlaf Wuldor--Roller Thor--Brac Giants--The Greps Giants--Coller. Frey and Freya had been carried off by the giants, and Swipdag and his faithful friend resolve to get them back for the Anses, who bewail their absence. They journey to Monster-land, win back the lady, who ultimately is to become the hero's wife, and return her to her kindred; but her brother can only be rescued by his father Niord. It is by wit rather than by force that Swipdag is successful here. The third journey of Swipdag is undertaken on Frey's behalf; he goes under the name of Scirner to woo giant Gymer's daughter Gerth for his brother-in-law, buying her with the sword that he himself had paid to Frey as his sister's bride-price. So the sword gets back to the giants again. Swipdag's dead foe Halfdan left two young "avengers", Hadding and Guthorm, whom he seeks to slay. But Thor-Brache gives them in charge of two giant brothers. Wainhead took care of Hadding, Hafle of Guthorm. Swipdag made peace with Guthorm, in a way not fully explained to us, but Hadding took up the blood-feud as soon as he was old enough. Hadding was befriended by a woman, who took him to the Underworld--the story is only half told in Saxo, unluckily--and by Woden, who took him over-sea wrapt in his mantle as they rode Sleipner over the waves; but here again Saxo either had not the whole story before him, or he wished to abridge it for some reason or prejudice, and the only result of this astonishing pilgrimage is that Woden gives the young hero some useful counsels. He falls into captivity, entrapped by Loke (for what reason again we are left to guess), and is exposed to wild beasts, but he slays the wolf that attacks him, and eating its heart as Woden had bidden him, he gains wisdom and foresight. Prepared by these adventures, he gets Guthorm to join him (how or why the peace between him and Swipdag was broken, we know not), and they attack their father's slayer, but are defeated, though Woden sunk Asmund Swipdag's son's ship, Grio, at Hlessey, and Wainhead and Hardgrip his daughter fought for Hadding. Hadding wanders off to the East with his foster-sister and mistress and Hardgrip, who is slain protecting him against an angry ghost raised from the Underworld by her spells. However, helped by Heimdal and Woden (who at this time was an exile), Hadding's ultimate success is assured. When Woden came back to power, Swipdag, whose violence and pride grew horribly upon him, was exiled, possibly by some device of his foes, and took upon him, whether by will or doom, a sea-monster's shape. His faithful wife follows him over land and sea, but is not able to save him. He is met by Hadding and, after a fierce fight, slain. Swipdag's wife cursed the conqueror, and he was obliged to institute an annual sacrifice to Frey (her brother) at Upsale, who annuls the curse. Loke, in seal's guise, tried to steal the necklace of Freya at the Reef of Treasures, where Swipdag was slain, but Haimdal, also in sealskin, fought him, and recovered it for the gods. Other myths having reference to the goddesses appear in Saxo. There is the story of "Heimdall and Sol", which Dr. Rydberg has recognised in the tale of Alf and Alfhild. The same tale of how the god won the sun for his wife appears in the mediaeval German King Ruther (in which title Dr. Ryuberg sees Hrutr, a name of the ram-headed god). The story of "Othar" (Od) and "Syritha" (Sigrid) is obviously that of Freya and her lover. She has been stolen by the giants, owing to the wiles of her waiting-maid, Loke's helper, the evil witch Angrbode. Od seeks her, finds her, slays the evil giant who keeps her in the cave; but she is still bewitched, her hair knotted into a hard, horny mass, her eyes void of brightness. Unable to gain recognition he lets her go, and she is made by a giantess to herd her flocks. Again found by Od, and again refusing to recognise him, she is let go again. But this time she flies to the world of men, and takes service with Od's mother and father. Here, after a trial of her love, she and Od are reconciled. Sywald (Sigwald), her father, weds Od's sister. The tale of the vengeance of Balder is more clearly given by the Dane, and with a comic force that recalls the Aristophanic fun of Loka-senna. It appears that the story had a sequel which only Saxo gives. Woden had the giantess Angrbode, who stole Freya, punished. Frey, whose mother-in-law she was, took up her quarrel, and accusing Woden of sorcery and dressing up like a woman to betray Wrind, got him banished. While in exile Wuldor takes Woden's place and name, and Woden lives on earth, part of the time at least, with Scathe Thiasse's daughter, who had parted from Niord. The giants now resolved to attack Ansegard; and Woden, under the name of Yggr, warned the gods, who recall him after ten years' exile. But for Saxo this part of the story of the wars of the gods would be very fragmentary. The "Hildiger story", where a father slays his son unwittingly, and then falls at his brother's hand, a tale combining the Rustam and the Balin-Balan types, is one of the Hilding tragedies, and curiously preserved in the late "Saga of Asmund the Champions' bane". It is an antithesis, as Dr. Rydberg remarks, to the Hildebrand and Hadubrand story, where father and son must fight and are reconciled. The "story of Orwandel" (the analogue of Orion the Hunter) must be gathered chiefly from the prose Edda. He was a huntsman, big enough and brave enough to cope with giants. He was the friend of Thor, the husband of Groa, the father of Swipdag, the enemy of giant Coller and the monster Sela. The story of his birth, and of his being blinded, are lost apparently in the Teutonic stories, unless we may suppose that the bleeding of Robin Hood till he could not see by the traitorous prioress is the last remains of the story of the great archer's death. Great part of the troubles which befell the gods arose from the antagonism of the sons of Iwalde and the brethren Sindre and Brokk (Cinder and Brank), rival artist families; and it was owing to the retirement of their artist foster-parents that Frey and Freya were left among the giants. The Hniflung hoard is also supposed to have consisted of the treasures of one band of primaeval artists, the Iwaldings. Whether we have here the phenomenon of mythological doublets belonging to different tribes, or whether we have already among these early names that descent of story which has led to an adventure of Moses being attributed to Garibaldi, given to Theodoric the king the adventures of Theodoric the god, taken Arthur to Rome, and Charles the Great to Constantinople, it is hard to say. The skeleton-key of identification, used even as ably as Dr. Rydberg uses it, will not pick every mythologic lock, though it undoubtedly has opened many hitherto closed. The truth is that man is a finite animal; that he has a limited number of types of legend; that these legends, as long as they live and exist, are excessively prehensile; that, like the opossum, they can swing from tree to tree without falling; as one tree dies out of memory they pass on to another. When they are scared away by what is called exact intelligence from the tall forest of great personalities, they contrive to live humbly clinging to such bare plain stocks and poles (Tis and Jack and Cinderella) as enable them to find a precarious perch. To drop similitudes, we must be prepared, in unravelling our tangled mythology, to go through several processes. We must, of course, note the parallelisms and get back to the earliest attribution-names we can find. But all system is of late creation, it does not begin till a certain political stage, a stage where the myths of coalescing clans come into contact, and an official settlement is attempted by some school of poets or priests. Moreover, systematization is never so complete that it effaces all the earlier state of things. Behind the official systems of Homer and Hesiod lies the actual chaos of local faiths preserved for us by Pausanias and other mythographers. The common factors in the various local faiths are much the majority among the factors they each possess; and many of these common factors are exceedingly primitive, and resolve themselves into answers to the questions that children still ask, still receiving no answer but myth--that is, poetic and subjective hypothesis, containing as much truth as they can receive or their inventors can grasp. Who were our forbears? How did day and night, sun and moon, earth and water, and fire come? How did the animals come? Why has the bear no tail? Why are fishes dumb, the swallow cleft-tail? How did evil come? Why did men begin to quarrel? How did death arise? What will the end be? Why do dead persons come back? What do the dead do? What is the earth shaped like? Who invented tools and weapons, and musical instruments, and how? When did kings and chiefs first come? From accepted answers to such questions most of the huge mass of mythology arises. Man makes his gods in his own image, and the doctrines of omen, coincidence, and correspondence helped by incessant and imperfect observation and logic, bring about a system of religious observance, of magic and ritual, and all the masses of folly and cruelty, hope and faith, and even charity, that group about their inventions, and seem to be the necessary steps in the onward path of progressive races. When to these we add the true and exaggerated memories of actual heroes, the material before the student is pretty completely comprised. Though he must be prepared to meet the difficulties caused in the contact of races, of civilisations, by the conversion of persons holding one set of mythical ideas to belief in another set of different, more attractive, and often more advanced stage. The task of arriving at the scientific, speculative ethic, and the actual practice of our remote ancestry (for to that end is the student of mythology and folk-lore aiming) is not therefore easy. Nor is the record perfect, though it is not so poor in most cases as was once believed. The Brothers Grimm, patriarchs alike as mythologists and folk-lorists, the Castor and Pollox of our studies, have proved this as regards the Teutonic nations, just as they showed us, by many a striking example, that in great part folk-lore was the mythology of to-day, and mythology the folk-lore of yesterday. In many cases we are helped by quite modern material to make out some puzzle that an old tale presents, and there is little doubt but that the present activity in the field of folklore will not only result in fresh matter but in fresh methods freshly applied. The Scandinavian material, at all events, is particularly rich: there is the extensive Icelandic written literature touching the ninth and tenth and eleventh centuries; the noble, if fragmentary remains of Old Northern poetry of the Wickingtide; and lastly, the mass of tradition which, surviving in oral form, and changing in colour from generation to generation, was first recorded in part in the seventeenth, and again in part, in the present century; and all these yield a plentiful field for research. But their evidence gains immensely by the existence of Saxo's nine books of traditional and mythic lore, collected and written down in an age when much that was antique and heathen was passing away forever. The gratitude due to the Welshman of the twelfth century, whose garnered hoard has enriched so many poets and romances from his day to now, is no less due to the twelfth-century Dane, whose faithful and eloquent enthusiasm has swept much dust from antique time, and saved us such a story as Shakespeare has not disdained to consecrate to highest use. Not only Celtic and Teutonic lore are the richer for these two men, but the whole Western world of thought and speech. In the history of modern literature, it is but right that by the side of Geoffrey an honourable place should be maintained for Saxo, and "awake remembrance of these mighty dead." --Oliver Elton ENDNOTES: (1) A horn and a tusk of great size are described as things of price, and great uroch's horns are mentioned in Thorkill's Second Journey. Horns were used for feast as well as fray. (2) Such bird-beaked, bird-legged figures occur on the Cross at Papil, Burra Island, Shetland. Cf. Abbey Morne Cross, and an Onchan Cross, Isle of Man. THE DANISH HISTORY OF SAXO GRAMMATICUS. PREFACE. Forasmuch as all other nations are wont to vaunt the glory of their achievements, and reap joy from the remembrance of their forefathers: Absalon, Chief Pontiff of the Danes, whose zeal ever burned high for the glorification of our land, and who would not suffer it to be defrauded of like renown and record, cast upon me, the least of his followers--since all the rest refused the task--the work of compiling into a chronicle the history of Denmark, and by the authority of his constant admonition spurred my weak faculty to enter on a labour too heavy for its strength. For who could write a record of the deeds of Denmark? It had but lately been admitted to the common faith: it still languished as strange to Latin as to religion. But now that the holy ritual brought also the command of the Latin tongue, men were as slothful now as they were unskilled before, and their sluggishness proved as faultful as that former neediness. Thus it came about that my lowliness, though perceiving itself too feeble for the aforesaid burden, yet chose rather to strain beyond its strength than to resist his bidding; fearing that while our neighbours rejoiced and transmitted records of their deeds, the repute of our own people might appear not to possess any written chronicle, but rather to be sunk in oblivion and antiquity. Thus I, forced to put my shoulder, which was unused to the task, to a burden unfamiliar to all authors of preceding time, and dreading to slight his command, have obeyed more boldly than effectually, borrowing from the greatness of my admonisher that good heart which the weakness of my own wit denied me. And since, ere my enterprise reached its goal, his death outran it; I entreat thee chiefly, Andrew, who wast chosen by a most wholesome and accordant vote to be successor in the same office and to headship of spiritual things, to direct and inspire my theme; that I may baulk by the defence of so great an advocate that spiteful detraction which ever reviles what is most conspicuous. For thy breast, very fruitful in knowledge, and covered with great store of worshipful doctrines, is to be deemed a kind of shrine of heavenly treasures. Thou who hast searched through Gaul and Italy and Britain also in order to gather knowledge of letters and amass them abundantly, didst after thy long wandering obtain a most illustrious post in a foreign school, and proved such a pillar thereof, that thou seemedst to confer more grace on thy degree than it did on thee. Then being made, on account of the height of thy honours and the desert of thy virtues, Secretary to the King, thou didst adorn that employment, in itself bounded and insignificant, with such works of wisdom as to leave it a piece of promotion for men of greatest rank to covet afterwards, when thou wert transferred to that office which now thou holdest. Wherefore Skaane has been found to leap for joy that she has borrowed a Pontiff from her neighbours rather than chosen one from her own people; inasmuch as she both elected nobly and deserved joy of her election. Being a shining light, therefore, in lineage, in letters, and in parts, and guiding the people with the most fruitful labours of thy teaching, thou hast won the deepest love of thy flock, and by thy boldness in thy famous administration hast conducted the service thou hast undertaken unto the summit of renown. And lest thou shouldst seem to acquire ownership on the strength of prescription, thou hast, by a pious and bountiful will, made over a very rich inheritance to Holy Church; choosing rather honourably to reject riches (which are covered with the rust of cares) than to be shackled with the greed of them and with their burden. Likewise thou hast set about an amazing work upon the reverend tenets of the faith; and in thy zeal to set the service of public religion before thy private concerns, hast, by the lesson of thy wholesome admonitions, driven those men who refused payment of the dues belonging to religion to do to holy things the homage that they ought; and by thy pious gift of treasure hast atoned for the ancient neglect of sacred buildings. Further, those who pursued a wanton life, and yielded to the stress of incontinence above measure, thou hast redeemed from nerveless sloth to a more upright state of mind, partly by continuing instant in wholesome reproof, and partly by the noble example of simple living; leaving it in doubt whether thou hast edified them more by word or deed. Thus thou, by mere counsels of wisdom, hast achieved what it was not granted to any of thy forerunners to obtain. And I would not have it forgotten that the more ancient of the Danes, when any notable deeds of mettle had been done, were filled with emulation of glory, and imitated the Roman style; not only by relating in a choice kind of composition, which might be called a poetical work, the roll of their lordly deeds; but also by having graven upon rocks and cliffs, in the characters of their own language, the works of their forefathers, which were commonly known in poems in the mother tongue. In the footsteps of these poems, being as it were classic books of antiquity, I have trod; and keeping true step with them as I translated, in the endeavour to preserve their drift, I have taken care to render verses by verses; so that the chronicle of what I shall have to write, being founded upon these, may thus be known, not for a modern fabrication, but for the utterance of antiquity; since this present work promises not a trumpery dazzle of language, but faithful information concerning times past. Moreover, how many histories must we suppose that men of such genius would have written, could they have had skill in Latin and so slaked their thirst for writing! Men who though they lacked acquaintance with, the speech of Rome, were yet seized with such a passion for bequeathing some record of their history, that they encompassed huge boulders instead of scrolls, borrowing rocks for the usage of books. Nor may the pains of the men of Thule be blotted in oblivion; for though they lack all that can foster luxury (so naturally barren is the soil), yet they make up for their neediness by their wit, by keeping continually every observance of soberness, and devoting every instant of their lives to perfecting our knowledge of the deeds of foreigners. Indeed, they account it a delight to learn and to consign to remembrance the history of all nations, deeming it as great a glory to set forth the excellences of others as to display their own. Their stores, which are stocked with attestations of historical events, I have examined somewhat closely, and have woven together no small portion of the present work by following their narrative, not despising the judgment of men whom I know to be so well versed in the knowledge of antiquity. And I have taken equal care to follow the statements of Absalon, and with obedient mind and pen to include both his own doings and other men's doings of which he learnt; treasuring the witness of his August narrative as though it were some teaching from the skies. Wherefore, Waldemar, (1) healthful Prince and Father of us all, shining light of thy land, whose lineage, most glorious from times of old, I am to relate, I beseech thee let thy grace attend the faltering course of this work; for I am fettered under the weight of my purpose, and dread that I may rather expose my unskillfulness and the feebleness of my parts, than portray thy descent as I duly should. For, not to speak of thy rich inheritance from thy fathers, thou hast nobly increased thy realm by conquering thy neighbours, and in the toil of spreading thy sovereignty hast encompassed the ebbing and flowing waves of Elbe, thus adding to thy crowded roll of honours no mean portion of fame. And after outstripping the renown and repute of thy forerunners by the greatness of thy deeds, thou didst not forbear to make armed, assault even upon part of the Roman empire. And though thou art deemed to be well endowed with courage and generosity, thou hast left it in doubt whether thou dost more terrify to thy foes in warfare or melt thy people by thy mildness. Also thy most illustrious grandsire, who was sanctioned with the honours of public worship, and earned the glory of immortality by an unmerited death, now dazzles by the refulgence of his holiness those whom living he annexed in his conquests. And from his most holy wounds more virtue than blood hath flowed. Moreover I, bound by an old and inherited duty of obedience, have set my heart on fighting for thee, if it be only with all the forces of my mind; my father and grandfather being known to have served thy illustrious sire in camp with loyal endurance of the toils of war. Relying therefore on thy guidance and regard, I have resolved to begin with the position and configuration of our own country; for I shall relate all things as they come more vividly, if the course of this history first traverse the places to which the events belong, and take their situation as the starting-point for its narrative. The extremes, then, of this country are partly bounded by a frontier of another land, and partly enclosed by the waters of the adjacent sea. The interior is washed and encompassed by the ocean; and this, through the circuitous winds of the interstices, now straitens into the narrows of a firth, now advances into ampler bays, forming a number of islands. Hence Denmark is cut in pieces by the intervening waves of ocean, and has but few portions of firm and continuous territory; these being divided by the mass of waters that break them up, in ways varying with the different angle of the bend of the sea. Of all these, Jutland, being the largest and first settled, holds the chief place in the Danish kingdom. It both lies fore-most and stretches furthest, reaching to the frontiers of Teutonland, from contact with which it is severed by the bed of the river Eyder. Northwards it swells somewhat in breadth, and runs out to the shore of the Noric Channel (Skagerrak). In this part is to be found the fjord called Liim, which is so full of fish that it seems to yield the natives as much food as the whole soil. Close by this fjord also lies Lesser (North) Friesland, which curves in from the promontory of Jutland in a cove of sinking plains and shelving lap, and by the favour of the flooding ocean yields immense crops of grain. But whether this violent inundation bring the inhabitants more profit or peril, remains a vexed question. For when the (dykes of the) estuaries, whereby the waves of the sea are commonly checked among that people, are broken through by the greatness of the storm, such a mass of waters is wont to overrun the fields that it sometimes overwhelms not only the tilled lands, but people and their dwellings likewise. Eastwards, after Jutland, comes the Isle of Funen, cut off from the mainland by a very narrow sound of sea. This faces Jutland on the west, and on the east Zealand, which is famed for its remarkable richness in the necessaries of life. This latter island, being by far the most delightful of all the provinces of our country, is held to occupy the heart of Denmark, being divided by equal distances from the extreme frontier; on its eastern side the sea breaks through and cuts off the western side of Skaane; and this sea commonly yields each year an abundant haul to the nets of the fishers. Indeed, the whole sound is apt to be so thronged with fish that any craft which strikes on them is with difficulty got off by hard rowing, and the prize is captured no longer by tackle, but by simple use of the hands. Moreover, Halland and Bleking, shooting forth from the mass of the Skaane like two branches from a parent trunk, are linked to Gothland and to Norway, though with wide deviations of course, and with various gaps consisting of fjords. Now in Bleking is to be seen a rock which travellers can visit, dotted with letters in a strange character. For there stretches from the southern sea into the desert of Vaarnsland a road of rock, contained between two lines a little way apart and very prolonged, between which is visible in the midst a level space, graven all over with characters made to be read. And though this lies so unevenly as sometimes to break through the tops of the hills, sometimes to pass along the valley bottoms, yet it can be discerned to preserve continuous traces of the characters. Now Waldemar, well-starred son of holy Canute, marvelled at these, and desired to know their purport, and sent men to go along the rock and gather with close search the series of the characters that were to be seen there; they were then to denote them with certain marks, using letters of similar shape. These men could not gather any sort of interpretation of them, because owing to the hollow space of the graving being partly smeared up with mud and partly worn by the feet of travellers in the trampling of the road, the long line that had been drawn became blurred. Hence it is plain that crevices, even in the solid rock, if long drenched with wet, become choked either by the solid washings of dirt or the moistening drip of showers. But since this country, by its closeness of language as much as of position, includes Sweden and Norway, I will record their divisions and their climates also as I have those of Denmark. These territories, lying under the northern pole, and facing Bootes and the Great Bear, reach with their utmost outlying parts the latitude of the freezing zone; and beyond these the extraordinary sharpness of the cold suffers not human habitation. Of these two, Norway has been allotted by the choice of nature a forbidding rocky site. Craggy and barren, it is beset all around by cliffs, and the huge desolate boulders give it the aspect of a rugged and a gloomy land; in its furthest part the day-star is not hidden even by night; so that the sun, scorning the vicissitudes of day and night, ministers in unbroken presence an equal share of his radiance to either season. On the west of Norway comes the island called Iceland, with the mighty ocean washing round it: a land very squalid to dwell in, but noteworthy for marvels, both strange occurrences and objects that pass belief. A spring is there which, by the malignant reek of its water, destroys the original nature of anything whatsoever. Indeed, all that is sprinkled with the breath of its vapour is changed into the hardness of stone. It remains a doubt whether it be more marvellous or more perilous, that soft and flowing water should be invested with such a stiffness, as by a sudden change to transmute into the nature of stone whatsoever is put to it and drenched with its reeking fume, nought but the shape surviving. Here also are said to be other springs, which now are fed with floods of rising water, and, overflowing in full channels, cast a mass of spray upwards; and now again their bubbling flags, and they can scarce be seen below at the bottom, and are swallowed into deep hiding far under ground. Hence, when they are gushing over, they bespatter everything about them with the white spume, but when they are spent the sharpest eye cannot discern them. In this island there is likewise a mountain, whose floods of incessant fire make it look like a glowing rock, and which, by belching out flames, keeps its crest in an everlasting blaze. This thing awakens our wonder as much as those aforesaid; namely, when a land lying close to the extreme of cold can have such abundance of matter to keep up the heat, as to furnish eternal fires with unseen fuel, and supply an endless provocative to feed the burning. To this isle also, at fixed and appointed seasons, there drifts a boundless mass of ice, and when it approaches and begins to dash upon the rugged reefs, then, just as if the cliffs rang reply, there is heard from the deep a roar of voices and a changing din of extraordinary clamour. Whence it is supposed that spirits, doomed to torture for the iniquity of their guilty life, do here pay, by that bitter cold, the penalty of their sins. And so any portion of this mass that is cut off when the aforesaid ice breaks away from the land, soon slips its bonds and bars, though it be made fast with ever so great joins and knots. The mind stands dazed in wonder, that a thing which is covered with bolts past picking, and shut in by manifold and intricate barriers, should so depart after that mass whereof it was a portion, as by its enforced and inevitable flight to baffle the wariest watching. There also, set among the ridges and crags of the mountains, is another kind of ice which is known periodically to change and in a way reverse its position, the upper parts sinking to the bottom, and the lower again returning to the top. For proof of this story it is told that certain men, while they chanced to be running over the level of ice, rolled into the abyss before them, and into the depths of the yawning crevasses, and were a little later picked up dead without the smallest chink of ice above them. Hence it is common for many to imagine that the urn of the sling of ice first swallows them, and then a little after turns upside down and restores them. Here also, is reported to bubble up the water of a pestilent flood, which if a man taste, he falls struck as though by poison. Also there are other springs, whose gushing waters are said to resemble the quality of the bowl of Ceres. There are also fires, which, though they cannot consume linen, yet devour so fluent a thing as water. Also there is a rock, which flies over mountain-steeps, not from any outward impulse, but of its innate and proper motion. And now to unfold somewhat more thoroughly our delineation of Norway. It should be known that on the east it is conterminous with Sweden and Gothland, and is bounded on both sides by the waters of the neighbouring ocean. Also on the north it faces a region whose position and name are unknown, and which lacks all civilisation, but teems with peoples of monstrous strangeness; and a vast interspace of flowing sea severs it from the portion of Norway opposite. This sea is found hazardous for navigation, and suffers few that venture thereon to return in peace. Moreover, the upper bend of the ocean, which cuts through Denmark and flows past it, washes the southern side of Gothland with a gulf of some width; while its lower channel, passing the northern sides of Gothland and Norway, turns eastwards, widening much in breadth, and is bounded by a curve of firm land. This limit of the sea the elders of our race called Grandvik. Thus between Grandvik and the Southern Sea there lies a short span of mainland, facing the seas that wash on either shore; and but that nature had set this as a boundary where the billows almost meet, the tides of the two seas would have flowed into one, and cut off Sweden and Norway into an island. The regions on the east of these lands are inhabited by the Skric-Finns. This people is used to an extraordinary kind of carriage, and in its passion for the chase strives to climb untrodden mountains, and attains the coveted ground at the cost of a slippery circuit. For no crag juts out so high, but they can reach its crest by fetching a cunning compass. For when they first leave the deep valleys, they glide twisting and circling among the bases of the rocks, thus making the route very roundabout by dint of continually swerving aside, until, passing along the winding curves of the tracks, they conquer the appointed summit. This same people is wont to use the skins of certain beasts for merchandise with its neighbours. Now Sweden faces Denmark and Norway on the west, but on the south and on much of its eastern side it is skirted by the ocean. Past this eastward is to be found a vast accumulation of motley barbarism. That the country of Denmark was once cultivated and worked by giants, is attested by the enormous stones attached to the barrows and caves of the ancients. Should any man question that this is accomplished by superhuman force, let him look up at the tops of certain mountains and say, if he knows how, what man hath carried such immense boulders up to their crests. For anyone considering this marvel will mark that it is inconceivable how a mass, hardly at all or but with difficulty movable upon a level, could have been raised to so mighty a peak of so lofty a mountain by mere human effort, or by the ordinary exertion of human strength. But as to whether, after the Deluge went forth, there existed giants who could do such deeds, or men endowed beyond others with bodily force, there is scant tradition to tell us. But, as our countrymen aver, those who even to-day are said to dwell in that rugged and inaccessible desert aforesaid, are, by the mutable nature of their bodies, vouchsafed the power of being now near, now far, and of appearing and vanishing in turn. The approach to this desert is beset with perils of a fearful kind, and has seldom granted to those who attempted it an unscathed return. Now I will let my pen pass to my theme. ENDNOTES: (1) Waldemar the Second (1203-42); Saxo does not reach his history. BOOK ONE. Now Dan and Angul, with whom the stock of the Danes begins, were begotten of Humble, their father, and were the governors and not only the founders of our race. (Yet Dudo, the historian of Normandy, considers that the Danes are sprung and named from the Danai.) And these two men, though by the wish and favour of their country they gained the lordship of the realm, and, owing to the wondrous deserts of their bravery, got the supreme power by the consenting voice of their countrymen, yet lived without the name of king: the usage whereof was not then commonly resorted to by any authority among our people. Of these two, Angul, the fountain, so runs the tradition, of the beginnings of the Anglian race, caused his name to be applied to the district which he ruled. This was an easy kind of memorial wherewith to immortalise his fame: for his successors a little later, when they gained possession of Britain, changed the original name of the island for a fresh title, that of their own land. This action was much thought of by the ancients: witness Bede, no mean figure among the writers of the Church, who was a native of England, and made it his care to embody the doings of his country in the most hallowed treasury of his pages; deeming it equally a religious duty to glorify in writing the deeds of his land, and to chronicle the history of the Church. From Dan, however, so saith antiquity; the pedigrees of our kings have flowed in glorious series, like channels from some parent spring. Grytha, a matron most highly revered among the Teutons, bore him two sons, HUMBLE and LOTHER. The ancients, when they were to choose a king, were wont to stand on stones planted in the ground, and to proclaim their votes, in order to foreshadow from the steadfastness of the stones that the deed would be lasting. By this ceremony Humble was elected king at his father's death, thus winning a novel favour from his country; but by the malice of ensuing fate he fell from a king into a common man. For he was taken by Lother in war, and bought his life by yielding up his crown; such, in truth, were the only terms of escape offered him in his defeat. Forced, therefore, by the injustice of a brother to lay down his sovereignty, he furnished the lesson to mankind, that there is less safety, though more pomp, in the palace than in the cottage. Also, he bore his wrong so meekly that he seemed to rejoice at his loss of title as though it were a blessing; and I think he had a shrewd sense of the quality of a king's estate. But Lother played the king as insupportably as he had played the soldier, inaugurating his reign straightway with arrogance and crime; for he counted it uprightness to strip all the most eminent of life or goods, and to clear his country of its loyal citizens, thinking all his equals in birth his rivals for the crown. He was soon chastised for his wickedness; for he met his end in an insurrection of his country; which had once bestowed on him his kingdom, and now bereft him of his life. SKIOLD, his son, inherited his natural bent, but not his behaviour; avoiding his inborn perversity by great discretion in his tender years, and thus escaping all traces of his father's taint. So he appropriated what was alike the more excellent and the earlier share of the family character; for he wisely departed from his father's sins, and became a happy counterpart of his grandsire's virtues. This man was famous in his youth among the huntsmen of his father for his conquest of a monstrous beast: a marvellous incident, which augured his future prowess. For he chanced to obtain leave from his guardians, who were rearing him very carefully, to go and see the hunting. A bear of extraordinary size met him; he had no spear, but with the girdle that he commonly wore he contrived to bind it, and gave it to his escort to kill. More than this, many champions of tried prowess were at the same time of his life vanquished by him singly; of these Attal and Skat were renowned and famous. While but fifteen years of age he was of unusual bodily size and displayed mortal strength in its perfection, and so mighty were the proofs of his powers that the rest of the kings of the Danes were called after him by a common title, the SKIOLDUNG'S. Those who were wont to live an abandoned and flaccid life, and to sap their self-control by wantonness, this man vigilantly spurred to the practice of virtue in an active career. Thus the ripeness of Skiold's spirit outstripped the fulness of his strength, and he fought battles at which one of his tender years could scarce look on. And as he thus waxed in years and valour he beheld the perfect beauty of Alfhild, daughter of the King of the Saxons, sued for her hand, and, for her sake, in the sight of the armies of the Teutons and the Danes, challenged and fought with Skat, governor of Allemannia, and a suitor for the same maiden; whom he slew, afterwards crushing the whole nation of the Allemannians, and forcing them to pay tribute, they being subjugated by the death of their captain. Skiold was eminent for patriotism as well as arms. For he annulled unrighteous laws, and most heedfully executed whatsoever made for the amendment of his country's condition. Further, he regained by his virtue the realm that his father's wickedness had lost. He was the first to proclaim the law abolishing manumissions. A slave, to whom he had chanced to grant his freedom, had attempted his life by stealthy treachery, and he exacted a bitter penalty; as though it were just that the guilt of one freedman should be visited upon all. He paid off all men's debts from his own treasury, and contended, so to say, with all other monarchs in courage, bounty, and generous dealing. The sick he used to foster, and charitably gave medicines to those sore stricken; bearing witness that he had taken on him the care of his country and not of himself. He used to enrich his nobles not only with home taxes, but also with plunder taken in war; being wont to aver that the prize-money should flow to the soldiers, and the glory to the general. Thus delivered of his bitterest rival in wooing, he took as the prize of combat the maiden, for the love of whom he had fought, and wedded her in marriage. Soon after, he had by her a son, GRAM, whose wondrous parts savoured so strongly of his father's virtues that he was deemed to tread in their very footsteps. The days of Gram's youth were enriched with surpassing gifts of mind and body, and he raised them to the crest of renown. Posterity did such homage to his greatness that in the most ancient poems of the Danes royal dignity is implied in his very name. He practiced with the most zealous training whatsoever serves to sharpen and strengthen the bodily powers. Taught by the fencers, he trained himself by sedulous practice to parrying and dealing blows. He took to wife the daughter of his upbringer, Roar, she being his foster-sister and of his own years, in order the better to show his gratefulness for his nursing. A little while after he gave her in marriage to a certain Bess, since he had ofttimes used his strenuous service. In this partner of his warlike deeds he put his trust; and he has left it a question whether he has won more renown by Bess's valour or his own. Gram, chancing to hear that Groa, daughter of Sigtryg, King of the Swedes, was plighted to a certain giant, and holding accursed an union so unworthy of the blood royal, entered on a Swedish war; being destined to emulate the prowess of Hercules in resisting the attempts of monsters. He went into Gothland, and, in order to frighten people out of his path, strode on clad in goats' skins, swathed in the motley hides of beasts, and grasping in his right hand a dreadful weapon, thus feigning the attire of a giant; when he met Groa herself riding with a very small escort of women on foot, and making her way, as it chanced, to the forest-pools to bathe, she thought it was her betrothed who had hastened to meet her, and was scared with feminine alarm at so strange a garb: so, flinging up the reins, and shaking terribly all over, she began in the song of her country, thus: "I see that a giant, hated of the king, has come, and darkens the highways with his stride. Or my eyes play me false; for it has oft befallen bold warriors to skulk behind the skin of a beast." Then began Bess: "Maiden, seated on the shoulders of the steed, tell me, pouring forth in thy turn words of answer, what is thy name, and of what line art thou born?" Groa replied: "Groa is my name; my sire is a king, glorious in blood, gleaming in armour. Disclose to us, thou also, who thou art, or whence sprung!" To whom Bess: "I am Bess, brave in battle, ruthless to foes, a terror to nations, and oft drenching my right hand in the blood of foes." Then said Groa: "Who, prithee, commands your lines? Under what captain raise ye the war-standards? What prince controls the battle? Under whose guidance is the war made ready?" Bess in answer: "Gram, the blest in battle, rules the array: force nor fear can swerve him; flaming pyre and cruel sword and ocean billow have never made him afraid. Led by him, maiden, we raise the golden standards of war." Groa once more: "Turn your feet and go back hence, lest Sigtryg vanquish you all with his own array, and fasten you to a cruel stake, your throats haltered with the cord, and doom your carcases to the stiff noose, and, glaring evilly, thrust out your corpses to the hungry raven." Bess again: "Gram, ere he shall shut his own eyes in death, shall first make him a ghost, and, smiting him on the crest, shall send him to Tartarus. We fear no camp of the Swedes. Why threaten us with ghastly dooms, maiden?" Groa answered him: "Behold, I will ride thence to see again the roof of my father which I know, that I may not rashly set eyes on the array of my brother who is coming. And I pray that your death-doom may tarry for you who abide." Bess replied: "Daughter, to thy father go back with good cheer; nor imprecate swift death upon us, nor let choler shake thy bosom. For often has a woman, harsh at first and hard to a wooer, yielded the second time." Whereupon Gram could brook no longer to be silent, and pitching his tones gruffly, so as to mimic a gruesome and superhuman voice, accosted the maiden thus: "Let not the maiden fear the brother of the fleet giant, nor turn pale because I am nigh her. For I am sent by Grip, and never seek the couch and embrace of damsels save when their wish matches mine." Groa answered: "Who so mad as to wish to be the leman of giants? Or what woman could love the bed that genders monsters? Who could be the wife of demons, and know the seed whose fruit is monstrous? Or who would fain share her couch with a barbarous giant? Who caresses thorns with her fingers? Who would mingle honest kisses with mire? Who would unite shaggy limbs to smooth ones which correspond not? Full ease of love cannot be taken when nature cries out against it: nor doth the love customary in the use of women sort with monsters." Gram rejoined: "Oft with conquering hand I have tamed the necks of mighty kings, defeating with stronger arm their insolent pride. Thence take red-glowing gold, that the troth may be made firm by the gift, and that the faith to be brought to our wedlock may stand fast." Thus speaking, he cast off his disguises, and revealed his natural comeliness; and by a single sight of him he filled the damsel with well-nigh as much joy as he had struck her with fear before at his counterfeit. She was even incited to his embraces by the splendour of his beauty; nor did he fail to offer her the gifts of love. Having won Groa, Bess proceeded and learnt that the road was beset by two robbers. These he slew simply by charging them as they rushed covetously forth to despoil him. This done, loth to seem to have done any service to the soil of an enemy, he put timbers under the carcases of the slain, fastened them thereto, and stretched them so as to counterfeit an upright standing position; so that in their death they might menace in seeming those whom their life had harmed in truth; and that, terrible even after their decease, they might block the road in effigy as much as they had once in deed. Whence it appears that in slaying the robbers he took thought for himself and not for Sweden: for he betokened by so singular an act how great a hatred of Sweden filled him. Having heard from the diviners that Sigtryg could only be conquered by gold, he straightway fixed a knob of gold to a wooden mace, equipped himself therewith in the war wherein he attacked the king, and obtained his desire. This exploit was besung by Bess in a most zealous strain of eulogy: "Gram, the fierce wielder of the prosperous mace, knowing not the steel, rained blows on the outstretched sword, and with a stock beat off the lances of the mighty. "Following the decrees and will of the gods, he brought low the glory of the powerless Swedes, doing their king to death and crushing him with the stiff gold. "For he pondered on the arts of war: he wielded in his clasp the ruddy-flashing wood, and victoriously with noble stroke made their fallen captain writhe. "Shrewdly he conquered with the hardness of gold him whom fate forbade should be slain by steel; unsworded, waging war with the worthier metal. "This treasure, for which its deviser claims glory and the height of honour, shall abide yet more illustrious hereafter, known far and wide in ampler fame." Having now slain Sigtryg, the King of Sweden, Gram desired to confirm his possession of the empire which he had won in war; and therefore, suspecting Swarin the governor of Gothland of aspiring to the crown, he challenged him to combat, and slew him. This man's brethren, of whom he had seven lawfully born, and nine the sons of a concubine, sought to avenge their brother's death, but Gram, in an unequal contest, cut them off. Gram, for his marvellous prowess, was granted a share in the sovereignty by his father, who was now in extreme age, and thought it better and likewise more convenient to give his own blood a portion of the supremacy of the realm, than now in the setting of his life to administer it without a partner. Therefore Ring, a nobly-born Zealander, stirred the greater part of the Danes with desire for insurrection; fancying that one of these men was unripe for his rank, and that the other had run the course of his powers, alleging the weakness in years of both, and declaring that the wandering wit of an old man made the one, and that of a boy the other, unfit for royal power. But they fought and crushed him, making him an example to all men, that no season of life is to be deemed incompatible with valour. Many other deeds also King Gram did. He declared war against Sumble, King of the Finns; but when he set eyes upon the King's daughter, Signe, he laid down his arms, the foeman turned into the suitor, and, promising to put away his own wife, he plighted troth with her. But, while much busied with a war against Norway, which he had taken up against King Swipdag for debauching his sister and his daughter, he heard from a messenger that Signe had, by Sumble's treachery, been promised in marriage to Henry, King of Saxony. Then, inclining to love the maiden more than his soldiers, he left his army, privily made his way to Finland, and came in upon the wedding, which was already begun. Putting on a garb of the utmost meanness, he lay down at the table in a seat of no honour. When asked what he brought, he professed skill in leechcraft. At last, when all were drenched in drunkenness, he gazed at the maiden, and amid the revels of the riotous banquet, cursing deep the fickleness of women, and vaunting loud his own deeds of valour, he poured out the greatness of his wrath in a song like this: "Singly against eight at once I drove the darts of death, and smote nine with a back-swung sword, when I slew Swarin, who wrongfully assumed his honours and tried to win fame unmerited; wherefore I have oft dyed in foreign blood my blade red with death and reeking with slaughter, and have never blenched at the clash of dagger or the sheen of helmet. Now Signe, the daughter of Sumble, vilely spurns me, and endures vows not mine, cursing her ancient troth; and, conceiving an ill-ordered love, commits a notable act of female lightness; for she entangles, lures, and bestains princes, rebuffing beyond all others the lordly of birth; yet remaining firm to none, but ever wavering, and bringing to birth impulses doubtful and divided." And as he spoke he leapt up from where he lay, and there he cut Henry down while at the sacred board and the embraces of his friends, carried off his bride from amongst the bridesmaids, felled most of the guests, and bore her off with him in his ship. Thus the bridal was turned into a funeral; and the Finns might learn the lesson, that hands should not be laid upon the loves of other men. After this SWIPDAG, King of Norway, destroyed Gram, who was attempting to avenge the outrage on his sister and the attempt on his daughter's chastity. This battle was notable for the presence of the Saxon forces, who were incited to help Swipdag, not so much by love of him, as by desire to avenge Henry. GUTHORM and HADDING, the son of Gram (Groa being the mother of the first and Signe of the second), were sent over to Sweden in a ship by their foster-father, Brage (Swipdag being now master of Denmark), and put in charge of the giants Wagnhofde and Hafle, for guard as well as rearing. As I shall have briefly to relate doings of these folk, and would fain not seem to fabricate what conflicts with common belief or outsteps the faithful truth, it is worth the knowing that there were in old times three kinds of magicians who by diverse sleights practiced extraordinary marvels. The first of these were men of monstrous stock, termed by antiquity giants; these by their exceeding great bodily stature surpassed the size natural to mankind. Those who came after these were the first who gained skill in divination from entrails, and attained the Pythonic art. These surpassed the former in briskness of mental parts as much as they fell behind them in bodily condition. Constant wars for the supremacy were waged between these and the giants; till at last the sorcerers prevailed, subdued the tribe of giants by arms, and acquired not merely the privilege of ruling, but also the repute of being divine. Both of these kinds had extreme skill in deluding the eyesight, knowing how to obscure their own faces and those of others with divers semblances, and to darken the true aspects of things with beguiling shapes. But the third kind of men, springing from the natural union of the first two, did not answer to the nature of their parents either in bodily size or in practice of magic arts; yet these gained credit for divinity with minds that were befooled by their jugglings. Nor must we marvel if, tempted by the prodigious miracles of these folk, the barbaric world fell to worshipping a false religion, when others like unto these, who were mere mortals, but were reverenced with divine honours, beguiled even the shrewdness of the Latins. I have touched on these things lest, when I relate of sleights and marvels, I be checked by the disbelief of the reader. Now I will leave these matters and return to my theme. Swipdag, now that he had slain Gram, was enriched with the realms of Denmark and Sweden; and because of the frequent importunities of his wife he brought back from banishment her brother Guthorm, upon his promising tribute, and made him ruler of the Danes. But Hadding preferred to avenge his father rather than take a boon from his foe. This man's nature so waxed and throve that in the early season of his youth he was granted the prime of manhood. Leaving the pursuit of pleasure, he was constantly zealous in warlike exercises; remembering that he was the son of a fighting father, and was bound to spend his whole span of life in approved deeds of warfare. Hardgrep, daughter of Wagnhofde, tried to enfeeble his firm spirit with her lures of love, contending and constantly averring that he ought to offer the first dues of the marriage bed in wedlock with her, who had proffered to his childhood most zealous and careful fostering, and had furnished him with his first rattle. Nor was she content with admonishing in plain words, but began a strain of song as follows: "Why doth thy life thus waste and wander? Why dost thou pass thy years unwed, following arms, thirsting for throats? Nor does my beauty draw thy vows. Carried away by excess of frenzy, thou art little prone to love. Steeped in blood and slaughter, thou judgest wars better than the bed, nor refreshest thy soul with incitements. Thy fierceness finds no leisure; dalliance is far from thee, and savagery fostered. Nor is thy hand free from blasphemy while thou loathest the rites of love. Let this hateful strictness pass away, let that loving warmth approach, and plight the troth of love to me, who gave thee the first breasts of milk in childhood, and helped thee, playing a mother's part, duteous to thy needs." When he answered that the size of her body was unwieldy for the embraces of a mortal, since doubtless her nature was framed in conformity to her giant stock, she said: "Be not moved by my unwonted look of size. For my substance is sometimes thinner, sometimes ampler; now meagre, now abundant; and I alter and change at my pleasure the condition of my body, which is at one time shrivelled up and at another time expanded: now my tallness rises to the heavens, and now I settle down into a human being, under a more bounded shape." As he still faltered, and was slow to believe her words, she added the following song: "Youth, fear not the converse of my bed. I change my bodily outline in twofold wise, and am wont to enjoin a double law upon my sinews. For I conform to shapes of different figure in turn, and am altered at my own sweet will: now my neck is star-high, and soars nigh to the lofty Thunderer; then it falls and declines to human strength, and plants again on earth that head which was near the firmament. Thus I lightly shift my body into diverse phases, and am beheld in varying wise; for changefully now cramped stiffness draws in my limbs, now the virtue of my tall body unfolds them, and suffers them to touch the cloud-tops. Now I am short and straitened, now stretch out with loosened knee; and I have mutably changed myself like wax into strange aspects. He who knows of Proteus should not marvel at me. My shape never stays the same, and my aspect is twofold: at one time it contrasts its outstretched limbs, at another shoots them out when closed; now disentangling the members and now rolling them back into a coil. I dart out my ingathered limbs, and presently, while they are strained, I wrinkle them up, dividing my countenance between shapes twain, and adopting two forms; with the greater of these I daunt the fierce, while with the shorter I seek the embraces of men." By thus averring she obtained the embraces of Hadding; and her love for the youth burned so high that when she found him desirous of revisiting his own land, she did not hesitate to follow him in man's attire, and counted it as joy to share his hardships and perils. While upon the journey she had undertaken, she chanced to enter in his company, in order to pass the night, a dwelling, the funeral of whose dead master was being conducted with melancholy rites. Here, desiring to pry into the purposes of heaven by the help of a magical espial, she graved on wood some very dreadful spells, and caused Hadding to put them under the dead man's tongue; thus forcing him to utter, with the voice so given, a strain terrible to hear: "Perish accursed he who hath dragged me back from those below, let him be punished for calling a spirit out of bale! "Whoso hath called me, who am lifeless and dead, back from the abode below, and hath brought me again into upper air, let him pay full penalty with his own death in the dreary shades beneath livid Styx. Behold, counter to my will and purpose, I must declare some bitter tidings. For as ye go away from this house ye will come to the narrow path of a grove, and will be a prey to demons all about. Then she who hath brought our death back from out of void, and has given us a sight of this light once more, by her prayers wondrously drawing forth the ghost and casting it into the bonds of the body, shall bitterly bewail her rash enterprise. "Perish accursed he who hath dragged me back from those below, let him be punished for calling a spirit out of bale! "For when the black pestilence of the blast that engenders monsters has crushed out the inmost entrails with stern effort, and when their hand has swept away the living with cruel nail, tearing off limbs and rending ravished bodies; then Hadding, thy life shall survive, nor shall the nether realms bear off thy ghost, nor thy spirit pass heavily to the waters of Styx; but the woman who hath made the wretched ghost come back hither, crushed by her own guilt, shall appease our dust; she shall be dust herself. "Perish accursed he who hath dragged me back from those below, let him be punished for calling a spirit out of bale!" So, while they were passing the night in the forest foretold them, in a shelter framed of twigs, a hand of extraordinary size was seen to wander over the inside of the dwelling. Terrified at this portent, Hadding entreated the aid of his nurse. Then Hardgrep, expanding her limbs and swelling to a mighty bigness, gripped the hand fast and held it to her foster-child to hew off. What flowed from the noisesome wounds he dealt was not so much blood as corrupt matter. But she paid the penalty of this act, presently being torn in pieces by her kindred of the same stock; nor did her constitution or her bodily size help her against feeling the attacks of her foes' claws. Hadding, thus bereft of his foster-mother, chanced to be made an ally in a solemn covenant to a rover, Lysir, by a certain man of great age that had lost an eye, who took pity on his loneliness. Now the ancients, when about to make a league, were wont to besprinkle their footsteps with blood of one another, so to ratify their pledge of friendship by reciprocal barter of blood. Lysir and Hadding, being bound thus in the strictest league, declared war against Loker, the tyrant of the Kurlanders. They were defeated; and the old man aforementioned took Hadding, as he fled on horseback, to his own house, and there refreshed him with a certain pleasant draught, telling him that he would find himself quite brisk and sound in body. This prophetic advice he confirmed by a song as follows: "As thou farest hence, a foe, thinking thee a deserter, will assail thee, that he may keep thee bound and cast thee to be devoured by the mangling jaws of beasts. But fill thou the ears of the warders with divers tales, and when they have done the feast and deep sleep holds them, snap off the fetters upon thee and the loathly chains. Turn thy feet thence, and when a little space has fled, with all thy might rise up against a swift lion who is wont to toss the carcases of the prisoners, and strive with thy stout arms against his savage shoulders, and with naked sword search his heart-strings. Straightway put thy throat to him and drink the steaming blood, and devour with ravenous jaws the banquet of his body. Then renewed strength will come to thy limbs, then shall undreamed-of might enter thy sinews, and an accumulation of stout force shall bespread and nerve thy frame through-out. I myself will pave the path to thy prayers, and will subdue the henchmen in sleep, and keep them snoring throughout the lingering night." And as he spoke, he took back the young man on his horse, and set him where he had found him. Hadding cowered trembling under his mantle; but so extreme was his wonder at the event, that with keen vision he peered through its holes. And he saw that before the steps of the horse lay the sea; but was told not to steal a glimpse of the forbidden thing, and therefore turned aside his amazed eyes from the dread spectacle of the roads that he journeyed. Then he was taken by Loker, and found by very sure experience that every point of the prophecy was fulfilled upon him. So he assailed Handwan, king of the Hellespont, who was entrenched behind an impregnable defence of wall in his city Duna, and withstood him not in the field, but with battlements. Its summit defying all approach by a besieger, he ordered that the divers kinds of birds who were wont to nest in that spot should be caught by skilled fowlers, and he caused wicks which had been set on fire to be fastened beneath their wings. The birds sought the shelter of their own nests, and filled the city with a blaze; all the townsmen flocked to quench it, and left the gates defenceless. He attacked and captured Handwan, but suffered him to redeem his life with gold for ransom. Thus, when he might have cut off his foe, he preferred to grant him the breath of life; so far did his mercy qualify his rage. After this he prevailed over a great force of men of the East, and came back to Sweden. Swipdag met him with a great fleet off Gottland; but Hadding attacked and destroyed him. And thus he advanced to a lofty pitch of renown, not only by the fruits of foreign spoil, but by the trophies of his vengeance for his brother and his father. And he exchanged exile for royalty, for he became king of his own land as soon as he regained it. At this time there was one Odin, who was credited over all Europe with the honour, which was false, of godhead, but used more continually to sojourn at Upsala; and in this spot, either from the sloth of the inhabitants or from its own pleasantness, he vouchsafed to dwell with somewhat especial constancy. The kings of the North, desiring more zealously to worship his deity, embounded his likeness in a golden image; and this statue, which betokened their homage, they transmitted with much show of worship to Byzantium, fettering even the effigied arms with a serried mass of bracelets. Odin was overjoyed at such notoriety, and greeted warmly the devotion of the senders. But his queen Frigga, desiring to go forth more beautified, called smiths, and had the gold stripped from the statue. Odin hanged them, and mounted the statue upon a pedestal, which by the marvellous skill of his art he made to speak when a mortal touched it. But still Frigga preferred the splendour of her own apparel to the divine honours of her husband, and submitted herself to the embraces of one of her servants; and it was by this man's device she broke down the image, and turned to the service of her private wantonness that gold which had been devoted to public idolatry. Little thought she of practicing unchastity, that she might the easier satisfy her greed, this woman so unworthy to be the consort of a god; but what should I here add, save that such a godhead was worthy of such a wife? So great was the error that of old befooled the minds of men. Thus Odin, wounded by the double trespass of his wife, resented the outrage to his image as keenly as that to his bed; and, ruffled by these two stinging dishonours, took to an exile overflowing with noble shame, imagining so to wipe off the slur of his ignominy. When he had retired, one Mit-othin, who was famous for his juggling tricks, was likewise quickened, as though by inspiration from on high, to seize the opportunity of feigning to be a god; and, wrapping the minds of the barbarians in fresh darkness, he led them by the renown of his jugglings to pay holy observance to his name. He said that the wrath of the gods could never be appeased nor the outrage to their deity expiated by mixed and indiscriminate sacrifices, and therefore forbade that prayers for this end should be put up without distinction, appointing to each of those above his especial drink-offering. But when Odin was returning, he cast away all help of jugglings, went to Finland to hide himself, and was there attacked and slain by the inhabitants. Even in his death his abominations were made manifest, for those who came nigh his barrow were cut off by a kind of sudden death; and after his end, he spread such pestilence that he seemed almost to leave a filthier record in his death than in his life: it was as though he would extort from the guilty a punishment for his slaughter. The inhabitants, being in this trouble, took the body out of the mound, beheaded it, and impaled it through the breast with a sharp stake; and herein that people found relief. The death of Odin's wife revived the ancient splendour of his name, and seemed to wipe out the disgrace upon his deity; so, returning from exile, he forced all those, who had used his absence to assume the honours of divine rank, to resign them as usurped; and the gangs of sorcerers that had arisen he scattered like a darkness before the advancing glory of his godhead. And he forced them by his power not only to lay down their divinity, but further to quit the country, deeming that they, who tried to foist themselves so iniquitously into the skies, ought to be outcasts from the earth. Meanwhile Asmund, the son of Swipdag, fought with Hadding to avenge his father. And when he heard that Henry his son, his love for whom he set even before his own life, had fallen fighting valiantly, his soul longed for death, and loathed the light of day, and made a song in a strain like this: "What brave hath dared put on my armour? The sheen of the helmet serves not him who tottereth, nor doth the breastplate fitly shelter him that is sore spent. Our son is slain, let us riot in battle; my eager love for him driveth me to my death, that I may not be left outliving my dear child. In each hand I am fain to grasp the sword; now without shield let us ply our warfare bare-breasted, with flashing blades. Let the rumour of our rage beacon forth: boldly let us grind to powder the column of the foe; nor let the battle be long and chafe us; nor let our onset be shattered in rout and be still." When he had said this, he gripped his hilt with both hands, and, fearless of peril, swung his shield upon his back and slew many. Hadding therefore called on the powers with which he was allied to protect him, and on a sudden Wagnhofde rode up to fight on his side. And when Asmund saw his crooked sword, he cried out, and broke into the following strain: "Why fightest thou with curved sword? The short sword shall prove thy doom, the javelin shall be flung and bring forth death. Thou shouldst conquer thy foe by thy hand, but thou trustest that he can be rent by spells; thou trustest more in words than rigour, and puttest thy strength in thy great resource. Why dost thus beat me back with thy shield, threatening with thy bold lance, when thou art so covered with wretched crimes and spotted all over? Thus hath the brand of shame bestained thee, rotting in sin, lubber-lipped." While he thus clamoured, Hadding, flinging his spear by the thong, pierced him through. But Asmund lacked not comfort even for his death; for while his life flickered in the socket he wounded the foot of his slayer, and by this short instant of revenge he memorized his fall, punishing the other with an incurable limp. Thus crippling of a limb befell one of them and loss of life the other. Asmund's body was buried in solemn state at Upsala and attended with royal obsequies. His wife Gunnhild, loth to outlive him, cut off her own life with the sword, choosing rather to follow her lord in death than to forsake him by living. Her friends, in consigning her body to burial, laid her with her husband's dust, thinking her worthy to share the mound of the man, her love for whom she had set above life. So there lies Gunnhild, clasping her lord somewhat more beautifully in the tomb than she had ever done in the bed. After this Hadding, now triumphant, wasted Sweden. But Asmund's son, named Uffe, shrinking from a conflict, transported his army into Denmark, thinking it better to assail the house of his enemy than to guard his own, and deeming it a timely method of repelling his wrongs to retaliate upon his foe what he was suffering at his hands. Thus the Danes had to return and defend their own, preferring the safety of their land to lordship of a foreign realm; and Uffe went back to his own country, now rid of an enemy's arms. Hadding, on returning from the Swedish war, perceived that his treasury, wherein he was wont to store the wealth he had gotten by the spoils of war, had been forced and robbed, and straightway hanged its keeper Glumer, proclaiming by a crafty device, that, if any of the culprits brought about the recovery of the stolen goods, he should have the same post of honour as Glumer had filled. Upon this promise, one of the guilty men became more zealous to reap the bounty than to hide his crime, and had the money brought back to the king. His confederates fancied he had been received into the king's closest friendship, and believed that the honours paid him were as real as they were lavish; and therefore they also, hoping to be as well rewarded, brought back their moneys and avowed their guilt. Their confession was received at first with promotion and favours, and soon visited with punishment, thus bequeathing a signal lesson against being too confiding. I should judge that men, whose foolish blabbing brought them to destruction, when wholesome silence could have ensured their safety, well deserved to atone upon the gallows for their breach of reticence. After this Hadding passed the whole winter season in the utmost preparation for the renewal of the war. When the frosts had been melted by the springtime sun, he went back to Sweden and there spent five years in warfare. By dint of this prolonged expedition, his soldiers, having consumed all their provision, were reduced almost to the extremity of emaciation, and began to assuage their hunger with mushrooms from the wood. At last, under stress of extreme necessity, they devoured their horses, and finally satisfied themselves with the carcases of dogs. Worse still, they did not scruple to feed upon human limbs. So, when the Danes were brought unto the most desperate straits, there sounded in the camp, in the first sleep of the night, and no man uttering it, the following song: "With foul augury have ye left the abode of your country, thinking to harry these fields in War. What idle notion mocks your minds? What blind self-confidence has seized your senses, that ye think this soil can thus be won. The might of Sweden cannot yield or quail before the War of the stranger; but the whole of your column shall melt away when it begins to assault our people in War. For when flight has broken up the furious onset, and the straggling part of the fighters wavers, then to those who prevail in the War is given free scope to slay those who turn their backs, and they have earned power to smite the harder when fate drives the renewer of the war headlong. Nor let him whom cowardice deters aim the spears." This prophecy was accomplished on the morrow's dawn by a great slaughter of the Danes. On the next night the warriors of Sweden heard an utterance like this, none knowing who spake it: "Why doth Uffe thus defy me with grievous rebellion? He shall pay the utmost penalty. For he shall be buried and transpierced under showers of lances, and shall fall lifeless in atonement for his insolent attempt. Nor shall the guilt of his wanton rancour be unpunished; and, as I forebode, as soon as he joins battle and fights, the points shall fasten in his limbs and strike his body everywhere, and his raw gaping wounds no bandage shall bind up; nor shall any remedy heal over thy wide gashes." On that same night the armies fought; when two hairless old men, of appearance fouler than human, and displaying their horrid baldness in the twinkling starlight, divided their monstrous efforts with opposing ardour, one of them being zealous on the Danish side, and the other as fervent for the Swedes. Hadding was conquered and fled to Helsingland, where, while washing in the cold sea-water his body which was scorched with heat, he attacked and cut down with many blows a beast of unknown kind, and having killed it had it carried into camp. As he was exulting in this deed a woman met him and addressed him in these words: "Whether thou tread the fields afoot, or spread canvas overseas, thou shalt suffer the hate of the gods, and through all the world shalt behold the elements oppose thy purposes. Afield thou shalt fall, on sea thou shalt be tossed, an eternal tempest shall attend the steps of thy wandering, nor shall frost-bind ever quit thy sails; nor shall thy roof-tree roof thee, but if thou seekest it, it shall fall smitten by the hurricane; thy herd shall perish of bitter chill. All things shall be tainted, and shall lament that thy lot is there. Thou shalt be shunned like a pestilent tetter, nor shall any plague be fouler than thou. Such chastisement doth the power of heaven mete out to thee, for truly thy sacrilegious hands have slain one of the dweller's above, disguised in a shape that was not his: thus here art thou, the slayer of a benignant god! But when the sea receives thee, the wrath of the prison of Eolus shall be loosed upon thy head. The West and the furious North, the South wind shall beat thee down, shall league and send forth their blasts in rivalry; until with better prayers thou hast melted the sternness of heaven, and hast lifted with appeasement the punishment thou hast earned." So, when Hadding went back, he suffered all things after this one fashion, and his coming brought disquiet upon all peaceful places. For when he was at sea a mighty storm arose and destroyed his fleet in a great tempest: and when, a shipwrecked man, he sought entertainment, he found a sudden downfall of that house. Nor was there any cure for his trouble, ere he atoned by sacrifice for his crime, and was able to return into favour with heaven. For, in order to appease the deities, he sacrificed dusky victims to the god Frey. This manner of propitiation by sacrifice he repeated as an annual feast, and left posterity to follow. This rite the Swedes call Froblod (the sacrifice or feast of Frey). Hadding chanced to hear that a certain giant had taken in troth Ragnhild, daughter of Hakon, King of the Nitherians; and, loathing so ignominious a state of affairs, and utterly abominating the destined union, he forestalled the marriage by noble daring. For he went to Norway and overcame by arms him that was so foul, a lover for a princess. For he thought so much more of valour than of ease, that, though he was free to enjoy all the pleasures of a king, he accounted it sweeter than any delight to repel the wrongs done, not only to himself, but to others. The maiden, not knowing him, ministered with healing tendance to the man that had done her kindness and was bruised with many wounds. And in order that lapse of time might not make her forget him, she shut up a ring in his wound, and thus left a mark on his leg. Afterwards her father granted her freedom to choose her own husband; so when the young men were assembled at banquet, she went along them and felt their bodies carefully, searching for the tokens she had stored up long ago. All the rest she rejected, but Hadding she discovered by the sign of the secret ring; then she embraced him, and gave herself to be the wife of him who had not suffered a giant to win her in marriage. While Hadding was sojourning with her a marvellous portent befell him. While he was at supper, a woman bearing hemlocks was seen to raise her head beside the brazier, and, stretching out the lap of her robe, seemed to ask, "in what part of the world such fresh herbs had grown in winter?" The king desired to know; and, wrapping him in her mantle, she drew him with her underground, and vanished. I take it that the nether gods purposed that he should pay a visit in the flesh to the regions whither he must go when he died. So they first pierced through a certain dark misty cloud, and then advancing along a path that was worn away with long thoroughfaring, they beheld certain men wearing rich robes, and nobles clad in purple; these passed, they at last approached sunny regions which produced the herbs the woman had brought away. Going further, they came on a swift and tumbling river of leaden waters, whirling down on its rapid current divers sorts of missiles, and likewise made passable by a bridge. When they had crossed this, they beheld two armies encountering one another with might and main. And when Hadding inquired of the woman about their estate: "These," she said, "are they who, having been slain by the sword, declare the manner of their death by a continual rehearsal, and enact the deeds of their past life in a living spectacle." Then a wall hard to approach and to climb blocked their further advance. The woman tried to leap it, but in vain, being unable to do so even with her slender wrinkled body; then she wrung off the head of a cock which she chanced to be taking down with her, and flung it beyond the barrier of the walls; and forthwith the bird came to life again, and testified by a loud crow to recovery of its breathing. Then Hadding turned back and began to make homewards with his wife; some rovers bore down on him, but by swift sailing he baffled their snares; for though it was almost the same wind that helped both, they were behind him as he clove the billows, and, as they had only just as much sail, could not overtake him. Meantime Uffe, who had a marvellously fair daughter, decreed that the man who slew Hadding should have her. This sorely tempted one Thuning, who got together a band of men of Perm (Byarmenses), being fain so to win the desired advancement. Hadding was going to fall upon him, but while he was passing Norway in his fleet he saw upon the beach an old man signing to him, with many wavings of his mantle, to put into shore. His companions opposed it, and declared that it would be a ruinous diversion from their journey; but he took the man on board, and was instructed by him how to order his army. For this man, in arranging the system of the columns, used to take special care that the front row consisted of two, the second of four, while the third increased and was made up to eight, and likewise each row was double that in front of it. Also the old man bade the wings of the slingers go back to the extremity of the line, and put with them the ranks of the archers. So when the squadrons were arranged in the wedge, he stood himself behind the warriors, and from the wallet which was slung round his neck drew an arbalist. This seemed small at first, but soon projected with more prolonged tip, and accommodated ten arrows to its string at once, which were shot all at once at the enemy in a brisk volley, and inflicted as many wounds. Then the men of Perm, quitting arms for cunning, by their spells loosed the sky in clouds of rain, and melted the joyous visage of the air in dismal drenching showers. But the old man, on the other hand, drove back with a cloud the heavy mass of storm which had arisen, and checked the dripping rain by this barrier of mist. Thus Hadding prevailed. But the old man, when he parted from him, foretold that the death whereby he would perish would be inflicted, not by the might of an enemy, but by his own hand. Also he forbade him to prefer obscure wars to such as were glorious, and border wars to those remote. Hadding, after leaving him, was bidden by Uffe to Upsala on pretence of a interview; but lost all his escort by treachery, and made his escape sheltered by the night. For when the Danes sought to leave the house into which they had been gathered on pretext of a banquet, they found one awaiting them, who mowed off the head of each of them with his sword as it was thrust out of the door. For this wrongful act Hadding retaliated and slew Uffe; but put away his hatred and consigned his body to a sepulchre of notable handiwork, thus avowing the greatness of his foe by his pains to beautify his tomb, and decking in death with costly distinctions the man whom he used to pursue in his life with hot enmity. Then, to win the hearts of the people he had subdued, he appointed Hunding, the brother of Uffe, over the realm, that the sovereignty might seem to be maintained in the house of Asmund, and not to have passed into the hand of a stranger. Thus his enemy was now removed, and he passed several years without any stirring events and in utter disuse of arms; but at last he pleaded the long while he had been tilling the earth, and the immoderate time he had forborne from exploits on the seas; and seeming to think war a merrier thing than peace, he began to upbraid himself with slothfulness in a strain like this: "Why loiter I thus in darksome hiding, in the folds of rugged hills, nor follow seafaring as of old? The continual howling of the band of wolves, and the plaintive cry of harmful beasts that rises to heaven, and the fierce impatient lions, all rob my eyes of sleep. Dreary are the ridges and the desolation to hearts that trusted to do wilder work. The stark rocks and the rugged lie of the ground bar the way to spirits who are wont to love the sea. It were better service to sound the firths with the oars, to revel in plundered wares, to pursue the gold of others for my coffer, to gloat over sea-gotten gains, than to dwell in rough lands and winding woodlands and barren glades." Then his wife, loving a life in the country, and weary of the marin harmony of the sea-birds, declared how great joy she found in frequenting the woodlands, in the following strain: "The shrill bird vexes me as I tarry by the shore, and with its chattering rouses me when I cannot sleep. Wherefore the noisy sweep of its boisterous rush takes gentle rest from my sleeping eye, nor doth the loud-chattering sea-mew suffer me to rest in the night, forcing its wearisome tale into my dainty ears; nor when I would lie down doth it suffer me to be refreshed, clamouring with doleful modulation of its ill-boding voice. Safer and sweeter do I deem the enjoyment of the woods. How are the fruits of rest plucked less by day or night than by tarrying tossed on the shifting sea?" At this time one Toste emerged, from the obscure spot of Jutland where he was born, into bloody notoriety. For by all manner of wanton attacks upon the common people he spread wide the fame of his cruelty, and gained so universal a repute for rancour, that he was branded with the name of the Wicked. Nor did he even refrain from wrongdoing to foreigners, but, after foully harrying his own land, went on to assault Saxony. The Saxon general Syfrid, when his men were hard put to it in the battle, entreated peace. Toste declared that he should have what he asked, but only if he would promise to become his ally in a war against Hadding. Syfrid demurred, dreading to fulfill the condition, but by sharp menaces Toste induced him to promise what he asked. For threats can sometimes gain a request which soft-dealing cannot compass. Hadding was conquered by this man in an affair by land; but in the midst of his flight he came on his enemy's fleet, and made it unseaworthy by boring the sides; then he got a skiff and steered it out to sea. Toste thought he was slain, but though he sought long among the indiscriminate heaps of dead, could not find him, and came back to his fleet; when he saw from afar off a light boat tossing on the ocean billows. Putting out some vessels, he resolved to give it chase, but was brought back by peril of shipwreck, and only just reached the shore. Then he quickly took some sound craft, and accomplished the journey which he had before begun. Hadding, seeing he was caught, proceeded to ask his companion whether he was a skilled and practised swimmer; and when the other said he was not, Hadding despairing of flight, deliberately turned the vessel over and held on inside to its hollow, thus making his pursuers think him dead. Then he attacked Toste, who, careless and unaware, was greedily watching over the remnants of his spoil; cut down his army, forced him to quit his plunder, and avenged his own rout by that of Toste. But Toste lacked not heart to avenge himself. For, not having store enough in his own land to recruit his forces--so heavy was the blow he had received--he went to Britain, calling himself an ambassador. Upon his outward voyage, for sheer wantonness, he got his crew together to play dice, and when a wrangle arose from the throwing of the cubes, he taught them to wind it up with a fatal affray. And so, by means of this peaceful sport, he spread the spirit of strife through the whole ship, and the jest gave place to quarrelling, which engendered bloody combat. Also, fain to get some gain out of the misfortunes of others, he seized the moneys of the slain, and attached to him a certain rover then famous, named Koll; and a little after returned in his company to his own land, where he was challenged and slain by Hadding, who preferred to hazard his own fortune rather than that of his soldiers. For generals of antique valour were loth to accomplish by general massacre what could be decided by the lot of a few. After these deeds the figure of Hadding's dead wife appeared before him in his sleep, and sang thus: "A monster is born to thee that shall tame the rage of wild beasts, and crush with fierce mouth the fleet wolves." Then she added a little: "Take thou heed; from thee hath issued a bird of harm, in choler a wild screech-owl, in tongue a tuneful swan." On the morrow the king, when he had shaken off slumber, told the vision to a man skilled in interpretations, who explained the wolf to denote a son that would be truculent and the word swan as signifying a daughter; and foretold that the son would be deadly to enemies and the daughter treacherous to her father. The result answered to the prophecy. Hadding's daughter, Ulfhild, who was wife to a certain private person called Guthorm, was moved either by anger at her match, or with aspirations to glory, and throwing aside all heed of daughterly love, tempted her husband to slay her father; declaring that she preferred the name of queen to that of princess. I have resolved to set forth the manner of her exhortation almost in the words in which she uttered it; they were nearly these: "Miserable am I, whose nobleness is shadowed by an unequal yoke! Hapless am I, to whose pedigree is bound the lowliness of a peasant! Luckless issue of a king, to whom a common man is equal by law of marriage! Pitiable daughter of a prince, whose comeliness her spiritless father hath made over to base and contemptible embraces! Unhappy child of thy mother, with thy happiness marred by consorting with this bed! thy purity is handled by the impurity of a peasant, thy nobility is bowed down by ignoble commonness, thy high birth is impaired by the estate of thy husband! But thou, if any pith be in thee, if valour reign in thy soul at all, if thou deem thyself fit husband for a king's daughter, wrest the sceptre from her father, retrieve thy lineage by thy valour, balance with courage thy lack of ancestry, requite by bravery thy detriment of blood. Power won by daring is more prosperous than that won by inheritance. Boldness climbs to the top better than inheritance, and worth wins power better than birth. Moreover, it is no shame to overthrow old age, which of its own weight sinks and totters to its fall. It shall be enough for my father to have borne the sceptre for so long; let the dotard's power fall to thee; if it elude thee, it will pass to another. Whatsoever rests on old age is near its fall. Think that his reign has been long enough, and be it thine, though late in the day, to be first. Further, I would rather have my husband than my father king--would rather be ranked a king's wife than daughter. It is better to embrace a monarch in one's home, than to give him homage from afar; it is nobler to be a king's bride than his courtier. Thou, too, must surely prefer thyself to thy wife's father for bearing the sceptre; for nature has made each one nearest to himself. If there be a will for the deed, a way will open; there is nothing but yields to the wit of man. The feast must be kept, the banquet decked, the preparations looked to, and my father bidden. The path to treachery shall be smoothed by a pretence of friendship, for nothing cloaks a snare better than the name of kindred. Also his soddenness shall open a short way to his slaughter; for when the king shall be intent upon the dressing of his hair, and his hand is upon his beard and his mind upon stories; when he has parted his knotted locks, either with hairpin or disentangling comb, then let him feel the touch of the steel in his flesh. Busy men commonly devise little precaution. Let thy hand draw near to punish all his sins. It is a righteous deed to put forth thy hand to avenge the wretched!" Thus Ulfhild importuned, and her husband was overcome by her promptings, and promised his help to the treachery. But meantime Hadding was warned in a dream to beware of his son-in-law's guile. He went to the feast, which his daughter had made ready for him with a show of love, and posted an armed guard hard by to use against the treachery when need was. As he ate, the henchman who was employed to do the deed of guile silently awaited a fitting moment for his crime, his dagger hid under his robe. The king, remarking him, blew on the trumpet a signal to the soldiers who were stationed near; they straightway brought aid, and he made the guile recoil on its deviser. Meanwhile Hunding, King of the Swedes, heard false tidings that Hadding was dead, and resolved to greet them with obsequies. So he gathered his nobles together, and filled a jar of extraordinary size with ale, and had this set in the midst of the feasters for their delight, and, to omit no mark of solemnity, himself assumed a servant's part, not hesitating to play the cupbearer. And while he was passing through the palace in fulfilment of his office, he stumbled and fell into the jar, and, being choked by the liquor, gave up the ghost; thus atoning either to Orcus, whom he was appeasing by a baseless performance of the rites, or to Hadding, about whose death he had spoken falsely. Hadding, when he heard this, wished to pay like thanks to his worshipper, and, not enduring to survive his death, hanged himself in sight of the whole people. BOOK TWO HADDING was succeeded by FRODE, his son, whose fortunes were many and changeful. When he had passed the years of a stripling, he displayed the fulness of a warrior's prowess; and being loth that this should be spoilt by slothfulness, he sequestered his mind from delights and perseveringly constrained it to arms. Warfare having drained his father's treasury, he lacked a stock of pay to maintain his troops, and cast about diligently for the supplies that he required; and while thus employed, a man of the country met him and roused his hopes by the following strain: "Not far off is an island rising in delicate slopes, hiding treasure in its hills and ware of its rich booty. Here a noble pile is kept by the occupant of the mount, who is a snake wreathed in coils, doubled in many a fold, and with tail drawn out in winding whorls, shaking his manifold spirals and shedding venom. If thou wouldst conquer him, thou must use thy shield and stretch thereon bulls' hides, and cover thy body with the skins of kine, nor let thy limbs lie bare to the sharp poison; his slaver burns up what it bespatters. Though the three-forked tongue flicker and leap out of the gaping mouth, and with awful yawn menace ghastly wounds remember to keep the dauntless temper of thy mind; nor let the point of the jagged tooth trouble thee, nor the starkness of the beast, nor the venom spat from the swift throat. Though the force of his scales spurn thy spears, yet know there is a place under his lowest belly whither thou mayst plunge the blade; aim at this with thy sword, and thou shalt probe the snake to his centre. Thence go fearless up to the hill, drive the mattock, dig and ransack the holes; soon fill thy pouch with treasure, and bring back to the shore thy craft laden." Frode believed, and crossed alone to the island, loth to attack the beast with any stronger escort than that wherewith it was the custom for champions to attack. When it had drunk water and was repairing to its cave, its rough and sharp hide spurned the blow of Frode's steel. Also the darts that he flung against it rebounded idly, foiling the effort of the thrower. But when the hard back yielded not a whit, he noted the belly heedfully, and its softness gave entrance to the steel. The beast tried to retaliate by biting, but only struck the sharp point of its mouth upon the shield. Then it shot out its flickering tongue again and again, and gasped away life and venom together. The money which the King found made him rich; and with this supply he approached in his fleet the region of the Kurlanders, whose king Dorn, dreading a perilous war, is said to have made a speech of the following kind to his soldiers: "Nobles! Our enemy is a foreigner, begirt with the arms and the wealth of almost all the West; let us, by endeavouring to defer the battle for our profit, make him a prey to famine, which is all inward malady; and he will find it very hard to conquer a peril among his own people. It is easy to oppose the starving. Hunger will be a better weapon against our foe than arms; famine will be the sharpest lance we shall hurl at him. For lack of food nourishes the pestilence that eats away men's strength, and lack of victual undermines store of weapons. Let this whirl the spears while we sit still; let this take up the prerogative and the duty of fighting. Unimperilled, we shall be able to imperil others; we can drain their blood and lose no drop of ours. One may defeat an enemy by inaction. Who would not rather fight safely than at a loss? Who would strive to suffer chastisement when he may contend unhurt? Our success in arms will be more prosperous if hunger joins battle first. Let hunger captain us, and so let us take the first chance of conflict. Let it decide the day in our stead, and let our camp remain free from the stir of war; if hunger retreat beaten, we must break off idleness. He who is fresh easily overpowers him who is shaken with languor. The hand that is flaccid and withered will come fainter to the battle. He whom any hardship has first wearied, will bring slacker hands to the steel. When he that is wasted with sickness engages with the sturdy, the victory hastens. Thus, undamaged ourselves, we shall be able to deal damage to others." Having said this, he wasted all the places which he saw would be hard to protect, distrusting his power to guard them, and he so far forestalled the ruthlessness of the foe in ravaging his own land, that he left nothing untouched which could be seized by those who came after. Then he shut up the greater part of his forces in a town of undoubted strength, and suffered the enemy to blockade him. Frode, distrusting his power of attacking this town, commanded several trenches of unwonted depth to be made within the camp, and the earth to be secretly carried out in baskets and cast quietly into the river bordering the walls. Then he had a mass of turf put over the trenches to hide the trap: wishing to cut off the unwary enemy by tumbling them down headlong, and thinking that they would be overwhelmed unawares by the slip of the subsiding earth. Then he feigned a panic, and proceeded to forsake the camp for a short while. The townsmen fell upon it, missed their footing everywhere, rolled forward into the pits, and were massacred by him under a shower of spears. Thence he travelled and fell in with Trannon, the monarch of the Ruthenians. Desiring to spy out the strength of his navy, he made a number of pegs out of sticks, and loaded a skiff with them; and in this he approached the enemy's fleet by night, and bored the hulls of the vessels with an auger. And to save them from a sudden influx of the waves, he plugged up the open holes with the pegs he had before provided, and by these pieces of wood he made good the damage done by the auger. But when he thought there were enough holes to drown the fleet, he took out the plugs, thus giving instant access to the waters, and then made haste to surround the enemy's fleet with his own. The Ruthenians were beset with a double peril, and wavered whether they should first withstand waves or weapons. Fighting to save their ships from the foe, they were shipwrecked. Within, the peril was more terrible than without: within, they fell back before the waves, while drawing the sword on those without. For the unhappy men were assaulted by two dangers at once; it was doubtful whether the swiftest way of safety was to swim or to battle to the end; and the fray was broken off at its hottest by a fresh cause of doom. Two forms of death advanced in a single onset; two paths of destruction offered united peril: it was hard to say whether the sword or the sea hurt them more. While one man was beating off the swords, the waters stole up silently and took him. Contrariwise, another was struggling with the waves, when the steel came up and encompassed him. The flowing waters were befouled with the gory spray. Thus the Ruthenians were conquered, and Frode made his way back home. Finding that some envoys, whom he had sent into Russia to levy tribute, had been horribly murdered through the treachery of the inhabitants, Frode was stung by the double wrong and besieged closely their town Rotel. Loth that the intervening river should delay his capture of the town, he divided the entire mass of the waters by making new and different streams, thus changing what had been a channel of unknown depth into passable fords; not ceasing till the speed of the eddy, slackened by the division of its outlet, rolled its waves onward in fainter current, and winding along its slender reaches, slowly thinned and dwindled into a shallow. Thus he prevailed over the river; and the town, which lacked natural defences, he overthrew, his soldiers breaking in without resistance. This done, he took his army to the city of Paltisca. Thinking no force could overcome it, he exchanged war for guile. He went into a dark and unknown hiding-place, only a very few being in the secret, and ordered a report of his death to be spread abroad, so as to inspire the enemy with less fear; his obsequies being also held, and a barrow raised, to give the tale credit. Even the soldiers bewailed his supposed death with a mourning which was in the secret of the trick. This rumour led Vespasins, the king of the city, to show so faint and feeble a defence, as though the victory was already his, that the enemy got a chance of breaking in, and slew him as he sported at his ease. Frode, when he had taken this town, aspired to the Empire of the East, and attacked the city of Handwan. This king, warned by Hadding's having once fired his town, accordingly cleared the tame birds out of all his houses, to save himself from the peril of like punishment. But Frode was not at a loss for new trickery. He exchanged garments with a serving-maid, and feigned himself to be a maiden skilled in fighting; and having thus laid aside the garb of man and imitated that of woman, he went to the town, calling himself a deserter. Here he reconnoitred everything narrowly, and on the next day sent out an attendant with orders that the army should be up at the walls, promising that he would see to it that the gates were opened. Thus the sentries were eluded and the city despoiled while it was buried in sleep; so that it paid for its heedlessness with destruction, and was more pitiable for its own sloth than by reason of the valour of the foe. For in warfare nought is found to be more ruinous than that a man, made foolhardy by ease, should neglect and slacken his affairs and doze in arrogant self-confidence. Handwan, seeing that the fortunes of his country were lost and overthrown, put all his royal wealth on shipboard and drowned it in the sea, so as to enrich the waves rather than his enemy. Yet it had been better to forestall the goodwill of his adversaries with gifts of money than to begrudge the profit of it to the service of mankind. After this, when Frode sent ambassadors to ask for the hand of his daughter, he answered, that he must take heed not to be spoiled by his thriving fortunes, or to turn his triumph into haughtiness; but let him rather bethink him to spare the conquered, and in this their abject estate to respect their former bright condition; let him learn to honour their past fortune in their present pitiable lot. Therefore, said Handwan, he must mind that he did not rob of his empire the man with whom he sought alliance, nor bespatter her with the filth of ignobleness whom he desired to honour with marriage: else he would tarnish the honour of the union with covetousness. The courtliness of this saying not only won him his conqueror for son-in-law, but saved the freedom of his realm. Meantime Thorhild, wife of Hunding, King of the Swedes, possessed with a boundless hatred for her stepsons Ragnar and Thorwald, and fain to entangle them in divers perils, at last made them the king's shepherds. But Swanhwid, daughter of Hadding, wished to arrest by woman's wit the ruin of natures so noble; and taking her sisters to serve as retinue, journeyed to Sweden. Seeing the said youths beset with sundry prodigies while busy watching at night over their flocks, she forbade her sisters, who desired to dismount, in a poem of the following strain: "Monsters I behold taking swift leaps and flinging themselves over the night places. The demon is at war, and the unholy throng, devoted to the mischievous fray, battles in the mid-thoroughfare. Prodigies of aspect grim to behold pass by, and suffer no mortal to enter this country. The ranks galloping in headlong career through the void bid us stay our advance in this spot; they warn us to turn our rein and hold off from the accursed fields, they forbid us to approach the country beyond. A scowling horde of ghosts draws near, and scurries furiously through the wind, bellowing drearily to the stars. Fauns join Satyrs, and the throng of Pans mingles with the Spectres and battles with fierce visage. The Swart ones meet the Woodland Spirits, and the pestilent phantoms strive to share the path with the Witches. Furies poise themselves on the leap, and on them huddle the Phantoms, whom Foreboder (Fantua) joined to the Flatnoses (Satyrs), jostles. The path that the footfarer must tread brims with horror. It were safer to burden the back of the tall horse." Thereon Ragnar declared that he was a slave of the king, and gave as reason of his departure so far from home that, when he had been banished to the country on his shepherd's business, he had lost the flock of which he had charge, and despairing to recover it, had chosen rather to forbear from returning than to incur punishment. Also, loth to say nothing about the estate of his brother, he further spoke the following poem: "Think us men, not monsters; we are slaves who drove our lingering flocks for pasture through the country. But while we took our pastime in gentle sports, our flock chanced to stray and went into far-off fields. And when our hope of finding them, our long quest failed, trouble came upon the mind of the wretched culprits. And when sure tracks of our kine were nowhere to be seen, dismal panic filled our guilty hearts. That is why, dreading the penal stripe of the rod, we thought it doleful to return to our own roof. We supposed it safer to hold aloof from the familiar hearth than to bear the hand of punishment. Thus we are fain to put off the punishment; we loathe going back and our wish is to lie hid here and escape our master's eye. This will aid us to elude the avenger of his neglected flock; and this is the one way of escape that remains safe for us." Then Swanhwid gazed intently, and surveying his features, which were very comely, admired them ardently, and said: "The radiant flashing of thine eyes is eloquent that thou art of kingly and not of servile stock. Beauty announces blood, and loveliness of soul glitters in the flash of the eyes. A keen glance betokens lordly birth, and it is plain that he whom fairness, that sure sign of nobleness, commends, is of no mean station. The outward alertness of thine eyes signifies a spirit of radiance within. Face vouches for race; and the lustre of forefathers is beheld in the brightness of the countenance. For an aspect so benign and noble could never have issued from base parentage. The grace of thy blood makes thy brow mantle with a kindred grace, and the estate of thy birth is reflected in the mirror of thy countenance. It is no obscure craftsman, therefore, that has finished the portrait of so choice a chasing. Now therefore turn aside with all speed, seek constantly to depart out of the road, shun encounters with monsters, lest ye yield your most gracious bodies to be the prey and pasture of the vilest hordes." But Ragnar was seized with great shame for his unsightly attire, which he thought was the only possible device to disguise his birth. So he rejoined, "That slaves were not always found to lack manhood; that a strong hand was often hidden under squalid raiment, and sometimes a stout arm was muffled trader a dusky cloak; thus the fault of nature was retrieved by valour, and deficiency in race requited by nobleness of spirit. He therefore feared the might of no supernatural prowess, save of the god Thor only, to the greatness of whose force nothing human or divine could fitly be compared. The hearts of men ought not to be terrified at phantoms, which were only awful from their ghastly foulness, and whose semblances, marked by counterfeit ghostliness, were wont for a moment to borrow materiality from the fluent air. Swanhwid therefore erred in trying, womanlike, to sap the firm strength of men, and to melt in unmanly panic that might which knew not defeat." Swanhwid marvelled at the young man's steadfastness, and cast off the cloud of mist which overshadowed her, dispelling the darkness which shrouded her face, till it was clear and cloudless. Then, promising that she would give him a sword fitted for diver's kinds of battle, she revealed the marvellous maiden beauty of her lustrous limbs. Thus was the youth kindled, and she plighted her troth with him, and proffering the sword, she thus began: "King, in this sword, which shall expose the monsters to thy blows, take the first gift of thy betrothed. Show thyself duly deserving hereof; let hand rival sword, and aspire to add lustre to its weapon. Let the might of steel strengthen the defenceless point of thy wit, and let spirit know how to work with hand. Let the bearer match the burden: and that thy deed may sort with thy blade, let equal weight in each be thine. What avails the javelin when the breast is weak and faint, and the quivering hands have dropped the lance? Let steel join soul, and be both the body's armour! Let the right hand be linked with its hilt in alliance. These fight famous battles, because they always keep more force when together; but less when parted. Therefore if it be joy to thee to win fame by the palm of war, pursue with daring whatsoever is hard pressed by thy hand." After thus discoursing long in harmoniously-adjusted strains, she sent away her retinue, and passed all the night in combat against the foulest throngs of monsters; and at return of daybreak she perceived fallen all over the fields diverse shapes of phantoms, and figures extraordinary to look on; and among them was seen the semblance of Thorhild herself covered with wounds. All these she piled in a heap and burnt, kindling a huge pyre, lest the foul stench of the filthy carcases might spread in pestilent vapour and hurt those who came nigh with its taint of corruption. This done, she won the throne of Sweden for Ragnar, and Ragnar for her husband. And though he deemed it uncomely to inaugurate his first campaign with a wedding, yet, moved by gratitude for the preservation of his safety, he kept his promise. Meantime one Ubbe, who had long since wedded Ulfhild the sister of Frode, trusting in the high birth of his wife, seized the kingdom of Denmark, which he was managing carelessly as deputy. Frode was thus forced to quit the wars of the East and fought a great battle in Sweden with his sister Swanhwid, in which he was beaten. So he got on board a skiff, and sailed stealthily in a circuit, seeking some way of boring through the enemy's fleet. When surprised by his sister and asked why he was rowing silently and following divers meandering courses, he cut short her inquiry by a similar question; for Swanhwid had also, at the same time of the night, taken to sailing about alone, and was stealthily searching out all the ways of approach and retreat through devious and dangerous windings. So she reminded her brother of the freedom he had given her long since, and went on to ask him that he should allow her full enjoyment of the husband she had taken; since, before he started on the Russian war, he had given her the boon of marrying as she would; and that he should hold valid after the event what he had himself allowed to happen. These reasonable entreaties touched Frode, and he made a peace with Ragnar, and forgave, at his sister's request, the wrongdoing which Ragnar, seemed to have begun because of her wantonness. They presented him with a force equal to that which they had caused him to lose: a handsome gift in which he rejoiced as compensation for so ugly a reverse. Ragnar, entering Denmark, captured Ubbe, had him brought before him, and pardoned him, preferring to visit his ill deserts with grace rather than chastisement; because the man seemed to have aimed at the crown rather at his wife's instance than of his own ambition, and to have been the imitator and not the cause of the wrong. But he took Ulfhild away from him and forced her to wed his friend Scot, the same man that founded the Scottish name; esteeming change of wedlock a punishment for her. As she went away he even escorted her in the royal chariot, requiting evil with good; for he regarded the kinship of his sister rather than her disposition, and took more thought for his own good name than of her iniquity. But the fair deeds of her brother did not make her obstinate and wonted hatred slacken a whit; she wore the spirit of her new husband with her design of slaying Frode and mastering the sovereignty of the Danes. For whatsoever design the mind has resolutely conceived, it is slow to quit; nor is a sin that is long schemed swept away by the stream of years. For the temper of later life follows the mind of childhood; nor do the traces easily fade of vices which have been stamped upon the character in the impressible age. Finding the ears of her husband deaf, she diverted her treachery from her brother against her lord, hiring bravoes to cut his throat while he slept. Scot was told about this by a waiting-woman, and retired to bed in his cuirass on the night on which he had heard the deed of murder was to be wrought upon him. Ulfhild asked him why he had exchanged his wonted ways to wear the garb of steel; he rejoined that such was just then his fancy. The agents of the treachery, when they imagined him in a deep sleep, burst in; but he slipped from his bed and cut them down. The result was, that he prevented Ulfhild from weaving plots against her brother, and also left a warning to others to beware of treachery from their wives. Meantime the design occurred to Frode of a campaign against Friesland; he was desirous to dazzle the eyes of the West with the glory he had won in conquering the East. He put out to ocean, and his first contest was with Witthe, a rover of the Frisians; and in this battle he bade his crews patiently bear the first brunt of the enemy's charge by merely opposing their shields, ordering that they should not use their missiles before they perceived that the shower of the enemy's spears was utterly silent. This the Frisians hurled as vehemently as the Danes received it impassively; for Witthe supposed that the long-suffering of Frode was due to a wish for peace. High rose the blast of the trumpet, and loud whizzed the javelins everywhere, till at last the heedless Frisians had not a single lance remaining, and they were conquered, overwhelmed by the missiles of the Danes. They fled hugging the shore, and were cut to pieces amid the circuitous windings of the canals. Then Frode explored the Rhine in his fleet, and laid hands on the farthest parts of Germany. Then he went back to the ocean, and attacked the Frisian fleet, which had struck on shoals; and thus he crowned shipwreck with slaughter. Nor was he content with the destruction of so great an army of his foes, but assailed Britain, defeated its king, and attacked Melbrik, the Governor of the Scottish district. Just as he was preparing to fight him, he heard from a scout that the King of the Britons was at hand, and could not look to his front and his rear both at once. So he assembled the soldiers, and ordered that they should abandon their chariots, fling away all their goods, and scatter everywhere over the fields the gold which they had about them; for he declared that their one chance was to squander their treasure; and that, now they were hemmed in, their only remaining help was to tempt the enemy from combat to covetousness. They ought cheerfully to spend on so extreme a need the spoil they had gotten among foreigners; for the enemy would drop it as eagerly, when it was once gathered, as they would snatch it when they first found it; for it would be to them more burden than profit. Then Thorkill, who was a more notable miser and a better orator than them all, dishelming and leaning on his shield, said: "O King! Most of us who rate high what we have bought with our life-blood find thy bidding hard. We take it ill that we should fling away what we have won with utmost hazard; and men are loth to forsake what they have purchased at peril of their lives. For it is utter madness to spurn away like women what our manly hearts and hands have earned, and enrich the enemy beyond their hopes. What is more odious than to anticipate the fortune of war by despising the booty which is ours, and, in terror of an evil that may never come, to quit a good which is present and assured? Shall we scatter our gold upon the earth, ere we have set eyes upon the Scots? Those who faint at the thought of warring when they are out for war, what manner of men are they to be thought in the battle? Shall we be a derision to our foes, we who were their terror? Shall we take scorn instead of glory? The Briton will marvel that he was conquered by men whom he sees fear is enough to conquer. We struck them before with panic; shall we be panic-stricken by them? We scorned them when before us; shall we dread them when they are not here? When will our bravery win the treasure which our cowardice rejects? Shall we shirk the fight, in scorn of the money which we fought to win, and enrich those whom we should rightly have impoverished? What deed more despicable can we do than to squander gold on those whom we should smite with steel? Panic must never rob us of the spoils of valour; and only war must make us quit what in warfare we have won. Let us sell our plunder at the price at which we bought it; let the purchase-money be weighed out in steel. It is better to die a noble death, than to molder away too much in love with the light life. In a fleeting instant of time life forsakes us, but shame pursues us past the grave. Further, if we cast away this gold, the greater the enemy thinks our fear, the hotter will be his chase. Besides, whichever the issue of the day, the gold is not hateful to us. Conquerors, we shall triumph in the treasure which now we bear; conquered, we shall leave it to pay our burying." So spoke the old man; but the soldiers regarded the advice of their king rather than of their comrade, and thought more of the former than of the latter counsel. So each of them eagerly drew his wealth, whatever he had, from his pouch; they unloaded their ponies of the various goods they were carrying; and having thus cleared their money-bags, girded on their arms more deftly. They went on, and the Britons came up, but broke away after the plunder which lay spread out before them. Their king, when he beheld them too greedily busied with scrambling for the treasure, bade them "take heed not to weary with a load of riches those hands which were meant for battle, since they ought to know that a victory must be culled ere it is counted. Therefore let them scorn the gold and give chase to the possessors of the gold; let them admire the lustre, not of lucre, but of conquest; remembering, that a trophy gave more reward than gain. Courage was worth more than dross, if they measured aright the quality of both; for the one furnished outward adorning, but the other enhanced both outward and inward grace. Therefore they must keep their eyes far from the sight of money, and their soul from covetousness, and devote it to the pursuits of war. Further, they should know that the plunder had been abandoned by the enemy of set purpose, and that the gold had been scattered rather to betray them than to profit them. Moreover, the honest lustre of the silver was only a bait on the barb of secret guile. It was not thought to be that they, who had first forced the Britons to fly, would lightly fly themselves. Besides, nothing was more shameful than riches which betrayed into captivity the plunderer whom they were supposed to enrich. For the Danes thought that the men to whom they pretended to have offered riches ought to be punished with sword and slaughter. Let them therefore feel that they were only giving the enemy a weapon if they seized what he had scattered. For if they were caught by the look of the treasure that had been exposed, they must lose, not only that, but any of their own money that might remain. What could it profit them to gather what they must straightway disgorge? But if they refuse to abase themselves before money, they would doubtless abase the foe. Thus it was better for them to stand erect in valour than be grovelling in greed; with their souls not sinking into covetousness, but up and doing for renown. In the battle they would have to use not gold but swords." As the king ended, a British knight, shewing them all his lapful of gold, said: "O King! From thy speech can be gathered two feelings; and one of them witnesses to thy cowardice and the other to thy ill will: inasmuch as thou forbiddest us the use of the wealth because of the enemy, and also thinkest it better that we should serve thee needy than rich. What is more odious than such a wish? What more senseless than such a counsel? We recognise these as the treasures of our own homes, and having done so, shall we falter to pick them up? We were on our way to regain them by fighting, we were zealous to win them back by our blood: shall we shun them when they are restored unasked? Shall we hesitate to claim our own? Which is the greater coward, he who squanders his winnings, or he who is fearful to pick up what is squandered? Look how chance has restored what compulsion took! These are, not spoils from the enemy, but from ourselves; the Dane took gold from Britain, he brought none. Beaten and loth we lost it; it comes back for nothing, and shall we run away from it? Such a gift of fortune it were a shame to take in an unworthy spirit. For what were madder than to spurn wealth that is set openly before us, and to desire it when it is shut up and kept from us? Shall we squeamishly yield what is set under our eyes, and clutch at it when it vanishes? Shall we seek distant and foreign treasure, refraining from what is made public property? If we disown what is ours, when shall we despoil the goods of others? No anger of heaven can I experience which can force me to unload of its lawful burden the lap which is filled with my father's and my grandsire's gold. I know the wantonness of the Danes: never would they have left jars full of wine had not fear forced them to flee. They would rather have sacrificed their life than their liquor. This passion we share with them, and herein we are like them. Grant that their flight is feigned; yet they will light upon the Scots ere they can come back. This gold shall never rust in the country, to be trodden underfoot of swine or brutes: it will better serve the use of men. Besides, if we plunder the spoil of the army that prevailed over us, we transfer the luck of the conqueror to ourselves. For what surer omen of triumph could be got, than to bear off the booty before the battle, and to capture ere the fray the camp which the enemy have forsaken? Better conquer by fear than by steel." The knight had scarce ended, when behold; the hands of all were loosed upon the booty and everywhere plucked up the shining treasure. There you might have marvelled at their disposition of filthy greed, and watched a portentous spectacle of avarice. You could have seen gold and grass clutched up together; the birth of domestic discord; fellow-countrymen in deadly combat, heedless of the foe; neglect of the bonds of comradeship and of reverence for ties; greed the object of all minds, and friendship of none. Meantime Frode traversed in a great march the forest which separates Scotland and Britain, and bade his soldiers arm. When the Scots beheld his line, and saw that they had only a supply of light javelins, while the Danes were furnished with a more excellent style of armour, they forestalled the battle by flight. Frode pursued them but a little way, fearing a sally of the British, and on returning met Scot, the husband of Ulfhild, with a great army; he had been brought from the utmost ends of Scotland by the desire of aiding the Danes. Scot entreated him to abandon the pursuit of the Scottish and turn back into Britain. So he eagerly regained the plunder which he had cunningly sacrificed; and got back his wealth with the greater ease, that he had so tranquilly let it go. Then did the British repent of their burden and pay for their covetousness with their blood. They were sorry to have clutched at greed with insatiate arms, and ashamed to have hearkened to their own avarice rather than to the counsel of their king. Then Frode attacked London, the most populous city of Britain; but the strength of its walls gave him no chance of capturing it. Therefore he reigned to be dead, and his guile strengthened him. For Daleman, the governor of London, on hearing the false news of his death, accepted the surrender of the Danes, offered them a native general, and suffered them to enter the town, that they might choose him out of a great throng. They feigned to be making a careful choice, but beset Daleman in a night surprise and slew him. When he had done these things, and gone back to his own land, one Skat entertained him at a banquet, desirous to mingle his toilsome warfare with joyous licence. Frode was lying in his house, in royal fashion, upon cushions of cloth of gold, and a certain Hunding challenged him to fight. Then, though he had bent his mind to the joys of wassail, he had more delight in the prospect of a fray than in the presence of a feast, and wound up the supper with a duel and the duel with a triumph. In the combat he received a dangerous wound; but a taunt of Hakon the champion again roused him, and, slaying his challenger, he took vengeance for the disturbance of his rest. Two of his chamber-servants were openly convicted of treachery, and he had them tied to vast stones and drowned in the sea; thus chastising the weighty guilt of their souls by fastening boulders to their bodies. Some relate that Ulfhild gave him a coat which no steel could pierce, so that when he wore it no missile's point could hurt him. Nor must I omit how Frode was wont to sprinkle his food with brayed and pounded atoms of gold, as a resource against the usual snares of poisoners. While he was attacking Ragnar, the King of Sweden, who had been falsely accused of treachery, he perished, not by the spears, but stifled in the weight of his arms and by the heat of his own body. Frode left three sons, Halfdan, Ro, and Skat, who were equal in valour, and were seized with an equal desire for the throne. All thought of sway, none was constrained by brotherly regard: for love of others forsaketh him who is eaten up with love of self, nor can any man take thought at once for his own advancement and for his friendship with others. Halfdan, the eldest son, disgraced his birth with the sin of slaying his brethren, winning his kingdom by the murder of his kin; and, to complete his display of cruelty, arrested their adherents, first confining them in bonds, and presently hanging them. The most notable thing in the fortunes of Halfdan was this, that though he devoted every instant of his life to the practice of cruel deeds, yet he died of old age, and not by the steel. Halfdan's sons were Ro and Helge. Ro is said to have been the founder of Roskild, which was later increased in population and enhanced in power by Sweyn, who was famous for the surname Forkbeard. Ro was short and spare, while Helge was rather tall of stature. Dividing the realm with his brother, Helge was allotted the domain of the sea; and attacking Skalk, the King of Sklavia, with his naval force, he slew him. Having reduced Sklavia into a province, he scoured the various arms of the sea in a wandering voyage. Savage of temper as Helge was, his cruelty was not greater than his lust. For he was so immoderately prone to love, that it was doubtful whether the heat of his tyranny or of his concupiscence was the greater. In Thorey he ravished the maiden Thora, who bore a daughter, to whom she afterwards gave the name of Urse. Then he conquered in battle, before the town of Stad, the son of Syrik, King of Saxony, Hunding, whom he challenged, attacked, and slew in duel. For this he was called Hunding's-Bane, and by that name gained glory of his victory. He took Jutland out of the power of the Saxons, and entrusted its management to his generals, Heske, Eyr, and Ler. In Saxony he enacted that the slaughter of a freedman and of a noble should be visited with the same punishment; as though he wished it to be clearly known that all the households of the Teutons were held in equal slavery, and that the freedom of all was tainted and savoured equally of dishonour. Then Helge went freebooting to Thorey. But Thora had not ceased to bewail her lost virginity, and planned a shameful device in abominable vengeance for her rape. For she deliberately sent down to the beach her daughter, who was of marriageable age, and prompted her father to deflower her. And though she yielded her body to the treacherous lures of delight, yet she must not be thought to have abjured her integrity of soul, inasmuch as her fault had a ready excuse by virtue of her ignorance. Insensate mother, who allowed the forfeiture of her child's chastity in order to avenge her own; caring nought for the purity of her own blood, so she might stain with incest the man who had cost her her own maidenhood at first! Infamous-hearted woman, who, to punish her defiler, measured out as it were a second defilement to herself, whereas she clearly by the selfsame act rather swelled than lessened the transgression! Surely, by the very act wherewith she thought to reach her revenge, she accumulated guilt; she added a sin in trying to remove a crime: she played the stepdame to her own offspring, not sparing her daughter abomination in order to atone for her own disgrace. Doubtless her soul was brimming over with shamelessness, since she swerved so far from shamefastness, as without a blush to seek solace for her wrong in her daughter's infamy. A great crime, with but one atonement; namely, that the guilt of this intercourse was wiped away by a fortunate progeny, its fruits being as delightful as its repute was evil. ROLF, the son of Urse, retrieved the shame of his birth by signal deeds of valour; and their exceeding lustre is honoured with bright laudation by the memory of all succeeding time. For lamentation sometimes ends in laughter, and foul beginnings pass to fair issues. So that the father's fault, though criminal, was fortunate, being afterwards atoned for by a son of such marvellous splendour. Meantime Ragnar died in Sweden; and Swanhwid his wife passed away soon after of a malady which she had taken from her sorrow, following in death the husband from whom she had not endured severance in life. For it often happens that some people desire to follow out of life those whom they loved exceedingly when alive. Their son Hothbrodd succeeded them. Fain to extend his empire, he warred upon the East, and after a huge massacre of many peoples begat two sons, Athisl and Hother, and appointed as their tutor a certain Gewar, who was bound to him by great services. Not content with conquering the East, he assailed Denmark, challenged its king, Ro, in three battles, and slew him. Helge, when he heard this, shut up his son Rolf in Leire, wishing, however he might have managed his own fortunes, to see to the safety of his heir. When Hothbrodd sent in governors, wanting to free his country from alien rule, he posted his people about the city and prevailed and slew them. Also he annihilated Hothbrodd himself and all his forces in a naval battle; so avenging fully the wrongs of his country as well as of his brother. Hence he who had before won a nickname for slaying Hunding, now bore a surname for the slaughter of Hothbrodd. Besides, as if the Swedes had not been enough stricken in the battles, he punished them by stipulating for most humiliating terms; providing by law that no wrong done to any of them should receive amends according to the form of legal covenants. After these deeds, ashamed of his former infamy, he hated his country and his home, went back to the East, and there died. Some think that he was affected by the disgrace which was cast in his teeth, and did himself to death by falling upon his drawn sword. He was succeeded by his son Rolf, who was comely with every gift of mind and body, and graced his mighty stature with as high a courage. In his time Sweden was subject to the sway of the Danes; wherefore Athisl, the son of Hothbrodd, in pursuit of a crafty design to set his country free, contrived to marry Rolf's mother, Urse, thinking that his kinship by marriage would plead for him, and enable him to prompt his stepson more effectually to relax the tribute; and fortune prospered his wishes. But Athisl had from his boyhood been imbued with a hatred of liberality, and was so grasping of money, that he accounted it a disgrace to be called openhanded. Urse, seeing him so steeped in filthy covetousness, desired to be rid of him; but, thinking that she must act by cunning, veiled the shape of her guile with a marvellous skill. Feigning to be unmotherly, she spurred on her husband to grasp his freedom, and urged and tempted him to insurrection; causing her son to be summoned to Sweden with a promise of vast gifts. For she thought that she would best gain her desire if, as soon as her son had got his stepfather's gold, she could snatch up the royal treasures and flee, robbing her husband of bed and money to hoot. For she fancied that the best way to chastise his covetousness would be to steal away his wealth. This deep guilefulness was hard to detect, from such recesses of cunning did it spring; because she dissembled her longing for a change of wedlock under a show of aspiration for freedom. Blind-witted husband, fancying the mother kindled against the life of the son, never seeing that it was rather his own ruin being compassed! Doltish lord, blind to the obstinate scheming of his wife, who, out of pretended hatred of her son, devised opportunity for change of wedlock! Though the heart of woman should never be trusted, he believed in a woman all the more insensately, because he supposed her faithful to himself and treacherous to her son. Accordingly, Rolf, tempted by the greatness of the gifts, chanced to enter the house of Athisl. He was not recognised by his mother owing to his long absence and the cessation of their common life; so in jest he first asked for some victual to appease his hunger. She advised him to ask the king for a luncheon. Then he thrust out a torn piece of his coat, and begged of her the service of sewing it up. Finding his mother's ears shut to him, he observed, "That it was hard to discover a friendship that was firm and true, when a mother refused her son a meal, and a sister refused a brother the help of her needle." Thus he punished his mother's error, and made her blush deep for her refusal of kindness. Athisl, when he saw him reclining close to his mother at the banquet, taunted them both with wantonness, declaring that it was an impure intercourse of brother and sister. Rolf repelled the charge against his honour by an appeal to the closest of natural bonds, and answered, that it was honourable for a son to embrace a beloved mother. Also, when the feasters asked him what kind of courage he set above all others, he named Endurance. When they also asked Athisl, what was the virtue which above all he desired most devotedly, he declared, Generosity. Proofs were therefore demanded of bravery on the one hand and munificence on the other, and Rolf was asked to give an evidence of courage first. He was placed to the fire, and defending with his target the side that was most hotly assailed, had only the firmness of his endurance to fortify the other, which had no defence. How dexterous, to borrow from his shield protection to assuage the heat, and to guard his body, which was exposed to the flames, with that which sometime sheltered it amid the hurtling spears! But the glow was hotter than the fire of spears; as though it could not storm the side that was entrenched by the shield, yet it assaulted the flank that lacked its protection. But a waiting-maid who happened to be standing near the hearth, saw that he was being roasted by the unbearable heat upon his ribs; so taking the stopper out of a cask, she spilt the liquid and quenched the flame, and by the timely kindness of the shower checked in its career the torturing blaze. Rolf was lauded for supreme endurance, and then came the request for Athisl's gifts. And they say that he showered treasures on his stepson, and at last, in order to crown the gift, bestowed on him an enormously heavy necklace. Now Urse, who had watched her chance for the deed of guile, on the third day of the banquet, without her husband ever dreaming of such a thing, put all the king's wealth into carriages, and going out stealthily, stole away from her own dwelling and fled in the glimmering twilight, departing with her son. Thrilled with fear of her husband's pursuit, and utterly despairing of escape beyond, she begged and bade her companions to cast away the money, declaring that they must lose either life or riches; the short and only path to safety lay in flinging away the treasure, nor could any aid to escape be found save in the loss of their possessions. Therefore, said she, they must follow the example of the manner in which Frode was said to have saved himself among the Britons. She added, that it was not paying a great price to lay down the Swedes' own goods for them to regain; if only they could themselves gain a start in flight, by the very device which would check the others in their pursuit, and if they seemed not so much to abandon their own possessions as to restore those of other men. Not a moment was lost; in order to make the flight swifter, they did the bidding of the queen. The gold is cleared from their purses; the riches are left for the enemy to seize. Some declare that Urse kept back the money, and strewed the tracks of her flight with copper that was gilt over. For it was thought credible that a woman who could scheme such great deeds could also have painted with lying lustre the metal that was meant to be lost, mimicking riches of true worth with the sheen of spurious gold. So Athisl, when he saw the necklace that he had given to Rolf left among the other golden ornaments, gazed fixedly upon the dearest treasure of his avarice, and, in order to pick up the plunder, glued his knees to the earth and deigned to stoop his royalty unto greed. Rolf, seeing him lie abjectly on his face in order to gather up the money, smiled at the sight of a man prostrated by his own gifts, just as if he were seeking covetously to regain what he had craftily yielded up. The Swedes were content with their booty, and Rolf quickly retired to his ships, and managed to escape by rowing violently. Now they relate that Rolf used with ready generosity to grant at the first entreaty whatsoever he was begged to bestow, and never put off the request till the second time of asking. For he preferred to forestall repeated supplication by speedy liberality, rather than mar his kindness by delay. This habit brought him a great concourse of champions; valour having commonly either rewards for its food or glory for its spur. At this time, a certain Agnar, son of Ingild, being about to wed Rute, the sister of Rolf, celebrated his bridal with a great banquet. The champions were rioting at this banquet with every sort of wantonness, and flinging from all over the room knobbed bones at a certain Hjalte; but it chanced that his messmate, named Bjarke, received a violent blow on the head through the ill aim of the thrower; at whom, stung both by the pain and the jeering, he sent the bone back, so that he twisted the front of his head to the back, and wrung the back of it to where the front had been; punishing the wryness of the man's temper by turning his face sidelong. This deed moderated their wanton and injurious jests, and drove the champions to quit the place. The bridegroom, nettled at this affront to the banquet, resolved to fight Bjarke, in order to seek vengeance by means of a duel for the interruption of their mirth. At the outset of the duel there was a long dispute, which of them ought to have the chance of striking first. For of old, in the ordering of combats, men did not try to exchange their blows thick and fast; but there was a pause, and at the same time a definite succession in striking: the contest being carried on with few strokes, but those terrible, so that honour was paid more to the mightiness than to the number of the blows. Agnar, being of higher rank, was put first; and the blow which he dealt is said to have been so furious, that he cut through the front of the helmet, wounded the skin on the scalp, and had to let go his sword, which became locked in the vizor-holes. Then Bjarke, who was to deal the return-stroke, leaned his foot against a stock, in order to give the freer poise to his steel, and passed his fine-edged blade through the midst of Agnar's body. Some declare that Agnar, in supreme suppression of his pain, gave up the ghost with his lips relaxed into a smile. The champions passionately sought to avenge him, but were visited by Bjarke with like destruction; for he used a sword of wonderful sharpness and unusual length which he called Lovi. While he was triumphing in these deeds of prowess, a beast of the forest furnished him fresh laurels. For he met a huge bear in a thicket, and slew it with a javelin; and then bade his companion Hjalte put his lips to the beast and drink the blood that came out, that he might be the stronger afterwards. For it was believed that a draught of this sort caused an increase of bodily strength. By these valorous achievements he became intimate with the most illustrious nobles, and even, became a favourite of the king; took to wife his sister Rute, and had the bride of the conquered as the prize of the conquest. When Rolf was harried by Athisl he avenged himself on him in battle and overthrew Athisl in war. Then Rolf gave his sister Skulde in marriage to a youth of keen wit, called Hiartuar, and made him governor of Sweden, ordaining a yearly tax; wishing to soften the loss of freedom to him by the favour of an alliance with himself. Here let me put into my work a thing that it is mirthful to record. A youth named Wigg, scanning with attentive eye the bodily size of Rolf, and smitten with great wonder thereat, proceeded to inquire in jest who was that "Krage" whom Nature in her beauty had endowed with such towering stature? Meaning humorously to banter his uncommon tallness. For "Krage" in the Danish tongue means a tree-trunk, whose branches are pollarded, and whose summit is climbed in such wise that the foot uses the lopped timbers as supports, as if leaning on a ladder, and, gradually advancing to the higher parts, finds the shortest way to the top. Rolf accepted this random word as though it were a name of honour for him, and rewarded the wit of the saying with a heavy bracelet. Then Wigg, thrusting out his right arm decked with the bracelet, put his left behind his back in affected shame, and walked with a ludicrous gait, declaring that he, whose lot had so long been poverty-stricken, was glad of a scanty gift. When he was asked why he was behaving so, he said that the arm which lacked ornament and had no splendour to boast of was mantling with the modest blush of poverty to behold the other. The ingenuity of this saying won him a present to match the first. For Rolf made him bring out to view, like the other, the hand which he was hiding. Nor was Wigg heedless to repay the kindness; for he promised, uttering a strict vow, that, if it befell Rolf to perish by the sword, he would himself take vengeance on his slayers. Nor should it be omitted that in old time nobles who were entering. The court used to devote to their rulers the first-fruits of their service by vowing some mighty exploit; thus bravely inaugurating their first campaign. Meantime, Skulde was stung with humiliation at the payment of the tribute, and bent her mind to devise deeds of horror. Taunting her husband with his ignominious estate, she urged and egged him to break off his servitude, induced him to weave plots against Rolf, and filled his mind with the most abominable plans of disloyalty, declaring that everyone owed more to their freedom than to kinship. Accordingly, she ordered huge piles of arms to be muffled up under divers coverings, to be carried by Hiartuar into Denmark, as if they were tribute: these would furnish a store wherewith to slay the king by night. So the vessels were loaded with the mass of pretended tribute, and they proceeded to Leire, a town which Rolf had built and adorned with the richest treasure of his realm, and which, being a royal foundation and a royal seat, surpassed in importance all the cities of the neighbouring districts. The king welcomed the coming of Hiartuar with a splendid banquet, and drank very deep, while his guests, contrary to their custom, shunned immoderate tippling. So, while all the others were sleeping soundly, the Swedes, who had been kept from their ordinary rest by their eagerness on their guilty purpose, began furtively to slip down from their sleeping-rooms. Straightway uncovering the hidden heap of weapons, each girded on his arms silently and then went to the palace. Bursting into its recesses, they drew their swords upon the sleeping figures. Many awoke; but, invaded as much by the sudden and dreadful carnage as by the drowsiness of sleep, they faltered in their resistance; for the night misled them and made it doubtful whether those they met were friends or foes. Hjalte, who was foremost in tried bravery among the nobles of the king, chanced to have gone out in the dead of that same night into the country and given himself to the embraces of a harlot. But when his torpid hearing caught from afar the rising din of battle, preferring valour to wantonness, he chose rather to seek the deadly perils of the War-god than to yield to the soft allurements of Love. What a love for his king, must we suppose, burned in this warrior! For he might have excused his absence by feigning not to have known; but he thought it better to expose his life to manifest danger than save it for pleasure. As he went away, his mistress asked him how aged a man she ought to marry if she were to lose him? Then Hjalte bade her come closer, as though he would speak to her more privately; and, resenting that she needed a successor to his love, he cut off her nose and made her unsightly, punishing the utterance of that wanton question with a shameful wound, and thinking that the lecherousness of her soul ought to be cooled by outrage to her face. When he had done this, he said he left her choice free in the matter she had asked about. Then he went quickly back to the town and plunged into the densest of the fray, mowing down the opposing ranks as he gave blow for blow. Passing the sleeping-room of Bjarke, who was still slumbering, he bade him wake up, addressing him as follows: "Let him awake speedily, whoso showeth himself by service or avoweth himself in mere loyalty, a friend of the king! Let the princes shake off slumber, let shameless lethargy begone; let their spirits awake and warm to the work; each man's own right hand shall either give him to glory, or steep him in sluggard shame; and this night shall be either end or vengeance of our woes. "I do not now bid ye learn the sports of maidens, nor stroke soft cheeks, nor give sweet kisses to the bride and press the slender breasts, nor desire the flowing wine and chafe the soft thigh and cast eyes upon snowy arms. I call you out to the sterner fray of War. We need the battle, and not light love; nerveless languor has no business here: our need calls for battles. Whoso cherishes friendship for the king, let him take up arms. Prowess in war is the readiest appraiser of men's spirits. Therefore let warriors have no fearfulness and the brave no fickleness: let pleasure quit their soul and yield place to arms. Glory is now appointed for wages; each can be the arbiter of his own renown, and shine by his own right hand. Let nought here be tricked out with wantonness: let all be full of sternness, and learn how to rid them of this calamity. He who covets the honours or prizes of glory must not be faint with craven fear, but go forth to meet the brave, nor whiten at the cold steel." At this utterance, Bjarke, awakened, roused up his chamber-page Skalk speedily, and addressed him as follows: "Up, lad, and fan the fire with constant blowing; sweep the hearth clear of wood, and scatter the fine ashes. Strike out sparks from the fire, rouse the fallen embers, draw out the smothered blaze. Force the slackening hearth to yield light by kindling the coals to a red glow with a burning log. It will do me good to stretch out my fingers when the fire is brought nigh. Surely he that takes heed for his friend should have warm hands, and utterly drive away the blue and hurtful chill." Hjalte said again: "Sweet is it to repay the gifts received from our lord, to grip the swords, and devote the steel to glory. Behold, each man's courage tells him loyally to follow a king of such deserts, and to guard our captain with fitting earnestness. Let the Teuton swords, the helmets, the shining armlets, the mail-coats that reach the heel, which Rolf of old bestowed upon his men, let these sharpen our mindful hearts to the fray. The time requires, and it is just, that in time of war we should earn whatsoever we have gotten in the deep idleness of peace, that we should not think more of joyous courses than of sorrowful fortunes, or always prefer prosperity to hardship. Being noble, let us with even soul accept either lot, nor let fortune sway our behaviour, for it beseems us to receive equably difficult and delightsome days; let us pass the years of sorrow with the same countenance wherewith we took the years of joy. Let us do with brave hearts all the things that in our cups we boasted with sodden lips; let us keep the vows which we swore by highest Jove and the mighty gods. My master is the greatest of the Danes: let each man, as he is valorous, stand by him; far, far hence be all cowards! We need a brave and steadfast man, not one that turns his back on a dangerous pass, or dreads the grim preparations for battle. Often a general's greatest valour depends on his soldiery, for the chief enters the fray all the more at ease that a better array of nobles throngs him round. Let the thane catch up his arms with fighting fingers, setting his right hand on the hilt and holding fast the shield: let him charge upon the foes, nor pale at any strokes. Let none offer himself to be smitten by the enemy behind, let none receive the swords in his back: let the battling breast ever front the blow. `Eagles fight brow foremost', and with swift gaping beaks speed onward in the front: be ye like that bird in mien, shrinking from no stroke, but with body facing the foe. "See how the enemy, furious and confident overduly, his limbs defended by the steel, and his face with a gilded helmet, charges the thick of the battle-wedges, as though sure of victory, fearless of rout and invincible by any endeavour. Ah, misery! Swedish assurance spurns the Danes. Behold, the Goths with savage eyes and grim aspect advance with crested helms and clanging spears: wreaking heavy slaughter in our blood, they wield their swords and their battle-axes hone-sharpened. "Why name thee, Hiartuar, whom Skulde hath filled with guilty purpose, and hath suffered thus to harden in sin? Why sing of thee, villain, who hast caused our peril, betrayer of a noble king? Furious lust of sway hath driven thee to attempt an abomination, and, stung with frenzy, to screen thyself behind thy wife's everlasting guilt. What error hath made thee to hurt the Danes and thy lord, and hurled thee into such foul crime as this? Whence entered thy heart the treason framed with such careful guile? "Why do I linger? Now we have swallowed our last morsel. Our king perishes, and utter doom overtakes our hapless city. Our last dawn has risen, unless perchance there be one here so soft that he fears to offer himself to the blows, or so unwarlike that he dares not avenge his lord, and disowns all honours worthy of his valour. "Thou, Ruta, rise and put forth thy snow-white head, come forth from thy hiding into the battle. The carnage that is being done without calls thee. By now the council-chamber is shaken with warfare, and the gates creak with the dreadful fray. Steel rends the mail-coats, the woven mesh is torn apart, and the midriff gives under the rain of spears. By now the huge axes have hacked small the shield of the king; by now the long swords clash, and the battle-axe clatters its blows upon the shoulders of men, and cleaves their breasts. Why are your hearts afraid? Why is your sword faint and blunted? The gate is cleared of our people, and is filled with the press of the strangers." And when Hjalte had wrought very great carnage and stained the battle with blood, he stumbled for the third time on Bjarke's berth, and thinking he desired to keep quiet because he was afraid, made trial of him with such taunts at his cowardice as these: "Bjarke, why art thou absent? Doth deep sleep hold thee? I prithee, what makes thee tarry? Come out, or the fire will overcome thee. Ho! Choose the better way, charge with me! Bears may be kept off with fire; let us spread fire in the recesses, and let the blaze attack the door-posts first. Let the firebrand fall upon the bedchamber, let the falling roof offer fuel for the flames and serve to feed the fire. It is right to scatter conflagration on the doomed gates. But let us who honour our king with better loyalty form the firm battle-wedges, and, having measured the phalanx in safe rows, go forth in the way the king taught us: our king, who laid low Rorik, the son of Bok the covetous, and wrapped the coward in death. He was rich in wealth, but in enjoyment poor, stronger in gain than bravery; and thinking gold better than warfare, he set lucre above all things, and ingloriously accumulated piles of treasure, scorning the service of noble friends. And when he was attacked by the navy of Rolf, he bade his servants take the gold from the chests and spread it out in front of the city gates, making ready bribes rather than battle, because he knew not the soldier, and thought that the foe should be attempted with gifts and not with arms: as though he could fight with wealth alone, and prolong the war by using, not men, but wares! So he undid the heavy coffers and the rich chests; he brought forth the polished bracelets and the heavy caskets; they only fed his destruction. Rich in treasure, poor in warriors, he left his foes to take away the prizes which he forebore to give to the friends of his own land. He who once shrank to give little rings of his own will, now unwillingly squandered his masses of wealth, rifling his hoarded heap. But our king in his wisdom spurned him and the gifts he proffered, and took from him life and goods at once; nor was his foe profited by the useless wealth which he had greedily heaped up through long years. But Rolf the righteous assailed him, slew him, and captured his vast wealth, and shared among worthy friends what the hand of avarice had piled up in all those years; and, bursting into the camp which was wealthy but not brave, gave his friends a lordly booty without bloodshed. Nothing was so fair to him that he would not lavish it, or so dear that he would not give it to his friends, for he used treasure like ashes, and measured his years by glory and not by gain. Whence it is plain that the king who hath died nobly lived also most nobly, that the hour of his doom is beautiful, and that he graced the years of his life with manliness. For while he lived his glowing valour prevailed over all things, and he was allotted might worthy of his lofty stature. He was as swift to war as a torrent tearing down to sea, and as speedy to begin battle as a stag is to fly with cleft foot upon his fleet way. "See now, among the pools dripping with human blood, the teeth struck out of the slain are carried on by the full torrent of gore, and are polished on the rough sands. Dashed on the slime they glitter, and the torrent of blood bears along splintered bones and flows above lopped limbs. The blood of the Danes is wet, and the gory flow stagnates far around, and the stream pressed out of the steaming veins rolls back the scattered bodies. Tirelessly against the Danes advances Hiartuar, lover of battle, and challenges the fighters with outstretched spear. Yet here, amid the dangers and dooms of war, I see Frode's grandson smiling joyously, who once sowed the fields of Fyriswald with gold. Let us also be exalted with an honourable show of joy, following in death the doom of our noble father. Be we therefore cheery in voice and bold in daring; for it is right to spurn all fear with words of courage, and to meet our death in deeds of glory. Let fear quit heart and face; in both let us avow our dauntless endeavours, that no sign anywhere may show us to betray faltering fear. Let our drawn sword measure the weight of our service. Fame follows us in death, and glory shall outlive our crumbling ashes! And that which perfect valour hath achieved during its span shall not fade for ever and ever. What want we with closed floors? Why doth the locked bolt close the folding-gates? For it is now the third cry, Bjarke, that calls thee, and bids thee come forth from the barred room." Bjarke rejoined: "Warlike Hjalte, why dost thou call me so loud? I am the son-in-law of Rolf. He who boasts loud and with big words challenges other men to battle, is bound to be venturous and act up to his words, that his deed may avouch his vaunt. But stay till I am armed and have girded on the dread attire of war. "And now I tie my sword to my side, now first I get my body guarded with mail-coat and headpiece, the helm keeping my brows and the stout iron shrouding my breast. None shrinks more than I from being burnt a prisoner inside, and made a pyre together with my own house: though an island brought me forth, and though the land of my birth be bounded, I shall hold it a debt to repay to the king the twelve kindreds which he added to my honours. Hearken, warriors! Let none robe in mail his body that shall perish; let him last of all draw tight the woven steel; let the shields go behind the back; let us fight with bared breasts, and load all your arms with gold. Let your right hands receive the bracelets, that they may swing their blows the more heavily and plant the grievous wound. Let none fall back! Let each zealously strive to meet the swords of the enemy and the threatening spears, that we may avenge our beloved master. Happy beyond all things is he who can mete out revenge for such a crime, and with righteous steel punish the guilt of treacheries. "Lo, methinks I surely pierced a wild stag with the Teutonic sword which is called Snyrtir: from which I won the name of Warrior, when I felled Agnar, son of Ingild, and brought the trophy home. He shattered and broke with the bite the sword Hoding which smote upon my head, and would have dealt worse wounds if the edge of his blade had held out better. In return I clove asunder his left arm and part of his left side and his right foot, and the piercing steel ran down his limbs and smote deep into his ribs. By Hercules! No man ever seemed to me stronger than he. For he sank down half-conscious, and, leaning on his elbow, welcomed death with a smile, and spurned destruction with a laugh, and passed rejoicing in the world of Elysium. Mighty was the man's courage, which knew how with one laugh to cover his death-hour, and with a joyous face to suppress utter anguish of mind and body! "Now also with the same blade I searched the heart of one sprung from an illustrious line, and plunged the steel deep in his breast. He was a king's son, of illustrious ancestry, of a noble nature, and shone with the brightness of youth. The mailed metal could not avail him, nor his sword, nor the smooth target-boss; so keen was the force of my steel, it knew not how to be stayed by obstacles. "Where, then, are the captains of the Goths, and the soldiery of Hiartuar? Let them come, and pay for their might with their life-blood. Who can cast, who whirl the lance, save scions of kings? War springs from the nobly born: famous pedigrees are the makers of war. For the perilous deeds which chiefs attempt are not to be done by the ventures of common men. Renowned nobles are passing away. Lo! Greatest Rolf, thy great ones have fallen, thy holy line is vanishing. No dim and lowly race, no low-born dead, no base souls are Pluto's prey, but he weaves the dooms of the mighty, and fills Phlegethon with noble shapes. "I do not remember any combat wherein swords were crossed in turn and blow dealt out for blow more speedily. I take three for each I give; thus do the Goths requite the wounds I deal them, and thus doth the stronger hand of the enemy avenge with heaped interest the punishment that they receive. Yet singly in battle I have given over the bodies of so many men to the pyre of destruction, that a mound like a hill could grow up and be raised out of their lopped limbs, and the piles of carcases would look like a burial-barrow. And now what doeth he, who but now bade me come forth, vaunting himself with mighty praise, and chafing others with his arrogant words, and scattering harsh taunts, as though in his one body he enclosed twelve lives?" Hjalte answered: "Though I have but scant help, I am not far off. Even here, where I stand, there is need of aid, and nowhere is a force or a chosen band of warriors ready for battle wanted more. Already the hard edges and the spear-points have cleft my shield in splinters, and the ravening steel has rent and devoured its portions bit by bit in the battle. The first of these things testifies to and avows itself. Seeing is better than telling, eyesight faithfuller than hearing. For of the broken shield only the fastenings remain, and the boss, pierced and broken in its circle, is all left me. And now, Bjarke, thou art strong, though thou hast come forth more tardily than was right, and thou retrievest by bravery the loss caused by thy loitering." But Bjarke said: "Art thou not yet weary of girding at me and goading me with taunts? Many things often cause delay. The reason why I tarried was the sword in my path, which the Swedish foe whirled against my breast with mighty effort. Nor did the guider of the hilt drive home the sword with little might; for though the body was armed he smote it as far as one may when it is bare or defenceless; he pierced the armour of hard steel like yielding waters; nor could the rough, heavy breastplate give me any help. "But where now is he that is commonly called Odin, the mighty in battle, content ever with a single eye? If thou see him anywhere, Rute, tell me." Rute replied: "Bring thine eye closer and look under my arm akimbo: thou must first hallow thine eyes with the victorious sign, if thou wilt safely know the War-god face to face." Then said Bjarke: "If I may look on the awful husband of Frigg, howsoever he be covered with his white shield, and guide his tall steed, he shall in no wise go safe out of Leire; it is lawful to lay low in war the war-waging god. Let a noble death come to those that fall before the eyes of their king. While life lasts, let us strive for the power to die honourably and to reap a noble end by our deeds. I will die overpowered near the head of my slain captain, and at his feet thou also shalt slip on thy face in death, so that whoso scans the piled corpses may see in what wise we rate the gold our lord gave us. We shall be the prey of ravens and a morsel for hungry eagles, and the ravening bird shall feast on the banquet of our body. Thus should fall princes dauntless in war, clasping their famous king in a common death." I have composed this particular series of harangues in metrical shape, because the gist of the same thoughts is found arranged in a short form in a certain ancient Danish song, which is repeated by heart by many conversant with antiquity. Now, it came to pass that the Goths gained the victory and all the array of Rolf fell, no man save Wigg remaining out of all those warriors. For the soldiers of the king paid this homage to his noble virtues in that battle, that his slaying inspired in all the longing to meet their end, and union with him in death was accounted sweeter than life. HIARTUAR rejoiced, and had the tables spread for feasting, bidding the banquet come after the battle, and fain to honour his triumph with a carouse. And when he was well filled therewith, he said that it was matter of great marvel to him, that out of all the army of Rolf no man had been found to take thought for his life by flight or fraud. Hence, he said, it had been manifest with what zealous loyalty they had kept their love for their king, because they had not endured to survive him. He also blamed his ill fortune, because it had not suffered the homage of a single one of them to be left for himself: protesting that he would very willingly accept the service of such men. Then Wigg came forth, and Hiartuar, as though he were congratulating him on the gift, asked him if he were willing to fight for him. Wigg assenting, he drew and proferred him a sword. But Wigg refused the point, and asked for the hilt, saying first that this had been Rolf's custom when he handed forth a sword to his soldiers. For in old time those who were about to put themselves in dependence on the king used to promise fealty by touching the hilt of the sword. And in this wise Wigg clasped the hilt, and then drove the point through Hiartuar; thus gaining the vengeance which he had promised Rolf to accomplish for him. When he had done this, and the soldiers of Hiartuar rushed at him, he exposed his body to them eagerly and exultantly, shouting that he felt more joy in the slaughter of the tyrant than bitterness at his own. Thus the feast was turned into a funeral, and the wailing of burial followed the joy of victory. Glorious, ever memorable hero, who valiantly kept his vow, and voluntarily courted death, staining with blood by his service the tables of the despot! For the lively valour of his spirit feared not the hands of the slaughterers, when he had once beheld the place where Rolf had been wont to live bespattered with the blood of his slayer. Thus the royalty of Hiartuar was won and ended on the same day. For whatsoever is gotten with guile melts away in like fashion as it is sought, and no fruits are long-lasting that have been won by treachery and crime. Hence it came to pass that the Swedes, who had a little before been the possessors of Denmark, came to lose even their own liberty. For they were straightway cut off by the Zealanders, and paid righteous atonement to the injured shades of Rolf. In this way does stern fortune commonly avenge the works of craft and cunning. BOOK THREE. After Hiartuar, HOTHER, whom I mentioned above, the brother of Athisl, and also the fosterling of King Gewar, became sovereign of both realms. It will be easier to relate his times if I begin with the beginning of his life. For if the earlier years of his career are not doomed to silence, the latter ones can be more fully and fairly narrated. When Helgi had slain Hodbrodd, his son Hother passed the length of his boyhood under the tutelage of King Gewar. While a stripling, he excelled in strength of body all his foster-brethren and compeers. Moreover, he was gifted with many accomplishments of mind. He was very skilled in swimming and archery, and also with the gloves; and further was as nimble as such a youth could be, his training being equal to his strength. Though his years were unripe, his richly-dowered spirit surpassed them. None was more skilful on lyre or harp; and he was cunning on the timbrel, on the lute, and in every modulation of string instruments. With his changing measures he could sway the feelings of men to what passions he would; he knew how to fill human hearts with joy or sadness, with pity or with hatred, and used to enwrap the soul with the delight or terror of the ear. All these accomplishments of the youth pleased Nanna, the daughter of Gewar, mightily, and she began to seek his embraces. For the valour of a youth will often kindle a maid, and the courage of those whose looks are not so winning is often acceptable. For love hath many avenues; the path of pleasure is opened to some by grace, to others by bravery of soul, and to some by skill in accomplishments. Courtesy brings to some stores of Love, while most are commended by brightness of beauty. Nor do the brave inflict a shallower wound on maidens than the comely. Now it befell that Balder the son of Odin was troubled at the sight of Nanna bathing, and was seized with boundless love. He was kindled by her fair and lustrous body, and his heart was set on fire by her manifest beauty; for nothing exciteth passion like comeliness. Therefore he resolved to slay with the sword Hother, who, he feared, was likeliest to baulk his wishes; so that his love, which brooked no postponement, might not be delayed in the enjoyment of its desire by any obstacle. About this time Hother chanced, while hunting, to be led astray by a mist, and he came on a certain lodge in which were wood-maidens; and when they greeted him by his own name, he asked who they were. They declared that it was their guidance and government that mainly determined the fortunes of war. For they often invisibly took part in battles, and by their secret assistance won for their friends the coveted victories. They averted, indeed, that they could win triumphs and inflict defeats as they would; and further told him how Balder had seen his foster-sister Nanna while she bathed, and been kindled with passion for her; but counselled Hother not to attack him in war, worthy as he was of his deadliest hate, for they declared that Balder was a demigod, sprung secretly from celestial seed. When Hother had heard this, the place melted away and left him shelterless, and he found himself standing in the open and out in the midst of the fields, without a vestige of shade. Most of all he marvelled at the swift flight of the maidens, the shifting of the place, and the delusive semblance of the building. For he knew not that all that had passed around him had been a mere mockery and an unreal trick of the arts of magic. Returning thence, he related to Gewar the mystification that had followed on his straying, and straightway asked him for his daughter. Gewar answered that he would most gladly favour him, but that he feared if he rejected Balder he would incur his wrath; for Balder, he said, had proffered him a like request. For he said that the sacred strength of Balder's body was proof even against steel; adding, however, that he knew of a sword which could deal him his death, which was fastened up in the closest bonds; this was in the keeping of Miming, the Satyr of the woods, who also had a bracelet of a secret and marvellous virtue, that used to increase the wealth of the owner. Moreover, the way to these regions was impassable and filled with obstacles, and therefore hard for mortal men to travel. For the greater part of the road was perpetually beset with extraordinary cold. So he advised him to harness a car with reindeer, by means of whose great speed he could cross the hard-frozen ridges. And when he had got to the place, he should set up his tent away from the sun in such wise that it should catch the shadow of the cave where Miming was wont to be; while he should not in return cast a shade upon Miming, so that no unaccustomed darkness might be thrown and prevent the Satyr from going out. Thus both the bracelet and the sword would be ready to his hand, one being attended by fortune in wealth and the other by fortune in war, and each of them thus bringing a great prize to the owner. Thus much said Gewar; and Hother was not slow to carry out his instructions. Planting his tent in the manner aforesaid, he passed the nights in anxieties and the days in hunting. But through either season he remained very wakeful and sleepless, allotting the divisions of night and day so as to devote the one to reflection on events, and to spend the other in providing food for his body. Once as he watched all night, his spirit was drooping and dazed with anxiety, when the Satyr cast a shadow on his tent. Aiming a spear at him, he brought him down with the blow, stopped him, and bound him, while he could not make his escape. Then in the most dreadful words he threatened him with the worst, and demanded the sword and bracelets. The Satyr was not slow to tender him the ransom of his life for which he was asked. So surely do all prize life beyond wealth; for nothing is ever cherished more among mortals than the breath of their own life. Hother, exulting in the treasure he had gained, went home enriched with trophies which, though few, were noble. When Gelder, the King of Saxony, heard that Hother had gained these things, he kept constantly urging his soldiers to go and carry off such glorious booty; and the warriors speedily equipped a fleet in obedience to their king. Gewar, being very learned in divining and an expert in the knowledge of omens, foresaw this; and summoning Hother, told him, when Gelder should join battle with him, to receive his spears with patience, and not let his own fly until he saw the enemy's missiles exhausted; and further, to bring up the curved scythes wherewith the vessels could be rent and the helmets and shields plucked from the soldiers. Hother followed his advice and found its result fortunate. For he bade his men, when Gelder began to charge, to stand their ground and defend their bodies with their shields, affirming that the victory in that battle must be won by patience. But the enemy nowhere kept back their missiles, spending them all in their extreme eagerness to fight; and the more patiently they found Hother bear himself in his reception of their spears and lances, the more furiously they began to hurl them. Some of these stuck in the shields and some in the ships, and few were the wounds they inflicted; many of them were seen to be shaken off idly and to do no hurt. For the soldiers of Hother performed the bidding of their king, and kept off the attack of the spears by a penthouse of interlocked shields; while not a few of the spears smote lightly on the bosses and fell into the waves. When Gelder was emptied of all his store, and saw the enemy picking it up, and swiftly hurling it back at him, he covered the summit of the mast with a crimson shield, as a signal of peace, and surrendered to save his life. Hother received him with the friendliest face and the kindliest words, and conquered him as much by his gentleness as he had by his skill. At this time Helgi, King of Halogaland, was sending frequent embassies to press his suit for Thora, daughter of Kuse, sovereign of the Finns and Perms. Thus is weakness ever known by its wanting help from others. For while all other young men of that time used to sue in marriage with their own lips, this man was afflicted with so faulty an utterance that he was ashamed to be heard not only by strangers, but by those of his own house. So much doth calamity shun all witnesses; for natural defects are the more vexing the more manifest they are. Kuse despised his embassy, answering that that man did not deserve a wife who trusted too little to his own manhood, and borrowed by entreaty the aid of others in order to gain his suit. When Helgi heard this, he besought Hother, whom he knew to be an accomplished pleader, to favour his desires, promising that he would promptly perform whatsoever he should command him. The earnest entreaties of the youth prevailed on Hother, and he went to Norway with an armed fleet, intending to achieve by arms the end which he could not by words. And when he had pleaded for Helgi with the most dulcet eloquence, Kuse rejoined that his daughter's wish must be consulted, in order that no paternal strictness might forestall anything against her will. He called her in and asked her whether she felt a liking for her wooer; and when she assented he promised Helgi her hand. In this way Hother, by the sweet sounds of his fluent and well-turned oratory, opened the ears of Kuse, which were before deaf to the suit he urged. While this was passing in Halogaland, Balder entered the country of Gewar armed, in order to sue for Nanna. Gewar bade him learn Nanna's own mind; so he approached the maiden with the most choice and cajoling words; and when he could win no hearing for his prayers, he persisted in asking the reason of his refusal. She replied, that a god could not wed with a mortal, because the vast difference of their natures prevented any bond of intercourse. Also the gods sometimes used to break their pledges; and the bond contracted between unequals was apt to snap suddenly. There was no firm tie between those of differing estate; for beside the great, the fortunes of the lowly were always dimmed. Also lack and plenty dwelt in diverse tents, nor was there any fast bond of intercourse between gorgeous wealth and obscure poverty. In fine, the things of earth would not mate with those of heaven, being sundered by a great original gulf through a difference in nature; inasmuch as mortal man was infinitely far from the glory of the divine majesty. With this shuffling answer she eluded the suit of Balder, and shrewdly wove excuses to refuse his hand. When Hother heard this from Gewar, he complained long to Helgi of Balder's insolence. Both were in doubt as to what should be done, and beat their brains over divers plans; for converse with a friend in the day of trouble, though it removeth not the peril, yet maketh the heart less sick. Amid all the desires of their souls the passion of valour prevailed, and a naval battle was fought with Balder. One would have thought it a contest of men against gods, for Odin and Thor and the holy array of the gods fought for Balder. There one could have beheld a war in which divine and human might were mingled. But Hother was clad in his steel-defying tunic, and charged the closest bands of the gods, assailing them as vehemently as a son of earth could assail the powers above. However, Thor was swinging his club with marvellous might, and shattered all interposing shields, calling as loudly on his foes to attack him as upon his friends to back him up. No kind of armour withstood his onset, no man could receive his stroke and live. Whatsoever his blow fended off it crushed; neither shield nor helm endured the weight of its dint; no greatness of body or of strength could serve. Thus the victory would have passed to the gods, but that Hother, though his line had already fallen back, darted up, hewed off the club at the haft, and made it useless. And the gods, when they had lost this weapon, fled incontinently. But that antiquity vouches for it, it were quite against common belief to think that men prevailed against gods. (We call them gods in a supposititious rather than in a real sense; for to such we give the title of deity by the custom of nations, not because of their nature.) As for Balder, he took to flight and was saved. The conquerors either hacked his ships with their swords or sunk them in the sea; not content to have defeated gods, they pursued the wrecks of the fleet with such rage, as if they would destroy them to satiate their deadly passion for war. Thus doth prosperity commonly whet the edge of licence. The haven, recalling by its name Balder's flight, bears witness to the war. Gelder, the King of Saxony, who met his end in the same war, was set by Hother upon the corpses of his oarsmen, and then laid on a pyre built of vessels, and magnificently honoured in his funeral by Hother, who not only put his ashes in a noble barrow, treating them as the remains of a king, but also graced them with most reverent obsequies. Then, to prevent any more troublesome business delaying his hopes of marriage, he went back to Gewar and enjoyed the coveted embraces of Nanna. Next, having treated Helgi and Thora very generously, he brought his new queen back to Sweden, being as much honoured by all for his victory as Balder was laughed at for his flight. At this time the nobles of the Swedes repaired to Demnark to pay their tribute; but Hother, who had been honoured as a king by his countrymen for the splendid deeds of his father, experienced what a lying pander Fortune is. For he was conquered in the field by Balder, whom a little before he had crushed, and was forced to flee to Gewar, thus losing while a king that victory which he had won as a common man. The conquering Balder, in order to slake his soldiers, who were parched with thirst, with the blessing of a timely draught, pierced the earth deep and disclosed a fresh spring. The thirsty ranks made with gaping lips for the water that gushed forth everywhere. The traces of these springs, eternised by the name, are thought not quite to have dried up yet, though they have ceased to well so freely as of old. Balder was continually harassed by night phantoms feigning the likeness of Nanna, and fell into such ill health that he could not so much as walk, and began the habit of going his journeys in a two horse car or a four-wheeled carriage. So great was the love that had steeped his heart and now had brought him down almost to the extremity of decline. For he thought that his victory had brought him nothing if Nanna was not his prize. Also Frey, the regent of the gods, took his abode not far from Upsala, where he exchanged for a ghastly and infamous sin-offering the old custom of prayer by sacrifice, which had been used by so many ages and generations. For he paid to the gods abominable offerings, by beginning to slaughter human victims. Meantime Hother (1) learned that Denmark lacked leaders, and that Hiartuar had swiftly expiated the death of Rolf; and he used to say that chance had thrown into his hands that to which he could scarce have aspired. For first, Rolf, whom he ought to have killed, since he remembered that Rolf's father had slain his own, had been punished by the help of another; and also, by the unexpected bounty of events, a chance had been opened to him of winning Denmark. In truth, if the pedigree of his forefathers were rightly traced, that realm was his by ancestral right! Thereupon he took possession, with a very great fleet, of Isefjord, a haven of Zealand, so as to make use of his impending fortune. There the people of the Danes met him and appointed him king; and a little after, on hearing of the death of his brother Athisl, whom he had bidden rule the Swedes, he joined the Swedish empire to that of Denmark. But Athisl was cut off by an ignominious death. For whilst, in great jubilation of spirit, he was honouring the funeral rites of Rolf with a feast, he drank too greedily, and paid for his filthy intemperance by his sudden end. And so, while he was celebrating the death of another with immoderate joviality, he forced on his own apace. While Hother was in Sweden, Balder also came to Zealand with a fleet; and since he was thought to be rich in arms and of singular majesty, the Danes accorded him with the readiest of voices whatever he asked concerning the supreme power. With such wavering judgment was the opinion of our forefathers divided. Hother returned from Sweden and attacked him. They both coveted sway, and the keenest contest for the sovereignty began between them; but it was cut short by the flight of Hother. He retired to Jutland, and caused to be named after him the village in which he was wont to stay. Here he passed the winter season, and then went back to Sweden alone and unattended. There he summoned the grandees, and told them that he was weary of the light of life because of the misfortunes wherewith Balder had twice victoriously stricken him. Then he took farewell of all, and went by a circuitous path to a place that was hard of access, traversing forests uncivilised. For it oft happens that those upon whom has come some inconsolable trouble of spirit seek, as though it were a medicine to drive away their sadness, far and sequestered retreats, and cannot bear the greatness of their grief amid the fellowship of men; so dear, for the most part, is solitude to sickness. For filthiness and grime are chiefly pleasing to those who have been stricken with ailments of the soul. Now he had been wont to give out from the top of a hill decrees to the people when they came to consult him; and hence when they came they upbraided the sloth of the king for hiding himself, and his absence was railed at by all with the bitterest complaints. But Hother, when he had wandered through remotest byways and crossed an uninhabited forest, chanced to come upon a cave where dwelt some maidens whom he knew not; but they proved to be the same who had once given him the invulnerable coat. Asked by them wherefore he had come thither, he related the disastrous issue of the war. So he began to bewail the ill luck of his failures and his dismal misfortunes, condemning their breach of faith, and lamenting that it had not turned out for him as they had promised him. But the maidens said that though he had seldom come off victorious, he had nevertheless inflicted as much defeat on the enemy as they on him, and had dealt as much carnage as he had shared in. Moreover, the favour of victory would be speedily his, if he could first lay hands upon a food of extraordinary delightsomeness which had been devised to increase the strength of Balder. For nothing would be difficult if he could only get hold of the dainty which was meant to enhance the rigour of his foe. Hard as it sounded for earthborn endeavours to make armed assault upon the gods, the words of the maidens inspired Hother's mind with instant confidence to fight with Balder. Also some of his own people said that he could not safely contend with those above; but all regard for their majesty was expelled by the boundless fire of his spirit. For in brave souls vehemence is not always sapped by reason, nor doth counsel defeat rashness. Or perchance it was that Hother remembered how the might of the lordliest oft proveth unstable, and how a little clod can batter down great chariots. On the other side, Balder mustered the Danes to arms and met Hother in the field. Both sides made a great slaughter; the carnage of the opposing parties was nearly equal, and night stayed the battle. About the third watch, Hother, unknown to any man, went out to spy upon the enemy, anxiety about the impending peril having banished sleep. This strong excitement favours not bodily rest, and inward disquiet suffers not outward repose. So, when he came to the camp of the enemy he heard that three maidens had gone out carrying the secret feast of Balder. He ran after them (for their footsteps in the dew betrayed their flight), and at last entered their accustomed dwelling. When they asked him who he was, he answered, a lutanist, nor did the trial belie his profession. For when the lyre was offered him, he tuned its strings, ordered and governed the chords with his quill, and with ready modulation poured forth a melody pleasant to the ear. Now they had three snakes, of whose venom they were wont to mix a strengthening compound for the food of Balder, and even now a flood of slaver was dripping on the food from the open mouths of the serpents. And some of the maidens would, for kindness sake, have given Hother a share of the dish, had not eldest of the three forbidden them, declaring that Balder would be cheated if they increased the bodily powers of his enemy. He had said, not that he was Hother, but that he was one of his company. Now the same nymphs, in their gracious kindliness, bestowed on him a belt of perfect sheen and a girdle which assured victory. Retracing the path by which he had come, he went back on the same road, and meeting Balder plunged his sword into his side, and laid him low half dead. When the news was told to the soldiers, a cheery shout of triumph rose from all the camp of Hother, while the Danes held a public mourning for the fate of Balder. He, feeling no doubt of his impending death, and stung by the anguish of his wound, renewed the battle on the morrow; and, when it raged hotly, bade that he should be borne on a litter into the fray, that he might not seem to die ignobly within his tent. On the night following, Proserpine was seen to stand by him in a vision, and to promise that on the morrow he should have her embrace. The boding of the dream was not idle; for when three days had passed, Balder perished from the excessive torture of his wound; and his body given a royal funeral, the army causing it to be buried in a barrow which they had made. Certain men of our day, Chief among whom was Harald, (2) since the story of the ancient burial-place still survived, made a raid on it by night in the hope of finding money, but abandoned their attempt in sudden panic. For the hill split, and from its crest a sudden and mighty torrent of loud-roaring waters seemed to burst; so that its flying mass, shooting furiously down, poured over the fields below, and enveloped whatsoever it struck upon, and at its onset the delvers were dislodged, flung down their mattocks, and fled divers ways; thinking that if they strove any longer to carry through their enterprise they would be caught in the eddies of the water that was rushing down. Thus the guardian gods of that spot smote fear suddenly into the minds of the youths, taking them away from covetousness, and turning them to see to their safety; teaching them to neglect their greedy purpose and be careful of their lives. Now it is certain that this apparent flood was not real but phantasmal; not born in the bowels of the earth (since Nature suffereth not liquid springs to gush forth in a dry place), but produced by some magic agency. All men afterwards, to whom the story of that breaking in had come down, left this hill undisturbed. Wherefore it has never been made sure whether it really contains any wealth; for the dread of peril has daunted anyone since Harald from probing its dark foundations. But Odin, though he was accounted the chief of the gods, began to inquire of the prophets and diviners concerning the way to accomplish vengeance for his son, as well as all others whom he had beard were skilled in the most recondite arts of soothsaying. For godhead that is incomplete is oft in want of the help of man. Rostioph (Hrossthiof), the Finn, foretold to him that another son must be born to him by Rinda (Wrinda), daughter of the King of the Ruthenians; this son was destined to exact punishment for the slaying of his brother. For the gods had appointed to the brother that was yet to be born the task of avenging his kinsman. Odin, when he heard this, muffled his face with a cap, that his garb might not betray him, and entered the service of the said king as a soldier; and being made by him captain of the soldiers, and given an army, won a splendid victory over the enemy. And for his stout achievement in this battle the king admitted him into the chief place in his friendship, distinguishing him as generously with gifts as with honours. A very little while afterwards Odin routed the enemy single-handed, and returned, at once the messenger and the doer of the deed. All marvelled that the strength of one man could deal such slaughter upon a countless host. Trusting in these services, he privily let the king into the secret of his love, and was refreshed by his most gracious favour; but when he sought a kiss from the maiden, he received a cuff. But he was not driven from his purpose either by anger at the slight or by the odiousness of the insult. Next year, loth to quit ignobly the quest he had taken up so eagerly, he put on the dress of a foreigner and went back to dwell with the king. It was hard for those who met him to recognise him; for his assumed filth obliterated his true features, and new grime hid his ancient aspect. He said that his name was Roster (Hrosstheow), and that he was skilled in smithcraft. And his handiwork did honour to his professions: for he portrayed in bronze many and many a shape most beautifully, so that he received a great mass of gold from the king, and was ordered to hammer out the ornaments of the matrons. So, after having wrought many adornments for women's wearing, he at last offered to the maiden a bracelet which he had polished more laboriously than the rest and several rings which were adorned with equal care. But no services could assuage the wrath of Rinda; when he was fain to kiss her she cuffed him; for gifts offered by one we hate are unacceptable, while those tendered by a friend are far more grateful: so much doth the value of the offering oft turn on the offerer. For this stubborn-hearted maiden never doubted that the crafty old man was feigning generosity in order to seize an opening to work his lust. His temper, moreover, was keen and indomitable; for she knew that his homage covered guile, and that under the devotion of his gifts there lay a desire for crime. Her father fell to upbraiding her heavily for refusing the match; but she loathed to wed an old man, and the plea of her tender years lent her some support in her scorning of his hand; for she said that a young girl ought not to marry prematurely. But Odin, who had found that nothing served the wishes of lovers more than tough persistency, though he was stung with the shame of his double rebuff, nevertheless, effacing the form he had worn before, went to the king for the third time, professing the completest skill in soldiership. He was led to take this pains not only by pleasure but by the wish to wipe out his disgrace. For of old those who were skilled in magic gained this power of instantly changing their aspect and exhibiting the most different shapes. Indeed, they were clever at imitating any age, not only in its natural bodily appearance, but also in its stature; and so the old man, in order to exhibit his calling agreeably, used to ride proudly up and down among the briskest of them. But not even such a tribute could move the rigour of the maiden; for it is hard for the mind to come back to a genuine liking for one against whom it has once borne heavy dislike. When he tried to kiss her at his departure, she repulsed him so that he tottered and smote his chin upon the ground. Straightway he touched her with a piece of bark whereon spells were written, and made her like unto one in frenzy: which was a gentle revenge to take for all the insults he had received. But still he did not falter in the fulfilment of his purpose; for trust in his divine majesty buoyed him up with confidence; so, assuming the garb of a maiden, this indefatigable journeyer repaired for the fourth time to the king, and, on being received by him, showed himself assiduous and even forward. Most people believed him to be a woman, as he was dressed almost in female attire. Also he declared that his name was Wecha, and his calling that of a physician: and this assertion he confirmed by the readiest services. At last he was taken into the household of the queen, and played the part of a waiting-woman to the princess, and even used to wash the soil off her feet at eventide; and as he was applying the water he was suffered to touch her calves and the upper part of the thighs. But fortune goes with mutable steps, and thus chance put into his hand what his address had never won. For it happened that the girl fell sick, and looked around for a cure; and she summoned to protect her health those very hands which aforetime she had rejected, and appealed for preservation to him whom she had ever held in loathing. He examined narrowly all the symptoms of the trouble, and declared that, in order to check the disease as soon as possible, it was needful to use a certain drugged draught; but that it was so bitterly compounded, that the girl could never endure so violent a cure unless she submitted to be bound; since the stuff of the malady must be ejected from the very innermost tissues. When her father heard this he did not hesitate to bind his daughter; and laying her on the bed, he bade her endure patiently all the applications of the doctor. For the king was tricked by the sight of the female dress, which the old man was using to disguise his persistent guile; and thus the seeming remedy became an opportunity of outrage. For the physician seized the chance of love, and, abandoning his business of healing, sped to the work, not of expelling the fever, but of working his lust; making use of the sickness of the princess, whom in sound health he had found adverse to him. It will not be wearisome if I subjoin another version of this affair. For there are certain who say that the king, when he saw the physician groaning with love, but despite all his expense of mind and body accomplishing nothing, did not wish to rob of his due reward one who had so well earned it, and allowed him to lie privily with his daughter. So doth the wickedness of the father sometimes assail the child, when vehement passion perverts natural mildness. But his fault was soon followed by a remorse that was full of shame, when his daughter bore a child. But the gods, whose chief seat was then at Byzantium, (Asgard), seeing that Odin had tarnished the fair name of godhead by divers injuries to its majesty, thought that he ought to be removed from their society. And they had him not only ousted from the headship, but outlawed and stripped of all worship and honour at home; thinking it better that the power of their infamous president should be overthrown than that public religion should be profaned; and fearing that they might themselves be involved in the sin of another, and though guiltless be punished for the crime of the guilty. For they saw that, now the derision of their great god was brought to light, those whom they had lured to proffer them divine honours were exchanging obeisance for scorn and worship for shame; that holy rites were being accounted sacrilege, and fixed and regular ceremonies deemed so much childish raving. Fear was in their souls, death before their eyes, and one would have supposed that the fault of one was visited upon the heads of all. So, not wishing Odin to drive public religion into exile, they exiled him and put one Oller (Wulder?) in his place, to bear the symbols not only Of royalty but also of godhead, as though it had been as easy a task to create a god as a king. And though they had appointed him priest for form's sake, they endowed him actually with full distinction, that he might be seen to be the lawful heir to the dignity, and no mere deputy doing another's work. Also, to omit no circumstance of greatness, they further gave his the name of Odin, trying by the prestige of that title to be rid of the obloquy of innovation. For nearly ten years Oller held the presidency of the divine senate; but at last the gods pitied the horrible exile of Odin, and thought that he had now been punished heavily enough; so he exchanged his foul and unsightly estate for his ancient splendour; for the lapse of time had now wiped out the brand of his earlier disgrace. Yet some were to be found who judged that he was not worthy to approach and resume his rank, because by his stage-tricks and his assumption of a woman's work he had brought the foulest scandal on the name of the gods. Some declare that he bought back the fortune of his lost divinity with money; flattering some of the gods and mollifying some with bribes; and that at the cost of a vast sum he contrived to get back to the distinction which he had long quitted. If you ask how much he paid for them, inquire of those who have found out what is the price of a godhead. I own that to me it is but little worth. Thus Oller was driven out from Byzantium by Odin and retired into Sweden. Here, while he was trying, as if in a new world, to repair the records of his glory, the Danes slew him. The story goes that he was such a cunning wizard that he used a certain bone, which he had marked with awful spells, wherewith to cross the seas, instead of a vessel; and that by this bone he passed over the waters that barred his way as quickly as by rowing. But Odin, now that he had regained the emblems of godhead, shone over all parts of the world with such a lustre of renown that all nations welcomed him as though he were light restored to the universe; nor was any spot to be found on the earth which did not hornage to his might. Then finding that Boe, his son by Rhlda, was enamoured of the hardships of war, he called him, and bade him bear in mind the slaying of his brother: saying that it would be better for him to take vengeande on the murderers of Balder than to overcome them in battle; for warfare was most fitting and wholesome when a holy occasion for waging it was furnished by a righteous opening for vengeande. News came meantime that Gewar had been slain by the guile of his own satrap (jarl), Gunne. Hother determined to visit his murder with the strongest and sharpest revenge. So he surprised Gunne, cast him on a blazing pyre, and burnt him; for Gunne had himself treacherously waylaid Gewar, and burnt him alive in the night. This was his offering of vengeance to the shade of his foster-father; and then he made his sons, Herlek and Gerit, rulers of Norway. Then he summoned the elders to assembly, and told them that he would perish in the war wherein he was bound to meet Boe, and said that he knew this by no doubtful guesswork, but by sure prophecies of seers. So he besought them to make his son RORIK king, so that the judgment of wicked men should not transfer the royalty to strange and unknown houses; averring that he would reap more joy from the succession of his son than bitterness from his own impending death. This request was speedily granted. Then he met Boe in battle and was killed; but small joy the victory gave Boe. Indeed, he left the battle so sore stricken that he was lifted on his shield and carried home by his foot-soldiers supporting him in turn, to perish next day of the pain of his wounds. The Ruthenian army gave his body a gorgeous funeral and buried it in a splendid howe, which it piled in his name, to save the record of so mighty a warrior from slipping out of the recollection of after ages. So the Kurlanders and the Swedes, as though the death of Hother set them free from the burden of their subjection, resolved to attack Denmark, to which they were accustomed to do homage with a yearly tax. By this the Slavs also were emboldened to revolt, and a number of others were turned from subjects into foes. Rorik, in order to check this wrongdoing, summoned his country to arms, recounted the deeds of his forefathers, and urged them in a passionate harangue unto valorous deeds. But the barbarians, loth to engage without a general, and seeing that they needed a head, appointed a king over them; and, displaying all the rest of their military force, hid two companies of armed men in a dark spot. But Rorik saw the trap; and perceiving that his fleet was wedged in a certain narrow creek among the shoal water, took it out from the sands where it was lying, and brought it forth to sea; lest it should strike on the oozy swamps, and be attacked by the foe on different sides. Also, he resolved that his men should go into hiding during the day, where they could stay and suddenly fall on the invaders of his ships. He said that perchance the guile might in the end recoil on the heads of its devisors. And in fact the barbarians who had been appointed to the ambuscade knew nothing of the wariness of the Danes, and sallying against them rashly, were all destroyed. The remaining force of the Slavs, knowing nothing of the slaughter of their friends, hung in doubt wondering over the reason of Rorik's tarrying. And after waiting long for him as the months wearily rolled by, and finding delay every day more burdensome, they at last thought they should attack him with their fleet. Now among them there was a man of remarkable stature, a wizard by calling. He, when he beheld the squadrons of the Danes, said: "Suffer a private combat to forestall a public slaughter, so that the danger of many may be bought off at the cost of a few. And if any of you shall take heart to fight it out with me, I will not flinch from these terms of conflict. But first of all I demand that you accept the terms I prescribe, the form whereof I have devised as follows: If I conquer, let freedom be granted us from taxes; if I am conquered, let the tribute be paid you as of old: For to-day I will either free my country from the yoke of slavery by my victory or bind her under it by my defeat. Accept me as the surety and the pledge for either issue." One of the Danes, whose spirit was stouter than his strength, heard this, and proceeded to ask Rorik, what would be the reward for the man who met the challenger in combat? Rorik chanced to have six bracelets, which were so intertwined that they could not be parted from one another, the chain of knots being inextricaly laced; and he promised them as a reward for the man who would venture on the combat. But the youth, who doubted his fortune, said: "Rorik, if I prove successful, let thy generosity award the prize of the conqueror, do thou decide and allot the palm; but if my enterprise go little to my liking, what prize canst thou owe to the beaten, who will be wrapped either in cruel death or in bitter shame? These things commonly go with feebleness, these are the wages of the defeated, for whom naught remains but utter infamy. What guerdon must be paid, what thanks offered, to him who lacks the prize of courage? Who has ever garlanded with ivy the weakling in War, or decked him with a conqueror's wage? Valour wins the prize, not sloth, and failure lacks renown. For one is followed by triumph and honour, the other by an unsightly life or by a stagnant end. I, who know not which way the issue of this duel inclines, dare not boldly anticipate that as a reward, of which I know not whether it be rightly mine. For one whose victory is doubtful may not seize the assured reward of the victor. I forbear, while I am not sure of the day, to claim firmly the title to the wreath. I refuse the gain, which may be the wages of my death as much as of my life. It is folly to lay hands on the fruit before it is ripe, and to be fain to pluck that which one is not yet sure is one's title. This hand shall win me the prize, or death." Having thus spoken, he smote the barbarian with his sword; but his fortune was tardier than his spirit; for the other smote him back, and he fell dead under the force of the first blow. Thus he was a sorry sight unto the Danes, but the Slavs granted their triumphant comrade a great procession, and received him with splendid dances. On the morrow the same man, whether he was elated with the good fortune of his late victory, or was fired with the wish to win another, came close to the enemy, and set to girding at them in the words of his former challenge. For, supposing that he had laid low the bravest of the Danes, he did not think that any of them would have any heart left to fight further with him upon his challenge. Also, trusting that, now one champion had fallen, he had shattered the strength of the whole army, he thought that naught would be hard to achieve upon which his later endeavours were bent. For nothing pampers arrogance more than success, or prompts to pride more surely than prosperity. So Rorik was vexed that the general courage should be sapped by the impudence of one man; and that the Danes, with their roll of victories, should be met presumptuously by those whom they had beaten of old; nay, should be ignominiously spurned; further, that in all that host not one man should be found so quick of spirit or so vigorous of arm, that he longed to sacrifice his life for his country. It was the high-hearted Ubbe who first wiped off this infamous reproach upon the hesitating Danes. For he was of great bodily strength and powerful in incantations. He also purposely asked the prize of the combat, and the king promised him the bracelets. Then said he: "How can I trust the promise when thou keepest the pledge in thine own hands, and dost not deposit the gift in the charge of another? Let there be some one to whom thou canst entrust the pledge, that thou mayst not be able to take thy promise back. For the courage of the champion is kindled by the irrevocable certainty of the prize." Of course it was plain that he had said this in jest; sheer courage had armed him to repel the insult to his country. But Rorik thought he was tempted by avarice, and was loth to seem as if, contrary to royal fashion, he meant to take back the gift or revoke his promise; so, being stationed on his vessel, he resolved to shake off the bracelets, and with a mighty swing send them to the asker. But his attempt was baulked by the width of the gap between them; for the bracelets fell short of the intended spot, the impulse being too faint and slack, and were reft away by the waters. For this nickname of Slyngebond, (swing-bracelet) clung to Rorik. But this event testified much to the valour of Ubbe. For the loss of his drowned prize never turned his mind from his bold venture; he would not seem to let his courage be tempted by the wages of covetousness. So he eagerly went to fight, showing that he was a seeker of honour and not the slave of lucre, and that he set bravery before lust of pelf; and intent to prove that his confidence was based not on hire, but on his own great soul. Not a moment is lost; a ring is made; the course is thronged with soldiers; the champions engage; a din arises; the crowd of onlookers shouts in discord, each backing his own. And so the valour of the champions blazes to white-heat; falling dead under the wounds dealt by one another, they end together the combat and their lives. I think that it was a provision of fortune that neither of them should reap joy and honour by the other's death. This event won back to Rorik the hearts of the insurgents and regained him the tribute. At this time Horwendil and Feng, whose father Gerwendil had been governor of the Jutes, were appointed in his place by Rorik to defend Jutland. But Horwendil held the monarchy for three years, and then, to will the height of glory, devoted himself to roving. Then Koller, King of Norway, in rivalry of his great deeds and renown, deemed it would be a handsome deed if by his greater strength in arms he could bedim the far-famed glory of the rover; and cruising about the sea, he watched for Horwendil's fleet and came up with it. There was an island lying in the middle of the sea, which each of the rovers, bringing his ships up on either side, was holding. The captains were tempted by the pleasant look of the beach, and the comeliness of the shores led them to look through the interior of the springtide woods, to go through the glades, and roam over the sequestered forests. It was here that the advance of Koller and Horwendil brought them face to face without any witness. Then Horwendil endeavoured to address the king first, asking him in what way it was his pleasure to fight, and declaring that one best which needed the courage of as few as possible. For, said he, the duel was the surest of all modes of combat for winning the meed of bravery, because it relied only upon native courage, and excluded all help from the hand of another. Koller marvelled at so brave a judgment in a youth, and said: "Since thou hast granted me the choice of battle, I think it is best to employ that kind which needs only the endeavours of two, and is free from all the tumult. Certainly it is more venturesome, and allows of a speedier award of the victory. This thought we share, in this opinion we agree of our own accord. But since the issue remains doubtful, we must pay some regard to gentle dealing, and must not give way so far to our inclinations as to leave the last offices undone. Hatred is in our hearts; yet let piety be there also, which in its due time may take the place of rigour. For the rights of nature reconcile us, though we are parted by differences of purpose; they link us together, howsoever rancour estrange our spirit. Let us, therefore, have this pious stipulation, that the conqueror shall give funeral rites to the conquered. For all allow that these are the last duties of human kind, from which no righteous man shrinks. Let each army lay aside its sternness and perform this function in harmony. Let jealousy depart at death, let the feud be buried in the tomb. Let us not show such an example of cruelty as to persecute one another's dust, though hatred has come between us in our lives. It will be a boast for the victor if he has borne his beaten foe in a lordly funeral. For the man who pays the rightful dues over his dead enemy wins the goodwill of the survivor; and whoso devotes gentle dealing to him who is no more, conquers the living by his kindness. Also there is another disaster, not less lamentable, which sometimes befalls the living--the loss of some part of their body; and I think that succor is due to this just as much as to the worst hap that may befall. For often those who fight keep their lives safe, but suffer maiming; and this lot is commonly thought more dismal than any death; for death cuts off memory of all things, while the living cannot forget the devastation of his own body. Therefore this mischief also must be helped somehow; so let it be agreed, that the injury of either of us by the other shall be made good with ten talents (marks) of gold. For if it be righteous to have compassion on the calamities of another, how much more is it to pity one's own? No man but obeys nature's prompting; and he who slights it is a self-murderer." After mutually pledging their faiths to these terms, they began the battle. Nor was their strangeness his meeting one another, nor the sweetness of that spring-green spot, so heeded as to prevent them from the fray. Horwendil, in his too great ardour, became keener to attack his enemy than to defend his own body; and, heedless of his shield, had grasped his sword with both hands; and his boldness did not fail. For by his rain of blows he destroyed Koller's shield and deprived him of it, and at last hewed off his foot and drove him lifeless to the ground. Then, not to fail of his compact, he buried him royally, gave him a howe of lordly make and pompous obsequies. Then he pursued and slew Koller's sister Sela, who was a skilled warrior and experienced in roving. He had now passed three years in valiant deeds of war; and, in order to win higher rank in Rorik's favour, he assigned to him the best trophies and the pick of the plunder. His friendship with Rorik enabled him to woo and will in marriage his daughter Gerutha, who bore him a son Amleth. Such great good fortune stung Feng with jealousy, so that he resolved treacherously to waylay his brother, thus showing that goodness is not safe even from those of a man's own house. And behold, when a chance came to murder him, his bloody hand sated the deadly passion of his soul. Then he took the wife of the brother he had butchered, capping unnatural murder with incest. For whoso yields to one iniquity, speedily falls an easier victim to the next, the first being an incentive to the second. Also, the man veiled the monstrosity of his deed with such hardihood of cunning, that he made up a mock pretence of goodwill to excuse his crime, and glossed over fratricide with a show of righteousness. Gerutha, said he, though so gentle that she would do no man the slightest hurt, had been visited with her husband's extremest hate; and it was all to save her that he had slain his brother; for he thought it shameful that a lady so meek and unrancorous should suffer the heavy disdain of her husband. Nor did his smooth words fail in their intent; for at courts, where fools are sometimes favoured and backbiters preferred, a lie lacks not credit. Nor did Feng keep from shameful embraces the hands that had slain a brother; pursuing with equal guilt both of his wicked and impious deeds. Amleth beheld all this, but feared lest too shrewd a behaviour might make his uncle suspect him. So he chose to feign dulness, and pretend an utter lack of wits. This cunning course not only concealed his intelligence but ensured his safety. Every day he remained in his mother's house utterly listless and unclean, flinging himself on the ground and bespattering his person with foul and filthy dirt. His discoloured face and visage smutched with slime denoted foolish and grotesque madness. All he said was of a piece with these follies; all he did savoured of utter lethargy. In a word, you would not have thought him a man at all, but some absurd abortion due to a mad fit of destiny. He used at times to sit over the fire, and, raking up the embers with his hands, to fashion wooden crooks, and harden them in the fire, shaping at their lips certain barbs, to make them hold more tightly to their fastenings. When asked what he was about, he said that he was preparing sharp javelins to avenge his father. This answer was not a little scoffed at, all men deriding his idle and ridiculous pursuit; but the thing helped his purpose afterwards. Now it was his craft in this matter that first awakened in the deeper observers a suspicion of his cunning. For his skill in a trifling art betokened the hidden talent of the craftsman; nor could they believe the spirit dull where the hand had acquired so cunning a workmanship. Lastly, he always watched with the most punctual care over his pile of stakes that he had pointed in the fire. Some people, therefore, declared that his mind was quick enough, and fancied that he only played the simpleton in order to hide his understanding, and veiled some deep purpose under a cunning feint. His wiliness (said these) would be most readily detected, if a fair woman were put in his way in some secluded place, who should provoke his mind to the temptations of love; all men's natural temper being too blindly amorous to be artfully dissembled, and this passion being also too impetuous to be checked by cunning. Therefore, if his lethargy were feigned, he would seize the opportunity, and yield straightway to violent delights. So men were commissioned to draw the young man in his rides into a remote part of the forest, and there assail him with a temptation of this nature. Among these chanced to be a foster-brother of Amleth, who had not ceased to have regard to their common nurture; and who esteemed his present orders less than the memory of their past fellowship. He attended Amleth among his appointed train, being anxious not to entrap, but to warn him; and was persuaded that he would suffer the worst if he showed the slightest glimpse of sound reason, and above all if he did the act of love openly. This was also plain enough to Amleth himself. For when he was bidden mount his horse, he deliberately set himself in such a fashion that he turned his back to the neck and faced about, fronting the tail; which he proceeded to encompass with the reins, just as if on that side he would check the horse in its furious pace. By this cunning thought he eluded the trick, and overcame the treachery of his uncle. The reinless steed galloping on, with rider directing its tail, was ludicrous enough to behold. Amleth went on, and a wolf crossed his path amid the thicket. When his companions told him that a young colt had met him, he retorted, that in Feng's stud there were too few of that kind fighting. This was a gentle but witty fashion of invoking a curse upon his uncle's riches. When they averred that he had given a cunning answer, he answered that he had spoken deliberately; for he was loth, to be thought prone to lying about any matter, and wished to be held a stranger to falsehood; and accordingly he mingled craft and candour in such wise that, though his words did lack truth, yet there was nothing to betoken the truth and betray how far his keenness went. Again, as he passed along the beach, his companions found the rudder of a ship, which had been wrecked, and said they had discovered a huge knife. "This," said he, "was the right thing to carve such a huge ham;" by which he really meant the sea, to whose infinitude, he thought, this enormous rudder matched. Also, as they passed the sandhills, and bade him look at the meal, meaning the sand, he replied that it had been ground small by the hoary tempests of the ocean. His companions praising his answer, he said that he had spoken it wittingly. Then they purposely left him, that he might pluck up more courage to practise wantonness. The woman whom his uncle had dispatched met him in a dark spot, as though she had crossed him by chance; and he took her and would have ravished her, had not his foster-brother, by a secret device, given him an inkling of the trap. For this man, while pondering the fittest way to play privily the prompter's part, and forestall the young man's hazardous lewdness, found a straw on the ground and fastened it underneath the tail of a gadfly that was flying past; which he then drove towards the particular quarter where he knew Amleth to be: an act which served the unwary prince exceedingly well. The token was interpreted as shrewdly as it had been sent. For Amleth saw the gadfly, espied with curiosity the straw which it wore embedded in its tail, and perceived that it was a secret warning to beware of treachery. Alarmed, scenting a trap, and fain to possess his desire in greater safety, he caught up the woman in his arms and dragged her off to a distant and impenetrable fen. Moreover, when they had lain together, he conjured her earnestly to disclose the matter to none, and the promise of silence was accorded as heartily as it was asked. For both of them had been under the same fostering in their childhood; and this early rearing in common had brought Amleth and the girl into great intimacy. So, when he had returned home, they all jeeringly asked him whether he had given way to love, and he avowed that he had ravished the maid. When he was next asked where he did it, and what had been his pillow, he said that he had rested upon the hoof of a beast of burden, upon a cockscomb, and also upon a ceiling. For, when he was starting into temptation, he had gathered fragments of all these things, in order to avoid lying. And though his jest did not take aught of the truth out of the story, the answer was greeted with shouts of merriment from the bystanders. The maiden, too, when questioned on the matter, declared that he had done no such thing; and her denial was the more readily credited when it was found that the escort had not witnessed the deed. Then he who had marked the gadfly in order to give a hint, wishing to show Amleth that to his trick he owed his salvation, observed that latterly he had been singly devoted to Amleth. The young man's reply was apt. Not to seem forgetful of his informant's service, he said that he had seen a certain thing bearing a straw flit by suddenly, wearing a stalk of chaff fixed in its hinder parts. The cleverness of this speech, which made the rest split with laughter, rejoiced the heart of Amleth's friend. Thus all were worsted, and none could open the secret lock of the young man's wisdom. But a friend of Feng, gifted more with assurance than judgment, declared that the unfathomable cunning of such a mind could not be detected by any vulgar plot, for the man's obstinacy was so great that it ought not to be assailed with any mild measures; there were many sides to his wiliness, and it ought not to be entrapped by any one method. Accordingly, said he, his own profounder acuteness had hit on a more delicate way, which was well fitted to be put in practice, and would effectually discover what they desired to know. Feng was purposely to absent himself, pretending affairs of great import. Amleth should be closeted alone with his mother in her chamber; but a man should first be commissioned to place himself in a concealed part of the room and listen heedfully to what they talked about. For if the son had any wits at all he would not hesitate to speak out in the hearing of his mother, or fear to trust himself to the fidelity of her who bore him. The speaker, loth to seem readier to devise than to carry out the plot, zealously proffered himself as the agent of the eavesdropping. Feng rejoiced at the scheme, and departed on pretence of a long journey. Now he who had given this counsel repaired privily to the room where Amleth was shut up with his mother, and lay flown skulking in the straw. But Amleth had his antidote for the treachery. Afraid of being overheard by some eavesdropper, he at first resorted to his usual imbecile ways, and crowed like a noisy cock, beating his arms together to mimic the flapping of wings. Then he mounted the straw and began to swing his body and jump again and again, wishing to try if aught lurked there in hiding. Feeling a lump beneath his feet, he drove his sword into the spot, and impaled him who lay hid. Then he dragged him from his concealment and slew him. Then, cutting his body into morsels, he seethed it in boiling water, and flung it through the mouth of an open sewer for the swine to eat, bestrewing the stinking mire with his hapless limbs. Having in this wise eluded the snare, he went back to the room. Then his mother set up a great wailing, and began to lament her son's folly to his face; but he said: "Most infamous of women; dost thou seek with such lying lamentations to hide thy most heavy guilt? Wantoning like a harlot, thou hast entered a wicked and abominable state of wedlock, embracing with incestuous bosom thy husband's slayer, and wheedling with filthy lures of blandishment him who had slain the father of thy son. This, forsooth, is the way that the mares couple with the vanquishers of their mates; for brute beasts are naturally incited to pair indiscriminately; and it would seem that thou, like them, hast clean forgot thy first husband. As for me, not idly do I wear the mask of folly; for I doubt not that he who destroyed his brother will riot as ruthlessly in the blood of his kindred. Therefore it is better to choose the garb of dulness than that of sense, and to borrow some protection from a show of utter frenzy. Yet the passion to avenge my father still burns in my heart; but I am watching the chances, I await the fitting hour. There is a place for all things; against so merciless and dark spirit must be used the deeper devices of the mind. And thou, who hadst been better employed in lamenting thine own disgrace, know it is superfluity to bewail my witlessness; thou shouldst weep for the blemish in thine own mind, not for that in another's. On the rest see thou keep silence." With such reproaches he rent the heart of his mother and redeemed her to walk in the ways of virtue; teaching her to set the fires of the past above the seductions of the present. When Feng returned, nowhere could he find the man who had suggested the treacherous espial; he searched for him long and carefully, but none said they had seen him anywhere. Amleth, among others, was asked in jest if he had come on any trace of him, and replied that the man had gone to the sewer, but had fallen through its bottom and been stifled by the floods of filth, and that he had then been devoured by the swine that came up all about that place. This speech was flouted by those who heard; for it seemed senseless, though really it expressly avowed the truth. Feng now suspected that his stepson was certainly full of guile, and desired to make away with him, but durst not do the deed for fear of the displeasure, not only of Amleth's grandsire Rorik, but also of his own wife. So he thought that the King of Britain should be employed to slay him, so that another could do the deed, and he be able to feign innocence. Thus, desirous to hide his cruelty, he chose rather to besmirch his friend than to bring disgrace on his own head. Amleth, on departing, gave secret orders to his mother to hang the hall with woven knots, and to perform pretended obsequies for him a year thence; promising that he would then return. Two retainers of Feng then accompanied him, bearing a letter graven on wood--a kind of writing material frequent in old times; this letter enjoined the king of the Britons to put to death the youth who was sent over to him. While they were reposing, Amleth searched their coffers, found the letter, and read the instructions therein. Whereupon he erased all the writing on the surface, substituted fresh characters, and so, changing the purport of the instructions, shifted his own doom upon his companions. Nor was he satisfied with removing from himself the sentence of death and passing the peril on to others, but added an entreaty that the King of Britain would grant his daughter in marriage to a youth of great judgment whom he was sending to him. Under this was falsely marked the signature of Feng. Now when they had reached Britain, the envoys went to the king, and proffered him the letter which they supposed was an implement of destruction to another, but which really betokened death to themselves. The king dissembled the truth, and entreated them hospitably and kindly. Then Amleth scouted all the splendour of the royal banquet like vulgar viands, and abstaining very strangely, rejected that plenteous feast, refraining from the drink even as from the banquet. All marvelled that a youth and a foreigner should disdain the carefully cooked dainties of the royal board and the luxurious banquet provided, as if it were some peasant's relish. So, when the revel broke up, and the king was dismissing his friends to rest, he had a man sent into the sleeping-room to listen secretly, in order that he might hear the midnight conversation of his guests. Now, when Amleth's companions asked him why he had refrained from the feast of yestereve, as if it were poison, he answered that the bread was flecked with blood and tainted; that there was a tang of iron in the liquor; while the meats of the feast reeked of the stench of a human carcase, and were infected by a kind of smack of the odour of the charnel. He further said that the king had the eyes of a slave, and that the queen had in three ways shown the behaviour of a bondmaid. Thus he reviled with insulting invective not so much the feast as its givers. And presently his companions, taunting him with his old defect of wits, began to flout him with many saucy jeers, because he blamed and cavilled at seemly and worthy things, and because he attacked thus ignobly an illustrious king and a lady of so refined a behaviour, bespattering with the shamefullest abuse those who merited all praise. All this the king heard from his retainer; and declared that he who could say such things had either more than mortal wisdom or more than mortal folly; in these few words fathoming the full depth of Amleth's penetration. Then he summoned his steward and asked him whence he had procured the bread. The steward declared that it had been made by the king's own baker. The king asked where the corn had grown of which it was made, and whether any sign was to be found there of human carnage? The other answered, that not far off was a field, covered with the ancient bones of slaughtered men, and still bearing plainly all the signs of ancient carnage; and that he had himself planted this field with grain in springtide, thinking it more fruitful than the rest, and hoping for plenteous abundance; and so, for aught he knew, the bread had caught some evil savour from this bloodshed. The king, on hearing this, surmised that Amleth had spoken truly, and took the pains to learn also what had been the source of the lard. The other declared that his hogs had, through negligence, strayed from keeping, and battened on the rotten carcase of a robber, and that perchance their pork had thus come to have something of a corrupt smack. The king, finding that Amletll's judgment was right in this thing also, asked of what liquor the steward had mixed the drink? Hearing that it had been brewed of water and meal, he had the spot of the spring pointed out to him, and set to digging deep down; and there he found, rusted away, several swords, the tang whereof it was thought had tainted the waters. Others relate that Amleth blamed the drink because, while quaffing it, he had detected some bees that had fed in the paunch of a dead man; and that the taint, which had formerly been imparted to the combs, had reappeared in the taste. The king, seeing that Amleth had rightly given the causes of the taste he had found so faulty, and learning that the ignoble eyes wherewith Amleth had reproached him concerned some stain upon his birth, had a secret interview with his mother, and asked her who his father had really been. She said she had submitted to no man but the king. But when he threatened that he would have the truth out of her by a trial, he was told that he was the offspring of a slave. By the evidence of the avowal thus extorted he understood the whole mystery of the reproach upon his origin. Abashed as he was with shame for his low estate, he was so ravished with the young man's cleverness, that he asked him why he had aspersed the queen with the reproach that she had demeaned herself like a slave? But while resenting that the courtliness of his wife had been accused in the midnight gossip of guest, he found that her mother had been a bondmaid. For Amleth said he had noted in her three blemishes showing the demeanor of a slave; first, she had muffled her head in her mantle as handmaids do; next, that she had gathered up her gown for walking; and thirdly, that she had first picked out with a splinter, and then chewed up, the remnant of food that stuck in the crevices between her teeth. Further, he mentioned that the king's mother had been brought into slavery from captivity, lest she should seem servile only in her habits, yet not in her birth. Then the king adored the wisdom of Amleth as though it were inspired, and gave him his daughter to wife; accepting his bare word as though it were a witness from the skies. Moreover, in order to fulfil the bidding of his friend, he hanged Amleth's companions on the morrow. Amleth, feigning offence, treated this piece of kindness as a grievance, and received from the king, as compensation, some gold, which he afterwards melted in the fire, and secretly caused to be poured into some hollowed sticks. When he had passed a whole year with the king he obtained leave to make a journey, and returned to his own land, carrying away of all his princely wealth and state only the sticks which held the gold. On reaching Jutland, he exchanged his present attire for his ancient demeanour, which he had adopted for righteous ends, purposely assuming an aspect of absurdity. Covered with filth, he entered the banquet-room where his own obsequies were being held, and struck all men utterly aghast, rumour having falsely noised abroad his death. At last terror melted into mirth, and the guests jeered and taunted one another, that he whose last rites they were celebrating as through he were dead, should appear in the flesh. When he was asked concerning his comrades, he pointed to the sticks he was carrying, and said, "Here is both the one and the other." This he observed with equal truth and pleasantry; for his speech, though most thought it idle, yet departed not from the truth; for it pointed at the weregild of the slain as though it were themselves. Thereon, wishing to bring the company into a gayer mood, he jollied the cupbearers, and diligently did the office of plying the drink. Then, to prevent his loose dress hampering his walk, he girdled his sword upon his side, and purposely drawing it several times, pricked his fingers with its point. The bystanders accordingly had both sword and scabbard riveted across with all iron nail. Then, to smooth the way more safely to his plot, he went to the lords and plied them heavily with draught upon draught, and drenched them all so deep in wine, that their feet were made feeble with drunkenness, and they turned to rest within the palace, making their bed where they had revelled. Then he saw they were in a fit state for his plots, and thought that here was a chance offered to do his purpose. So he took out of his bosom the stakes he has long ago prepared, and went into the building, where the ground lay covered with the bodies of the nobles wheezing off their sleep and their debauch. Then, cutting away its support, he brought down the hanging his mother had knitted, which covered the inner as well as the outer walls of the hall. This he flung upon the snorers, and then applying the crooked stakes, he knotted and bound them up in such insoluble intricacy, that not one of the men beneath, however hard he might struggle, could contrive to rise. After this he set fire to the palace. The flames spread, scattering the conflagration far and wide. It enveloped the whole dwelling, destroyed the palace, and burnt them all while they were either buried in deep sleep or vainly striving to arise. Then he went to the chamber of Feng, who had before this been conducted by his train into his pavilion; plucked up a sword that chanced to be hanging to the bed, and planted his own in its place. Then, awakening his uncle, he told him that his nobles were perishing in the flames, and that Amleth was here, armed with his crooks to help him, and thirsting to exact the vengeance, now long overdue, for his father's murder. Feng, on hearing this, leapt from his couch, but was cut down while deprived of his own sword, and as he strove in vain to draw the strange one. O valiant Amleth, and worthy of immortal fame, who being shrewdly armed with a feint of folly, covered a wisdom too high for human wit under a marvellous disguise of silliness! And not only found in his subtlety means to protect his own safety, but also by its guidance found opportunity to avenge his father. By this skilful defence of himself, and strenuous revenge for his parent, he has left it doubtful whether we are to think more of his wit or his bravery. (3) ENDNOTES: (1) Saxo now goes back to the history of Denmark. All the events hitherto related in Bk. III, after the first paragraph, are a digression in retrospect. (2) M. conjectures that this was a certain Harald, the bastard son of Erik the Good, and a wild and dissolute man, who died in 1135, not long before the probable date of Saxo's birth. (3) Shakespere's tragedy, "Hamlet", is derived from this story. BOOK FOUR. Amleth, when he had accomplished the slaughter of his stepfather, feared to expose his deed to the fickle judgment of his countrymen, and thought it well to lie in hiding till he had learnt what way the mob of the uncouth populace was tending. So the whole neighbourhood, who had watched the blaze during the night, and in the morning desired to know the cause of the fire they had seen, perceived the royal palace fallen in ashes; and, on searching through its ruins, which were yet warm, found only some shapeless remains of burnt corpses. For the devouring flame had consumed everything so utterly that not a single token was left to inform them of the cause of such a disaster. Also they saw the body of Feng lying pierced by the sword, amid his blood-stained raiment. Some were seized with open anger, others with grief, and some with secret delight. One party bewailed the death of their leader, the other gave thanks that the tyranny of the fratricide was now laid at rest. Thus the occurrence of the king's slaughter was greeted by the beholders with diverse minds. Amleth, finding the people so quiet, made bold to leave his hiding. Summoning those in whom he knew the memory of his father to be fast-rooted, he went to the assembly and there made a speech after this manner: "Nobles! Let not any who are troubled by the piteous end of Horwendil be worried by the sight of this disaster before you; be not ye, I say, distressed, who have remained loyal to your king and duteous to your father. Behold the corpse, not of a prince, but of a fratricide. Indeed, it was a sorrier sight when ye saw our prince lying lamentably butchered by a most infamous fratricide-brother, let me not call him. With your own compassionating eyes ye have beheld the mangled limbs of Horwendil; they have seen his body done to death with many wounds. Surely that most abominable butcher only deprived his king of life that he might despoil his country of freedom! The hand that slew him made you slaves. Who then so mad as to choose Feng the cruel before Horwendil the righteous? Remember how benignantly Horwendil fostered you, how justly he dealt with you, how kindly he loved you. Remember how you lost the mildest of princes and the justest of fathers, while in his place was put a tyrant and an assassin set up; how your rights were confiscated; how everything was plague-stricken; how the country was stained with infamies; how the yoke was planted on your necks, and how, your free will was forfeited! And now all this is over; for ye see the criminal stifled in his own crimes, the slayer of his kin punished for his misdoings. What man of but ordinary wit, beholding it, would account this kindness a wrong? What sane man could be sorry that the crime has recoiled upon the culprit? Who could lament the killing of a most savage executioner? Or bewail the righteous death of a most cruel despot? Ye behold the doer of the deed; he is before you. Yea, I own that I have taken vengeance for my country and my father. Your hands were equally bound to the task which mine fulfilled. What it would have beseemed you to accomplish with me, I achieved alone. Nor had I any partner in so glorious a deed, or the service of any man to help me. Not that I forget that you would have helped this work, had I asked you; for doubtless you have remained loyal to your king and loving to your prince. But I chose that the wicked should be punished without imperilling you; I thought that others need not set their shoulders to the burden when I deemed mine strong enough to bear it. Therefore I consumed all the others to ashes, and left only the trunk of Feng for your hands to burn, so that on this at least you may wreak all your longing for a righteous vengeance. Now haste up speedily, heap the pyre, burn up the body of the wicked, consume away his guilty limbs, scatter his sinful ashes, strew broadcast his ruthless dust; let no urn or barrow enclose the abominable remnants of his bones. Let no trace of his fratricide remain; let there be no spot in his own land for his tainted limbs; let no neighbourhood suck infection from him; let not sea nor soil be defiled by harboring his accursed carcase. I have done the rest; this one loyal duty is left for you. These must be the tyrant's obsequies, this the funeral procession of the fratricide. It is not seemly that he who stripped his country of her freedom should have his ashes covered by his country's earth. "Besides, why tell again my own sorrows? Why count over my troubles? Why weave the thread of my miseries anew? Ye know them more fully than I myself. I, pursued to the death by my stepfather, scorned by my mother, spat upon by friends, have passed my years in pitiable wise, and my days in adversity; and my insecure life has teemed with fear and perils. In fine, I passed every season of my age wretchedly and in extreme calamity. Often in your secret murmurings together you have sighed over my lack of wits; there was none (you said) to avenge the father, none to punish the fratricide. And in this I found a secret testimony of your love; for I saw that the memory of the King's murder had not yet faded from your minds. "Whose breast is so hard that it can be softened by no fellow-feeling for what I have felt? Who is so stiff and stony, that he is swayed by no compassion for my griefs? Ye whose hands are clean of the blood of Horwendil, pity your fosterling, be moved by my calamities. Pity also my stricken mother, and rejoice with me that the infamy of her who was once your queen is quenched. For this weak woman had to bear a twofold weight of ignominy, embracing one who was her husband's brother and murderer. Therefore, to hide my purpose of revenge and to veil my wit, I counterfeited a listless bearing; I feigned dulness; I planned a stratagem; and now you can see with your own eyes whether it has succeeded, whether it has achieved its purpose to the full; I am content to leave you to judge so great a matter. It is your turn; trample under foot the ashes of the murderer! Disdain the dust of him who slew his brother, and defiled his brother's queen with infamous desecration, who outraged his sovereign and treasonably assailed his majesty, who brought the sharpest tyranny upon you, stole your freedom, and crowned fratricide with incest. I have been the agent of this just vengeance; I have burned for this righteous retribution; uphold me with a high-born spirit; pay me the homage that you owe; warm me with your kindly looks. It is I who have wiped off my country's shame; I who have quenched my mother's dishonour; I who have beaten back oppression; I who have put to death the murderer; I who have baffled the artful hand of my uncle with retorted arts. Were he living, each new day would have multiplied his crimes. I resented the wrong done to father and to fatherland: I slew him who was governing you outrageously and more hardly than it beseemed men. Acknowledge my service, honour my wit, give me the throne if I have earned it; for you have in me one who has done you a mighty service, and who is no degenerate heir to his father's power; no fratricide, but the lawful successor to the throne; and a dutiful avenger of the crime of murder. It is I who have stripped you of slavery, and clothed you with freedom; I have restored your height of fortune, and given you your glory back; I have deposed the despot and triumphed over the butcher. In your hands is the reward; you know what I have done for you, and from your righteousness I ask my wage." Every heart had been moved while the young man thus spoke; he affected some to compassion, and some even to tears. When the lamentation ceased, he was appointed king by prompt and general acclaim. For one and all rested their greatest hopes on his wisdom, since he had devised the whole of such an achievement with the deepest cunning, and accomplished it with the most astonishing contrivance. Many could have been seen marvelling how he had concealed so subtle a plan over so long a space of time. After these deeds in Denmark, Amleth equipped three vessels, and went back to Britain to see his wife and her father. He had also enrolled in his service the flower of the warriors, and arrayed them very choicely, wishing to have everything now magnificently appointed, even as of old he had always worn contemptible gear, and to change all his old devotion to poverty for outlay on luxury. He also had a shield made for him, whereon the whole series of his exploits, beginning with his earliest youth, was painted in exquisite designs. This he bore as a record of his deeds of prowess, and gained great increase of fame thereby. Here were to be seen depicted the slaying of Horwendil; the fratricide and incest of Feng; the infamous uncle, the whimsical nephew; the shapes of the hooked stakes; the stepfather suspecting, the stepson dissembling; the various temptations offered, and the woman brought to beguile him; the gaping wolf; the finding of the rudder; the passing of the sand; the entering of the wood; the putting of the straw through the gadfly; the warning of the youth by the tokens; and the privy dealings with the maiden after the escort was eluded. And likewise could be seen the picture of the palace; the queen there with her son; the slaying of the eavesdropper; and how, after being killed, he was boiled down, and so dropped into the sewer, and so thrown out to the swine; how his limbs were strewn in the mud, and so left for the beasts to finish. Also it could be seen how Amleth surprised the secret of his sleeping attendants, how he erased the letters, and put new characters in their places; how he disdained the banquet and scorned the drink; how he condemned time face of the king and taxed the Queen with faulty behaviour. There was also represented the hanging of the envoys, and the young man's wedding; then the voyage back to Denmark; the festive celebration of the funeral rites; Amleth, in answer to questions, pointing to the sticks in place of his attendants, acting as cupbearer, and purposely drawing his sword and pricking his fingers; the sword riveted through, the swelling cheers of the banquet, the dance growing fast and furious; the hangings flung upon the sleepers, then fastened with the interlacing crooks, and wrapped tightly round them as they slumbered; the brand set to the mansion, the burning of the guests, the royal palace consumed with fire and tottering down; the visit to the sleeping-room of Feng, the theft of his sword, the useless one set in its place; and the king slain with his own sword's point by his stepson's hand. All this was there, painted upon Amleth's battle-shield by a careful craftsman in the choicest of handiwork; he copied truth in his figures, and embodied real deeds in his outlines. Moreover, Amleth's followers, to increase the splendour of their presence, wore shields which were gilt over. The King of Britain received them very graciously, and treated them with costly and royal pomp. During the feast he asked anxiously whether Feng was alive and prosperous. His son-in-law told him that the man of whose welfare he was vainly inquiring had perished by the sword. With a flood of questions he tried to find out who had slain Feng, and learnt that the messenger of his death was likewise its author. And when the king heard this, he was secretly aghast, because he found that an old promise to avenge Feng now devolved upon himself. For Feng and he had determined of old, by a mutual compact, that one of them should act as avenger of the other. Thus the king was drawn one way by his love for his daughter and his affection for his son-in-law; another way by his regard for his friend, and moreover by his strict oath and the sanctity of their mutual declarations, which it was impious to violate. At last he slighted the ties of kinship, and sworn faith prevailed. His heart turned to vengeance, and he put the sanctity of his oath before family bonds. But since it was thought sin to wrong the holy ties of hospitality, he preferred to execrate his revenge by the hand of another, wishing to mask his secret crime with a show of innocence. So he veiled his treachery with attentions, and hid his intent to harm under a show of zealous goodwill. His queen having lately died of illness, he requested Amleth to undertake the mission of making him a fresh match, saying that he was highly delighted with his extraordinary shrewdness. He declared that there was a certain queen reigning in Scotland, whom he vehemently desired to marry. Now he knew that she was not only unwedded by reason of her chastity, but that in the cruelty of her arrogance she had always loathed her wooers, and had inflicted on her lovers the uttermost punishment, so that not one but of all the multitude was to be found who had not paid for his insolence with his life. Perilous as this commission was Amleth started, never shrinking to obey the duty imposed upon him, but trusting partly in his own servants, and partly in the attendants of the king. He entered Scotland, and, when quite close to the abode of the queen, he went into a meadow by the wayside to rest his horses. Pleased by the look of the spot, he thought of resting--the pleasant prattle of the stream exciting a desire to sleep--and posted men to keep watch some way off. The queen on hearing of this, sent out ten warriors to spy on the approach of the foreigners and their equipment. One of these, being quick-witted, slipped past the sentries, pertinaciously made his way up, and took away the shield, which Amleth had chanced to set at his head before he slept, so gently that he did not ruffle his slumbers, though he was lying upon it, nor awaken one man of all that troop; for he wished to assure his mistress not only by report but by some token. With equal address he filched the letter entrusted to Amleth from the coffer in which it was kept. When these things were brought to the queen, she scanned the shield narrowly, and from the notes appended made out the whole argument. Then she knew that here was the man who, trusting in his own nicely calculated scheme, had avenged on his uncle the murder of his father. She also looked at the letter containing the suit for her band, and rubbed out all the writing; for wedlock with the old she utterly abhorred, and desired the embraces of young men. But she wrote in its place a commission purporting to be sent from the King of Britain to herself, signed like the other with his name and title, wherein she pretended that she was asked to marry the bearer. Moreover, she included an account of the deeds of which she had learnt from Amleth's shield, so that one would have thought the shield confirmed the letter, while the letter explained the shield. Then she told the same spies whom she had employed before to take the shield back, and put the letter in its place again; playing the very trick on Amleth which, as she had learnt, he had himself used in outwitting his companions. Amleth, meanwhile, who found that his shield had been filched from under his head, deliberately shut his eyes and cunningly feigned sleep, hoping to regain by pretended what he had lost by real slumbers. For he thought that the success of his one attempt would incline the spy to deceive him a second time. And he was not mistaken. For as the spy came up stealthily, and wanted to put back the shield and the writing in their old place, Amleth leapt up, seized him, and detained him in bonds. Then he roused his retinue, and went to the abode of the queen. As representing his father-in-law, he greeted her, and handled her the writing, sealed with the king's seal. The queen, who was named Hermutrude, took and read it, and spoke most warmly of Amleth's diligence and shrewdness, saying, that Feng had deserved his punishment, and that the unfathomable wit of Amleth had accomplished a deed past all human estimation; seeing that not only had his impenetrable depth devised a mode of revenging his father's death and his mother's adultery, but it had further, by his notable deeds Of prowess, seized the kingdom of the man whom he had found constantly plotting against him. She marvelled therefore that a man of such instructed mind could have made the one slip of a mistaken marriage; for though his renown almost rose above mortality, he seemed to have stumbled into an obscure and ignoble match. For the parents of his wife had been slaves, though good luck had graced them with the honours of royalty. Now (said she), when looking for a wife a wise man must reckon the lustre of her birth and not of her beauty. Therefore, if he were to seek a match in a proper spirit, he should weigh the ancestry, and not be smitten by the looks; for though looks were a lure to temptation, yet their empty bedizenment had tarnished the white simplicity of many a man. Now there was a woman, as nobly born as himself, whom he could take. She herself, whose means were not poor nor her birth lowly, was worthy his embraces, since he did not surpass her in royal wealth nor outshine her in the honour of his ancestors. Indeed she was a queen, and but that her sex gainsaid it, might be deemed a king; may (and this is yet truer), whomsoever she thought worthy of her bed was at once a king, and she yielded her kingdom with herself. Thus her sceptre and her hand went together. It was no mean favour for such a woman to offer her love, who in the case of other men had always followed her refusal with the sword. Therefore she pressed him to transfer his wooing, to make over to her his marriage vows, and to learn to prefer birth to beauty. So saying, she fell upon him with a close embrace. Amleth was overjoyed at the gracious speech of the maiden, fell to kissing back, and returned her close embrace, protesting that the maiden's wish was his own. Then a banquet was held, friends bidden, the nobles gathered, and the marriage rites performed. When they were accomplished, he went back to Britain with his bride, a strong band of Scots being told to follow close behind, that he might have its help against the diverse treacheries in his path. As he was returning, the daughter of the King of Britain, to whom he was still married, met him. Though she complained that she was slighted by the wrong of having a paramour put over her, yet, she said, it would be unworthy for her to hate him as an adulterer more than she loved him as a husband: nor would she so far shrink from her lord as to bring herself to hide in silence the guile which she knew was intended against him. For she had a son as a pledge of their marriage, and regard for him, if nothing else, must have inclined his mother to the affection of a wife. "He," she said, "may hate the supplanter of his mother, I will love her; no disaster shall put out my flame for thee; no ill-will shall quench it, or prevent me from exposing the malignant designs against thee, or from revealing the snares I have detected. Bethink thee, then, that thou must beware of thy father-in-law, for thou hast thyself reaped the harvest of thy mission, foiled the wishes of him who sent thee, and with willful trespass seized over all the fruit for thyself." By this speech she showed herself more inclined to love her husband than her father. While she thus spoke, the King of Britain came up and embraced his son-in-law closely, but with little love, and welcomed him with a banquet, to hide his intended guile under a show of generosity. But Amleth, having learnt the deceit, dissembled his fear, took a retinue of two hundred horsemen, put on an under-shirt (of mail), and complied with the invitation, preferring the peril of falling in with the king's deceit to the shame of hanging back. So much heed for honour did he think that he must take in all things. As he rode up close, the king attacked him just under the porch of the folding doors, and would have thrust him through with his javelin, but that the hard shirt of mail threw off the blade. Amleth received a slight wound, and went to the spot where he had bidden the Scottish warriors wait on duty. He then sent back to the king his new wife's spy, whom he had captured. This man was to bear witness that he had secretly taken from the coffer where it was kept the letter which was meant for his mistress, and thus was to make the whole blame recoil on Hermutrude, by this studied excuse absolving Amleth from the charge of treachery. The king without tarrying pursued Amleth hotly as he fled, and deprived him of most of his forces. So Amleth, on the morrow, wishing to fight for dear life, and utterly despairing of his powers of resistance, tried to increase his apparent numbers. He put stakes under some of the dead bodies of his comrades to prop them up, set others on horseback like living men, and tied others to neighbouring stones, not taking off any of their armour, and dressing them in due order of line and wedge, just as if they were about to engage. The wing composed of the dead was as thick as the troop of the living. It was an amazing spectacle this, of dead men dragged out to battle, and corpses mustered to fight. The plan served him well, for the very figures of the dead men showed like a vast array as the sunbeams struck them. For those dead and senseless shapes restored the original number of the army so well, that the mass might have been unthinned by the slaughter of yesterday. The Britons, terrified at the spectacle, fled before fighting, conquered by the dead men whom they had overcome in life. I cannot tell whether to think more of the cunning or of the good fortune of this victory. The Danes came down on the king as he was tardily making off, and killed him. Amleth, triumphant, made a great plundering, seized the spoils of Britain, and went back with his wives to his own land. Meanwhile Rorik had died, and Wiglek, who had come to the throne, had harassed Amleth's mother with all manner of insolence and stripped her of her royal wealth, complaining that her son had usurped the kingdom of Jutland and defrauded the King of Leire, who had the sole privilege of giving and taking away the rights of high offices. This treatment Amleth took with such forbearance as apparently to return kindness for slander, for he presented Wiglek with the richest of his spoils. But afterwards he seized a chance of taking vengeance, attacked him, subdued him, and from a covert became an open foe. Fialler, the governor of Skaane, he drove into exile; and the tale is that Fialler retired to a spot called Undensakre, which is unknown to our peoples. After this, Wiglek, recruited with the forces of Skaane and Zealand, sent envoys to challenge Amleth to a war. Amleth, with his marvellous shrewdness, saw that he was tossed between two difficulties, one of which involved disgrace and the other danger. For he knew that if he took up the challenge he was threatened with peril of his life, while to shrink from it would disgrace his reputation as a soldier. Yet in that spirit ever fixed on deeds of prowess the desire to save his honour won the day. Dread of disaster was blunted by more vehement thirst for glory; he would not tarnish the unblemished lustre of his fame by timidly skulking from his fate. Also he saw that there is almost as wide a gap between a mean life and a noble death as that which is acknowledged between honour and disgrace themselves. Yet Amleth was enchained by such great love for Hermutrude, that he was more deeply concerned in his mind about her future widowhood than about his own death, and cast about very zealously how he could decide on some second husband for her before the opening of the war. Hermutrude, therefore, declared that she had the courage of a man, and promised that she would not forsake him even on the field, saying that the woman who dreaded to be united with her lord in death was abominable. But she kept this rare promise ill; for when Amleth had been slain by Wiglek in battle in Jutland, she yielded herself up unasked to be the conqueror's spoil and bride. Thus all vows of woman are loosed by change of fortune and melted by the shifting of time; the faith of their soul rests on a slippery foothold, and is weakened by casual chances; glib in promises, and as sluggish in performance, all manner of lustful promptings enslave it, and it bounds away with panting and precipitate desire, forgetful of old things in the ever hot pursuit after something fresh. So ended Amleth. Had fortune been as kind to him as nature, he would have equalled the gods in glory, and surpassed the labours of Hercules by his deeds of prowess. A plain in Jutland is to be found, famous for his name and burial-place. Wiglek's administration of the kingdom was long and peaceful, and he died of disease. WERMUND, his son, succeeded him. The long and leisurely tranquillity of a most prosperous and quiet time flowed by and Wermund in undisturbed security maintained a prolonged and steady peace at home. He had no children during the prime of his life, but in his old age, by a belated gift of fortune, he begat a son, Uffe, though all the years which had glided by had raised him up no offspring. This Uffe surpassed all of his age in stature, but in his early youth was supposed to have so dull and foolish a spirit as to be useless for all affairs public or private. For from his first years he never used to play or make merry, but was so void of all human pleasure that he kept his lips sealed in a perennial silence, and utterly restrained his austere visage from the business of laughter. But though through the years of his youth he was reputed for an utter fool, he afterwards left that despised estate and became famous, turning out as great a pattern of wisdom and hardihood as he had been a picture of stagnation. His father, seeing him such a simpleton, got him for a wife the daughter of Frowin, the governor of the men of Sleswik; thinking that by his alliance with so famous a man Uffe would receive help which would serve him well in administering the realm. Frowin had two sons, Ket and Wig, who were youths of most brilliant parts, and their excellence, not less than that of Frowin, Wermund destined to the future advantage of his son. At this time the King of Sweden was Athisl, a man of notable fame and energy. After defeating his neighbours far around, he was loth to leave the renown won by his prowess to be tarnished in slothful ease, and by constant and zealous practice brought many novel exercises into vogue. For one thing he had a daily habit of walking alone girt with splendid armour: in part because he knew that nothing was more excellent in warfare than the continual practice of arms; and in part that he might swell his glory by ever following this pursuit. Self-confidence claimed as large a place in this man as thirst for fame. Nothing, he thought, could be so terrible as to make him afraid that it would daunt his stout heart by its opposition. He carried his arms into Denmark, and challenged Frowin to battle near Sleswik. The armies routed one another with vast slaughter, and it happened that the generals came to engage in person, so that they conducted the affair like a duel; and, in addition to the public issues of the war, the fight was like a personal conflict. For both of them longed with equal earnestness for an issue of the combat by which they might exhibit their valour, not by the help of their respective sides, but by a trial of personal strength. The end was that, though the blows rained thick on either side, Athisl prevailed and overthrew Frowin, and won a public victory as well as a duel, breaking up and shattering the Danish ranks in all directions. When he returned to Sweden, he not only counted the slaying of Frowin among the trophies of his valour, but even bragged of it past measure, so ruining the glory of the deed by his wantonness of tongue. For it is sometimes handsomer for deeds of valour to be shrouded in the modesty of silence than to be blazoned in wanton talk. Wermund raised the sons of Frowin to honours of the same rank as their father's, a kindness which was only due to the children of his friend who had died for the country. This prompted Athisl to carry the war again into Denmark. Emboldened therefore by his previous battle, he called back, bringing with him not only no slender and feeble force, but all the flower of the valour of Sweden, thinking he would seize the supremacy of all Denmark. Ket, the son of Frowin, sent Folk, his chief officer, to take this news to Wermund, who then chanced to be in his house Jellinge. (1) Folk found the king feasting with his friends, and did his errand, admonishing him that here was the long-wished-for chance of war at hand, and pressing itself upon the wishes of Wermund, to whom was give an immediate chance of victory and the free choice of a speedy and honourable triumph. Great and unexpected were the sweets of good fortune, so long sighed for, and now granted to him by this lucky event. For Athisl had come encompassed with countless forces of the Swedes, just as though in his firm assurance he had made sure of victory; and since the enemy who was going to fight would doubtless prefer death to flight, this chance of war gave them a fortunate opportunity to take vengeance for their late disaster. Wermund, declaring that he had performed his mission nobly and bravely, ordered that he should take some little refreshment of the banquet, since "far-faring ever hurt fasters." When Folk said that he had no kind of leisure to take food, he begged him to take a draught to quench his thirst. This was given him; and Wermund also bade him keep the cup, which was of gold, saying that men who were weary with the heat of wayfaring found it handier to take up the water in a goblet than in the palms, and that it was better to use a cup for drinking than the hand. When the king accompanied his great gift with such gracious words, the young man, overjoyed at both, promised that, before the king should see him turn and flee, he would take a draught of his own blood to the full measure of the liquor he had drunk. With this doughty vow Wermund accounted himself well repaid, and got somewhat more joy from giving the boon than the soldier had from gaining it. Nor did he find that Folk's talk was braver than his fighting. For, when battle had begun, it came to pass that amidst divers charges of the troops Folk and Athisl met and fought a long while together; and that the host of the Swedes, following the fate of their captain, took to flight, and Athisl also was wounded and fled from the battle to his ships. And when Folk, dazed with wounds and toils, and moreover steeped alike in heat and toil and thirst, had ceased to follow the rout of the enemy, then, in order to refresh himself, he caught his own blood in his helmet, and put it to his lips to drain: by which deed he gloriously requited the king's gift of the cup. Wermund, who chanced to see this, praised him warmly for fulfilling his vow. Folk answered, that a noble vow ought to be strictly performed to the end: a speech wherein he showed no less approval of his own deed than Wermund. Now, while the conquerors had laid down their arms, and, as is usual after battle, were exchanging diverse talk with one another, Ket, the governor of the men of Sleswik, declared that it was a matter of great marvel to him how it was that Athisl, though difficulties strewed his path, had contrived an opportunity to escape, especially as he had been the first and foremost in the battle, but last of all in the retreat; and though there had not been one of the enemy whose fall was so vehemently desired by the Danes. Wermund rejoined that he should know that there were four kinds of warrior to be distinguished in every army. The fighters of the first order were those who, tempering valour with forbearance, were keen to slay those who resisted, but were ashamed to bear hard on fugitives. For these were the men who had won undoubted proofs of prowess by veteran experience in arms, and who found their glory not in the flight of the conquered, but in overcoming those whom they had to conquer. Then there was a second kind of warriors, who were endowed with stout frame and spirit, but with no jot of compassion, and who raged with savage and indiscriminate carnage against the backs as well as the breasts of their foes. Now of this sort were the men carried away by hot and youthful blood, and striving to grace their first campaign with good auguries of warfare. They burned as hotly with the glow of youth as with the glow for glory, and thus rushed headlong into right or wrong with equal recklessness. There was also the third kind, who, wavering betwixt shame and fear, could not go forward for terror, while shame barred retreat. Of distinguished blood, but only notable for their useless stature, they crowded the ranks with numbers and not with strength, smote the foe more with their shadows than with their arms, and were only counted among the throng of warriors as so many bodies to be seen. These men were lords of great riches, but excelled more in birth than bravery; hungry for life because owning great possessions, they were forced to yield to the sway of cowardice rather than nobleness. There were others, again, who brought show to the war, and not substance, and who, foisting themselves into the rear of their comrades, were the first to fly and the last to fight. One sure token of fear betrayed their feebleness; for they always deliberately sought excuses to shirk, and followed with timid and sluggish advance in the rear of the fighters. It must be supposed, therefore, that these were the reasons why the king had escaped safely; for when he fled he was not pursued pertinaciously by the men of the front rank; since these made it their business to preserve the victory, not to arrest the conquered, and massed their wedges, in order that the fresh-won victory might be duly and sufficiently guarded, and attain the fulness of triumph. Now the second class of fighters, whose desire was to cut down everything in their way, had left Athisl unscathed, from lack not of will but of opportunity; for they had lacked the chance to hurt him rather than the daring. Moreover, though the men of the third kind, who frittered away the very hour of battle by wandering about in a flurried fashion, and also hampered the success of their own side, had had their chance of harming the king, they yet lacked courage to assail him. In this way Wermund satisfied the dull amazement of Ket, and declared that he had set forth and expounded the true reasons of the king's safe escape. After this Athisl fled back to Sweden, still wantonly bragging of the slaughter of Frowin, and constantly boasting the memory of his exploit with prolix recital of his deeds; not that he bore calmly the shame of his defeat, but that he might salve the wound of his recent flight by the honours of his ancient victory. This naturally much angered Ket and Wig, and they swore a vow to unite in avenging their father. Thinking that they could hardly accomplish this in open war, they took an equipment of lighter armament, and went to Sweden alone. Then, entering a wood in which they had learnt by report that the king used to take his walks unaccompanied, they hid their weapons. Then they talked long with Athisl, giving themselves out as deserters; and when he asked them what was their native country, they said they were men of Sleswik, and had left their land "for manslaughter". The king thought that this statement referred not to their vow to commit the crime, but to the guilt of some crime already committed. For they desired by this deceit to foil his inquisitiveness, so that the truthfulness of the statement might baffle the wit of the questioner, and their true answer, being covertly shadowed forth in a fiction, might inspire in him a belief that it was false. For famous men of old thought lying a most shameful thing. Then Athisl said he would like to know whom the Danes believed to be the slayer of Frowin. Ket replied that there was a doubt as to who ought to claim so illustrious a deed, especially as the general testimony was that he had perished on the field of battle. Athisl answered that it was idle to credit others with the death of Frowin, which he, and he alone, had accomplished in mutual combat. Soon he asked whether Frowin had left any children. Ket answering that two sons of his were alive, said that he would be very glad to learn their age and stature. Ket replied that they were almost of the same size as themselves in body, alike in years, and much resembling them in tallness. Then Athisl said: "If the mind and the valour of their sire were theirs, a bitter tempest would break upon me." Then he asked whether those men constantly spoke of the slaying of their father. Ket rejoined that it was idle to go on talking and talking about a thing that could not be softened by any remedy, and declared that it was no good to harp with constant vexation on an inexpiable ill. By saying this he showed that threats ought not to anticipate vengeance. When Ket saw that the king regularly walked apart alone in order to train his strength, he took up his arms, and with his brother followed the king as he walked in front of them. Athisl, when he saw them, stood his ground on the sand, thinking it shameful to avoid threateners. Then they said that they would take vengeance for his slaying of Frowin, especially as he avowed with so many arrogant vaunts that he alone was his slayer. But he told them to take heed lest while they sought to compass their revenge, they should be so foolhardy as to engage him with their feeble and powerless hand, and while desiring the destruction of another, should find they had fallen themselves. Thus they would cut off their goodly promise of overhasty thirst for glory. Let them then save their youth and spare their promise; let them not be seized so lightly with a desire to perish. Therefore, let them suffer him to requite with money the trespass done them in their father's death, and account it great honour that they would be credited with forcing so mighty a chief to pay a fine, and in a manner with shaking him with overmastering fear. Yet he said he advised them thus, not because he was really terrified, but because he was moved with compassion for their youth. Ket replied that it was idle to waste time in beating so much about the bush and trying to sap their righteous longing for revenge by an offer of pelf. So he bade him come forward and make trial with him in single combat of whatever strength he had. He himself would do without the aid of his brother, and would fight with his own strength, lest it should appear a shameful and unequal combat, for the ancients held it to be unfair, and also infamous, for two men to fight against one; and a victory gained by this kind of fighting they did not account honourable, but more like a disgrace than a glory. Indeed, it was considered not only a poor, but a most shameful exploit for two men to overpower one. But Athisl was filled with such assurance that he bade them both assail him at once, declaring that if he could not cure them of the desire to fight, he would at least give them the chance of fighting more safely. But Ket shrank so much from this favour that he swore he would accept death sooner: for he thought that the terms of battle thus offered would be turned into a reproach to himself. So he engaged hotly with Athisl, who desirous to fight him in a forbearing fashion, merely thrust lightly with his blade and struck upon his shield; thus guarding his own safety with more hardihood than success. When he had done this some while, he advised him to take his brother to share in his enterprise, and not be ashamed to ask for the help of another hand, since his unaided efforts were useless. If he refused, said Athisl, he should not be spared; then making good his threats, he assailed him with all his might. But Ket received him with so sturdy a stroke of his sword, that it split the helmet and forced its way down upon the head. Stung by the wound (for a stream of blood flowed from his poll), he attacked Ket with a shower of nimble blows, and drove him to his knees. Wig, leaning more to personal love than to general usage, (2) could not bear the sight, but made affection conquer shame, and attacking Athisl, chose rather to defend the weakness of his brother than to look on at it. But he won more infamy than glory by the deed. In helping his brother he had violated the appointed conditions of the duel; and the help that he gave him was thought more useful than honourable. For on the one scale he inclined to the side of disgrace, and on the other to that of affection. Thereupon they perceived themselves that their killing of Athisl had been more swift than glorious. Yet, not to hide the deed from the common people, they cut off his head, slung his body on a horse, took it out of the wood, and handed it over to the dwellers in a village near, announcing that the sons of Frowin had taken vengeance upon Athisl, King of the Swedes, for the slaying of their father. Boasting of such a victory as this, they were received by Wermund with the highest honours; for he thought they had done a most useful deed, and he preferred to regard the glory of being rid of a rival with more attention than the infamy of committing an outrage. Nor did he judge that the killing of a tyrant was in any wise akin to shame. It passed into a proverb among foreigners, that the death of the king had broken down the ancient principle of combat. When Wermund was losing his sight by infirmity of age, the King of Saxony, thinking that Denmark lacked a leader, sent envoys ordering him to surrender to his charge the kingdom which he held beyond the due term of life; lest, if he thirsted to hold sway too long, he should strip his country of laws and defence. For how could he be reckoned a king, whose spirit was darkened with age, and his eyes with blindness not less black and awful? If he refused, but yet had a son who would dare to accept a challenge and fight with his son, let him agree that the victor should possess the realm. But if he approved neither offer, let him learn that he must be dealt with by weapons and not by warnings; and in the end he must unwillingly surrender what he was too proud at first to yield uncompelled. Wermund, shaken by deep sighs, answered that it was too insolent to sting him with these taunts upon his years; for he had passed no timorous youth, nor shrunk from battle, that age should bring him to this extreme misery. It was equally unfitting to cast in his teeth the infirmity of his blindness: for it was common for a loss of this kind to accompany such a time of life as his, and it seemed a calamity fitter for sympathy than for taunts. It were juster to fix the blame on the impatience of the King of Saxony, whom it would have beseemed to wait for the old man's death, and not demand his throne; for it was somewhat better to succeed to the dead than to rob the living. Yet, that he might not be thought to make over the honours of his ancient freedom, like a madman, to the possession of another, he would accept the challenge with his own hand. The envoys answered that they knew that their king would shrink from the mockery of fighting a blind man, for such an absurd mode of combat was thought more shameful than honourable. It would surely be better to settle the affair by means of their offspring on either side. The Danes were in consternation, and at a sudden loss for a reply: but Uffe, who happened to be there with the rest, craved his father's leave to answer; and suddenly the dumb as it were spake. When Wermund asked who had thus begged leave to speak, and the attendants said that it was Uffe, he declared that it was enough that the insolent foreigner should jeer at the pangs of his misery, without those of his own household vexing him with the same wanton effrontery. But the courtiers persistently averred that this man was Uffe; and the king said: "He is free, whosoever he be, to say out what he thinks." Then said Uffe, "that it was idle for their king to covet a realm which could rely not only on the service of its own ruler, but also on the arms and wisdom of most valiant nobles. Moreover, the king did not lack a son nor the kingdom an heir; and they were to know that he had made up his mind to fight not only the son of their king, but also, at the same time, whatsoever man the prince should elect as his comrade out of the bravest of their nation." The envoys laughed when they beard this, thinking it idle lip-courage. Instantly the ground for the battle was agreed on, and a fixed time appointed. But the bystanders were so amazed by the strangeness of Uffe's speaking and challenging, that one can scarce say if they were more astonished at his words or at his assurance. But on the departure of the envoys Wermund praised him who had made the answer, because he had proved his confidence in his own valour by challenging not one only, but two; and said that he would sooner quit his kingdom for him, whoever he was, than for an insolent foe. But when one and all testified that he who with lofty self-confidence had spurned the arrogance of the envoys was his own son, he bade him come nearer to him, wishing to test with his hands what he could not with his eyes. Then he carefully felt his body, and found by the size of his limbs and by his features that he was his son; and then began to believe their assertions, and to ask him why he had taken pains to hide so sweet an eloquence with such careful dissembling, and had borne to live through so long a span of life without utterance or any intercourse of talk, so as to let men think him utterly incapable of speech, and a born mute. He replied that he had been hitherto satisfied with the protection of his father, that he had not needed the use of his own voice, until he saw the wisdom of his own land hard pressed by the glibness of a foreigner. The king also asked him why he had chosen to challenge two rather than one. He said he had desired this mode of combat in order that the death of King Athisl, which, having been caused by two men, was a standing reproach to the Danes, might be balanced by the exploit of one, and that a new ensample of valour might erase the ancient record of their disgrace. Fresh honour, he said, would thus obliterate the guilt of their old dishonour. Wermund said that his son had judged all things rightly, and bade him first learn the use of arms, since he had been little accustomed to them. When they were offered to Uffe, he split the narrow links of the mail-coats by the mighty girth of his chest, nor could any be found large enough to hold him properly. For he was too hugely built to be able to use the arms of any other man. At last, when he was bursting even his father's coat of mail by the violent compression of his body, Wermund ordered it to be cut away on the left side and patched with a buckle; thinking it mattered little if the side guarded by the shield were exposed to the sword. He also told him to be most careful in fixing on a sword which he could use safely. Several were offered him; but Uffe, grasping the hilt, shattered them one after the other into flinders by shaking them, and not a single blade was of so hard a temper but at the first blow he broke it into many pieces. But the king had a sword of extraordinary sharpness, called "Skrep", which at a single blow of the smiter struck straight through and cleft asunder any obstacle whatsoever; nor would aught be hard enough to check its edge when driven home. The king, loth to leave this for the benefit of posterity, and greatly grudging others the use of it, had buried it deep in the earth, meaning, since he had no hopes of his son's improvement, to debar everyone else from using it. But when he was now asked whether he had a sword worthy of the strength of Uffe, he said that he had one which, if he could recognize the lie of the ground and find what he had consigned long ago to earth, he could offer him as worthy of his bodily strength. Then he bade them lead him into a field, and kept questioning his companions over all the ground. At last he recognised the tokens, found the spot where he had buried the sword, drew it out of its hole, and handed it to his son. Uffe saw it was frail with great age and rusted away; and, not daring to strike with it, asked if he must prove this one also like the rest, declaring that he must try its temper before the battle ought to be fought. Wermund replied that if this sword were shattered by mere brandishing, there was nothing left which could serve for such strength as his. He must, therefore, forbear from the act, whose issue remained so doubtful. So they repaired to the field of battle as agreed. It is fast encompassed by the waters of the river Eider, which roll between, and forbid any approach save by ship. Hither Uffe went unattended, while the Prince of Saxony was followed by a champion famous for his strength. Dense crowds on either side, eager to see, thronged each winding bank, and all bent their eyes upon this scene. Wermund planted himself on the end of the bridge, determined to perish in the waters if defeat were the lot of his son: he would rather share the fall of his own flesh and blood than behold, with heart full of anguish, the destruction of his own country. Both the warriors assaulted Uffe; but, distrusting his sword, he parried the blows of both with his shield, being determined to wait patiently and see which of the two he must beware of most heedfully, so that he might reach that one at all events with a single stroke of his blade. Wermund, thinking that his feebleness was at fault, that he took the blows so patiently, dragged himself little by little, in his longing for death, forward to the western edge of the bridge, meaning to fling himself down and perish, should all be over with his son. Fortune shielded the old father, for Uffe told the prince to engage with him more briskly, and to do some deed of prowess worthy of his famous race; lest the lowborn squire should seem braver than the prince. Then, in order to try the bravery of the champion, he bade him not skulk timorously at his master's heels, but requite by noble deeds of combat the trust placed in him by his prince, who had chosen him to be his single partner in the battle. The other complied, and when shame drove him to fight at close quarters, Uffe clove him through with the first stroke of his blade. The sound revived Wermund, who said that he heard the sword of his son, and asked "on what particular part he had dealt the blow?" Then the retainers answered that it had gone through no one limb, but the man's whole frame; whereat Wermund drew back from the precipice and came on the bridge, longing now as passionately to live as he had just wished to die. Then Uffe, wishing to destroy his remaining foe after the fashion of the first, incited the prince with vehement words to offer some sacrifice by way of requital to the shade of the servant slain in his cause. Drawing him by those appeals, and warily noting the right spot to plant his blow, he turned the other edge of his sword to the front, fearing that the thin side of his blade was too frail for his strength, and smote with a piercing stroke through the prince's body. When Wermund heard it, he said that the sound of his sword "Skrep" had reached his ear for the second time. Then, when the judges announced that his son had killed both enemies, he burst into tears from excess of joy. Thus gladness bedewed the cheeks which sorrow could not moisten. So while the Saxons, sad and shamefaced, bore their champions to burial with bitter shame, the Danes welcomed Uffe and bounded for joy. Then no more was heard of the disgrace of the murder of Athisl, and there was an end of the taunts of the Saxons. Thus the realm of Saxony was transferred to the Danes, and Uffe, after his father, undertook its government; and he, who had not been thought equal to administering a single kingdom properly, was now appointed to manage both. Most men have called him Olaf, and he has won the name of "the Gentle" for his forbearing spirit. His later deeds, lost in antiquity, have lacked formal record. But it may well be supposed that when their beginnings were so notable, their sequel was glorious. I am so brief in considering his doings, because the lustre of the famous men of our nation has been lost to memory and praise by the lack of writings. But if by good luck our land had in old time been endowed with the Latin tongue, there would have been countless volumes to read of the exploits of the Danes. Uffe was succeeded by his son DAN, who carried his arms against foreigners, and increased his sovereignty with many a trophy; but he tarnished the brightness of the glory he had won by foul and abominable presumption; falling so far away from the honour of his famous father, who surpassed all others in modesty, that he contrariwise was puffed up and proudly exalted in spirit, so that he scorned all other men. He also squandered the goods of his father on infamies, as well as his own winnings from the spoils of foreign nations; and he devoured in expenditure on luxuries the wealth which should have ministered to his royal estate. Thus do sons sometimes, like monstrous births, degenerate from their ancestors. After this HUGLEIK was king, who is said to have defeated in battle at sea Homod and Hogrim, the despots of Sweden. To him succeeded FRODE, surnamed the Vigorous, who bore out his name by the strength of his body and mind. He destroyed in war ten captains of Norway, and finally approached the island which afterwards had its name from him, meaning to attack the king himself last of all. This king, Froger, was in two ways very distinguished, being notable in arms no less than in wealth; and graced his sovereignty with the deeds of a champion, being as rich in prizes for bodily feats as in the honours of rank. According to some, he was the son of Odin, and when he begged the immortal gods to grant him a boon, received the privilege that no man should conquer him, save he who at the time of the conflict could catch up in his hand the dust lying beneath Froger's feet. When Frode found that Heaven had endowed this king with such might, he challenged him to a duel, meaning to try to outwit the favour of the gods. So at first, feigning inexperience, he besought the king for a lesson in fighting, knowing (he said) his skill and experience in the same. The other, rejoicing that his enemy not only yielded to his pretensions, but even made him a request, said that he was wise to submit his youthful mind to an old man's wisdom; for his unscarred face and his brow, ploughed by no marks of battle, showed that his knowledge of such matters was but slender. So he marked off on the ground two square spaces with sides an ell long, opposite one another, meaning to begin by instructing him about the use of these plots. When they had been marked off, each took the side assigned to him. Then Frode asked Froger to exchange arms and ground with him, and the request was readily granted. For Froger was excited with the dashing of his enemy's arms, because Frode wore a gold-hilted sword, a breastplate equally bright, and a headpiece most brilliantly adorned in the same manner. So Frode caught up some dust from the ground whence Froger had gone, and thought that he had been granted an omen of victory. Nor was he deceived in his presage; for he straightway slew Froger, and by this petty trick won the greatest name for bravery; for he gained by craft what had been permitted to no man's strength before. After him DAN came to the throne. When he was in the twelfth year of his age, he was wearied by the insolence of the embassies, which commanded him either to fight the Saxons or to pay them tribute. Ashamed, he preferred fighting to payment and was moved to die stoutly rather than live a coward. So he elected to fight; and the warriors of the Danes filled the Elbe with such a throng of vessels, that the decks of the ships lashed together made it quite easy to cross, as though along a continuous bridge. The end was that the King of Saxony had to accept the very terms he was demanding from the Danes. After Dan, FRIDLEIF, surnamed the Swift, assumed the sovereignty. During his reign, Huyrwil, the lord of Oland, made a league with the Danes and attacked Norway. No small fame was added to his deeds by the defeat of the amazon Rusila, who aspired with military ardour to prowess in battle: but he gained manly glory over a female foe. Also he took into his alliance, on account of their deeds of prowess, her five partners, the children of Finn, named Brodd, Bild, Bug, Fanning, and Gunholm. Their confederacy emboldened him to break the treaty which he made with the Danes; and the treachery of the violation made it all the more injurious, for the Danes could not believe that he could turn so suddenly from a friend into an enemy; so easily can some veer from goodwill into hate. I suppose that this man inaugurated the morals of our own day, for we do not account lying and treachery as sinful and sordid. When Huyrwil attacked the southern side of Zealand, Fridleif assailed him in the harbour which was afterwards called by Huyrwil's name. In this battle the soldiers, in their rivalry for glory, engaged with such bravery that very few fled to escape peril, and both armies were utterly destroyed; nor did the victory fall to either side, where both were enveloped in an equal ruin. So much more desirous were they all of glory than of life. So the survivors of Huyrwil's army, in order to keep united, had the remnants of their fleet lashed together at night. But, in the same night, Bild and Brodd cut the cables with which the ships were joined, and stealthily severed their own vessels from the rest, thus yielding to their own terrors by deserting their brethren, and obeying the impulses of fear rather than fraternal love. When daylight returned, Fridleif, finding that after the great massacre of their friends only Huyrwil, Gunholm, Bug, and Fanning were left, determined to fight them all single-handed, so that the mangled relics of his fleet might not again have to be imperilled. Besides his innate courage, a shirt of steel-defying mail gave him confidence; a garb which he used to wear in all public battles and in duels, as a preservative of his life. He accomplished his end with as much fortune as courage, and ended the battle successfully. For, after slaying Huyrwil, Bug, and Fanning, he killed Gunholm, who was accustomed to blunt the blade of an enemy with spells, by a shower of blows from his hilt. But while he gripped the blade too eagerly, the sinews, being cut and disabled, contracted the fingers upon the palm, and cramped them with life-long curvature. While Fridleif was besieging Dublin, a town in Ireland, and saw from the strength of the walls that there was no chance of storming them, he imitated the shrewd wit of Hadding, and ordered fire to be shut up in wicks and fastened to the wings of swallows. When the birds got back in their own nesting-place, the dwellings suddenly flared up; and while the citizens all ran up to quench them, and paid more heed to abating the fire than to looking after the enemy, Fridleif took Dublin. After this he lost his soldiers in Britain, and, thinking that he would find it hard to get back to the coast, he set up the corpses of the slain (Amleth's device) and stationed them in line, thus producing so nearly the look of his original host that its great reverse seemed not to have lessened the show of it a whit. By this deed he not only took out of the enemy all heart for fighting, but inspired them with the desire to make their escape. ENDNOTES: (1) Jellinge. Lat. "Ialunga", Icel. "Jalangr". (2) General usage. "publicus consuetudini": namely, the rule of combat that two should not fight against one. BOOK FIVE. After the death of Fridleif, his son FRODE, aged seven, was elected in his stead by the unanimous decision of the Danes. But they held an assembly first, and judged that the minority of the king should be taken in charge by guardians, lest the sovereignty should pass away owing to the boyishness of the ruler. For one and all paid such respect to the name and memory of Fridleif, that the royalty was bestowed on his son despite his tender years. So a selection was made, and the brothers Westmar and Koll were summoned to the charge of bringing up the king. Isulf, also, and Agg and eight other men of mark were not only entrusted with the guardianship of the king, but also granted authority to administer the realm under him. These men were rich in strength and courage, and endowed with ample gifts of mind as well as of body. Thus the state of the Danes was governed with the aid of regents until the time when the king should be a man. The wife of Koll was Gotwar, who used to paralyse the most eloquent and fluent men by her glib and extraordinary insolence; for she was potent in wrangling, and full of resource in all kinds of disputation. Words were her weapons; and she not only trusted in questions, but was armed with stubborn answers. No man could subdue this woman, who could not fight, but who found darts in her tongue instead. Some she would argue down with a flood of impudent words, while others she seemed to entangle in the meshes of her quibbles, and strangle in the noose of her sophistries; so nimble a wit had the woman. Moreover, she was very strong, either in making or cancelling a bargain, and the sting of her tongue was the secret of her power in both. She was clever both at making and at breaking leagues; thus she had two sides to her tongue, and used it for either purpose. Westmar had twelve sons, three of whom had the same name--Grep in common. These three men were conceived at once and delivered at one birth, and their common name declared their simultaneous origin. They were exceedingly skillful swordsmen and boxers. Frode had also given the supremacy of the sea to Odd; who was very closely related to the king. Koll rejoiced in an offspring of three sons. At this time a certain son of Frode's brother held the chief command of naval affairs for the protection of the country, Now the king had a sister, Gunwar, surnamed the Fair because of her surpassing beauty. The sons of Westmar and Koll, being ungrown in years and bold in spirit, let their courage become recklessness and devoted their guilt-stained minds to foul and degraded orgies. Their behaviour was so outrageous and uncontrollable that they ravished other men's brides and daughters, and seemed to have outlawed chastity and banished it to the stews. Nay, they defiled the couches of matrons, and did not even refrain from the bed of virgins. A man's own chamber was no safety to him: there was scarce a spot in the land but bore traces of their lust. Husbands were vexed with fear, and wives with insult to their persons: and to these wrongs folk bowed. No ties were respected, and forced embraces became a common thing. Love was prostituted, all reverence for marriage ties died out, and lust was greedily run after. And the reason of all this was the peace; for men's bodies lacked exercise and were enervated in the ease so propitious to vices. At last the eldest of those who shared the name of Grep, wishing to regulate and steady his promiscuous wantonness, ventured to seek a haven for his vagrant amours in the love of the king's sister. Yet he did amiss. For though it was right that his vagabond and straying delights should be bridled by modesty, yet it was audacious for a man of the people to covet the child of a king. She, much fearing the impudence of her wooer, and wishing to be safer from outrage, went into a fortified building. Thirty attendants were given to her, to keep guard and constant watch over her person. Now the comrades of Frode, sadly lacking the help of women in the matter of the wear of their garments, inasmuch as they had no means of patching or of repairing rents, advised and urged the king to marry. At first he alleged his tender years as an excuse, but in the end yielded to the persistent requests of his people. And when he carefully inquired of his advisers who would be a fit wife for him, they all praised the daughter of the King of the Huns beyond the rest. When the question was pushed, what reason Frode had for objecting to her, he replied that he had heard from his father that it was not expedient for kings to seek alliance far afield, or to demand love save from neighbours. When Gotwar heard this she knew that the king's resistance to his friends was wily. Wishing to establish his wavering spirit, and strengthen the courage of his weakling soul, she said: "Bridals are for young men, but the tomb awaits the old. The steps of youth go forward in desires and in fortune; but old age declines helpless to the sepulchre. Hope attends youth; age is bowed with hopeless decay. The fortune of young men increases; it will never leave unfinished what it begins." Respecting her words, he begged her to undertake the management of the suit. But she refused, pleading her age as her pretext, and declaring herself too stricken in years to bear so difficult a commission. The king saw that a bribe was wanted, and, proffering a golden necklace, promised it as the reward of her embassy. For the necklace had links consisting of studs, and figures of kings interspersed in bas-relief, which could be now separated and now drawn together by pulling a thread inside; a gewgaw devised more for luxury than use. Frode also ordered that Westmar and Koll, with their sons, should be summoned to go on the same embassy, thinking that their cunning would avoid the shame of a rebuff. They went with Gotwar, and were entertained by the King of the Huns at a three days' banquet, ere they uttered the purpose of their embassy. For it was customary of old thus to welcome guests. When the feast had been prolonged three days, the princess came forth to make herself pleasant to the envoys with a most courteous address, and her blithe presence added not a little to the festal delights of the banqueters. And as the drink went faster Westmar revealed his purpose in due course, in a very merry declaration, wishing to sound the mind of the maiden in talk of a friendly sort. And, in order not to inflict on himself a rebuff, he spoke in a mirthful vein, and broke the ground of his mission, by venturing to make up a sportive speech amid the applause of the revellers. The princess said that she disdained Frode because he lacked honour and glory. For in days of old no men were thought fit for the hand of high-born women but those who had won some great prize of glory by the lustre of their admirable deeds. Sloth was the worst of vices in a suitor, and nothing was more of a reproach in one who sought marriage than the lack of fame. A harvest of glory, and that alone, could bring wealth in everything else. Maidens admired in their wooers not so much good looks as deeds nobly done. So the envoys, flagging and despairing of their wish, left the further conduct of the affair to the wisdom of Gotwar, who tried to subdue the maiden not only with words but with love-philtres, and began to declare that Frode used his left hand as well as his right, and was a quick and skillful swimmer and fighter. Also by the drink which she gave she changed the strictness of the maiden to desire, and replaced her vanished anger with love and delight. Then she bade Westmar, Koll, and their sons go to the king and urge their mission afresh; and finally, should they find him froward, to anticipate a rebuff by a challenge to fight. So Westmar entered the palace with his men-at-arms, and said: "Now thou must needs either consent to our entreaties, or meet in battle us who entreat thee. We would rather die nobly than go back with our mission unperformed; lest, foully repulsed and foiled of our purpose, we should take home disgrace where we hoped to will honour. If thou refuse thy daughter, consent to fight: thou must needs grant one thing or the other. We wish either to die or to have our prayers beard. Something--sorrow if not joy--we will get from thee. Frode will be better pleased to hear of our slaughter than of our repulse." Without another word, he threatened to aim a blow at the king's throat with his sword. The king replied that it was unseemly for the royal majesty to meet an inferior in rank in level combat, and unfit that those of unequal station should fight as equals. But when Westmar persisted in urging him to fight, he at last bade him find out what the real mind of the maiden was; for in old time men gave women who were to marry, free choice of a husband. For the king was embarrassed, and hung vacillating betwixt shame and fear of battle. Thus Westmar, having been referred to the thoughts of the girl's heart, and knowing that every woman is as changeable in purpose as she is fickle in soul, proceeded to fulfil his task all the more confidently because he knew how mutable the wishes of maidens were. His confidence in his charge was increased and his zeal encouraged, because she had both a maiden's simplicity, which was left to its own counsels, and a woman's freedom of choice, which must be wheedled with the most delicate and mollifying flatteries; and thus she would be not only easy to lead away, but even hasty in compliance. But her father went after the envoys, that he might see more surely into his daughter's mind. She had already been drawn by the stealthy working of the draught to love her suitor, and answered that the promise of Frode, rather than his present renown, had made her expect much of his nature: since he was sprung from so famous a father, and every nature commonly answered to its origin. The youth therefore had pleased her by her regard of his future, rather than his present, glory. These words amazed the father; but neither could he bear to revoke the freedom he had granted her, and he promised her in marriage to Frode. Then, having laid in ample stores, he took her away with the most splendid pomp, and, followed by the envoys, hastened to Denmark, knowing that a father was the best person to give away a daughter in marriage. Frode welcomed his bride most joyfully, and also bestowed the highest honours upon his future royal father-in-law; and when the marriage rites were over, dismissed him with a large gift of gold and silver. And so with Hanund, the daughter of the King of the Huns, for his wife, he passed three years in the most prosperous peace. But idleness brought wantonness among his courtiers, and peace begot lewdness, which they displayed in the most abominable crimes. For they would draw some men up in the air on ropes, and torment them, pushing their bodies as they hung, like a ball that is tossed; or they would put a kid's hide under the feet of others as they walked, and, by stealthily pulling a rope, trip their unwary steps on the slippery skill in their path; others they would strip of their clothes, and lash with sundry tortures of stripes; others they fastened to pegs, as with a noose, and punished with mock-hanging. They scorched off the beard and hair with tapers; of others they burned the hair of the groin with a brand. Only those maidens might marry whose chastity they had first deflowered. Strangers they battered with bones; others they compelled to drunkenness with immoderate draughts, and made them burst. No man might give his daughter to wife unless he had first bought their favour and goodwill. None might contract any marriage without first purchasing their consent with a bribe. Moreover, they extended their abominable and abandoned lust not only to virgins, but to the multitude of matrons indiscriminately. Thus a twofold madness incited this mixture of wantonness and frenzy. Guests and strangers were proffered not shelter but revilings. All these maddening mockeries did this insolent and wanton crew devise, and thus under a boy-king freedom fostered licence. For nothing prolongs reckless sin like the procrastination of punishment and vengeance. This unbridled impudence of the soldiers ended by making the king detested, not only by foreigners, but even by his own people, for the Danes resented such an arrogant and cruel rule. But Grep was contented with no humble loves; he broke out so outrageously that he was guilty of intercourse with the queen, and proved as false to the king as he was violent to all other men. Then by degrees the scandal grew, and the suspicion of his guilt crept on with silent step. The common people found it out before the king. For Grep, by always punishing all who alluded in the least to this circumstance, had made it dangerous to accuse him. But the rumour of his crime, which at first was kept alive in whispers, was next passed on in public reports; for it is hard for men to hide another's guilt if they are aware of it. Gunwar had many suitors; and accordingly Grep, trying to take revenge for his rebuff by stealthy wiles, demanded the right of judging the suitors, declaring that the princess ought to make the choicest match. But he disguised his anger, lest he should seem to have sought the office from hatred of the maiden. At his request the king granted him leave to examine the merits of the young men. So he first gathered all the wooers of Gunwar together on the pretence of a banquet, and then lined the customary room of the princess with their heads--a gruesome spectacle for all the rest. Yet he forfeited none of his favour with Frode, nor abated his old intimacy with him. For he decided that any opportunity of an interview with the king must be paid for, and gave out that no one should have any conversation with him who brought no presents. Access, he announced, to so great a general must be gained by no stale or usual method, but by making interest most zealously. He wished to lighten the scandal of his cruelty by the pretence of affection to his king. The people, thus tormented, vented their complaint of their trouble in silent groans. None had the spirit to lift up his voice in public against this season of misery. No one had become so bold as to complain openly of the affliction that was falling upon them. Inward resentment vexed the hearts of men, secretly indeed, but all the more bitterly. When Gotar, the King of Norway, heard this, he assembled his soldiers, and said that the Danes were disgusted with their own king, and longed for another if they could get the opportunity; that he had himself resolved to lead an army thither, and that Denmark would be easy to seize if attacked. Frode's government of his country was as covetous as it was cruel. Then Erik rose up and gainsaid the project with contrary reasons. "We remember," he said, "how often coveters of other men's goods lose their own. He who snatches at both has oft lost both. It must be a very strong bird that can wrest the prey from the claws of another. It is idle for thee to be encouraged by the internal jealousies of the country, for these are oft blown away by the approach of an enemy. For though the Danes now seem divided in counsel, yet they will soon be of one mind to meet the foe. The wolves have often made peace between the quarrelling swine. Every man prefers a leader of his own land to a foreigner, and every province is warmer in loyalty to a native than to a stranger king. For Frode will not await thee at home, but will intercept thee abroad as thou comest. Eagles claw each other with their talons, and fowls fight fronting. Thou thyself knowest that the keen sight of the wise man must leave no cause for repentance. Thou hast an ample guard of nobles. Keep thou quiet as thou art; indeed thou wilt almost be able to find out by means of others what are thy resources for war. Let the soldiers first try the fortunes of their king. Provide in peace for thine own safety, and risk others if thou dost undertake the enterprise: better that the slave should perish than the master. Let thy servant do for thee what the tongs do for the smith, who by the aid of his iron tool guards his hand from scorching, and saves his fingers from burning. Learn thou also, by using thy men, to spare and take thought for thyself." So spake Erik, and Gotar, who had hitherto held him a man of no parts, now marvelled that he had graced his answer with sentences so choice and weighty, and gave him the name of Shrewd-spoken, thinking that his admirable wisdom deserved some title. For the young man's reputation had been kept in the shade by the exceeding brilliancy of his brother Roller. Erik begged that some substantial gift should be added to the name, declaring that the bestowal of the title ought to be graced by a present besides. The king gave him a ship, and the oarsmen called it "Skroter." Now Erik and Roller were the sons of Ragnar, the champion, and children of one father by different mothers; Roller's mother and Erik's stepmother was named Kraka. And so, by leave of Gotar, the task of making a raid on the Danes fell to one Hrafn. He was encountered by Odd, who had at that time the greatest prestige among the Danes as a rover, for he was such a skilled magician that he could range over the sea without a ship, and could often raise tempests by his spells, and wreck the vessels of the enemy. Accordingly, that he might not have to condescend to pit his sea-forces against the rovers, he used to ruffle the waters by enchantment, and cause them to shipwreck his foes. To traders this man was ruthless, but to tillers of the soil he was merciful, for he thought less of merchandise than of the plough-handle, but rated the clean business of the country higher than the toil for filthy lucre. When he began to fight with the Northmen he so dulled the sight of the enemy by the power of his spells that they thought the drawn swords of the Danes cast their beams from afar off, and sparkled as if aflame. Moreover, their vision was so blunted that they could not so much as look upon the sword when it was drawn from the sheath: the dazzle was too much for their eyesight, which could not endure the glittering mirage. So Hrafn and many of his men were slain, and only six vessels slipped back to Norway to teach the king that it was not so easy to crush the Danes. The survivors also spread the news that Frode trusted only in the help of his champions, and reigned against the will of his people, for his rule had become a tyranny. In order to examine this rumour, Roller, who was a great traveller abroad, and eager to visit unknown parts, made a vow that he would get into the company of Frode. But Erik declared that, splendid as were his bodily parts, he had been rash in pronouncing the vow. At last, seeing him persisting stubbornly in his purpose, Erik bound himself under a similar vow; and the king promised them that he would give them for companions whomsoever they approved by their choice. The brethren, therefore, first resolved to visit their father and beg for the stores and the necessaries that were wanted for so long a journey. He welcomed them paternally, and on the morrow took them to the forest to inspect the herd, for the old man was wealthy in cattle. Also he revealed to them treasures which had long lain hid in caverns of the earth; and they were suffered to gather up whatsoever of these they would. The boon was accepted as heartily as it was offered: so they took the riches out of the ground, and bore away what pleased them. Their rowers meanwhile were either refreshing themselves or exercising their skill with casting weights. Some sped leaping, some running; others tried their strength by sturdily hurling stones; others tested their archery by drawing the bow. Thus they essayed to strengthen themselves with divers exercises. Some again tried to drink themselves into a drowse. Roller was sent by his father to find out what had passed at home in the meanwhile. And when he saw smoke coming from his mother's hut he went up outside, and, stealthily applying his eye, saw through the little chink and into the house, where he perceived his mother stirring a cooked mess in an ugly-looking pot. Also he looked up at three snakes hanging from above by a thin cord, from whose mouths flowed a slaver which dribbled drops of moisture on the meal. Now two of these were pitchy of hue, while the third seemed to have whitish scales, and was hung somewhat higher than the others. This last had a fastening on its tail, while the others were held by a cord round their bellies. Roller thought the affair looked like magic, but was silent on what he had seen, that he might not be thought to charge his mother with sorcery. For he did not know that the snakes were naturally harmless, or how much strength was being brewed for that meal. Then Ragnar and Erik came up, and, when they saw the smoke issuing from the cottage, entered and went to sit at meat. When they were at table, and Kraka's son and stepson were about to eat together, she put before them a small dish containing a piebald mess, part looking pitchy, but spotted with specks of yellow, while part was whitish: the pottage having taken a different hue answering to the different appearance of the snakes. And when each had tasted a single morsel, Erik, judging the feast not by the colours but by the inward strengthening effected, turned the dish around very quickly, and transferred to himself the part which was black but compounded of stronger juices; and, putting over to Roller the whitish part which had first been set before himself, throve more on his supper. And, to avoid showing that the exchange was made on purpose, he said, "Thus does prow become stern when the sea boils up." The man had no little shrewdness, thus to use the ways of a ship to dissemble his cunning act. So Erik, now refreshed by this lucky meal, attained by its inward working to the highest pitch of human wisdom. For the potency of the meal bred in him the fulness of all kinds of knowledge to an incredible degree, so that he had cunning to interpret even the utterances of wild beasts and cattle. For he was not only well versed in all the affairs of men, but he could interpret the particular feelings which brutes experienced from the sounds which expressed them. He was also gifted with an eloquence so courteous and graceful, that he adorned whatsoever he desired to expound with a flow of witty adages. But when Kraka came up, and found that the dish had been turned round, and that Erik had eaten the stronger share of the meal, she lamented that the good luck she had bred for her son should have passed to her stepson. Soon she began to sigh, and entreat Eric that he should never fail to help his brother, whose mother had heaped on him fortune so rich and strange: for by tasting a single savoury meal he had clearly attained sovereign wit and eloquence, besides the promise of success in combat. She added also, that Roller was almost as capable of good counsel, and that he should not utterly miss the dainty that had been intended for him. She also told him that in case of extreme and violent need, he could find speedy help by calling on her name; declaring that she trusted partially in her divine attributes, and that, consorting as she did in a manner with the gods, she wielded an innate and heavenly power. Erik said that he was naturally drawn to stand by his brother, and that the bird was infamous which fouled its own nest. But Kraka was more vexed by her own carelessness than weighed down by her son's ill-fortune: for in old time it made a craftsman bitterly ashamed to be outwitted by his own cleverness. Then Kraka, accompanied by her husband, took away the brothers on their journey to the sea. They embarked in a single ship, but soon attached two others. They had already reached the coast of Denmark, when, reconnoitering, they learned that seven ships had come up at no great distance. Then Erik bade two men who could speak the Danish tongue well, to go to them unclothed, and, in order to spy better, to complain to Odd of their nakedness, as if Erik had caused it, and to report when they had made careful scrutiny. These men were received as friends by Odd, and hunted for every plan of the general with their sharp ears. He had determined to attack the enemy unawares at daybreak, that he might massacre them the more speedily while they were swathed in their night garments: for he said that men's bodies were wont to be most dull and heavy at that hour of dawn. He also told them, thereby hastening what was to prove his own destruction, that his ships were laden with stones fit for throwing. The spies slipped off in the first sleep of the night, reported that Odd had filled all his vessels with pebbles, and also told everything else they had heard. Erik now quite understood the case, and, when he considered the smallness of his own fleet, thought that he must call the waters to destroy the enemy, and win their aid for himself. So he got into a boat and rowed, pulling silently, close up to the keels of the enemy; and gradually, by screwing in an auger, he bored the planks (a device practiced by Hadding and also by Frode), nearest to the water, and soon made good his return, the oar-beat being scarce audible. Now he bore himself so warily, that not one of the watchers noted his approach or departure. As he rowed off, the water got in through the chinks of Odd's vessels, and sank them, so that they were seen disappearing in the deep, as the water flooded them more and more within. The weight of the stones inside helped them mightily to sink. The billows were washing away the thwarts, and the sea was flush with the decks, when Odd, seeing the vessels almost on a level with the waves, ordered the heavy seas that had been shipped to be baled out with pitchers. And so, while the crews were toiling on to protect the sinking parts of the vessels from the flood of waters, the enemy hove close up. Thus, as they fell to their arms, the flood came upon them harder, and as they prepared to fight, they found they must swim for it. Waves, not weapons, fought for Erik, and the sea, which he had himself Enabled to approach and do harm, battled for him. Thus Erik made better use of the billow than of the steel, and by the effectual aid of the waters seemed to fight in his own absence, the ocean lending him defence. The victory was given to his craft; for a flooded ship could not endure a battle. Thus was Odd slain with all his crew; the look-outs were captured, and it was found that no man escaped to tell the tale of the disaster. Erik, when the massacre was accomplished, made a rapid retreat, and put in at the isle Lesso. Finding nothing there to appease his hunger, he sent the spoil homeward on two ships, which were to bring back supplies for another year. He tried to go by himself to the king in a single ship. So he put in to Zealand, and the sailors ran about over the shore, and began to cut down the cattle: for they must either ease their hunger or perish of famine. So they killed the herd, skinned the carcases, and cast them on board. When the owners of the cattle found this out, they hastily pursued the free-booters with a fleet. And when Erik found that he was being attacked by the owners of the cattle, he took care that the carcases of the slaughtered cows should be tied with marked ropes and hidden under water. Then, when the Zealanders came up, he gave them leave to look about and see if any of the carcases they were seeking were in his hands; saying that a ship's corners were too narrow to hide things. Unable to find a carcase anywhere, they turned their suspicions on others, and thought the real criminals were guiltless of the plunder. Since no traces of free-booting were to be seen, they fancied that others had injured them, and pardoned the culprits. As they sailed off, Erik lifted the carcase out of the water and took it in. Meantime Frode learnt that Odd and his men had gone down. For a widespread rumour of the massacre had got wind, though the author of the deed was unknown. There were men, however, who told how they had seen three sails putting in to shore, and departing again northwards. Then Erik went to the harbour, not far from which Frode was tarrying, and, the moment that he stepped out of the ship, tripped inadvertently, and came tumbling to the ground. He found in the slip a presage of a lucky issue, and forecast better results from this mean beginning. When Grep heard of his coming, he hastened down to the sea, intending to assail with chosen and pointed phrases the man whom he had heard was better-spoken than all other folk. Grep's eloquence was not so much excellent as impudent, for he surpassed all in stubbornness of speech. So he began the dispute with reviling, and assailed Erik as follows: Grep: "Fool, who art thou? What idle quest is thine? Tell me, whence or whither dost thou journey? What is thy road? What thy desire? Who thy father? What thy lineage? Those have strength beyond others who have never left their own homes, and the Luck of kings is their houseluck. For the things of a vile man are acceptable unto few, and seldom are the deeds of the hated pleasing." Erik: "Ragnar is my father; eloquence clothes my tongue; I have ever loved virtue only. Wisdom hath been my one desire; I have travelled many ways over the world, and seen the different manners of men. The mind of the fool can keep no bounds in aught: it is base and cannot control its feelings. The use of sails is better than being drawn by the oar; the gale troubles the waters, a drearier gust the land. For rowing goes through the seas and lying the lands; and it is certain that the lands are ruled with the lips, but the seas with the hand." Grep: "Thou art thought to be as full of quibbling as a cock of dirt. Thou stinkest heavy with filth, and reekest of nought but sin. There is no need to lengthen the plea against a buffoon, whose strength is in an empty and voluble tongue." Erik: "By Hercules, if I mistake not, the coward word is wont to come back to the utterer. The gods with righteous endeavour bring home to the speaker words cast forth without knowledge. As soon as we espy the sinister ears of the wolf, we believe that the wolf himself is near. Men think no credit due to him that hath no credit, whom report accuses of treachery." Grep: "Shameless boy, owl astray from the path, night-owl in the darkness, thou shalt pay for thy reckless words. Thou shalt be sorry for the words thou now belchest forth madly, and shalt pay with thy death for thy unhallowed speech. Lifeless thou shalt pasture crows on thy bloodless corpse, to be a morsel for beasts, a prey to the ravenous bird." Erik: "The boding of the coward, and the will that is trained to evil, have never kept themselves within due measure. He who betrays his lord, he who conceives foul devices, will be as great a snare to himself as to his friends. Whoso fosters a wolf in his house is thought to feed a thief and a pest for his own hearth." Grep: "I did not, as thou thinkest, beguile the queen, but I was the guardian of her tender estate. She increased my fortunes, and her favour first brought me gifts and strength, and wealth and counsel." Erik: "Lo, thy guilty disquiet lies heavy on thee; that man's freedom is safest whose mind remains untainted. Whoso asks a slave to be a friend, is deceived; often the henchman hurts his master." At this Grep, shorn of his glibness of rejoinder, set spurs to his horse and rode away. Now when he reached home, he filled the palace with uproarious and vehement clamour; and shouting that he had been worsted in words, roused all his soldiers to fight, as though he would avenge by main force his luckless warfare of tongues. For he swore that he would lay the host of the foreigners under the claws of eagles. But the king warned him that he should give his frenzy pause for counsel, that blind plans were commonly hurtful; that nothing could be done both cautiously and quickly at once; that headstrong efforts were the worst obstacle; and lastly, that it was unseemly to attack a handful with a host. Also, said he, the sagacious man was he who could bridle a raging spirit, and stop his frantic empetuosity in time. Thus the king forced the headlong rage of the young man to yield to reflection. But he could not wholly recall to self-control the frenzy of his heated mind, or prevent the champion of wrangles, abashed by his hapless debate, and finding armed vengeance refused him, from asking leave at least to try his sorceries by way of revenge. He gained his request, and prepared to go back to the shore with a chosen troop of wizards. So he first put on a pole the severed head of a horse that had been sacrificed to the gods, and setting sticks beneath displayed the jaws grinning agape; hoping that he would foil the first efforts of Erik by the horror of this wild spectacle. For he supposed that the silly souls of the barbarians would give away at the bogey of a protruding neck. Erik was already on his road to meet them, and saw the head from afar off, and, understanding the whole foul contrivance, he bade his men keep silent and behave warily; no man was to be rash or hasty of speech, lest by some careless outburst they might give some opening to the sorceries; adding that if talking happened to be needed, he would speak for all. And they were now parted by a river; when the wizards, in order to dislodge Erik from the approach to the bridge, set up close to the river, on their own side, the pole on which they had fixed the horse's head. Nevertheless Erik made dauntlessly for the bridge, and said: "On the bearer fall the ill-luck of what he bears! May a better issue attend our steps! Evil befall the evil-workers! Let the weight of the ominous burden crush the carrier! Let the better auguries bring us safety!" And it happened according to his prayer. For straightway the head was shaken off, the stick fell and crushed the bearer. And so all that array of sorceries was baffled at the bidding of a single curse, and extinguished. Then, as Erik advanced a little, it came into his mind that strangers ought to fix on gifts for the king. So he carefully wrapped up in his robe a piece of ice which he happened to find, and managed to take it to the king by way of a present. But when they reached the palace he sought entrance first, and bade his brother follow close behind. Already the slaves of the king, in order to receive him with mockery as he entered, had laid a slippery hide on the threshold; and when Erik stepped upon it, they suddenly jerked it away by dragging a rope, and would have tripped him as he stood upon it, had not Roller, following behind, caught his brother on his breast as he tottered. So Erik, having half fallen, said that "bare was the back of the brotherless." And when Gunwar said that such a trick ought not to be permitted by a king, the king condemned the folly of the messenger who took no heed against treachery. And thus he excused his flout by the heedlessness of the man he flouted. Within the palace was blazing a fire, which the aspect of the season required: for it was now gone midwinter. By it, in different groups, sat the king on one side and the champions on the other. These latter, when Erik joined them, uttered gruesome sounds like things howling. The king stopped the clamour, telling them that the noises of wild beasts ought not to be in the breasts of men. Erik added, that it was the way of dogs, for all the others to set up barking when one started it; for all folk by their bearing betrayed their birth and revealed their race. But when Koll, who was the keeper of the gifts offered to the king, asked him whether he had brought any presents with him, he produced the ice which he had hidden in his breast. And when he had handed it to Koll across the hearth, he purposely let it go into the fire, as though it had slipped from the hand of the receiver. All present saw the shining fragment, and it seemed as though molten metal had fallen into the fire. Erik, maintaining that it had been jerked away by the carelessness of him who took it, asked what punishment was due to the loser of the gift. The king consulted the opinion of the queen, who advised him not to relax the statute of the law which he had passed, whereby he gave warning that all who lost presents that were transmitted to him should be punished with death. Everyone else also said that the penalty by law appointed ought not to be remitted. And so the king, being counselled to allow the punishment as inevitable, gave leave for Koll to be hanged. Then Frode began to accost Erik thus: "O thou, wantoning in insolent phrase, in boastful and bedizened speech, whence dost thou say that thou hast come hither, and why?" Erik answered: "I came from Rennes Isle, and I took my seat by a stone." Frode rejoined: "I ask, whither thou wentest next?" Erik answered. "I went off from the stone riding on a beam, and often again took station by a stone." Frode replied: "I ask thee whither thou next didst bend thy course, or where the evening found thee?" Then said Erik: "Leaving a crag, I came to a rock, and likewise lay by a stone." Frode said: "The boulders lay thick in those parts." Erik answered: "Yet thicker lies the sand, plain to see." Frode said: "Tell what thy business was, and whither thou struckest off thence." Then said Erik: "Leaving the rock, as my ship ran on, I found a dolphin." Frode said: "Now thou hast said something fresh, though both these things are common in the sea: but I would know what path took thee after that?" Erik answered: "After a dolphin I went to a dolphin." Frode said: "The herd of dolphins is somewhat common." Then said Erik: "It does swim somewhat commonly on the waters." Frode said: "I would fain blow whither thou wert borne on thy toilsome journey after leaving the dolphins?" Erik answered: "I soon came upon the trunk of a tree." Frode rejoined: "Whither didst thou next pass on thy journey?" Then said Erik: "From a trunk I passed on to a log." Frode said: "That spot must be thick with trees, since thou art always calling the abodes of thy hosts by the name of trunks." Erik replied: "There is a thicker place in the woods." Frode went on: "Relate whither thou next didst bear thy steps." Erik answered: "Oft again I made my way to the lopped timbers of the woods; but, as I rested there, wolves that were sated on human carcases licked the points of the spears. There a lance-head was shaken from the shaft of the king, and it was the grandson of Fridleif." Frode said: "I am bewildered, and know not what to think about the dispute: for thou hast beguiled my mind with very dark riddling." Erik answered: "Thou owest me the prize for this contest that is finished: for under a veil I have declared to thee certain things thou hast ill understood. For under the name I gave before of `spear-point' I signified Odd, whom my hand had slain." And when the queen also had awarded him the palm of eloquence and the prize for flow of speech, the king straightway took a bracelet from his arm, and gave it to him as the appointed reward, adding: "I would fain learn from thyself thy debate with Grep, wherein he was not ashamed openly to avow himself vanquished." Then said Erik: "He was smitten with shame for the adultery wherewith he was taxed; for since he could bring no defence, he confessed that he had committed it with thy wife." The king turned to Hanund and asked her in what spirit she received the charge; and she not only confessed her guilt by a cry, but also put forth in her face a blushing signal of her sin, and gave manifest token of her fault. The king, observing not only her words, but also the signs of her countenance, but doubting with what sentence he should punish the criminal, let the queen settle by her own choice the punishment which her crime deserved. When she learnt that the sentence committed to her concerned her own guilt, she wavered awhile as she pondered how to appraise her transgression; but Grep sprang up and ran forward to transfix Erik with a spear, wishing to buy off his own death by slaying the accuser. But Roller fell on him with drawn sword, and dealt him first the doom he had himself purposed. Erik said: "The service of kin is best for the helpless." And Roller said: "In sore needs good men should be dutifully summoned." Then Frode said: "I think it will happen to you according to the common saying, `that the striker sometimes has short joy of his stroke', and `that the hand is seldom long glad of the smiting'." Erik answered: "The man must not be impeached whose deed justice excuses. For my work is as far as from that of Grep, as an act of self-defence is from an attack upon another." Then the brethren of Grep began to spring up and clamour and swear that they would either bring avengers upon the whole fleet of Erik, or would fight him and ten champions with him. Erik said to them: "Sick men have to devise by craft some provision for their journey. He whose sword-point is dull should only probe things that are soft and tender. He who has a blunt knife must search out the ways to cut joint by joint. Since, therefore, it is best for a man in distress to delay the evil, and nothing is more fortunate in trouble than to stave off hard necessity, I ask three days' space to get ready, provided that I may obtain from the king the skill of a freshly slain ox." Frode answered: "He who fell on a hide deserves a hide"; thus openly taunting the asker with his previous fall. But Erik, when the hide was given him, made some sandals, which he smeared with a mixture of tar and sand, in order to plant his steps the more firmly, and fitted them on to the feet of himself and his people. At last, having meditated what spot he should choose for the fight--for he said that he was unskilled in combat by land and in all warfare--he demanded it should be on the frozen sea. To this both sides agreed. The king granted a truce for preparations, and bade the sons of Westmar withdraw, saying that it was amiss that a guest, even if he had deserved ill should be driven from his lodging. Then he went back to examine into the manner of the punishment, which he had left to the queen's own choice to exact. For she forebore to give judgment, and begged pardon for her slip. Erik added, that woman's errors must often be forgiven, and that punishment ought not to be inflicted, unless amendment were unable to get rid of her fault. So the king pardoned Hanund. As twilight drew near, Erik said: "With Gotar, not only are rooms provided when the soldiers are coming to feast at the banquet, but each is appointed a separate place and seat where he is to lie." Then the king gave up for their occupation the places where his own champions had sat; and next the servants brought the banquet. But Erik, knowing well the courtesy of the king, which made him forbid them to use up any of the meal that was left, cast away the piece of which he had tasted very little, calling whole portions broken bits of food. And so, as the dishes dwindled, the servants brought up fresh ones to the lacking and shamefaced guests, thus spending on a little supper what might have served for a great banquet. So the king said: "Are the soldiers of Gotar wont to squander the meat after once touching it, as if it were so many pared-off crusts? And to spurn the first dishes as if they were the last morsels?" Erik said: "Uncouthness claims no place in the manners of Gotar, neither does any disorderly habit feign there." But Frode said: "Then thy manners are not those of thy lord, and thou hast proved that thou hast not taken all wisdom to heart. For he who goes against the example of his elders shows himself a deserter and a renegade." Then said Erik: "The wise man must be taught by the wiser. For knowledge grows by learning, and instruction is advanced by doctrine." Frode rejoined: "This affectation of thine of superfluous words, what exemplary lesson will it teach me?" Erik said: "A loyal few are a safer defence for a king than many traitors." Frode said to him: "Wilt thou then show us closer allegiance than the rest?" Erik answered: "No man ties the unborn (horse) to the crib, or the unbegotten to the stall. For thou hast not yet experienced all things. Besides, with Gotar there is always a mixture of drinking with feasting; liquor, over and above, and as well as meat, is the joy of the reveller." Frode said: "Never have I found a more shameless beggar of meat and drink." Erik replied: "Few reckon the need of the silent, or measure the wants of him who holds his peace." Then the king bade his sister bring forth the drink in a great goblet. Erik caught hold of her right hand and of the goblet she offered at the same time, and said: "Noblest of kings, hath thy benignity granted me this present? Dost thou assure me that what I hold shall be mine as an irrevocable gift?" The king, thinking that he was only asking for the cup, declared it was a gift. But Erik drew the maiden to him, as if she was given with the cup. When the king saw it, he said: "A fool is shown by his deed; with us freedom of maidens is ever held inviolate." Then Erik, feigning that he would cut off the girl's hand with his sword, as though it had been granted under the name of the cup, said: "If I have taken more than thou gavest, or if I am rash to keep the whole, let me at least get some." The king saw his mistake in his promise, and gave him the maiden, being loth to undo his heedlessness by fickleness, and that the weight of his pledge might seem the greater; though it is held an act more of ripe judgment than of unsteadfastness to take back a foolish promise. Then, taking from Erik security that he would return, he sent him to the ships; for the time appointed for the battle was at hand. Erik and his men went on to the sea, then covered near with ice; and, thanks to the stability of their sandals, felled the enemy, whose footing was slippery and unsteady. For Frode had decreed that no man should help either side if it wavered or were distressed. Then he went back in triumph to the king. So Gotwar, sorrowing at the destruction of her children who had miserably perished, and eager to avenge them, announced that it would please her to have a flyting with Erik, on condition that she should gage a heavy necklace and he his life; so that if he conquered he should win gold, but if he gave in, death. Erik agreed to the contest, and the gage was deposited with Gunwar. So Gotwar began thus: "Quando tuam limas admissa cote bipennem, Nonne terit tremulas mentula quassa nates?" Erik rejoined: "Ut cuivis natura pilos in corpore sevit, Omnis nempe suo barba ferenda loco est. Re Veneris homines artus agitare necesse est; Motus quippe suos nam labor omnis habet. Cum natis excipitur nate, vel cum subdita penem Vulva capit, quid ad haec addere mas renuit?" Powerless to answer this, Gotwar had to give the gold to the man whom she had meant to kill, and thus wasted a lordly gift instead of punishing the slayer of her son. For her ill fate was crowned, instead of her ill-will being avenged. First bereaved, and then silenced by furious words, she lost at once her wealth and all reward of her eloquence. She made the man blest who had taken away her children, and enriched her bereaver with a present: and took away nothing to make up the slaughter of her sons save the reproach of ignorance and the loss of goods. Westmar, when he saw this, determined to attack the man by force, since he was the stronger of tongue, and laid down the condition that the reward of the conqueror should be the death of the conquered, so that the life of both parties was plainly at stake. Erik, unwilling to be thought quicker of tongue than of hand, did not refuse the terms. Now the manner of combat was as follows. A ring, plaited of withy or rope, used to be offered to the combatants for them to drag away by wrenching it with a great effort of foot and hand; and the prize went to the stronger, for if either of the combatants could wrench it from the other, he was awarded the victory. Erik struggled in this manner, and, grasping the rope sharply, wrested it out of the hands of his opponent. When Erode saw this, he said: "I think it is hard to tug at a rope with a strong man." And Erik said: "Hard, at any rate, when a tumour is in the body or a hunch sits on the back." And straightway, thrusting his foot forth, he broke the infirm neck and back of the old man, and crushed him. And so Westmar failed to compass his revenge: zealous to retaliate, he fell into the portion of those who need revenging; being smitten down even as those whose slaughter he had desired to punish. Now Frode intended to pierce Erik by throwing a dagger at him. But Gunwar knew her brother's purpose, and said, in order to warn her betrothed of his peril, that no man could be wise who took no forethought for himself. This speech warned Erik to ward off the treachery, and he shrewdly understood the counsel of caution. For at once he sprang up and said that the glory of the wise man would be victorious, but that guile was its own punishment; thus censuring his treacherous intent in very gentle terms. But the king suddenly flung his knife at him, yet was too late to hit him; for he sprang aside, and the steel missed its mark and ran into the wall opposite. Then said Erik: "Gifts should be handed to friends, and not thrown; thou hadst made the present acceptable if thou hadst given the sheath to keep the blade company." On this request the king at once took the sheath from his girdle and gave it to him, being forced to abate his hatred by the self-control of his foe. Thus he was mollified by the prudent feigning of the other, and with goodwill gave him for his own the weapon which he had cast with ill will. And thus Erik, by taking the wrong done him in a dissembling manner, turned it into a favour, accepting as a splendid gift the steel which had been meant to slay him. For he put a generous complexion on what Frode had done with intent to harm. Then they gave themselves up to rest. In the night Gunwar awoke Erik silently, and pointed out to him that they ought to fly, saying that it was very expedient to return with safe chariot ere harm was done. He went with her to the shore, where he happened to find the king's fleet beached: so, cutting away part of the sides, he made it unseaworthy, and by again replacing some laths he patched it so that the damage might be unnoticed by those who looked at it. Then he caused the vessel whither he and his company had retired to put off a little from the shore. The king prepared to give them chase with his mutilated ships, but soon the waves broke through; and though he was very heavily laden with his armour, he began to swim off among the rest, having become more anxious to save his own life than to attack that of others. The bows plunged over into the sea, the tide flooded in and swept the rowers from their seats. When Erik and Roller saw this they instantly flung themselves into the deep water, spurning danger, and by swimming picked up the king, who was tossing about. Thrice the waves had poured over him and borne him down when Erik caught him by the hair, and lifted him out of the sea. The remaining crowd of the wrecked either sank in the waters, or got with trouble to the land. The king was stripped of his dripping attire and swathed round with dry garments, and the water poured in floods from his chest as he kept belching it; his voice also seemed to fail under the exhaustion of continual pantings. At last heat was restored to his limbs, which were numbed with cold, and his breathing became quicker. He had not fully got back his strength, and could sit but not rise. Gradually his native force returned. But when he was asked at last whether he sued for life and grace, he put his hand to his eyes, and strove to lift up their downcast gaze. But as, little by little, power came back to his body, and as his voice became more assured, he said: "By this light, which I am loth to look on, by this heaven which I behold and drink in with little joy, I beseech and conjure you not to persuade me to use either any more. I wished to die; ye have saved me in vain. I was not allowed to perish in the waters; at least I will die by the sword. I was unconquered before; thine, Erik, was the first wit to which I yielded: I was all the more unhappy, because I had never been beaten by men of note, and now I let a low-born man defeat me. This is great cause for a king to be ashamed. This is a good and sufficient reason for a general to die; it is right that he should care for nothing so much as glory. If he want that, then take it that he lacks all else. For nothing about a king is more on men's lips than his repute. I was credited with the height of understanding and eloquence. But I have been stripped of both the things wherein I was thought to excel, and am all the more miserable because I, the conqueror of kings, am seen conquered by a peasant. Why grant life to him whom thou hast robbed of honour? I have lost sister, realm, treasure, household gear, and, what is greater than them all, renown: I am luckless in all chances, and in all thy good fortune is confessed. Why am I to be kept to live on for all this ignominy? What freedom can be so happy for me that it can wipe out all the shame of captivity? What will all the following time bring for me? It can beget nothing but long remorse in my mind, and will savour only of past woes. What will prolonging of life avail, if it only brings back the memory of sorrow? To the stricken nought is pleasanter than death, and that decease is happy which comes at a man's wish, for it cuts not short any sweetness of his days, but annihilates his disgust at all things. Life in prosperity, but death in adversity, is best to seek. No hope of better things tempts me to long for life. What hap can quite repair my shattered fortunes? And by now, had ye not rescued me in my peril, I should have forgotten even these. What though thou shouldst give me back my realm, restore my sister, and renew my treasure? Thou canst never repair my renown. Nothing that is patched up can have the lustre of the unimpaired, and rumour will recount for ages that Frode was taken captive. Moreover, if ye reckon the calamities I have inflicted on you, I have deserved to die at your hands; if ye recall the harms I have done, ye will repent your kindness. Ye will be ashamed of having aided a foe, if ye consider how savagely he treated you. Why do ye spare the guilty? Why do ye stay your hand from the throat of your persecutor? It is fitting that the lot which I had prepared for you should come home to myself. I own that if I had happened to have you in my power as ye now have me, I should have paid no heed to compassion. But if I am innocent before you in act, I am guilty at least in will. I pray you, let my wrongful intention, which sometimes is counted to stand for the deed, recoil upon me. If ye refuse me death by the sword I will take care to kill myself with my own hand." Erik rejoined thus: "I pray that the gods may turn thee from the folly of thy purpose; turn thee, I say, that thou mayst not try to end a most glorious life abominably. Why, surely the gods themselves have forbidden that a man who is kind to others should commit unnatural self-murder. Fortune has tried thee to find out with what spirit thou wouldst meet adversity. Destiny has proved thee, not brought thee low. No sorrow has been inflicted on thee which a happier lot cannot efface. Thy prosperity has not been changed; only a warning has been given thee. No man behaves with self-control in prosperity who has not learnt to endure adversity. Besides, the whole use of blessings is reaped after misfortunes have been graciously acknowledged. Sweeter is the joy which follows on the bitterness of fate. Wilt thou shun thy life because thou hast once had a drenching, and the waters closed over thee? But if the waters can crush thy spirit, when wilt thou with calm courage bear the sword? Who would not reckon swimming away in his armour more to his glory than to his shame? How many men would think themselves happy were they unhappy with thy fortune? The sovereignty is still thine; thy courage is in its prime; thy years are ripening; thou canst hope to compass more than thou hast yet achieved. I would not find thee fickle enough to wish, not only to shun hardships, but also to fling away thy life, because thou couldst not bear them. None is so unmanly as he who from fear of adversity loses heart to live. No wise man makes up for his calamities by dying. Wrath against another is foolish, but against a man's self it is foolhardy; and it is a coward frenzy which dooms its owner. But if thou go without need to thy death for some wrong suffered, or for some petty perturbation of spirit, whom dost thou leave behind to avenge thee? Who is so mad that he would wish to punish the fickleness of fortune by destroying himself? What man has lived so prosperously but that ill fate has sometimes stricken him? Hast thou enjoyed felicity unbroken and passed thy days without a shock, and now, upon a slight cloud of sadness, dost thou prepare to quit thy life, only to save thy anguish? If thou bear trifles so ill, how shalt thou endure the heavier frowns of fortune? Callow is the man who has never tasted of the cup of sorrow; and no man who has not suffered hardships is temperate in enjoying ease. Wilt thou, who shouldst have been a pillar of courage, show a sign of a palsied spirit? Born of a brave sire, wilt thou display utter impotence? Wilt thou fall so far from thy ancestors as to turn softer than women? Hast thou not yet begun thy prime, and art thou already taken with weariness of life? Whoever set such an example before? Shall the grandson of a famous man, and the child of the unvanquished, be too weak to endure a slight gust of adversity? Thy nature portrays the courage of thy sires; none has conquered thee, only thine own heedlessness has hurt thee. We snatched thee from peril, we did not subdue thee; wilt thou give us hatred for love, and set our friendship down as wrongdoing? Our service should have appeased thee, and not troubled thee. May the gods never desire thee to go so far in frenzy, as to persist in branding thy preserver as a traitor! Shall we be guilty before thee in a matter wherein we do thee good? Shall we draw anger on us for our service? Wilt thou account him thy foe whom thou hast to thank for thy life? For thou wert not free when we took thee, but in distress, and we came in time to help thee. And, behold, I restore thy treasure, thy wealth, thy goods. If thou thinkest thy sister was betrothed to me over-hastily, let her marry the man whom thou commandest; for her chastity remains inviolate. Moreover, if thou wilt accept me, I wish to fight for thee. Beware lest thou wrongfully steel thy mind in anger. No loss of power has shattered thee, none of thy freedom has been forfeited. Thou shalt see that I am obeying, not commanding thee. I agree to any sentence thou mayst pronounce against my life. Be assured that thou art as strong here as-in thy palace; thou hast the same power to rule here as in thy court. Enact concerning us here whatsoever would have been thy will in the palace: we are ready to obey." Thus much said Erik. Now this speech softened the king towards himself as much as towards his foe. Then, everything being arranged and made friendly, they returned to the shore. The king ordered that Erik and his sailors should be taken in carriages. But when they reached the palace he had an assembly summoned, to which he called Erik, and under the pledge of betrothal gave him his sister and command over a hundred men. Then he added that the queen would be a weariness to him, and that the daughter of Gotar had taken his liking. He must, therefore, have a fresh embassy, and the business could best be done by Erik, for whose efforts nothing seemed too hard. He also said that he would stone Gotwar to death for her complicity in concealing the crime; but Hanund he would restore to her father, that he might not have a traitress against his life dwelling amongst the Danes. Erik approved his plans, and promised his help to carry out his bidding; except that he declared that it would be better to marry the queen, when she had been put away, to Roller, of whom his sovereignty need have no fears. This opinion Frode received reverentially, as though it were some lesson vouchsafed from above. The queen also, that she might not seem to be driven by compulsion, complied, as women will, and declared that there was no natural necessity to grieve, and that all distress of spirit was a creature of fancy: and, moreover, that one ought not to bewail the punishment that befell one's deserts. And so the brethren celebrated their marriages together, one wedding the sister of the king, and the other his divorced queen. Then they sailed back to Norway, taking their wives with them. For the women could not be torn from the side of their husbands, either by distance of journey or by dread of peril, but declared that they would stick to their lords like a feather to something shaggy. They found that Ragnar was dead, and that Kraka had already married one Brak. Then they remembered the father's treasure, dug up the money, and bore it off. But Erik's fame had gone before him, and Gotar had learnt all his good fortune. Now when Gotar learnt that he had come himself, he feared that his immense self-confidence would lead him to plan the worst against the Norwegians, and was anxious to take his wife from him and marry him to his own daughter in her place: for his queen had just died, and he was anxious to marry the sister of Frode more than anyone. Erik, when he learnt of his purpose, called his men together, and told them that his fortune had not yet got off from the reefs. Also he said that he saw, that as a bundle that was not tied by a band fell to pieces, so likewise the heaviest punishment that was not constrained on a man by his own fault suddenly collapsed. They had experienced this of late with Frode; for they saw how at the hardest pass their innocence had been protected by the help of the gods; and if they continued to preserve it they should hope for like aid in their adversity. Next, they must pretend flight for a little while, if they were attacked by Gotar, for so they would have a juster plea for fighting. For they had every right to thrust out the hand in order to shield the head from peril. Seldom could a man carry to a successful end a battle he had begun against the innocent; so, to give them a better plea for assaulting the enemy, he must be provoked to attack them first. Erik then turned to Gunwar, and asked her, in order to test her fidelity, whether she had any love for Gotar, telling her it was unworthy that a maid of royal lineage should be bound to the bed of a man of the people. Then she began to conjure him earnestly by the power of heaven to tell her whether his purpose was true or reigned? He said that he had spoken seriously, and she cried: "And so thou art prepared to bring on me the worst of shame by leaving me a widow, whom thou lovedst dearly as a maid! Common rumour often speaks false, but I have been wrong in my opinion of thee. I thought I had married a steadfast man; I hoped his loyalty was past question; but now I find him to be more fickle than the winds." Saying this, she wept abundantly. Dear to Erik was his wife's fears; presently he embraced her and said: "I wished to know how loyal thou wert to me. Nought but death has the right to sever us, but Gotar means to steal thee away, seeking thy love by robbery. When he has committed the theft, pretend it is done with thy goodwill; yet put off the wedding till he has given me his daughter in thy place. When she has been granted, Gotar and I will hold our marriage on the same day. And take care that thou prepare rooms for our banqueting which have a common party-wall, yet are separate: lest perchance, if I were before thine eyes, thou shouldst ruffle the king with thy lukewarm looks at him. For this will be a most effective trick to baffle the wish of the ravisher." Then he bade Brak (one of his men), to lie in ambush not far from the palace with a chosen band of his quickest men, that he might help him at need. Then he summoned Roller, and fled in his ship with his wife and all his goods, in order to tempt the king out, pretending panic: So, when he saw that the fleet of Gotar was pressing him hard, he said: "Behold how the bow of guile shooteth the shaft of treachery;" and instantly rousing his sailors with the war-shout, he steered the ship about. Gotar came close up to him and asked who was the pilot of the ship, and he was told that it was Erik. He also shouted a question whether he was the same man who by his marvellous speaking could silence the eloquence of all other men. Erik, when he heard this, replied that he had long since received the surname of the "Shrewd-spoken", and that he had not won the auspicious title for nothing. Then both went back to the nearest shore, where Gotar, when he learnt the mission of Erik, said that he wished for the sister of Frode, but would rather offer his own daughter to Frode's envoy, that Erik might not repent the passing of his own wife to another man. Thus it would not be unfitting for the fruit of the mission to fall to the ambassador. Erik, he said, was delightful to him as a son-in-law, if only he could win alliance with Frode through Gunwar. Erik lauded the kindness of the king and approved his judgment, declaring he could not have expected a greater thing from the immortal gods than what was now offered him unasked. Still, he said, the king must first discover Gunwar's own mind and choice. She accepted the flatteries of the king with feigned goodwill, and seemed to consent readily to his suit, but besought him to suffer Erik's nuptials to precede hers; because, if Erik's were accomplished first, there would be a better opportunity for the king's; but chiefly on this account, that, if she were to marry again, she might not be disgusted at her new marriage troth by the memory of the old recurring. She also declared it inexpedient for two sets of preparations to be confounded in one ceremony. The king was prevailed upon by her answers, and highly approved her requests. Gotar's constant talks with Erik furnished him with a store of most fairshapen maxims, wherewith to rejoice and refresh his mind. So, not satisfied with giving him his daughter in marriage he also made over to him the district of Lither, thinking that their connection deserved some kindness. Now Kraka, whom Erik, because of her cunning in witchcraft, had brought with him on his travels, feigned weakness of the eyes, and muffled up her face in her cloak, so that not a single particle of her head was visible for recognition. When people asked her who she was, she said that she was Gunwar's sister, child of the same mother but a different father. Now when they came to the dwelling of Gotar, the wedding-feast of Alfhild (this was his daughter's name) was being held. Erik and the king sat at meat in different rooms, with a party-wall in common, and also entirely covered on the inside with hanging tapestries. Gunwar sat by Gotar, but Erik sat close between Kraka on the one side and Alfhild on the other. Amid the merrymaking, he gradually drew a lath out of the wall, and made an opening large enough to allow the passage of a human body; and thus, without the knowledge of the guests, he made a space wide enough to go through. Then, in the course of the feast, he began to question his betrothed closely whether she would rather marry himself or Frode: especially since, if due heed were paid to matches, the daughter of a king ought to go to the arms of one as noble as herself, so that the lowliness of one of the pair might not impair the lordliness of the other. She said that she would never marry against the permission of her father; but he turned her aversion into compliance by promises that she should be queen, and that she should be richer than all other women, for she was captivated by the promise of wealth quite as much as of glory. There is also a tradition that Kraka turned the maiden's inclinations to Frode by a drink which she mixed and gave to her. Now Gotar, after the feast, in order to make the marriage-mirth go fast and furious, went to the revel of Erik. As he passed out, Gunwar, as she had been previously bidden, went through the hole in the party-wall where the lath had been removed, and took the seat next to Erik. Gotar marvelled that she was sitting there by his side, and began to ask eagerly how and why she had come there. She said that she was Gunwar's sister, and that the king was deceived by the likeness of their looks. And when the king, in order to look into the matter, hurried back to the royal room, Gunwar returned through the back door by which she had come and sat in her old place in the sight of all. Gotar, when he saw her, could scarcely believe his eyes, and in the utmost doubt whether he had recognized her aright, he retraced his steps to Erik; and there he saw before him Gunwar, who had got back in her own fashion. And so, as often as he changed to go from one hall to the other, he found her whom he sought in either place. By this time the king was tormented by great wonder at what was no mere likeness, but the very same face in both places. For it seemed flatly impossible that different people should look exactly and undistinguishably alike. At last, when the revel broke up, he courteously escorted his daughter and Erik as far as their room, as the manner is at weddings, and went back himself to bed elsewhere. But Erik suffered Alfhild, who was destined for Frode, to lie apart, and embraced Gunwar as usual, thus outwitting the king. So Gotar passed a sleepless night, revolving how he had been apparently deluded with a dazed and wandering mind: for it seemed to him no mere likeness of looks, but sameness. Thus he was filled with such wavering and doubtful judgment, that though he really discerned the truth he thought he must have been mistaken. At last it flashed across his mind that the wall might have been tampered with. He gave orders that it should be carefully surveyed and examined, but found no traces of a breakage: in fact, the entire room seemed to be whole and unimpaired. For Erik, early in the night, had patched up the damage of the broken wall, that his trick might not be detected. Then the king sent two men privily into the bedroom of Erik to learn the truth, and bade them stand behind the hangings and note all things carefully. They further received orders to kill Erik if they found him with Gunwar. They went secretly into the room, and, concealing themselves in the curtained corners, beheld Erik and Gunwar in bed together with arms entwined. Thinking them only drowsy, they waited for their deeper sleep, wishing to stay until a heavier slumber gave them a chance to commit their crime. Erik snored lustily, and they knew it was a sure sign that he slept soundly; so they straightway came forth with drawn blades in order to butcher him. Erik was awakened by their treacherous onset, and seeing their swords hanging over his head, called out the name of his stepmother, (Kraka), to which long ago he had been bidden to appeal when in peril, and he found a speedy help in his need. For his shield, which hung aloft from the rafter, instantly fell and covered his unarmed body, and, as if on purpose, covered it from impalement by the cutthroats. He did not fail to make use of his luck, but, snatching his sword, lopped off both feet of the nearest of them. Gunwar, with equal energy, ran a spear through the other: she had the body of a woman, but the spirit of a man. Thus Erik escaped the trap; whereupon he went back to the sea and made ready to sail off by night. But Roller sounded on his horn the signal for those who had been bidden to watch close by, to break into the palace. When the king heard this, he thought it meant that the enemy was upon them, and made off hastily in a ship. Meanwhile Brak, and those who had broken in with him, snatched up the goods of the king, and got them on board Erik's ships. Almost half the night was spent in pillaging. In the morning, when the king found that they had fled, he prepared to pursue them, but was advised by one of his friends not to plan anything on a sudden or do it in haste. His friend, indeed, tried to convince him that he needed a larger equipment, and that it was ill-advised to pursue the fugitives to Denmark with a handful. But neither could this curb the king's impetuous spirit; it could not bear the loss; for nothing had stung him more than this, that his preparations to slay another should have recoiled on his own men. So he sailed to the harbour which is now called Omi. Here the weather began to be bad, provision failed, and they thought it better, since die they must, to die by the sword than by famine. And so the sailors turned their hand against one another, and hastened their end by mutual blows. The king with a few men took to the cliffs and escaped. Lofty barrows still mark the scene of the slaughter. Meanwhile Erik ended his voyage fairly, and the wedding of Alfhild and Frode was kept. Then came tidings of an inroad of the Sclavs, and Erik was commissioned to suppress it with eight ships, since Frode as yet seemed inexperienced in war. Erik, loth ever to flinch from any manly undertaking, gladly undertook the business and did it bravely. Learning that the pirates had seven ships, he sailed up to them with only one of his own, ordering the rest to be girt with timber parapets, and covered over with pruned boughs of trees. Then he advanced to observe the number of the enemy more fully, but when the Sclavs pursued closely, he beat a quick retreat to his men. But the enemy, blind to the trap, and as eager to take the fugitives, rowed smiting the waters fast and incessantly. For the ships of Erik could not be clearly distinguished, looking like a leafy wood. The enemy, after venturing into a winding strait, suddenly saw themselves surrounded by the fleet of Erik. First, confounded by the strange sight, they thought that a wood was sailing; and then they saw that guile lurked under the leaves. Therefore, tardily repenting their rashness, they tried to retrace their incautious voyage: but while they were trying to steer about, they saw the enemy boarding them; Erik, however, put his ship ashore, and slung stones against the enemy from afar. Thus most of the Sclavs were killed, and forty taken, who afterwards under stress of bonds and famine, and in strait of divers torments, gave up the ghost. Meantime Frode, in order to cross on an expedition into Sclavia, had mustered a mighty fleet from the Danes, as well as from neighbouring peoples. The smallest boat of this fleet could carry twelve sailors, and be rowed by as many oars. Then Erik, bidding his men await him patiently went to tell Frode the tidings of the defeat he had inflicted. As he sailed along he happened to see a pirate ship aground on some shallows; and being wont to utter weighty words upon chance occurrences, he said, "Obscure is the lot of the base-born, and mean is the fortune of the lowly." Then he brought his ship up close and destroyed the pirates, who were trying to get off their own vessel with poles, and busily engrossed in saving her. This accomplished, he made his way back to the king's fleet; and wishing to cheer Frode with a greeting that heralded his victory, he said, "Hail to the maker of a most prosperous peace!" The king prayed that his word might come true, and declared that the spirit of the wise man was prophetic. Erik answered that he spoke truly, and that the petty victory brought an omen of a greater one; declaring that a presage of great matters could often be got from trifles. Then the king counselled him to scatter his force, and ordered the horsemen of Jutland to go by the land way, while the rest of the army went by the short sea-passage. But the sea was covered with such a throng of vessels, that there were not enough harbours to take them in, nor shores for them to encamp on, nor money for their provisions; while the land army is said to have been so great that, in order to shorten the way, it levelled mountains, made marshes passable, filled up pits with material, and the hugest chasms by casting in great boulders. Meanwhile Strunik the King of the Sclavs sent envoys to ask for a truce; but Frode refused him time to equip himself, saying that an enemy ought not to be furnished with a truce. Moreover, he said, he had hitherto passed his life without experience of war, and now he ought not to delay its beginning by waiting in doubt; for the man that conducted his first campaign successfully might hope for as good fortune in the rest. For each side would take the augury afforded by the first engagements as a presage of the combat; since the preliminary successes of war were often a prophecy of the sequel. Erik commended the wisdom of the reply, declaring that the game ought to be played abroad just as it had been begun at home: meaning that the Danes had been challenged by the Sclavs. After these words he fought a furious battle, slew Strunik with the bravest of his race, and received the surrender of the rest. Then Frode called the Sclavs together, and proclaimed by a herald that any man among them who had been trained to theft or plunder should be speedily given up; promising that he would reward the character of such men with the highest honours. He also ordered that all of them, who were versed in evil arts should come forth to have their reward. This offer pleased the Sclavs: and some of them, tempted by their hopes of the gift, betrayed themselves with more avarice than judgment, before the others could make them known. These were misled by such great covetousness, that they thought less of shame than lucre, and accounted as their glory what was really their guilt. When these had given themselves up of their own will, he said: "Sclavs! This is the pest from which you must clear your land yourselves." And straightway he ordered the executioners to seize them, and had them fixed upon the highest gallows by the hand of their own countrymen. The punishers looked fewer than the punished. And thus the shrewd king, by refusing to those who owned their guilt the pardon which he granted to the conquered foe, destroyed almost the entire stock of the Sclavic race. Thus the longing for an undeserved reward was visited with a deserved penalty, and the thirst for an undue wage justly punished. I should think that these men were rightly delivered to their doom, who brought the peril on their own heads by speaking, when they could have saved their lives by the protection of silence. The king, exalted by the honours of his fresh victory, and loth to seem less strong in justice than in battle, resolved to remodel his army by some new laws, some of which are retained by present usage, while others men have chosen to abolish for new ones. (a) For he decreed, when the spoil was divided, that each of the vanguard should receive a greater share than the rest of the soldiery: while he granted all gold that was taken to the generals (before whom the standards were always borne in battle) on account of their rank; wishing the common soldiers to be content with silver. He ordered that the arms should go to the champions, but the captured ships should pass to the common people, as the due of those who had the right of building and equipping vessels. (b) Also he forbade that anyone should venture to lock up his household goods, as he would receive double the value of any losses from the treasury of the king; but if anyone thought fit to keep it in locked coffers, he must pay the king a gold mark. He also laid down that anyone who spared a thief should be punished as a thief. (d) Further, that the first man to flee in battle should forfeit all common rights. (e) But when he had returned into Denmark he wished to amend by good measures any corruption caused by the evil practices of Grep; and therefore granted women free choice in marriage, so that there might be no compulsory wedlock. And so he provided by law that women should be held duly married to those whom they had wedded without consulting their fathers. (f) But if a free woman agreed to marry a slave, she must fall to his rank, lose the blessing of freedom, and adopt the standing of a slave. (g) He also imposed on men the statute that they must marry any woman whom they had seduced. (h) He ordained that adulterers should be deprived of a member by the lawful husbands, so that continence might not be destroyed by shameful sins. (I) Also he ordained that if a Dane plundered another Dane, he should repay double, and be held guilty of a breach of the peace. (k) And if any man were to take to the house of another anything which he had got by thieving, his host, if he shut the door of his house behind the man, should incur forfeiture of all his goods, and should be beaten in full assembly, being regarded as having made himself guilty of the same crime. (l) Also, whatsoever exile should turn enemy to his country, or bear a shield against his countrymen, should be punished with the loss of life and goods. (m) But if any man, from a contumacious spirit, were slack in fulfilling the orders of the king, he should be punished with exile. For, on all occasion of any sudden and urgent war, an arrow of wood, looking like iron, used to be passed on everywhere from man to man as a messenger. (n) But if any one of the commons went in front of the vanguard in battle, he was to rise from a slave into a freeman, and from a peasant into a nobleman; but if he were nobly-born already, he should be created a governor. So great a guerdon did valiant men earn of old; and thus did the ancients think noble rank the due of bravery. For it was thought that the luck a man had should be set down to his valour, and not his valour to his luck. (o) He also enacted that no dispute should be entered on with a promise made under oath and a gage deposited; but whosoever requested another man to deposit a gage against him should pay that man half a gold mark, on pain of severe bodily chastisement. For the king had foreseen that the greatest occasions of strife might arise from the depositing of gages. (p) But he decided that any quarrel whatsoever should be decided by the sword, thinking a combat of weapons more honourable than one of words. But if either of the combatants drew back his foot, and stepped out of the ring of the circle previously marked, he was to consider himself conquered, and suffer the loss of his case. But a man of the people, if he attacked a champion on any score, should be armed to meet him; but the champion should only fight with a truncheon an ell long. (q) Further, he appointed that if an alien killed a Dane, his death should be redressed by the slaying of two foreigners. Meanwhile, Gotar, in order to punish Erik, equipped his army for war: and Frode, on the other side, equipped a great fleet to go against Norway. When both alike had put into Rennes-Isle, Gotar, terrified by the greatness of Frode's name, sent ambassadors to pray for peace. Erik said to them, "Shameless is the robber who is the first to seek peace, or ventures to offer it to the good. He who longs to win must struggle: blow must counter blow, malice repel malice." Gotar listened attentively to this from a distance, and then said, as loudly as he could: "Each man fights for valour according as he remembers kindness." Erik said to him: "I have requited thy kindness by giving thee back counsel." By this speech he meant that his excellent advice was worth more than all manner of gifts. And, in order to show that Gotar was ungrateful for the counsel he had received, he said: "When thou desiredst to take my life and my wife, thou didst mar the look of thy fair example. Only the sword has the right to decide between us." Then Gotar attacked the fleet of the Danes; he was unsuccessful in the engagement, and slain. Afterwards Roller received his realm from Frode as a gift; it stretched over seven provinces. Erik likewise presented Roller with the province which Gotar had once bestowed upon him. After these exploits Frode passed three years in complete and tranquil peace. Meanwhile the King of the Huns, when he heard that his daughter had been put away, allied himself with Olmar, King of the Easterlings, and in two years equipped an armament against the Danes. So Frode levied an army not only of native Danes, but also of Norwegians and Sclavs. Erik, whom he had sent to spy out the array of the enemy, found Olmar, who had received the command of the fleet, not far from Russia; while the King of the Huns led the land forces. He addressed Olmar thus: "What means, prithee, this strong equipment of war? Or whither dost thou speed, King Olmar, mighty in thy fleet?" Olmar. "We are minded to attack the son of Fridleif. And who art thou, whose bold lips ask such questions?" Erik. "Vain hope of conquering the unconquered hath filled thy heart; over Frode no man can prevail." Olmar. "Whatsoever befalls, must once happen for the first time; and often enough the unexpected comes to pass." By this saying he let him know that no man must put too much trust in fortune. Then Erik rode up to inspect the army of the Huns. As it passed by him, and he in turn by it, it showed its vanguard to the rising and its rear to the setting sun. So he asked those whom he met, who had the command of all those thousands. Hun, the King of the Huns, happened to see him, and heard that he had undertaken to reconnoitre, and asked what was the name of the questioner. Erik said he was the man who came everywhere and was found nowhere. Then the king, when an interpreter was brought, asked what work Frode was about. Erik replied, "Frode never waits at home for a hostile army, nor tarries in his house for his foe. For he who covets the pinnacle of another's power must watch and wake all night. No man has ever won a victory by snoring, and no wolf has ever found a carcase by lying asleep." The king, perceiving that he was a cunning speaker of choice maxims, said: "Here, perchance, is that Erik who, as I have heard, accused my daughter falsely." But Erik, when they were bidden to seize him instantly, said that it was unseemly for one man to be dragged off by really; and by this saying he not only appeased the mind of the king, but even inclined him to be willing to pardon him. But it was clear that this impunity came more from cunning than kindness; for the chief reason why he was let go was that he might terrify Frode by the report of their vast numbers. When he returned, Frode bad him relate what he had discovered, and he said that he had seen six kings each with his fleet; and that each of these fleets contained five thousand ships, each ship being known to hold three hundred rowers. Each millenary of the whole total he said consisted of four wings; now, since the full number of a wing is three hundred, he meant that a millenary should be understood to contain twelve hundred men. When Frode wavered in doubt what he could do against so many, and looked eagerly round for reinforcements, Erik said: "Boldness helps the righteous; a valiant dog must attack the bear; we want wolf-hounds, and not little unwarlike birds." This said, he advised Frode to muster his fleet. When it was drawn up they sailed off against the enemy; and so they fought and subdued the islands lying between Denmark and the East; and as they advanced thence, met some ships of the Ruthenian fleet. Frode thought it shameful to attack such a handful, but Erik said: "We must seek food from the gaunt and lean. He who falls shall seldom fatten, nor has that man the power to bite whom the huge sack has devoured." By this warning he cured the king of all shame about making an assault, and presently induced him to attack a small number with a throng; for he showed him that advantage must be counted before honour. After this they went on to meet Olmar, who because of the slowness of his multitude preferred awaiting the enemy to attacking it; for the vessels of the Ruthenians seemed disorganized, and, owing to their size, not so well able to row. But not even did the force of his multitudes avail him. For the extraordinary masses of the Ruthenians were stronger in numbers than in bravery, and yielded the victory to the stout handful of the Danes. When Frode tried to return home, his voyage encountered an unheard-of difficulty. For the crowds of dead bodies, and likewise the fragments of shields and spears, bestrewed the entire gulf of the sea, and tossed on the tide, so that the harbours were not only straitened, but stank. The vessels stuck, hampered amid the corpses. They could neither thrust off with oars, nor drive away with poles, the rotting carcases that floated around, or prevent, when they had put one away, another rolling up and driving against the fleet. You would have thought that a war had arisen with the dead, and there was a strange combat with the lifeless. So Frode summoned the nations which he had conquered, and enacted (a) that any father of a family who had fallen in that war should be buried with his horse and all his arms and decorations. And if any body-snatcher, in his abominable covetousness, made an attempt on him, he was to suffer for it, not only with his life, but also with the loss of burial for his own body; he should have no barrow and no funeral. For he thought it just that he who despoiled another's ashes should be granted no burial, but should repeat in his own person the fate he had inflicted on another. He appointed that the body of a centurion or governor should receive funeral on a pyre built of his own ship. He ordered that the bodies of every ten pilots should be burnt together with a single ship, but that every earl or king that was killed should be put on his own ship and burnt with it. He wished this nice attention to be paid in conducting the funerals of the slain, because he wished to prevent indiscriminate obsequies. By this time all the kings of the Russians except Olmar and Dag had fallen in battle. (b) He also ordered the Russians to conduct their warfare in imitation of the Danes, and never to marry a wife without buying her. He thought that bought marriages would have more security, believing that the troth which was sealed with a price was the safest. (d) Moreover, anyone who durst attempt the violation of a virgin was to be punished with the severance of his bodily parts, or else to requite the wrong of his intercourse with a thousand talents. (e) He also enacted that any man that applied himself to war, who aspired to the title of tried soldier, should attack a single man, should stand the attack of two, should only withdraw his foot a little to avoid three, but should not blush to flee from four. (f) He also proclaimed that a new custom concerning the pay of the soldiers should be observed by the princes under his sway. He ordered that each native soldier and housecarl should be presented in the winter season with three marks of silver, a common or hired soldier with two, a private soldier who had finished his service with only one. By this law he did injustice to valour, reckoning the rank of the soldiers and not their courage; and he was open to the charge of error in the matter, because he set familiar acquaintance above desert. After this the king asked Erik whether the army of the Huns was as large as the forces of Olmar, and Erik answered in the following song: "By Hercules, I came on a countless throng, a throng that neither earth nor wave could hold. Thick flared all their camp-fires, and the whole wood blazed up; the flame betokened a numberless array. The earth sank under the fraying of the horse-hoofs; creaking waggons rattled swiftly. The wheels rumbled, the driver rode upon the winds, so that the chariots sounded like thunder. The earth hardly bore the throngs of men-at-arms, speeding on confusedly; they trod it, but it could not bear their weight. I thought that the air crashed and the earth was shaken, so mighty was the motion of the stranger army. For I saw fifteen standards flickering at once; each of them had a hundred lesser standards, and after each of these could have been seen twenty; and the captains in their order were equal in number to the standards." Now when Frode asked wherewithal he was to resist so many, Erik instructed him that he must return home and suffer the enemy first to perish of their own hugeness. His counsel was obeyed, the advice being approved as heartily as it was uttered. But the Huns went on through pathless deserts, and, finding provisions nowhere, began to run the risk of general starvation; for it was a huge and swampy district, and nothing could be found to relieve their want. At last, when the beasts of burden had been cut down and eaten, they began to scatter, lacking carriages as much as food. Now their straying from the road was as perilous to them as their hunger. Neither horses nor asses were spared, nor did they refrain from filthy garbage. At last they did not even spare dogs: to dying men every abomination was lawful; for there is nothing too hard for the bidding of extreme need. At last when they were worn out with hunger, there came a general mortality. Bodies were carried out for burial without end, for all feared to perish, and none pitied the perishing. Fear indeed had cast out humanity. So first the divisions deserted from the king little by little; and then the army melted away by companies. He was also deserted by the prophet Ygg, a man of unknown age, which was prolonged beyond the human span; this man went as a deserter to Frode, and told him of all the preparations of the Huns. Meanwhile Hedin, prince of a considerable tribe of the Norwegians, approached the fleet of Frode with a hundred and fifty vessels. Choosing twelve out of these, he proceeded to cruise nearer, signalling the approach of friends by a shield raised on the mast. He thus greatly augmented the forces of the king, and was received into his closest friendship. A mutual love afterwards arose between this man and Hilda, the daughter of Hogni, a chieftain of the Jutes, and a maiden of most eminent renown. For, though they had not yet seen one another, each had been kindled by the other's glory. But when they had a chance of beholding one another, neither could look away; so steadfast was the love that made their eyes linger. Meanwhile, Frode distributed his soldiers through the towns, and carefully gathered in the materials needed for the winter supplies; but even so he could not maintain his army, with its burden of expense: and plague fell on him almost as great as the destruction that met the Huns. Therefore, to prevent the influx of foreigners, he sent a fleet to the Elbe to take care that nothing should cross; the admirals were Revil and Mevil. When the winter broke up, Hedin and Hogni resolved to make a roving-raid together; for Hogni did not know that his partner was in love with his daughter. Now Hogni was of unusual stature, and stiff in temper; while Hedin was very comely, but short. Also, when Frode saw that the cost of keeping up his army grew daily harder to bear, he sent Roller to Norway, Olmar to Sweden, King Onef and Glomer, a rover captain, to the Orkneys for supplies, each with his own forces. Thirty kings followed Frode, and were his friends or vassals. But when Hun heard that Frode had sent away his forces he mustered another and a fresh army. But Hogni betrothed his daughter to Hedin, after they had sworn to one another that whichever of them should perish by the sword should be avenged by the other. In the autumn, the men in search of supplies came back, but they were richer in trophies than in food. For Roller had made tributary the provinces Sundmor and Nordmor, after slaying Arthor their king. But Olmar conquered Thor the Long, the King of the Jemts and the Helsings, with two other captains of no less power, and also took Esthonia and Kurland, with Oland, and the isles that fringe Sweden; thus he was a most renowned conqueror of savage lands. So he brought back 700 ships, thus doubling the numbers of those previously taken out. Onef and Glomer, Hedin and Hogni, won victories over the Orkneys, and returned with 900 ships. And by this time revenues had been got in from far and wide, and there were ample materials gathered by plunder to recruit their resources. They had also added twenty kingdoms to the sway of Frode, whose kings, added to the thirty named before, fought on the side of the Danes. Trusting in their strength, they engaged with the Huns. Such a carnage broke out on the first day of this combat that the three chief rivers of Russia were bestrewn with a kind of bridge of corpses, and could be crossed and passed over. Also the traces of the massacre spread so wide that for the space of three days' ride the ground was to be seen covered with human carcases. So, when the battle had been seven days prolonged, King Hun fell; and his brother of the same name, when he saw the line of the Huns giving way, without delay surrendered himself and his company. In that war 170 kings, who were either Huns or fighting amongst the Huns, surrendered to the king. This great number Erik had comprised in his previous description of the standards, when he was giving an account of the multitude of the Huns in answer to the questions of Frode. So Frode summoned the kings to assembly, and imposed a rule upon them that they should all live under one and the same law. Now he set Olmar over Holmgard; Onef over Conogard; and he bestowed Saxony on Hun, his prisoner, and gave Revil the Orkneys. To one Dimar he allotted the management of the provinces of the Helsings, of the Jarnbers, and the Jemts, as well as both Laplands; while on Dag he bestowed the government of Esthonia. Each of these men he burdened with fixed conditions of tribute, thus making allegiance a condition of his kindness. So the realms of Frode embraced Russia on the east, and on the west were bounded by the Rhine. Meantime, certain slanderous tongues accused Hedin to Hogni of having tempted and defiled his daughter before the rites of betrothal; which was then accounted an enormous crime by all nations. So the credulous ears of Hogni drank in this lying report, and with his fleet he attacked Hedin, who was collecting the king's dues among the Slavs; there was an engagement, and Hogni was beaten, and went to Jutland. And thus the peace instituted by Frode was disturbed by intestine war, and natives were the first to disobey the king's law. Frode, therefore, sent men to summon them both at once, and inquired closely what was the reason of their feud. When he had heard it, he gave judgment according to the terms of the law he had enacted; but when he saw that even this could not reconcile them (for the father obstinately demanded his daughter back), he decreed that the quarrel should be settled by the sword--it seemed the only remedy for ending the dispute. The fight began, and Hedin was grievously wounded; but when he began to lose blood and bodily strength, he received unexpected mercy from his enemy. For though Hogni had an easy chance of killing him, yet, pitying youth and beauty, he constrained his cruelty to give way to clemency. And so, loth to cut off a stripling who was panting at his last gasp, he refrained his sword. For of old it was accounted shameful to deprive of his life one who was ungrown or a weakling; so closely did the antique bravery of champions take heed of all that could incline them to modesty. So Hedin, with the help of his men, was taken back to his ship, saved by the kindness of his foe. In the seventh year after, these same men began to fight on Hedin's isle, and wounded each other so that they died. Hogni would have been lucky if he had shown severity rather than compassion to Hedin when he had once conquered him. They say that Hilda longed so ardently for her husband, that she is believed to have conjured up the spirits of the combatants by her spells in the night in order to renew the war. At the same time came to pass a savage war between Alrik, king of the Swedes, and Gestiblind, king of the Goths. The latter, being the weaker, approached Frode as a suppliant, willing, if he might get his aid, to surrender his kingdom and himself. He soon received the aid of Skalk, the Skanian, and Erik, and came back with reinforcements. He had determined to let loose his attack on Alrik, but Erik thought that he should first assail his son Gunthion, governor of the men of Wermland and Solongs, declaring that the storm-weary mariner ought to make for the nearest shore, and moreover that the rootless trunk seldom burgeoned. So he made an attack, wherein perished Gunthion, whose tomb records his name. Alrik, when he heard of the destruction of his son, hastened to avenge him, and when he had observed his enemies, he summoned Erik, and, in a secret interview, recounted the leagues of their fathers, imploring him to refuse to fight for Gestiblind. This Erik steadfastly declined, and Alrik then asked leave to fight Gestiblind, thinking that a duel was better than a general engagement. But Erik said that Gestiblind was unfit for arms by reason of old age, pleading his bad health, and above all his years; but offered himself to fight in his place, explaining that it would be shameful to decline a duel on behalf of the man for whom he had come to make a war. Then they fought without delay: Alrik was killed, and Erik was most severely wounded; it was hard to find remedies, and he did not for long time recover health. Now a false report had come to Frode that Erik had fallen, and was tormenting the king's mind with sore grief; but Erik dispelled this sadness with his welcome return; indeed, he reported to Frode that by his efforts Sweden, Wermland, Helsingland, and the islands of the Sun (Soleyar) had been added to his realm. Frode straightway made him king of the nations he had subdued, and also granted to him Helsingland with the two Laplands, Finland and Esthonia, under a yearly tribute. None of the Swedish kings before him was called by the name of Erik, but the title passed from him to the rest. At the same time Alf was king in Hethmark, and he had a son Asmund. Biorn ruled in the province of Wik, and had a son Aswid. Asmund was engaged on an unsuccessful hunt, and while he was proceeding either to stalk the game with dogs or to catch it in nets, a mist happened to come on. By this he was separated from his sharers on a lonely track, wandered over the dreary ridges, and at last, destitute of horse and clothing, ate fungi and mushrooms, and wandered on aimlessly till he came to the dwelling of King Biorn. Moreover, the son of the king and he, when they had lived together a short while, swore by every vow, in order to ratify the friendship which they observed to one another, that whichever of them lived longest should be buried with him who died. For their fellowship and love were so strong, that each determined he would not prolong his days when the other was cut off by death. After this Frode gathered together a host of all his subject nations, and attacked Norway with his fleet, Erik being bidden to lead the land force. For, after the fashion of human greed, the more he gained the more he wanted, and would not suffer even the dreariest and most rugged region of the world to escape this kind of attack; so much is increase of wealth wont to encourage covetousness. So the Norwegians, casting away all hope of self-defence, and losing all confidence in their power to revolt, began to flee for the most part to Halogaland. The maiden Stikla also withdrew from her country to save her chastity, proferring the occupations of war to those of wedlock. Meanwhile Aswid died of an illness, and was consigned with his horse and dog to a cavern in the earth. And Asmund, because of his oath of friendship, had the courage to be buried with him, food being put in for him to eat. Now just at this time Erik, who had crossed the uplands with his army, happened to draw near the barrow of Aswid; and the Swedes, thinking that treasures were in it, broke the hill open with mattocks, and saw disclosed a cave deeper than they had thought. To examine it, a man was wanted, who would lower himself on a hanging rope tied around him. One of the quickest of the youths was chosen by lot; and Asmund, when he saw him let down in a basket following a rope, straightway cast him out and climbed into the basket. Then he gave the signal to draw him up to those above who were standing by and controlling the rope. They drew in the basket in the hopes of great treasure; but when they saw the unknown figure of the man they had taken out, they were scared by his extraordinary look, and, thinking that the dead had come to life, flung down the rope and fled all ways. For Asmund looked ghastly and seemed to be covered as with the corruption of the charnel. He tried to recall the fugitives, and began to clamour that they were wrongfully afraid of a living man. And when Erik saw him, he marvelled most at the aspect of his bloody face: the blood flowing forth and spurting over it. For Aswid had come to life in the nights, and in his continual struggles had wrenched off his left ear; and there was to be seen the horrid sight of a raw and unhealed scar. And when the bystanders bade him tell how he had got such a wound, he began to speak thus:-- "Why stand ye aghast, who see me colourless? Surely every live man fades among the dead. Evil to the lonely man, and burdensome to the single, remains every dwelling in the world. Hapless are they whom chance hath bereft of human help. The listless night of the cavern, the darkness of the ancient den, have taken all joy from my eyes and soul. The ghastly ground, the crumbling barrow, and the heavy tide of filthy things have marred the grace of my youthful countenance, and sapped my wonted pith and force. Besides all this, I have fought with the dead, enduring the heavy burden and grievous peril of the wrestle; Aswid rose again and fell on me with rending nails, by hellish might renewing ghastly warfare after he was ashes. "Why stand ye aghast, who see me colourless? Surely every live man fades among the dead. "By some strange enterprise of the power of hell the spirit of Aswid was sent up from the nether world, and with cruel tooth eats the fleet-footed (horse), and has given his dog to his abominable jaws. Not sated with devouring the horse or hound, he soon turned his swift nails upon me, tearing my cheek and taking off my ear. Hence the hideous sight of my slashed countenance, the blood-spurts in the ugly wound. Yet the bringer of horrors did it not unscathed; for soon I cut off his head with my steel, and impaled his guilty carcase with a stake. "Why stand ye aghast who see me colourless? Surely every live man fades among the dead." Frode had by this taken his fleet over to Halogaland; and here, in order to learn the numbers of his host, which seemed to surpass all bounds and measure that could be counted, he ordered his soldiers to pile up a hill, one stone being cast upon the heap for each man. The enemy also pursued the same method of numbering their host, and the hills are still to be seen to convince the visitor. Here Frode joined battle with the Norwegians, and the day was bloody. At nightfall both sides determined to retreat. As daybreak drew near, Erik, who had come across the land, came up and advised the king to renew the battle. In this war the Danes suffered such slaughter that out of 3,000 ships only 170 are supposed to have survived. The Northmen, however, were exterminated in such a mighty massacre, that (so the story goes) there were not men left to till even a fifth of their villages. Frode, now triumphant, wished to renew peace among all nations, that he might ensure each man's property from the inroads of thieves and now ensure peace to his realms after war. So he hung one bracelet on a crag which is called Frode's Rock, and another in the district of Wik, after he had addressed the assembled Norwegians; threatening that these necklaces should serve to test the honesty which he had decreed, and threatening that if they were filched punishment should fall on all the governors of the district. And thus, sorely imperilling the officers, there was the gold unguarded, hanging up full in the parting of the roads, and the booty, so easy to plunder, a temptation to all covetous spirits. (a) Frode also enacted that seafarers should freely use oars wherever they found them; while to those who wished to cross a river he granted free use of the horse which they found nearest to the ford. He decreed that they must dismount from this horse when its fore feet only touched land and its hind feet were still washed by the waters. For he thought that services such as these should rather be accounted kindness than wrongdoing. Moreover, he ordained that whosoever durst try and make further use of the horse after he had crossed the river should be condemned to death. (b) He also ordered that no man should hold his house or his coffer under lock and key, or should keep anything guarded by bolts, promising that all losses should be made good threefold. Also, he appointed that it was lawful to claim as much of another man's food for provision as would suffice for a single supper. If anyone exceeded this measure in his takings, he was to be held guilty of theft. Now, a thief (so he enacted) was to be hung up with a sword passed through his sinews, with a wolf fastened by his side, so that the wicked man might look like the savage beast, both being punished alike. He also had the same penalty extended to accomplices in thefts. Here he passed seven most happy years of peace, begetting a son Alf and a daughter Eyfura. It chanced that in these days Arngrim, a champion of Sweden, who had challenged, attacked, and slain Skalk the Skanian because he had once robbed him of a vessel, came to Frode. Elated beyond measure with his deed, he ventured to sue for Frode's daughter; but, finding the king deaf to him, he asked Erik, who was ruling Sweden, to help him. Erik advised him to win Frode's goodwill by some illustrious service, and to fight against Egther, the King of Permland, and Thengil, the King of Finmark, since they alone seemed to repudiate the Danish rule, while all men else submitted. Without delay he led his army to that country. Now, the Finns are the uttermost peoples of the North, who have taken a portion of the world that is barely habitable to till and dwell in. They are very keen spearmen, and no nation has a readier skill in throwing the javelin. They fight with large, broad arrows; they are addicted to the study of spells; they are skilled hunters. Their habitation is not fixed, and their dwellings are migratory; they pitch and settle wherever they have caught game. Riding on curved boards (skees or snow-skates), they run over ridges thick with snow. These men Arngrim attacked, in order to win renown, and he crushed them. They fought with ill success; but, as they were scattering in flight, they cast three pebbles behind them, which they caused to appear to the eyes of the enemy like three mountains. Arngrim's eyes were dazzled and deluded, and he called back his men from the pursuit of the enemy, fancying that he was checked by a barrier of mighty rocks. Again, when they engaged and were beaten on the morrow, the Finns cast snow upon the ground and made it look like a mighty river. So the Swedes, whose eyes were utterly deluded, were deceived by their misjudgment, for it seemed the roaring of an extraordinary mass of waters. Thus, the conqueror dreading the unsubstantial phantom of the waters, the Finns managed to escape. They renewed the war again on the third day; but there was no effective means of escape left any longer, for when they saw that their lines were falling back, they surrendered to the conqueror. Arngrim imposed on them the following terms of tribute: that the number of the Finns should be counted, and that, after the lapse of (every) three years, every ten of them should pay a carriage-full of deer-skins by way of assessment. Then he challenged and slew in single combat Egther, the captain of the men of Permland, imposing on the men of Permland the condition that each of them should pay one skin. Enriched with these spoils and trophies, he returned to Erik, who went with him into Denmark, and poured loud praises of the young warrior into the ear of Frode, declaring that he who had added the ends of the world to his realms deserved his daughter. Then Frode, considering his splendid deserts, thought it was not amiss to take for a son-in-law a man who had won wide-resounding fame by such a roll of noble deeds. Arngrim had twelve sons by Eyfura, whose names I here subjoin: Brand, Biarbe, Brodd, Hiarrande; Tand, Tyrfing, two Haddings; Hiortuar, Hiartuar, Hrane, Anganty. These followed the business of sea-roving from their youth up; and they chanced to sail all in one ship to the island Samso, where they found lying off the coast two ships belonging to Hialmar and Arvarodd (Arrow-Odd) the rovers. These ships they attacked and cleared of rowers; but, not knowing whether they had cut down the captains, they fitted the bodies of the slain to their several thwarts, and found that those whom they sought were missing. At this they were sad, knowing that the victory they had won was not worth a straw, and that their safety would run much greater risk in the battle that was to come. In fact, Hialmar and Arvarodd, whose ships had been damaged by a storm, which had torn off their rudders, went into a wood to hew another; and, going round the trunk with their axes, pared down the shapeless timber until the huge stock assumed the form of a marine implement. This they shouldered, and were bearing it down to the beach, ignorant of the disaster of their friends, when the sons of Eyfura, reeking with the fresh blood of the slain, attacked them, so that they two had to fight many; the contest was not even equal, for it was a band of twelve against two. But the victory did not go according to the numbers. For all the sons of Eyfura were killed; Hialmar was slain by them, but Arvarodd gained the honours of victory, being the only survivor left by fate out of all that band of comrades. He, with an incredible effort, poised the still shapeless hulk of the rudder, and drove it so strongly against the bodies of his foes that, with a single thrust of it, he battered and crushed all twelve. And, so, though they were rid of the general storm of war, the band of rovers did not yet quit the ocean. This it was that chiefly led Frode to attack the West, for his one desire was the spread of peace. So he summoned Erik, and mustered a fleet of all the kingdoms that bid him allegiance, and sailed to Britain with numberless ships. But the king of that island, perceiving that he was unequal in force (for the ships seemed to cover the sea), went to Frode, affecting to surrender, and not only began to flatter his greatness, but also promised to the Danes, the conquerors of nations, the submission of himself and of his country; proffering taxes, assessment, tribute, what they would. Finally, he gave them a hospitable invitation. Frode was pleased with the courtesy of the Briton, though his suspicions of treachery were kept by so ready and unconstrained a promise of everything, so speedy a surrender of the enemy before fighting; such offers being seldom made in good faith. They were also troubled with alarm about the banquet, fearing that as drunkenness came on their sober wits might be entangled in it, and attacked by hidden treachery. So few guests were bidden, moreover, that it seemed unsafe for them to accept the invitation; and it was further thought foolish to trust their lives to the good faith of an enemy whom they did not know. When the king found their minds thus wavering he again approached Frode, and invited him to the banquet with 2,400 men; having before bidden him to come to the feast with 1,200 nobles. Frode was encouraged by the increase in the number of guests, and was able to go to the banquet with greater inward confidence; but he could not yet lay aside his suspicions, and privily caused men to scour the interior and let him know quickly of any treachery which they might espy. On this errand they went into the forest, and, coming upon the array of an armed encampment belonging to the forces of the Britons, they halted in doubt, but hastily retraced their steps when the truth was apparent. For the tents were dusky in colour, and muffled in a sort of pitchy coverings, that they might not catch the eye of anyone who came near. When Frode learned this, he arranged a counter-ambuscade with a strong force of nobles, that he might not go heedlessly to the banquet, and be cheated of timely aid. They went into hiding, and he warned them that the note of the trumpet was the signal for them to bring assistance. Then with a select band, lightly armed, he went to the banquet. The hall was decked with regal splendour; it was covered all round with crimson hangings of marvellous rich handiwork. A curtain of purple dye adorned the propelled walls. The flooring was bestrewn with bright mantles, which a man would fear to trample on. Up above was to be seen the twinkle of many lanterns, the gleam of lamps lit with oil, and the censers poured forth fragrance whose sweet vapour was laden with the choicest perfumes. The whole way was blocked by the tables loaded with good things; and the places for reclining were decked with gold-embroidered couches; the seats were full of pillows. The majestic hall seemed to smile upon the guests, and nothing could be noticed in all that pomp either inharmonious to the eye or offensive to the smell. In the midst of the hall stood a great butt ready for refilling the goblets, and holding an enormous amount of liquor; enough could be drawn from it for the huge revel to drink its fill. Servants, dressed in purple, bore golden cups, and courteously did the office of serving the drink, pacing in ordered ranks. Nor did they fail to offer the draught in the horns of the wild ox. The feast glittered with golden bowls, and was laden with shining goblets, many of them studded with flashing jewels. The place was filled with an immense luxury; the tables groaned with the dishes, and the bowls brimmed over with divers liquors. Nor did they use wine pure and simple, but, with juices sought far and wide, composed a nectar of many flavours. The dishes glistened with delicious foods, being filled mostly with the spoils of the chase; though the flesh of tame animals was not lacking either. The natives took care to drink more sparingly than the guests; for the latter felt safe, and were tempted to make an orgy; while the others, meditating treachery, had lost all temptations to be drunken. So the Danes, who, if I may say so with my country's leave, were seasoned to drain the bowl against each other, took quantities of wine. The Britons, when they saw that the Danes were very drunk, began gradually to slip away from the banquet, and, leaving their guests within the hall, made immense efforts, first to block the doors of the palace by applying bars and all kinds of obstacles, and then to set fire to the house. The Danes were penned inside the hall, and when the fire began to spread, battered vainly at the doors; but they could not get out, and soon attempted to make a sally by assaulting the wall. And the Angles, when they saw that it was tottering under the stout attack of the Danes, began to shove against it on their side, and to prop the staggering pile by the application of large blocks on the outside, to prevent the wall being shattered and releasing the prisoners. But at last it yielded to the stronger hand of the Danes, whose efforts increased with their peril; and those pent within could sally out with ease. Then Frode bade the trumpet strike in, to summon the band that had been posted in ambush; and these, roused by the note of the clanging bugle, caught the enemy in their own trap; for the King of the Britons, with countless hosts of his men, was utterly destroyed. Thus the band helped Frode doubly, being both the salvation of his men and the destruction of his enemies. Meantime the renown of the Danish bravery spread far, and moved the Irish to strew iron calthrops on the ground, in order to make their land harder to invade, and forbid access to their shores. Now the Irish use armour which is light and easy to procure. They crop the hair close with razors, and shave all the hair off the back of the head, that they may not be seized by it when they run away. They also turn the points of their spears towards the assailant, and deliberately point their sword against the pursuer; and they generally fling their lances behind their back, being more skilled at conquering by flight than by fighting. Hence, when you fancy that the victory is yours, then is the moment of danger. But Frode was wary and not rash in his pursuit of the foe who fled so treacherously, and he routed Kerwil (Cearbal), the leader of the nation, in battle. Kerwil's brother survived, but lost heart for resistance, and surrendered his country to the king (Frode), who distributed among his soldiers the booty he had won, to show himself free from all covetousness and excessive love of wealth, and only ambitious to gain honour. After the triumphs in Britain and the spoiling of the Irish they went back to Denmark; and for thirty years there was a pause from all warfare. At this time the Danish name became famous over the whole world almost for its extraordinary valour. Frode, therefore, desired to prolong and establish for ever the lustre of his empire, and made it his first object to inflict severe treatment upon thefts and brigandage, feeling these were domestic evils and intestine plagues, and that if the nations were rid of them they would come to enjoy a more tranquil life; so that no ill-will should mar and hinder the continual extention of peace. He also took care that the land should not be devoured by any plague at home when the enemy was at rest, and that intestine wickedness should not encroach when there was peace abroad. At last he ordered that in Jutland, the chief district of his realm, a golden bracelet, very heavy, should be set up on the highways (as he had done before in the district of Wik), wishing by this magnificent price to test the honesty which he had enacted. Now, though the minds of the dishonest were vexed with the provocation it furnished, and the souls of the evil tempted, yet the unquestioned dread of danger prevailed. For so potent was the majesty of Frode, that it guarded even gold that was thus exposed to pillage, as though it were fast with bolts and bars. The strange device brought great glory upon its inventor. After dealing destruction everywhere, and gaining famous victories far and wide, he resolved to bestow quiet on all men, that the cheer of peace should follow the horrors of war, and the end of slaughter might be the beginning of safety. He further thought that for the same reason all men's property should be secured to them by a protective decree, so that what had been saved from a foreign enemy might not find a plunderer at home. About the same time, the Author of our general salvation, coming to the earth in order to save mortals, bore to put on the garb of mortality; at which time the fires of war were quenched, and all the lands were enjoying the calmest and most tranquil peace. It has been thought that the peace then shed abroad so widely, so even and uninterrupted over the whole world, attended not so much an earthly rule as that divine birth; and that it was a heavenly provision that this extraordinary gift of time should be a witness to the presence of Him who created all times. Meantime a certain matron, skilled in sorcery, who trusted in her art more than she feared the severity of the king, tempted the covetousness of her son to make a secret effort for the prize; promising him impunity, since Frode was almost at death's door, his body failing, and the remnant of his doting spirit feeble. To his mother's counsels he objected the greatness of the peril; but she bade him take hope, declaring, that either a sea-cow should have a calf, or that the king's vengeance should be baulked by some other chance. By this speech she banished her son's fears, and made him obey her advice. When the deed was done, Frode, stung by the affront, rushed with the utmost heat and fury to raze the house of the matron, sending men on to arrest her and bring her with her children. This the woman foreknew, and deluded her enemies by a trick, changing from the shape of a woman into that of a mare. When Frode came up she took the shape of a sea-cow, and seemed to be straying and grazing about the shore; and she also made her sons look like calves of smaller size. This portent amazed the king, and he ordered that they should be surrounded and cut off from returning to the waters. Then he left the carriage, which he used because of the feebleness of his aged body, and sat on the ground marvelling. But the mother, who had taken the shape of the larger beast, charged at the king with outstretched tusk, and pierced one of his sides. The wound killed him; and his end was unworthy of such majesty as his. His soldiers, thirsting to avenge his death, threw their spears and transfixed the monsters, and saw, when they were killed, that they were the corpses of human beings with the heads of wild beasts: a circumstance which exposed the trick more than anything. So ended Frode, the most famous king in the whole world. The nobles, when he had been disembowelled, had his body kept embalmed for three years, for they feared the provinces would rise if the king's end were published. They wished his death to be concealed above all from foreigners, so that by the pretence that he was alive they might preserve the boundaries of the empire, which had been extended for so long; and that, on the strength of the ancient authority of their general, they might exact the usual tribute from their subjects. So, the lifeless corpse was carried away by them in such a way that it seemed to be taken, not in a funeral bier, but in a royal carriage, as if it were a due and proper tribute from the soldiers to an infirm old man not in full possession of his forces. Such splendour did his friends bestow on him even in death. But when his limbs rotted, and were seized with extreme decay, and when the corruption could not be arrested, they buried his body with a royal funeral in a barrow near Waere, a bridge of Zealand; declaring that Frode had desired to die and be buried in what was thought the chief province of his kingdom. BOOK SIX. After the death of Frode, the Danes wrongly supposed that Fridleif, who was being reared in Russia, had perished; and, thinking that the sovereignty halted for lack of an heir, and that it could no longer be kept on in the hands of the royal line, they considered that the sceptre would be best deserved by the man who should affix to the yet fresh grave of Frode a song of praise in his glorification, and commit the renown of the dead king to after ages by a splendid memorial. Then one HIARN, very skilled in writing Danish poetry, wishing to give the fame of the hero some notable record of words, and tempted by the enormous prize, composed, after his own fashion, a barbarous stave. Its purport, expressed in four lines, I have transcribed as follows: "Frode, whom the Danes would have wished to live long, they bore long through their lands when he was dead. The great chief's body, with this turf heaped above it, bare earth covers under the lucid sky." When the composer of this song had uttered it, the Danes rewarded him with the crown. Thus they gave a kingdom for an epitaph, and the weight of a whole empire was presented to a little string of letters. Slender expense for so vast a guerdon! This huge payment for a little poem exceeded the glory of Caesar's recompense; for it was enough for the divine Julius to pension with a township the writer and glorifier of those conquests which he had achieved over the whole world. But now the spendthrift kindness of the populace squandered a kingdom on a churl. Nay, not even Africanus, when he rewarded the records of his deed, rose to the munificence of the Danes. For there the wage of that laborious volume was in mere gold, while here a few callow verses won a sceptre for a peasant. At the same time Erik, who held the governorship of Sweden, died of disease; and his son Halfdan, who governed in his father's stead, alarmed by the many attacks of twelve brothers of Norwegian birth, and powerless to punish their violence, fled, hoping for reinforcements, to ask aid of Fridleif, then sojourning in Russia. Approaching him with a suppliant face, he lamented that he was himself shattered and bruised by a foreign foe, and brought a dismal plaint of his wrongs. From him Fridleif heard the tidings of his father's death, and granting the aid he sought, went to Norway in armed array. At this time the aforesaid brothers, their allies forsaking them, built a very high rampart within an island surrounded by a swift stream, also extending their earthworks along the level. Trusting to this refuge, they harried the neighborhood with continual raids. For they built a bridge on which they used to get to the mainland when they left the island. This bridge was fastened to the gate of the stronghold; and they worked it by the guidance of ropes, in such a way that it turned as if on some revolving hinge, and at one time let them pass across the river; while at another, drawn back from above by unseen cords, it helped to defend the entrance. These warriors were of valiant temper, young and stalwart, of splendid bodily presence, renowned for victories over giants, full of trophies of conquered nations, and wealthy with spoil. I record the names of some of them--for the rest have perished in antiquity--Gerbiorn, Gunbiorn, Arinbiorn, Stenbiorn, Esbiorn, Thorbiorn, and Biorn. Biorn is said to have had a horse which was splendid and of exceeding speed, so that when all the rest were powerless to cross the river it alone stemmed the roaring eddy without weariness. This rapid comes down in so swift and sheer a volume that animals often lose all power of swimming in it, and perish. For, trickling from the topmost crests of the hills, it comes down the steep sides, catches on the rocks, and is shattered, falling into the deep valleys with a manifold clamour of waters; but, being straightway rebuffed by the rocks that bar the way, it keeps the speed of its current ever at the same even pace. And so, along the whole length of the channel, the waves are one turbid mass, and the white foam brims over everywhere. But, after rolling out of the narrows between the rocks, it spreads abroad in a slacker and stiller flood, and turns into an island a rock that lies in its course. On either side of the rock juts out a sheer ridge, thick with divers trees, which screen the river from distant view. Biorn had also a dog of extraordinary fierceness, a terribly vicious brute, dangerous for people to live with, which had often singly destroyed twelve men. But, since the tale is hearsay rather than certainty, let good judges weigh its credit. This dog, as I have heard, was the favourite of the giant Offot (Un-foot), and used to watch his herd amid the pastures. Now the warriors, who were always pillaging the neighbourhood, used often to commit great slaughters. Plundering houses, cutting down cattle, sacking everything, making great hauls of booty, rifling houses, then burning them, massacring male and female promiscuously--these, and not honest dealings, were their occupations. Fridleif surprised them while on a reckless raid, and drove them all back for refuge to the stronghold; he also seized the immensely powerful horse, whose rider, in the haste of his panic, had left it on the hither side of the river in order to fly betimes; for he durst not take it with him over the bridge. Then Fridleif proclaimed that he would pay the weight of the dead body in gold to any man who slew one of those brothers. The hope of the prize stimulated some of the champions of the king; and yet they were fired not so much with covetousness as with valour; so, going secretly to Fridleif, they promised to attempt the task, vowing to sacrifice their lives if they did not bring home the severed heads of the robbers. Fridleif praised their valour and their vows, but bidding the onlookers wait, went in the night to the river, satisfied with a single companion. For, not to seem better provided with other men's valour than with his own, he determined to forestall their aid by his own courage. Thereupon he crushed and killed his companion with a shower of flints, and flung his bloodless corpse into the waves, having dressed it in his own clothes; which he stripped off, borrowing the cast-off garb of the other, so that when the corpse was seen it might look as if the king had perished. He further deliberately drew blood from the beast on which he had ridden, and bespattered it, so that when it came back into camp he might make them think he himself was dead. Then he set spur to his horse and drove it into the midst of the eddies, crossed the river and alighted, and tried to climb over the rampart that screened the stronghold by steps set up against the mound. When he got over the top and could grasp the battlements with his hand, he quietly put his foot inside, and, without the knowledge of the watch, went lightly on tiptoe to the house into which the bandits had gone to carouse. And when he had reached its hall, he sat down under the porch overhanging the door. Now the strength of their fastness made the warriors feel so safe that they were tempted to a debauch; for they thought that the swiftly rushing river made their garrison inaccessible, since it seemed impossible either to swim over or to cross in boats. For no part of the river allowed of fording. Biorn, moved by the revel, said that in his sleep he had seen a beast come out of the waters, which spouted ghastly fire from its mouth, enveloping everything in a sheet of flame. Therefore the holes and corners of the island should, he said, be searched; nor ought they to trust so much to their position, as rashly to let overweening confidence bring them to utter ruin. No situation was so strong that the mere protection of nature was enough for it without human effort. Moreover they must take great care that the warning of his slumbers was not followed by a yet more gloomy and disastrous fulfilment. So they all sallied forth from the stronghold, and narrowly scanned the whole circuit of the island; and finding the horse they surmised that Fridleif had been drowned in the waters of the river. They received the horse within the gates with rejoicing, supposing that it had flung off its rider and swum over. But Biorn, still scared with the memory of the visions of the night, advised them to keep watch, since it was not safe for them yet to put aside suspicion of danger. Then he went to his room to rest, with the memory of his vision deeply stored in his heart. Meanwhile the horse, which Fridleif, in order to spread a belief in his death, had been loosed and besprinkled with blood (though only with that which lies between flesh and skin), burst all bedabbled into the camp of his soldiers. They went straight to the river, and finding the carcase of the slave, took it for the body of the king; the hissing eddies having cast it on the bank, dressed in brave attire. Nothing helped their mistake so much as the swelling of the battered body; inasmuch as the skin was torn and bruised with the flints, so that all the features were blotted out, bloodless and wan. This exasperated the champions who had just promised Fridleif to see that the robbers were extirpated: and they approached the perilous torrent, that they might not seem to tarnish the honour of their promise by a craven neglect of their vow. The rest imitated their boldness, and with equal ardour went to the river, ready to avenge their king or to endure the worst. When Fridleif saw them he hastened to lower the bridge to the mainland; and when he had got the champions he cut down the watch at the first attack. Thus he went on to attack the rest and put them to the sword, all save Biorn; whom he tended very carefully and cured of his wounds; whereupon, under pledge of solemn oath, he made him his colleague, thinking it better to use his services than to boast of his death. He also declared it would be shameful if such a flower of bravery were plucked in his first youth and perished by an untimely death. Now the Danes had long ago had false tidings of Fridleif's death, and when they found that he was approaching, they sent men to fetch him, and ordered Hiarn to quit the sovereignty, because he was thought to be holding it only on sufferance and carelessly. But he could not bring himself to resign such an honour, and chose sooner to spend his life for glory than pass into the dim lot of common men. Therefore he resolved to fight for his present estate, that he might not have to resume his former one stripped of his royal honours. Thus the land was estranged and vexed with the hasty commotion of civil strife; some were of Hiarn's party, while others agreed to the claims of Fridleif, because of the vast services of Frode; and the voice of the commons was perplexed and divided, some of them respecting things as they were, others the memory of the past. But regard for the memory of Frode weighed most, and its sweetness gave Fridleif the balance of popularity. Many wise men thought that a person of peasant rank should be removed from the sovereignty; since, contrary to the rights of birth, and only by the favour of fortune, he had reached an unhoped-for eminence; and in order that the unlawful occupant might not debar the rightful heir to the office, Fridleif told the envoys of the Danes to return, and request Hiarn either to resign the kingdom or to meet him in battle. Hiarn thought it more grievous than death to set lust of life before honour, and to seek safety at the cost of glory. So he met Fridleif in the field, was crushed, and fled into Jutland, where, rallying a band, he again attacked his conqueror. But his men were all consumed with the sword, and he fled unattended, as the island testifies which has taken its name from his (Hiarno). And so, feeling his lowly fortune, and seeing himself almost stripped of his forces by the double defeat, he turned his mind to craft, and went to Fridleif with his face disguised, meaning to become intimate, and find an occasion to slay him treacherously. Hiarn was received by the king, hiding his purpose under the pretence of servitude. For, giving himself out as a salt-distiller, he performed base offices among the servants who did the filthiest work. He used also to take the last place at meal-time, and he refrained from the baths, lest his multitude of scars should betray him if he stripped. The king, in order to ease his own suspicions, made him wash; and when he knew his enemy by the scars, he said: "Tell me now, thou shameless bandit, how wouldst thou have dealt with me, if thou hadst found out plainly that I wished to murder thee?" Hiarn, stupefied, said: "Had I caught thee I would have first challenged thee, and then fought thee, to give thee a better chance of wiping out thy reproach." Fridleif presently took him at his word, challenged him and slew him, and buried his body in a barrow that bears the dead man's name. Soon after FRIDLEIF was admonished by his people to think about marrying, that he might prolong his line; but he maintained that the unmarried life was best, quoting his father Frode, on whom his wife's wantonness had brought great dishonour. At last, yielding to the persistent entreaties of all, he proceeded to send ambassadors to ask for the daughter of Amund, King of Norway. One of these, named Frok, was swallowed by the waves in mid-voyage, and showed a strange portent at his death. For when the closing flood of billows encompassed him, blood arose in the midst of the eddy, and the whole face of the sea was steeped with an alien redness, so that the ocean, which a moment before was foaming and white with tempest, was presently swollen with crimson waves, and was seen to wear a colour foreign to its nature. Around implacably declined to consent to the wishes of the king, and treated the legates shamefully, declaring that he spurned the embassy because the tyranny of Frode had of old borne so heavily upon Norway. But Amund's daughter, Frogertha, not only looking to the birth of Fridleif, but also honouring the glory of his deeds, began to upbraid her father, because he scorned a son-in-law whose nobility was perfect, being both sufficient in valour and flawless in birth. She added that the portentous aspect of the sea, when the waves were suddenly turned into blood, simply and solely signified the defeat of Norway, and was a plain presage of the victory of Denmark. And when Fridleif sent a further embassy to ask for her, wishing to vanquish the refusal by persistency, Amund was indignant that a petition he had once denied should be obstinately pressed, and hurried the envoys to death, wishing to offer a brutal check to the zeal of this brazen wooer. Fridleif heard news of this outrage, and summoning Halfdan and Biorn, sailed round Norway. Amund, equipped with his native defences, put out his fleet against him. The firth into which both fleets had mustered is called Frokasund. Here Fridleif left the camp at night to reconnoitre; and, hearing an unusual kind of sound close to him as of brass being beaten, he stood still and looked up, and heard the following song of three swans, who were crying above him: "While Hythin sweeps the sea and cleaves the ravening tide, his serf drinks out of gold and licks the cups of milk. Best is the estate of the slave on whom waits the heir, the king's son, for their lots are rashly interchanged." Next, after the birds had sung, a belt fell from on high, which showed writing to interpret the song. For while the son of Hythin, the King of Tellemark, was at his boyish play, a giant, assuming the usual appearance of men, had carried him off, and using him as an oarsman (having taken his skiff over to the neighbouring shore), was then sailing past Fridleif while he was occupied reconnoitering. But the king would not suffer him to use the service of the captive youth, and longed to rob the spoiler of his prey. The youth warned him that he must first use sharp reviling against the giant, promising that he would prove easy to attack, if only he were assailed with biting verse. Then Fridleif began thus: "Since thou art a giant of three bodies, invincible, and almost reachest heaven with thy crest, why does this silly sword bind thy thigh? Why doth a broken spear gird thy huge side? Why, perchance, dost thou defend thy stalwart breast with a feeble sword, and forget the likeness of thy bodily stature, trusting in a short dagger, a petty weapon? Soon, soon will I balk thy bold onset, when with blunted blade thou attemptest war. Since thou art thyself a timid beast, a lump lacking proper pith, thou art swept headlong like a flying shadow, having with a fair and famous body got a heart that is unwarlike and unstable with fear, and a spirit quite unmatched to thy limbs. Hence thy frame totters, for thy goodly presence is faulty through the overthrow of thy soul, and thy nature in all her parts is at strife. Hence shall all tribute of praise quit thee, nor shalt thou be accounted famous among the brave, but shalt be reckoned among ranks obscure." When he had said this he lopped off a hand and foot of the giant, made him fly, and set his prisoner free. Then he went straightway to the giant's headland, took the treasure out of his cave, and carried it away. Rejoicing in these trophies, and employing the kidnapped youth to row him over the sea, he composed with cheery voice the following strain: "In the slaying of the swift monster we wielded our blood-stained swords and our crimsoned blade, whilst thou, Amund, lord of the Norwegian ruin, wert in deep slumber; and since blind night covers thee, without any light of soul, thy valour has melted away and beguiled thee. But we crushed a giant who lost use of his limbs and wealth, and we pierced into the disorder of his dreary den. There we seized and plundered his piles of gold. And now with oars we sweep the wave-wandering main, and joyously return, rowing back to the shore our booty-laden ship; we fleet over the waves in a skiff that travels the sea; gaily let us furrow those open waters, lest the dawn come and betray us to the foe. Lightly therefore, and pulling our hardest, let us scour the sea, making for our camp and fleet ere Titan raise his rosy head out of the clear waters; that when fame noises the deed about, and Frogertha knows that the spoil has been won with a gallant struggle, her heart may be stirred to be more gentle to our prayer." On the morrow there was a great muster of the forces, and Fridleif had a bloody battle with Amund, fought partly by sea and partly by land. For not only were the lines drawn up in the open country, but the warriors also made an attack with their fleet. The battle which followed cost much blood. So Biorn, when his ranks gave back, unloosed his hound and sent it against the enemy; wishing to win with the biting of a dog the victory which he could not achieve with the sword. The enemy were by this means shamefully routed, for a square of the warriors ran away when attacked with its teeth. There is no saying whether their flight was more dismal or more disgraceful. Indeed, the army of the Northmen was a thing to blush for; for an enemy crushed it by borrowing the aid of a brute. Nor was it treacherous of Fridleif to recruit the failing valour of his men with the aid of a dog. In this war Amund fell; and his servant Ane, surnamed the Archer, challenged Fridleif to fight him; but Biorn, being a man of meaner estate, not suffering the king to engage with a common fellow, attacked him himself. And when Biorn had bent his bow and was fitting the arrow to the string, suddenly a dart sent by Ane pierced the top of the cord. Soon another arrow came after it and struck amid the joints of his fingers. A third followed, and fell on the arrow as it was laid to the string. For Ane, who was most dexterous at shooting arrows from a distance, had purposely only struck the weapon of his opponent, in order that, by showing it was in his power to do likewise to his person, he might recall the champion from his purpose. But Biorn abated none of his valour for this, and, scorning bodily danger, entered the fray with heart and face so steadfast, that he seemed neither to yield anything to the skill of Ane, nor lay aside aught of his wonted courage. Thus he would in nowise be made to swerve from his purpose, and dauntlessly ventured on the battle. Both of them left it wounded; and fought another also on Agdar Ness with an emulous thirst for glory. By the death of Amund, Fridleif was freed from a most bitter foe, and obtained a deep and tranquil peace; whereupon he forced his savage temper to the service of delight; and, transferring his ardour to love, equipped a fleet in order to seek the marriage which had once been denied him. At last he set forth on his voyage; and his fleet being becalmed, he invaded some villages to look for food; where, being received hospitably by a certain Grubb, and at last winning his daughter in marriage, he begat a son named Olaf. After some time had passed he also won Frogertha; but, while going back to his own country, he had a bad voyage, and was driven on the shores of an unknown island. A certain man appeared to him in a vision, and instructed him to dig up a treasure that was buried in the ground, and also to attack the dragon that guarded it, covering himself in an ox-hide to escape the poison; teaching him also to meet the envenomed fangs with a hide stretched over his shield. Therefore, to test the vision, he attacked the snake as it rose out of the waves, and for a long time cast spears against its scaly side; in vain, for its hard and shelly body foiled the darts flung at it. But the snake, shaking its mass of coils, uprooted the trees which it brushed past by winding its tail about them. Moreover, by constantly dragging its body, it hollowed the ground down to the solid rock, and had made a sheer bank on either hand, just as in some places we see hills parted by an intervening valley. So Fridleif, seeing that the upper part of the creature was proof against attack, assailed the lower side with his sword, and piercing the groin, drew blood from the quivering beast. When it was dead, he unearthed the money from the underground chamber and had it taken off in his ships. When the year had come to an end, he took great pains to reconcile Biorn and Ane, who had often challenged and fought one another, and made them exchange their hatred for friendship; and even entrusted to them his three-year-old son, Olaf, to rear. But his mistress, Juritha, the mother of Olaf, he gave in marriage to Ane, whom he made one of his warriors; thinking that she would endure more calmly to be put away, if she wedded such a champion, and received his robust embrace instead of a king's. The ancients were wont to consult the oracles of the Fates concerning the destinies of their children. In this way Fridleif desired to search into the fate of his son Olaf; and, after solemnly offering up his vows, he went to the house of the gods in entreaty; where, looking into the chapel, he saw three maidens, sitting on three seats. The first of them was of a benignant temper, and bestowed upon the boy abundant beauty and ample store of favour in the eyes of men. The second granted him the gift of surpassing generosity. But the third, a woman of more mischievous temper and malignant disposition, scorning the unanimous kindness of her sisters, and likewise wishing to mar their gifts, marked the future character of the boy with the slur of niggardliness. Thus the benefits of the others were spoilt by the poison of a lamentable doom; and hence, by virtue of the twofold nature of these gifts Olaf got his surname from the meanness which was mingled with his bounty. So it came about that this blemish which found its way into the gift marred the whole sweetness of its first benignity. When Fridleif had returned from Norway, and was traveling through Sweden, he took on himself to act as ambassador, and sued successfully for Hythin's daughter, whom he had once rescued from a monster, to be the wife of Halfdan, he being still unwedded. Meantime his wife Frogertha bore a son FRODE, who afterwards got his surname from his noble munificence. And thus Frode, because of the memory of his grandsire's prosperity, which he recalled by his name, became from his very cradle and earliest childhood such a darling of all men, that he was not suffered even to step or stand on the ground, but was continually cherished in people's laps and kissed. Thus he was not assigned to one upbringer only, but was in a manner everybody's fosterling. And, after his father's death, while he was in his twelfth year, Swerting and Hanef, the kings of Saxony, disowned his sway, and tried to rebel openly. He overcame them in battle, and imposed on the conquered peoples a poll-tax of a coin, which they were to pay as his slaves. For he showed himself so generous that he doubled the ancient pay of the soldiers: a fashion of bounty which then was novel. For he did not, as despots do, expose himself to the vulgar allurements of vice, but strove to covet ardently whatsoever he saw was nearest honour; to make his wealth public property; to surpass all other men in bounty, to forestall them all in offices of kindness; and, hardest of all, to conquer envy by virtue. By this means the youth soon won such favour with all men, that he not only equalled in renown the honours of his forefathers, but surpassed the most ancient records of kings. At the same time one Starkad, the son of Storwerk, escaped alone, either by force or fortune, from a wreck in which his friends perished, and was received by Frode as his guest for his incredible excellence both of mind and body. And, after being for some little time his comrade, he was dressed in a better and more comely fashion every day, and was at last given a noble vessel, and bidden to ply the calling of a rover, with the charge of guarding the sea. For nature had gifted him with a body of superhuman excellence; and his greatness of spirit equalled it, so that folk thought him behind no man in valour. So far did his glory spread, that the renown of his name and deeds continues famous even yet. He shone out among our own countrymen by his glorious roll of exploits, and he had also won a most splendid record among all the provinces of the Swedes and Saxons. Tradition says that he was born originally in the country which borders Sweden on the east, where barbarous hordes of Esthonians and other nations now dwell far and wide. But a fabulous yet common rumour has invented tales about his birth which are contrary to reason and flatly incredible. For some relate that he was sprung from giants, and betrayed his monstrous birth by an extraordinary number of hands, four of which, engendered by the superfluity of his nature, they declare that the god Thor tore off, shattering the framework of the sinews and wrenching from his whole body the monstrous bunches of fingers; so that he had but two left, and that his body, which had before swollen to the size of a giant's, and, by reason of its shapeless crowd of limbs looked gigantic, was thenceforth chastened to a better appearance, and kept within the bounds of human shortness. For there were of old certain men versed in sorcery, Thor, namely, and Odin, and many others, who were cunning in contriving marvellous sleights; and they, winning the minds of the simple, began to claim the rank of gods. For, in particular, they ensnared Norway, Sweden and Denmark in the vainest credulity, and by prompting these lands to worship them, infected them with their imposture. The effects of their deceit spread so far, that all other men adored a sort of divine power in them, and, thinking them either gods or in league with gods, offered up solemn prayers to these inventors of sorceries, and gave to blasphemous error the honour due to religion. Hence it has come about that the holy days, in their regular course, are called among us by the names of these men; for the ancient Latins are known to have named these days severally, either after the titles of their own gods, or after the planets, seven in number. But it can be plainly inferred from the mere names of the holy days that the objects worshipped by our countrymen were not the same as those whom the most ancient of the Romans called Jove and Mercury, nor those to whom Greece and Latium paid idolatrous homage. For the days, called among our countrymen Thors-day or Odins-day, the ancients termed severally the holy day of Jove or of Mercury. If, therefore, according to the distinction implied in the interpretation I have quoted, we take it that Thor is Jove and Odin Mercury, it follows that Jove was the son of Mercury; that is, if the assertion of our countrymen holds, among whom it is told as a matter of common belief, that Thor was Odin's son. Therefore, when the Latins, believing to the contrary effect, declare that Mercury was sprung from Jove, then, if their declaration is to stand, we are driven to consider that Thor was not the same as Jove, and that Odin was also different from Mercury. Some say that the gods, whom our countrymen worshipped, shared only the title with those honoured by Greece or Latium, but that, being in a manner nearly equal to them in dignity, they borrowed from them the worship as well as the name. This must be sufficient discourse upon the deities of Danish antiquity. I have expounded this briefly for the general profit, that my readers may know clearly to what worship in its heathen superstition our country has bowed the knee. Now I will go back to my subject where I left it. Ancient tradition says that Starkad, whom I mentioned above, offered the first-fruits of his deeds to the favour of the gods by slaying Wikar, the king of the Norwegians. The affair, according to the version of some people, happened as follows:-- Odin once wished to slay Wikar by a grievous death; but, loth to do the deed openly, he graced Starkad, who was already remarkable for his extraordinary size, not only with bravery, but also with skill in the composing of spells, that he might the more readily use his services to accomplish the destruction of the king. For that was how he hoped that Starkad would show himself grateful for the honour he paid him. For the same reason he also endowed him with three spans of mortal life, that he might be able to commit in them as many abominable deeds. So Odin resolved that Starkad's days should be prolonged by the following crime: Starkad presently went to Wikar and dwelt awhile in his company, hiding treachery under homage. At last he went with him sea-roving. And in a certain place they were troubled with prolonged and bitter storms; and when the winds checked their voyage so much that they had to lie still most of the year, they thought that the gods must be appeased with human blood. When the lots were cast into the urn it so fell that the king was required for death as a victim. Then Starkad made a noose of withies and bound the king in it; saying that for a brief instant he should pay the mere semblance of a penalty. But the tightness of the knot acted according to its nature, and cut off his last breath as he hung. And while he was still quivering Starkad rent away with his steel the remnant of his life; thus disclosing his treachery when he ought to have brought aid. I do not think that I need examine the version which relates that the pliant withies, hardened with the sudden grip, acted like a noose of iron. When Starkad had thus treacherously acted he took Wikar's ship and went to one Bemon, the most courageous of all the rovers of Denmark, in order to take up the life of a pirate. For Bemon's partner, named Frakk, weary of the toil of sea-roving, had lately withdrawn from partnership with him, after first making a money-bargain. Now Starkad and Bemon were so careful to keep temperate, that they are said never to have indulged in intoxicating drink, for fear that continence, the greatest bond of bravery, might be expelled by the power of wantonness. So when, after overthrowing provinces far and wide, they invaded Russia also in their lust for empire, the natives, trusting little in their walls or arms, began to bar the advance of the enemy with nails of uncommon sharpness, that they might check their inroad, though they could not curb their onset in battle; and that the ground might secretly wound the soles of the men whom their army shrank from confronting in the field. But not even such a barrier could serve to keep off the foe. The Danes were cunning enough to foil the pains of the Russians. For they straightway shod themselves with wooden clogs, and trod with unhurt steps upon the points that lay beneath their soles. Now this iron thing is divided into four spikes, which are so arranged that on whatsoever side chance may cast it, it stands steadily on three equal feet. Then they struck into the pathless glades, where the woods were thickets, and expelled Flokk, the chief of the Russians, from the mountain hiding-places into which he had crept. And here they got so much booty, that there was not one of them but went back to the fleet laden with gold and silver. Now when Bemon was dead, Starkad was summoned because of his valour by the champions of Permland. And when he had done many noteworthy deeds among them, he went into the land of the Swedes, where he lived at leisure for seven years' space with the sons of Frey. At last he left them and betook himself to Hakon, the tyrant of Denmark, because when stationed at Upsala, at the time of the sacrifices, he was disgusted by the effeminate gestures and the clapping of the mimes on the stage, and by the unmanly clatter of the bells. Hence it is clear how far he kept his soul from lasciviousness, not even enduring to look upon it. Thus does virtue withstand wantonness. Starkad took his fleet to the shore of Ireland with Hakon, in order that even the furthest kingdoms of the world might not be untouched by the Danish arms. The king of the island at this time was Hugleik, who, though he had a well-filled treasury, was yet so prone to avarice, that once, when he gave a pair of shoes which had been adorned by the hand of a careful craftsman, he took off the ties, and by thus removing the latches turned his present into a slight. This unhandsome act blemished his gift so much that he seemed to reap hatred for it instead of thanks. Thus he used never to be generous to any respectable man, but to spend all his bounty upon mimes and jugglers. For so base a fellow was bound to keep friendly company with the base, and such a slough of vices to wheedle his partners in sin with pandering endearments. Still Hugleik had the friendship of Geigad and Swipdag, nobles of tried valour, who, by the lustre of their warlike deeds, shone out among their unmanly companions like jewels embedded in ordure; these alone were found to defend the riches of the king. When a battle began between Hugleik and Hakon, the hordes of mimes, whose light-mindedness unsteadied their bodies, broke their ranks and scurried off in panic; and this shameful flight was their sole requital for all their king's benefits. Then Geigad and Swipdag faced all those thousands of the enemy single-handed, and fought with such incredible courage, that they seemed to do the part not merely of two warriors, but of a whole army. Geigad, moreover, dealt Hakon, who pressed him hard, such a wound in the breast that he exposed the upper part of his liver. It was here that Starkad, while he was attacking Geigad with his sword, received a very sore wound on the head; wherefore he afterwards related in a certain song that a ghastlier wound had never befallen him at any time; for, though the divisions of his gashed head were bound up by the surrounding outer skin, yet the livid unseen wound concealed a foul gangrene below. Starkad conquered, killed Hugleik and routed the Irish; and had the actors beaten whom chance made prisoner; thinking it better to order a pack of buffoons to be ludicrously punished by the loss of their skins than to command a more deadly punishment and take their lives. Thus he visited with a disgraceful chastisement the baseborn throng of professional jugglers, and was content to punish them with the disgusting flouts of the lash. Then the Danes ordered that the wealth of the king should be brought out of the treasury in the city of Dublin and publicly pillaged. For so vast a treasure had been found that none took much pains to divide it strictly. After this, Starkad was commissioned, together with Win, the chief of the Sclavs, to check the revolt of the East. They, having fought against the armies of the Kurlanders, the Sembs, the Sangals, and, finally, all the Easterlings, won splendid victories everywhere. A champion of great repute, named Wisin, settled upon a rock in Russia named Ana-fial, and harried both neighbouring and distant provinces with all kinds of outrage. This man used to blunt the edge of every weapon by merely looking at it. He was made so bold in consequence, by having lost all fear of wounds, that he used to carry off the wives of distinguished men and drag them to outrage before the eyes of their husbands. Starkad was roused by the tale of this villainy, and went to Russia to destroy the criminal; thinking nothing too hard to overcome, he challenged Wisin, attacked him, made even his tricks useless to him, and slew him. For Starkad covered his blade with a very fine skin, that it might not met the eye of the sorcerer; and neither the power of his sleights nor his great strength were any help to Wisin, for he had to yield to Starkad. Then Starkad, trusting in his bodily strength, fought with and overcame a giant at Byzantium, reputed invincible, named Tanne, and drove him to fly an outlaw to unknown quarters of the earth. Therefore, finding that he was too mighty for any hard fate to overcome him, he went to the country of Poland, and conquered in a duel a champion whom our countrymen name Wasce; but the Teutons, arranging the letters differently, call him Wilzce. Meanwhile the Saxons began to attempt a revolt, and to consider particularly how they could destroy Frode, who was unconquered in war, by some other way than an open conflict. Thinking that it would be best done by a duel, they sent men to provoke the king with a challenge, knowing that he was always ready to court any hazard, and that his high spirit would not yield to any admonition whatever. They fancied that this was the best time to attack him, because they knew that Starkad, whose valour most men dreaded, was away on business. But while Frode hesitated, and said that he would talk with his friends about the answer to be given, Starkad, who had just returned from his sea-roving, appeared, and blamed such a challenge, principally (he said) because it was fitting for kings to fight only with their equals, and because they should not take up arms against men of the people; but it was more fitting for himself, who was born in a lowlier station, to manage the battle. The Saxons approached Hame, who was accounted their most famous champion, with many offers, and promised him that, if he would lend his services for the duel they would pay him his own weight in gold. The fighter was tempted by the money, and, with all the ovation of a military procession, they attended him to the ground appointed for the combat. Thereupon the Danes, decked in warlike array, led Starkad, who was to represent his king, out to the duelling-ground. Hame, in his youthful assurance, despised him as withered with age, and chose to grapple rather than fight with an outworn old man. Attacking Starkad, he would have flung him tottering to the earth, but that fortune, who would not suffer the old man to be conquered, prevented him from being hurt. For he is said to have been so crushed by the fist of Hame, as he dashed on him, that he touched the earth with his chin, supporting himself on his knees. But he made up nobly for his tottering; for, as soon as he could raise his knee and free his hand to draw his sword, he clove Hame through the middle of the body. Many lands and sixty bondmen apiece were the reward of the victory. After Hame was killed in this manner the sway of the Danes over the Saxons grew so insolent, that they were forced to pay every year a small tax for each of their limbs that was a cubit (ell) long, in token of their slavery. This Hanef could not bear, and he meditated war in his desire to remove the tribute. Steadfast love of his country filled his heart every day with greater compassion for the oppressed; and, longing to spend his life for the freedom of his countrymen, he openly showed a disposition to rebel. Frode took his forces over the Elbe, and killed him near the village of Hanofra (Hanover), so named after Hanef. But Swerting, though he was equally moved by the distress of his countrymen, said nothing about the ills of his land, and revolved a plan for freedom with a spirit yet more dogged than Hanef's. Men often doubt whether this zeal was liker to vice or to virtue; but I certainly censure it as criminal, because it was produced by a treacherous desire to revolt. It may have seemed most expedient to seek the freedom of the country, but it was not lawful to strive after this freedom by craft and treachery. Therefore, since the deed of Swerting was far from honourable, neither will it be called expedient; for it is nobler to attack openly him whom you mean to attack, and to exhibit hatred in the light of day, than to disguise a real wish to do harm under a spurious show of friendship. But the gains of crime are inglorious, its fruits are brief and fading. For even as that soul is slippery, which hides its insolent treachery by stealthy arts, so is it right that whatsoever is akin to guilt should be frail and fleeting. For guilt has been usually found to come home to its author; and rumour relates that such was the fate of Swerting. For he had resolved to surprise the king under the pretence of a banquet, and burn him to death; but the king forestalled and slew him, though slain by him in return. Hence the crime of one proved the destruction of both; and thus, though the trick succeeded against the foe, it did not bestow immunity on its author. Frode was succeeded by his son Ingild, whose soul was perverted from honour. He forsook the examples of his forefathers, and utterly enthralled himself to the lures of the most wanton profligacy. Thus he had not a shadow of goodness and righteousness, but embraced vices instead of virtue; he cut the sinews of self-control, neglected the duties of his kingly station, and sank into a filthy slave of riot. Indeed, he fostered everything that was adverse or ill-fitted to an orderly life. He tainted the glories of his father and grandfather by practising the foulest lusts, and bedimmed the brightest honours of his ancestors by most shameful deeds. For he was so prone to gluttony, that he had no desire to avenge his father, or repel the aggressions of his foes; and so, could he but gratify his gullet, he thought that decency and self-control need be observed in nothing. By idleness and sloth he stained his glorious lineage, living a loose and sensual life; and his soul, so degenerate, so far perverted and astray from the steps of his fathers, he loved to plunge into most abominable gulfs of foulness. Fowl-fatteners, scullions, frying-pans, countless cook-houses, different cooks to roast or spice the banquet--the choosing of these stood to him for glory. As to arms, soldiering, and wars, he could endure neither to train himself to them, nor to let others practise them. Thus he cast away all the ambitions of a man and aspired to those of women; for his incontinent itching of palate stirred in him love of every kitchen-stench. Ever breathing of his debauch, and stripped of every rag of soberness, with his foul breath he belched the undigested filth in his belly. He was as infamous in wantonness as Frode was illustrious in war. So utterly had his spirit been enfeebled by the untimely seductions of gluttony. Starkad was so disgusted at the excess of Ingild, that he forsook his friendship, and sought the fellowship of Halfdan, the King of Swedes, preferring work to idleness. Thus he could not bear so much as to countenance excessive indulgence. Now the sons of Swerting, fearing that they would have to pay to Ingild the penalty of their father's crime, were fain to forestall his vengeance by a gift, and gave him their sister in marriage. Antiquity relates that she bore him sons, Frode, Fridleif, Ingild, and Olaf (whom some say was the son of Ingild's sister). Ingild's sister Helga had been led by amorous wooing to return the flame of a certain low-born goldsmith, who was apt for soft words, and furnished with divers of the little gifts which best charm a woman's wishes. For since the death of the king there had been none to honour the virtues of the father by attention to the child; she had lacked protection, and had no guardians. When Starkad had learnt this from the repeated tales of travellers, he could not bear to let the wantonness of the smith pass unpunished. For he was always heedful to bear kindness in mind, and as ready to punish arrogance. So he hastened to chastise such bold and enormous insolence, wishing to repay the orphan ward the benefits he had of old received from Frode. Then he travelled through Sweden, went into the house of the smith, and posted himself near the threshold muffling his face in a cap to avoid discovery. The smith, who had not learnt the lesson that "strong hands are sometimes found under a mean garment", reviled him, and bade him quickly leave the house, saying that he should have the last broken victuals among the crowd of paupers. But the old man, whose ingrained self-control lent him patience, was nevertheless fain to rest there, and gradually study the wantonness of his host. For his reason was stronger than his impetuosity, and curbed his increasing rage. Then the smith approached the girl with open shamelessness, and cast himself in her lap, offering the hair of his head to be combed out by her maidenly hands. Also he thrust forward his loin cloth, and required her help in picking out the fleas; and exacted from this woman of lordly lineage that she should not blush to put her sweet fingers in a foul apron. Then, believing that he was free to have his pleasure, he ventured to put his longing palms within her gown and to set his unsteady hands close to her breast. But she, looking narrowly, was aware of the presence of the old man whom she once had known, and felt ashamed. She spurned the wanton and libidinous fingering, and repulsed the unchaste hands, telling the man also that he had need of arms, and urging him to cease his lewd sport. Starkad, who had sat down by the door, with the hat muffling his head, had already become so deeply enraged at this sight, that he could not find patience to hold his hand any longer, but put away his covering and clapped his right hand to his sword to draw it. Then the smith, whose only skill was in lewdness, faltered with sudden alarm, and finding that it had come to fighting, gave up all hope of defending himself, and saw in flight the only remedy for his need. Thus it was as hard to break out of the door, of which the enemy held the approach, as it was grievous to await the smiter within the house. At last necessity forced him to put an end to his delay, and he judged that a hazard wherein there lay but the smallest chance of safety was more desirable than sure and manifest danger. Also, hard as it was to fly, the danger being so close, yet he desired flight because it seemed to bring him aid, and to be the nearer way to safety; and he cast aside delay, which seemed to be an evil bringing not the smallest help, but perhaps irretrievable ruin. But just as he gained the threshold, the old man watching at the door smote him through the hams, and there, half dead, he tottered and fell. For the smiter thought he ought carefully to avoid lending his illustrious hands to the death of a vile cinder-blower, and considered that ignominy would punish his shameless passion worse than death. Thus some men think that he who suffers misfortune is worse punished than he who is slain outright. Thus it was brought about, that the maiden, who had never had parents to tend her, came to behave like a woman of well-trained nature, and did the part, as it were, of a zealous guardian to herself. And when Starkad, looking round, saw that the household sorrowed over the late loss of their master, he heaped shame on the wounded man with more invective, and thus began to mock: "Why is the house silent and aghast? What makes this new grief? Or where now rest that doting husband whom the steel has just punished for his shameful love? Keeps he still aught of his pride and lazy wantonness? Holds he to his quest, glows his lust as hot as before? Let him while away an hour with me in converse, and allay with friendly words my hatred of yesterday. Let your visage come forth with better cheer; let not lamentation resound in the house, or suffer the faces to become dulled with sorrow. "Wishing to know who burned with love for the maiden, and was deeply enamoured of my beloved ward, I put on a cap, lest my familiar face might betray me. Then comes in that wanton smith, with lewd steps, bending his thighs this way and that with studied gesture, and likewise making eyes as he ducked all ways. His covering was a mantle fringed with beaver, his sandals were inlaid with gems, his cloak was decked with gold. Gorgeous ribbons bound his plaited hair, and a many-coloured band drew tight his straying locks. Hence grew a sluggish and puffed-up temper; he fancied that wealth was birth, and money forefathers, and reckoned his fortune more by riches than by blood. Hence came pride unto him, and arrogance led to fine attire. For the wretch began to think that his dress made him equal to the high-born; he, the cinder-blower, who hunts the winds with hides, and puffs with constant draught, who rakes the ashes with his fingers, and often by drawing back the bellows takes in the air, and with a little fan makes a breath and kindles the smouldering fires! Then he goes to the lap of the girl, and leaning close, says, `Maiden, comb my hair and catch the skipping fleas, and remove what stings my skin.' Then he sat and spread his arms that sweated under the gold, lolling on the smooth cushion and leaning back on his elbow, wishing to flaunt his adornment, just as a barking brute unfolds the gathered coils of its twisted tail. But she knew me, and began to check her lover and rebuff his wanton hands; and, declaring that it was I, she said, `Refrain thy fingers, check thy promptings, take heed to appease the old man sitting close by the doors. The sport will turn to sorrow. I think Starkad is here, and his slow gaze scans thy doings.' The smith answered: `Turn not pale at the peaceful raven and the ragged old man; never has that mighty one whom thou fearest stooped to such common and base attire. The strong man loves shining raiment, and looks for clothes to match his courage.' Then I uncovered and drew my sword, and as the smith fled I clove his privy parts; his hams were laid open, cut away from the bone; they showed his entrails. Presently I rise and crush the girl's mouth with my fist, and draw blood from her bruised nostril. Then her lips, used to evil laughter, were wet with tears mingled with blood, and foolish love paid for all the sins it committed with soft eyes. Over is the sport of the hapless woman who rushed on, blind with desire, like a maddened mare, and makes her lust the grave of her beauty. Thou deservest to be sold for a price to foreign peoples and to grind at the mill, unless blood pressed from thy breasts prove thee falsely accused, and thy nipple's lack of milk clear thee of the crime. Howbeit, I think thee free from this fault; yet bear not tokens of suspicion, nor lay thyself open to lying tongues, nor give thyself to the chattering populace to gird at. Rumour hurts many, and a lying slander often harms. A little word deceives the thoughts of common men. Respect thy grandsires, honour thy fathers, forget not thy parents, value thy forefathers; let thy flesh and blood keep its fame. What madness came on thee? And thou, shameless smith, what fate drove thee in thy lust to attempt a high-born race? Or who sped thee, maiden, worthy of the lordliest pillows, to loves obscure? Tell me, how durst thou taste with thy rosy lips a mouth reeking of ashes, or endure on thy breast hands filthy with charcoal, or bring close to thy side the arms that turn the live coals over, and put the palms hardened with the use of the tongs to thy pure cheeks, and embrace the head sprinkled with embers, taking it to thy bright arms? "I remember how smiths differ from one another, for once they smote me. All share alike the name of their calling, but the hearts beneath are different in temper. I judge those best who weld warriors' swords and spears for the battle, whose temper shows their courage, who betoken their hearts by the sternness of their calling, whose work declares their prowess. There are also some to whom the hollow mould yields bronze, as they make the likeness of divers things in molten gold, who smelt the veins and recast the metal. But Nature has fashioned these of a softer temper, and has crushed with cowardice the hands which she has gifted with rare skill. Often such men, while the heat of the blast melts the bronze that is poured in the mould, craftily filch flakes of gold from the lumps, when the vessel thirsts after the metal they have stolen." So speaking, Starkad got as much pleasure from his words as from his works, and went back to Halfdan, embracing his service with the closest friendship, and never ceasing from the exercise of war; so that he weaned his mind from delights, and vexed it with incessant application to arms. Now Ingild had two sisters, Helga and Asa; Helga was of full age to marry, while Asa was younger and unripe for wedlock. Then Helge the Norwegian was moved with desire to ask for Helga for his wife, and embarked. Now he had equipped his vessel so luxuriously that he had lordly sails decked with gold, held up also on gilded masts, and tied with crimson ropes. When he arrived Ingild promised to grant him his wish if, to test his reputation publicly, he would first venture to meet in battle the champions pitted against him. Helge did not flinch at the terms; he answered that he would most gladly abide by the compact. And so the troth-plight of the future marriage was most ceremoniously solemnized. A story is remembered that there had grown up at the same time, on the Isle of Zealand, the nine sons of a certain prince, all highly gifted with strength and valour, the eldest of whom was Anganty. This last was a rival suitor for the same maiden; and when he saw that the match which he had been denied was promised to Helge, he challenged him to a struggle, wishing to fight away his vexation. Helge agreed to the proposed combat. The hour of the fight was appointed for the wedding-day by the common wish of both. For any man who, being challenged, refused to fight, used to be covered with disgrace in the sight of all men. Thus Helge was tortured on the one side by the shame of refusing the battle, on the other by the dread of waging it. For he thought himself attacked unfairly and counter to the universal laws of combat, as he had apparently undertaken to fight nine men single-handed. While he was thus reflecting his betrothed told him that he would need help, and counselled him to refrain from the battle, wherein it seemed he would encounter only death and disgrace, especially as he had not stipulated for any definite limit to the number of those who were to be his opponents. He should therefore avoid the peril, and consult his safety by appealing to Starkad, who was sojourning among the Swedes; since it was his way to help the distressed, and often to interpose successfully to retrieve some dismal mischance. Then Helge, who liked the counsel thus given very well, took a small escort and went into Sweden; and when he reached its most famous city, Upsala, he forbore to enter, but sent in a messenger who was to invite Starkad to the wedding of Frode's daughter, after first greeting him respectfully to try him. This courtesy stung Starkad like an insult. He looked sternly on the youth, and said, "That had he not had his beloved Frode named in his instructions, he should have paid dearly for his senseless mission. He must think that Starkad, like some buffoon or trencherman, was accustomed to rush off to the reek of a distant kitchen for the sake of a richer diet." Helge, when his servant had told him this, greeted the old man in the name of Frode's daughter, and asked him to share a battle which he had accepted upon being challenged, saying that he was not equal to it by himself, the terms of the agreement being such as to leave the number of his adversaries uncertain. Starkad, when he had heard the time and place of the combat, not only received the suppliant well, but also encouraged him with the offer of aid, and told him to go back to Denmark with his companions, telling him that he would find his way to him by a short and secret path. Helge departed, and if we may trust report, Starkad, by sheer speed of foot, travelled in one day's journeying over as great a space as those who went before him are said to have accomplished in twelve; so that both parties, by a chance meeting, reached their journey's end, the palace of Ingild, at the very same time. Here Starkad passed, just as the servants did, along the tables filled with guests; and the aforementioned nine, howling horribly with repulsive gestures, and running about as if they were on the stage, encouraged one another to the battle. Some say that they barked like furious dogs at the champion as he approached. Starkad rebuked them for making themselves look ridiculous with such an unnatural visage, and for clowning with wide grinning cheeks; for from this, he declared, soft and effeminate profligates derived their wanton incontinence. When Starkad was asked banteringly by the nine whether he had valour enough to fight, he answered that doubtless he was strong enough to meet, not merely one, but any number that might come against him. And when the nine heard this they understood that this was the man whom they had heard would come to the succour of Helge from afar. Starkad also, to protect the bride-chamber with a more diligent guard, voluntarily took charge of the watch; and, drawing back the doors of the bedroom, barred them with a sword instead of a bolt, meaning to post himself so as to give undisturbed quiet to their bridal. When Helge woke, and, shaking off the torpor of sleep, remembered his pledge, he thought of buckling on his armour. But, seeing that a little of the darkness of night yet remained, and wishing to wait for the hour of dawn, he began to ponder the perilous business at hand, when sleep stole on him and sweetly seized him, so that he took himself back to bed laden with slumber. Starkad, coming in on him at daybreak, saw him locked asleep in the arms of his wife, and would not suffer him to be vexed with a sudden shock, or summoned from his quiet slumbers; lest he should seem to usurp the duty of wakening him and breaking upon the sweetness of so new a union, all because of cowardice. He thought it, therefore, more handsome to meet the peril alone than to gain a comrade by disturbing the pleasure of another. So he quietly retraced his steps, and scorning his enemies, entered the field which in our tongue is called Roliung, and finding a seat under the slope of a certain hill, he exposed himself to wind and snow. Then, as though the gentle airs of spring weather were breathing upon him, he put off his cloak, and set to picking out the fleas. He also cast on the briars a purple mantle which Helga had lately given him, that no clothing might seem to lend him shelter against the raging shafts of hail. Then the champions came and climbed the hill on the opposite side; and, seeking a spot sheltered from the winds wherein to sit, they lit a fire and drove off the cold. At last, not seeing Starkad, they sent a man to the crest of the hill, to watch his coming more clearly, as from a watch-tower. This man climbed to the top of the lofty mountain, and saw, on its sloping side, an old man covered shoulder-high with the snow that showered down. He asked him if he was the man who was to fight according to the promise. Starkad declared that he was. Then the rest came up and asked him whether he had resolved to meet them all at once or one by one. But he said, "Whenever a surly pack of curs yelps at me, I commonly send them flying all at once, and not in turn." Thus he let them know that he would rather fight with-them all together than one by one, thinking that his enemies should be spurned with words first and deeds afterwards. The fight began furiously almost immediately, and he felled six of them without receiving any wound in return; and though the remaining three wounded him so hard in seventeen places that most of his bowels gushed out of his belly, he slew them notwithstanding, like their brethren. Disembowelled, with failing strength, he suffered from dreadful straits of thirst, and, crawling on his knees in his desire to find a draught, he longed for water from the streamlet that ran close by. But when he saw it was tainted with gore he was disgusted at the look of the water, and refrained from its infected draught. For Anganty had been struck down in the waves of the river, and had dyed its course so deep with his red blood that it seemed now to flow not with water, but with some ruddy liquid. So Starkad thought it nobler that his bodily strength should fail than that he should borrow strength from so foul a beverage. Therefore, his force being all but spent, he wriggled on his knees, up to a rock that happened to be lying near, and for some little while lay leaning against it. A hollow in its surface is still to be seen, just as if his weight as he lay had marked it with a distinct impression of his body. But I think this appearance is due to human handiwork, for it seems to pass all belief that the hard and uncleavable rock should so imitate the softness of wax, as, merely by the contact of a man leaning on it, to present the appearance of a man having sat there, and assume concavity for ever. A certain man, who chanced to be passing by in a cart, saw Starkad wounded almost all over his body. Equally aghast and amazed, he turned and drove closer, asking what reward he should have if he were to tend and heal his wounds. But Starkad would rather be tortured by grievous wounds than use the service of a man of base estate, and first asked his birth and calling. The man said that his profession was that of a sergeant. Starkad, not content with despising him, also spurned him with revilings, because, neglecting all honourable business, he followed the calling of a hanger-on; and because he had tarnished his whole career with ill repute, thinking the losses of the poor his own gains; suffering none to be innocent, ready to inflict wrongful accusation upon all men, most delighted at any lamentable turn in the fortunes of another; and toiling most at his own design, namely of treacherously spying out all men's doings, and seeking some traitorous occasion to censure the character of the innocent. As this first man departed, another came up, promising aid and remedies. Like the last comer, he was bidden to declare his condition; and he said that he had a certain man's handmaid to wife, and was doing peasant service to her master in order to set her free. Starkad refused to accept his help, because he had married in a shameful way by taking a slave to his embrace. Had he had a shred of virtue he should at least have disdained to be intimate with the slave of another, but should have enjoyed some freeborn partner of his bed. What a mighty man, then, must we deem Starkad, who, when enveloped in the most deadly perils, showed himself as great in refusing aid as in receiving wounds! When this man departed a woman chanced to approach and walk past the old man. She came up to him in order to wipe his wounds, but was first bidden to declare what was her birth and calling. She said that she was a handmaid used to grinding at the mill. Starkad then asked her if she had children; and when he was told that she had a female child, he told her to go home and give the breast to her squalling daughter; for he thought it most uncomely that he should borrow help from a woman of the lowest degree. Moreover, he knew that she could nourish her own flesh and blood with milk better than she could minister to the wounds of a stranger. As the woman was departing, a young man came riding up in a cart. He saw the old man, and drew near to minister to his wounds. On being asked who he was, he said his father was a labourer, and added that he was used to the labours of a peasant. Starkad praised his origin, and pronounced that his calling was also most worthy of honour; for, he said, such men sought a livelihood by honourable traffic in their labour, inasmuch as they knew not of any gain, save what they had earned by the sweat of their brow. He also thought that a country life was justly to be preferred even to the most splendid riches; for the most wholesome fruits of it seemed to be born and reared in the shelter of a middle estate, halfway between magnificence and squalor. But he did not wish to pass the kindness of the youth unrequited, and rewarded the esteem he had shown him with the mantle he had cast among the thorns. So the peasant's son approached, replaced the parts of his belly that had been torn away, and bound up with a plait of withies the mass of intestines that had fallen out. Then he took the old man to his car, and with the most zealous respect carried him away to the palace. Meantime Helga, in language betokening the greatest wariness, began to instruct her husband, saying that she knew that Starkad, as soon as he came back from conquering the champions, would punish him for his absence, thinking that he had inclined more to sloth and lust than to his promise to fight as appointed. Therefore he must withstand Starkad boldly, because he always spared the brave but loathed the coward. Helge respected equally her prophecy and her counsel, and braced his soul and body with a glow of valorous enterprise. Starkad, when he had been driven to the palace, heedless of the pain of his wounds, leaped swiftly out of the cart, and just like a man who was well from top to toe, burst into the bridal-chamber, shattering the doors with his fist. Then Helge leapt from his bed, and, as he had been taught by the counsel of his wife, plunged his blade full at Starkad's forehead. And since he seemed to be meditating a second blow, and to be about to make another thrust with his sword, Helga flew quickly from the couch, caught up a shield, and, by interposing it, saved the old man from impending destruction; for, notwithstanding, Helge with a stronger stroke of his blade smote the shield right through to the boss. Thus the praiseworthy wit of the woman aided her friend, and her hand saved him whom her counsel had injured; for she protected the old man by her deed, as well as her husband by her warning. Starkad was induced by this to let Helge go scot-free; saying that a man whose ready and assured courage so surely betokened manliness, ought to be spared; for he vowed that a man ill deserved death whose brave spirit was graced with such a dogged will to resist. Starkad went back to Sweden before his wounds had been treated with medicine, or covered with a single scar. Halfdan had been killed by his rivals; and Starkad, after quelling certain rebels, set up Siward as the heir to his father's sovereignty. With him he sojourned a long time; but when he heard--for the rumour spread--that Ingild, the son of Frode (who had been treacherously slain), was perversely minded, and instead of punishing his father's murderers, bestowed upon them kindness and friendship, he was vexed with stinging wrath at so dreadful a crime. And, resenting that a youth of such great parts should have renounced his descent from his glorious father, he hung on his shoulders a mighty mass of charcoal, as though it were some costly burden, and made his way to Denmark. When asked by those he met why he was taking along so unusual a load, he said that he would sharpen the dull wits of King Ingild to a point by bits of charcoal. So he accomplished a swift and headlong journey, as though at a single breath, by a short and speedy track; and at last, becoming the guest of Ingild, he went up, as his custom was, in to the seat appointed for the great men; for he had been used to occupy the highest post of distinction with the kings of the last generation. When the queen came in, and saw him covered over with filth and clad in the mean, patched clothes of a peasant, the ugliness of her guest's dress made her judge him with little heed; and, measuring the man by the clothes, she reproached him with crassness of wit, because he had gone before greater men in taking his place at table, and had assumed a seat that was too good for his boorish attire. She bade him quit the place, that he might not touch the cushions with his dress, which was fouler than it should have been. For she put down to crassness and brazenness what Starkad only did from proper pride; she knew not that on a high seat of honour the mind sometimes shines brighter than the raiment. The spirited old man obeyed, though vexed at the rebuff, and with marvellous self-control choked down the insult which his bravery so ill deserved; uttering at this disgrace he had received neither word nor groan. But he could not long bear to hide the bitterness of his anger in silence. Rising, and retreating to the furthest end of the palace, he flung his body against the walls; and strong as they were, he so battered them with the shock, that the beams quaked mightily; and he nearly brought the house down in a crash. Thus, stung not only with his rebuff, but with the shame of having poverty cast in his teeth, he unsheathed his wrath against the insulting speech of the queen with inexorable sternness. Ingild, on his return from hunting, scanned him closely, and, when he noticed that he neither looked cheerfully about, nor paid him the respect of rising, saw by the sternness written on his brow that it was Starkad. For when he noted his hands horny with fighting, his scars in front, the force and fire of his eye, he perceived that a man whose body was seamed with so many traces of wounds had no weakling soul. He therefore rebuked his wife, and charged her roundly to put away her haughty tempers, and to soothe and soften with kind words and gentle offices the man she had reviled; to comfort him with food and drink, and refresh him with kindly converse; saying, that this man had been appointed his tutor by his father long ago, and had been a most tender guardian of his childhood. Then, learning too late the temper of the old man, she turned her harshness into gentleness, and respectfully waited on him whom she had rebuffed and railed at with bitter revilings. The angry hostess changed her part, and became the most fawning of flatterers. She wished to check his anger with her attentiveness; and her fault was the less, inasmuch as she was so quick in ministering to him after she had been chidden. But she paid dearly for it, for she presently beheld stained with the blood of her brethren the place where she had flouted and rebuffed the brave old man from his seat. Now, in the evening, Ingild took his meal with the sons of Swerting, and fell to a magnificent feast, loading the tables with the profusest dishes. With friendly invitation he kept the old man back from leaving the revel too early; as though the delights of elaborate dainties could have undermined that staunch and sturdy virtue! But when Starkad had set eyes on these things, he scorned so wanton a use of them; and, not to give way a whit to foreign fashions, he steeled his appetite against these tempting delicacies with the self-restraint which was his greatest strength. He would not suffer his repute as a soldier to be impaired by the allurements of an orgy. For his valour loved thrift, and was a stranger to all superfluity of food, and averse to feasting in excess. For his was a courage which never at any moment had time to make luxury of aught account, and always forewent pleasure to pay due heed to virtue. So, when he saw that the antique character of self-restraint, and all good old customs, were being corrupted by new-fangled luxury and sumptuosity, he wished to be provided with a morsel fitter for a peasant, and scorned the costly and lavish feast. Spurning profuse indulgence in food, Starkad took some smoky and rather rancid fare, appeasing his hunger with a bitter relish because more simply; and being unwilling to enfeeble his true valour with the tainted sweetness of sophisticated foreign dainties, or break the rule of antique plainness by such strange idolatries of the belly. He was also very wroth that they should go, to the extravagance of having the same meat both roasted and boiled at the same meal; for he considered an eatable which was steeped in the vapours of the kitchen, and which the skill of the cook rubbed over with many kinds of flavours, in the light of a monstrosity. Unlike Starkad Ingild flung the example of his ancestors to the winds, and gave himself freer licence of innovation in the fashions of the table than the custom of his fathers allowed. For when he had once abandoned himself to the manners of Teutonland, he did not blush to yield to its unmanly wantonness. No slight incentives to debauchery have flowed down our country's throat from that sink of a land. Hence came magnificent dishes, sumptuous kitchens, the base service of cooks, and all sorts of abominable sausages. Hence came our adoption, wandering from the ways of our fathers, of a more dissolute dress. Thus our country, which cherished self-restraint as its native quality, has gone begging to our neighbours for luxury; whose allurements so charmed Ingild, that he did not think it shameful to requite wrongs with kindness; nor did the grievous murder of his father make him heave one sigh of bitterness when it crossed his mind. But the queen would not depart without effecting her purpose. Thinking that presents would be the best way to banish the old man's anger, she took off her own head a band of marvellous handiwork, and put it in his lap as he supped: desiring to buy his favour since she could not blunt his courage. But Starkad, whose bitter resentment was not yet abated, flung it back in the face of the giver, thinking that in such a gift there was more scorn than respect. And he was wise not to put this strange ornament of female dress upon the head that was all bescarred and used to the helmet; for he knew that the locks of a man ought not to wear a woman's head-band. Thus he avenged slight with slight, and repaid with retorted scorn the disdain he had received; thereby bearing himself well-nigh as nobly in avenging his disgrace as he had borne himself in enduring it. To the soul of Starkad reverence for Frode was grappled with hooks of love. Drawn to him by deeds of bounty, countless kindnesses, he could not be wheedled into giving up his purpose of revenge by any sort of alluring complaisance. Even now, when Frode was no more, he was eager to pay the gratitude due to his benefits, and to requite the kindness of the dead, whose loving disposition and generous friendship he had experienced while he lived. For he bore graven so deeply in his heart the grievous picture of Frode's murder, that his honour for that most famous captain could never be plucked from the inmost chamber of his soul; and therefore he did not hesitate to rank his ancient friendship before the present kindness. Besides, when he recalled the previous affront, he could not thank the complaisance that followed; he could not put aside the disgraceful wound to his self-respect. For the memory of benefits or injuries ever sticks more firmly in the minds of brave men than in those of weaklings. For he had not the habits of those who follow their friends in prosperity and quit them in adversity, who pay more regard to fortune than to looks, and sit closer to their own gain than to charity toward others. But the woman held to her purpose, seeing that even so she could not win the old man to convivial mirth. Continuing with yet more lavish courtesy her efforts to soothe him, and to heap more honours on the guest, she bade a piper strike up, and started music to melt his unbending rage. For she wanted to unnerve his stubborn nature by means of cunning sounds. But the cajolery of pipe or string was just as powerless to enfeeble that dogged warrior. When he heard it, he felt that the respect paid him savoured more of pretence than of love. Hence the crestfallen performer seemed to be playing to a statue rather than a man, and learnt that it is vain for buffoons to assail with, their tricks a settled and weighty sternness, and that a mighty mass cannot be shaken with the idle puffing of the lips. For Starkad had set his face so firmly in his stubborn wrath, that he seemed not a whit easier to move than ever. For the inflexibility which he owed his vows was not softened either by the strain of the lute or the enticements of the palate; and he thought that more respect should be paid to his strenuous and manly purpose than to the tickling of the ears or the lures of the feast. Accordingly he flung the bone, which he had stripped in eating the meat, in the face of the harlequin, and drove the wind violently out of his puffed cheeks, so that they collapsed. By this he showed how his austerity loathed the clatter of the stage; for his ears were stopped with anger and open to no influence of delight. This reward, befitting an actor, punished an unseemly performance with a shameful wage. For Starkad excellently judged the man's deserts, and bestowed a shankbone for the piper to pipe on, requiting his soft service with a hard fee. None could say whether the actor piped or wept the louder; he showed by his bitter flood of tears how little place bravery has in the breasts of the dissolute. For the fellow was a mere minion of pleasure, and had never learnt to bear the assaults of calamity. This man's hurt was ominous of the carnage that was to follow at the feast. Right well did Starkad's spirit, heedful of sternness, hold with stubborn gravity to steadfast revenge; for he was as much disgusted at the lute as others were delighted, and repaid the unwelcome service by insultingly flinging a bone; thus avowing that he owed a greater debt to the glorious dust of his mighty friend than to his shameless and infamous ward. But when Starkad saw that the slayers of Frode were in high favour with the king, his stern glances expressed the mighty wrath which he harboured, and his face betrayed what he felt. The visible fury of his gaze betokened the secret tempest in his heart. At last, when Ingild tried to appease him with royal fare, he spurned the dainty. Satisfied with cheap and common food, he utterly spurned outlandish delicacies; he was used to plain diet, and would not pamper his palate with any delightful flavour. When he was asked why he had refused the generous attention of the king with such a clouded brow, he said that he had come to Denmark to find the son of Frode, not a man who crammed his proud and gluttonous stomach with rich elaborate feasts. For the Teuton extravagance which the king favoured had led him, in his longing for the pleasures of abundance, to set to the fire again, for roasting, dishes which had been already boiled. Thereupon he could not forbear from attacking Ingild's character, but poured out the whole bitterness of his reproaches on his head. He condemned his unfilial spirit, because he gaped with repletion and vented his squeamishness in filthy hawkings; because, following the lures of the Saxons, he strayed and departed far from soberness; because he was so lacking in manhood as not to pursue even the faintest shadow of it. But, declared Starkad, he bore the heaviest load of infamy, because, even when he first began to see service, he forgot to avenge his father, to whose butchers, forsaking the law of nature, he was kind and attentive. Men whose deserts were most vile he welcomed with loving affection; and not only did he let those go scot-free, whom he should have punished most sharply, but he even judged them fit persons to live with and entertain at his table, whereas he should rather have put them to death. Hereupon Starkad is also said to have sung as follows: "Let the unwarlike youth yield to the aged, let him honour all the years of him that is old. When a man is brave, let none reproach the number of his days. "Though the hair of the ancient whiten with age, their valour stays still the same; nor shall the lapse of time have power to weaken their manly heart. "I am elbowed away by the offensive guest, who taints with vice his outward show of goodness, whilst he is the slave of his belly and prefers his daily dainties to anything. "When I was counted as a comrade of Frode, I ever sat in the midst of warriors on a high seat in the hall, and I was the first of the princes to take my meal. "Now, the lot of a nobler age is reversed; I am shut in a corner, I am like the fish that seeks shelter as it wanders to and fro hidden in the waters. "I, who used surely in the former age to lie back on a couch handsomely spread, am now thrust among the hindmost and driven from the crowded hall. "Perchance I had been driven on my back at the doors, had not the wall struck my side and turned me back, and had not the beam, in the way made it hard for me to fly when I was thrust forth. "I am baited with the jeers of the court-folk; I am not received as a guest should be; I am girded at with harsh gibing, and stung with babbling taunts. "I am a stranger, and would gladly know what news are spread abroad by busy rumour; what is the course of events; what the order of the land; what is doing in your country. "Thou, Ingild, buried in sin, why dost thou tarry in the task of avenging thy father? Wilt thou think tranquilly of the slaughter of thy righteous sire? "Why dost thou, sluggard, think only of feasting, and lean thy belly back in ease, more effeminate than harlots? Is the avenging of thy slaughtered father a little thing to thee? "When last I left thee, Frode, I learned by my prophetic soul that thou, mightiest of kings, wouldst surely perish by the sword of enemies. "And while I travelled long in the land, a warning groan rose in my soul, which augured that thereafter I was never to see thee more. "Wo is me, that then I was far away, harrying the farthest peoples of the earth, when the traitorous guest aimed craftily at the throat of his king. "Else I would either have shown myself the avenger of my lord, or have shared his fate and fallen where he fell, and would joyfully have followed the blessed king in one and the same death. "I have not come to indulge in gluttonous feasting, the sin whereof I will strive to chastise; nor will I take mine ease, nor the delights of the fat belly. "No famous king has ever set me before in the middle by the strangers. I have been wont to sit in the highest seats among friends. "I have come from Sweden, travelling over wide lands, thinking that I should be rewarded, if only I had the joy to find the son of my beloved Frode. "But I sought a brave man, and I have come to a glutton, a king who is the slave of his belly and of vice, whose liking has been turned back towards wantonness by filthy pleasure. "Famous is the speech men think that Halfdan spoke: he warned us it would soon come to pass that an understanding father should beget a witless son. "Though the heir be deemed degenerate, I will not suffer the wealth of mighty Frode to profit strangers or to be made public like plunder." At these words the queen trembled, and she took from her head the ribbon with which she happened, in woman's fashion, to be adorning her hair, and proffered it to the enraged old man, as though she could avert his anger with a gift. Starkad in anger flung it back most ignominiously in the face of the giver, and began again in a loud voice: "Take hence, I pray thee, thy woman's gift, and set back thy headgear on thy head; no brave man assumes the chaplets that befit Love only. "For it is amiss that the hair of men that are ready for battle should be bound back with wreathed gold; such attire is right for the throngs of the soft and effeminate. "But take this gift to thy husband, who loves luxury, whose finger itches, while he turns over the rump and handles the flesh of the bird roasted brown. "The flighty and skittish wife of Ingild longs to observe the fashions of the Teutons; she prepares the orgy and makes ready the artificial dainties. "For she tickles the palate with a new-fangled feast; she pursues the zest of an unknown flavour, raging to load all the tables with dishes yet more richly than before. "She gives her lord wine to drink in bowls, pondering all things with zealous preparation; she bids the cooked meats be roasted, and intends them for a second fire. "Wantonly she feeds her husband like a hog; a shameless whore, trusting.... "She roasts the boiled, and recooks the roasted meats, planning the meal with spendthrift extravagance, careless of right and wrong, practising sin, a foul woman. "Wanton in arrogance, a soldier of Love, longing for dainties, she abjures the fair ways of self-control, and also provides devices for gluttony. "With craving stomach she desires turnip strained in a smooth pan, cakes with thin juice, and shellfish in rows. "I do not remember the Great Frode putting his hand to the sinews of birds, or tearing the rump of a cooked fowl with crooked thumb. "What former king could have been so gluttonous as to stir the stinking filthy flesh, or rummage in the foul back of a bird with plucking fingers? "The food of valiant men is raw; no need, methinks, of sumptuous tables for those whose stubborn souls are bent on warfare. "It had been fitter for thee to have torn the stiff beard, biting hard with thy teeth, than greedily to have drained the bowl of milk with thy wide mouth. "We fled from the offence of the sumptuous kitchen; we stayed our stomach with rancid fare; few in the old days loved cooked juices. "A dish with no sauce of herbs gave us the flesh of rams and swine. We partook temperately, tainting nothing with bold excess. "Thou who now lickest the milk-white fat, put on, prithee, the spirit of a man; remember Frode, and avenge thy father's death. "The worthless and cowardly heart shall perish, and shall not parry the thrust of death by flight, though it bury itself in a valley, or crouch in darkling dens. "Once we were eleven princes, devoted followers of King Hakon, and here Geigad sat above Helge in the order of the meal. "Geigad used to appease the first pangs of hunger with a dry rump of ham; and plenty of hard crust quelled the craving of his stomach. "No one asked for a sickly morsel; all took their food in common; the meal of mighty men cost but slight display. "The commons shunned foreign victual, and the greatest lusted not for a feast; even the king remembered to live temperately at little cost. "Scorning to look at the mead, he drank the fermented juice of Ceres; he shrank not from the use of undercooked meats, and hated the roast. "The board used to stand with slight display, a modest salt-cellar showed the measure of its cost; lest the wise ways of antiquity should in any wise be changed by foreign usage. "Of old, no man put flagons or mixing-bowls on the tables; the steward filled the cup from the butt, and there was no abundance of adorned vessels. "No one who honoured past ages put the smooth wine-jars beside the tankards, and of old no bedizened lackey heaped the platter with dainties. "Nor did the vainglorious host deck the meal with little salt-shell or smooth cup; but all has been now abolished in shameful wise by the new-fangled manners. "Who would ever have borne to take money in ransom for the death of a lost parent, or to have asked a foe for a gift to atone for the murder of a father? "What strong heir or well-starred son would have sat side by side with such as these, letting a shameful bargain utterly unnerve the warrior? "Wherefore, when the honours of kings are sung, and bards relate the victories of captains, I hide my face for shame in my mantle, sick at heart. "For nothing shines in thy trophies, worthy to be recorded by the pen; no heir of Frode is named in the roll of the honourable. "Why dost thou vex me with insolent gaze, thou who honourest the foe guilty of thy father's blood, and art thought only to take thy vengeance with loaves and warm soup? "When men speak well of the avengers of crimes, then long thou to lose thy quick power of hearing, that thy impious spirit may not be ashamed. "For oft has the virtue of another vexed a heart that knows its guilt, and the malice in the breast is abashed by the fair report of the good. "Though thou go to the East, or live sequestered in the countries of the West, or whether, driven thence, thou seek the midmost place of the earth; "Whether thou revisit the cold quarter of the heaven where the pole is to be seen, and carries on the sphere with its swift spin, and looks down upon the neighbouring Bear; "Shame shall accompany thee far, and shall smite thy countenance with heavy disgrace, when the united assembly of the great kings is taking pastime. "Since everlasting dishonour awaits thee, thou canst not come amidst the ranks of the famous; and in every clime thou shalt pass thy days in infamy. "The fates have given Frode an offspring born into the world when gods were adverse, whose desires have been enthralled by crime and ignoble lust. "Even as in a ship all things foul gather to the filthy hollow of the bilge, even so hath a flood of vices poured into Ingild. "Therefore, in terror of thy shame being published, thou shalt lie crushed in the corners of the land, sluggish on thy foul hearth, and never to be seen in the array of the famous. "Then shalt thou shake thy beard at thine evil fate, kept down by the taunts of thy mistresses, when thy paramour galls thy ear with her querulous cries. "Since chill fear retards thy soul, and thou dreadest to become the avenger of thy sire, thou art utterly degenerate, and thy ways are like a slave's. "It would have needed scant preparation to destroy thee; even as if a man should catch and cut the throat of a kid, or slit the weazand of a soft sheep and butcher it. "Behold, a son of the tyrant Swerting shall take the inheritance of Denmark after thee; he whose slothful sister thou keepest in infamous union. "Whilst thou delightest to honour thy bride, laden with gems and shining in gold apparel, we burn with all indignation that is linked with shame, lamenting thy infamies. "When thou art stirred by furious lust, our mind is troubled, and recalls the fashion of ancient times, and bids us grieve sorely. "For we rate otherwise than thou the crime of the foes whom now thou holdest in honour; wherefore the face of this age is a burden to me, remembering the ancient ways. "I would crave no greater blessing, O Frode, if I might see those guilty of thy murder duly punished for such a crime." Now he prevailed so well by this stirring counsel, that his reproach served like a flint wherewith to strike a blazing flame of valour in the soul that had been chill and slack. For the king had at first heard the song inattentively; but, stirred by the earnest admonition of his guardian, he conceived in his heart a tardy fire of revenge; and, forgetting the reveller, he changed into the foeman. At last he leapt up from where he lay, and poured the whole flood of his anger on those at table with him; insomuch that he unsheathed his sword upon the sons of Swerting with bloody ruthlessness, and aimed with drawn blade at the throats of those whose gullets he had pampered with the pleasures of the table. These men he forthwith slew; and by so doing he drowned the holy rites of the table in blood. He sundered the feeble bond of their league, and exchanged a shameful revel for enormous cruelty; the host became the foe, and that vilest slave of excess the bloodthirsty agent of revenge. For the vigorous pleading of his counsellor bred a breath of courage in his soft and unmanly youth; it drew out his valour from its lurking-place, and renewed it, and so fashioned it that the authors of a most grievous murder were punished even as they deserved. For the young man's valour had been not quenched, but only in exile, and the aid of an old man had drawn it out into the light; and it accomplished a deed which was all the greater for its tardiness; for it was somewhat nobler to steep the cups in blood than in wine. What a spirit, then, must we think that old man had, who by his eloquent adjuration expelled from that king's mind its infinite sin, and who, bursting the bonds of iniquity, implanted a most effectual seed of virtue. Starkad aided the king with equal achievements; and not only showed the most complete courage in his own person, but summoned back that which had been rooted out of the heart of another. When the deed was done, he thus begun: "King Ingild, farewell; thy heart, full of valour, hath now shown a deed of daring. The spirit that reigns in thy body is revealed by its fair beginning; nor did there lack deep counsel in thy heart, though thou wert silent till this hour; for thou dost redress by thy bravery what delay had lost, and redeemest the sloth of thy spirit by mighty valour. Come now, let us rout the rest, and let none escape the peril which all alike deserve. Let the crime come home to the culprit; let the sin return and crush its contriver. "Let the servants take up in a car the bodies of the slain, and let the attendant quickly bear out the carcases. Justly shall they lack the last rites; they are unworthy to be covered with a mound; let no funeral procession or pyre suffer them the holy honour of a barrow; let them be scattered to rot in the fields, to be consumed by the beaks of birds; let them taint the country all about with their deadly corruption. "Do thou too, king, if thou hast any wit, flee thy savage bride, lest the she-wolf bring forth a litter like herself, and a beast spring from thee that shall hurt its own father. "Tell me, Rote, continual derider of cowards, thinkest thou that we have avenged Frode enough, when we have spent seven deaths on the vengeance of one? Lo, those are borne out dead who paid homage not to thy sway in deed, but only in show, and though obsequious they planned treachery. But I always cherished this hope, that noble fathers have noble offspring, who will follow in their character the lot which they received by their birth. Therefore, Ingild, better now than in time past dost thou deserve to be called lord of Leire and of Denmark. "When, O King Hakon, I was a beardless youth, and followed thy leading and command in warfare, I hated luxury and wanton souls, and practiced only wars. Training body and mind together, I banished every unholy thing from my soul, and shunned the pleasures of the belly, loving deeds of prowess. For those that followed the calling of arms had rough clothing and common gear and short slumbers and scanty rest. Toil drove ease far away, and the time ran by at scanty cost. Not as with some men now, the light of whose reason is obscured by insatiate greed with its blind maw. Some one of these clad in a covering of curiously wrought raiment effeminately guides the fleet-footed (steed), and unknots his dishevelled locks, and lets his hair fly abroad loosely. "He loves to plead often in the court, and to covet a base pittance, and with this pursuit he comforts his sluggish life, doing with venal tongue the business entrusted to him. "He outrages the laws by force, he makes armed assault upon men's rights, he tramples on the innocent, he feeds on the wealth of others, he practices debauchery and gluttony, he vexes good fellowship with biting jeers, and goes after harlots as a hoe after the grass. "The coward falls when battles are lulled in peace. Though he who fears death lie in the heart of the valley, no mantlet shall shelter him. His final fate carries off every living man; doom is not to be averted by skulking. But I, who have shaken the whole world with my slaughters, shall I enjoy a peaceful death? Shall I be taken up to the stars in a quiet end? Shall I die in my bed without a wound?" BOOK SEVEN. We are told by historians of old, that Ingild had four sons, of whom three perished in war, while OLAF alone reigned after his father; but some say that Olaf was the son of Ingild's sister, though this opinion is doubtful. Posterity has but an uncertain knowledge of his deeds, which are dim with the dust of antiquity; nothing but the last counsel of his wisdom has been rescued by tradition. For when he was in the last grip of death he took thought for his sons FRODE and HARALD, and bade them have royal sway, one over the land and the other over the sea, and receive these several powers, not in prolonged possession, but in yearly rotation. Thus their share in the rule was made equal; but Frode, who was the first to have control of the affairs of the sea, earned disgrace from his continual defeats in roving. His calamity was due to his sailors being newly married, and preferring nuptial joys at home to the toils of foreign warfare. After a time Harald, the younger son, received the rule of the sea, and chose soldiers who were unmarried, fearing to be baffled like his brother. Fortune favoured his choice; for he was as glorious a rover as his brother was inglorious; and this earned him his brother's hatred. Moreover, their queens, Signe and Ulfhild, one of whom was the daughter of Siward, King of Sweden, the other of Karl, the governor of Gothland, were continually wrangling as to which was the nobler, and broke up the mutual fellowship of their husbands. Hence Harald and Frode, when their common household was thus shattered, divided up the goods they held in common, and gave more heed to the wrangling altercations of the women than to the duties of brotherly affection. Moreover, Frode, judging that his brother's glory was a disgrace to himself and brought him into contempt, ordered one of his household to put him to death secretly; for he saw that the man of whom he had the advantage in years was surpassing him in courage. When the deed was done, he had the agent of his treachery privily slain, lest the accomplice should betray the crime. Then, in order to gain the credit of innocence and escape the brand of crime, he ordered a full inquiry to be made into the mischance that had cut off his brother so suddenly. But he could not manage, by all his arts, to escape silent condemnation in the thoughts of the common people. He afterwards asked Karl, "Who had killed Harald?" and Karl replied that it was deceitful in him to ask a question about something which he knew quite well. These words earned him his death; for Frode thought that he had reproached him covertly with fratricide. After this, the lives of Harald and Halfdan, the sons of Harald by Signe the daughter of Karl, were attempted by their uncle. But the guardians devised a cunning method of saving their wards. For they cut off the claws of wolves and tied them to the soles of their feet; and then made them run along many times so as to harrow up the mud near their dwelling, as well as the ground (then covered with, snow), and give the appearance of an attack by wild beasts. Then they killed the children of some bond-women, tore their bodies into little pieces, and scattered their mangled limbs all about. So when the youths were looked for in vain, the scattered limbs were found, the tracks of the beasts were pointed out, and the ground was seen besmeared with blood. It was believed that the boys had been devoured by ravening wolves; and hardly anyone was suffered to doubt so plain a proof that they were mangled. The belief in this spectacle served to protect the wards. They were presently shut up by their guardians in a hollow oak, so that no trace of their being alive should get abroad, and were fed for a long time under pretence that they were dogs; and were even called by hounds' names, to prevent any belief getting abroad that they were hiding. (1) Frode alone refused to believe in their death; and he went and inquired of a woman skilled in divination where they were hid. So potent were her spells, that she seemed able, at any distance, to perceive anything, however intricately locked away, and to summon it out to light. She declared that one Ragnar had secretly undertaken to rear them, and had called them by the names of dogs to cover the matter. When the young men found themselves dragged from their hiding by the awful force of her spells, and brought before the eyes of the enchantress, loth to be betrayed by this terrible and imperious compulsion, they flung into her lap a shower of gold which they had received from their guardians. When she had taken the gift, she suddenly feigned death, and fell like one lifeless. Her servants asked the reason why she fell so suddenly; and she declared that the refuge of the sons of Harald was inscrutable; for their wondrous might qualified even the most awful effects of her spells. Thus she was content with a slight benefit, and could not bear to await a greater reward at the king's hands. After this Ragnar, finding that the belief concerning himself and his wards was becoming rife in common talk, took them, both away into Funen. Here he was taken by Frode, and confessed that he had put the young men in safe keeping; and he prayed the king to spare the wards whom he had made fatherless, and not to think it a piece of good fortune to be guilty of two unnatural murders. By this speech he changed the king's cruelty into shame; and he promised that if they attempted any plots in their own land, he would give information to the king. Thus he gained safety for his wards, and lived many years in freedom from terror. When the boys grew up, they went to Zealand, and were bidden by their friends to avenge their father. They vowed that they and their uncle should not both live out the year. When Ragnar found this out, he went by night to the palace, prompted by the recollection of his covenant, and announced that he was come privily to tell the king something he had promised. But the king was asleep, and he would not suffer them to wake him up, because Frode had been used to punish any disturbance of his rest with the sword. So mighty a matter was it thought of old to break the slumbers of a king by untimely intrusion. Frode heard this from the sentries in the morning; and when he perceived that Ragnar had come to tell him of the treachery, he gathered together his soldiers, and resolved to forestall deceit by ruthless measures. Harald's sons had no help for it but to feign madness. For when they found themselves suddenly attacked, they began to behave like maniacs, as if they were distraught. And when Frode thought that they were possessed, he gave up his purpose, thinking it shameful to attack with the sword those who seemed to be turning the sword against themselves. But he was burned to death by them on the following night, and was punished as befitted a fratricide. For they attacked the palace, and first crushing the queen with a mass of stones and then, having set fire to the house, they forced Frode to crawl into a narrow cave that had been cut out long before, and into the dark recesses of tunnels. Here he lurked in hiding and perished, stifled by the reek and smoke. After Frode was killed, HALFDAN reigned over his country about three years, and then, handing over his sovereignty to his brother Harald as deputy, went roving, and attacked and ravaged Oland and the neighbouring isles, which are severed from contact with Sweden by a winding sound. Here in the winter he beached and entrenched his ships, and spent three years on the expedition. After this he attacked Sweden, and destroyed its king in the field. Afterwards he prepared to meet the king's grandson Erik, the son of his own uncle Frode, in battle; and when he heard that Erik's champion, Hakon, was skillful in blunting swords with his spells, he fashioned, to use for clubbing, a huge mace studded with iron knobs, as if he would prevail by the strength of wood over the power of sorcery. Then--for he was conspicuous beyond all others for his bravery--amid the hottest charges of the enemy, he covered his head with his helmet, and, without a shield, poised his club, and with the help of both hands whirled it against the bulwark of shields before him. No obstacle was so stout but it was crushed to pieces by the blow of the mass that smote it. Thus he overthrew the champion, who ran against him in the battle, with a violent stroke of his weapon. But he was conquered notwithstanding, and fled away into Helsingland, where he went to one Witolf (who had served of old with Harald), to seek tendance for his wounds. This man had spent most of his life in camp; but at last, after the grievous end of his general, he had retreated into this lonely district, where he lived the life of a peasant, and rested from the pursuits of war. Often struck himself by the missiles of the enemy, he had gained no slight skill in leechcraft by constantly tending his own wounds. But if anyone came with flatteries to seek his aid, instead of curing him he was accustomed to give him something that would secretly injure him, thinking it somewhat nobler to threaten than to wheedle for benefits. When the soldiers of Erik menaced his house, in their desire to take Halfdan, he so robbed them of the power of sight that they could neither perceive the house nor trace it with certainty, though it was close to them. So utterly had their eyesight been dulled by a decisive mist. When Halfdan had by this man's help regained his full strength, he summoned Thore, a champion of notable capacity, and proclaimed war against Erik. But when the forces were led out on the other side, and he saw that Erik was superior in numbers, he hid a part of his army, and instructed it to lie in ambush among the bushes by the wayside, in order to destroy the enemy by an ambuscade as he marched through the narrow part of the path. Erik foresaw this, having reconnoitred his means of advancing, and thought he must withdraw for fear, if he advanced along the track he had intended, of being hard-pressed by the tricks of the enemy among the steep windings of the hills. They therefore joined battle, force against force, in a deep valley, inclosed all round by lofty mountain ridges. Here Halfdan, when he saw the line of his men wavering, climbed with Thore up a crag covered with stones and, uprooting boulders, rolled them down upon the enemy below; and the weight of these as they fell crushed the line that was drawn up in the lower position. Thus he regained with stones the victory which he had lost with arms. For this deed of prowess he received the name of Biargramm ("rock strong"), a word which seems to have been compounded from the name of his fierceness and of the mountains. He soon gained so much esteem for this among the Swedes that he was thought to be the son of the great Thor, and the people bestowed divine honours upon him, and judged him worthy of public libation. But the souls of the conquered find it hard to rest, and the insolence of the beaten ever struggles towards the forbidden thing. So it came to pass that Erik, in his desire to repair the losses incurred in flight, attacked the districts subject to Halfdan. Even Denmark he did not exempt from this harsh treatment; for he thought it a most worthy deed to assail the country of the man who had caused him to be driven from his own. And so, being more anxious to inflict injury than to repel it, he set Sweden free from the arms of the enemy. When Halfdan heard that his brother Harald had been beaten by Erik in three battles, and slain in the fourth, he was afraid of losing his empire; he had to quit the land of the Swedes and go back to his own country. Thus Erik regained the kingdom of Sweden all the more quickly, that he quitted it so lightly. Had fortune wished to favour him in keeping his kingdom as much as she had in regaining it, she would in nowise have given him into the hand of Halfdan. This capture was made in the following way: When Halfdan had gone back into Sweden, he hid his fleet craftily, and went to meet Erik with two vessels. Erik attacked him with ten; and Halfdan, sailing through sundry winding channels, stole back to his concealed forces. Erik pursued him too far, and the Danish fleet came out on the sea. Thus Erik was surrounded; but he rejected the life, which was offered him under condition of thraldom. He could not bear to think more of the light of day than liberty, and chose to die rather than serve; lest he should seem to love life so well as to turn from a slave into a freeman; and that he might not court with new-born obeisance the man whom fortune had just before made only his equal. So little knows virtue how to buy life with dishonour. Wherefore he was put in chains, and banished to a place haunted by wild beasts; an end unworthy of that lofty spirit. Halfdan had thus become sovereign of both kingdoms, and graced his fame with a triple degree of honour. For he was skillful and eloquent in composing poems in the fashion of his country; and he was no less notable as a valorous champion than as a powerful king. But when he heard that two active rovers, Toke and Anund, were threatening the surrounding districts, he attacked and routed them in a sea-fight. For the ancients thought that nothing was more desirable than glory which was gained, not by brilliancy of wealth, but by address in arms. Accordingly, the most famous men of old were so minded as to love seditions, to renew quarrels, to loathe ease, to prefer fighting to peace, to be rated by their valour and not by their wealth, to find their greatest delight in battles, and their least in banquetings. But Halfdan was not long to seek for a rival. A certain Siwald, of most illustrious birth, related with lamentation in the assembly of the Swedes the death of Frode and his queen; and inspired in almost all of them such a hatred of Halfdan, that the vote of the majority granted him permission to revolt. Nor was he content with the mere goodwill of their voices, but so won the heart of the commons by his crafty canvassing that he induced almost all of them to set with their hands the royal emblem on his head. Siwald had seven sons, who were such clever sorcerers that often, inspired with the force of sudden frenzy, they would roar savagely, bite their shields, swallow hot coals, and go through any fire that could be piled up; and their frantic passion could only be checked by the rigour of chains, or propitiated by slaughter of men. With such a frenzy did their own sanguinary temper, or else the fury of demons, inspire them. When Halfdan had heard of these things while busy roving, he said it was right that his soldiers, who had hitherto spent their rage upon foreigners, should now smite with the steel the flesh of their own countrymen, and that they who had been used to labour to extend their realm should now avenge its wrongful seizure. On Halfdan approaching, Siwald sent him ambassadors and requested him, if he was as great in act as in renown, to meet himself and his sons in single combat, and save the general peril by his own. When the other answered, that a combat could not lawfully be fought by more than two men, Siwald said, that it was no wonder that a childless bachelor should refuse the proffered conflict, since his nature was void of heat, and had struck a disgraceful frost into his soul and body. Children, he added, were not different from the man who begot them, since they drew from him their common principle of birth. Thus he and his sons were to be accounted as one person, for nature seemed in a manner to have bestowed on them a single body. Halfdan, stung with this shameful affront, accepted the challenge; meaning to wipe out with noble deeds of valour such an insulting taunt upon his celibacy. And while he chanced to be walking through a shady woodland, he plucked up by the roots all oak that stuck in his path, and, by simply stripping it of its branches, made it look like a stout club. Having this trusty weapon, he composed a short song as follows: "Behold! The rough burden which I bear with straining crest, shall unto crests bring wounds and destruction. Never shall any weapon of leafy wood crush the Goths with direr augury. It shall shatter the towering strength of the knotty neck, and shall bruise the hollow temples with the mass of timber. The club which shall quell the wild madness of the land shall be no less fatal to the Swedes. Breaking bones, and brandished about the mangled limbs of warriors, the stock I have wrenched off shall crush the backs of the wicked, crush the hearths of our kindred, shed the blood of our countrymen, and be a destructive pest upon our land." When he had said this, he attacked Siwald and his seven sons, and destroyed them, their force and bravery being useless against the enormous mass of his club. At this time one Hardbeen, who came from Helsingland, gloried in kidnapping and ravishing princesses, and used to kill any man who hindered him in his lusts. He preferred high matches to those that were lowly; and the more illustrious the victims he could violate, the more noble he thought himself. No man escaped unpunished who durst measure himself with Hardbeen in valour. He was so huge, that his stature reached the measure of nine ells. He had twelve champions dwelling with him, whose business it was to rise up and to restrain his fury with the aid of bonds, whenever the rage came on him that foreboded of battle. These men asked Halfdan to attack Hardbeen and his champions man by man; and he not only promised to fight, but assured himself the victory with most confident words. When Hardbeen heard this, a demoniacal frenzy suddenly took him; he furiously bit and devoured the edges of his shield; he kept gulping down fiery coals; he snatched live embers in his mouth and let them pass down into his entrails; he rushed through the perils of crackling fires; and at last, when he had raved through every sort of madness, he turned his sword with raging hand against the hearts of six of his champions. It is doubtful whether this madness came from thirst for battle or natural ferocity. Then with the remaining band of his champions he attacked Halfdan, who crushed him with a hammer of wondrous size, so that he lost both victory and life; paying the penalty both to Halfdan, whom he had challenged, and to the kings whose offspring he had violently ravished. Fortune never seemed satisfied with the trying of Halfdan's strength, and used to offer him unexpected occasions for fighting. It so happened that Egther, a Finlander, was harrying the Swedes on a roving raid. Halfdan, having found that he had three ships, attacked him with the same number. Night closed the battle, so that he could not conquer him; but he challenged Egther next day, fought with and overthrew him. He next heard that Grim, a champion of immense strength, was suing, under threats of a duel, for Thorhild, the daughter of the chief Hather, and that her father had proclaimed that he who put the champion out of the way should have her. Halfdan, though he had reached old age a bachelor, was stirred by the promise of the chief as much as by the insolence of the champion, and went to Norway. When he entered it, he blotted out every mark by which he could be recognized, disguising his face with splashes of dirt; and when he came to the spot of the battle, drew his sword first. And when he knew that it had been blunted by the glance of the enemy, he cast it on the ground, drew another from the sheath, with which he attacked Grim, cutting through the meshes on the edge of his cuirass, as well as the lower part of his shield. Grim wondered at the deed, and said, "I cannot remember an old man who fought more keenly;" and, instantly drawing his sword, he pierced through and shattered the target that was opposed to his blade. But as his right arm tarried on the stroke, Halfdan, without wavering, met and smote it swiftly with his sword. The other, notwithstanding, clasped his sword with his left hand, and cut through the thigh of the striker, revenging the mangling of his own body with a slight wound. Halfdan, now conqueror, allowed the conquered man to ransom the remnant of his life with a sum of money; he would not be thought shamefully to rob a maimed man, who could not fight, of the pitiful remainder of his days. By this deed he showed himself almost as great in saving as in conquering his enemy. As a prize for this victory he won Thorhild in marriage, and had by her a son Asmund, from whom the kings of Norway treasure the honour of being descended; retracing the regular succession of their line down from Halfdan. After this, Ebbe, a rover of common birth, was so confident of his valour, that he was moved to aspire to a splendid marriage. He was a suitor for Sigrid, the daughter of Yngwin, King of the Goths, and moreover demanded half the Gothic kingdom for her dowry. Halfdan was consulted whether the match should be entertained, and advised that a feigned consent should be given, promising that he would baulk the marriage. He also gave instructions that a seat should be allotted to himself among the places of the guests at table. Yngwin approved the advice; and Halfdan, utterly defacing the dignity of his royal presence with an unsightly and alien disguise, and coming by night on the wedding feast, alarmed those who met him; for they marvelled at the coming of a man of such superhuman stature. When Halfdan entered the palace, he looked round on all and asked, who was he that had taken the place next to the king? Upon Ebbe replying that the future son-in-law of the king was next to his side, Halfdan asked him, in the most passionate language, what madness, or what demons, had brought him to such wantonness, as to make bold to unite his contemptible and filthy race with a splendid and illustrious line, or to dare to lay his peasant finger upon the royal family: and, not content even with such a claim, to aspire, as it seemed, to a share even in the kingdom of another. Then he bade Ebbe fight him, saying that he must get the victory before he got his wish. The other answered that the night was the time to fight with monsters, but the day the time with men; but Halfdan, to prevent him shirking the battle by pleading the hour, declared that the moon was shining with the brightness of daylight. Thus he forced Ebbe to fight, and felled him, turning the banquet into a spectacle, and the wedding into a funeral. Some years passed, and Halfdan went back to his own country, and being childless he bequeathed the royal wealth by will to Yngwin, and appointed him king. YNGWIN was afterwards overthrown in war by a rival named Ragnald, and he left a son SIWALD. Siwald's daughter, Sigrid, was of such excellent modesty, that though a great concourse of suitors wooed her for her beauty, it seemed as if she could not be brought to look at one of them. Confident in this power of self-restraint, she asked her father for a husband who by the sweetness of his blandishments should be able to get a look back from her. For in old time among us the self-restraint of the maidens was a great subduer of wanton looks, lest the soundness of the soul should be infected by the licence of the eyes; and women desired to avouch the purity of their hearts by the modesty of their faces. Then one Ottar, the son of Ebb, kindled with confidence in the greatness either of his own achievements, or of his courtesy and eloquent address, stubbornly and ardently desired to woo the maiden. And though he strove with all the force of his wit to soften her gaze, no device whatever could move her downcast eyes; and, marvelling at her persistence in her indomitable rigour, he departed. A giant desired the same thing, but, finding himself equally foiled, he suborned a woman; and she, pretending friendship for the girl, served her for a while as her handmaid, and at last enticed her far from her father's house, by cunningly going out of the way; then the giant rushed upon her and bore her off into the closest fastnesses of a ledge on the mountain. Others think that he disguised himself as a woman, treacherously continued his devices so as to draw the girl away from her own house, and in the end carried her off. When Ottar heard of this, he ransacked the recesses of the mountain in search of the maiden, found her, slew the giant, and bore her off. But the assiduous giant had bound back the locks of the maiden, tightly twisting her hair in such a way that the matted mass of tresses was held in a kind of curled bundle; nor was it easy for anyone to unravel their plaited tangle, without using the steel. Again, he tried with divers allurements to provoke the maiden to look at him; and when he had long laid vain siege to her listless eyes, he abandoned his quest, since his purpose turned out so little to his liking. But he could not bring himself to violate the girl, loth to defile with ignoble intercourse one of illustrious birth. She then wandered long, and sped through divers desert and circuitous paths, and happened to come to the hut of a certain huge woman of the woods, who set her to the task of pasturing her goats. Again Ottar granted her his aid to set her free, and again he tried to move her, addressing her in this fashion: "Wouldst thou rather hearken to my counsels, and embrace me even as I desire, than be here and tend the flock of rank goats? "Spurn the hand of thy wicked mistress, and flee hastily from thy cruel taskmistress, that thou mayst go back with me to the ships of thy friends and live in freedom. "Quit the care of the sheep entrusted to thee; scorn to drive the steps of the goats; share my bed, and fitly reward my prayers. "O thou whom I have sought with such pains, turn again thy listless beams; for a little while--it is an easy gesture--lift thy modest face. "I will take thee hence, and set thee by the house of thy father, and unite thee joyfully with thy loving mother, if but once thou wilt show me thine eyes stirred with soft desires. "Thou, whom I have borne so oft from the prisons of the giants, pay thou some due favour to my toil of old; pity my hard endeavours, and be stern no more. "For why art thou become so distraught and brainsick, that thou wilt choose to tend the flock of another, and be counted among the servants of monsters, sooner than encourage our marriage-troth with fitting and equal consent?" But she, that she might not suffer the constancy of her chaste mind to falter by looking at the world without, restrained her gaze, keeping her lids immovably rigid. How modest, then, must we think, were the women of that age, when, under the strongest provocations of their lovers, they could not be brought to make the slightest motion of their eyes! So when Ottar found that even by the merits of his double service he could not stir the maiden's gaze towards him, he went back to the fleet, wearied out with shame and chagrin. Sigrid, in her old fashion, ran far away over the rocks, and chanced to stray in her wanderings to the abode of Ebb; where, ashamed of her nakedness and distress, she pretended to be a daughter of paupers. The mother of Ottar saw that this woman, though bestained and faded, and covered with a meagre cloak, was the scion of some noble stock; and took her, and with honourable courtesy kept her by her side in a distinguished seat. For the beauty of the maiden was a sign that betrayed her birth, and her telltale features echoed her lineage. Ottar saw her, and asked why she hid her face in her robe. Also, in order to test her mind more surely, he feigned that a woman was about to become his wife, and, as he went up into the bride-bed, gave Sigrid the torch to hold. The lights had almost burnt down, and she was hard put to it by the flame coming closer; but she showed such an example of endurance that she was seen to hold her hand motionless, and might have been thought to feel no annoyance from the heat. For the fire within mastered the fire without, and the glow of her longing soul deadened the burn of her scorched skin. At last Ottar bade her look to her hand. Then, modestly lifting her eyes, she turned her calm gaze upon him; and straightway, the pretended marriage being put away, went up unto the bride-bed to be his wife. Siwald afterwards seized Ottar, and thought that he ought to be hanged for defiling his daughter. But Sigrid at once explained how she had happened to be carried away, and not only brought Ottar back into the king's favour, but also induced her father himself to marry Ottar's sister. After this a battle was fought between Siwald and Ragnald in Zealand, warriors of picked valour being chosen on both sides. For three days they slaughtered one another; but so great was the bravery of both sides, that it was doubtful how the victory would go. Then Ottar, whether seized with weariness at the prolonged battle, or with desire of glory, broke, despising death, through the thickest of the foe, cut down Ragnald among the bravest of his soldiers, and won the Danes a sudden victory. This battle was notable for the cowardice of the greatest nobles. For the whole mass fell into such a panic, that forty of the bravest of the Swedes are said to have turned and fled. The chief of these, Starkad, had been used to tremble at no fortune, however cruel, and no danger, however great. But some strange terror stole upon him, and he chose to follow the flight of his friends rather than to despise it. I should think that he was filled with this alarm by the power of heaven, that he might not think himself courageous beyond the measure of human valour. Thus the prosperity of mankind is wont ever to be incomplete. Then all these warriors embraced the service of King Hakon, the mightiest of the rovers, like remnants of the war drifting to him. After this Siwald was succeeded by his son SIGAR, who had sons Siwald, Alf, and Alger, and a daughter Signe. All excelled the rest in spirit and beauty, and devoted himself to the business of a rover. Such a grace was shed on his hair, which had a wonderful dazzling glow, that his locks seemed to shine silvery. At the same time Siward, the king of the Goths, is said to have had two sons, Wemund and Osten, and a daughter Alfhild, who showed almost from her cradle such faithfulness to modesty that she continually kept her face muffled in her robe, lest she should cause her beauty to provoke the passion of another. Her father banished her into very close keeping, and gave her a viper and a snake to rear, wishing to defend her chastity by the protection of these reptiles when they came to grow up. For it would have been hard to pry into her chamber when it was barred by so dangerous a bolt. He also enacted that if any man tried to enter it, and failed, he must straightway yield his head to be taken off and impaled on a stake. The terror which was thus attached to wantonness chastened the heated spirits of the young men. Alf, the son of Sigar, thinking that peril of the attempt only made it nobler, declared himself a wooer, and went to subdue the beasts that kept watch beside the room of the maiden; inasmuch as, according to the decree, the embraces of the maiden were the prize of their subduer. Alf covered his body with a blood-stained hide in order to make them more frantic against him. Girt with this, as soon as he had entered the doors of the enclosure, he took a piece of red-hot steel in the tongs, and plunged it into the yawning throat of the viper, which he laid dead. Then he flung his spear full into the gaping mouth of the snake as it wound and writhed forward, and destroyed it. And when he demanded the gage which was attached to victory by the terms of the covenant, Siward answered that he would accept that man only for his daughter's husband of whom she made a free and decided choice. None but the girl's mother was stiff against the wooer's suit; and she privately spoke to her daughter in order to search her mind. The daughter warmly praised her suitor for his valour; whereon the mother upbraided her sharply, that her chastity should be unstrung, and she be captivated by charming looks; and because, forgetting to judge his virtue, she cast the gaze of a wanton mind upon the flattering lures of beauty. Thus Alfhild was led to despise the young Dane; whereupon she exchanged woman's for man's attire, and, no longer the most modest of maidens, began the life of a warlike rover. Enrolling in her service many maidens who were of the same mind, she happened to come to a spot where a band of rovers were lamenting the death of their captain, who had been lost in war; they made her their rover captain for her beauty, and she did deeds beyond the valour of woman. Alf made many toilsome voyages in pursuit of her, and in winter happened to come on a fleet of the Blacmen. The waters were at this time frozen hard, and the ships were caught in such a mass of ice that they could not get on by the most violent rowing. But the continued frost promised the prisoners a safer way of advance; and Alf ordered his men to try the frozen surface of the sea in their brogues, after they had taken off their slippery shoes, so that they could run over the level ice more steadily. The Blacmen supposed that they were taking to flight with all the nimbleness of their heels, and began to fight them, but their steps tottered exceedingly and they gave back, the slippery surface under their soles making their footing uncertain. But the Danes crossed the frozen sea with safer steps, and foiled the feeble advance of the enemy, whom they conquered, and then turned and sailed to Finland. Here they chanced to enter a rather narrow gulf, and, on sending a few men to reconnoitre, they learnt that the harbour was being held by a few ships. For Alfhild had gone before them with her fleet into the same narrows. And when she saw the strange ships afar off, she rowed in swift haste forward to encounter them, thinking it better to attack the foe than to await them. Alf's men were against attacking so many ships with so few; but he replied that it would be shameful if anyone should report to Alfhild that his desire to advance could be checked by a few ships in the path; for he said that their record of honours ought not to be tarnished by such a trifle. The Danes wondered whence their enemies got such grace of bodily beauty and such supple limbs. So, when they began the sea-fight, the young man Alf leapt on Alfhild's prow, and advanced towards the stern, slaughtering all that withstood him. His comrade Borgar struck off Alfhild's helmet, and, seeing the smoothness of her chin, saw that he must fight with kisses and not with arms; that the cruel spears must be put away, and the enemy handled with gentler dealings. So Alf rejoiced that the woman whom he had sought over land and sea in the face of so many dangers was now beyond all expectation in his power; whereupon he took hold of her eagerly, and made her change her man's apparel for a woman's; and afterwards begot on her a daughter, Gurid. Also Borgar wedded the attendant of Alfhild, Groa, and had by her a son, Harald, to whom the following age gave the surname Hyldeland. And that no one may wonder that this sex laboured at warfare, I will make a brief digression, in order to give a short account of the estate and character of such women. There were once women among the Danes who dressed themselves to look like men, and devoted almost every instant of their lives to the pursuit of war, that they might not suffer their valour to be unstrung or dulled by the infection of luxury. For they abhorred all dainty living, and used to harden their minds and bodies with toil and endurance. They put away all the softness and lightmindedness of women, and inured their womanish spirit to masculine ruthlessness. They sought, moreover, so zealously to be skilled in warfare, that they might have been thought to have unsexed themselves. Those especially, who had either force of character or tall and comely persons, used to enter on this kind of life. These women, therefore (just as if they had forgotten their natural estate, and preferred sternness to soft words), offered war rather than kisses, and would rather taste blood than busses, and went about the business of arms more than that of amours. They devoted those hands to the lance which they should rather have applied to the loom. They assailed men with their spears whom they could have melted with their looks, they thought of death and not of dalliance. Now I will cease to wander, and will go back to my theme. In the early spring, Alf and Alger, who had gone back to sea-roving, were exploring the sea in various directions, when they lighted with a hundred ships upon Helwin, Hagbard, and Hamund, sons of the kinglet Hamund. These they attacked and only the twilight stayed their blood-wearied hands; and in the night the soldiers were ordered to keep truce. On the morrow this was ratified for good by a mutual oath; for such loss had been suffered on both sides in the battle of the day before that they had no force left to fight again. Thus, exhausted bye quality of valour, they were driven perforce to make peace. About the same time Hildigisl, a Teuton Of noble birth, relying on his looks and his rank, sued for Signe, the daughter of Sigar. But she scorned him, chiefly for his insignificance, inasmuch as he was not brave, but wished to adorn his fortunes with the courage of other people. But this woman was inclined to love Hakon, chiefly for the high renown of his great deeds. For she thought more of the brave than the feeble; she admired notable deeds more than looks, knowing that every allurement of beauty is mere dross when reckoned against simple valour, and cannot weigh equal with it in the balance. For there are maids that are more charmed by the fame than by the face of their lovers; who go not by the looks, but by the mind, and whom naught but regard for a man's spirit can kindle to pledge their own troth. Now Hagbard, going to Denmark with the sons of Sigar, gained speech of their sister without their knowledge, and in the end induced her to pledge her word to him that she would secretly become his mistress. Afterwards, when the waiting-women happened to be comparing the honourable deeds of the nobles, she preferred Hakon to Hildigisl, declaring that the latter had nothing to praise but his looks, while in the case of the other a wrinkled visage was outweighed by a choice spirit. Not content with this plain kind of praise, she is said to have sung as follows: "This man lacks fairness, but shines with foremost courage, measuring his features by his force. "For the lofty soul redeems the shortcoming of harsh looks, and conquers the body's blemish. "His look flashes with spirit, his face, notable in its very harshness, delights in fierceness. "He who strictly judges character praises not the mind for the fair hue, but rather the complexion for the mind. "This man is not prized for beauty, but for brave daring and war-won honour. "While the other is commended by his comely head and radiant countenance and crest of lustrous locks. "Vile is the empty grace of beauty, self-confounded the deceptive pride of comeliness. "Valour and looks are swayed by different inclinations: one lasts on, the other perishes. "Empty red and white brings in vice, and is frittered away little by little by the lightly gliding years; "But courage plants firmer the hearts devoted to it, and does not slip and straightway fall. "The voice of the multitude is beguiled by outward good, and forsakes the rule of right; "But I praise virtue at a higher rate, and scorn the grace of comeliness." This utterance fell on the ears of the bystanders in such a way, that they thought she praised Hagbard under the name of Hakon. And Hildigisl, vexed that she preferred Hagbard to himself, bribed a certain blind man, Bolwis, to bring the sons of Sigar and the sons of Hamund to turn their friendship into hatred. For King Sigar had been used to transact almost all affairs by the advice of two old men, one of whom was Bolwis. The temper of these two men was so different, that one used to reconcile folk who were at feud, while the other loved to sunder in hatred those who were bound by friendship, and by estranging folk to fan pestilent quarrels. So Bolwis began by reviling the sons of Hamund to the sons of Sigar, in lying slanders, declaring that they never used to preserve the bonds of fellowship loyally, and that they must be restrained by war rather than by league. Thus the alliance of the young men was broken through; and while Hagbard was far away, the sons of Sigar, Alf and Alger, made an attack, and Helwin and Hamund were destroyed by the harbour which is called Hamund's Bay. Hagbard then came up with fresh forces to avenge his brothers, and destroyed them in battle. Hildigisl slunk off with a spear through both buttocks, which was the occasion for a jeer at the Teutons, since the ugliness of the blow did not fail to brand it with disgrace. Afterwards Hagbard dressed himself in woman's attire, and, as though he had not wronged Sigar's daughter by slaying her brothers, went back to her alone, trusting in the promise he had from her, and feeling more safe in her loyalty than alarmed by reason of his own misdeed. Thus does lust despise peril. And, not to lack a pretext for his journey, he gave himself out as a fighting-maid of Hakon, saying that he took an embassy from him to Sigar. And when he was taken to bed at night among the handmaids, and the woman who washed his feet were wiping them, they asked him why he had such hairy legs, and why his hands were not at all soft to touch, he answered: "What wonder that the soft hollow of my foot should harden, and that long hairs should stay on my shaggy leg, when the sand has so often smitten my soles beneath, and the briars have caught me in mid-step? "Now I scour the forest with leaping, now the waters with running. Now the sea, now the earth, now the wave is my path. "Nor could my breast, shut in bonds of steel, and wont to be beaten with lance and missile, ever have been soft to the touch, as with you who are covered by the mantle or the smooth gown. "Not the distaff or the wool-frails, but spears dripping from the slaughter, have served for our handling." Signe did not hesitate to back up his words with like dissembling, and replied that it was natural that hands which dealt more in wounds than wools, and in battle than in tasks of the house should show the hardness that befitted their service; and that, unenfeebled with the pliable softness of women, they should not feel smooth to the touch of others. For they were hardened partly by the toils of war, partly by the habit of seafaring. For, said she, the warlike handmaid of Hakon did not deal in woman's business, but had been wont to bring her right hand blood-stained with hurling spears and flinging missiles. It was no wonder, therefore, if her soles were hardened by the immense journeys she had gone; and that, when the shores she had scoured so often had bruised them with their rough and broken shingle, they should toughen in a horny stiffness, and should not feel soft to the touch like theirs, whose steps never strayed, but who were forever cooped within the confines of the palace. Hagbard received her as his bedfellow, under plea that he was to have the couch of honour; and, amid their converse of mutual delight, he addressed her slowly in such words as these: "If thy father takes me and gives me to bitter death, wilt thou ever, when I am dead, forget so strong a troth, and again seek the marriage-plight? "For if the chance should fall that way, I can hope for no room for pardon; nor will the father who is to avenge his sons spare or have pity. "For I stripped thy brothers of their power on the sea and slew them; and now, unknown to thy father, as though I had done naught before counter to his will, I hold thee in the couch we share. "Say, then, my one love, what manner of wish wilt thou show when thou lackest the accustomed embrace?" Signe answered: "Trust me, dear; I wish to die with thee, if fate brings thy turn to perish first, and not to prolong my span of life at all, when once dismal death has cast thee to the tomb. "For if thou chance to close thy eyes for ever, a victim to the maddened attack of the men-at-arms;--by whatsoever doom thy breath be cut off, by sword or disease, by sea or soil, I forswear every wanton and corrupt flame, and vow myself to a death like thine; that they who were bound by one marriage-union may be embraced in one and the same punishment. Nor will I quit this man, though I am to feel the pains of death; I have resolved he is worthy of my love who gathered the first kisses of my mouth, and had the first fruits of my delicate youth. I think that no vow will be surer than this, if speech of woman have any loyalty at all." This speech so quickened the spirit of Hagbard, that he found more pleasure in her promise than peril in his own going away (to his death). The serving-women betrayed him; and when Sigar's men-at-arms attacked him, he defended himself long and stubbornly, and slew many of them in the doorway. But at last he was taken, and brought before the assembly, and found the voices of the people divided over him. For very many said that he should be punished for so great an offence; but Bilwis, the brother of Bolwis, and others, conceived a better judgment, and advised that it would be better to use his stout service than to deal with him too ruthlessly. Then Bolwis came forward and declared that it was evil advice which urged the king to pardon when he ought to take vengeance, and to soften with unworthy compassion his righteous impulse to anger. For how could Sigar, in the case of this man, feel any desire to spare or pity him, when he had not only robbed him of the double comfort of his sons, but had also bestained him with the insult of deflowering his daughter? The greater part of the assembly voted for this opinion; Hagbard was condemned, and a gallows-tree planted to receive him. Hence it came about that he who at first had hardly one sinister voice against him was punished with general harshness. Soon after the queen handed him a cup, and, bidding him assuage his thirst, vexed him with threats after this manner: "Now, insolent Hagbard, whom the whole assembly has pronounced worthy of death, now to quench thy thirst thou shalt give thy lips liquor to drink in a cup of horn. "Wherefore cast away fear, and, at this last hour of thy life, taste with bold lips the deadly goblet; "That, having drunk it, thou mayst presently land by the dwellings of those below, passing into the sequestered palace of stern Dis, giving thy body to the gibbet and thy spirit to Orcus." Then the young man took the cup offered him, and is said to have made answer as follows: "With this hand, wherewith I cut off thy twin sons, I will take my last taste, yea the draught of the last drink. "Now not unavenged shall I go to the Elysian regions, not unchastising to the stern ghosts. For these men have first been shut in the dens of Tartarus by a slaughter wrought by my endeavours. This right hand was wet with blood that was yours, this hand robbed thy children of the years of their youth, children whom thy womb brought to light; but the deadly sword spared it not then. Infamous woman, raving in spirit, hapless, childless mother, no years shall restore to thee the lost, no time and no day whatsoever shall save thy child from the starkness of death, or redeem him!" Thus he avenged the queen's threats of death by taunting her with the youths whom he had slain; and, flinging back the cup at her, drenched her face with the sprinkled wine. Meantime Signe asked her weeping women whether they could endure to bear her company in the things which she purposed. They promised that they would carry out and perform themselves whatsoever their mistress should come to wish, and their promise was loyally kept. Then, drowned in tears, she said that she wished to follow in death the only partner of her bed that she had ever had; and ordered that, as soon as the signal had been given from a place of watch, torches should be put to the room, then that halters should be made out of their robes; and to these they should proffer their throats to be strangled, thrusting away the support to the feet. They agreed, and that they might blench the less at death, she gave them a draught of wine. After this Hagbard was led to the hill, which afterwards took its name from him, to be hanged. Then, to test the loyalty of his true love, he told the executioners to hang up his mantle, saying that it would be a pleasure to him if he could see the likeness of his approaching death rehearsed in some way. The request was granted; and the watcher on the outlook, thinking that the thing was being done to Hagbard, reported what she saw to the maidens who were shut within the palace. They quickly fired the house, and thrusting away the wooden support under their feet, gave their necks to the noose to be writhen. So Hagbard, when he saw the palace wrapped in fire, and the familiar chamber blazing, said that he felt more joy from the loyalty of his mistress than sorrow at his approaching death. He also charged the bystanders to do him to death, witnessing how little he made of his doom by a song like this: "Swiftly, O warriors! Let me be caught and lifted into the air. Sweet, O my bride! Is it for me to die when thou hast gone. "I perceive the crackling and the house ruddy with flames; and the love, long-promised, declares our troth. "Behold, thy covenant is fulfilled with no doubtful vows, since thou sharest my life and my destruction. "We shall have one end, one bond after our troth, and somewhere our first love will live on. "Happy am I, that have deserved to have joy of such a consort, and not to go basely alone to the gods of Tartarus! "Then let the knot gripe the midst of the throat; nought but pleasure the last doom shall bring, "Since there remains a sure hope of the renewal of love, and a death which will soon have joys of its own. "Either country is sweet; in both worlds shall be held in honour the repose of our souls together, our equal truth in love, "For, see now, I welcome the doom before me; since not even among the shades does very love suffer the embrace of its partner to perish." And as he spoke the executioners strangled him. And, that none may think that all traces of antiquity have utterly disappeared, a proof of the aforesaid event is afforded by local marks yet existing; for the killing of Hagbard gave his name to the stead; and not far from the town of Sigar there is a place to be seen, where a mound a little above the level, with the appearance of a swelling in the ground, looks like an ancient homestead. Moreover, a man told Absalon that he had seen a beam found in the spot, which a countryman struck with his ploughshare as he burrowed into the clods. Hakon, the son of Hamund, heard of this; but when he was seen to be on the point of turning his arms from the Irish against the Danes in order to avenge his brother, Hakon the Zealander, the son of Wigar, and Starkad deserted him. They had been his allies from the death of Ragnald up to that hour: one, because he was moved by regard for friendship, the other by regard for his birth; so that different reasons made both desire the same thing. Now patriotism diverted Hakon (of Zealand) from attacking his country; for it was apparent that he was going to fight his own people, while all the rest warred with foreigners. But Starkad forbore to become the foe of the aged Sigar, whose hospitality he had enjoyed, lest he should be thought to wrong one who deserved well of him. For some men pay such respect to hospitality that, if they can remember ever to have experienced kindly offices from folk, they cannot be thought to inflict any annoyance on them. But Hakon thought the death of his brother a worse loss than the defection of his champions; and, gathering his fleet into the haven called Herwig in Danish, and in Latin Hosts' Bight, he drew up his men, and posted his line of foot-soldiers in the spot where the town built by Esbern now defends with its fortifications those who dwell hard by, and repels the approach of barbarous savages. Then he divided his forces in three, and sent on two-thirds of his ships, appointing a few men to row to the river Susa. This force was to advance on a dangerous voyage along its winding reaches, and to help those on foot if necessary. He marched in person by land with the remainder, advancing chiefly over wooded country to escape notice. Part of this path, which was once closed up with thick woods, is now land ready for the plough, and fringed with a scanty scrub. And, in order that when they got out into the plain they might not lack the shelter of trees, he told them to cut and carry branches. Also, that nothing might burden their rapid march, he bade them cast away some of their clothes, as well as their scabbards; and carry their swords naked. In memory of this event he left the mountain and the ford a perpetual name. Thus by his night march he eluded two pickets of sentries; but when he came upon the third, a scout, observing the marvellous event, went to the sleeping-room of Sigar, saying that he brought news of a portentous thing; for he saw leaves and shrubs like men walking. Then the king asked him how far off was the advancing forest; and when he heard that it was near, he added that this prodigy boded his own death. Hence the marsh where the shrubs were cut down was styled in common parlance Deadly Marsh. Therefore, fearing the narrow passages, he left the town, and went to a level spot which was more open, there to meet the enemy in battle. Sigar fought unsuccessfully, and was crushed and slain at the spot that is called in common speech Walbrunna, but in Latin the Spring of Corpses or Carnage. Then Hakon used his conquest to cruel purpose, and followed up his good fortune so wickedly, that he lusted for an indiscriminate massacre, and thought no forbearance should be shown to rank or sex. Nor did he yield to any regard for compassion or shame, but stained his sword in the blood of women, and attacked mothers and children in one general and ruthless slaughter. SIWALD, the son of Sigar, had thus far stayed under his father's roof. But when he heard of this, he mustered an army in order to have his vengeance. So Hakon, alarmed at the gathering of such numbers, went back with a third of his army to his fleet at Herwig, and planned to depart by sea. But his colleague, Hakon, surnamed the Proud, thought that he ought himself to feel more confidence at the late victory than fear at the absence of Hakon; and, preferring death to flight, tried to defend the remainder of the army. So he drew back his camp for a little, and for a long time waited near the town of Axelsted, for the arrival of the fleet, blaming his friends for their tardy coming. For the fleet that had been sent into the river had not yet come to anchor in the appointed harbour. Now the killing of Sigar and the love of Siwald were stirring the temper of the people one and all, so that both sexes devoted themselves to war, and you would have thought that the battle did not lack the aid of women. On the morrow Hakon and Siwald met in an encounter and fought two whole days. The combat was most frightful; both generals fell; and victory graced the remnants of the Danes. But, in the night after the battle, the fleet, having penetrated the Susa, reached the appointed haven. It was once possible to row along this river; but its bed is now choked with solid substances, and is so narrowed by its straits that few vessels can get in, being prevented by its sluggishness and contractedness. At daybreak, when the sailors saw the corpses of their friends, they heaped up, in order to bury the general, a barrow of notable size, which is famous to this day, and is commonly named Hakon's Howe. But Borgar, with Skanian chivalry suddenly came up and slaughtered a multitude of them. When the enemy were destroyed, he manned their ships, which now lacked their rowers, and hastily, with breathless speed, pursued the son of Hamund. He encountered him, and ill-fortune befell Hakon, who fled in hasty panic with three ships to the country of the Scots, where, after two years had gone by, he died. All these perilous wars and fortunes had so exhausted the royal line among the Danes, that it was found to be reduced to GURID alone, the daughter of Alf, and granddaughter of Sigar. And when the Danes saw themselves deprived of their usual high-born sovereigns, they committed the kingdom to men of the people, and appointed rulers out of the commons, assigning to Ostmar the regency of Skaane, and that of Zealand to Hunding; on Hane they conferred the lordship of Funen; while in the hands of Rorik and Hather they put the supreme power of Jutland, the authority being divided. Therefore, that it may not be unknown from what father sprang the succeeding line of kings, some matters come to my mind which must be glanced at for a while in a needful digression. They say that Gunnar, the bravest of the Swedes, was once at feud with Norway for the most weighty reasons, and that he was granted liberty to attack it, but that he turned this liberty into licence by the greatest perils, and fell, in the first of the raids he planned, upon the district of Jather, which he put partly to the sword and partly to the flames. Forbearing to plunder, he rejoiced only in passing through the paths that were covered with corpses, and the blood-stained ways. Other men used to abstain from bloodshed, and love pillage more than slaughter; but he preferred bloodthirstiness to booty, and liked best to wreak his deadly pleasure by slaughtering men. His cruelty drove the islanders to forestall the impending danger by a public submission. Moreover, Ragnald, the King of the Northmen, now in extreme age, when he heard how the tyrant busied himself, had a cave made and shut up in it his daughter Drota, giving her due attendance, and providing her maintenance for a long time. Also he committed to the cave some swords which had been adorned with the choicest smith-craft, besides the royal household gear; so that he might not leave the enemy to capture and use the sword, which he saw that he could not wield himself. And, to prevent the cave being noticed by its height, he levelled the hump down to the firmer ground. Then he set out to war; but being unable with his aged limbs to go down into battle, he leaned on the shoulders of his escort and walked forth propped by the steps of others. So he perished in the battle, where he fought with more ardour than success, and left his country a sore matter for shame. For Gunnar, in order to punish the cowardice of the conquered race by terms of extraordinary baseness, had a dog set over them as a governor. What can we suppose to have been his object in this action, unless it were to make a haughty nation feel that their arrogance was being more signally punished when they bowed their stubborn heads before a yapping hound? To let no insult be lacking, he appointed governors to look after public and private affairs in its name; and he appointed separate ranks of nobles to keep continual and steadfast watch over it. He also enacted that if any one of the courtiers thought it contemptible to do allegiance to their chief, and omitted offering most respectful homage to its various goings and comings as it ran hither and thither, he should be punished with loss of his limbs. Also Gunnar imposed on the nation a double tribute, one to be paid out of the autumn harvest, the other in the spring. Thus he burst the bubble conceit of the Norwegians, to make them feel clearly how their pride was gone, when they saw it forced to do homage to a dog. When he heard that the king's daughter was shut up in some distant hiding-place, Gunnar strained his wits in every nerve to track her out. Hence, while he was himself conducting the search with others, his doubtful ear caught the distant sound of a subterranean hum. Then he went on slowly, and recognized a human voice with greater certainty. He ordered the ground underfoot to be dug down to the solid rock; and when the cave was suddenly laid open, he saw the winding tunnels. The servants were slain as they tried to guard the now uncovered entrance to the cave, and the girl was dragged out of the hole, together with the booty therein concealed. With great foresight, she had consigned at any rate her father's swords to the protection of a more secret place. Gunnar forced her to submit to his will, and she bore a son Hildiger. This man was such a rival to his father in cruelty, that he was ever thirsting to kill, and was bent on nothing but the destruction of men, panting with a boundless lust for bloodshed. Outlawed by his father on account of his unbearable ruthlessness, and soon after presented by Alver with a government, he spent his whole life in arms, visiting his neighbours with wars and slaughters; nor did he, in his estate of banishment, relax his accustomed savagery a whir, but would not change his spirit with his habitation. Meanwhile Borgar, finding that Gunnar had married Drota, the daughter of Ragnald, by violence, took from him both life and wife, and wedded Drota himself. She was not an unwilling bride; she thought it right for her to embrace the avenger of her parent. For the daughter mourned her father, and could never bring herself to submit with any pleasure to his murderer. This woman and Borgar had a son Halfdan, who through all his early youth was believed to be stupid, but whose later years proved illustrious for the most glorious deeds, and famous for the highest qualities that can grace life. Once, when a stripling, he mocked in boyish fashion at a champion of noble repute, who smote him with a buffet; whereupon Halfdan attacked him with the staff he was carrying and killed him. This deed was an omen of his future honours; he had hitherto been held in scorn, but henceforth throughout his life he had the highest honour and glory. The affair, indeed, was a prophecy of the greatness of his deeds in war. At this period, Rothe, a Ruthenian rover, almost destroyed our country with his rapine and cruelty. His harshness was so notable that, while other men spared their prisoners utter nakedness, he did not think it uncomely to strip of their coverings even the privy parts of their bodies; wherefore we are wont to this day to call all severe and monstrous acts of rapine Rothe-Ran (Rothe's Robbery). He used also sometimes to inflict the following kind of torture: Fastening the men's right feet firmly to the earth, he tied the left feet to boughs for the purpose that when these should spring back the body would be rent asunder. Hane, Prince of Funen, wishing to win honour and glory, tried to attack this man with his sea-forces, but took to flight with one attendant. It was in reproach of him that the proverb arose: "The cock (Hane) fights better on its own dunghill." Then Borgar, who could not bear to see his countrymen perishing any longer, encountered Rothe. Together they fought and together they perished. It is said that in this battle Halfdan was sorely stricken, and was for some time feeble with the wounds he had received. One of these was inflicted conspicuously on his mouth, and its scar was so manifest that it remained as an open blotch when all the other wounds were healed; for the crushed portion of the lip was so ulcerated by the swelling, that the flesh would not grow out again and mend the noisome gash. This circumstance fixed on him a most insulting nickname,... although wounds in the front of the body commonly bring praise and not ignominy. So spiteful a colour does the belief of the vulgar sometimes put upon men's virtues. Meanwhile Gurid, the daughter of Alf, seeing that the royal line was reduced to herself alone, and having no equal in birth whom she could marry, proclaimed a vow imposing chastity on herself, thinking it better to have no husband than to take one from the commons. Moreover, to escape outrage, she guarded her room with a chosen band of champions. Once Halfdan happened to come to see her. The champions, whose brother he had himself slain in his boyhood, were away. He told her that she ought to loose her virgin zone, and exchange her austere chastity for deeds of love; that she ought not to give in so much to her inclination for modesty as to be too proud to make a match, and so by her service repair the fallen monarchy. So he bade her look on himself, who was of eminently illustrious birth, in the light of a husband, since it appeared that she would only admit pleasure for the reason he had named. Gurid answered that she could not bring her mind to ally the remnants of the royal line to a man of meaner rank. Not content with reproaching his obscure birth, she also taunted his unsightly countenance. Halfdan rejoined that she brought against him two faults: one that his blood was not illustrious enough; another, that he was blemished with a cracked lip whose scar had never healed. Therefore he would not come back to ask for her before he had wiped away both marks of shame by winning glory in war. Halfdan entreated her to suffer no man to be privy to her bed until she heard certain tidings either of his return or his death. The champions, whom he had bereaved of their brother long ago, were angry that he had spoken to Gurid, and tried to ride after him as he went away. When he saw it, he told his comrades to go into ambush, and said he would encounter the champions alone. His followers lingered, and thought it shameful to obey his orders, but he drove them off with threats, saying that Gurid should not find that fear had made him refuse to fight. Presently he cut down an oak-tree and fashioned it into a club, fought the twelve single-handed, and killed them. After their destruction, not content with the honours of so splendid an action, and meaning to do one yet greater, he got from his mother the swords of his grandfather, one of which was called Lyusing.... and the other Hwyting, after the sheen of its well-whetted point. But when he heard that war was raging between Alver, the King of Sweden, and the Ruthenians (Russians), he instantly went to Russia, offered help to the natives, and was received by all with the utmost honour. Alver was not far off, there being only a little ground to cross to cover the distance between the two. Alver's soldier Hildiger, the son of Gunnar, challenged the champions of the Ruthenians to fight him; but when he saw that Halfdan was put up against him, though knowing well that he was Halfdan's brother, he let natural feeling prevail over courage, and said that he, who was famous for the destruction of seventy champions, would not fight with an untried man. Therefore he told him to measure himself in enterprises of lesser moment, and thenceforth to follow pursuits fitted to his strength. He made this announcement not from distrust in his own courage, but in order to preserve his uprightness; for he was not only very valiant, but also skilled at blunting the sword with spells. For when he remembered that Halfdan's father had slain his own, he was moved by two feelings--the desire to avenge his father, and his love for his brother. He therefore thought it better to retire from the challenge than to be guilty of a very great crime. Halfdan demanded another champion in his place, slew him when he appeared, and was soon awarded the palm of valour even by the voice of the enemy, being accounted by public acclamation the bravest of all. On the next day he asked for two men to fight with, and slew them both. On the third day he subdued three; on the fourth he overcame four who met him; and on the fifth he asked for five. When Halfdan conquered these, and when the eighth day had been reached with an equal increase in the combatants and in the victory, he laid low eleven who attacked him at once. Hildiger, seeing that his own record of honours was equalled by the greatness of Halfdan's deeds could not bear to decline to meet him any longer. And when he felt that Halfdan had dealt him a deadly wound with a sword wrapped in rags, he threw away his arms, and, lying on the earth, addressed his brother as follows: "It is pleasing to pass an hour away in mutual talk; and, while the sword rests, to sit a little on the ground and while away the time by speaking in turn, and keep ourselves in good heart. Time is left for our purpose; our two destinies have a different lot; one is surely doomed to die by a fatal weird, while triumph and glory and all the good of living await the other in better years. Thus our omens differ, and our portions are distinguished. Thou art a son of the Danish land, I of the country of Sweden. Once, Drota thy mother had her breast swell for thee; she bore me, and by her I am thy foster-brother. Lo now, there perishes a righteous offspring, who had the heart to fight with savage spears; brothers born of a shining race charge and bring death on one another; while they long for the height of power, they lose their days, and, having now received a fatal mischief in their desire for a sceptre, they will go to Styx in a common death. Fast by my head stands my Swedish shield, which is adorned with (as) a fresh mirror of diverse chasing, and ringed with layers of marvellous fretwork. There a picture of really hues shows slain nobles and conquered champions, and the wars also and the notable deed of my right hand. In the midst is to be seen, painted in bright relief, the figure of my son, whom this hand bereft of his span of life. He was our only heir, the only thought of his father's mind, and given to his mother with comfort from above. An evil lot, which heaps years of ill-fortune on the joyous, chokes mirth in mourning, and troubles our destiny. For it is lamentable and wretched to drag out a downcast life, to draw breath through dismal days and to chafe at foreboding. But whatsoever things are bound by the prophetic order of the fates, whatsoever are shadowed in the secrets of the divine plan, whatsoever are foreseen and fixed in the course of the destinies, no change of what is transient shall cancel these things." When he had thus spoken, Halfdan condemned Hildiger for sloth in avowing so late their bond of brotherhood; he declared he had kept silence that he might not be thought a coward for refusing to fight, or a villain if he fought; and while intent on these words of excuse, he died. But report had given out among the Danes that Hildiger had overthrown Halfdan. After this, Siwar, a Saxon of very high birth, began to be a suitor for Gurid, the only survivor of the royal blood among the Danes. Secretly she preferred Halfdan to him, and imposed on her wooer the condition that he should not ask her in marriage till he had united into one body the kingdom of the Danes, which was now torn limb from limb, and restored by arms what had been wrongfully taken from her. Siwar made a vain attempt to do this; but as he bribed all the guardians, she was at last granted to him in betrothal. Halfdan heard of this in Russia through traders, and voyaged so hard that he arrived before the time of the wedding-rites. On their first day, before he went to the palace, he gave orders that his men should not stir from the watches appointed them till their ears caught the clash of the steel in the distance. Unknown to the guests, he came and stood before the maiden, and, that he might not reveal his meaning to too many by bare and common speech, he composed a dark and ambiguous song as follows: "As I left my father's sceptre, I had no fear of the wiles of woman's device nor of female subtlety. "When I overthrew, one and two, three and four, and soon five, and next six, then seven, and also eight, yea eleven single-handed, triumphant in battle. "But neither did I then think that I was to be shamed with the taint of disgrace, with thy frailness to thy word and thy beguiling pledges." Gurid answered: "My soul wavered in suspense, with slender power over events, and shifted about with restless fickleness. The report of thee was so fleeting, so doubtful, borne on uncertain stories, and parched by doubting heart. I feared that the years of thy youth had perished by the sword. Could I withstand singly my elders and governors, when they forbade me to refuse that thing, and pressed me to become a wife? My love and my flame are both yet unchanged, they shall be mate and match to thine; nor has my troth been disturbed, but shall have faithful approach to thee. "For my promise has not yet beguiled thee at all, though I, being alone, could not reject the counsel of such manifold persuasion, nor oppose their stern bidding in the matter of my consent to the marriage bond." Before the maiden had finished her answer, Halfdan had already run his sword through the bridegroom. Not content with having killed one man, he massacred most of the guests. Staggering tipsily backwards, the Saxons ran at him, but his servants came up and slaughtered them. After this HALFDAN took Gurid to wife. But finding in her the fault of barrenness, and desiring much to have offspring, he went to Upsala in order to procure fruitfulness for her; and being told in answer, that he must make atonement to the shades of his brother if he would raise up children, he obeyed the oracle, and was comforted by gaining his desire. For he had a son by Gurid, to whom he gave the name of Harald. Under his title Halfdan tried to restore the kingdom of the Danes to its ancient estate, as it was torn asunder by the injuries of the chiefs; but, while fighting in Zealand, he attacked Wesete, a very famous champion, in battle, and was slain. Gurid was at the battle in man's attire, from love for her son. She saw the event; the young man fought hotly, but his companions fled; and she took him on her shoulders to a neighbouring wood. Weariness, more than anything else, kept the enemy from pursuing him; but one of them shot him as he hung, with an arrow, through the hinder parts, and Harald thought that his mother's care brought him more shame than help. HARALD, being of great beauty and unusual size, and surpassing those of his age in strength and stature, received such favour from Odin (whose oracle was thought to have been the cause of his birth), that steel could not injure his perfect soundness. The result was, that shafts which wounded others were disabled from doing him any harm. Nor was the boon unrequited; for he is reported to have promised to Odin all the souls which his sword cast out of their bodies. He also had his father's deeds recorded for a memorial by craftsmen on a rock in Bleking, whereof I have made mention. After this, hearing that Wesete was to hold his wedding in Skaane, he went to the feast disguised as a beggar; and when all were sunken in wine and sleep, he battered the bride-chamber with a beam. But Wesete, without inflicting a wound, so beat his mouth with a cudgel, that he took out two teeth; but two grinders unexpectedly broke out afterwards and repaired their loss: an event which earned him the name of Hyldetand, which some declare he obtained on account of a prominent row of teeth. Here he slew Wesete, and got the sovereignty of Skaane. Next he attacked and killed Hather in Jutland; and his fall is marked by the lasting name of the town. After this he overthrew Hunding and Rorik, seized Leire, and reunited the dismembered realm of Denmark into its original shape. Then he found that Asmund, the King of the Wikars, had been deprived of his throne by his elder sister; and, angered by such presumption on the part of a woman, went to Norway with a single ship, while the war was still undecided, to help him. The battle began; and, clothed in a purple cloak, with a coif broidered with gold, and with his hair bound up, he went against the enemy trusting not in arms, but in his silent certainty of his luck, insomuch that he seemed dressed more for a feast than a fray. But his spirit did not match his attire. For, though unarmed and only adorned with his emblems of royalty, he outstripped the rest who bore arms, and exposed himself, lightly-armed as he was, to the hottest perils of the battle. For the shafts aimed against him lost all power to hurt, as if their points had been blunted. When the other side saw him fighting unarmed, they made an attack, and were forced for very shame into assailing him more hotly. But Harald, whole in body, either put them to the sword, or made them take to flight; and thus he overthrew the sister of Asmund, and restored him his kingdom. When Asmund offered him the prizes of victory, he said that the reward of glory was enough by itself; and demeaned himself as greatly in refusing the gifts as he had in earning them. By this he made all men admire his self-restraint as much as his valour; and declared that the victory should give him a harvest not of gold but glory. Meantime Alver, the King of the Swedes, died leaving sons Olaf, Ing, and Ingild. One of these, Ing, dissatisfied with the honours his father bequeathed him, declared war with the Danes in order to extend his empire. And when Harald wished to inquire of oracles how this war would end, an old man of great height, but lacking one eye, and clad also in a hairy mantle, appeared before him, and declared that he was called Odin, and was versed in the practice of warfare; and he gave him the most useful instruction how to divide up his army in the field. Now he told him, whenever he was going to make war with his land-forces, to divide his whole army into three squadrons, each of which he was to pack into twenty ranks; the centre squadron, however, he was to extend further than the rest by the number of twenty men. This squadron he was also to arrange in the form of the point of a cone or pyramid, and to make the wings on either side slant off obliquely from it. He was to compose the successive ranks of each squadron in the following way: the front should begin with two men, and the number in each succeeding rank should only increase by one; he was, in fact, to post a rank of three in the second line, four in the third, and so on behind. And thus, when the men mustered, all the succeeding ranks were to be manned at the same rate of proportion, until the end of (the edge that made) the junction of men came down to the wings; each wing was to be drawn up in ten lines from that point. Likewise after these squadrons he was to put the young men, equipped with lances, and behind these to set the company of aged men, who would support their comrades with what one might call a veteran valour if they faltered; next, a skilful reckoner should attach wings of slingers to stand behind the ranks of their fellows and attack the enemy from a distance with missiles. After these he was to enroll men of any age or rank indiscriminately, without heed of their estate. Moreover, he was to draw up the rear like the vanguard, in three separated divisions, and arranged in ranks similarly proportioned. The back of this, joining on to the body in front would protect it by facing in the opposite direction. But if a sea-battle happened to occur, he should withdraw a portion of his fleet, which when he began the intended engagement, was to cruise round that of the enemy, wheeling to and fro continually. Equipped with this system of warfare, he forestalled matters in Sweden, and killed Ing and Olaf as they were making ready to fight. Their brother Ingild sent messengers to beg a truce, on pretence of his ill-health. Harald granted his request, that his own valour, which had learnt to spare distress, might not triumph over a man in the hour of lowliness and dejection. When Ingild afterwards provoked Harald by wrongfully ravishing his sister, Harald vexed him with long and indecisive war, but then took him into his friendship, thinking it better to have him for ally than for enemy. After this he heard that Olaf, King of the Thronds, had to fight with the maidens Stikla and Rusila for the kingdom. Much angered at this arrogance on the part of women, he went to Olaf unobserved, put on dress which concealed the length of his teeth, and attacked the maidens. He overthrew them both, leaving to two harbours a name akin to theirs. It was then that he gave a notable exhibition of valour; for defended only by a shirt under his shoulders, he fronted the spears with unarmed breast. When Olaf offered Harald the prize of victory, he rejected the gift, thus leaving it a question whether he had shown a greater example of bravery or self-control. Then he attacked a champion of the Frisian nation, named Ubbe, who was ravaging the borders of Jutland and destroying numbers of the common people; and when Harald could not subdue him to his arms, he charged his soldiers to grip him with their hands, throw him on the ground, and to bind him while thus overpowered. Thus he only overcame the man and mastered him by a shameful kind of attack, though a little before he thought he would inflict a heavy defeat on him. But Harald gave him his sister in marriage, and thus gained him for his soldier. Harald made tributaries of the nations that lay along the Rhine, levying troops from the bravest of that race. With these forces he conquered Sclavonia in war, and caused its generals, Duk and Dal, because of their bravery, to be captured, and not killed. These men he took to serve with him, and, after overcoming Aquitania, soon went to Britain, where he overthrew the King of the Humbrians, and enrolled the smartest of the warriors he had conquered, the chief of whom was esteemed to be Orm, surnamed the Briton. The fame of these deeds brought champions from divers parts of the world, whom he formed into a band of mercenaries. Strengthened by their numbers, he kept down insurrections in all kingdoms by the terror of his name, so that he took out of their rulers all courage to fight with one another. Moreover, no man durst assume any sovereignty on the sea without his consent; for of old the state of the Danes had the joint lordship of land and sea. Meantime Ingild died in Sweden, leaving only a very little son, Ring, whom he had by the sister of Harald. Harald gave the boy guardians, and put him over his father's kingdom. Thus, when he had overcome princes and provinces, he passed fifty years in peace. To save the minds of his soldiers from being melted into sloth by this inaction, he decreed that they should assiduously learn from the champions the way of parrying and dealing blows. Some of these were skilled in a remarkable manner of fighting, and used to smite the eyebrow on the enemy's forehead with an infallible stroke; but if any man, on receiving the blow, blinked for fear, twitching his eyebrow, he was at once expelled the court and dismissed the service. At this time Ole, the son of Siward and of Harald's sister, came to Denmark from the land of Norway in the desire to see his uncle. Since it is known that he had the first place among the followers of Harald, and that after the Swedish war he came to the throne of Denmark, it bears somewhat on the subject to relate the traditions of his deeds. Ole, then, when he had passed his tenth to his fifteenth year with his father, showed incredible proofs of his brilliant gifts both of mind and body. Moreover, he was so savage of countenance that his eyes were like the arms of other men against the enemy, and he terrified the bravest with his stern and flashing glance. He heard the tidings that Gunn, ruler of Tellemark, with his son Grim, was haunting as a robber the forest of Etha-scog, which was thick with underbrush and full of gloomy glens. The offence moved his anger; then he asked his father for a horse, a dog, and such armour as could be got, and cursed his youth, which was suffering the right season for valour to slip sluggishly away. He got what he asked, and explored the aforesaid wood very narrowly. He saw the footsteps of a man printed deep on the snow; for the rime was blemished by the steps, and betrayed the robber's progress. Thus guided, he went over a hill, and came on a very great river. This effaced the human tracks he had seen before, and he determined that he must cross. But the mere mass of water, whose waves ran down in a headlong torrent, seemed to forbid all crossing; for it was full of hidden reefs, and the whole length of its channel was turbid with a kind of whirl of foam. Yet all fear of danger was banished from Ole's mind by his impatience to make haste. So valour conquered fear, and rashness scorned peril; thinking nothing hard to do if it were only to his mind, he crossed the hissing eddies on horseback. When he had passed these, he came upon defiles surrounded on all sides with swamps, the interior of which was barred from easy approach by the pinnacle of a bank in front. He took his horse over this, and saw an enclosure with a number of stalls. Out of this he turned many horses, and was minded to put in his own, when a certain Tok, a servant of Gunn, angry that a stranger should wax so insolent, attacked him fiercely; but Ole foiled his assailant by simply opposing his shield. Thinking it a shame to slay the fellow with the sword, he seized him, shattered him limb by limb, and flung him across into the house whence he had issued in his haste. This insult quickly aroused Gunn and Grim: they ran out by different side-doors, and charged Ole both at once, despising his age and strength. He wounded them fatally; and, when their bodily powers were quite spent, Grim, who could scarce muster a final gasp, and whose force was almost utterly gone, with his last pants composed this song: "Though we be weak in frame, and the loss of blood has drained our strength; since the life-breath, now drawn out by my wound, scarce quivers softly in my pierced breast: "I counsel that we should make the battle of our last hour glorious with dauntless deeds, that none may say that a combat has anywhere been bravelier waged or harder fought; "And that our wild strife while we bore arms may, when our weary flesh has found rest in the tomb, win us the wage of immortal fame. "Let our first stroke crush the shoulder-blades of the foe, let our steel cut off both his hands; so that, when Stygian Pluto has taken us, a like doom may fall on Ole also, and a common death tremble over three, and one urn cover the ashes of three." Here Grim ended. But his father, rivalling his indomitable spirit, and wishing to give some exhortation in answer to his son's valiant speech, thus began: "What though our veins be wholly bloodless, and in our frail body the life be brief, yet our last fight be so strong and strenuous that it suffer not the praise of us to be brief also. "Therefore aim the javelin first at the shoulders and arms of the foe, so that the work of his hands may be weakened; and thus when we are gone three shall receive a common sepulchre, and one urn alike for three shall cover our united dust." When he had said this, both of them, resting on their knees (for the approach of death had drained their strength), made a desperate effort to fight Ole hand to hand, in order that, before they perished, they might slay their enemy also; counting death as nothing if only they might envelope their slayer in a common fall. Ole slew one of them with his sword, the other with his hound. But even he gained no bloodless victory; for though he had been hitherto unscathed, now at last he received a wound in front. His dog diligently licked him over, and he regained his bodily strength: and soon, to publish sure news of his victory, he hung the bodies of the robbers upon gibbets in wide view. Moreover, he took the stronghold, and put in secret keeping all the booty he found there, in reserve for future use. At this time the arrogant wantonness of the brothers Skate and Hiale waxed so high that they would take virgins of notable beauty from their parents and ravish them. Hence it came about that they formed the purpose of seizing Esa, the daughter of Olaf, prince of the Werms; and bade her father, if he would not have her serve the passion of a stranger, fight either in person, or by some deputy, in defence of his child. When Ole had news of this, he rejoiced in the chance of a battle, and borrowing the attire of a peasant, went to the dwelling of Olaf. He received one of the lowest places at table; and when he saw the household of the king in sorrow, he called the king's son closer to him, and asked why they all wore so lamentable a face. The other answered, that unless someone quickly interposed to protect them, his sister's chastity would soon be outraged by some ferocious champions. Ole next asked him what reward would be received by the man who devoted his life for the maiden. Olaf, on his son asking him about this matter, said that his daughter should go to the man who fought for her: and these words, more than anything, made Ole long to encounter the danger. Now the maiden was wont to go from one guest to another in order to scan their faces narrowly, holding out a light that she might have a surer view of the dress and character of those who were entertained. It is also believed that she divined their lineage from the lines and features of the face, and could discern any man's birth by sheer shrewdness of vision. When she stood and fixed the scrutiny of her gaze upon Olaf, she was stricken with the strange awfulness of his eyes, and fell almost lifeless. But when her strength came slowly back, and her breath went and came more freely, she again tried to look at the young man, but suddenly slipped and fell forward, as though distraught. A third time also she strove to lift her closed and downcast gaze, but suddenly tottered and fell, unable not only to move her eyes, but even to control her feet; so much can strength be palsied by amazement. When Olaf saw it, he asked her why she had fallen so often. She averred that she was stricken by the savage gaze of the guest; that he was born of kings; and she declared that if he could baulk the will of the ravishers, he was well worthy of her arms. Then all of them asked Ole, who was keeping his face muffled in a hat, to fling off his covering, and let them see something by which to learn his features. Then, bidding them all lay aside their grief, and keep their heart far from sorrow, he uncovered his brow; and he drew the eyes of all upon him in marvel at his great beauty. For his locks were golden and the hair of his head was radiant; but he kept the lids close over his pupils, that they might not terrify the beholders. All were heartened with the hope of better things; the guests seemed to dance and the courtiers to leap for joy; the deepest melancholy seemed to be scattered by an outburst of cheerfulness. Thus hope relieved their fears; the banquet wore a new face, and nothing was the same, or like what it had been before. So the kindly promise of a single guest dispelled the universal terror. Meanwhile Hiale and Skate came up with ten servants, meaning to carry off the maiden then and there, and disturbed all the place with their noisy shouts. They called on the king to give battle, unless he produced his daughter instantly. Ole at once met their frenzy with the promise to fight, adding the condition that no one should stealthily attack an opponent in the rear, but should only combat in the battle face to face. Then, with his sword called Logthi, he felled them all, single-handed--an achievement beyond his years. The ground for the battle was found on an isle in the middle of a swamp, not far from which is a stead that serves to memorise this slaughter, bearing the names of the brothers Hiale and Skate together. So the girl was given him as prize of the combat, and bore him a son Omund. Then he gained his father-in-law's leave to revisit his father. But when he heard that his country was being attacked by Thore, with the help of Toste Sacrificer, and Leotar, surnamed.... he went to fight them, content with a single servant, who was dressed as a woman. When he was near the house of Thore, he concealed his own and his attendant's swords in hollowed staves. And when he entered the palace, he disguised his true countenance, and feigned to be a man broken with age. He said that with Siward he had been king of the beggars, but that he was now in exile, having been stubbornly driven forth by the hatred of the king's son Ole. Presently many of the courtiers greeted him with the name of king, and began to kneel and offer him their hands in mockery. He told them to bear out in deeds what they had done in jest; and, plucking out the swords which he and his man kept shut in their staves, attacked the king. So some aided Ole, taking it more as jest than earnest, and would not be false to the loyalty which they mockingly yielded him; but most of them, breaking their idle vow, took the side of Thore. Thus arose an internecine and undecided fray. At last Thore was overwhelmed and slain by the arms of his own folk, as much as by these of his guests; and Leotar, wounded to the death, and judging that his conqueror, Ole, was as keen in mind as he was valorous in deeds, gave him the name of the Vigorous, and prophesied that he should perish by the same kind of trick as he had used with Thore; for, without question he should fall by the treachery of his own house. And, as he spoke, he suddenly passed away. Thus we can see that the last speech of the dying man expressed by its shrewd divination the end that should come upon his conqueror. After these deeds Ole did not go back to his father till he had restored peace to his house. His father gave him the command of the sea, and he destroyed seventy sea-kings in a naval battle. The most distinguished among these were Birwil and Hwirwil, Thorwil, Nef and Onef, Redward (?), Rand and Erand (?). By the honour and glory of this exploit he excited many champions, whose whole heart's desire was for bravery, to join in alliance with him. He also enrolled into a bodyguard the wild young warriors who were kindled with a passion for glory. Among these he received Starkad with the greatest honour, and cherished him with more friendship than profit. Thus fortified, he checked, by the greatness of his name, the wantonness of the neighbouring kings, in that he took from them all their forces and all liking and heart for mutual warfare. After this he went to Harald, who made him commander of the sea; and at last he was transferred to the service of Ring. At this time one Brun was the sole partner and confidant of all Harald's councils. To this man both Harald and Ring, whenever they needed a secret messenger, used to entrust their commissions. This degree of intimacy he obtained because he had been reared and fostered with them. But Brun, amid the toils of his constant journeys to and fro, was drowned in a certain river; and Odin, disguised under his name and looks, shook the close union of the kings by his treacherous embassage; and he sowed strife so guilefully that he engendered in men, who were bound by friendship and blood, a bitter mutual hate, which seemed unappeasable except by war. Their dissensions first grew up silently; at last both sides betrayed their leanings, and their secret malice burst into the light of day. So they declared their feuds, and seven years passed in collecting the materials of war. Some say that Harald secretly sought occasions to destroy himself, not being moved by malice or jealousy for the crown, but by a deliberate and voluntary effort. His old age and his cruelty made him a burden to his subjects; he preferred the sword to the pangs of disease, and liked better to lay down his life in the battle-field than in his bed, that he might have an end in harmony with the deeds of his past life. Thus, to make his death more illustrious, and go to the nether world in a larger company, he longed to summon many men to share his end; and he therefore of his own will prepared for war, in order to make food for future slaughter. For these reasons, being seized with as great a thirst to die himself as to kill others, and wishing the massacre on both sides to be equal, he furnished both sides with equal resources; but let Ring have a somewhat stronger force, preferring he should conquer and survive him. ENDNOTES: (1) A parallel is the Lionel-Lancelot story of children saved by being turned into dogs. BOOK EIGHT. STARKAD was the first to set in order in Danish speech the history of the Swedish war, a conflict whereof he was himself a mighty pillar; the said history being rather an oral than a written tradition. He set forth and arranged the course of this war in the mother tongue according to the fashion of our country; but I purpose to put it into Latin, and will first recount the most illustrious princes on either side. For I have felt no desire to include the multitude, which are even past exact numbering. And my pen shall relate first those on the side of Harald, and presently those who served under Ring. Now the most famous of the captains that mustered to Harald are acknowledged to have been Sweyn and Sambar (Sam?), Ambar and Elli; Rati of Funen, Salgard and Roe (Hrothgar), whom his long beard distinguished by a nickname. Besides these, Skalk the Scanian, and Alf the son of Agg; to whom are joined Olwir the Broad, and Gnepie the Old. Besides these there was Gardh, founder of the town Stang. To these are added the kinsfolk or bound followers of Harald: Blend (Blaeng?), the dweller in furthest Thule, (1) and Brand, whose surname was Crumb (Bitling?). Allied with these were Thorguy, with Thorwig, Tatar (Teit), and Hialte. These men voyaged to Leire with bodies armed for war; but they were also mighty in excellence of wit, and their trained courage matched their great stature; for they had skill in discharging arrows both from bow and catapult, and at fighting their foe as they commonly did, man to man; and also at readily stringing together verse in the speech of their country: so zealously had they trained mind and body alike. Now out of Leire came Hortar (Hjort) and Borrhy (Borgar or Borgny), and also Belgi and Beigad, to whom were added Bari and Toli. Now out of the town of Sle, under the captains Hetha (Heid) and Wisna, with Hakon Cut-cheek came Tummi the Sailmaker. On these captains, who had the bodies of women, nature bestowed the souls of men. Webiorg was also inspired with the same spirit, and was attended by Bo (Bui) Bramason and Brat the Jute, thirsting for war. In the same throng came Orm of England, Ubbe the Frisian, Ari the One-eyed, and Alf Gotar. Next in the count came Dal the Fat and Duk the Sclav; Wisna, a woman, filled with sternness, and a skilled warrior, was guarded by a band of Sclavs: her chief followers were Barri and Gnizli. But the rest of the same company had their bodies covered by little shields, and used very long swords and targets of skiey hue, which, in time of war, they either cast behind their backs or gave over to the baggage-bearers; while they cast away all protection to their breasts, and exposed their bodies to every peril, offering battle with drawn swords. The most illustrious of these were Tolkar and Ymi. After these, Toki of the province of Wohin was conspicuous together with Otrit surnamed the Young. Hetha, guarded by a retinue of very active men, brought an armed company to the war, the chiefs of whom were Grim and Grenzli; next to whom are named Geir the Livonian, Hame also and Hunger, Humbli and Biari, bravest of the princes. These men often fought duels successfully, and won famous victories far and wide. The maidens I have named, in fighting as well as courteous array, led their land-forces to the battle-field. Thus the Danish army mustered company by company. There were seven kings, equal in spirit but differing in allegiance, some defending Harald, and some Ring. Moreover, the following went to the side of Harald: Homi and Hosathul (Eysothul?), Him...., Hastin and Hythin (Hedin) the Slight, also Dahar (Dag), named Grenski, and Harald Olafsson also. From the province of Aland came Har and Herlewar (Herleif), with Hothbrodd, surnamed the Furious; these fought in the Danish camp. But from Imisland arrived Humnehy (?) and Harald. They were joined by Haki and by Sigmund and Serker the sons of Bemon, all coming from the North. All these were retainers of the king, who befriended them most generously; for they were held in the highest distinction by him, receiving swords adorned with gold, and the choicest spoils of war. There came also.... the sons of Gandal the old, who were in the intimate favour of Harald by reason of ancient allegiance. Thus the sea was studded with the Danish fleet, and seemed to interpose a bridge, uniting Zealand to Skaane. To those that wished to pass between those provinces, the sea offered a short road on foot over the dense mass of ships. But Harald would not have the Swedes unprepared in their arrangements for war, and sent men to Ring to carry his public declaration of hostilities, and notify the rupture of the mediating peace. The same men were directed to prescribe the place of combat. These then whom I have named were the fighters for Harald. Now, on the side of Ring were numbered Ulf, Aggi (Aki?), Windar (Eywind?), Egil the One-eyed; Gotar, Hildi, Guti Alfsson; Styr the Stout, and (Tolo-) Stein, who lived by the Wienic Mere. To these were joined Gerd the Glad and Gromer (Glum?) from Wermland. After these are reckoned the dwellers north on the Elbe, Saxo the Splitter, Sali the Goth; Thord the Stumbler, Throndar Big-nose; Grundi, Oddi, Grindir, Tovi; Koll, Biarki, Hogni the Clever, Rokar the Swart. Now these scorned fellowship with the common soldiers, and had formed themselves into a separate rank apart from the rest of the company. Besides these are numbered Hrani Hildisson and Lyuth Guthi (Hljot Godi), Svein the Topshorn, (Soknarsoti?), Rethyr (Hreidar?) Hawk, and Rolf the Uxorious (Woman-lover). Massed with these were Ring Adilsson and Harald who came from Thotn district. Joined to these were Walstein of Wick, Thorolf the Thick, Thengel the Tall, Hun, Solwe, Birwil the Pale, Borgar and Skumbar (Skum). But from, Tellemark came the bravest of all, who had most courage but least arrogance--Thorleif the Stubborn, Thorkill the Gute (Gothlander), Grettir the Wicked and the Lover of Invasions. Next to these came Hadd the Hard and Rolder (Hroald) Toe-joint. From Norway we have the names of Thrand of Throndhjem, Thoke (Thore) of More, Hrafn the White, Haf (war), Biarni, Blihar (Blig?) surnamed Snub-nosed; Biorn from the district of Sogni; Findar (Finn) born in the Firth; Bersi born in the town F(I)alu; Siward Boarhead, Erik the Story-teller, Holmstein the White, Hrut Rawi (or Vafi, the Doubter), Erling surnamed Snake. Now from the province of Jather came Odd the Englishman, Alf the Far-wanderer, Enar the Paunched, and Ywar surnamed Thriug. Now from Thule (Iceland) came Mar the Red, born and bred in the district called Midfirth; Grombar the Aged, Gram Brundeluk (Bryndalk?) Grim from the town of Skier (um) born in Skagafiord. Next came Berg the Seer, accompanied by Bragi and Rafnkel. Now the bravest of the Swedes were these: Arwakki, Keklu-Karl (Kelke-Karl), Krok the Peasant, (from Akr), Gudfast and Gummi from Gislamark. These were kindred of the god Frey, and most faithful witnesses to the gods. Ingi (Yngwe) also, and Oly, Alver, Folki, all sons of Elrik (Alrek), embraced the service of Ring; they were men ready of hand, quick in counsel, and very close friends of Ring. They likewise held the god Frey to be the founder of their race. Amongst these from the town of Sigtun also came Sigmund, a champion advocate, versed in making contracts of sale and purchase; besides him Frosti surnamed Bowl: allied with him was Alf the Lofty (Proud?) from the district of Upsala; this man was a swift spear-thrower, and used to go in the front of the battle. Ole had a body-guard in which were seven kings, very ready of hand and of counsel; namely, Holti, Hendil, Holmar, Lewy (Leif), and Hame; with these was enrolled Regnald the Russian, the grandson of Radbard; and Siwald also furrowed the sea with eleven light ships. Lesy (Laesi), the conqueror of the Pannonians (Huns), fitted with a sail his swift galley ringed with gold. Thririkar (Erik Helsing) sailed in a ship whose prows were twisted like a dragon. Also Thrygir (Tryggve) and Torwil sailed and brought twelve ships jointly. In the entire fleet of Ring there were 2,500 ships. The fleet of Gotland was waiting for the Swedish fleet in the harbour named Garnum. So Ring led the land-force, while Ole was instructed to command the fleet. Now the Goths were appointed a time and a place between Wik and Werund for the conflict with the Swedes. Then was the sea to be seen furrowed up with prows, and the canvas unfurled upon the masts cut off the view over the ocean. The Danes had so far been distressed with bad weather; but the Swedish fleet had a fair voyage, and had reached the scene of battle earlier. Here Ring disembarked his forces from his fleet, and then massed and prepared to draw up in line both these and the army he had himself conducted overland. When these forces were at first loosely drawn up over the open country, it was found that one wing reached all the way to Werund. The multitude was confused in its places and ranks; but the king rode round it, and posted in the van all the smartest and most excellently-armed men, led by Ole, Regnald, and Wivil; then he massed the rest of the army on the two wings in a kind of curve. Ung, with the sons of Alrek, and Trig, he ordered to protect the right wing, while the left was put under the command of Laesi. Moreover, the wings and the masses were composed mainly of a close squadron of Kurlanders and of Esthonians. Last stood the line of slingers. Meantime the Danish fleet, favoured by kindly winds, sailed, without stopping, for twelve days, and came to the town (stead) of Kalmar. The wind-blown sails covering the waters were a marvel; and the canvas stretched upon the yards blotted out the sight of the heavens. For the fleet was augmented by the Sclavs and the Livonians and 7,000 Saxons. But the Skanians, knowing the country, were appointed as guides and scouts to those who were going over the dry land. So when the Danish army came upon the Swedes, who stood awaiting them, Ring told his men to stand quietly until Harald had drawn up his line of battle; bidding them not to sound the signal before they saw the king settled in his chariot beside the standards; for he said he should hope that an army would soon come to grief which trusted in the leading of a blind man. Harald, moreover, he said, had been seized in extreme age with the desire of foreign empire, and was as witless as he was sightless; wealth could not satisfy a man who, if he looked to his years, ought to be well-nigh contented with a grave. The Swedes therefore were bound to fight for their freedom, their country, and their children, while the enemy had undertaken the war in rashness and arrogance. Moreover, on the other side, there were very few Danes, but a mass of Saxons and other unmanly peoples stood arrayed. Swedes and Norwegians should therefore consider, how far the multitudes of the North had always surpassed the Germans and the Sclavs. They should therefore despise an army which seemed to be composed more of a mass of fickle offscourings than of a firm and stout soldiery. By this harangue of King Ring he kindled high the hearts of the soldiers. Now Brun, being instructed to form the line on Harald's behalf, made the front in a wedge, posting Hetha on the right flank, putting Hakon in command of the left, and making Wisna standard-bearer. Harald stood up in his chariot and complained, in as loud a voice as he could, that Ring was requiting his benefits with wrongs; that the man who had got his kingdom by Harald's own gift was now attacking him; so that Ring neither pitied an old man nor spared an uncle, but set his own ambitions before any regard for Harald's kinship or kindness. So he bade the Danes remember how they had always won glory by foreign conquest, and how they were more wont to command their neighbours than to obey them. He adjured them not to let such glory as theirs to be shaken by the insolence of a conquered nation, nor to suffer the empire, which he had won in the flower of his youth, to be taken from him in his outworn age. Then the trumpets sounded, and both sides engaged in battle with all their strength. The sky seemed to fall suddenly on the earth, fields and woods to sink into the ground; all things were confounded, and old Chaos come again; heaven and earth mingling in one tempestuous turmoil, and the world rushing to universal ruin. For, when the spear-throwing began, the intolerable clash of arms filled the air with an incredible thunder. The steam of the wounds suddenly hung a mist over the sky, the daylight was hidden under the hail of spears. The help of the slingers was of great use in the battle. But when the missiles had all been flung from hand or engines, they fought with swords or iron-shod maces; and it was now at close quarters that most blood was spilt. Then the sweat streamed down their weary bodies, and the clash of the swords could be heard afar. Starkad, who was the first to set forth the history of this war in the telling, fought foremost in the fray, and relates that he overthrew the nobles of Harald, Hun and Elli, Hort and Burgha, and cut off the right hand of Wisna. He also relates that one Roa, with two others, Gnepie and Gardar, fell wounded by him in the field. To these he adds the father of Skalk, whose name is not given. He also declares that he cast Hakon, the bravest of the Danes, to the earth, but received from him such a wound in return that he had to leave the war with his lung protruding from his chest, his neck cleft to the centre, and his hand deprived of one finger; so that he long had a gaping wound, which seemed as if it would never either scar over or be curable. The same man witnesses that the maiden Weghbiorg (Webiorg) fought against the enemy and felled Soth the champion. While she was threatening to slay more champions, she was pierced through by an arrow from the bowstring of Thorkill, a native of Tellemark. For the skilled archers of the Gotlanders strung their bows so hard that the shafts pierced through even the shields; nothing proved more murderous; for the arrow-points made their way through hauberk and helmet as if they were men's defenceless bodies. Meanwhile Ubbe the Frisian, who was the readiest of Harald's soldiers, and of notable bodily stature, slew twenty-five picked champions, besides eleven whom he had wounded in the field. All these were of Swedish or Gothic blood. Then he attacked the vanguard and burst into the thickest of the enemy, driving the Swedes struggling in a panic every way with spear and sword. It had all but come to a flight, when Hagder (Hadd), Rolder (Hroald), and Grettir attacked the champion, emulating his valour, and resolving at their own risk to retrieve the general ruin. But, fearing to assault him at close quarters, they accomplished their end with arrows from afar; and thus Ubbe was riddled by a shower of arrows, no one daring to fight him hand to hand. A hundred and forty-four arrows had pierced the breast of the warrior before his bodily strength failed and he bent his knee to the earth. Then at last the Danes suffered a great defeat, owing to the Thronds and the dwellers in the province of Dala. For the battle began afresh by reason of the vast mass of the archers, and nothing damaged our men more. But when Harald, being now blind with age, heard the lamentable murmur of his men, he perceived that fortune had smiled on his enemies. So, as he was riding in a chariot armed with scythes, he told Brun, who was treacherously acting as charioteer, to find out in what manner Ring had his line drawn up. Brun's face relaxed into something of a smile, and he answered that he was fighting with a line in the form of a wedge. When the king heard this he began to be alarmed, and to ask in great astonishment from whom Ring could have learnt this method of disposing his line, especially as Odin was the discoverer and imparter of this teaching, and none but himself had ever learnt from him this new pattern of warfare. At this Brun was silent, and it came into the king's mind that here was Odin, and that the god whom he had once known so well was now disguised in a changeful shape, in order either to give help or withhold it. Presently he began to beseech him earnestly to grant the final victory to the Danes, since he had helped them so graciously before, and to fill up his last kindness to the measure of the first; promising to dedicate to him as a gift the spirits of all who fell. But Brun, utterly unmoved by his entreaties, suddenly jerked the king out of the chariot, battered him to the earth, plucked the club from him as he fell, whirled it upon his head, and slew him with his own weapon. Countless corpses lay round the king's chariot, and the horrid heap overtopped the wheels; the pile of carcases rose as high as the pole. For about 12,000 of the nobles of Ring fell upon the field. But on the side of Harald about 30,000 nobles fell, not to name the slaughter of the commons. When Ring heard that Harald was dead, he gave the signal to his men to break up their line and cease fighting. Then under cover of truce he made treaty with the enemy, telling them that it was vain to prolong the fray without their captain. Next he told the Swedes to look everywhere among the confused piles of carcases for the body of Harald, that the corpse of the king might not wrongfully lack its due rights. So the populace set eagerly to the task of turning over the bodies of the slain, and over this work half the day was spent. At last the body was found with the club, and he thought that propitiation should be made to the shade of Harald. So he harnessed the horse on which he rode to the chariot of the king, decked it honourably with a golden saddle, and hallowed it in his honour. Then he proclaimed his vows, and added his prayer that Harald would ride on this and outstrip those who shared his death in their journey to Tartarus; and that he would pray Pluto, the lord of Orcus, to grant a calm abode there for friend and foe. Then he raised a pyre, and bade the Danes fling on the gilded chariot of their king as fuel to the fire. And while the flames were burning the body cast upon them, he went round the mourning nobles and earnestly charged them that they should freely give arms, gold, and every precious thing to feed the pyre in honour of so great a king, who had deserved so nobly of them all. He also ordered that the ashes of his body, when it was quite burnt, should be transferred to an urn, taken to Leire, and there, together with the horse and armour, receive a royal funeral. By paying these due rites of honour to his uncle's shade, he won the favour of the Danes, and turned the hate of his enemies into goodwill. Then the Danes besought him to appoint Hetha over the remainder of the realm; but, that the fallen strength of the enemy might not suddenly rally, he severed Skaane from the mass of Denmark, and put it separately under the governorship of Ole, ordering that only Zealand and the other lands of the realm should be subject to Hetha. Thus the changes of fortune brought the empire of Denmark under the Swedish rule. So ended the Bravic war. But the Zealanders, who had had Harald for their captain, and still had the picture of their former fortune hovering before their minds, thought it shameful to obey the rule of a woman, and appealed to OLE not to suffer men that had been used to serve under a famous king to be kept under a woman's yoke. They also promised to revolt to him if he would take up arms to remove their ignominious lot. Ole, tempted as much by the memory of his ancestral glory as by the homage of the soldiers, was not slow to answer their entreaties. So he summoned Hetha, and forced her by threats rather than by arms to quit every region under her control except Jutland; and even Jutland he made a tributary state, so as not to allow a woman the free control of a kingdom. He also begot a son whom he named Omund. But he was given to cruelty, and showed himself such an unrighteous king, that all who had found it a shameful thing to be ruled by a queen now repented of their former scorn. Twelve generals, whether moved by the disasters of their country, or hating Ole for some other reason, began to plot against his life. Among these were Hlenni, Atyl, Thott, and Withne, the last of whom was a Dane by birth, though he held a government among the Sclavs. Moreover, not trusting in their strength and their cunning to accomplish their deed, they bribed Starkad to join them. He was prevailed to do the deed with the sword; he undertook the bloody work, and resolved to attack the king while at the bath. In he went while the king was washing, but was straightway stricken by the keenness of his gaze and by the restless and quivering glare of his eyes. His limbs were palsied with sudden dread; he paused, stepped back, and stayed his hand and his purpose. Thus he who had shattered the arms of so many captains and champions could not bear the gaze of a single unarmed man. But Ole, who well knew about his own countenance, covered his face, and asked him to come closer and tell him what his message was; for old fellowship and long-tried friendship made him the last to suspect treachery. But Starkad drew his sword, leapt forward, thrust the king through, and struck him in the throat as he tried to rise. One hundred and twenty marks of gold were kept for his reward. Soon afterwards he was smitten with remorse and shame, and lamented his crime so bitterly, that he could not refrain from tears if it happened to be named. Thus his soul, when he came to his senses, blushed for his abominable sin. Moreover, to atone for the crime he had committed, he slew some of those who had inspired him to it, thus avenging the act to which he had lent his hand. Now the Danes made OMUND, the son of Ole, king, thinking that more heed should be paid to his father's birth than to his deserts. Omund, when he had grown up, fell in nowise behind the exploits of his father; for he made it his aim to equal or surpass the deeds of Ole. At this time a considerable tribe of the Northmen (Norwegians) was governed by Ring, and his daughter Esa's great fame commended her to Omund, who was looking out for a wife. But his hopes of wooing her were lessened by the peculiar inclination of Ring, who desired no son-in-law but one of tried valour; for he found as much honour in arms as others think lies in wealth. Omund therefore, wishing to become famous in that fashion, and to win the praise of valour, endeavoured to gain his desire by force, and sailed to Norway with a fleet, to make an attempt on the throne of Ring under plea of hereditary right. Odd, the chief of Jather, who declared that Ring had assuredly seized his inheritance, and lamented that he harried him with continual wrongs, received Omund kindly. Ring, in the meantime, was on a roving raid in Ireland, so that Omund attacked a province without a defender. Sparing the goods of the common people, he gave the private property of Ring over to be plundered, and slew his kinsfolk; Odd also having joined his forces to Omund. Now, among all his divers and manifold deeds, he could never bring himself to attack an inferior force, remembering that he was the son of a most valiant father, and that he was bound to fight armed with courage, and not with numbers. Meanwhile Ring had returned from roving; and when Omund heard he was back, he set to and built a vast ship, whence, as from a fortress, he could rain his missiles on the enemy. To manage this ship he enlisted Homod and Thole the rowers, the soils of Atyl the Skanian, one of whom was instructed to act as steersman, while the other was to command at the prow. Ring lacked neither skill nor dexterity to encounter them. For he showed only a small part of his forces, and caused the enemy to be attacked on the rear. Omund, when told of his strategy by Odd, sent men to overpower those posted in ambush, telling Atyl the Skanian to encounter Ring. The order was executed with more rashness than success; and Atyl, with his power defeated and shattered, fled beaten to Skaane. Then Omund recruited his forces with the help of Odd, and drew up his fleet to fight on the open sea. Atyl at this time had true visions of the Norwegian war in his dreams, and started on his voyage in order to make up for his flight as quickly as possible, and delighted Omund by joining him on the eve of battle. Trusting in his help, Omund began to fight with equal confidence and success. For, by fighting himself, he retrieved the victory which he had lost when his servants were engaged. Ring, wounded to the death, gazed at him with faint eyes, and, beckoning to him with his hand, as well as he could--for his voice failed him--he besought him to be his son-in-law, saying that he would gladly meet his end if he left his daughter to such a husband. Before he could receive an answer he died. Omund wept for his death, and gave Homod, whose trusty help he had received in the war, in marriage to one of the daughters of Ring, taking the other himself. At the same time the amazon Rusla, whose prowess in warfare exceeded the spirit of a woman, had many fights in Norway with her brother, Thrond, for the sovereignty. She could not endure that Omund rule over the Norwegians, and she had declared war against all the subjects of the Danes. Omund, when he heard of this, commissioned his most active men to suppress the rising. Rusla conquered them, and, waxing haughty on her triumph, was seized with overweening hopes, and bent her mind upon actually acquiring the sovereignty of Denmark. She began her attack on the region of Halland, but was met by Homod and Thode, whom the king had sent over. Beaten, she retreated to her fleet, of which only thirty ships managed to escape, the rest being taken by the enemy. Thrond encountered his sister as she was eluding the Danes, but was conquered by her and stripped of his entire army; he fled over the Dovrefjeld without a single companion. Thus she, who had first yielded before the Danes, soon overcame her brother, and turned her flight into a victory. When Omund heard of this, he went back to Norway with a great fleet, first sending Homod and Thole by a short and secret way to rouse the people of Tellemark against the rule of Rusla. The end was that she was driven out of her kingdom by the commons, fled to the isles for safety, and turned her back, without a blow, upon the Danes as they came up. The king pursued her hotly, caught up her fleet on the sea, and utterly destroyed it, the enemy suffered mightily, and he won a bloodless victory and splendid spoils. But Rusla escaped with a very few ships, and rowed ploughing the waves furiously; but, while she was avoiding the Danes, she met her brother and was killed. So much more effectual for harm are dangers unsurmised; and chance sometimes makes the less alarming evil worse than that which threatens. The king gave Thrond a governorship for slaying his sister, put the rest under tribute, and returned home. At this time Thorias (?) and Ber (Biorn), the most active of the soldiers of Rusla, were roving in Ireland; but when they heard of the death of their mistress, whom they had long ago sworn to avenge, they hotly attacked Omund, and challenged him to a duel, which it used to be accounted shameful for a king to refuse; for the fame of princes of old was reckoned more by arms than by riches. So Homod and Thole came forward, offering to meet in battle the men who had challenged the king. Omund praised them warmly, but at first declined for very shame to allow their help. At last, hard besought by his people, he brought himself to try his fortune by the hand of another. We are told that Ber fell in this combat, while Thorias left the battle severely wounded. The king, having first cured him of his wounds, took him into his service, and made him prince (earl) over Norway. Then he sent ambassadors to exact the usual tribute from the Sclavs; these were killed, and he was even attacked in Jutland by a Sclavish force; but he overcame seven kings in a single combat, and ratified by conquest his accustomed right to tribute. Meantime, Starkad, who was now worn out with extreme age, and who seemed to be past military service and the calling of a champion, was loth to lose his ancient glory through the fault of eld, and thought it would be a noble thing if he could make a voluntary end, and hasten his death by his own free will. Having so often fought nobly, he thought it would be mean to die a bloodless death; and, wishing to enhance the glory of his past life by the lustre of his end, he preferred to be slain by some man of gallant birth rather than await the tardy shaft of nature. So shameful was it thought that men devoted to war should die by disease. His body was weak, and his eyes could not see clearly, so that he hated to linger any more in life. In order to buy himself an executioner, he wore hanging on his neck the gold which he had earned for the murder of Ole; thinking there was no fitter way of atoning for the treason he had done than to make the price of Ole's death that of his own also, and to spend on the loss of his own life what he had earned by the slaying of another. This, he thought, would be the noblest use he could make of that shameful price. So he girded him with two swords, and guided his powerless steps leaning on two staves. One of the common people, seeing him, thinking two swords superfluous for the use of an old man, mockingly asked him to make him a present of one of them. Starkad, holding out hopes of consent, bade him come nearer, drew the sword from his side, and ran him through. This was seen by a certain Hather, whose father Hlenne Starkad had once killed in repentance for his own impious crime. Hatfier was hunting game with his dogs, but now gave over the chase, and bade two of his companions spur their horses hard and charge at the old man to frighten him. They galloped forward, and tried to make off, but were stopped by the staves of Starkad, and paid for it with their lives. Hather, terrified by the sight, galloped up closer, and saw who the old man was, but without being recognized by him in turn; and asked him if he would like to exchange his sword for a carriage. Starkad replied that he used in old days to chastise jeerers, and that the insolent had never insulted him unpunished. But his sightless eyes could not recognize the features of the youth; so he composed a song, wherein he should declare the greatness of his anger, as follows: "As the unreturning waters sweep down the channel; so, as the years run by, the life of man flows on never to come back; fast gallops the cycle of doom, child of old age who shall make an end of all. Old age smites alike the eyes and the steps of men, robs the warrior of his speech and soul, tarnishes his fame by slow degrees, and wipes out his deeds of honour. It seizes his failing limbs, chokes his panting utterance, and numbs his nimble wit. When a cough is taken, when the skin itches with the scab, and the teeth are numb and hollow, and the stomach turns squeamish,--then old age banishes the grace of youth, covers the complexion with decay, and sows many a wrinkle in the dusky skin. Old age crushes noble arts, brings down the memorials of men of old, and scorches ancient glories up; shatters wealth, hungrily gnaws away the worth and good of virtue, turns athwart and disorders all things. "I myself have felt the hurtful power of injurious age, I, dim-sighted, and hoarse in my tones and in my chest; and all helpful things have turned to my hurt. Now my body is less nimble, and I prop it up, leaning my faint limbs on the support of staves. Sightless I guide my steps with two sticks, and follow the short path which the rod shows me, trusting more in the leading of a stock than in my eyes. None takes any charge of me, and no man in the ranks brings comfort to the veteran, unless, perchance, Hather is here, and succours his shattered friend. Whomsoever Hather once thinks worthy of his duteous love, that man he attends continually with even zeal, constant to his purpose, and fearing to break his early ties. He also often pays fit rewards to those that have deserved well in war, and fosters their courage; he bestows dignities on the brave, and honours his famous friends with gifts. Free with his wealth, he is fain to increase with bounty the brightness of his name, and to surpass many of the mighty. Nor is he less in war: his strength is equal to his goodness; he is swift in the fray, slow to waver, ready to give battle; and he cannot turn his back when the foe bears him hard. But for me, if I remember right, fate appointed at my birth that wars I should follow and in war I should die, that I should mix in broils, watch in arms, and pass a life of bloodshed. I was a man of camps, and rested not; hating peace, I grew old under thy standard, O War-god, in utmost peril; conquering fear, I thought it comely to fight, shameful to loiter, and noble to kill and kill again, to be for ever slaughtering! Oft have I seen the stern kings meet in war, seen shield and helmet bruised, and the fields redden with blood, and the cuirass broken by the spear-point, and the corselets all around giving at the thrust of the steel, and the wild beasts battening on the unburied soldier. Here, as it chanced, one that attempted a mighty thing, a strong-handed warrior, fighting against the press of the foe, smote through the mail that covered my head, pierced my helmet, and plunged his blade into my crest. This sword also hath often been driven by my right hand in war, and, once unsheathed, hath cleft the skin and bitten into the skull." Hather, in answer, sang as follows: "Whence comest thou, who art used to write the poems of thy land, leaning thy wavering steps on a frail staff? Or whither dost thou speed, who art the readiest bard of the Danish muse? All the glory of thy great strength is faded and lost; the hue is banished from thy face, the joy is gone out of thy soul; the voice has left thy throat, and is hoarse and dull; thy body has lost its former stature; the decay of death begins, and has wasted thy features and thy force. As a ship wearies, buffeted by continual billows, even so old age, gendered by a long course of years, brings forth bitter death; and the life falls when its strength is done, and suffers the loss of its ancient lot. Famous old man, who has told thee that thou mayst not duly follow the sports of youth, or fling balls, or bite and eat the nut? I think it were better for thee now to sell thy sword, and buy a carriage wherein to ride often, or a horse easy on the bit, or at the same cost to purchase a light cart. It will be more fitting for beasts of burden to carry weak old men, when their steps fail them; the wheel, driving round and round, serves for him whose foot totters feebly. But if perchance thou art loth to sell the useless steel, thy sword, if it be not for sale, shall be taken from thee and shall slay thee." Starkad answered: "Wretch, thy glib lips scatter idle words, unfit for the ears of the good. Why seek the gifts to reward that guidance, which thou shouldst have offered for naught? Surely I will walk afoot, and will not basely give up my sword and buy the help of a stranger; nature has given me the right of passage, and hath bidden me trust in my own feet. Why mock and jeer with insolent speech at him whom thou shouldst have offered to guide upon his way? Why give to dishonour my deeds of old, which deserve the memorial of fame? Why requite my service with reproach? Why pursue with jeers the old man mighty in battle, and put to shame my unsurpassed honours and illustrious deeds, belittling my glories and girding at my prowess? For what valour of thine dost thou demand my sword, which thy strength does not deserve? It befits not the right hand or the unwarlike side of a herdsman, who is wont to make his peasant-music on the pipe, to see to the flock, to keep the herds in the fields. Surely among the henchmen, close to the greasy pot, thou dippest thy crust in the bubbles of the foaming pan, drenching a meagre slice in the rich, oily fat, and stealthily, with thirsty finger, licking the warm juice; more skilled to spread thy accustomed cloak on the ashes, to sleep on the hearth, and slumber all day long, and go busily about the work of the reeking kitchen, than to make the brave blood flow with thy shafts in war. Men think thee a hater of the light and a lover of a filthy hole, a wretched slave of thy belly, like a whelp who licks the coarse grain, husk and all. "By heaven, thou didst not try to rob me of my sword when thrice at great peril I fought (for?) the son of Ole. For truly, in that array, my hand either broke the sword or shattered the obstacle, so heavy was the blow of the smiter. What of the day when I first taught them, to run with wood-shod feet over the shore of the Kurlanders, and the path bestrewn with countless points? For when I was going to the fields studded with calthrops, I guarded their wounded feet with clogs below them. After this I slew Hame, who fought me mightily; and soon, with the captain Rin the son of Flebak, I crushed the Kurlanders, yea, or all the tribes Esthonia breeds, and thy peoples, O Semgala! Then I attacked the men of Tellemark, and took thence my head bloody with bruises, shattered with mallets, and smitten with the welded weapons. Here first I learnt how strong was the iron wrought on the anvil, or what valour the common people had. Also it was my doing that the Teutons were punished, when, in avenging my lord, I laid low over their cups thy sons, O Swerting, who were guilty of the wicked slaughter of Frode. "Not less was the deed when, for the sake of a beloved maiden, I slew nine brethren in one fray;--witness the spot, which was consumed by the bowels that left me, and brings not forth the grain anew on its scorched sod. And soon, when Ker the captain made ready a war by sea, with a noble army we beat his serried ships. Then I put Waske to death, and punished the insolent smith by slashing his hinder parts; and with the sword I slew Wisin, who from the snowy rocks blunted the spears. Then I slew the four sons of Ler, and the champions of Permland; and then having taken the chief of the Irish race, I rifled the wealth of Dublin; and our courage shall ever remain manifest by the trophies of Bravalla. Why do I linger? Countless are the deeds of my bravery, and when I review the works of my hands I fail to number them to the full. The whole is greater than I can tell. My work is too great for fame, and speech serves not for my doings." So sang Starkad. At last, when he found by their talk that Hather was the son of Hlenne, and saw that the youth was of illustrious birth, he offered him his throat to smite, bidding him not to shrink from punishing the slayer of his father. He promised him that if he did so he should possess the gold which he had himself received from Hlenne. And to enrage his heart more vehemently against him, he is said to have harangued him as follows: "Moreover, Hather, I robbed thee of thy father Hlenne; requite me this, I pray, and strike down the old man who longs to die; aim at my throat with the avenging steel. For my soul chooses the service of a noble smiter, and shrinks to ask its doom at a coward's hand. Righteously may a man choose to forstall the ordinance of doom. What cannot be escaped it will be lawful also to anticipate. The fresh tree must be fostered, the old one hewn down. He is nature's instrument who destroys what is near its doom and strikes down what cannot stand. Death is best when it is sought: and when the end is loved, life is wearisome. Let not the troubles of age prolong a miserable lot." So saying, he took money from his pouch and gave it him. But Hather, desiring as much to enjoy the gold as to accomplish vengeance for his father, promised that he would comply with his prayer, and would not refuse the reward. Starkad eagerly handed him the sword, and at once stooped his neck beneath it, counselling him not to do the smiter's work timidly, or use the sword like a woman; and telling him that if, when he had killed him, he could spring between the head and the trunk before the corpse fell, he would be rendered proof against arms. It is not known whether he said this in order to instruct his executioner or to punish him, for perhaps, as he leapt, the bulk of the huge body would have crushed him. So Hather smote sharply with the sword and hacked off the head of the old man. When the severed head struck the ground, it is said to have bitten the earth; thus the fury of the dying lips declared the fierceness of the soul. But the smiter, thinking that the promise hid some treachery, warily refrained from leaping. Had he done so rashly, perhaps he would have been crushed by the corpse as it fell, and have paid with his own life for the old man's murder. But he would not allow so great a champion to lie unsepulchred, and had his body buried in the field that is commonly called Rolung. Now Omund, as I have heard, died most tranquilly, while peace was unbroken, leaving two sons and two daughters. The eldest of these, SIWARD, came to the throne by right of birth, while his brother Budle was still of tender years. At this time Gotar, King of the Swedes, conceived boundless love for one of the daughters of Omund, because of the report of her extraordinary beauty, and entrusted one Ebb, the son of Sibb, with the commission of asking for the maiden. Ebb did his work skilfully, and brought back the good news that the girl had consented. Nothing was now lacking to Gotar's wishes but the wedding; but, as he feared to hold this among strangers, he demanded that his betrothed should be sent to him in charge of Ebb, whom he had before used as envoy. Ebb was crossing Halland with a very small escort, and went for a night's lodging to a country farm, where the dwellings of two brothers faced one another on the two sides of a river. Now these men used to receive folk hospitably and then murder them, but were skilful to hide their brigandage under a show of generosity. For they had hung on certain hidden chains, in a lofty part of the house, an oblong beam like a press, and furnished it with a steel point; they used to lower this in the night by letting down the fastenings, and cut off the heads of those that lay below. Many had they beheaded in this way with the hanging mass. So when Ebb and his men had been feasted abundantly, the servants laid them out a bed near the hearth, so that by the swing of the treacherous beam they might mow off their heads, which faced the fire. When they departed, Ebb, suspecting the contrivance slung overhead, told his men to feign slumber and shift their bodies, saying that it would be very wholesome for them to change their place. Now among these were some who despised the orders which the others obeyed, and lay unmoved, each in the spot where he had chanced to lie down. Then towards the mirk of night the heavy hanging machine was set in motion by the doers of the treachery. Loosened from the knots of its fastening, it fell violently on the ground, and slew those beneath it. Thereupon those who had the charge of committing the crime brought in a light, that they might learn clearly what had happened, and saw that Ebb, on whose especial account they had undertaken the affair, had wisely been equal to the danger. He straightway set on them and punished them with death; and also, after losing his men in the mutual slaughter, he happened to find a vessel, crossed a river full of blocks of ice, and announced to Gotar the result, not so much of his mission as of his mishap. Gotar judged that this affair had been inspired by Siward, and prepared to avenge his wrongs by arms. Siward, defeated by him in Halland, retreated into Jutland, the enemy having taken his sister. Here he conquered the common people of the Sclavs, who ventured to fight without a leader; and he won as much honour from this victory as he had got disgrace by his flight. But a little afterwards, the men whom he had subdued when they were ungeneraled, found a general and defeated Siward in Funen. Several times he fought them in Jutland, but with ill-success. The result was that he lost both Skaane and Jutland, and only retained the middle of his realm without the head, like the fragments of some body that had been consumed away. His son Jarmerik (Eormunrec), with his child-sisters, fell into the hands of the enemy; one of these was sold to the Germans, the other to the Norwegians; for in old time marriages were matters of purchase. Thus the kingdom of the Danes, which had been enlarged with such valour, made famous by such ancestral honours, and enriched by so many conquests, fell, all by the sloth of one man, from the most illustrious fortune and prosperity into such disgrace that it paid the tribute which it used to exact. But Siward, too often defeated and guilty of shameful flights, could not endure, after that glorious past, to hold the troubled helm of state any longer in this shameful condition of his land; and, fearing that living longer might strip him of his last shred of glory, he hastened to win an honourable death in battle. For his soul could not forget his calamity, it was fain to cast off its sickness, and was racked with weariness of life. So much did he abhor the light of life in his longing to wipe out his shame. So he mustered his army for battle, and openly declared war with one Simon, who was governor of Skaane under Gotar. This war he pursued with stubborn rashness; he slew Simon, and ended his own life amid a great slaughter of his foes. Yet his country could not be freed from the burden of the tribute. Jarmerik, meantime, with his foster-brother of the same age as himself, Gunn, was living in prison, in charge of Ismar, the King of the Sclavs. At last he was taken out and put to agriculture, doing the work of a peasant. So actively did he manage this matter that he was transferred and made master of the royal slaves. As he likewise did this business most uprightly, he was enrolled in the band of the king's retainers. Here he bore himself most pleasantly as courtiers use, and was soon taken into the number of the king's friends and obtained the first place in his intimacy; thus, on the strength of a series of great services, he passed from the lowest estate to the most distinguished height of honour. Also, loth to live a slack and enfeebled youth, he trained himself to the pursuits of war, enriching his natural gifts by diligence. All men loved Jarmerik, and only the queen mistrusted the young man's temper. A sudden report told them that the king's brother had died. Ismar, wishing to give his body a splendid funeral, prepared a banquet of royal bounty to increase the splendour of the obsequies. But Jarmerik, who used at other times to look after the household affairs together with the queen, began to cast about for means of escape; for a chance seemed to be offered by the absence of the king. For he saw that even in the lap of riches he would be the wretched thrall of a king, and that he would draw, as it were, his very breath on sufferance and at the gift of another. Moreover, though he held the highest offices with the king, he thought that freedom was better than delights, and burned with a mighty desire to visit his country and learn his lineage. But, knowing that the queen had provided sufficient guards to see that no prisoner escaped, he saw that he must approach by craft where he could not arrive by force. So he plaited one of those baskets of rushes and withies, shaped like a man, with which countrymen used to scare the birds from the corn, and put a live dog in it; then he took off his own clothes, and dressed it in them, to give a more plausible likeness to a human being. Then he broke into the private treasury of the king, took out the money, and hid himself in places of which he alone knew. Meantime Gunn, whom he had told to conceal the absence of his friend, took the basket into the palace and stirred up the dog to bark; and when the queen asked what this was, he answered that Jarmerik was out of his mind and howling. She, beholding the effigy, was deceived by the likeness, and ordered that the madman should be cast out of the house. Then Gunn took the effigy out and put it to bed, as though it were his distraught friend. But towards night he plied the watch bountifully with wine and festal mirth, cut off their heads as they slept, and set them at their groins, in order to make their slaying more shameful. The queen, roused by the din, and wishing to learn the reason of it, hastily rushed to the doors. But while she unwarily put forth her head, the sword of Gunn suddenly pierced her through. Feeling a mortal wound, she sank, turned her eyes on her murderer, and said, "Had it been granted me to live unscathed, no screen or treachery should have let thee leave this land unpunished." A flood of such threats against her slayer poured from her dying lips. Then Jarmerik, with Gunn, the partner of his noble deed, secretly set fire to the tent wherein the king was celebrating with a banquet the obsequies of his brother; all the company were overcome with liquor. The fire filled the tent and spread all about; and some of them, shaking off the torpor of drink, took horse and pursued those who had endangered them. But the young men fled at first on the beasts they had taken; and at last, when these were exhausted with their long gallop, took to flight on foot. They were all but caught, when a river saved them. For they crossed a bridge, of which, in order to delay the pursuer, they first cut the timbers down to the middle, thus making it not only unequal to a burden, but ready to come down; then they retreated into a dense morass. The Sclavs pressed on them hard and, not forseeing the danger, unwarily put the weight of their horses on the bridge; the flooring sank, and they were shaken off and flung into the river. But, as they swam up to the bank, they were met by Gunn and Jarmerik, and either drowned or slain. Thus the young men showed great cunning, and did a deed beyond their years, being more like sagacious old men than runaway slaves, and successfully achieving their shrewd design. When they reached the strand they seized a vessel chance threw in their way, and made for the deep. The barbarians who pursued them, tried, when they saw them sailing off, to bring them back by shouting promises after them that they should be kings if they returned; "for, by the public statute of the ancients, the succession was appointed to the slayers of the kings." As they retreated, their ears were long deafened by the Sclavs obstinately shouting their treacherous promises. At this time BUDLE, the brother of Siward, was Regent over the Danes, who forced him to make over the kingdom to JARMERIK when he came; so that Budle fell from a king into a common man. At the same time Gotar charged Sibb with debauching his sister, and slew him. Sibb's kindred, much angered by his death, came wailing to Jarmerik, and promised to attack Gotar with him, in order to avenge their kinsman. They kept their promise well, for Jarmerik, having overthrown Gotar by their help, gained Sweden. Thus, holding the sovereignty of both nations, he was encouraged by his increased power to attack the Sclavs, forty of whom he took and hung with a wolf tied to each of them. This kind of punishment was assigned of old to those who slew their own kindred; but he chose to inflict it upon enemies, that all might see plainly, just from their fellowship with ruthless beasts, how grasping they had shown themselves towards the Danes. When Jarmerik had conquered the country, he posted garrisons in all the fitting places, and departing thence, he made a slaughter of the Sembs and the Kurlanders, and many nations of the East. The Sclavs, thinking that this employment of the king gave them a chance of revolting, killed the governors whom he had appointed, and ravaged Denmark. Jarmerik, on his way back from roving, chanced to intercept their fleet, and destroyed it, a deed which added honour to his roll of conquests. He also put their nobles to death in a way that one would weep to see; namely, by first passing thongs through their legs, and then tying them to the hoofs of savage bulls; then hounds set on them and dragged them into miry swamps. This deed took the edge off the valour of the Sclavs, and they obeyed the authority of the king in fear and trembling. Jarmerik, enriched with great spoils, wished to provide a safe storehouse for his booty, and built on a lofty hill a treasure-house of marvellous handiwork. Gathering sods, he raised a mound, laying a mass of rocks for the foundation, and girt the lower part with a rampart, the centre with rooms, and the top with battlements. All round he posted a line of sentries without a break. Four huge gates gave free access on the four sides; and into this lordly mansion he heaped all his splendid riches. Having thus settled his affairs at home, he again turned his ambition abroad. He began to voyage, and speedily fought a naval battle with four brothers whom he met on the high seas, Hellespontines by race, and veteran rovers. After this battle had lasted three days, he ceased fighting, having bargained for their sister and half the tribute which they had imposed on those they had conquered. After this, Bikk, the son of the King of the Livonians, escaped from the captivity in which he lay under these said brothers, and went to Jarmerik. But he did not forget his wrongs, Jarmerik having long before deprived him of his own brothers. He was received kindly by the king, in all whose secret counsels he soon came to have a notable voice; and, as soon as he found the king pliable to his advice in all things, he led him, when his counsel was asked, into the most abominable acts, and drove him to commit crimes and infamies. Thus he sought some device to injure the king by a feint of loyalty, and tried above all to steel him against his nearest of blood; attempting to accomplish the revenge of his brother by guile, since he could not by force. So it came to pass that the king embraced filthy vices instead of virtues, and made himself generally hated by the cruel deeds which he committed at the instance of his treacherous adviser. Even the Sclavs began to rise against him; and, as a means of quelling them, he captured their leaders, passed a rope through their shanks, and delivered them to be torn asunder by horses pulling different ways. So perished their chief men, punished for their stubbornness of spirit by having their bodies rent apart. This kept the Sclavs duly obedient in unbroken and steady subjugation. Meantime, the sons of Jarmerik's sister, who had all been born and bred in Germany, took up arms, on the strength of their grandsire's title, against their uncle, contending that they had as good a right to the throne as he. The king demolished their strongholds in Germany with engines, blockaded or took several towns, and returned home with a bloodless victory. The Hellespontines came to meet him, proffering their sister for the promised marriage. After this had been celebrated, at Bikk's prompting he again went to Germany, took his nephews in war, and incontinently hanged them. He also got together the chief men under the pretence of a banquet and had them put to death in the same fashion. Meantime, the king appointed Broder, his son by another marriage, to have charge over his stepmother, a duty which he fulfilled with full vigilance and integrity. But Bikk accused this man to his father of incest; and, to conceal the falsehood of the charge, suborned witnesses against him. When the plea of the accusation had been fully declared, Broder could not bring any support for his defence, and his father bade his friends pass sentence upon the convicted man, thinking it less impious to commit the punishment proper for his son to the judgment of others. All thought that he deserved outlawry except Bikk, who did not shrink from giving a more terrible vote against his life, and declaring that the perpetrator of an infamous seduction ought to be punished with hanging. But lest any should think that this punishment was due to the cruelty of his father, Bikk judged that, when he had been put in the noose, the servants should hold him up on a beam put beneath him, so that, when weariness made them take their hands from the burden, they might be as good as guilty of the young man's death, and by their own fault exonerate the king from an unnatural murder. He also pretended that, unless the accused were punished, he would plot against his father's life. The adulteress Swanhild, he said, ought to suffer a shameful end, trampled under the hoofs of beasts. The king yielded to Bikk; and, when his son was to be hanged, he made the bystanders hold him up by means of a plank, that he might not be choked. Thus his throat was only a little squeezed, the knot was harmless, and it was but a punishment in show. But the king had the queen tied very tight on the ground, and delivered her to be crushed under the hoofs of horses. The story goes that she was so beautiful, that even the beasts shrank from mangling limbs so lovely with their filthy feet. The king, divining that this proclaimed the innocence of his wife, began to repent of his error, and hastened to release the slandered lady. But meantime Bikk rushed up, declaring that when she was on her back she held off the beasts by awful charms, and could only be crushed if she lay on her face; for he knew that her beauty saved her. When the body of the queen was placed in this manner, the herd of beasts was driven upon it, and trod it down deep with their multitude of feet. Such was the end of Swanhild. Meantime, the favourite dog of Broder came creeping to the king making a sort of moan, and seemed to bewail its master's punishment; and his hawk, when it was brought in, began to pluck out its breast-feathers with its beak. The king took its nakedness as an omen of his bereavement, to frustrate which he quickly sent men to take his son down from the noose: for he divined by the featherless bird that he would be childless unless he took good heed. Thus Broder was freed from death, and Bikk, fearing he would pay the penalty of an informer, went and told the men of the Hellespont that Swanhild had been abominably slain by her husband. When they set sail to avenge their sister, he came back to Jarmerik, and told him that the Hellespontines were preparing war. The king thought that it would be safer to fight with walls than in the field, and retreated into the stronghold which he had built. To stand the siege, he filled its inner parts with stores, and its battlements with men-at-arms. Targets and shields flashing with gold were hung round and adorned the topmost circle of the building. It happened that the Hellespontines, before sharing their booty, accused a great band of their men of embezzling, and put them to death. Having now destroyed so large a part of their forces by internecine slaughter, they thought that their strength was not equal to storming the palace, and consulted a sorceress named Gudrun. She brought it to pass that the defenders of the king's side were suddenly blinded and turned their arms against one another. When the Hellespontines saw this, they brought up a shield-mantlet, and seized the approaches of the gates. Then they tore up the posts, burst into the building, and hewed down the blinded ranks of the enemy. In this uproar Odin appeared, and, making for the thick of the ranks of the fighters, restored by his divine power to the Danes that vision which they had lost by sleights; for he ever cherished them with fatherly love. He instructed them to shower stones to batter the Hellespontines, who used spells to harden their bodies against weapons. Thus both companies slew one another and perished. Jarmerik lost both feet and both hands, and his trunk was rolled among the dead. BRODER, little fit for it, followed him as king. The next king was SIWALD. His son SNIO took vigorously to roving in his father's old age, and not only preserved the fortunes of his country, but even restored them, lessened as they were, to their former estate. Likewise, when he came to the sovereignty, he crushed the insolence of the champions Eskil and Alkil, and by this conquest reunited to his country Skaane, which had been severed from the general jurisdiction of Denmark. At last he conceived a passion for the daughter of the King of the Goths; it was returned, and he sent secret messengers to seek a chance of meeting her. These men were intercepted by the father of the damsel and hanged: thus paying dearly for their rash mission. Snio, wishing to avenge their death, invaded Gothland. Its king met him with his forces, and the aforesaid champions challenged him to send strong men to fight. Snio laid down as condition of the duel, that each of the two kings should either lose his own empire or gain that of the other, according to the fortune of the champions, and that the kingdom of the conquered should be staked as the prize of the victory. The result was that the King of the Goths was beaten by reason of the ill-success of his defenders, and had to quit his kingdom for the Danes. Snio, learning that this king's daughter had been taken away at the instance of her father to wed the King of the Swedes, sent a man clad in ragged attire, who used to ask alms on the public roads, to try her mind. And while he lay, as beggars do, by the threshold, he chanced to see the queen, and whined in a weak voice, "Snio loves thee." She feigned not to have heard the sound that stole on her ears, and neither looked nor stepped back, but went on to the palace, then returned straightway, and said in a low whisper, which scarcely reached his ears, "I love him who loves me"; and having said this she walked away. The beggar rejoiced that she had returned a word of love, and, as he sat on the next day at the gate, when the queen came up, he said, briefly as ever, "Wishes should have a tryst." Again she shrewdly caught his cunning speech, and passed on, dissembling wholly. A little later she passed by her questioner, and said that she would shortly go to Bocheror; for this was the spot to which she meant to flee. And when the beggar heard this, he insisted, with his wonted shrewd questions, upon being told a fitting time for the tryst. The woman was as cunning as he, and as little clear of speech, and named as quickly as she could the beginning of the winter. Her train, who had caught a flying word of this love-message, took her great cleverness for the raving of utter folly. And when Snio had been told all this by the beggar, he contrived to carry the queen off in a vessel; for she got away under pretence of bathing, and took her husband's treasures. After this there were constant wars between Snio and the King of Sweden, whereof the issue was doubtful and the victory changeful; the one king seeking to regain his lawful, the other to keep his unlawful love. At this time the yield of crops was ruined by most inclement weather, and a mighty dearth of corn befell. Victuals began to be scarce, and the commons were distressed with famine, so that the king, anxiously pondering how to relieve the hardness of the times, and seeing that the thirsty spent somewhat more than the hungry, introduced thrift among the people. He abolished drinking-bouts, and decreed that no drink should be prepared from gram, thinking that the bitter famine should be got rid of by prohibiting needless drinking, and that plentiful food could be levied as a loan on thirst. Then a certain wanton slave of his belly, lamenting the prohibition against drink, adopted a deep kind of knavery, and found a new way to indulge his desires. He broke the public law of temperance by his own excess, contriving to get at what he loved by a device both cunning and absurd. For he sipped the forbidden liquor drop by drop, and so satisfied his longing to be tipsy. When he was summoned for this by the king, he declared that there was no stricter observer of sobriety than he, inasmuch as he mortified his longing to quaff deep by this device for moderate drinking. He persisted in the fault with which he was taxed, saying that he only sucked. At last he was also menaced with threats, and forbidden not only to drink, but even to sip; yet he could not check his habits. For in order to enjoy the unlawful thing in a lawful way, and not to have his throat subject to the command of another, he sopped morsels of bread in liquor, and fed on the pieces thus soaked with drink; tasting slowly, so as to prolong the desired debauch, and attaining, though in no unlawful manner, the forbidden measure of satiety. Thus his stubborn and frantic intemperance risked his life, all for luxury; and, undeterred even by the threats of the king, he fortified his rash appetite to despise every peril. A second time he was summoned by the king on the charge of disobeying his regulation. Yet he did not even theft cease to defend his act, but maintained that he had in no wise contravened the royal decree, and that the temperance prescribed by the ordinance had been in no way violated by that which allured him; especially as the thrift ordered in the law of plain living was so described, that it was apparently forbidden to drink liquor, but not to eat it. Then the king called heaven to witness, and swore by the general good, that if he ventured on any such thing hereafter he would punish him with death. But the man thought that death was not so bad as temperance, and that it was easier to quit life than luxury; and he again boiled the grain in water, and then fermented the liquor; whereupon, despairing of any further plea to excuse his appetite, he openly indulged in drink, and turned to his cups again unabashed. Giving up cunning for effrontery, he chose rather to await the punishment of the king than to turn sober. Therefore, when the king asked him why he had so often made free to use the forbidden thing, he said: "O king, this craving is begotten, not so much of my thirst, as of my goodwill towards thee! For I remembered that the funeral rites of a king must be paid with a drinking-bout. Therefore, led by good judgment more than the desire to swill, I have, by mixing the forbidden liquid, taken care that the feast whereat thy obsequies are performed should not, by reason of the scarcity of corn, lack the due and customary drinking. Now I do not doubt that thou wilt perish of famine before the rest, and be the first to need a tomb; for thou hast passed this strange law of thrift in fear that thou wilt be thyself the first to lack food. Thou art thinking for thyself, and not for others, when thou bringest thyself to start such strange miserly ways." This witty quibbling turned the anger of the king into shame; and when he saw that his ordinance for the general good came home in mockery to himself, he thought no more of the public profit, but revoked the edict, relaxing his purpose sooner than anger his subjects. Whether it was that the soil had too little rain, or that it was too hard baked, the crops, as I have said, were slack, and the fields gave but little produce; so that the land lacked victual, and was worn with a weary famine. The stock of food began to fail, and no help was left to stave off hunger. Then, at the proposal of Agg and of Ebb, it was provided by a decree of the people that the old men and the tiny children should be slain; that all who were too young to bear arms should be taken out of the land, and only the strong should be vouchsafed their own country; that none but able-bodied soldiers and husbandmen should continue to abide under their own roofs and in the houses of their fathers. When Agg and Ebb brought news of this to their mother Gambaruk, she saw that the authors of this infamous decree had found safety in crime. Condemning the decision of the assembly, she said that it was wrong to relieve distress by murder of kindred, and declared that a plan both more honourable and more desirable for the good of their souls and bodies would be, to preserve respect towards their parents and children, and choose by lot men who should quit the country. And if the lot fell on old men and weak, then the stronger should offer to go into exile in their place, and should of their own free will undertake to bear the burden of it for the feeble. But those men who had the heart to save their lives by crime and impiety, and to prosecute their parents and their children by so abominable a decree, did not deserve life; for they would be doing a work of cruelty and not of love. Finally, all those whose own lives were dearer to them than the love of their parents or their children, deserved but ill of their country. These words were reported to the assembly, and assented to by the vote of the majority. So the fortunes of all were staked upon the lot and those upon whom it fell were doomed to be banished. Thus those who had been loth to obey necessity of their own accord had now to accept the award of chance. So they sailed first to Bleking, and then, sailing past Moring, they came to anchor at Gothland; where, according to Paulus, they are said to have been prompted by the goddess Frigg to take the name of the Longobardi (Lombards), whose nation they afterwards founded. In the end they landed at Rugen, and, abandoning their ships, began to march overland. They crossed and wasted a great portion of the world; and at last, finding an abode in Italy, changed the ancient name of the nation for their own. Meanwhile, the land of the Danes, where the tillers laboured less and less, and all traces of the furrows were covered with overgrowth, began to look like a forest. Almost stripped of its pleasant native turf, it bristled with the dense unshapely woods that grew up. Traces of this are yet seen in the aspect of its fields. What were once acres fertile in grain are now seen to be dotted with trunks of trees; and where of old the tillers turned the earth up deep and scattered the huge clods there has now sprung up a forest covering the fields, which still bear the tracks of ancient tillage. Had not these lands remained untilled and desolate with long overgrowth, the tenacious roots of trees could never have shared the soil of one and the same land with the furrows made by the plough. Moreover, the mounds which men laboriously built up of old on the level ground for the burial of the dead are now covered by a mass of woodland. Many piles of stones are also to be seen interspersed among the forest glades. These were once scattered over the whole country, but the peasants carefully gathered the boulders and piled them into a heap that they might not prevent furrows being cut in all directions; for they would sooner sacrifice a little of the land than find the whole of it stubborn. From this work, done by the toil of the peasants for the easier working of the fields, it is judged that the population in ancient times was greater than the present one, which is satisfied with small fields, and keeps its agriculture within narrower limits than those of the ancient tillage. Thus the present generation is amazed to behold that it has exchanged a soil which could once produce grain for one only fit to grow acorns, and the plough-handle and the cornstalks for a landscape studded with trees. Let this account of Snio, which I have put together as truly as I could, suffice. Snio was succeeded by BIORN; and after him HARALD became sovereign. Harald's son GORM won no mean place of honour among the ancient generals of the Danes by his record of doughty deeds. For he ventured into fresh fields, preferring to practise his inherited valour, not in war, but in searching the secrets of nature; and, just as other kings are stirred by warlike ardour, so his heart thirsted to look into marvels; either what he could experience himself, or what were merely matters of report. And being desirous to go and see all things foreign and extraordinary, he thought that he must above all test a report which he had heard from the men of Thule concerning the abode of a certain Geirrod. For they boasted past belief of the mighty piles of treasure in that country, but said that the way was beset with peril, and hardly passable by mortal man. For those who had tried it declared that it was needful to sail over the ocean that goes round the lands, to leave the sun and stars behind, to journey down into chaos, and at last to pass into a land where no light was and where darkness reigned eternally. But the warrior trampled down in his soul all fear of the dangers that beset him. Not that he desired booty, but glory; for he hoped for a great increase of renown if he ventured on a wholly unattempted quest. Three hundred men announced that they had the same desire as the king; and he resolved that Thorkill, who had brought the news, should be chosen to guide them on the journey, as he knew the ground and was versed in the approaches to that country. Thorkill did not refuse the task, and advised that, to meet the extraordinary fury of the sea they had to cross, strongly-made vessels should be built, fitted with many knotted cords and close-set nails, filled with great store of provision, and covered above with ox-hides to protect the inner spaces of the ships from the spray of the waves breaking in. Then they sailed off in only three galleys, each containing a hundred chosen men. Now when they had come to Halogaland (Helgeland), they lost their favouring breezes, and were driven and tossed divers ways over the seas in perilous voyage. At last, in extreme want of food, and lacking even bread, they staved off hunger with a little pottage. Some days passed, and they heard the thunder of a storm brawling in the distance, as if it were deluging the rocks. By this perceiving that land was near, they bade a youth of great nimbleness climb to the masthead and look out; and he reported that a precipitous island was in sight. All were overjoyed, and gazed with thirsty eyes at the country at which he pointed, eagerly awaiting the refuge of the promised shore. At last they managed to reach it, and made their way out over the heights that blocked their way, along very steep paths, into the higher ground. Then Thorkill told them to take no more of the herds that were running about in numbers on the coast, than would serve once to appease their hunger. If they disobeyed, the guardian gods of the spot would not let them depart. But the seamen, more anxious to go on filling their bellies than to obey orders, postponed counsels of safety to the temptations of gluttony, and loaded the now emptied holds of their ships with the carcases of slaughtered cattle. These beasts were very easy to capture, because they gathered in amazement at the unwonted sight of men, their fears being made bold. On the following night monsters dashed down upon the shore, filled the forest with clamour, and beleaguered and beset the ships. One of them, huger than the rest, strode over the waters, armed with a mighty club. Coming close up to them, he bellowed out that they should never sail away till they had atoned for the crime they had committed in slaughtering the flock, and had made good the losses of the herd of the gods by giving up one man for each of their ships. Thorkill yielded to these threats; and, in order to preserve the safety of all by imperilling a few, singled out three men by lot and gave them up. This done, a favouring wind took them, and they sailed to further Permland. It is a region of eternal cold, covered with very deep snows, and not sensible to the force even of the summer heats; full of pathless forests, not fertile in grain and haunted by beasts uncommon elsewhere. Its many rivers pour onwards in a hissing, foaming flood, because of the reefs imbedded in their channels. Here Thorkill drew up his ships ashore, and bade them pitch their tents on the beach, declaring that they had come to a spot whence the passage to Geirrod would be short. Moreover, he forbade them to exchange any speech with those that came up to them, declaring that nothing enabled the monsters to injure strangers so much as uncivil words on their part: it would be therefore safer for his companions to keep silence; none but he, who had seen all the manners and customs of this nation before, could speak safely. As twilight approached, a man of extraordinary bigness greeted the sailors by their names, and came among them. All were aghast, but Thorkill told them to greet his arrival cheerfully, telling them that this was Gudmund, the brother of Geirrod, and the most faithful guardian in perils of all men who landed in that spot. When the man asked why all the rest thus kept silence, he answered that they were very unskilled in his language, and were ashamed to use a speech they did not know. Then Gudmund invited them to be his guests, and took them up in carriages. As they went forward, they saw a river which could be crossed by a bridge of gold. They wished to go over it, but Gudmund restrained them, telling them that by this channel nature had divided the world of men from the world of monsters, and that no mortal track might go further. Then they reached the dwelling of their guide; and here Thorkill took his companions apart and warned them to behave like men of good counsel amidst the divers temptations chance might throw in their way; to abstain from the food of the stranger, and nourish their bodies only on their own; and to seek a seat apart from the natives, and have no contact with any of them as they lay at meat. For if they partook of that food they would lose recollection of all things, and must live for ever in filthy intercourse amongst ghastly hordes of monsters. Likewise he told them that they must keep their hands off the servants and the cups of the people. Round the table stood twelve noble sons of Gudmund, and as many daughters of notable beauty. When Gudmund saw that the king barely tasted what his servants brought, he reproached him with repulsing his kindness, and complained that it was a slight on the host. But Thorkill was not at a loss for a fitting excuse. He reminded him that men who took unaccustomed food often suffered from it seriously, and that the king was not ungrateful for the service rendered by another, but was merely taking care of his health, when he refreshed himself as he was wont, and furnished his supper with his own viands. An act, therefore, that was only done in the healthy desire to escape some bane, ought in no wise to be put down to scorn. Now when Gudmund saw that the temperance of his guest had baffled his treacherous preparations, he determined to sap their chastity, if he could not weaken their abstinence, and eagerly strained every nerve of his wit to enfeeble their self-control. For he offered the king his daughter in marriage, and promised the rest that they should have whatever women of his household they desired. Most of them inclined to his offer: but Thorkill by his healthy admonitions prevented them, as he had done before, from falling into temptation. With wonderful management Thorkill divided his heed between the suspicious host and the delighted guests. Four of the Danes, to whom lust was more than their salvation, accepted the offer; the infection maddened them, distraught their wits, and blotted out their recollection: for they are said never to have been in their right mind after this. If these men had kept themselves within the rightful bounds of temperance, they would have equalled the glories of Hercules, surpassed with their spirit the bravery of giants, and been ennobled for ever by their wondrous services to their country. Gudmund, stubborn to his purpose, and still spreading his nets, extolled the delights of his garden, and tried to lure the king thither to gather fruits, desiring to break down his constant wariness by the lust of the eye and the baits of the palate. The king, as before, was strengthened against these treacheries by Thorkill, and rejected this feint of kindly service; he excused himself from accepting it on the plea that he must hasten on his journey. Gudmund perceived that Thorkill was shrewder than he at every point; so, despairing to accomplish his treachery, he carried them all across the further side of the river, and let them finish their journey. They went on; and saw, not far off, a gloomy, neglected town, looking more like a cloud exhaling vapour. Stakes interspersed among the battlements showed the severed heads of warriors and dogs of great ferocity were seen watching before the doors to guard the entrance. Thorkill threw them a horn smeared with fat to lick, and so, at slight cost, appeased their most furious rage. High up the gates lay open to enter, and they climbed to their level with ladders, entering with difficulty. Inside the town was crowded with murky and misshapen phantoms, and it was hard to say whether their shrieking figures were more ghastly to the eye or to the ear; everything was foul, and the reeking mire afflicted the nostrils of the visitors with its unbearable stench. Then they found the rocky dwelling which Geirrod was rumoured to inhabit for his palace. They resolved to visit its narrow and horrible ledge, but stayed their steps and halted in panic at the very entrance. Then Thorkill, seeing that they were of two minds, dispelled their hesitation to enter by manful encouragement, counselling them, to restrain themselves, and not to touch any piece of gear in the house they were about to enter, albeit it seemed delightful to have or pleasant to behold; to keep their hearts as far from all covetousness as from fear; neither to desire what was pleasant to take, nor dread what was awful to look upon, though they should find themselves amidst abundance of both these things. If they did, their greedy hands would suddenly be bound fast, unable to tear themselves away from the thing they touched, and knotted up with it as by inextricable bonds. Moreover, they should enter in order, four by four. Broder and Buchi (Buk?) were the first to show courage to attempt to enter the vile palace; Thorkill with the king followed them, and the rest advanced behind these in ordered ranks. Inside, the house was seen to be ruinous throughout, and filled with a violent and abominable reek. And it also teemed with everything that could disgust the eye or the mind: the door-posts were begrimed with the soot of ages, the wall was plastered with filth, the roof was made up of spear-heads, the flooring was covered with snakes and bespattered with all manner of uncleanliness. Such an unwonted sight struck terror into the strangers, and, over all, the acrid and incessant stench assailed their afflicted nostrils. Also bloodless phantasmal monsters huddled on the iron seats, and the places for sitting were railed off by leaden trellises; and hideous doorkeepers stood at watch on the thresholds. Some of these, armed with clubs lashed together, yelled, while others played a gruesome game, tossing a goat's hide from one to the other with mutual motion of goatish backs. Here Thorkill again warned the men, and forbade them to stretch forth their covetous hands rashly to the forbidden things. Going on through the breach in the crag, they beheld an old man with his body pierced through, sitting not far off, on a lofty seat facing the side of the rock that had been rent away. Moreover, three women, whose bodies were covered with tumours, and who seemed to have lost the strength of their back-bones, filled adjoining seats. Thorkill's companions were very curious; and he, who well knew the reason of the matter, told them that long ago the god Thor had been provoked by the insolence of the giants to drive red-hot irons through the vitals of Geirrod, who strove with him, and that the iron had slid further, torn up the mountain, and battered through its side; while the women had been stricken by the might of his thunderbolts, and had been punished (so he declared) for their attempt on the same deity, by having their bodies broken. As the men were about to depart thence, there were disclosed to them seven butts hooped round with belts of gold; and from these hung circlets of silver entwined with them in manifold links. Near these was found the tusk of a strange beast, tipped at both ends with gold. Close by was a vast stag-horn, laboriously decked with choice and flashing gems, and this also did not lack chasing. Hard by was to be seen a very heavy bracelet. One man was kindled with an inordinate desire for this bracelet, and laid covetous hands upon the gold, not knowing that the glorious metal covered deadly mischief, and that a fatal bane lay hid under the shining spoil. A second also, unable to restrain his covetousness, reached out his quivering hands to the horn. A third, matching the confidence of the others, and having no control over his fingers, ventured to shoulder the tusk. The spoil seemed alike lovely to look upon and desirable to enjoy, for all that met the eye was fair and tempting to behold. But the bracelet suddenly took the form of a snake, and attacked him who was carrying it with its poisoned tooth; the horn lengthened out into a serpent, and took the life of the man who bore it; the tusk wrought itself into a sword, and plunged into the vitals of its bearer. The rest dreaded the fate of perishing with their friends, and thought that the guiltless would be destroyed like the guilty; they durst not hope that even innocence would be safe. Then the side-door of another room showed them a narrow alcove: and a privy chamber with a yet richer treasure was revealed, wherein arms were laid out too great for those of human stature. Among these were seen a royal mantle, a handsome hat, and a belt marvellously wrought. Thorkill, struck with amazement at these things, gave rein to his covetousness, and cast off all his purposed self-restraint. He who so oft had trained others could not so much as conquer his own cravings. For he laid his hand upon the mantle, and his rash example tempted the rest to join in his enterprise of plunder. Thereupon the recess shook from its lowest foundations, and began suddenly to reel and totter. Straightway the women raised a shriek that the wicked robbers were being endured too long. Then they, who were before supposed to be half-dead or lifeless phantoms, seemed to obey the cries of the women, and, leaping suddenly up from their seats, attacked the strangers with furious onset. The other creatures bellowed hoarsely. But Broder and Buchi fell to their old and familiar arts, and attacked the witches, who ran at them, with a shower of spears from every side; and with the missiles from their bows and slings they crushed the array of monsters. There could be no stronger or more successful way to repulse them; but only twenty men out of all the king's company were rescued by the intervention of this archery; the rest were torn in pieces by the monsters. The survivors returned to the river, and were ferried over by Gudmund, who entertained them at his house. Long and often as he besought them, he could not keep them back; so at last he gave them presents and let them go. Buchi relaxed his watch upon himself; his self-control became unstrung, and he forsook the virtue in which he hitherto rejoiced. For he conceived an incurable love for one of the daughters of Gudmund, and embraced her; but he obtained a bride to his undoing, for soon his brain suddenly began to whirl, and he lost his recollection. Thus the hero who had subdued all the monsters and overcome all the perils was mastered by passion for one girl; his soul strayed far from temperance, and he lay under a wretched sensual yoke. For the sake of respect, he started to accompany the departing king; but as he was about to ford the river in his carriage, his wheels sank deep, he was caught up in the violent eddies and destroyed. The king bewailed his friend's disaster and departed hastening on his voyage. This was at first prosperous, but afterwards he was tossed by bad weather; his men perished of hunger, and but few survived, so that he began to feel awe in his heart, and fell to making vows to heaven, thinking the gods alone could help him in his extreme need. At last the others besought sundry powers among the gods, and thought they ought to sacrifice to the majesty of divers deities; but the king, offering both vows and peace-offerings to Utgarda-Loki, obtained that fair season of weather for which he prayed. Coming home, and feeling that he had passed through all these seas and toils, he thought it was time for his spirit, wearied with calamities, to withdraw from his labours. So he took a queen from Sweden, and exchanged his old pursuits for meditative leisure. His life was prolonged in the utmost peace and quietness; but when he had almost come to the end of his days, certain men persuaded him by likely arguments that souls were immortal; so that he was constantly turning over in his mind the questions, to what abode he was to fare when the breath left his limbs, or what reward was earned by zealous adoration of the gods. While he was thus inclined, certain men who wished ill to Thorkill came and told Gorm that it was needful to consult the gods, and that assurance about so great a matter must be sought of the oracles of heaven, since it was too deep for human wit and hard for mortals to discover. Therefore, they said, Utgarda-Loki must be appeased, and no man would accomplish this more fitly than Thorkill. Others, again, laid information against him as guilty of treachery and an enemy of the king's life. Thorkill, seeing himself doomed to extreme peril, demanded that his accusers should share his journey. Then they who had aspersed an innocent man saw that the peril they had designed against the life of another had recoiled upon themselves, and tried to take back their plan. But vainly did they pester the ears of the king; he forced them to sail under the command of Thorkill, and even upbraided them with cowardice. Thus, when a mischief is designed against another, it is commonly sure to strike home to its author. And when these men saw that they were constrained, and could not possibly avoid the peril, they covered their ship with ox-hides, and filled it with abundant store of provision. In this ship they sailed away, and came to a sunless land, which knew not the stars, was void of daylight, and seemed to overshadow them with eternal night. Long they sailed under this strange sky; at last their timber fell short, and they lacked fuel; and, having no place to boil their meat in, they staved off their hunger with raw viands. But most of those who ate contracted extreme disease, being glutted with undigested food. For the unusual diet first made a faintness steal gradually upon their stomachs; then the infection spread further, and the malady reached the vital parts. Thus there was danger in either extreme, which made it hurtful not to eat, and perilous to indulge; for it was found both unsafe to feed and bad for them to abstain. Then, when they were beginning to be in utter despair, a gleam of unexpected help relieved them, even as the string breaks most easily when it is stretched tightest. For suddenly the weary men saw the twinkle of a fire at no great distance, and conceived a hope of prolonging their lives. Thorkill thought this fire a heaven-sent relief, and resolved to go and take some of it. To be surer of getting back to his friends, Thorkill fastened a jewel upon the mast-head, to mark it by the gleam. When he got to the shore, his eyes fell on a cavern in a close defile, to which a narrow way led. Telling his companions to await him outside, he went in, and saw two men, swart and very huge, with horny noses, feeding their fire with any chance-given fuel. Moreover, the entrance was hideous, the door-posts were decayed, the walls grimy with mould, the roof filthy, and the floor swarming with snakes; all of which disgusted the eye as much as the mind. Then one of the giants greeted him, and said that he had begun a most difficult venture in his burning desire to visit a strange god, and his attempt to explore with curious search an untrodden region beyond the world. Yet he promised to tell Thorkill the paths of the journey he proposed to make, if he would deliver three true judgments in the form of as many sayings. Then said Thorkill: "In good truth, I do not remember ever to have seen a household with more uncomely noses; nor have I ever come to a spot where I had less mind to live." Also he said: "That, I think, is my best foot which can get out of this foremost." The giant was pleased with the shrewdness of Thorkill, and praised his sayings, telling him that he must first travel to a grassless land which was veiled in deep darkness; but he must first voyage for four days, rowing incessantly, before he could reach his goal. There he could visit Utgarda-Loki, who had chosen hideous and grisly caves for his filthy dwelling. Thorkill was much aghast at being bidden to go on a voyage so long and hazardous; but his doubtful hopes prevailed over his present fears, and he asked for some live fuel. Then said the giant: "If thou needest fire, thou must deliver three more judgments in like sayings." Then said Thorkill: "Good counsel is to be obeyed, though a mean fellow gave it." Likewise: "I have gone so far in rashness, that if I can get back I shall owe my safety to none but my own legs." And again: "Were I free to retreat this moment, I would take good care never to come back." Thereupon Thorkill took the fire along to his companions; and finding a kindly wind, landed on the fourth day at the appointed harbour. With his crew he entered a land where an aspect of unbroken night checked the vicissitude of light and darkness. He could hardly see before him, but beheld a rock of enormous size. Wishing to explore it, he told his companions, who were standing posted at the door, to strike a fire from flints as a timely safeguard against demons, and kindle it in the entrance. Then he made others bear a light before him, and stooped his body through the narrow jaws of the cavern, where he beheld a number of iron seats among a swarm of gliding serpents. Next there met his eye a sluggish mass of water gently flowing over a sandy bottom. He crossed this, and approached a cavern which sloped somewhat more steeply. Again, after this, a foul and gloomy room was disclosed to the visitors, wherein they saw Utgarda-Loki, laden hand and foot with enormous chains. Each of his reeking hairs was as large and stiff as a spear of cornel. Thorkill (his companions lending a hand), in order that his deeds might gain more credit, plucked one of these from the chin of Utgarda-Loki, who suffered it. Straightway such a noisome smell reached the bystanders, that they could not breathe without stopping their noses with their mantles. They could scarcely make their way out, and were bespattered by the snakes which darted at them on every side. Only five of Thorkill's company embarked with their captain: the poison killed the rest. The demons hung furiously over them, and cast their poisonous slaver from every side upon the men below them. But the sailors sheltered themselves with their hides, and cast back the venom that fell upon them. One man by chance at this point wished to peep out; the poison touched his head, which was taken off his neck as if it had been severed with a sword. Another put his eyes out of their shelter, and when he brought them back under it they were blinded. Another thrust forth his hand while unfolding his covering, and, when he withdrew his arm, it was withered by the virulence of the same slaver. They besought their deities to be kinder to them; vainly, until Thorkill prayed to the god of the universe, and poured forth unto him libations as well as prayers; and thus, presently finding the sky even as before and the elements clear, he made a fair voyage. And now they seemed to behold another world, and the way towards the life of man. At last Thorkill landed in Germany, which had then been admitted to Christianity; and among its people he began to learn how to worship God. His band of men were almost destroyed, because of the dreadful air they had breathed, and he returned to his country accompanied by two men only, who had escaped the worst. But the corrupt matter which smeared his face so disguised his person and original features that not even his friends knew him. But when he wiped off the filth, he made himself recognizable by those who saw him, and inspired the king with the greatest eagerness to hear about his quest. But the detraction of his rivals was not yet silenced; and some pretended that the king would die suddenly if he learnt Thorkill's tidings. The king was the more disposed to credit this saying, because he was already credulous by reason of a dream which falsely prophesied the same thing. Men were therefore hired by the king's command to slay Thorkill in the night. But somehow he got wind of it, left his bed unknown to all, and put a heavy log in his place. By this he baffled the treacherous device of the king, for the hirelings smote only the stock. On the morrow Thorkill went up to the king as he sat at meat, and said: "I forgive thy cruelty and pardon thy error, in that thou hast decreed punishment, and not thanks, to him who brings good tidings of his errand. For thy sake I have devoted my life to all these afflictions, and battered it in all these perils; I hoped that thou wouldst requite my services with much gratitude; and behold! I have found thee, and thee alone, punish my valour sharpliest. But I forbear all vengeance, and am satisfied with the shame within thy heart--if, after all, any shame visits the thankless--as expiation for this wrongdoing towards me. I have a right to surmise that thou art worse than all demons in fury, and all beasts in cruelty, if, after escaping the snares of all these monsters, I have failed to be safe from thine." The king desired to learn everything from Thorkill's own lips; and, thinking it hard to escape destiny, bade him relate what had happened in due order. He listened eagerly to his recital of everything, till at last, when his own god was named, he could not endure him to be unfavourably judged. For he could not bear to hear Utgarda-Loki reproached with filthiness, and so resented his shameful misfortunes, that his very life could not brook such words, and he yielded it up in the midst of Thorkill's narrative. Thus, whilst he was so zealous in the worship of a false god, he came to find where the true prison of sorrows really was. Moreover, the reek of the hair, which Thorkill plucked from the locks of the giant to testify to the greatness of his own deeds, was exhaled upon the bystanders, so that many perished of it. After the death of Gorm, GOTRIK his son came to the throne. He was notable not only for prowess but for generosity, and none can say whether his courage or his compassion was the greater. He so chastened his harshness with mercy, that he seemed to counterweigh the one with the other. At this time Gaut, the King of Norway, was visited by Ber (Biorn?) and Ref, men of Thule. Gaut treated Ref with attention and friendship, and presented him with a heavy bracelet. One of the courtiers, when he saw this, praised the greatness of the gift over-zealously, and declared that no one was equal to King Gaut in kindliness. But Ref, though he owed thanks for the benefit, could not approve the inflated words of this extravagant praiser, and said that Gotrik was more generous than Gaut. Wishing to crush the empty boast of the flatterer, he chose rather to bear witness to the generosity of the absent than tickle with lies the vanity of his benefactor who was present. For another thing, he thought it somewhat more desirable to be charged with ingratitude than to support with his assent such idle and boastful praise, and also to move the king by the solemn truth than to beguile him with lying flatteries. But Ulf persisted not only in stubbornly repeating his praises of the king, but in bringing them to the proof; and proposed their gainsayer a wager. With his consent Ref went to Denmark, and found Gotrik seated in state, and dealing out the pay to his soldiers. When the king asked him who he was, he said that his name was "Fox-cub" The answer filled some with mirth and some with marvel, and Gotrik said, "Yea, and it is fitting that a fox should catch his prey in his mouth." And thereupon he drew a bracelet from his arm, called the man to him, and put it between his lips. Straightway Ref put it upon his arm, which he displayed to them all adorned with gold, but the other arm he kept hidden as lacking ornament; for which shrewdness he received a gift equal to the first from that hand of matchless generosity. At this he was overjoyed, not so much because the reward was great, as because he had won his contention. And when the king learnt from him about the wager he had laid, he rejoiced that he had been lavish to him more by accident than of set purpose, and declared that he got more pleasure from the giving than the receiver from the gift. So Ref returned to Norway and slew his opponent, who refused to pay the wager. Then he took the daughter of Gaut captive, and brought her to Gotrik for his own. Gotrik, who is also called Godefride, carried his arms against foreigners, and increased his strength and glory by his successful generalship. Among his memorable deeds were the terms of tribute he imposed upon the Saxons; namely, that whenever a change of kings occurred among the Danes, their princes should devote a hundred snow-white horses to the new king on his accession. But if the Saxons should receive a new chief upon a change in the succession, this chief was likewise to pay the aforesaid tribute obediently, and bow at the outset of his power to the sovereign majesty of Denmark; thereby acknowledging the supremacy of our nation, and solemnly confessing his own subjection. Nor was it enough for Gotrik to subjugate Germany: he appointed Ref on a mission to try the strength of Sweden. The Swedes feared to slay him with open violence, but ventured to act like bandits, and killed him, as he slept, with the blow of a stone. For, hanging a millstone above him, they cut its fastenings, and let it drop upon his neck as he lay beneath. To expiate this crime it was decreed that each of the ringleaders should pay twelve golden talents, while each of the common people should pay Gotrik one ounce. Men called this "the Fox-cub's tribute". (Refsgild). Meanwhile it befell that Karl, King of the Franks, crushed Germany in war, and forced it not only to embrace the worship of Christianity, but also to obey his authority. When Gotrik heard of this, he attacked the nations bordering on the Elbe, and attempted to regain under his sway as of old the realm of Saxony, which eagerly accepted the yoke of Karl, and preferred the Roman to the Danish arms. Karl had at this time withdrawn his victorious camp beyond the Rhine, and therefore forbore to engage the stranger enemy, being prevented by the intervening river. But when he was intending to cross once more to subdue the power of Gotrik, he was summoned by Leo the Pope of the Romans to defend the city. Obeying this command, Karl intrusted his son Pepin with the conduct of the war against Gotrik; so that while he himself was working against a distant foe, Pepin might manage the conflict he had undertaken with his neighbour. For Karl was distracted by two anxieties, and had to furnish sufficient out of a scanty band to meet both of them. Meanwhile Gotrik won a glorious victory over the Saxons. Then gathering new strength, and mustering a larger body of forces, he resolved to avenge the wrong he had suffered in losing his sovereignty, not only upon the Saxons, but upon the whole people of Germany. He began by subduing Friesland with his fleet. This province lies very low, and whenever the fury of the ocean bursts the dykes that bar its waves, it is wont to receive the whole mass of the deluge over its open plains. On this country Gotrik imposed a kind of tribute, which was not so much harsh as strange. I will briefly relate its terms and the manner of it. First, a building was arranged, two hundred and forty feet in length, and divided into twelve spaces; each of these stretching over an interval of twenty feet, and thus making together, when the whole room was exhausted, the aforesaid total. Now at the upper end of this building sat the king's treasurer, and in a line with him at its further end was displayed a round shield. When the Frisians came to pay tribute, they used to cast their coins one by one into the hollow of this shield; but only those coins which struck the ear of the distant toll-gatherer with a distinct clang were chosen by him, as he counted, to be reckoned among the royal tribute. The result was that the collector only reckoned that money towards the treasury of which his distant ear caught the sound as it fell. But that of which the sound was duller, and which fell out of his earshot, was received indeed into the treasury, but did not count as any increase to the sum paid. Now many coins that were cast in struck with no audible loudness whatever on the collector's ear, so that men who came to pay their appointed toll sometimes squandered much of their money in useless tribute. Karl is said to have freed them afterwards from the burden of this tax. After Gotrik had crossed Friesland, and Karl had now come back from Rome, Gotrik determined to swoop down upon the further districts of Germany, but was treacherously attacked by one of his own servants, and perished at home by the sword of a traitor. When Karl heard this, he leapt up overjoyed, declaring that nothing more delightful had ever fallen to his lot than this happy chance. ENDNOTES: (1) Furthest Thule--The names of Icelanders have thus crept into the account of a battle fought before the discovery of Iceland. BOOK NINE. After Gotrik's death reigned his son OLAF; who, desirous to avenge his father, did not hesitate to involve his country in civil wars, putting patriotism after private inclination. When he perished, his body was put in a barrow, famous for the name of Olaf, which was built up close by Leire. He was succeeded by HEMMING, of whom I have found no deed worthy of record, save that he made a sworn peace with Kaiser Ludwig; and yet, perhaps, envious antiquity hides many notable deeds of his time, albeit they were then famous. After these men there came to the throne, backed by the Skanians and Zealanders, SIWARD, surnamed RING. He was the son, born long ago, of the chief of Norway who bore the same name, by Gotrik's daughter. Now Ring, cousin of Siward, and also a grandson of Gotrik, was master of Jutland. Thus the power of the single kingdom was divided; and, as though its two parts were contemptible for their smallness, foreigners began not only to despise but to attack it. These Siward assailed with greater hatred than he did his rival for the throne; and, preferring wars abroad to wars at home, he stubbornly defended his country against dangers for five years; for he chose to put up with a trouble at home that he might the more easily cure one which came from abroad. Wherefore Ring (desiring his) command, seized the opportunity, tried to transfer the whole sovereignty to himself, and did not hesitate to injure in his own land the man who was watching over it without; for he attacked the provinces in the possession of Siward, which was an ungrateful requital for the defence of their common country. Therefore, some of the Zealanders who were more zealous for Siward, in order to show him firmer loyalty in his absence, proclaimed his son Ragnar as king, when he was scarcely dragged out of his cradle. Not but what they knew he was too young to govern; yet they hoped that such a gage would serve to rouse their sluggish allies against Ring. But, when Ring heard that Siward had meantime returned from his expedition, he attacked the Zealanders with a large force, and proclaimed that they should perish by the sword if they did not surrender; but the Zealanders, who were bidden to choose between shame and peril, were so few that they distrusted their strength, and requested a truce to consider the matter. It was granted; but, since it did not seem open to them to seek the favour of Siward, nor honourable to embrace that of Ring, they wavered long in perplexity between fear and shame. In this plight even the old were at a loss for counsel; but Ragnar, who chanced to be present at the assembly, said: "The short bow shoots its shaft suddenly. Though it may seem the hardihood of a boy that I venture to forestall the speech of the elders, yet I pray you to pardon my errors, and be indulgent to my unripe words. Yet the counsellor of wisdom is not to be spurned, though he seem contemptible; for the teaching of profitable things should be drunk in with an open mind. Now it is shameful that we should be branded as deserters and runaways, but it is just as foolhardy to venture above our strength; and thus there is proved to be equal blame either way. We must, then, pretend to go over to the enemy, but, when a chance comes in our way, we must desert him betimes. It will thus be better to forestall the wrath of our foe by reigned obedience than, by refusing it, to give him a weapon wherewith to attack us yet more harshly; for if we decline the sway of the stronger, are we not simply turning his arms against our own throat? Intricate devices are often the best nurse of craft. You need cunning to trap a fox." By this sound counsel he dispelled the wavering of his countrymen, and strengthened the camp of the enemy to its own hurt. The assembly, marvelling at the eloquence as much as at the wit of one so young, gladly embraced a proposal of such genius, which they thought excellent beyond his years. Nor were the old men ashamed to obey the bidding of a boy when they lacked counsel themselves; for, though it came from one of tender years, it was full, notwithstanding, of weighty and sound instruction. But they feared to expose their adviser to immediate peril, and sent him over to Norway to be brought up. Soon afterwards, Siward joined battle with Ring and attacked him. He slew Ring, but himself received an incurable wound, of which he died a few days afterwards. He was succeeded on the throne by RAGNAR. At this time Fro (Frey?), the King of Sweden, after slaying Siward, the King of the Norwegians, put the wives of Siward's kinsfolk in bonds in a brothel, and delivered them to public outrage. When Ragnar heard of this, he went to Norway to avenge his grandfather. As he came, many of the matrons, who had either suffered insult to their persons or feared imminent peril to their chastity, hastened eagerly to his camp in male attire, declaring that they would prefer death to outrage. Nor did Ragnar, who was to punish this reproach upon the women, scorn to use against the author of the infamy the help of those whose shame he had come to avenge. Among them was Ladgerda, a skilled amazon, who, though a maiden, had the courage of a man, and fought in front among the bravest with her hair loose over her shoulders. All-marvelled at her matchless deeds, for her locks flying down her back betrayed that she was a woman. Ragnar, when he had justly cut down the murderer of his grandfather, asked many questions of his fellow soldiers concerning the maiden whom he had seen so forward in the fray, and declared that he had gained the victory by the might of one woman. Learning that she was of noble birth among the barbarians, he steadfastly wooed her by means of messengers. She spurned his mission in her heart, but feigned compliance. Giving false answers, she made her panting wooer confident that he would gain his desires; but ordered that a bear and a dog should be set at the porch of her dwelling, thinking to guard her own room against all the ardour of a lover by means of the beasts that blocked the way. Ragnar, comforted by the good news, embarked, crossed the sea, and, telling his men to stop in Gaulardale, as the valley is called, went to the dwelling of the maiden alone. Here the beasts met him, and he thrust one through with a spear, and caught the other by the throat, wrung its neck, and choked it. Thus he had the maiden as the prize of the peril he had overcome. By this marriage he had two daughters, whose names have not come down to us, and a son Fridleif. Then he lived three years at peace. The Jutlanders, a presumptuous race, thinking that because of his recent marriage he would never return, took the Skanians into alliance, and tried to attack the Zealanders, who preserved the most zealous and affectionate loyalty towards Ragnar. He, when he heard of it, equipped thirty ships, and, the winds favouring his voyage, crushed the Skanians, who ventured to fight, near the stead of Whiteby, and when the winter was over he fought successfully with the Jutlanders who dwelt near the Liim-fjord in that region. A third and a fourth time he conquered the Skanians and the Hallanders triumphantly. Afterwards, changing his love, and desiring Thora, the daughter of the King Herodd, to wife, Ragnar divorced himself from Ladgerda; for he thought ill of her trustworthiness, remembering that she had long ago set the most savage beasts to destroy him. Meantime Herodd, the King of the Swedes, happening to go and hunt in the woods, brought home some snakes, found by his escort, for his daughter to rear. She speedily obeyed the instructions of her father, and endured to rear a race of adders with her maiden hands. Moreover, she took care that they should daily have a whole ox-carcase to gorge upon, not knowing that she was privately feeding and keeping up a public nuisance. The vipers grew up, and scorched the country-side with their pestilential breath. Whereupon the king, repenting of his sluggishness, proclaimed that whosoever removed the pest should have his daughter. Many warriors were thereto attracted by courage as much as by desire; but all idly and perilously wasted their pains. Ragnar, learning from men who travelled to and fro how the matter stood, asked his nurse for a woolen mantle, and for some thigh-pieces that were very hairy, with which he could repel the snake-bites. He thought that he ought to use a dress stuffed with hair to protect himself, and also took one that was not unwieldy, that he might move nimbly. And when he had landed in Sweden, he deliberately plunged his body in water, while there was a frost falling, and, wetting his dress, to make it the less penetrable, he let the cold freeze it. Thus attired, he took leave of his companions, exhorted them to remain loyal to Fridleif, and went on to the palace alone. When he saw it, he tied his sword to his side, and lashed a spear to his right hand with a thong. As he went on, an enormous snake glided up and met him. Another, equally huge, crawled up, following in the trail of the first. They strove now to buffet the young man with the coils of their tails, and now to spit and belch their venom stubbornly upon him. Meantime the courtiers, betaking themselves to safer hiding, watched the struggle from afar like affrighted little girls. The king was stricken with equal fear, and fled, with a few followers, to a narrow shelter. But Ragnar, trusting in the hardness of his frozen dress, foiled the poisonous assaults not only with his arms, but with his attire, and, singlehanded, in unweariable combat, stood up against the two gaping creatures, who stubbornly poured forth their venom upon him. For their teeth he repelled with his shield, their poison with his dress. At last he cast his spear, and drove it against the bodies of the brutes, who were attacking him hard. He pierced both their hearts, and his battle ended in victory. After Ragnar had thus triumphed the king scanned his dress closely, and saw that he was rough and hairy; but, above all, he laughed at the shaggy lower portion of his garb, and chiefly the uncouth aspect of his breeches; so that he gave him in jest the nickname of Lodbrog. Also he invited him to feast with his friends, to refresh him after his labours. Ragnar said that he would first go back to the witnesses whom he had left behind. He set out and brought them back, splendidly attired for the coming feast. At last, when the banquet was over, he received the prize that was appointed for the victory. By her he begot two nobly-gifted sons, Radbard and Dunwat. These also had brothers--Siward, Biorn, Agnar, and Iwar. Meanwhile, the Jutes and Skanians were kindled with an unquenchable fire of sedition; they disallowed the title of Ragnar, and gave a certain Harald the sovereign power. Ragnar sent envoys to Norway, and besought friendly assistance against these men; and Ladgerda, whose early love still flowed deep and steadfast, hastily sailed off with her husband and her son. She brought herself to offer a hundred and twenty ships to the man who had once put her away. And he, thinking himself destitute of all resources, took to borrowing help from folk of every age, crowded the strong and the feeble all together, and was not ashamed to insert some old men and boys among the wedges of the strong. So he first tried to crush the power of the Skanians in the field which in Latin is called Laneus (Woolly); here he had a hard fight with the rebels. Here, too, Iwar, who was in his seventh year, fought splendidly, and showed the strength of a man in the body of a boy. But Siward, while attacking the enemy face to face, fell forward upon the ground wounded. When his men saw this, it made them look round most anxiously for means of flight; and this brought low not only Siward, but almost the whole army on the side of Ragnar. But Ragnar by his manly deeds and exhortations comforted their amazed and sunken spirits, and, just when they were ready to be conquered, spurred them on to try and conquer. Ladgerda, who had a matchless spirit though a delicate frame, covered by her splendid bravery the inclination of the soldiers to waver. For she made a sally about, and flew round to the rear of the enemy, taking them unawares, and thus turned the panic of her friends into the camp of the enemy. At last the lines of HARALD became slack, and HARALD himself was routed with a great slaughter of his men. LADGERDA, when she had gone home after the battle, murdered her husband.... in the night with a spear-head, which she had hid in her gown. Then she usurped the whole of his name and sovereignty; for this most presumptuous dame thought it pleasanter to rule without her husband than to share the throne with him. Meantime, Siward was taken to a town in the neighbourhood, and gave himself to be tended by the doctors, who were reduced to the depths of despair. But while the huge wound baffled all the remedies they applied, a certain man of amazing size was seen to approach the litter of the sick man, and promised that Siward should straightway rejoice and be whole, if he would consecrate unto him the souls of all whom he should overcome in battle. Nor did he conceal his name, but said that he was called Rostar. Now Siward, when he saw that a great benefit could be got at the cost of a little promise, eagerly acceded to this request. Then the old man suddenly, by the help of his hand, touched and banished the livid spot, and suddenly scarred the wound over. At last he poured dust on his eyes and departed. Spots suddenly arose, and the dust, to the amaze of the beholders, seemed to become wonderfully like little snakes. I should think that he who did this miracle wished to declare, by the manifest token of his eyes, that the young man was to be cruel in future, in order that the more visible part of his body might not lack some omen of his life that was to follow. When the old woman, who had the care of his draughts, saw him showing in his face signs of little snakes; she was seized with an extraordinary horror of the young man, and suddenly fell and swooned away. Hence it happened that Siward got the widespread name of Snake-Eye. Meantime Thora, the bride of Ragnar, perished of a violent malady, which caused infinite trouble and distress to the husband, who dearly loved his wife. This distress, he thought, would be best dispelled by business, and he resolved to find solace in exercise and qualify his grief by toil. To banish his affliction and gain some comfort, he bent his thoughts to warfare, and decreed that every father of a family should devote to his service whichever of his children he thought most contemptible, or any slave of his who was lazy at his work or of doubtful fidelity. And albeit that this decree seemed little fitted for his purpose, he showed that the feeblest of the Danish race were better than the strongest men of other nations; and it did the young men great good, each of those chosen being eager to wipe off the reproach of indolence. Also he enacted that every piece of litigation should be referred to the judgment of twelve chosen elders, all ordinary methods of action being removed, the accuser being forbidden to charge, and the accused to defend. This law removed all chance of incurring litigation lightly. Thinking that there was thus sufficient provision made against false accusations by unscrupulous men, he lifted up his arms against Britain, and attacked and slew in battle its king, Hame, the father of Ella, who was a most noble youth. Then he killed the earls of Scotland and of Pictland, and of the isles that they call the Southern or Meridional (Sudr-eyar), and made his sons Siward and Radbard masters of the provinces, which were now without governors. He also deprived Norway of its chief by force, and commanded it to obey Fridleif, whom he also set over the Orkneys, from which he took their own earl. Meantime, some of the Danes who were most stubborn in their hatred against Ragnar were obstinately bent on rebellion. They rallied to the side of Harald, once an exile, and tried to raise the fallen fortunes of the tyrant. By this hardihood they raised up against the king the most virulent blasts of civil war, and entangled him in domestic perils when he was free from foreign troubles. Ragnar, setting out to check them with a fleet of the Danes who lived in the isles, crushed the army of the rebels, drove Harald, the leader of the conquered army, a fugitive to Germany, and forced him to resign unbashfully an honour which he had gained without scruple. Nor was he content simply to kill his prisoners: he preferred to torture them to death, so that those who could not be induced to forsake their disloyalty might not be so much as suffered to give up the ghost save under the most grievous punishment. Moreover, the estates of those who had deserted with Harald he distributed among those who were serving as his soldiers, thinking that the fathers would be worse punished by seeing the honour of their inheritance made over to the children whom they had rejected, while those whom they had loved better lost their patrimony. But even this did not sate his vengeance, and he further determined to attack Saxony, thinking it the refuge of his foes and the retreat of Harald. So, begging his sons to help him, he came on Karl, who happened then to be tarrying on those borders of his empire. Intercepting his sentries, he eluded the watch that was posted on guard. But while he thought that all the rest would therefore be easy and more open to his attacks, suddenly a woman who was a soothsayer, a kind of divine oracle or interpreter of the will of heaven, warned the king with a saving prophecy, and by her fortunate presage forestalled the mischief that impended, saying that the fleet of Siward had moored at the mouth of the river Seine. The emperor, heeding the warning, and understanding that the enemy was at hand, managed to engage with and stop the barbarians, who were thus pointed out to him. A battle was fought with Ragnar; but Karl did not succeed as happily in the field as he had got warning of the danger. And so that tireless conqueror of almost all Europe, who in his calm and complete career of victory had travelled over so great a portion of the world, now beheld his army, which had vanquished all these states and nations, turning its face from the field, and shattered by a handful from a single province. Ragnar, after loading the Saxons with tribute, had sure tidings from Sweden of the death of Herodd, and also heard that his own sons, owing to the slander of Sorle, the king chosen in his stead, had been robbed of their inheritance. He besought the aid of the brothers Biorn, Fridleif, and Ragbard (for Ragnald, Hwitserk, and Erik, his sons by Swanloga, had not yet reached the age of bearing arms), and went to Sweden. Sorle met him with his army, and offered him the choice between a public conflict and a duel; and when Ragnar chose personal combat, he sent against him Starkad, a champion of approved daring, with his band of seven sons, to challenge and fight with him. Ragnar took his three sons to share the battle with him, engaged in the sight of both armies, and came out of the combat triumphant. Biorn, having inflicted great slaughter on the foe without hurt to himself, gained from the strength of his sides, which were like iron, a perpetual name (Ironsides). This victory emboldened Ragnar to hope that he could overcome any peril, and he attacked and slew Sorle with the entire forces he was leading. He presented Biorn with the lordship of Sweden for his conspicuous bravery and service. Then for a little interval he rested from wars, and chanced to fall deeply in love with a certain woman. In order to find some means of approaching and winning her the more readily, he courted her father (Esbern) by showing him the most obliging and attentive kindness. He often invited him to banquets, and received him with lavish courtesy. When he came, he paid him the respect of rising, and when he sat, he honoured him with a set next to himself. He also often comforted him with gifts, and at times with the most kindly speech. The man saw that no merits of his own could be the cause of all this distinction, and casting over the matter every way in his mind, he perceived that the generosity of his monarch was caused by his love for his daughter, and that he coloured this lustful purpose with the name of kindness. But, that he might balk the cleverness of the lover, however well calculated, he had the girl watched all the more carefully that he saw her beset by secret aims and obstinate methods. But Ragnar, who was comforted by the surest tidings of her consent, went to the farmhouse in which she was kept, and fancying that love must find out a way, repaired alone to a certain peasant in a neighbouring lodging. In the morning he exchanged dress with the women, and went in female attire, and stood by his mistress as she was unwinding wool. Cunningly, to avoid betrayal, he set his hands to the work of a maiden, though they were little skilled in the art. In the night he embraced the maiden and gained his desire. When her time drew near, and the girl growing big, betrayed her outraged chastity, the father, not knowing to whom his daughter had given herself to be defiled, persisted in asking the girl herself who was the unknown seducer. She steadfastly affirmed that she had had no one to share her bed except her handmaid, and he made the affair over to the king to search into. He would not allow an innocent servant to be branded with an extraordinary charge, and was not ashamed to prove another's innocence by avowing his own guilt. By this generosity he partially removed the woman's reproach, and prevented an absurd report from being sown in the ears of the wicked. Also he added, that the son to be born of her was of his own line, and that he wished him to be named Ubbe. When this son had grown up somewhat, his wit, despite his tender years, equalled the discernment of manhood. For he took to loving his mother, since she had had converse with a noble bed, but cast off all respect for his father, because he had stooped to a union too lowly. After this Ragnar prepared an expedition against the Hellespontines, and summoned an assembly of the Danes, promising that he would give the people most wholesome laws. He had enacted before that each father of a household should offer for service that one among his sons whom he esteemed least; but now he enacted that each should arm the son who was stoutest of hand or of most approved loyalty. Thereon, taking all the sons he had by Thora, in addition to Ubbe, he attacked, crushed in sundry campaigns, and subdued the Hellespont with its king Dia. At last he involved the same king in disaster after disaster, and slew him. Dia's sons, Dia and Daxo, who had before married the daughters of the Russian king, begged forces from their father-in-law, and rushed with most ardent courage to the work of avenging their father. But Ragnar, when he saw their boundless army, distrusted his own forces; and he put brazen horses on wheels that could be drawn easily, took them round on carriages that would turn, and ordered that they should be driven with the utmost force against the thickest ranks of the enemy. This device served so well to break the line of the foe, that the Danes' hope of conquest seemed to lie more in the engine than in the soldiers: for its insupportable weight overwhelmed whatever it struck. Thus one of the leaders was killed, while one made off in flight, and the whole army of the area of the Hellespont retreated. The Scythians, also, who were closely related by blood to Daxo on the mother's side, are said to have been crushed in the same disaster. Their province was made over to Hwitserk, and the king of the Russians, trusting little in his own strength, hastened to fly out of the reach of the terrible arms of Ragnar. Now Ragnar had spent almost five years in sea-roving, and had quickly compelled all other nations to submit; but he found the Perms in open defiance of his sovereignty. He had just conquered them, but their loyalty was weak. When they heard that he had come they cast spells upon the sky, stirred up the clouds, and drove them into most furious storms. This for some time prevented the Danes from voyaging, and caused their supply of food to fail. Then, again, the storm suddenly abated, and now they were scorched by the most fervent and burning heat; nor was this plague any easier to bear than the great and violent cold had been. Thus the mischievous excess in both directions affected their bodies alternately, and injured them by an immoderate increase first of cold and then of heat. Moreover, dysentery killed most of them. So the mass of the Danes, being pent in by the dangerous state of the weather, perished of the bodily plague that arose on every side. And when Ragnar saw that he was hindered, not so much by a natural as by a factitious tempest, he held on his voyage as best he could, and got to the country of the Kurlanders and Sembs, who paid zealous honour to his might and majesty, as if he were the most revered of conquerors. This service enraged the king all the more against the arrogance of the men of Permland, and he attempted to avenge his slighted dignity by a sudden attack. Their king, whose name is not known, was struck with panic at such a sudden invasion of the enemy, and at the same time had no heart to join battle with them; and fled to Matul, the prince of Finmark. He, trusting in the great skill of his archers, harassed with impunity the army of Ragnar, which was wintering in Permland. For the Finns, who are wont to glide on slippery timbers (snowskates), scud along at whatever pace they will, and are considered to be able to approach or depart very quickly; for as soon as they have damaged the enemy they fly away as speedily as they approach, nor is the retreat they make quicker than their charge. Thus their vehicles and their bodies are so nimble that they acquire the utmost expertness both in advance and flight. Ragnar was filled with amazement at the poorness of his fortunes when he saw that he, who had conquered Rome at its pinnacle of power, was dragged by an unarmed and uncouth race into the utmost peril. He, therefore, who had signally crushed the most glorious flower of the Roman soldiery, and the forces of a most great and serene captain, now yielded to a base mob with the poorest and slenderest equipment; and he whose lustre in war the might of the strongest race on earth had failed to tarnish, was now too weak to withstand the tiny band of a miserable tribe. Hence, with that force which had helped him bravely to defeat the most famous pomp in all the world and the weightiest weapon of military power, and to subdue in the field all that thunderous foot, horse, and encampment; with this he had now, stealthily and like a thief, to endure the attacks of a wretched and obscure populace; nor must he blush to stain by a treachery in the night that noble glory of his which had been won in the light of day, for he took to a secret ambuscade instead of open bravery. This affair was as profitable in its issue as it was unhandsome in the doing. Ragnar was equally as well pleased at the flight of the Finns as he had been at that of Karl, and owned that he had found more strength in that defenceless people than in the best equipped soldiery; for he found the heaviest weapons of the Romans easier to bear than the light darts of this ragged tribe. Here, after killing the king of the Perms and routing the king of the Finns, Ragnar set an eternal memorial of his victory on the rocks, which bore the characters of his deeds on their face, and looked down upon them. Meanwhile Ubbe was led by his grandfather, Esbern, to conceive an unholy desire for the throne; and, casting away all thought of the reverence due to his father, he claimed the emblem of royalty for his own head. When Ragnar heard of his arrogance from Kelther and Thorkill, the earls of Sweden, he made a hasty voyage towards Gothland. Esbern, finding that these men were attached with a singular loyalty to the side of Ragnar, tried to bribe them to desert the king. But they did not swerve from their purpose, and replied that their will depended on that of Biorn, declaring that not a single Swede would dare to do what went against his pleasure. Esbern speedily made an attempt on Biorn himself, addressing him most courteously through his envoys. Biorn said that he would never lean more to treachery than to good faith, and judged that it would be a most abominable thing to prefer the favour of an infamous brother to the love of a most righteous father. The envoys themselves he punished with hanging, because they counselled him to so grievous a crime. The Swedes, moreover, slew the rest of the train of the envoys in the same way, as a punishment for their mischievous advice. So Esbern, thinking that his secret and stealthy manoeuvres did not succeed fast enough, mustered his forces openly, and went publicly forth to war. But Iwar, the governor of Jutland, seeing no righteousness on either side of the impious conflict, avoided all unholy war by voluntary exile. Ragnar attacked and slew Esbern in the bay that is called in Latin Viridis; he cut off the dead man's head and bade it be set upon the ship's prow, a dreadful sight for the seditious. But Ubbe took to flight, and again attacked his father, having revived the war in Zealand. Ubbe's ranks broke, and he was assailed single-handed from all sides; but he felled so many of the enemy's line that he was surrounded with a pile of the corpses of the foe as with a strong bulwark, and easily checked his assailants from approaching. At last he was overwhelmed by the thickening masses of the enemy, captured, and taken off to be laden with public fetters. By immense violence he disentangled his chains and cut them away. But when he tried to sunder and rend the bonds that were (then) put upon him, he could not in any wise escape his bars. But when Iwar heard that the rising in his country had been quelled by the punishment of the rebel, he went to Denmark. Ragnar received him with the greatest honour, because, while the unnatural war had raged its fiercest, he had behaved with the most entire filial respect. Meanwhile Daxo long and vainly tried to overcome Hwitserk, who ruled over Sweden; but at last he enrapped him under pretence of making a peace, and attacked him. Hwitserk received him hospitably, but Daxo had prepared an army with weapons, who were to feign to be trading, ride into the city in carriages, and break with a night-attack into the house of their host. Hwitserk smote this band of robbers with such a slaughter that he was surrounded with a heap of his enemies' bodies, and could only be taken by letting down ladders from above. Twelve of his companions, who were captured at the same time by the enemy, were given leave to go back to their country; but they gave up their lives for their king, and chose to share the dangers of another rather than be quit of their own. Daxo, moved with compassion at the beauty of Hwitserk, had not the heart to pluck the budding blossom of that noble nature, and offered him not only his life, but his daughter in marriage, with a dowry of half his kingdom; choosing rather to spare his comeliness than to punish his bravery. But the other, in the greatness of his soul, valued as nothing the life which he was given on sufferance, and spurned his safety as though it were some trivial benefit. Of his own will he embraced the sentence of doom, saying, that Ragnar would exact a milder vengeance for his son if he found that he had made his own choice in selecting the manner of his death. The enemy wondered at his rashness, and promised that he should die by the manner of death which he should choose for this punishment. This leave the young man accepted as a great kindness, and begged that he might be bound and burned with his friends. Daxo speedily complied with his prayers that craved for death, and by way of kindness granted him the end that he had chosen. When Ragnar heard of this, he began to grieve stubbornly even unto death, and not only put on the garb of mourning, but, in the exceeding sorrow of his soul, took to his bed and showed his grief by groaning. But his wife, who had more than a man's courage, chid his weakness, and put heart into him with her manful admonitions. Drawing his mind off from his woe, she bade him be zealous in the pursuit of war; declaring that it was better for so brave a father to avenge the bloodstained ashes of his son with weapons than with tears. She also told him not to whimper like a woman, and get as much disgrace by his tears as he had once earned glory by his valour. Upon these words Ragnar began to fear lest he should destroy his ancient name for courage by his womanish sorrow; so, shaking off his melancholy garb and putting away his signs of mourning, he revived his sleeping valour with hopes of speedy vengeance. Thus do the weak sometimes nerve the spirits of the strong. So he put his kingdom in charge of Iwar, and embraced with a father's love Ubbe, who was now restored to his ancient favour. Then he transported his fleet over to Russia, took Daxo, bound him in chains, and sent him away to be kept in Utgard. (1) Ragnar showed on this occasion the most merciful moderation towards the slayer of his dearest son, since he sufficiently satisfied the vengeance which he desired, by the exile of the culprit rather than his death. This compassion shamed the Russians out of any further rage against such a king, who could not be driven even by the most grievous wrongs to inflict death upon his prisoners. Ragnar soon took Daxo back into favour, and restored him to his country, upon his promising that he would every year pay him his tribute barefoot, like a suppliant, with twelve elders, also unshod. For he thought it better to punish a prisoner and a suppliant gently, than to draw the axe of bloodshed; better to punish that proud neck with constant slavery than to sever it once and for all. Then he went on and appointed his son Erik, surnamed Wind-hat, over Sweden. Here, while Fridleif and Siward were serving under him, he found that the Norwegians and the Scots had wrongfully conferred the title of king on two other men. So he first overthrew the usurper to the power of Norway, and let Biorn have the country for his own benefit. Then he summoned Biorn and Erik, ravaged the Orkneys, landed at last on the territory of the Scots, and in a three-days' battle wearied out their king Murial, and slew him. But Ragnar's sons, Dunwat and Radbard, after fighting nobly, were slain by the enemy. So that the victory their father won was stained with their blood. He returned to Denmark, and found that his wife Swanloga had in the meantime died of disease. Straightway he sought medicine for his grief in loneliness, and patiently confined the grief of his sick soul within the walls of his house. But this bitter sorrow was driven out of him by the sudden arrival of Iwar, who had been expelled from the kingdom. For the Gauls had made him fly, and had wrongfully bestowed royal power on a certain Ella, the son of Hame. Ragnar took Iwar to guide him, since he was acquainted with the country, gave orders for a fleet, and approached the harbour called York. Here he disembarked his forces, and after a battle which lasted three days, he made Ella, who had trusted in the valour of the Gauls, desirous to fly. The affair cost much blood to the English and very little to the Danes. Here Ragnar completed a year of conquest, and then, summoning his sons to help him, he went to Ireland, slew its king Melbrik, besieged Dublin, which was filled with wealth of the barbarians, attacked it, and received its surrender. There he lay in camp for a year; and then, sailing through the midland sea, he made his way to the Hellespont. He won signal victories as he crossed all the intervening countries, and no ill-fortune anywhere checked his steady and prosperous advance. Harald, meanwhile, with the adherence of certain Danes who were cold-hearted servants in the army of Ragnar, disturbed his country with renewed sedition, and came forward claiming the title of king. He was met by the arms of Ragnar returning from the Hellespont; but being unsuccessful, and seeing that his resources of defence at home were exhausted, he went to ask help of Ludwig, who was then stationed at Mainz. But Ludwig, filled with the greatest zeal for promoting his religion, imposed a condition on the Barbarian, promising him help if he would agree to follow the worship of Christ. For he said there could be no agreement of hearts between those who embraced discordant creeds. Anyone, therefore, who asked for help, must first have a fellowship in religion. No men could be partners in great works who were separated by a different form of worship. This decision procured not only salvation for Ludwig's guest, but the praise of piety for Ludwig himself, who, as soon as Harald had gone to the holy font, accordingly strengthened him with Saxon auxiliaries. Trusting in these, Harald built a temple in the land of Sleswik with much care and cost, to be hallowed to God. Thus he borrowed a pattern of the most holy way from the worship of Rome. He unhallowed, pulled down the shrines that had been profaned by the error of misbelievers, outlawed the sacrificers, abolished the (heathen) priesthood, and was the first to introduce the religion of Christianity to his uncouth country. Rejecting the worship of demons, he was zealous for that of God. Lastly, he observed with the most scrupulous care whatever concerned the protection of religion. But he began with more piety than success. For Ragnar came up, outraged the holy rites he had brought in, outlawed the true faith, restored the false one to its old position, and bestowed on the ceremonies the same honour as before. As for Harald, he deserted and cast in his lot with sacrilege. For though he was a notable ensample by his introduction of religion, yet he was the first who was seen to neglect it, and this illustrious promoter of holiness proved a most infamous forsaker of the same. Meanwhile, Ella betook himself to the Irish, and put to the sword or punished all those who were closely and loyally attached to Ragnar. Then Ragnar attacked him with his fleet, but, by the just visitation of the Omnipotent, was openly punished for disparaging religion. For when he had been taken and cast into prison, his guilty limbs were given to serpents to devour, and adders found ghastly substance in the fibres of his entrails. His liver was eaten away, and a snake, like a deadly executioner, beset his very heart. Then in a courageous voice he recounted all his deeds in order, and at the end of his recital added the following sentence: "If the porkers knew the punishment of the boar-pig, surely they would break into the sty and hasten to loose him from his affliction." At this saying, Ella conjectured that some of his sons were yet alive, and bade that the executioners should stop and the vipers be removed. The servants ran up to accomplish his bidding; but Ragnar was dead, and forestalled the order of the king. Surely we must say that this man had a double lot for his share? By one, he had a fleet unscathed, an empire well-inclined, and immense power as a rover; while the other inflicted on him the ruin of his fame, the slaughter of his soldiers, and a most bitter end. The executioner beheld him beset with poisonous beasts, and asps gorging on that heart which he had borne steadfast in the face of every peril. Thus a most glorious conqueror declined to the piteous lot of a prisoner; a lesson that no man should put too much trust in fortune. Iwar heard of this disaster as he happened to be looking on at the games. Nevertheless, he kept an unmoved countenance, and in nowise broke down. Not only did he dissemble his grief and conceal the news of his father's death, but he did not even allow a clamour to arise, and forbade the panic-stricken people to leave the scene of the sports. Thus, loth to interrupt the spectacle by the ceasing of the games, he neither clouded his countenance nor turned his eyes from public merriment to dwell upon his private sorrow; for he would not fall suddenly into the deepest melancholy from the height of festal joy, or seem to behave more like an afflicted son than a blithe captain. But when Siward heard the same tidings, he loved his father more than he cared for his own pain, and in his distraction plunged deeply into his foot the spear he chanced to be holding, dead to all bodily troubles in his stony sadness. For he wished to hurt some part of his body severely, that he might the more patiently bear the wound in his soul. By this act he showed at once his bravery and his grief, and bore his lot like a son who was more afflicted and steadfast. But Biorn received the tidings of his father's death while he was playing at dice, and squeezed so violently the piece that he was grasping that he wrung the blood from his fingers and shed it on the table; whereon he said that assuredly the cast of fate was more fickle than that of the very die which he was throwing. When Ella heard this, he judged that his father's death had been borne with the toughest and most stubborn spirit by that son of the three who had paid no filial respect to his decease; and therefore he dreaded the bravery of Iwar most. Iwar went towards England, and when he saw that his fleet was not strong enough to join battle with the enemy, he chose to be cunning rather than bold, and tried a shrewd trick on Ella, begging as a pledge of peace between them a strip of land as great as he could cover with a horse's hide. He gained his request, for the king supposed that it would cost little, and thought himself happy that so strong a foe begged for a little boon instead of a great one; supposing that a tiny skin would cover but a very little land. But Iwar cut the hide out and lengthened it into very slender thongs, thus enclosing a piece of ground large enough to build a city on. Then Ella came to repent of his lavishness, and tardily set to reckoning the size of the hide, measuring the little skin more narrowly now that it was cut up than when it was whole. For that which he had thought would encompass a little strip of ground, he saw lying wide over a great estate. Iwar brought into the city, when he founded it, supplies that would serve amply for a siege, wishing the defences to be as good against scarcity as against an enemy. Meantime, Siward and Biorn came up with a fleet of 400 ships, and with open challenge declared war against the king. This they did at the appointed time; and when they had captured him, they ordered the figure of an eagle to be cut in his back, rejoicing to crush their most ruthless foe by marking him with the cruellest of birds. Not satisfied with imprinting a wound on him, they salted the mangled flesh. Thus Ella was done to death, and Biorn and Siward went back to their own kingdoms. Iwar governed England for two years. Meanwhile the Danes were stubborn in revolt, and made war, and delivered the sovereignty publicly to a certain SIWARD and to ERIK, both of the royal line. The sons of Ragnar, together with a fleet of 1,700 ships, attacked them at Sleswik, and destroyed them in a conflict which lasted six months. Barrows remain to tell the tale. The sound on which the war was conducted has gained equal glory by the death of Siward. And now the royal stock was almost extinguished, saving only the sons of Ragnar. Then, when Biorn and Erik had gone home, Iwar and Siward settled in Denmark, that they might curb the rebels with a stronger rein, setting Agnar to govern England. Agnar was stung because the English rejected him, and, with the help of Siward, chose, rather than foster the insolence of the province that despised him, to dispeople it and leave its fields, which were matted in decay, with none to till them. He covered the richest land of the island with the most hideous desolation, thinking it better to be lord of a wilderness than of a headstrong country. After this he wished to avenge Erik, who had been slain in Sweden by the malice of a certain Osten. But while he was narrowly bent on avenging another, he squandered his own blood on the foe; and while he was eagerly trying to punish the slaughter of his brother, sacrificed his own life to brotherly love. Thus SIWARD, by the sovereign vote of the whole Danish assembly, received the empire of his father. But after the defeats he had inflicted everywhere he was satisfied with the honour he received at home, and liked better to be famous with the gown than with the sword. He ceased to be a man of camps, and changed from the fiercest of despots into the most punctual guardian of peace. He found as much honour in ease and leisure as he had used to think lay in many victories. Fortune so favoured his change of pursuits, that no foe ever attacked him, nor he any foe. He died, and ERIK, who was a very young child, inherited his nature, rather than his realm or his tranquillity. For Erik, the brother of Harald, despising his exceedingly tender years, invaded the country with rebels, and seized the crown; nor was he ashamed to assail the lawful infant sovereign, and to assume an unrightful power. In thus bringing himself to despoil a feeble child of the kingdom he showed himself the more unworthy of it. Thus he stripped the other of his throne, but himself of all his virtues, and cast all manliness out of his heart, when he made war upon a cradle: for where covetousness and ambition flamed, love of kindred could find no place. But this brutality was requited by the wrath of a divine vengeance. For the war between this man and Gudorm, the son of Harald, ended suddenly with such slaughter that they were both slain, with numberless others; and the royal stock of the Danes, now worn out by the most terrible massacres, was reduced to the only son of the above Siward. This man (Erik) won the fortune of a throne by losing his kindred; it was luckier for him to have his relations dead than alive. He forsook the example of all the rest, and hastened to tread in the steps of his grandfather; for he suddenly came out as a most zealous practitioner of roving. And would that he had not shown himself rashly to inherit the spirit of Ragnar, by his abolition of Christian worship! For he continually tortured all the most religious men, or stripped them of their property and banished them. But it were idle for me to blame the man's beginnings when I am to praise his end. For that life is more laudable of which the foul beginning is checked by a glorious close, than that which begins commendably but declines into faults and infamies. For Erik, upon the healthy admonitions of Ansgarius, laid aside the errors of his impious heart, and atoned for whatsoever he had done amiss in the insolence thereof; showing himself as strong in the observance of religion as he had been in slighting it. Thus he not only took a draught of more wholesome teaching with obedient mind, but wiped off early stains by his purity at the end. He had a son KANUTE by the daughter of Gudorm, who was also the granddaughter of Harald; and him he left to survive his death. While this child remained in infancy a guardian was required for the pupil and for the realm. But inasmuch it seemed to most people either invidious or difficult to give the aid that this office needed, it was resolved that a man should be chosen by lot. For the wisest of the Danes, fearing much to make a choice by their own will in so lofty a matter, allowed more voice to external chance than to their own opinions, and entrusted the issue of the selection rather to luck than to sound counsel. The issue was that a certain Enni-gnup (Steep-brow), a man of the highest and most entire virtue, was forced to put his shoulder to this heavy burden; and when he entered on the administration which chalice had decreed, he oversaw, not only the early rearing of the king, but the affairs of the whole people. For which reason some who are little versed in our history give this man a central place in its annals. But when Kanute had passed through the period of boyhood, and had in time grown to be a man, he left those who had done him the service of bringing him up, and turned from an almost hopeless youth to the practice of unhoped-for virtue; being deplorable for this reason only, that he passed from life to death without the tokens of the Christian faith. But soon the sovereignty passed to his son FRODE. This man's fortune, increased by arms and warfare, rose to such a height of prosperity that he brought back to the ancient yoke the provinces which had once revolted from the Danes, and bound them in their old obedience. He also came forward to be baptised with holy water in England, which had for some while past been versed in Christianity. But he desired that his personal salvation should overflow and become general, and begged that Denmark should be instructed in divinity by Agapete, who was then Pope of Rome. But he was cut off before his prayers attained this wish. His death befell before the arrival of the messengers from Rome: and indeed his intention was better than his fortune, and he won as great a reward in heaven for his intended piety as others are vouchsafed for their achievement. His son GORM, who had the surname of "The Englishman," because he was born in England, gained the sovereignty in the island on his father's death; but his fortune, though it came soon, did not last long. He left England for Denmark to put it in order; but a long misfortune was the fruit of this short absence. For the English, who thought that their whole chance of freedom lay in his being away, planned an open revolt from the Danes, and in hot haste took heart to rebel. But the greater the hatred and contempt of England, the greater the loyal attachment of Denmark to the king. Thus while he stretched out his two hands to both provinces in his desire for sway, he gained one, but lost the lordship of the other irretrievably; for he never made any bold effort to regain it. So hard is it to keep a hold on very large empires. After this man his son HARALD came to be king of Denmark; he is half-forgotten by posterity, and lacks all record for famous deeds, because he rather preserved than extended the possessions of the realm. After this the throne was obtained by GORM, a man whose soul was ever hostile to religion, and who tried to efface all regard for Christ's worshippers, as though they were the most abominable of men. All those who shared this rule of life he harassed with divers kinds of injuries and incessantly pursued with whatever slanders he could. Also, in order to restore the old worship to the shrines, he razed to its lowest foundations, as though it were some unholy abode of impiety, a temple which religious men had founded in a stead in Sleswik; and those whom he did not visit with tortures he punished by the demolition of the holy chapel. Though this man was thought notable for his stature, his mind did not answer to his body; for he kept himself so well sated with power that he rejoiced more in saving than increasing his dignity, and thought it better to guard his own than to attack what belonged to others: caring more to look to what he had than to swell his havings. This man was counselled by the elders to celebrate the rites of marriage, and he wooed Thyra, the daughter of Ethelred, the king of the English, for his wife. She surpassed other women in seriousness and shrewdness, and laid the condition on her suitor that she would not marry him till she had received Denmark as a dowry. This compact was made between them, and she was betrothed to Gorm. But on the first night that she went up on to the marriage-bed, she prayed her husband most earnestly that she should be allowed to go for three days free from intercourse with man. For she resolved to have no pleasure of love till she had learned by some omen in a vision that her marriage would be fruitful. Thus, under pretence of self-control, she deferred her experience of marriage, and veiled under a show of modesty her wish to learn about her issue. She put off lustful intercourse, inquiring, under the feint of chastity, into the fortune she would have in continuing her line. Some conjecture that she refused the pleasures of the nuptial couch in order to win her mate over to Christianity by her abstinence. But the youth, though he was most ardently bent on her love, yet chose to regard the continence of another more than his own desires, and thought it nobler to control the impulses of the night than to rebuff the prayers of his weeping mistress; for he thought that her beseechings, really coming from calculation, had to do with modesty. Thus it befell that he who should have done a husband's part made himself the guardian of her chastity so that the reproach of an infamous mind should not be his at the very beginning of his marriage; as though he had yielded more to the might of passion than to his own self-respect. Moreover that he might not seem to forestall by his lustful embraces the love which the maiden would not grant, he not only forbore to let their sides that were next one another touch, but even severed them by his drawn sword, and turned the bed into a divided shelter for his bride and himself. But he soon tasted in the joyous form of a dream the pleasure which he postponed from free loving kindness. For, when his spirit was steeped in slumber, he thought that two birds glided down from the privy parts of his wife, one larger than the other; that they poised their bodies aloft and soared swiftly to heaven, and, when a little time had elapsed, came back and sat on either of his hands. A second, and again a third time, when they had been refreshed by a short rest, they ventured forth to the air with outspread wings. At last the lesser of them came back without his fellow, and with wings smeared with blood. He was amazed with this imagination, and, being in a deep sleep, uttered a cry to betoken his astonishment, filling the whole house with an uproarious shout. When his servants questioned him, he related his vision; and Thyra, thinking that she would be blest with offspring, forbore her purpose to put off her marriage, eagerly relaxing the chastity for which she had so hotly prayed. Exchanging celibacy for love, she granted her husband full joy of herself, requiting his virtuous self-restraint with the fulness of permitted intercourse, and telling him that she would not have married him at all, had she not inferred from these images in the dream which he had related, the certainty of her being fruitful. By a device as cunning as it was strange, Thyra's pretended modesty passed into an acknowledgment of her future offspring. Nor did fate disappoint her hopes. Soon she was the fortunate mother of Kanute and Harald. When these princes had attained man's estate, they put forth a fleet and quelled the reckless insolence of the Sclavs. Neither did they leave England free from an attack of the same kind. Ethelred was delighted with their spirit, and rejoiced at the violence his nephews offered him; accepting an abominable wrong as though it were the richest of benefits. For he saw far more merit in their bravery than in piety. Thus he thought it nobler to be attacked by foes than courted by cowards, and felt that he saw in their valiant promise a sample of their future manhood. For he could not doubt that they would some day attack foreign realms, since they so boldly claimed those of their mother. He so much preferred their wrongdoing to their service, that he passed over his daughter, and bequeathed England in his will to these two, not scrupling to set the name of grandfather before that of father. Nor was he unwise; for he knew that it beseemed men to enjoy the sovereignty rather than women, and considered that he ought to separate the lot of his unwarlike daughter from that of her valiant sons. Hence Thyra saw her sons inheriting the goods of her father, not grudging to be disinherited herself. For she thought that the preference above herself was honourable to her, rather than insulting. Kanute and Harald enriched themselves with great gains from sea-roving, and most confidently aspired to lay hands on Ireland. Dublin, which was considered the capital of the country, was beseiged. Its king went into a wood adjoining the city with a few very skilled archers, and with treacherous art surrounded Kanute (who was present with a great throng of soldiers witnessing the show of the games by night), and aimed a deadly arrow at him from afar. It struck the body of the king in front, and pierced him with a mortal wound. But Kanute feared that the enemy would greet his peril with an outburst of delight. He therefore wished his disaster to be kept dark; and summoning voice with his last breath, he ordered the games to be gone through without disturbance. By this device he made the Danes masters of Ireland ere he made his own death known to the Irish. Who would not bewail the end of such a man, whose self-mastery served to give the victory to his soldiers, by reason of the wisdom that outlasted his life? For the safety of the Danes was most seriously endangered, and was nearly involved in the most deadly peril; yet because they obeyed the dying orders of their general they presently triumphed over those they feared. Germ had now reached the extremity of his days, having been blind for many years, and had prolonged his old age to the utmost bounds of the human lot, being more anxious for the life and prosperity of his sons than for the few days he had to breathe. But so great was his love for his elder son that he swore that he would slay with his own hand whosoever first brought him news of his death. As it chanced, Thyra heard sure tidings that this son had perished. But when no man durst openly hint this to Germ, she fell back on her cunning to defend her, and revealed by her deeds the mischance which she durst not speak plainly out. For she took the royal robes off her husband and dressed him in filthy garments, bringing him other signs of grief also, to explain the cause of her mourning; for the ancients were wont to use such things in the performance of obsequies, bearing witness by their garb to the bitterness of their sorrow. Then said Germ: "Dost thou declare to me the death of Kanute?" (2) And Thyra said: "That is proclaimed by thy presage, not by mine." By this answer she made out her lord a dead man and herself a widow, and had to lament her husband as soon as her son. Thus, while she announced the fate of her son to her husband, she united them in death, and followed the obsequies of both with equal mourning; shedding the tears of a wife upon the one and of a mother upon the other; though at that moment she ought to have been cheered with comfort rather than crushed with disasters. ENDNOTES: (1) Utgard. Saxo, rationalising as usual, turns the mythical home of the giants into some terrestrial place in his vaguely-defined Eastern Europe. (2) Kanute. Here the vernacular is far finer. The old king notices "Denmark is drooping, dead must my son be!", puts on the signs of mourning, and dies. 
1894	----	Transcribed from the 1853 Ingram, Cooke, and Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org; second proof by Mike Ruffell. VISIT TO ICELAND AND THE SCANDINAVIAN NORTH TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF MADAME IDA PFEIFFER. WITH Numerous Explanatory Notes AND EIGHT TINTED ENGRAVINGS. TO WHICH ARE ADDED AN ESSAY ON ICELANDIC POETRY, FROM THE FRENCH OF M. BERGMANN; A TRANSLATION OF THE ICELANDIC POEM THE VOLUSPA; AND A BRIEF SKETCH OF ICELANDIC HISTORY. Second Edition. LONDON: INGRAM, COOKE, AND CO. 1853 [Picture: Pictorial title page] ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION The success which attended the publication in this Series of Illustrated Works of _A Woman's Journey round the World_, has induced the publication of the present volume on a country so little known as Iceland, and about which so little recent information exists. The translation has been carefully made, expressly for this Series, from the original work published at Vienna; and the Editor has added a great many notes, wherever they seemed necessary to elucidate the text. In addition to the matter which appeared in the original work, the present volume contains a translation of a valuable Essay on Icelandic poetry, by M. Bergmann; a translation of an Icelandic poem, the 'Voluspa;' a brief sketch of Icelandic History; and a translation of Schiller's ballad, 'The Diver,' which is prominently alluded to by Madame Pfeiffer in her description of the Geysers. {1} The Illustrations have been printed in tints, so as to make the work uniform with the _Journey round the World_. London, August 1, 1852. AUTHOR'S PREFACE "Another journey--a journey, moreover, in regions which every one would rather avoid than seek. This woman only undertakes these journeys to attract attention." "The first journey, for a woman ALONE, was certainly rather a bold proceeding. Yet in that instance she might still have been excused. Religious motives may perhaps have actuated her; and when this is the case, people often go through incredible things. At present, however, we can see no just reason which could excuse an undertaking of this description." Thus, and perhaps more harshly still, will the majority judge me. And yet they will do me a grievous wrong. I am surely simple and harmless enough, and should have fancied any thing in the world rather than that it would ever be my fate to draw upon myself in any degree the notice of the public. I will merely indicate, as briefly as may be, my character and circumstances, and then I have no doubt my conduct will lose its appearance of eccentricity, and seem perfectly natural. When I was but a little child, I had already a strong desire to see the world. Whenever I met a travelling-carriage, I would stop involuntarily, and gaze after it until it had disappeared; I used even to envy the postilion, for I thought he also must have accomplished the whole long journey. As I grew to the age of from ten to twelve years, nothing gave me so much pleasure as the perusal of voyages and travels. I ceased, indeed, to envy the postilions, but envied the more every navigator and naturalist. Frequently my eyes would fill with tears when, having ascended a mountain, I saw others towering before me, and could not gain the summit. I made several journeys with my parents, and, after my marriage, with my husband; and only settled down when it became necessary that my two boys should visit particular schools. My husband's affairs demanded his entire attention, partly in Lemberg, partly in Vienna. He therefore confided the education and culture of the two boys entirely to my care; for he knew my firmness and perseverance in all I undertook, and doubted not that I would be both father and mother to his children. When my sons' education had been completed, and I was living in peaceful retirement, the dreams and aspirations of my youth gradually awoke once more. I thought of strange manners and customs, of distant regions, where a new sky would be above me, and new ground beneath my feet. I pictured to myself the supreme happiness of treading the land once hallowed by the presence of our Saviour, and at length made up my mind to travel thither. As dangers and difficulties rose before my mind, I endeavoured to wean myself from the idea I had formed--but in vain. For privation I cared but little; my health was good and my frame hardy: I did not fear death. And moreover, as I was born in the last century, I could travel ALONE. Thus every objection was overcome; every thing had been duly weighed and considered. I commenced my journey to Palestine with a feeling of perfect rapture; and behold, I returned in safety. I now feel persuaded that I am neither tempting Providence, nor justly incurring the imputation of wishing to be talked about, in following the bent of my inclinations, and looking still further about me in the world I chose Iceland for my destination, because I hoped there to find Nature in a garb such as she wears nowhere else. I feel so completely happy, so brought into communion with my Maker, when I contemplate sublime natural phenomena, that in my eyes no degree of toil or difficulty is too great a price at which to purchase such perfect enjoyment. And should death overtake me sooner or later during my wanderings, I shall await his approach in all resignation, and be deeply grateful to the Almighty for the hours of holy beauty in which I have lived and gazed upon His wonders. And now, dear reader, I would beg thee not to be angry with me for speaking so much of myself; it is only because this love of travelling does not, according to established notions, seem proper for one of my sex, that I have allowed my feelings to speak in my defence. Judge me, therefore, not too harshly; but rather grant me the enjoyment of a pleasure which hurts no one, while it makes me happy. THE AUTHOR. CHAPTER I In the year 1845 I undertook another journey; {2} a journey, moreover, to the far North. Iceland was one of those regions towards which, from the earliest period of my consciousness, I had felt myself impelled. In this country, stamped as it is by Nature with features so peculiar, as probably to have no counterpart on the face of the globe, I hoped to see things which should fill me with new and inexpressible astonishment. How deeply grateful do I feel to Thee, O Thou that hast vouchsafed to me to behold the fulfilment of these my cherished dreams! The parting from all my dear ones had this time far less bitterness; I had found by experience, that a woman of an energetic mind can find her way through the world as well as a man, and that good people are to be met with every where. To this was added the reflection, that the hardships of my present voyage would be of short duration, and that five or six months might see me restored to my family. I left Vienna at five o'clock on the morning of the tenth of April. As the Danube had lately caused some devastations, on which occasion the railroad had not entirely escaped, we rode for the first four miles, as far as Florisdorf, in an omnibus--not the most agreeable mode of travelling. Our omnibuses are so small and narrow, that one would suppose they were built for the exclusive accommodation of consumptive subjects, and not for healthy, and in some cases portly individuals, whose bulk is further increased by a goodly assemblage of cloaks, furs, and overcoats. At the barriers a new difficulty arose. We delivered up our pass-warrants (_passirscheine_) in turn, with the exception of one young man, who was quite astounded at the demand. He had provided nothing but his passport and testimonials, being totally unaware that a pass-warrant is more indispensable than all the rest. In vain did he hasten into the bureau to expostulate with the officials,--we were forced to continue our journey without him. We were informed that he was a student, who, at the conclusion of term, was about to make holiday for a few weeks at his parents' house near Prague. Alas, poor youth! he had studied so much, and yet knew so little. He had not even an idea of the overwhelming importance of the document in question. For this trifling omission he forfeited the fare to Prague, which had been paid in advance. But to proceed with my journey. At Florisdorf a joyful surprise awaited me. I met my brother and my son, who had, it appears, preceded me. We entered the train to proceed in company to Stockerau, a place between twelve and thirteen miles off; but were obliged to alight halfway, and walk a short distance. The Embankment had given way. Luckily the weather was favourable, inasmuch as we had only a violent storm of wind. Had it rained, we should have been wetted to the skin, besides being compelled to wade ankle-deep in mud. We were next obliged to remain in the open air, awaiting the arrival of the train from Stockerau, which unloaded its freight, and received us in exchange. At Stockerau I once more took leave of my companions, and was soon securely packed in the post-carriage for transmission. In travelling this short distance, I had thus entered four carriages; a thing sufficiently disagreeable to an unencumbered person, but infinitely more so to one who has luggage to watch over. The only advantage I could discover in all this was, that we had saved half an hour in coming these seventeen miles. For this, instead of 9 fl. 26 kr. from Vienna to Prague, we paid 10 fl. 10 kr. from Stockerau to Prague, without reckoning expense of omnibus and railway. It was certainly a dearly-bought half-hour. {3} The little town of Znaim, with its neighbouring convent, is situated on a large plain, extending from Vienna to Budwitz, seventeen miles beyond Znaim; the monotony of the view is only broken here and there by low hills. Near Schelletau the scenery begins to improve. On the left the view is bounded by a range of high hills, with a ruined castle, suggestive of tragical tales of centuries gone by. Fir and pine forests skirt the road, and lie scattered in picturesque groups over hill and dale. April 11th. Yesterday the weather had already begun to be ungracious to us. At Znaim we found the valleys still partly covered with snow, and the fog was at times so thick, that we could not see a hundred paces in advance; but to-day it was incomparably worse. The mist resolved itself into a mild rain, which, however, lost so much of its mildness as we passed from station to station, that every thing around us was soon under water. But not only did we ride through water, we were obliged to sit in it also. The roof of our carriage threatened to become a perfect sieve, and the rain poured steadily in. Had there been room for such a proceeding, we should all have unfurled our umbrellas. On occasions like these, I always silently admire the patience of my worthy countrymen, who take every thing so good-humouredly. Were I a man, I should pursue a different plan, and should certainly not fail to complain of such carelessness. But as a woman, I must hold my peace; people would only rail at my sex, and call it ill-humoured. Besides, I thanked my guardian-angel for these discomforts, looking upon them as a preparation for what was to befall me in the far North. Passing several small towns and villages, we at length entered the Bohemian territory, close behind Iglau. The first town which we saw was Czaslau, with its large open square, and a few neat houses; the latter provided with so-called arbours (or _verandahs_), which enable one to pass round the square dry-footed, even in the most rainy weather. Journeying onwards, we noticed the fine cathedral and town of Kuttenberg, once famous for its gold and silver mines. {4} Next comes the great tobacco-manufactory of Sedlitz, near which we first see the Elbe, but only for a short time, as it soon takes another direction. Passing the small town of Collin, we are whirled close by the battle-field where, in the year 1757, the great King Frederick paid his score to the Austrians. An obelisk, erected a few years since to the memory of General Daun, occupies a small eminence on the right. On the left is the plain of Klephorcz, where the Austrian army was drawn up. {5} At eleven o'clock on the same night we reached PRAGUE. As it was my intention to pursue my journey after two days, my first walk on the following morning was to the police-office, to procure a passport and the all-important pass-warrant; my next to the custom-house, to take possession of a small chest, which I had delivered up five days before my departure, and which, as the expeditor affirmed, I should find ready for me on my arrival at Prague. {6} Ah, Mr. Expeditor! my chest was not there. After Saturday comes Sunday; but on Sunday the custom-house is closed. So here was a day lost, a day in which I might have gone to Dresden, and even visited the opera. On Monday morning I once more hastened to the office in anxious expectation; the box was not yet there. An array of loaded wagons had, however, arrived, and in one of these it might be. Ah, how I longed to see my darling little box, in order that I might--_not_ press it to my heart, but unpack it in presence of the excise officer! I took merely a cursory glance at Prague, as I had thoroughly examined every thing there some years before. The beautiful "Graben" and Horse-market once more excited my admiration. It was with a peculiar feeling that I trod the old bridge, from which St. John of Nepomuk was cast into the Moldau for refusing to publish the confession of King Wenceslaus' consort. {7} On the opposite bank I mounted the Hradschin, and paid a visit to the cathedral, in which a large sarcophagus, surrounded and borne by angels, and surmounted by a canopy of crimson damask, is dedicated to the memory of the saint. The monument is of silver, and the worth of the metal alone is estimated at 80,000 florins. The church itself is not spacious, but is built in the noble Gothic style; the lesser altars, however, with their innumerable gilded wooden figures, look by contrast extremely puny. In the chapel are many sarcophagi, on which repose bishops and knights hewn in stone, but so much damaged, that many are without hands and feet, while some lack heads. To the right, at the entrance of the church, is the celebrated chapel of St. Wenceslaus, with its walls ornamented with frescoes, of which the colours and designs are now almost obliterated. It is further enriched with costly stones. Not far from the cathedral is situated the palace of Count Czernin, a building particularly favoured with windows, of which it has one for every day in the year. I was there in an ordinary year, and saw 365; how they manage in leap-year I do not know. The view from the belvedere of this palace well repays the observer. It takes in the old and new town, the noble river with its two bridges (the ancient venerable-looking stone structure, and the graceful suspension-bridge, six hundred paces long), and the hills round about, clothed with gardens, among which appear neat country-houses. The streets of the "Kleinseite" are not particularly attractive, being mostly tortuous, steep, and narrow. They contain, however, several remarkable palaces, among which that of Wallenstein Duke of Friedland stands pre-eminent. {8} After visiting St. Nicholas' Church, remarkable for the height of its spire and its beautifully arched cupola, I betook myself to Wimmer's gardens, and thence to the "Bastei," a place of public resort with the citizens of Prague. I could now observe the devastation caused by the rising of the water shortly before my arrival. The Moldau had overstepped its banks in so turbulent a manner, as to carry along with it several small houses, and even a little village not far from Prague, besides damaging all the dwellings upon its banks. The water had indeed already fallen, but the walls of the houses were soaked through and through; the doors had been carried away, and from the broken windows no faces looked out upon the passers-by. The water had risen two feet more than in 1784, in which year the Moldau had also attained an unusual height. From the same tower of observation, I looked down upon the great open space bought a few years ago, and intended to be occupied by the termini of the Vienna and Dresden railroads. Although several houses were only just being pulled down, and the foundations of but few buildings were laid, I was assured that within six months every thing would be completed. I have still to mention a circumstance which struck me during my morning peregrinations, namely, the curious method in which milk, vegetables, and other provisions are here brought to town. I could have fancied myself transported to Lapland or Greenland, on meeting every where carts to which two, three, or four dogs were harnessed. One pair of dogs will drag three hundredweight on level ground; but when they encounter a hill, the driver must lend a helping hand. These dogs are, besides, careful guardians; and I would not advise any one to approach a car of this kind, as it stands before the inn-door, while the proprietor is quenching his thirst within, on the money he has just earned. At five o'clock on the morning of the 15th of April I left Prague, and rode for fourteen miles in the mail-carriage, as far as Obristwy on the Elbe, at which place I embarked for Dresden, on board the steamer Bohemia, of fifty-horse power, a miserable old craft, apparently a stranger to beauty and comfort from her youth up. The price charged for this short passage of eight or nine hours is enormously dear. The travellers will, however, soon have their revenge on the extortionate proprietors; a railroad is constructing, by means of which this distance will be traversed in a much shorter time, and at a great saving of expense. But at any rate the journey by water is the more agreeable; the way lies through very picturesque scenery, and at length through "Saxon Switzerland" itself. The commencement of the journey is, however, far from pleasing. On the right are naked hills, and on the left large plains, over which, last spring, the swollen stream rolled, partly covering the trees and the roofs of the cottages. Here I could for the first time see the whole extent of the calamity. Many houses had been completely torn down, and the crops, and even the loose alluvial earth swept away; as we glided by each dreary scene of devastation, another yet more dismal would appear in its place. This continued till we reached Melnick, where the trees become higher, and groups of houses peer forth from among the innumerable vineyards. Opposite this little town the Moldau falls into the Elbe. On the left, in the far distance, the traveller can descry St. George's Mount, from which, as the story goes, Czech took possession of all Bohemia. Below the little town of Raudnitz the hills gave place to mountains, and as many enthusiasts can only find those regions romantic where the mountains are crowned with half-ruined castles and strongholds, good old Time has taken care to plant there two fine ruins, Hafenberg and Skalt, for the delectation of such sentimental observers. Near Leitmeritz, a small town with a handsome castle, and a church and convent, the Eger flows into the Elbe, and a high-arched wooden bridge connects the two banks. Here our poor sailors had difficult work to lower the mast and the funnel. The rather pretty village of Gross-Czernoseck is remarkable for its gigantic cellars, hewn out of the rock. A post-carriage could easily turn round in one of these. The vats are of course proportioned to the cellars, particularly the barrels called the "twelve apostles," each of which holds between three and four thousand gallons. It would be no more than fair to stop here awhile, to give every hero of the bottle an opportunity to enjoy a sight of these palace-cellars, and to offer a libation to the twelve apostles; but the steamer passed on, and we were obliged to make the most of the descriptions furnished by those who were more at home in these parts, and had no doubt frequently emerged in an inspired state from the depths of the cellars in question. The view now becomes more and more charming: the mountains appear to draw closer together, and shut in the bed of the stream; romantic groups of rocks, with summits crowned by rains yet more romantic, tower between. The ancient but well-preserved castle of Schreckenstein, built on a rock rising boldly out of the Elbe, is particularly striking; the approaches to it are by serpentine walks hewn out of the rock. Near the small town of Aussig we find the most considerable coal-mines in Bohemia. In their neighbourhood is situated the little mountain estate Paschkal, which produces a kind of wine said to resemble champagne. The mountains now become higher and higher, but above them all towers the gigantic Jungfernsprung (Maiden's Leap). The beauty of this region is only surpassed by the situation of the town and castle of Tetschen. The castle stands on a rock, between twenty and thirty feet high, which seems to rise out of the Elbe; it is surrounded by hot-houses and charming gardens, shelving downwards as far as the town, which lies in a blooming valley, near a little harbour. The valley itself, encompassed by a chain of lofty mountains, seems quite shut out from the rest of the world. The left bank of the river is here so crowded with masses and walls of rock, that there is only room at intervals for an isolated farm or hut. Suddenly the tops of masts appear between the high rocks, a phenomenon which is soon explained; a large gap in one of the rocky walls forms a beautiful basin. And now we come to Schandau, a place consisting only of a few houses; it is a frontier town of the Saxon dominions. Custom-house officers, a race of beings ever associated with frontier towns, here boarded our vessel, and rummaged every thing. My daguerreotype apparatus, which I had locked up in a small box, was looked upon with an eye of suspicion; but upon my assertion that it was exclusively intended for my own use, I and my apparatus were graciously dismissed. In our onward journey we frequently observed rocks of peculiar shapes, which have appropriate names, such as the "Zirkelstein," "Lilienstein," &c. The Konigstein is a collection of jagged masses of rock, on which is built the fortress of the same name, used at present as a prison for great criminals. At the foot of the rocks lies the little town of Konigstein. Not far off, on the right bank, a huge rock, resting on others, bears a striking resemblance to a human head. The more distant groups of rocks are called those of "Rathen," but are considered as belonging to Saxon Switzerland. The "Basteien" (Bastions) of this Switzerland, close by which we now pass, are most wonderful superpositions of lofty and fantastically shaped rocks. Unfortunately, the steamer whirled us so rapidly on our way, that whilst we contemplated one bank, the beauteous scenes on the opposite side had already glided from our view. In much too short a time we had passed the town of Pirna, situate at the commencement of this range of mountains. The very ancient gate of this town towers far above all the other buildings. Lastly we see the great castle Sonnenstein, built on a rock, and now used as an asylum for lunatics. All the beautiful and picturesque portion of our passage is now past, and the royal villa of Pillnitz, with its many Chinese gables, looks insignificant enough, after the grand scenes of nature. A chain of hills, covered with the country-houses of citizens, adjoins it; and on the right extends a large plain, at the far end of which we can dimly descry the Saxon metropolis. But what is that in the distance? We have hardly time to arrange our luggage, when the anchor is let go near the fine old Dresden Bridge. This bridge had not escaped unscathed by the furious river. One of the centre arches had given way, and the cross and watchbox which surmounted it were precipitated into the flood. At first, carriages still passed over the bridge; it was not until some time afterwards that the full extent of the damage was ascertained, and the passage of carriages over the bridge discontinued for many months. As I had seen the town of Dresden several years before, and the only building new to me was the splendid theatre, I took advantage of the few evening hours of my stay to visit this structure. Standing in the midst of the beautiful Cathedral-square, its noble rotunda-like form at once rivets the attention. The inner theatre is surrounded by a superb broad and lofty corridor, with fine bow-windows and straight broad staircases, leading in different directions towards the galleries. The interior of the theatre is not so spacious as, judging from the exterior, one would imagine it to be, but the architecture and decorations are truly gorgeous and striking. The boxes are all open, being separated from each other merely by a low partition; the walls and chairs are covered with heavy silken draperies, and the seats of the third and fourth galleries with a mixture of silk and cotton. One single circumstance was disagreeable to me in an acoustic point of view--I could hear the slightest whisper of the prompter as distinctly as though some one had been behind me reading the play. The curtain had scarcely fallen before the whole house was empty, and yet there was no crowding to get out. This first drew my attention to the numerous and excellently contrived doors. April 16th. The Dresden omnibuses may be cited as models of comfort; one is certain of plenty of room, and there is no occasion to dread either the corpulent persons or the furs and cloaks of fellow-passengers. A bell-pull is fixed in the interior of the carriage, so that each individual can give the coachman a signal when he or she wishes to alight. These omnibuses call at the principal inns, and wait for a moment; but the traveller who is not ready in advance is left behind. At half-past five in the morning it called at our hotel. I was ready and waiting, and drove off comfortably to the railway. The distance from Dresden to Leipzig is reckoned at fifty-six miles, and the journey occupied three hours. The first fourteen miles are very agreeable; gardens, fields, and meadows, pine-forests in the plain and on the hills, and between these, villages, farms, country-houses, and solitary chapels, combine to form a very pretty landscape. But the scene soon changes, and the town of Meissen (famous for its porcelain manufactory), on the right hand, seems to shut out from our view all that is picturesque and beautiful. From here to Leipzig we travel through a wearisome monotonous plain, enlivened at long intervals by villages and scattered farms. There is nothing to see but a great tunnel, and the river Pleisse--the latter, or rather the Elster, is rendered famous by the death of Prince Poniatowski. {9} The town of Leipzig, celebrated far and wide for its fairs, and more for its immense publishing trade, presents an appearance of noise and bustle proportionate to its commercial importance. I found streets, squares, and inns alike crowded. {10} Perhaps there does not exist a town with its houses, and consequently its streets, so disfigured with announcements, in all sizes and shapes, covering its walls, and sometimes projecting several feet, as Leipzig. Among the public buildings, those which pleased me most were the Augusteum and the Burgerschule. The Bucherhalle (book-hall) I should suppose indebted for its celebrity rather to its literary contents than to its architectural beauty or its exterior. The hall itself is indeed large, and occupies the whole length of the building, while the lower story consists of several rooms. The hall, the chambers, and the exterior are all plain, and without particular decoration. The Tuchhalle (cloth-hall) is simply a large house, with spacious chambers, containing supplies of cloth. The Theatre stands on a very large square, and does not present a very splendid appearance, whether viewed from within or from without. The plan of having stalls in front of the boxes in the second and third galleries was a novelty to me. The orchestra I could only hear, but could not discover its whereabouts; most probably it was posted behind the scenes. On inquiry, I was told that this was only done on extraordinary occasions, when the seats in the orchestra were converted into stalls, as was the case on the night of my visit. The play given was "the original Tartuffe," a popular piece by Gutzkow. It was capitally performed. In the Leipzig theatre I had a second opportunity of observing, that as regards the love of eating our good Saxons are not a whit behind the much-censured Viennese. In the Dresden theatre I had admired a couple of ladies who sat next me. They came provided with a neat bag, containing a very sufficient supply of confectionery, to which they perseveringly applied themselves between the acts. But at Leipzig I found a delicate-looking mother and her son, a lad of fifteen or sixteen years, regaling themselves with more solid provisions--white bread and small sausages. I could not believe my eyes, and had made up my mind that the sausages were artificially formed out of some kind of confectionery--but alas! my nose came forward but too soon, as a potent witness, to corroborate what I was so unwilling to believe! Neither did these two episodes take place in the loftiest regions of Thalia's temple, but in the stalls of the second tier. Beautiful alleys are planted round Leipzig. I took a walk into the Rosenthal (Valley of Roses), which also consists of splendid avenues and lawns. A pretty coffee-house, with a very handsome alcove, built in a semicircular form, invites the weary traveller to rest and refreshment, while a band of agreeable music diffuses mirth and good humour around. The rest of the scenery around Leipzig presents the appearance of a vast and monotonous plain. April 17th. I had intended to continue my journey to Hamburgh via Berlin, but the weather was so cold and stormy, and the rain poured down so heavily, that I preferred the shorter way, and proceeded by rail to Magdeburg. Flying through the dismal plain past Halle, Kothen, and other towns, of which I could only discern groups of houses, we hurriedly recognised the Saale and the Elbe; and towards 10 o'clock in the morning arrived at Magdeburg, having travelled seventy miles in three hours and a quarter. As the steamer for Hamburgh was not to start until 3 o'clock, I had ample time to look at the town. Magdeburg is a mixed pattern of houses of ancient, mediaeval, and modern dates. Particularly remarkable in this respect is the principal street, the "Broadway," which runs through the whole of the town. Here we can see houses dating their origin from the most ancient times; houses that have stood proof against sieges and sackings; houses of all colours and forms; some sporting peaked gables, on which stone figures may still be seen; others covered from roof to basement with arabesques; and in one instance I could even detect the remains of frescoes. In the very midst of these relics of antiquity would appear a house built in the newest style. I do not remember ever having seen a street which produced so remarkable an impression on me. The finest building is unquestionably the venerable cathedral. In Italy I had already seen numbers of the most beautiful churches; yet I remained standing in mute admiration before this masterpiece of Gothic architecture. The monument with the twelve Apostles in this church is a worthy memorial of the celebrated sculptor Vischer. In order to view it, it is necessary to obtain the special permission of the commandant. The cathedral square is large, symmetrical, and decorated with two alleys of trees; it is also used as a drilling-ground for the soldiers' minor manoeuvres. I was particularly struck with the number of military men to be seen here. Go where I would, I was sure to meet soldiers and officers, frequently in large companies; in time of war it could scarcely have been worse. This was an unmistakeable token that I was on Prussian territory. The open canals, which come from all the houses, and meander through the streets, are a great disfigurement to the town. Half-past three o'clock came only too quickly, and I betook myself on board the steamer _Magdeburg_, of sixty-horse power, to proceed to Hamburgh. Of the passage itself I can say nothing, except that a journey on a river through execrable scenery is one of the most miserable things that can well be imagined. When, in addition to this, the weather is bad, the ship dirty, and one is obliged to pass a night on board, the discomfort is increased. It was my lot to endure all this: the weather was bad, the ship was dirty, the distance more than 100 miles, so that we had the pleasant prospect of a delightful night on board the ship. There were, moreover, so many passengers, that we were forced to sit crowded together; so there we sat with exemplary patience, stared at each other, and sighed bitterly. Order was entirely out of the question; no one had time to think of such a thing. Smoking and card-playing were perseveringly carried on all day and all night; it can easily be imagined that things did not go so quietly as at an English whist-party. The incessant rain rendered it impossible to leave the cabin even for a short time. The only consolation I had was, that I made the acquaintance of the amiable composer Lorzing, a circumstance which delighted me the more, as I had always been an admirer of his beautiful original music. CHAPTER II Morning dawned at length, and in a short time afterwards we reached the great commercial city, which, half destroyed by the dreadful conflagration of 1842, had risen grander and more majestic from its ashes. {11} I took up my quarters with a cousin, who is married to the Wurtemburg consul, the merchant Schmidt, in whose house I spent a most agreeable and happy week. My cousin-in-law was polite enough to escort me every where himself, and to shew me the lions of Hamburgh. First of all we visited the Exchange between the hours of one and two, when it is at the fullest, and therefore best calculated to impress a stranger with an idea of the extent and importance of the business transacted there. The building contains a hall of great size, with arcades and galleries, besides many large rooms, which are partly used for consultations, partly for the sale of refreshments. The most interesting thing of all is, however, to sit in the gallery, and looking downwards, to observe the continually increasing crowd passing and repassing each other in the immense hall and through the galleries and chambers, and to listen to the hubbub and noise of the thousands of eager voices talking at once. At half-past one o'clock the hall is at its fullest, and the noise becomes absolutely deafening; for now they are marking up the rates of exchange, by which the merchants regulate their monetary transactions. Leaving the Exchange, we bent our steps towards the great harbour, and entering a small boat, cruised in and about it in all directions. I had resolved to count only the three-masted ships; but soon gave it up, for their number seemed overwhelming, even without reckoning the splendid steamers, brigs, sloops, and craft. In short, I could only gaze and wonder, for at least 900 ships lay before me. Let any one fancy an excursion amidst 900 ships, great and small, which lined both shores of the Elbe in tiers of three deep or more; the passing to and fro of countless boats busily employed in loading or unloading these vessels; these things, together with the shouting and singing of the sailors, the rattling of anchors which are being weighed, and the rush and swell of passing steamers, combine to constitute a picture not to be surpassed in any city except in that metropolis of the world, London. {12} The reason of this unusual activity in the harbour lay in the severity of the past winter. Such a winter had not been experienced for seventy years: the Elbe and the Baltic lay for months in icy chains, and not a ship could traverse the frozen river, not an anchor could be weighed or lowered. It was only a short time before my arrival that the passage had once more become free. In the neighbourhood of the harbour are situated the greater number of the so-called "yards." I had read concerning them that, viewed from the exterior, they look like common houses; but that they constitute separate communities, and contain alleys and streets, serving as the domicile of innumerable families. I visited several of these places, and can assure the reader that I saw nothing extraordinary in them. Houses with two large wings, forming an alley of from eighty to a hundred paces in length, are to be met with in every large town; and that a number of families should inhabit such a house is not remarkable, considering that they are all poor, and that each only possesses a single small apartment. The favourite walk in the town is the "Jungfernstieg" (Maiden's Walk), a broad alley, extending round a spacious and beautiful basin of the Alster. On one side are splendid hotels, with which Hamburgh is richly provided; on the other, a number of private residences of equal pretensions. Other walks are, the "Wall," surrounding the town, and the "Botanical Garden," which resembles a fine park. The noblest building, distinguished alike as regards luxury, skill, tastefulness of design, and stability, is the Bazaar. It is truly a gigantic undertaking, and the more to be admired from the fact that it is not built upon shares, but at the expense of a single individual, Herr Carl Sillem; the architect's name is Overdick. The building itself is constructed entirely of stone, and the walls of the great room and of the hall are inlaid with marble. A lofty cupola and an immense glazed dome cover both the great room and the hall; the upper staircases are ornamented with beautiful statues. When in the evening it is brilliantly lighted with gas, and further ornamented by a tasteful display of the richest wares, the spectator can almost fancy himself transported to a fairy palace. Altogether the shops in Hamburgh are very luxurious. The wares lie displayed in the most tasteful manner behind huge windows of plate-glass, which are often from five to six feet broad, and eight or ten feet high; a single sheet frequently costs 600 florins. This plate-glass luxury is not confined to shops, but extends to windows generally, not only in Hamburgh, but also in Altona, and is also seen in the handsomest country-houses of the Hamburghers. Many a pane costs eight or ten florins; and the glass is insured in case of breakage, like houses in case of fire. This display of glass is equalled by the costliness of the furniture, which is almost universally of mahogany; a wood which is here in such common use, that in some of the most elegant houses the very stair-banisters are constructed of it. Even the pilots have often mahogany furniture. The handsomest and most frequented street is the "Neue Wall" (New Wall). I was particularly struck with the number of shops and dwellings underground, to which one descends by a flight of six or eight stairs; an iron railing is generally placed before the entrance, to prevent the passers-by from falling down. A very practical institution is the great slaughterhouse, in which all cattle are killed on certain days of the week. Concerning the town of Altona, I have only to observe that it appeared to me a continuation of Hamburgh; from which town, indeed, it is only separated by a wooden door. A very broad, handsome street, or, more properly speaking, an elongated square, planted with a double row of large trees, is the most remarkable thing about Altona, which belongs to the Danish Government, and is considered, after Copenhagen, the most important place in the kingdom. It is a delicious ride to the village of Blankenese, distant nine miles from Hamburgh; the road lies among beautiful country-houses and large park-like gardens. Blankenese itself consists of cottages, grouped in a picturesque manner round the Sulberg, a hill from which the traveller enjoys a very extended view over the great plain, in which it is the only elevated point. The course of the Elbe, as it winds at moderate speed towards the sea, is here to be traced almost to its embouchure at Cuxhaven. The breadth of the Elbe at Blankenese exceeds two miles. Another interesting excursion is to the "New Mills," a little village on the Elbe, not more than half a mile from Altona, and inhabited only by fishermen and pilots. Whoever wishes to form an idea of Dutch prettiness and cleanliness should come here. The houses are mostly one story high, neatly and tastefully built; the brightest of brass handles adorn the street-doors; the windows are kept scrupulously clean, and furnished with white curtains. In Saxony I had found many dwellings of the peasantry tidy and neat enough, displaying at any rate more opulence than we are accustomed to find with this class of people; but I had seen none to compete with this pretty village. Among the peasants' costumes, I only liked that worn by the women from the "Vierlanden." They wear short full skirts of black stuff, fine white chemisettes with long sleeves, and coloured bodices, lightly fastened in front with silk cords or silver buckles. Their straw hats have a most comical appearance; the brim of the hat is turned up in such a manner that the crown appears to have completely sunk in. Many pretty young girls dressed in this manner come to Hamburgh to sell flowers, and take up their position in front of the Exchange. The 26th of April, the day appointed for my departure, arrived only too speedily. To part is the unavoidable fate of the traveller; but sometimes we part gladly, sometimes with regret. I need not write many pages to describe my feelings at the parting in Hamburgh. I was leaving behind me my last relations, my last friends. Now I was going into the wide world, and among strangers. At eight o'clock in the morning I left Altona, and proceeded by railway to Kiel. I noticed with pleasure that on this railway even the third-class carriages were securely covered in, and furnished with glass windows. In fact, they only differed from those of the first and second class in being painted a different colour, and having the seats uncushioned. The whole distance of seventy miles was passed in three hours; a rapid journey, but agreeable merely by its rapidity, for the whole neighbourhood presents only widely-extended plains, turf-bogs and moorlands, sandy places and heaths, interspersed with a little meadow or arable land. From the nature of the soil, the water in the ditches and fields looked black as ink. Near Binneburg we notice a few stunted plantations of trees. From Eisholm a branch-line leads to Gluckstadt, and another from Neumunster, a large place with important cloth-factories, to Rendsburg. From here there is nothing to be seen but a convent, in which many Dukes of Holstein lie buried, and several unimportant lakes; for instance, those of Bernsholm, Einfeld, and Schulhof. The little river Eider would have passed unnoticed by me, had not some of my fellow-passengers made a great feature of it. In the finest countries I have found the natives far less enthusiastic about what was really grand and beautiful, than they were here in praise of what was neither the one nor the other. My neighbour, a very agreeable lady, was untiring in laudation of her beautiful native land. In her eyes the crippled wood was a splendid park, the waste moorland an inexhaustible field for contemplation, and every trifle a matter of real importance. In my heart I wished her joy of her fervid imagination; but unfortunately my colder nature would not catch the infection. Towards Kiel the plain becomes a region of low hills. Kiel itself is prettily situated on the Baltic, which, viewed from thence, has the appearance of a lake of middling size. The harbour is said to be good; but there were not many ships there. {13} Among these was the steamer destined to carry me to Copenhagen. Little did I anticipate the good reason I should have to remember this vessel. Thanks to the affectionate forethought of my cousin Schmidt, I found one of his relations, Herr Brauer, waiting for me at the railway. I was immediately introduced to his family, and passed the few hours of my stay very agreeably in their company. Evening approached, and with it the hour of embarkation. My kind friends the Brauers accompanied me to the steamer, and I took a grateful leave of them. I soon discovered the steamer _Christian VIII._, of 180-horse power, to be a vessel dirtier and more uncomfortable than any with which I had become acquainted in my maritime excursions. Scrubbing and sweeping seemed things unknown here. The approach to the cabin was by a flight of stairs so steep, that great care was requisite to avoid descending in an expeditious but disagreeable manner, by a fall from top to bottom. In the fore-cabin there was no attempt at separate quarters for ladies and gentlemen. In short, the arrangements seemed all to have been made with a view of impressing the ship vividly on the recollection of every traveller. At nine o'clock we left Kiel. The day and the twilight are here already longer than in the lands lying to the south and the west. There was light enough to enable me to see, looming out of the surrounding darkness, the fortress "Friedrichsort," which we passed at about ten o'clock. April 27th. To-day I still rose with the sun; but that will soon be a difficult matter to accomplish; for in the north the goddess of light makes amends in spring and summer for her shortcomings during the winter. I went on deck, and looked on the broad expanse of ocean. No land was to be seen; but soon a coast appeared, then disappeared, and then a new and more distant one rose out of the sea. Towards noon we reached the island of Moen, which lies about forty {14} miles distant from Copenhagen. It forms a beautiful group of rocks, rising boldly from the sea. They are white as chalk, and have a smooth and shining appearance. The highest of these walls of rock towers 400 feet above the level of the surrounding ocean. Soon we saw the coast of Sweden, then the island of Malmo; and at last Copenhagen itself, where we landed at four o'clock in the afternoon. The distance from Kiel to Copenhagen is 136 sea-miles. I remained seven days at Copenhagen, and should have had ample time to see every thing, had the weather been more favourable. But it blew and rained so violently, that I was obliged to give up all thoughts of visiting the surrounding parks, and was fain to content myself with seeing a few of the nearest walks, which I accomplished with some difficulty. The first street in Copenhagen which I traversed on coming from the harbour generally produces a great impression. It is called the "Broad Street," and leads from the harbour through the greater part of the town. In addition to its breadth it is very long and regular, and the splendid palaces and houses on either side give it a remarkably grand appearance. It is a peculiar sight, when, in the midst of this fine quarter, we come suddenly upon a ruin, a giant building resting on huge pillars, but half completed, and partly covered with moss and lichens. It was intended for a splendid church, and is built entirely of marble; but the soft ground would not bear the immense weight. The half-finished building began to sink, and the completion of the undertaking became for ever impossible. Many other streets rival the "Broad Street" in size and magnificence. Foremost among them comes the Amalienstrasse. The most bustling, but by far not the finest, are the Oster and Gotherstrasse. To walk in these is at first quite a difficult undertaking for a stranger. On one side of the pavement, which is raised about a foot above the carriage-way, he comes continually in contact with stairs, leading sometimes to warehouses above, at others to subterranean warehouses below the level of the street. The approaches to the latter are not guarded by railings as in Hamburgh. The other side of the pavement is bounded by a little unostentatious rivulet, called by unpoetical people "canal," into which tributaries equally sweet pour from all the neighbouring houses. It is therefore necessary to take great care, lest you should fall into the traitorous depths on the one side, or stumble over the projecting steps on the other. The pavement itself is covered with a row of stone slabs, a foot and a half wide, on which one walks comfortably enough. But then every body contends for the possession of these, to avoid the uneven and pointed stones at the side. This, added to the dreadful crowding, renders the street one which would scarcely be chosen for a walk, the less so as the shops do not contain any thing handsome, the houses are neither palace-like nor even tastefully built, and the street itself is neither of the broadest nor of the cleanest. The squares are all large and regularly built. The finest is the Kongensnytorf (King's New Market). Some fine mansions, the chief guard-house, the theatre, the chief coffee-houses and inns, the academy of the fine arts, and the building belonging to the botanical garden, the two last commonly known by the name of "Charlottenburg," are among the ornaments of this magnificent square, in the midst of which stands a beautiful monument, representing Christian V. on horseback, and surrounded by several figures. Smaller, but more beautiful in its perfect symmetry, is the "Amalienplatz," containing four royal palaces, built exactly alike, and intersected by four broad streets in the form of a cross. This square also is decorated by a monument standing in the midst, and representing Frederick V. In another fine square, the "Nytorf" (New Market), there is a fountain. Its little statue sends forth very meagre jets of water, and the fountain is merely noticeable as being the only one I could find at Copenhagen. The traveller can hardly fail of being surprised by the number and magnificence of the palaces, at sight of which he could fancy himself in the metropolis of one of the largest kingdoms. The "Christianensburg" is truly imperial; it was completely destroyed by fire in the year 1794, but has since been rebuilt with increased splendour. The chapel of this palace is very remarkable. The interior has the appearance rather of a concert-room than of a building devoted to purposes of worship. Tastefully decorated boxes, among which we notice that of the king, together with galleries, occupy the upper part of the chapel; the lower is filled with benches covered with red velvet and silk. The pulpit and altar are so entirely without decoration, that, on first entering, they wholly escape notice. In the "Christianensburg" is also the "Northern Museum," peculiarly rich in specimens of the ornaments, weapons, musical instruments, and other mementoes of northern nations. The Winter Riding-school, in which concerts are frequently given, is large and symmetrical. I admired the stalls, and yet more the grey horses which occupied them--descendants of the pure Arabian and wild Norwegian breeds--creatures with long manes and tails of fine silky hair. Every one who sees these horses, whether he be a connoisseur or one of the uninitiated, must admire them. Adjoining the "Christianensburg" is Thorwaldsen's Museum, a square building with fine saloons, lighted from above. When I saw it, it was not completed; the walls were being painted in fresco by some of the first native artists. The sculptured treasures were there, but unfortunately yet unpacked. In the midst of the courtyard Thorwaldsen's mausoleum is being erected. There his ashes will rest, with his exquisitely finished lion as a gravestone above them. {15} The largest among the churches is the "Woman's Church." The building has no architectural beauty; the pillars, galleries, and cupola are all of wood, covered with a mixture of sand and plaster. But whatever may be wanting in outward splendour is compensated by its contents, for this church contains the masterpieces of Thorwaldsen. At the high altar stands his glorious figure of our Saviour, in the niches of the wall his colossal twelve apostles. In the contemplation of these works we forget the plainness of the building which contains them. May the fates be prosperous, and no conflagration reach this church, built as it is half of wood! The Catholic Church is small, but tasteful beyond expression. The late emperor of Austria presented to it a good full-toned organ, and two oil-paintings, one by Kuppelweiser, the other by a pupil of this master. In the "Museum of Arts" I was most interested in the ancient chair, used in days of yore by Tycho de Brahe. {16} The Exchange is a curious ancient building. It is very long and narrow, and surmounted by nine peaks, from the centre of which protrudes a remarkable pointed tower, formed of four crocodiles' tails intertwined. The hall itself is small, low, and dark; it contains a full-length portrait in oil of Tycho de Brahe. Nearly all the upper part of the building is converted into a kind of bazaar, and the lower portion contains a number of small and dingy booths. Several canals, having an outlet into the sea, give a peculiar charm to the town. They are, in fact, so many markets; for the craft lying in them are laden with provisions of all kinds, which are here offered for sale. The Sailors' Town, adjoining Copenhagen, and situated near the harbour, is singularly neat and pretty. It consists of three long, broad, straight streets, built of houses looking so exactly alike, that on a foggy night an accurate knowledge of the locality is requisite to know one from the other. It looks as though, on each side of the way, there were only one long house of a single floor, with a building one story high in the middle. In the latter dwell the commandant and overseers. The lighting of the streets is managed in Copenhagen in the same way as in our smaller German towns. When "moonlight" is announced in the calendar, not a lamp is lighted. If the lady moon chooses to hide behind dark clouds, that is her fault. It would be insolent to attempt to supply the place of her radiance with miserable lamps--a wise arrangement! (?) Of the near walks, the garden of the "Rosenburg," within the town, pleased me much; as did also the "Long Line," an alley of beautiful trees extending parallel with the sea, and in which one can either walk or ride. A coffee-house, in front of which there is music in fine weather, attracts many of the loungers. The most beautiful place of all is the "Kastell," above the "Long Line," from whence one can enjoy a beautiful view. The town lies displayed below in all its magnificence: the harbour, with its many ships; the sparkling blue Sound, which spreads its broad expanse between the coasts of Denmark and Sweden, and washes many a beautiful group of islands belonging to one or the other of these countries. The background of the picture alone is uninteresting, as there is no chain of mountains to form a horizon, and the eye wanders over the boundless flats of Denmark. Among the vessels lying at anchor in the harbour I saw but few three-masters, and still fewer steamers. The ships of the fleet presented a curious appearance; at the first view they look like great houses with flag-staves, for every ship is provided with a roof, out of which the masts rise into the air; they are besides very high out of the water, so that all the port-holes and the windows of the cabins appear in two or three stories, one above the other. A somewhat more distant excursion, which can be very conveniently made in a capital omnibus, takes you to the royal chateau "Friedrichsberg," lying before the water-gate, two miles distant from the town. Splendid avenues lead to this place, where are to be found all the delights that can combine to draw a citizen into the country. There are a tivoli, a railway, cabinets, and booths with wax-figures, and countless other sights, besides coffee-houses, beer-rooms, and music. The gardens are planted at the sides with a number of small arbours, each containing a table and chairs, and all open in front, so as to shew at one view all the visitors of these pretty natural huts. On Sundays, when the gardens are crowded, this is a very animated sight. On the way to this "Prater" of Copenhagen, we pass many handsome villas, each standing in a fine garden. [Picture: Copenhagen: From Frederiesbourg] The royal palace is situated on the summit of a hill, at the end of the avenue, and is surrounded by a beautiful park; it commands a view of a great portion of the town, with the surrounding country and the sea; still I far prefer the prospect from the "Kastell." The Park contains a considerable island, which, during some part of the year, stands in the midst of an extensive lake. This island is appropriated to the Court, but the rest of the park is open to the public. Immediately outside the water-gate stands an obelisk, remarkable neither for its beauty nor for the skill displayed in its erection, for it consists of various stones, and is not high, but interesting from the circumstance to which it owes its origin. It was erected by his grateful subjects in memory of the late king Christian VII., to commemorate the abolition of feudal service. Surely no feeling person can contemplate without joyful emotion a monument like this. I have here given a faithful account of what I saw during my short stay at Copenhagen. It only remains for me to describe a few peculiar customs of the people, and so I will begin as it were at the end, with the burial of the dead. In Denmark, as in fact in the whole of Scandinavia, not excepting Iceland, it is customary not to bury the dead until eight or ten days have elapsed. In winter-time this is not of so much consequence, but in summer it is far from healthy for those under the same roof with the corpse. I was present at Copenhagen at the funeral of Dr. Brandis, physician to the king. Two of the king's carriages and a number of private equipages attended. Nearly all these were empty, and the servants walked beside them. Among the mourners I did not notice a single woman; I supposed that this was only the case at the funerals of gentlemen, but on inquiry I found that the same rule is observed at the burial of women. This consideration for the weaker sex is carried so far, that on the day of the funeral no woman may be seen in the house of mourning. The mourners assemble in the house of the deceased, and partake of cold refreshments. At the conclusion of the ceremony they are again regaled. What particularly pleased me in Copenhagen was, that I never on any occasion saw beggars, or even such miserably clad people as are found only too frequently in our great cities. Here there are no doubt poor people, as there are such every where else in the world, but one does not see them beg. I cannot help mentioning an arrangement which certainly deserves to be universally carried out;--I mean, the setting apart of many large houses, partly belonging to the royal family, partly to rich private people or to companies, for the reception of poor people, who are here lodged at a much cheaper rate than is possible in ordinary dwellings. The costumes of the peasants did not particularly please me. The women wear dresses of green or black woollen stuff, reaching to the ankle, and trimmed at the skirt with broad coloured woollen borders. The seams of the spenser, and the arm-holes, are also trimmed with smaller coloured borders. On their heads they wear a handkerchief, and over this a kind of shade, like a bonnet. On Sundays I saw many of them in small, pretty caps, worked with silk, with a border of lace of more than a hand's breadth, plaited very stiffly; at the back they have large bows of fine riband, the ends of which reach half down to their feet. I found nothing very remarkable in the dress of the peasants. As far as strength and beauty were concerned, I thought these peasants were neither more nor less gifted than those of Austria. As regards the beauty of the fair sex, I should certainly give the preference to the Austrians. Fair hair and blue eyes predominate. I saw but few soldiers; their uniforms, particularly those worn by the king's life-guards, are very handsome. I especially noticed the drummers; they were all little lads of ten or twelve years old. One could almost have exclaimed, "Drum, whither art thou carrying that boy?" To march, and to join in fatiguing manoeuvres, carrying such a drum, and beating it bravely at the same time, is rather cruel work for such young lads. Many a ruined constitution may be ascribed to this custom. During my stay in Copenhagen I spent many very delightful hours with Professor Mariboe and his amiable family, and with the kind clergyman of the embassy, Herr Zimmermann. They received me with true politeness and hospitality, and drew me into their circle, where I soon felt myself quite at ease. I shall never forget their friendship, and shall make use of every opportunity to shew them my appreciation of it. Herr Edouard Gottschalk and Herr Knudson have also my best thanks. I applied to the first of these gentlemen to procure me a passage to Iceland, and he was kind enough to use his interest with Herr Knudson on my behalf. Herr Knudson is one of the first general dealers in Copenhagen, and carries on a larger and more extended commerce with Iceland than any other house trading thither. He is already beginning to retire, as the continual journeys are becoming irksome to him; but he still owns a number of great and small vessels, which are partly employed in the fisheries, and partly in bringing all kinds of articles of consumption and luxury to the different harbours of Iceland. He himself goes in one of his ships every year, and stays a few months in Iceland to settle his affairs there. On the recommendation of Herr Gottschalk, Herr Knudson was kind enough to give me a passage in the ship in which he made the journey himself; a favour which I knew how to value. It is certainly no small kindness to take a lady passenger on such a journey. Herr Knudson knew neither my fortitude nor my perseverance; he did not know whether I should be able to endure the hardships of a journey to the north, whether I would bear sea-sickness philosophically, or even if I had courage enough, in case of storms or bad weather, to abstain from annoying the captain by my fears or complaints at a time when he would only have too much to harass him. The kind man allowed no such considerations to influence him. He believed me when I promised to behave courageously come what might, and took me with him. Indeed his kindness went so far that it is to him I owe every comfort I enjoyed in Iceland, and every assistance in furthering the attainment of my journey's object. I could certainly not have commenced a voyage under better auspices. All ships visiting Iceland leave Copenhagen at the end of April, or at the latest in the middle of May. After this time only one ship is despatched, to carry the mails of the Danish government. This vessel leaves Copenhagen in October, remains in Iceland during the winter months, and returns in March. The gain or loss of this expedition is distributed in shares among the merchants of Copenhagen. Besides this, a French frigate comes to Iceland every spring, and cruises among the different harbours until the middle of August. She superintends the fishing vessels, which, attracted by the large profits of the fisheries, visit these seas in great numbers during the summer. {17} Opportunities of returning from Iceland occur during the summer until the end of September, by means of the merchant-ships, which carry freights from the island to Denmark, England, and Spain. At length, on Sunday the 4th of May, a favourable wind sprung up. Herr Knudson sent me word to be ready to embark at noon on board the fine brig _John_. I immediately proceeded on board. The anchor was weighed, and the sails, unfolding themselves like giant wings, wafted us gently out of the harbour of Copenhagen. No parting from children, relations, or old-cherished friends embittered this hour. With a glad heart I bade adieu to the city, in the joyful hope soon to see the fulfilment of my long-expected journey. The bright sky smiled above us, and a most favourable wind filled our sails. I sat on deck and revelled in the contemplation of scenes so new to me. Behind us lay spread the majestic town; before us the Sound, an immense natural basin, which I could almost compare to a great Swiss lake; on the right and left were the coasts of Sweden and Denmark, which here approach each other so closely that they seem to oppose a barrier to the further progress of the adventurous voyager. Soon we passed the little Swedish town of Carlscrona, and the desolate island Hveen, on which Tycho de Brahe passed the greater portion of his life, occupied with stellar observations and calculations. Now came a somewhat dangerous part, and one which called into action all the careful seamanship of the captain to bring us safely through the confined sea and the strong current,--the entrance of the Sound into the Cattegat. The two coasts here approach to within a mile of each other. On the Swedish side lies the pretty little town of Helsingborg, on the Danish side that of Helsingor, and at the extremity of a projecting neck of land the fortress Kronburg, which demands a toll of every passing ship, and shews a large row of threatening cannon in case of non-compliance. Our toll had already been paid before leaving Copenhagen; we had been accurately signalled, and sailed fearlessly by. {18} The entrance once passed, we entered the Cattegat, which already looked more like the great ocean: the coasts retired on each side, and most of the shifts and barques, which till now had hovered around us on all sides, bade us "farewell." Some bent their course towards the east, others towards the west; and we alone, on the broad desert ocean, set sail for the icy north. Twilight did not set in until 9 o'clock at night; and on the coasts the flaming beacons flashed up, to warn the benighted mariner of the proximity of dangerous rocks. I now offered up my thanksgiving to Heaven for the protection hitherto vouchsafed me, with a humble prayer for its continuance. Then I descended to the cabin, where I found a convenient bunk (a kind of crib fixed to the side of the ship); I laid myself down, and was soon in a deep and refreshing sleep. I awoke full of health and spirits, which, however, I enjoyed but for a short time. During the night we had left behind us the "Cattegat" and the "Skagerrack," and were driving through the stormy German Ocean. A high wind, which increased almost to a gale, tumbled our poor ship about in such a manner, that none but a good dancer could hope to maintain an upright position. I had unfortunately been from my youth no votary of Terpsichore, and what was I to do? The naiads of this stormy region seized me, and bandied me to and fro, until they threw me into the arms of what was, according to my experience, if not exactly after Schiller's interpretation, "the horrible of horrors,"--sea-sickness. At first I took little heed of this, thinking that sea-sickness would soon be overcome by a traveller like myself, who should be inured to every thing. But in vain did I bear up; I became worse and worse, till I was at length obliged to remain in my berth with but one consoling thought, namely, that we were to-day on the open sea, where there was nothing worthy of notice. But the following day the Norwegian coast was in sight, and at all hazards I must see it; so I crawled on deck more dead than alive, looked at a row of mountains of moderate elevation, their tops at this early season still sparkling with their snowy covering, and then hurried back, benumbed by the piercing icy wind, to my good warm feather-bed. Those who have never experienced it can have no conception of the biting, penetrating coldness of a gale of wind in the northern seas. The sun shone high in the heavens; the thermometer (I always calculate according to Reaumur) stood 3 degrees above zero; I was dressed much more warmly than I should have thought necessary when, in my fatherland, the thermometer was 8 or 10 degrees _below_ zero, and yet I felt chilled to the heart, and could have fancied that I had no clothes on at all. On the fourth night we sailed safely past the Shetland Islands; and on the evening of the fifth day we passed so near the majestic rocky group of the Feroe Islands, that we were at one time apprehensive of being cast upon the rocks by the unceasing gale. {19} Already on the seventh day we descried the coast of Iceland. Our passage had been unprecedentedly quick; the sailors declared that a favourable gale was to be preferred even to steam, and that on our present voyage we should certainly have left every steamer in our wake. But I, wretched being that I was, would gladly have dispensed with the services both of gale and steam for the sake of a few hours' rest. My illness increased so much, that on the seventh day I thought I must succumb. My limbs were bathed in a cold perspiration; I was as weak as an infant, and my mouth felt parched and dry. I saw that I must now either make a great effort or give up entirely; so I roused myself, and with the assistance of the cabin-boy gained a seat, and promised to take any and every remedy which should be recommended. They gave me hot-water gruel with wine and sugar; but it was not enough to be obliged to force this down, I was further compelled to swallow small pieces of raw bacon highly peppered, and even a mouthful of rum. I need not say what strong determination was required to make me submit to such a regimen. I had, however, but one choice, either to conquer my repugnance or give myself up a victim to sea-sickness; so with all patience and resignation I received the proffered gifts, and found, after a trial of many hours, that I could manage to retain a small dose. This physicking was continued for two long, long days, and then I began slowly to recover. I have here circumstantially described both my illness and its cure, because so many people are unfortunately victims to the complaint, and when under its influence cannot summon resolution to take sustenance. I should advise all my friends not to hold out so long as I did, but to take food at once, and continue to do so until the system will receive it. As I was now convalescent, I tried to recruit my wearied mind by a diligent study of the mode of life and customs of the mariners of the northern seas. Our ship's company consisted of Herr Knudson, Herr Bruge (a merchant whom we were to land at the Westmann Islands), the captain, the mate, and six or seven sailors. Our mode of life in the cabin was as follows: in the morning, at seven o'clock, we took coffee, but whence this coffee came, heaven knows! I drank it for eleven days, and could never discover any thing which might serve as a clue in my attempt to discover the country of its growth. At ten o'clock we had a meal consisting of bread and butter and cheese, with cold beef or pork, all excellent dishes for those in health; the second course of this morning meal was "tea-water." In Scandinavia, by the way, they never say, "I drink _tea_," the word "water" is always added: "I drink _tea-water_." Our "tea-water" was, if possible, worse than its predecessor, the incomparable coffee. Thus I was beaten at all points; the eatables were too strong for me, the drinkables too--too--I can find no appropriate epithet--probably too artificial. I consoled myself with the prospect of dinner; but, alas, too soon this sweet vision faded into thin air! On the sixth day I made my first appearance at the covered table, and could not help at once remarking the cloth which had been spread over it. At the commencement of our journey it might perhaps have been white; now it was most certainly no longer of that snowy hue. The continual pitching and rolling of the ship had caused each dish to set its peculiar stamp upon the cloth. A sort of wooden network was now laid upon it, in the interstices of which the plates and glasses were set, and thus secured from falling. But before placing it on the table, our worthy cabin-boy took each plate and glass separately, and polished it on a towel which hung near, and in colour certainly rather resembling the dingy floor of the cabin than the bight-hued rainbow. This could still have been endured, but the article in question really did duty _as a towel_ in the morning, before extending its salutary influence over plates and glasses for the remainder of the day. On making discoveries such as these, I would merely turn away my eyes, and try to think that perhaps _my glass_ and _my plate_ would be more delicately manipulated, or probably escape altogether; and then I would turn my whole attention to the expected dishes. First came soup; but instead of gravy-soup, it was water-soup, with rice and dried plums. This, when mingled with red wine and sugar, formed a most exquisite dish for Danish appetites, but it certainly did not suit mine. The second and concluding course consisted of a large piece of beef, with which I had no fault to find, except that it was too heavy for one in my weak state of health. At supper we had the same dishes as at dinner, and each meal was followed by "tea-water." At first I could not fancy this bill of fare at all; but within a few days after my convalesence, I had accustomed myself to it, and could bear the sea-diet very well. {20} As the rich owner of the vessel was on board, there was no lack of the best wines, and few evenings passed on which a bowl of punch was not emptied. There was, however, a reason found why every bottle of wine or bowl of punch should be drunk: for instance, at our embarkation, to drink the health of the friends we were leaving, and to hope for a quick and prosperous voyage; then, when the wind was favourable, its health was drunk, with the request that it would remain so; when it was contrary, with the request that it would change; when we saw land, we saluted it with a glass of wine, or perhaps with several, but I was too ill to count; when we lost sight of it, we drank a farewell glass to its health: so that every day brought with it three or four distinct and separate occasions for drinking wine. {21} The sailors drank tea-water without sugar every morning and evening, with the addition of a glass of brandy; for dinner they had pease, beans, barley, or potatoes, with salted cod, bacon, "or junk;" good sea-biscuit they could get whenever they chose. The diet is not the worst part of these poor people's hardships. Their life may be called a continual fight against the elements; for it is precisely during the most dreadful storms, with rain and piercing cold, that they have to be continually upon deck. I could not sufficiently admire the coolness, or rather the cheerfulness and alacrity with which they fulfilled their onerous duties. And what reward have they? Scanty pay, for food the diet I have just described, and for their sleeping-place the smallest and most inconvenient part of the ship, a dark place frequently infested with vermin, and smelling offensively from being likewise used as a receptacle for oil-colours, varnish, tar, salt-fish, &c. &c. To be cheerful in the midst of all this requires a very quiet and contented mind. That the Danish sailors are contented, I had many opportunities of observing during the voyage of which I am speaking, and on several other occasions. But after all this long description, it is high time that I should return to the journey itself. The favourable gale which had thus wafted us to the coast of Iceland within seven days, now unfortunately changed its direction, and drove us back. We drifted about in the storm-tost ocean, and many a Spanish wave {22} broke completely over our ship. Twice we attempted to approach the Westmann Islands {23} (a group belonging to Iceland) to watch an opportunity of casting anchor, and setting ashore our fellow-traveller Herr Bruge; but it was in vain, we were driven back each time. At length, at the close of the eleventh day, we reached Havenfiord, a very good harbour, distant nine miles from Reikjavik, the capital of Iceland. In spite of the very inopportune change in the direction of the wind, we had had an unprecedentedly quick passage. The distance from Copenhagen to Iceland, in a straight line, is reckoned at 1200 geographical miles; for a sailing vessel, which must tack now and then, and must go as much with the wind as possible, 1500 to 1600 miles. Had the strong wind, which was at first so favourable, instead of changing on the seventh day, held on for thirty or forty hours longer, we should have landed in Iceland on the eighth or ninth day--even the steamer could not have accomplished the passage so quickly. The shores of Iceland appeared to me quite different from what I had supposed them to be from the descriptions I had read. I had fancied them naked, without tree or shrub, dreary and desert; but now I saw green hills, shrubs, and even what appeared to be groups of stunted trees. As we came nearer, however, I was enabled to distinguish objects more clearly, and the green hills became human dwellings with small doors and windows, while the supposed groups of trees proved in reality to be heaps of lava, some ten or twelve feet high, thickly covered with moss and grass. Every thing was new and striking to me; I waited in great impatience till we could land. At length the anchor descended; but it was not till next morning that the hour of disembarkation and deliverance came. But one more night, and then, every difficulty overcome, I should tread the shores of Iceland, the longed-for, and bask as it were in the wonders of this island, so poor in the creations of art, so rich in the phenomena of Nature. * * * * * Before I land in Iceland, I must trouble the reader with a few preliminary observations regarding this island. They are drawn from Mackenzie's _Description of Iceland_, a book the sterling value of which is appreciated every where. {24} The discovery of Iceland, about the year of our Lord 860, is attributed to the spirit of enterprise of some Swedish and Norwegian pirates, who were drifted thither on a voyage to the Feroe Isles. It was not till the year 874 that the island was peopled by a number of voluntary emigrants, who, feeling unhappy under the dominion of Harold Harfraga (fine hair), arrived at the island under the direction of Ingold. {25} As the newcomers are said to have found no traces of dwellings, they are presumed to be the first who took possession of the island. At this time Iceland was still so completely covered with underwood, that at some points it was necessary to cut a passage. Bringing with them their language, religion, customs, and historical monuments, the Norwegians introduced a kind of feudal system, which, about the year 928, gave place to a somewhat aristocratic government, retaining, however, the name of a republic. The island was divided into four provinces, over each of which was placed an hereditary governor or judge. The General Assembly of Iceland (called Allthing) was held annually on the shores of the Lake Thingvalla. The people possessed an excellent code of laws, in which provision had been made for every case which could occur. This state of things lasted for more than 300 years, a period which may be called the golden age of Iceland. Education, literature, and even refined poetry flourished among the inhabitants, who took part in commerce and in the sea-voyages which the Norwegians undertook for purposes of discovery. The "Sagas," or histories of this country, contain many tales of personal bravery. Its bards and historians visited other climes, became the favourites of monarchs, and returned to their island covered with honour and loaded with presents. The _Edda_, by Samund, is one of the most valued poems of the ancient days of Iceland. The second portion of the _Edda_, called _Skalda_, dates from a later period, and is ascribed by many to the celebrated Snorri Sturluson. Isleif, first Bishop of Skalholt, was the earliest Icelandic historian; after him came the noted Snorri Sturluson, born in 1178, who became the richest and mightiest man in Iceland. Snorri Sturluson was frequently followed to the General Assembly of Iceland by a splendid retinue of 800 armed men. He was a great historian and poet, and possessed an accurate knowledge of the Greek and Latin tongues, besides being a powerful orator. He was also the author of the _Heims-kringla_. The first school was founded at Skalholt, about the middle of the eleventh century, under Isleif, first Bishop of Iceland; four other schools and several convents soon followed. Poetry and music seem to have formed a staple branch of education. The climate of Iceland appears to have been less inclement than is now the case; corn is said to have grown, and trees and shrubs were larger and thicker than we find them at present. The population of Iceland was also much more numerous than it is now, although there were neither towns nor villages. The people lived scattered throughout the island; and the General Assembly was held at Thingvalla, in the open air. Fishing constituted the chief employment of the Icelanders. Their clothing was woven from the wool of their sheep. Commerce with neighbouring countries opened to them another field of occupation. The doctrines of Christianity were first introduced into Iceland, in the year 981, by Friederich, a Saxon bishop. Many churches were built, and tithes established for the maintenance of the clergy. Isleif, first Bishop of Skalholt, was ordained in the year 1057. After the introduction of Christianity, all the Icelanders enjoyed an unostentatious but undisturbed practice of their religion. Greenland and the most northern part of America are said to have been discovered by Icelanders. In the middle of the thirteenth century Iceland came into the power of the Norwegian kings. In the year 1380 Norway was united to the crown of Denmark; and Iceland incorporated, without resistance, in the Danish monarchy. Since the cession of the island to Norway, and then to Denmark, peace and security took the place of the internal commotions with which, before this time, Iceland had been frequently disturbed; but this state of quiet brought forth indolence and apathy. The voyages of discovery were interfered with by the new government, and the commerce gradually passed into the hands of other nations. The climate appears also to have changed; and the lessened industry and want of perseverance in the inhabitants have brought agriculture completely into decline. In the year 1402 the plague broke out upon the island, and carried off two-thirds of the population. The first printing-press was established at Hoolum, about the year 1530, under the superintendence of the Bishop, John Areson. The reformation in the Icelandic Church was not brought about without disturbance. It was legally established in the year 1551. During the fifteenth century the Icelanders suffered more from the piratical incursions of foreigners. As late as the year 1616 the French and English nations took part in these enormities. The most melancholy occurrence of this kind took place in 1627, in which year a great number of Algerine pirates made a descent upon the Icelandic coast, murdered about fifty of the inhabitants, and carried off nearly 400 others into captivity. {26} The eighteenth century commenced with a dreadful mortality from the smallpox; of which disease more than 16,000 of the inhabitants died. In 1757 a famine swept away about 10,000 souls. The year 1783 was distinguished by most dreadful volcanic outbreaks in the interior of the island. Tremendous streams of lava carried all before them; great rivers were checked in their course, and formed lakes. For more than a year a thick cloud of smoke and volcanic ashes covered the whole of Iceland, and nearly darkened the sunlight. Horned cattle, sheep, and horses were destroyed; famine came, with its accompanying illnesses; and once more appeared the malignant small-pox. In a few years more than 11,000 persons had died; more than one-fourth of the whole present population of the island. Iceland lies in the Atlantic ocean; its greatest breadth is 240 geographical miles, and its extreme length from north to south 140 miles. The number of inhabitants is estimated at 48,000, and the superficial extent of the island at 29,800 square miles. CHAPTER III On the morning of the 16th of May I landed in the harbour of Havenfiord, and for the first time trod the shores of Iceland. Although I was quite bewildered by sea-sickness, and still more by the continual rocking of the ship, so that every object round me seemed to dance, and I could scarcely make a firm step, still I could not rest in the house of Herr Knudson, which he had obligingly placed at my disposal. I must go out at once, to see and investigate every thing. I found that Havenfiord consisted merely of three wooden houses, a few magazines built of the same material, and some peasants' cottages. The wooden houses are inhabited by merchants or by their factors, and consist only of a ground-floor, with a front of four or six windows. Two or three steps lead up to the entrance, which is in the centre of the building, and opens upon a hall from which doors lead into the rooms to the right and left. At the back of the house is situated the kitchen, which opens into several back rooms and into the yard. A house of this description consists only of five or six rooms on the ground-floor and a few small attic bedrooms. The internal arrangements are quite European. The furniture--which is often of mahogany,--the mirrors, the cast-iron stoves, every thing, in short, come from Copenhagen. Beautiful carpets lie spread before the sofas; neat curtains shade the windows; English prints ornament the whitewashed walls; porcelain, plate, cut-glass, &c., are displayed on chests and on tables; and flower-pots with roses, mignonnette, and pinks spread a delicious fragrance around. I even found a grand pianoforte here. If any person could suddenly, and without having made the journey, be transported into one of these houses, he would certainly fancy himself in some continental town, rather than in the distant and barren island of Iceland. And as in Havenfiord, so I found the houses of the more opulent classes in Reikjavik, and in all the places I visited. From these handsome houses I betook myself to the cottages of the peasants, which have a more indigenous, Icelandic appearance. Small and low, built of lava, with the interstices filled with earth, and the whole covered with large pieces of turf, they would present rather the appearance of natural mounds of earth than of human dwellings, were it not that the projecting wooden chimneys, the low-browed entrances, and the almost imperceptible windows, cause the spectator to conclude that they are inhabited. A dark narrow passage, about four feet high, leads on one side into the common room, and on the other to a few compartments, some of which are used as storehouses for provisions, and the rest as winter stables for the cows and sheep. At the end of this passage, which is purposely built so low, as an additional defence against the cold, the fireplace is generally situated. The rooms of the poorer class have neither wooden walls nor floors, and are just large enough to admit of the inhabitants sleeping, and perhaps turning round in them. The whole interior accommodation is comprised in bedsteads with very little covering, a small table, and a few drawers. Beds and chests of drawers answer the purpose of benches and chairs. Above the beds are fixed rods, from which depend clothes, shoes, stockings, &c. A small board, on which are arranged a few books, is generally to be observed. Stoves are considered unnecessary; for as the space is very confined, and the house densely populated, the atmosphere is naturally warm. Rods are also placed round the fireplace, and on these the wet clothes and fishes are hung up in company to dry. The smoke completely fills the room, and slowly finds its way through a few breathing-holes into the open air. Fire-wood there is none throughout the whole island. The rich inhabitants have it brought from Norway or Denmark; the poor burn turf, to which they frequently add bones and other offal of fish, which naturally engender a most disagreeable smoke. On entering one of these cottages, the visitor is at a loss to determine which of the two is the more obnoxious--the suffocating smoke in the passage or the poisoned air of the dwelling-room, rendered almost insufferable by the crowding together of so many persons. I could almost venture to assert, that the dreadful eruption called Lepra, which is universal throughout Iceland, owes its existence rather to the total want of cleanliness than to the climate of the country or to the food. Throughout my subsequent journeys into the interior, I found the cottages of the peasants every where alike squalid and filthy. Of course I speak of the majority, and not of the exceptions; for here I found a few rich peasants, whose dwellings looked cleaner and more habitable, in proportion to the superior wealth or sense of decency of the owners. My idea is, that the traveller's estimate of a country should be formed according to the habits and customs of the generality of its inhabitants, and not according to the doings of a few individuals, as is often the case. Alas, how seldom did I meet with these creditable exceptions! The neighbourhood of Havenfiord is formed by a most beautiful and picturesque field of lava, at first rising in hills, then sinking into hollows, and at length terminating in a great plain which extends to the base of the neighbouring mountains. Masses of the most varied forms, often black and naked, rise to the height of ten or fifteen feet, forming walls, ruined pillars, small grottoes, and hollow spaces. Over these latter large slabs often extend, and form bridges. Every thing around consists of suddenly cooled heaped-up masses of lava, in some instances covered to their summits with grass and moss; this circumstance gives them, as already stated, the appearance of groups of stunted trees. Horses, sheep, and cows were clambering about, diligently seeking out every green place. I also clambered about diligently; I could not tire of gazing and wondering at this terribly beautiful picture of destruction. After a few hours I had so completely forgotten the hardships of my passage, and felt myself so much strengthened, that I began my journey to Reikjavik at five o'clock on the evening of the same day. Herr Knudson seemed much concerned for me; he warned me that the roads were bad, and particularly emphasised the dangerous abysses I should be compelled to pass. I comforted him with the assurance that I was a good horsewoman, and could hardly have to encounter worse roads than those with which I had had the honour to become acquainted in Syria. I therefore took leave of the kind gentleman, who intended to stay a week or ten days in Havenfiord, and mounting a small horse, set out in company of a female guide. In my guide I made the acquaintance of a remarkable antiquity of Iceland, who is well worthy that I should devote a few words to her description. She is above seventy years of age, but looks scarcely fifty; her head is surrounded by tresses of rich fair hair. She is dressed like a man; undertakes, in the capacity of messenger, the longest and most fatiguing journeys; rows a boat as skilfully as the most practised fisherman; and fulfils all her missions quicker and more exactly than a man, for she does not keep up so good an understanding with the brandy-bottle. She marched on so sturdily before me, that I was obliged to incite my little horse to greater speed with my riding-whip. At first the road lay between masses of lava, where it certainly was not easy to ride; then over flats and small acclivities, from whence we could descry the immense plain in which are situated Havenfiord, Bassastadt, Reikjavik, and other places. Bassastadt, a town built on a promontory jutting out into the sea, contains one of the principal schools, a church built of masonry, and a few cottages. The town of Reikjavik cannot be seen, as it is hidden behind a hill. The other places consist chiefly of a few cottages, and only meet the eye of the traveller when he approaches them nearly. Several chains of mountains, towering one above the other, and sundry "Jokuls," or glaciers, which lay still sparkling in their wintry garb, surround this interminable plain, which is only open at one end, towards the sea. Some of the plains and hills shone with tender green, and I fancied I beheld beautiful meadows. On a nearer inspection, however, they proved to be swampy places, and hundreds upon hundreds of little acclivities, sometimes resembling mole-hills, at others small graves, and covered with grass and moss. I could see over an area of at least thirty or forty miles, and yet could not descry a tree or a shrub, a bit of meadow-land or a friendly village. Every thing seemed dead. A few cottages lay scattered here and there; at long intervals a bird would hover in the air, and still more seldom I heard the kindly greeting of a passing inhabitant. Heaps of lava, swamps, and turf-bogs surrounded me on all sides; in all the vast expanse not a spot was to be seen through which a plough could be driven. After riding more than four miles, I reached a hill, from which I could see Reikjavik, the chief harbour, and, in fact, the only town on the island. But I was deceived in my expectations; the place before me was a mere village. The distance from Havenfiord to Reikjavik is scarcely nine miles; but as I was unwilling to tire my good old guide, I took three hours to accomplish it. The road was, generally speaking, very good, excepting in some places, where it lay over heaps of lava. Of the much-dreaded dizzy abysses I saw nothing; the startling term must have been used to designate some unimportant declivities, along the brow of which I rode, in sight of the sea; or perhaps the "abysses" were on the lava-fields, where I sometimes noticed small chasms of fifteen or sixteen feet in depth at the most. Shortly after eight o'clock in the evening I was fortunate enough to reach Reikjavik safe and well. Through the kind forethought of Herr Knudson, a neat little room had been prepared for me in one of his houses occupied by the family of the worthy baker Bernhoft, and truly I could not have been better received any where. During my protracted stay the whole family of the Bernhofts shewed me more kindness and cordiality than it has been my lot frequently to find. Many an hour has Herr Bernhoft sacrificed to me, in order to accompany me in my little excursions. He assisted me most diligently in my search for flowers, insects, and shells, and was much rejoiced when he could find me a new specimen. His kind wife and dear children rivalled him in willingness to oblige. I can only say, may Heaven requite them a thousand-fold for their kindness and friendship! I had even an opportunity of hearing my native language spoken by Herr Bernhoft, who was a Holsteiner by birth, and had not quite forgotten our dear German tongue, though he had lived for many years partly in Denmark, partly in Iceland. So behold me now in the only town in Iceland, {27} the seat of the so-called cultivated classes, whose customs and mode of life I will now lay before my honoured readers. Nothing was more disagreeable to me than a certain air of dignity assumed by the ladies here; an air which, except when it is natural, or has become so from long habit, is apt to degenerate into stiffness and incivility. On meeting an acquaintance, the ladies of Reikjavik would bend their heads with so stately and yet so careless an air as we should scarcely assume towards the humblest stranger. At the conclusion of a visit, the lady of the house only accompanies the guest as far as the chamber-door. If the husband be present, this civility is carried a little further; but when this does not happen to be the case, a stranger who does not know exactly through which door he can make his exit, may chance to feel not a little embarrassed. Excepting in the house of the "Stiftsamtmann" (the principal official on the island), one does not find a footman who can shew the way. In Hamburgh I had already noticed the beginnings of this dignified coldness; it increased as I journeyed further north, and at length reached its climax in Iceland. Good letters of recommendation often fail to render the northern grandees polite towards strangers. As an instance of this fact, I relate the following trait: Among other kind letters of recommendation, I had received one addressed to Herr von H---, the "Stiftsamtmann" of Iceland. On my arrival at Copenhagen, I heard that Herr von H--- happened to be there. I therefore betook myself to his residence, and was shewn into a room where I found two young ladies and three children. I delivered my letter, and remained quietly standing for some time. Finding at length that no one invited me to be seated, I sat down unasked on the nearest chair, never supposing for an instant that the lady of the house could be present, and neglect the commonest forms of politeness which should be observed towards every stranger. After I had waited for some time, Herr von H--- graciously made his appearance, and expressed his regret that he should have very little time to spare for me, as he intended setting sail for Iceland with his family in a short time, and in the interim had a number of weighty affairs to settle at Copenhagen; in conclusion, he gave me the friendly advice to abandon my intention of visiting Iceland, as the fatigues of travelling in that country were very great; finding, however, that I persevered in my intention, he promised, in case I set sail for Reikjavik earlier than himself, to give me a letter of recommendation. All this was concluded in great haste, and we stood during the interview. I took my leave, and at first determined not to call again for the letter. On reflection, however, I changed my mind, ascribed my unfriendly reception to important and perhaps disagreeable business, and called again two days afterwards. Then the letter was handed to me by a servant; the high people, whom I could hear conversing in the adjoining apartment, probably considered it too much trouble to deliver it to me personally. On paying my respects to this amiable family in Reikjavik, I was not a little surprised to recognise in Frau von H--- one of those ladies who in Copenhagen had not had the civility to ask me to be seated. Five or six days afterwards, Herr von H--- returned my call, and invited me to an excursion to Vatne. I accepted the invitation with much pleasure, and mentally asked pardon of him for having formed too hasty an opinion. Frau von H---, however, did not find her way to me until the fourth week of my stay in Reikjavik; she did not even invite me to visit her again, so of course I did not go, and our acquaintance terminated there. As in duty bound, the remaining dignitaries of this little town took their tone from their chief. My visits were unreturned, and I received no invitations, though I heard much during my stay of parties of pleasure, dinners, and evening parties. Had I not fortunately been able to employ myself, I should have been very badly off. Not one of the ladies had kindness and delicacy enough to consider that I was alone here, and that the society of educated people might be necessary for my comfort. I was less annoyed at the want of politeness in the gentlemen; for I am no longer young, and that accounts for every thing. When the women were wanting in kindliness, I had no right to expect consideration from the gentlemen. I tried to discover the reason of this treatment, and soon found that it lay in a national characteristic of these people--their selfishness. It appears I had scarcely arrived at Reikjavik before diligent inquiries were set on foot as to whether I was _rich_, and should see much company at my house, and, in fact, whether much could be got out of me. To be well received here it is necessary either to be rich, or else to travel as a naturalist. Persons of the latter class are generally sent by the European courts to investigate the remarkable productions of the country. They make large collections of minerals, birds, &c.; they bring with them numerous presents, sometimes of considerable value, which they distribute among the dignitaries; they are, moreover, the projectors of many an entertainment, and even of many a little ball, &c.; they buy up every thing they can procure for their cabinets, and they always travel in company; they have much baggage with them, and consequently require many horses, which cannot be hired in Iceland, but must be bought. On such occasions every one here is a dealer: offers of horses and cabinets pour in on all sides. The most welcome arrival of all is that of the French frigate, which visits Iceland every year; for sometimes there are _dejeuners a la fourchette_ on board, sometimes little evening parties and balls. There is at least something to be got besides the rich presents; the "Stiftsamtmann" even receives 600 florins per annum from the French government to defray the expense of a few return balls which he gives to the naval officers. With me this was not the case: I gave no parties--I brought no presents--they had nothing to expect from me; and therefore they left me to myself. {28} For this reason I affirm that he only can judge of the character of a people who comes among them without claim to their attention, and from whom they have nothing to expect. To such a person only do they appear in their true colours, because they do not find it worth while to dissemble and wear a mask in his presence. In these cases the traveller is certainly apt to make painful discoveries; but when, on the other hand, he meets with good people, he may be certain of their sincerity; and so I must beg my honoured readers to bear with me, when I mention the names of all those who heartily welcomed the undistinguished foreigner; it is the only way in which I can express my gratitude towards them. As I said before, I had intercourse with very few people, so that ample time remained for solitary walks, during which I minutely noticed every thing around me. The little town of Reikjavik consists of a single broad street, with houses and cottages scattered around. The number of inhabitants does not amount to 500. The houses of the wealthier inhabitants are of wood-work, and contain merely a ground-floor, with the exception of a single building of one story, to which the high school, now held at Bassastadt, will be transferred next year. The house of the "Stiftsamtmann" is built of stone. It was originally intended for a prison; but as criminals are rarely to be met with in Iceland, the building was many years ago transformed into the residence of the royal officer. A second stone building, discernible from Reikjavik, is situated at Langarnes, half a mile from the town. It lies near the sea, in the midst of meadows, and is the residence of the bishop. The church is capable of holding only at the most from 100 to 150 persons; it is built of stone, with a wooden roof. In the chambers of this roof the library, consisting of several thousand volumes, is deposited. The church contains a treasure which many a larger and costlier edifice might envy,--a baptismal font by Thorwaldsen, whose parents were of Icelandic extraction. The great sculptor himself was born in Denmark, and probably wished, by this present, to do honour to the birth-place of his ancestors. To some of the houses in Reikjavik pieces of garden are attached. These gardens are small plots of ground where, with great trouble and expense, salad, spinach, parsley, potatoes, and a few varieties of edible roots, are cultivated. The beds are separated from each other by strips of turf a foot broad, seldom boasting even a few field-flowers. The inhabitants of Iceland are generally of middle stature, and strongly built, with light hair, frequently inclining to red, and blue eyes. The men are for the most part ugly; the women are better favoured, and among the girls I noticed some very sweet faces. To attain the age of seventy or eighty years is here considered an extraordinary circumstance. {29} The peasants have many children, and yet few; many are born, but few survive the first year. The mothers do not nurse them, and rear them on very bad food. Those who get over the first year look healthy enough; but they have strangely red cheeks, almost as though they had an eruption. Whether this appearance is to be ascribed to the sharp air, to which the delicate skin is not yet accustomed, or to the food, I know not. In some places on the coast, when the violent storms prevent the poor fishermen for whole weeks from launching their boats, they live almost entirely on dried fishes' heads. {30} The fishes themselves have been salted down and sold, partly to pay the fishermen's taxes, and partly to liquidate debts for the necessaries of the past season, among which brandy and snuff unfortunately play far too prominent a part. Another reason why the population does not increase is to be found in the numerous catastrophes attending the fisheries during the stormy season of the year. The fishermen leave the shore with songs and mirth, for a bright sky and a calm sea promise them good fortune. But, alas, tempests and snow-storms too often overtake the unfortunate boatmen! The sea is lashed into foam, and mighty waves overwhelm boats and fishermen together, and they perish inevitably. It is seldom that the father of a family embarks in the same boat with his sons. They divide themselves among different parties, in order that, if one boat founder, the whole family may not be destroyed. I found the cottages of the peasants at Reikjavik smaller, and in every respect worse provided, than those at Havenfiord. This seems, however, to be entirely owing to the indolence of the peasants themselves; for stones are to be had in abundance, and every man is his own builder. The cows and sheep live through the winter in a wretched den, built either in the cottage itself or in its immediate neighbourhood. The horses pass the whole year under the canopy of heaven, and must find their own provender. Occasionally only the peasant will shovel away the snow from a little spot, to assist the poor animals in searching for the grass or moss concealed beneath. It is then left to the horses to finish clearing away the snow with their feet. It may easily be imagined that this mode of treatment tends to render them very hardy; but the wonder is, how the poor creatures manage to exist through the winter on such spare diet, and to be strong and fit for work late in the spring and in summer. These horses are so entirely unused to being fed with oats, that they will refuse them when offered; they are not even fond of hay. As I arrived in Iceland during the early spring, I had an opportunity of seeing the horses and sheep in their winter garments. The horses seemed to be covered, not with hair, but with a thick woolly coat; their manes and tails are very long, and of surprising thickness. At the end of May or the beginning of June the tail and mane are docked and thinned, their woolly coat falls of itself, and they then look smooth enough. The sheep have also a very thick coat during the winter. It is not the custom to shear them, but at the beginning of June the wool is picked off piece by piece with the hand. A sheep treated in this way sometimes presents a very comical appearance, being perfectly naked on one side, while on the other it is still covered with wool. The horses and cows are considerably smaller than those of our country. No one need journey so far north, however, to see stunted cattle. Already, in Galicia, the cows and horses of the peasants are not a whit larger or stronger than those in Iceland. The Icelandic cows are further remarkable only for their peculiarly small horns; the sheep are also smaller than ours. Every peasant keeps horses. The mode of feeding them is, as already shewn, very simple; the distances are long, the roads bad, and large rivers, moorlands, and swamps must frequently be passed; so every one rides, both men, women, and children. The use of carriages is as totally unknown throughout the island as in Syria. The immediate vicinity of Reikjavik is pretty enough. Some of the townspeople go to much trouble and expense in sometimes collecting and sometimes breaking the stones around their dwellings. With the little ground thus obtained they mix turf, ashes, and manure, until at length a soil is formed on which something will grow. But this is such a gigantic undertaking, that the little culture bestowed on the spots wholly neglected by nature cannot be wondered at. Herr Bernhoft shewed me a small meadow which he had leased for thirty years, at an annual rent of thirty kreutzers. In order, however, to transform the land he bought into a meadow, which yields winter fodder for only one cow, it was necessary to expend more than 150 florins, besides much personal labour and pains. The rate of wages for peasants is very high when compared with the limited wants of these people: they receive thirty or forty kreutzers per diem, and during the hay-harvest as much as a florin. For a long distance round the town the ground consists of stones, turf, and swamps. The latter are mostly covered with hundreds upon hundreds of great and small mounds of firm ground. By jumping from one of these mounds to the next, the entire swamp may be crossed, not only without danger, but dry-footed. In spite of all this, one of these swamps put me in a position of much difficulty and embarrassment during one of my solitary excursions. I was sauntering quietly along, when suddenly a little butterfly fluttered past me. It was the first I had seen in this country, and my eagerness to catch it was proportionately great. I hastened after it; thought neither of swamp nor of danger, and in the heat of the chase did not observe that the mounds became every moment fewer and farther between. Soon I found myself in the middle of the swamp, and could neither advance nor retreat. Not a human being could I descry; the very animals were far from me; and this circumstance confirmed me as to the dangerous nature of the ground. Nothing remained for me but to fix my eyes upon one point of the landscape, and to step out boldly towards it. I was often obliged to hazard two or three steps into the swamp itself, in order to gain the next acclivity, upon which I would then stand triumphantly, to determine my farther progress. So long as I could distinguish traces of horses' hoofs, I had no fear; but even these soon disappeared, and I stood there alone in the morass. I could not remain for ever on my tower of observation, and had no resource but to take to the swamp once more. I must confess that I experienced a very uncomfortable feeling of apprehension when my foot sank suddenly into the soft mud; but when I found that it did not rise higher than the ankles, my courage returned; I stepped out boldly, and was fortunate enough to escape with the fright and a thorough wetting. The most arduous posts in the country are those of the medical men and clergymen. Their sphere of action is very enlarged, particularly that of the medical man, whose practice sometimes extends over a distance of eighty to a hundred miles. When we add to this the severity of the winter, which lasts for seven or eight months, it seems marvellous that any one can be found to fill such a situation. In winter the peasants often come with shovels, pickaxes, and horses to fetch the doctor. They then go before him, and hastily repair the worst part of the road; while the doctor rides sometimes on one horse, sometimes on another, that they may not sink under the fatigue. And thus the procession travels for many, many miles, through night and fog, through storm and snow, for on the doctor's promptitude life and death often hang. When he then returns, quite benumbed, and half dead with cold, to the bosom of his family, in the expectation of rest and refreshment, and to rejoice with his friends over the dangers and hardships he has escaped, the poor doctor is frequently compelled to set off at once on a new and important journey, before he has even had time to greet the dear ones at home. Sometimes he is sent for by sea, where the danger is still greater on the storm-tost element. Though the salary of the medical men is not at all proportionate to the hardships they are called upon to undergo, it is still far better than that of the priests. The smallest livings bring in six to eight florins annually, the richest 200 florins. Besides this, the government supplies for each priest a house, often not much better than a peasant's cottage, a few meadows, and some cattle. The peasants are also required to give certain small contributions in the way of hay, wool, fish, &c. The greater number of priests are so poor, that they and their families dress exactly like the peasants, from whom they can scarcely be distinguished. The clergyman's wife looks after the cattle, and milks cows and ewes like a maid-servant; while her husband proceeds to the meadow, and mows the grass with the labourer. The intercourse of the pastor is wholly confined to the society of peasants; and this constitutes the chief element of that "patriarchal life" which so many travellers describe as charming. I should like to know which of them would wish to lead such a life! The poor priest has, besides, frequently to officiate in two, three, or even four districts, distant from four to twelve miles from his residence. Every Sunday he must do duty at one or other of these districts, taking them in turn, so that divine service is only performed at each place once in every three or four weeks. The journeys of the priest, however, are not considered quite so necessary as those of the doctor; for if the weather is very bad on Sundays, particularly during the winter, he can omit visiting the most distant places. This is done the more readily, as but few of the peasants would be at church; all who lived at a distance remaining at home. The Sysselmann (an officer similar to that of the sheriff of a county) is the best off. He has a good salary with little to do, and in some places enjoys in addition the "strand-right," which is at times no inconsiderable privilege, from the quantity of drift timber washed ashore from the American continent. Fishing and the chase are open to all, with the exception of the salmon-fisheries in the rivers; these are farmed by the government. Eider-ducks may not be shot, under penalty of a fine. There is no military service, for throughout the whole island no soldiers are required. Even Reikjavik itself boasts only two police-officers. Commerce is also free; but the islanders possess so little commercial spirit, that even if they had the necessary capital, they would never embark in speculation. The whole commerce of Iceland thus lies in the hands of Danish merchants, who send their ships to the island every year, and have established factories in the different ports where the retail trade is carried on. These ships bring every thing to Iceland, corn, wood, wines, manufactured goods, and colonial produce, &c. The imports are free, for it would not pay the government to establish offices, and give servants salaries to collect duties upon the small amount of produce required for the island. Wine, and in fact all colonial produce, are therefore much cheaper than in other countries. The exports consist of fish, particularly salted cod, fish-roe, tallow, train-oil, eider-down, and feathers of other birds, almost equal to eider-down in softness, sheep's wool, and pickled or salted lamb. With the exception of the articles just enumerated, the Icelanders possess nothing; thirteen years ago, when Herr Knudson established a bakehouse, {31} he was compelled to bring from Copenhagen, not only the builder, but even the materials for building, stones, lime, &c.; for although the island abounds with masses of stone, there are none which can be used for building an oven, or which can be burnt into lime: every thing is of lava. Two or three cottages situated near each other are here dignified by the name of a "place." These places, as well as the separate cottages, are mostly built on little acclivities, surrounded by meadows. The meadows are often fenced in with walls of stone or earth, two or three feet in height, to prevent the cows, sheep, and horses from trespassing upon them to graze. The grass of these meadows is made into hay, and laid up as a winter provision for the cows. I did not hear many complaints of the severity of the cold in winter; the temperature seldom sinks to twenty degrees below zero; the sea is sometimes frozen, but only a few feet from the shore. The snowstorms and tempests, however, are often so violent, that it is almost impossible to leave the house. Daylight lasts only for five or six hours, and to supply its place the poor Icelanders have only the northern light, which is said to illumine the long nights with a brilliancy truly marvellous. The summer I passed in Iceland was one of the finest the inhabitants had known for years. During the month of June the thermometer often rose at noon to twenty degrees. The inhabitants found this heat so insupportable, that they complained of being unable to work or to go on messages during the day-time. On such warm days they would only begin their hay-making in the evening, and continued their work half the night. The changes in the weather are very remarkable. Twenty degrees of heat on one day would be followed by rain on the next, with a temperature of only five degrees; and on the 5th of June, at eight o'clock in the morning, the thermometer stood at one degree below zero. It is also curious that thunderstorms happen in Iceland in winter, and are said never to occur during the summer. From the 16th or 18th of June to the end of the month there is no night. The sun appears only to retire for a short time behind a mountain, and forms sunset and morning-dawn at the same time. As on one side the last beam fades away, the orb of day re-appears at the opposite one with redoubled splendour. During my stay in Iceland, from the 15th of May to the 29th of July, I never retired to rest before eleven o'clock at night, and never required a candle. In May, and also in the latter portion of the month of July, there was twilight for an hour or two, but it never became quite dark. Even during the last days of my stay, I could read until half-past ten o'clock. At first it appeared strange to me to go to bed in broad daylight; but I soon accustomed myself to it, and when eleven o'clock came, no sunlight was powerful enough to cheat me of my sleep. I found much pleasure in walking at night, at past ten o'clock, not in the pale moonshine, but in the broad blaze of the sun. It was a much more difficult task to accustom myself to the diet. The baker's wife was fully competent to superintend the cooking according to the Danish and Icelandic schools of the art; but unfortunately these modes of cookery differ widely from ours. One thing only was good, the morning cup of coffee with cream, with which the most accomplished gourmand could have found no fault: since my departure from Iceland I have not found such coffee. I could have wished for some of my dear Viennese friends to breakfast with me. The cream was so thick, that I at first thought my hostess had misunderstood me, and brought me curds. The butter made from the milk of Icelandic cows and ewes did not look very inviting, and was as white as lard, but the taste was good. The Icelanders, however, find the taste not sufficiently "piquant," and generally qualify it with train-oil. Altogether, train-oil plays a very prominent part in the Icelandic kitchen; the peasant considers it a most delicious article, and thinks nothing of devouring a quantity of it without bread, or indeed any thing else. {32} I did not at all relish the diet at dinner; this meal consisted of two dishes, namely, boiled fish, with vinegar and melted butter instead of oil, and boiled potatoes. Unfortunately I am no admirer of fish, and now this was my daily food. Ah, how I longed for beef-soup, a piece of meat, and vegetables, in vain! As long as I remained in Iceland, I was compelled quite to give up my German system of diet. After a time I got on well enough with the boiled fish and potatoes, but I could not manage the delicacies of the island. Worthy Madame Bernhoft, it was so kindly meant on her part; and it was surely not her fault that the system of cookery in Iceland is different from ours; but I could not bring myself to like the Icelandic delicacies. They were of different kinds, consisting sometimes of fishes, hard-boiled eggs, and potatoes chopped up together, covered with a thick brown sauce, and seasoned with pepper, sugar, and vinegar; at others, of potatoes baked in butter and sugar. Another delicacy was cabbage chopped very small, rendered very thin by the addition of water, and sweetened with sugar; the accompanying dish was a piece of cured lamb, which had a very unpleasant "pickled" flavour. On Sundays we sometimes had "Prothe Grutze," properly a Scandinavian dish, composed of fine sago boiled to a jelly, with currant-juice or red wine, and eaten with cream or sugar. Tapfen, a kind of soft cheese, is also sometimes eaten with cream and sugar. In the months of June and July the diet improved materially. We could often procure splendid salmon, sometimes roast lamb, and now and then birds, among which latter dainties the snipes were particularly good. In the evening came butter, cheese, cold fish, smoked lamb, and eggs of eider-ducks, which are coarser than hen's eggs. In time I became so accustomed to this kind of food, that I no longer missed either soup or beef, and felt uncommonly well. My drink was always clear fresh water; the gentlemen began their dinner with a small glass of brandy, and during the meal all drank beer of Herr Bernhoft's own brewing, which was very good. On Sundays, a bottle of port or Bordeaux sometimes made its appearance at our table; and as we fared at Herr Bernhoft's, so it was the custom in the houses of all the merchants and officials. At Reikjavik I had an opportunity of witnessing a great religious ceremony. Three candidates of theology were raised to the ministerial office. Though the whole community here is Lutheran, the ceremonies differ in many respects from those of the continent of Europe, and I will therefore give a short sketch of what I saw. The solemnity began at noon, and lasted till four o'clock. I noticed at once that all the people covered their faces for a moment on entering the church, the men with their hats, and the women with their handkerchiefs. Most of the congregation sat with their faces turned towards the altar; but this rule had its exceptions. The vestments of the priests were the same as those worn by our clergymen, and the commencement of the service also closely resembled the ritual of our own Church; but soon this resemblance ceased. The bishop stepped up to the altar with the candidates, and performed certain ceremonies; then one would mount the pulpit and read part of a sermon, or sing a psalm, while the other clergymen sat round on chairs, and appeared to listen; then a second and a third ascended the pulpit, and afterwards another sermon was preached from the altar, and another psalm sung; then a sermon was again read from the pulpit. While ceremonies were performed at the altar, the sacerdotal garments were often put on and taken off again. I frequently thought the service was coming to a close, but it always began afresh, and lasted, as I said before, until four o'clock. The number of forms surprised me greatly, as the ritual of the Lutheran Church is in general exceedingly simple. On this occasion a considerable number of the country people were assembled, and I had thus a good opportunity of noticing their costumes. The dresses worn by the women and girls are all made of coarse black woollen stuffs. The dress consists of a long skirt, a spencer, and a coloured apron. On their heads they wear a man's nightcap of black cloth, the point turned downwards, and terminating in a large tassel of wool or silk, which hangs down to the shoulder. Their hair is unbound, and reaches only to the shoulder: some of the women wear it slightly curled. I involuntarily thought of the poetical descriptions of the northern romancers, who grow enthusiastic in praise of ideal "angels' heads with golden tresses." The hair is certainly worn in this manner here, and our poets may have borrowed their descriptions from the Scandinavians. But the beautiful faces which are said to beam forth from among those golden locks exist only in the poet's vivid imagination. Ornamental additions to the costume are very rare. In the whole assembly I only noticed four women who were dressed differently from the others. The cords which fastened their spencers, and also their girdles, were ornamented with a garland worked in silver thread. Their skirts were of fine black cloth, and decorated with a border of coloured silk a few inches broad. Round their necks they wore a kind of stiff collar of black velvet with a border of silver thread, and on their heads a black silk handkerchief with a very strange addition. This appendage consisted of a half-moon fastened to the back of the head, and extending five or six inches above the forehead. It was covered with white lawn arranged in folds; its breadth at the back of the head did not exceed an inch and a half, but in front it widened to five or six inches. The men, I found, were clothed almost like our peasants. They wore small-clothes of dark cloth, jackets and waistcoats, felt hats, or fur caps; and instead of boots a kind of shoe of ox-hide, sheep, or seal-skin, bound to the feet by a leather strap. The women, and even the children of the officials, all wear shoes of this description. It was very seldom that I met people so wretchedly and poorly clad as we find them but too often in the large continental towns. I never saw any one without good warm shoes and stockings. The better classes, such as merchants, officials, &c. are dressed in the French style, and rather fashionably. There is no lack of silk and other costly stuffs. Some of these are brought from England, but the greater part come from Denmark. On the king's birthday, which is kept every year at the house of the Stiftsamtmann, the festivities are said to be very grand; on this occasion the matrons appear arrayed in silk, and the maidens in white jaconet; the rooms are lighted with wax tapers. Some speculative genius or other has also established a sort of club in Reikjavik. He has, namely, hired a couple of rooms, where the townspeople meet of an evening to discuss "tea-water," bread and butter, and sometimes even a bottle of wine or a bowl of punch. In winter the proprietor gives balls in these apartments, charging 20 kr. for each ticket of admission. Here the town grandees and the handicraftsmen, in fact all who choose to come, assemble; and the ball is said to be conducted in a very republican spirit. The shoemaker leads forth the wife of the Stiftsamtmann to the dance, while that official himself has perhaps chosen the wife or daughter of the shoemaker or baker for his partner. The refreshments consist of "tea-water" and bread and butter, and the room is lighted with tallow candles. The music, consisting of a kind of three-stringed violin and a pipe, is said to be exquisitely horrible. In summer the dignitaries make frequent excursions on horse-back; and on these occasions great care is taken that there be no lack of provisions. Commonly each person contributes a share: some bring wine, others cake; others, again, coffee, and so on. The ladies use fine English side-saddles, and wear elegant riding-habits, and pretty felt hats with green veils. These jaunts, however, are confined to Reikjavik; for, as I have already observed, there is, with the exception of this town, no place in Iceland containing more than two or three stores and some half-dozen cottages. To my great surprise, I found no less than six square piano-fortes belonging to different families in Reikjavik, and heard waltzes by our favourite composers, besides variations of Herz, and some pieces of Liszt, Wilmers, and Thalberg. But such playing! I do not think that these talented composers would have recognised their own works. In conclusion, I must offer a few remarks relative to the travelling in this country. The best time to choose for this purpose is from the middle of June to the end of August at latest. Until June the rivers are so swollen and turbulent, by reason of the melting snows, as to render it very dangerous to ride through them. The traveller must also pass over many a field of snow not yet melted by the sun, and frequently concealing chasms and masses of lava; and this is attended with danger almost as great. At every footstep the traveller sinks into the snow; and he may thank his lucky stars if the whole rotten surface does not give way. In September the violent storms of wind and rain commence, and heavy falls of snow may be expected from day to day. A tent, provisions, cooking utensils, pillows, bed-clothes, and warm garments, are highly necessary for the wayfarer's comfort. This paraphernalia would have been too expensive for me to buy, and I was unprovided with any thing of the kind; consequently I was forced to endure the most dreadful hardships and toil, and was frequently obliged to ride an immense distance to reach a little church or a cottage, which would afford me shelter for the night. My sole food for eight or ten days together was often bread and cheese; and I generally passed the night upon a chest or a bench, where the cold would often prevent my closing my eyes all night. It is advisable to be provided with a waterproof cloak and a sailor's tarpaulin hat, as a defence against the rain, which frequently falls. An umbrella would be totally useless, as the rain is generally accompanied by a storm, or, at any rate, by a strong wind; when we add to this, that it is necessary in some places to ride quickly, it will easily be seen that holding an umbrella open is a thing not to be thought of. Altogether I found the travelling in this country attended with far more hardship than in the East. For my part, I found the dreadful storms of wind, the piercing air, the frequent rain, and the cold, much less endurable than the Oriental heat, which never gave me either cracked lips or caused scales to appear on my face. In Iceland my lips began to bleed on the fifth day; and afterwards the skin came off my face in scales, as if I had had the scrofula. Another source of great discomfort is to be found in the long riding-habit. It is requisite to be very warmly clad; and the heavy skirts, often dripping with rain, coil themselves round the feet of the wearer in such a manner, as to render her exceedingly awkward either in mounting or dismounting. The worst hardship of all, however, is the being obliged to halt to rest the horses in a meadow during the rain. The long skirts suck up the water from the damp grass, and the wearer has often literally not a dry stitch in all her garments. Heat and cold appear in this country to affect strangers in a remarkable degree. The cold seemed to me more piercing, and the heat more oppressive in Iceland, than when the thermometer stood at the same points in my native land. In summer the roads are marvellously good, so that one can generally ride at a pretty quick pace. They are, however, impracticable for vehicles, partly because they are too narrow, and partly also on account of some very bad places which must occasionally be encountered. On the whole island not a single carriage is to be found. The road is only dangerous when it leads through swamps and moors, or over fields of lava. Among these fields, such as are covered with white moss are peculiarly to be feared, for the moss frequently conceals very dangerous holes, into which the horse can easily stumble. In ascending and descending the hills very formidable spots sometimes oppose the traveller's progress. The road is at times so hidden among swamps and bogs, that not a trace of it is to be distinguished, and I could only wonder how my guide always succeeded in regaining the right path. One could almost suppose that on these dangerous paths both horse and man are guided by a kind of instinct. Travelling is more expensive in Iceland than any where else, particularly when one person travels alone, and must bear all the expense of the baggage, the guide, ferries, &c. Horses are not let out on hire, they must be bought. They are, however, very cheap; a pack-horse costs from eighteen to twenty-four florins, and a riding-horse from forty to fifty florins. To travel with any idea of comfort it is necessary to have several pack-horses, for they must not be heavily laden; and an additional servant must likewise be hired, as the guide only looks after the saddle-horses, and, at most, one or two of the pack-horses. If the traveller, at the conclusion of the journey, wishes to sell the horses, such a wretchedly low price is offered, that it is just as well to give them away at once. This is a proof of the fact that men are every where alike ready to follow up their advantage. These people are well aware that the horses must be left behind at any rate, and therefore they will not bid for them. I must confess that I found the character of the Icelanders in every respect below the estimate I had previously formed of it, and still further below the standard given in books. In spite of their scanty food, the Icelandic horses have a marvellous power of endurance; they can often travel from thirty-five to forty miles per diem for several consecutive days. But the only difficulty is to keep the horse moving. The Icelanders have a habit of continually kicking their heels against the poor beast's sides; and the horse at last gets so accustomed to this mode of treatment, that it will hardly go if the stimulus be discontinued. In passing the bad pieces of road it is necessary to keep the bridle tight in hand, or the horse will stumble frequently. This and the continual urging forward of the horse render riding very fatiguing. {33} Not a little consideration is certainly required before undertaking a journey into the far north; but nothing frightened me,--and even in the midst of the greatest dangers and hardships I did not for one moment regret my undertaking, and would not have relinquished it under any consideration. I made excursions to every part of Iceland, and am thus enabled to place before my readers, in regular order, the chief curiosities of this remarkable country. I will commence with the immediate neighbourhood of Reikjavik. CHAPTER IV May 25th. Stiftsamtmann von H--- was to-day kind enough to pay me a visit, and to invite me to join his party for a ride to the great lake Vatne. I gladly accepted the invitation, for, according to the description given by the Stiftsamtmann, I hoped to behold a very Eden, and rejoiced at the prospect of observing the recreations of the higher classes, and at the same time gaining many acquisitions in specimens of plants, butterflies, and beetles. I resolved also to test the capabilities of the Icelandic horses more thoroughly than I had been able to do during my first ride from Havenfiord to Reikjavik, as I had been obliged on that occasion to ride at a foot-pace, on account of my old guide. The hour of starting was fixed for two o'clock. Accustomed as I am to strict punctuality, I was ready long before the appointed time, and at two o'clock was about to hasten to the place of rendezvous, when my hostess informed me I had plenty of time, for Herr von H--- was still at dinner. Instead of meeting at two o'clock, we did not assemble until three, and even then another quarter of an hour elapsed before the cavalcade started. Oh, Syrian notions of punctuality and dispatch! Here, almost at the very antipodes, did I once more greet ye. The party consisted of the nobility and the town dignitaries. Among the former class may be reckoned Stiftsamtmann von H--- and his lady; a privy councillor, Herr von B---, who had been sent from Copenhagen to attend the "Allthing" (political assembly); and a Danish baron, who had accompanied the councillor. I noticed among the town dignitaries the daughter and wife of the apothecary, and the daughters of some merchants resident here. Our road lay through fields of lava, swamps, and very poor grassy patches, in a great valley, swelling here and there into gentle acclivities, and shut in on three sides by several rows of mountains, towering upwards in the most diversified shapes. In the far distance rose several jokuls or glaciers, seeming to look proudly down upon the mountains, as though they asked, "Why would ye draw men's eyes upon you, where we glisten in our silver sheen?" In the season of the year at which I beheld them, the glaciers were still very beautiful; not only their summits, but their entire surface, as far as visible, being covered with snow. The fourth side of the valley through which we travelled was washed by the ocean, which melted as it were into the horizon in immeasurable distance. The coast was dotted with small bays, having the appearance of so many lakes. As the road was good, we could generally ride forward at a brisk pace. Occasionally, however, we met with small tracts on which the Icelandic horse could exercise its sagacity and address. My horse was careful and free from vice; it carried me securely over masses of stone and chasms in the rocks, but I cannot describe the suffering its trot caused me. It is said that riding is most beneficial to those who suffer from liver-complaints. This may be the case; but I should suppose that any one who rode upon an Icelandic horse, with an Icelandic side-saddle, every day for the space of four weeks, would find, at the expiration of that time, her liver shaken to a pulp, and no part of it remaining. All the rest of the party had good English saddles, mine alone was of Icelandic origin. It consisted of a chair, with a board for the back. The rider was obliged to sit crooked upon the horse, and it was impossible to keep a firm seat. With much difficulty I trotted after the others, for my horse would not be induced to break into a gallop. At length, after a ride of an hour and a half, we reached a valley. In the midst of a tolerably green meadow I descried what was, for Iceland, a farm of considerable dimensions, and not far from this farm was a very small lake. I did not dare to ask if this was the _great_ lake Vatne, or if this was the delicious prospect I had been promised, for my question would have been taken for irony. I could not refrain from wonder when Herr von H--- began praising the landscape as exquisite, and farther declaring the effect of the lake to be bewitching. I was obliged, for politeness' sake, to acquiesce, and leave them in the supposition that I had never seen a larger lake nor a finer prospect. We now made a halt, and the whole party encamped in the meadow. While the preparations for a social meal were going on, I proceeded to satisfy my curiosity. The peasant's house first attracted my attention. I found it to consist of one large chamber, and two of smaller size, besides a storeroom and extensive stables, from which I judged that the proprietor was rich in cattle. I afterwards learnt that he owned fifty sheep, eight cows, and five horses, and was looked upon as one of the richest farmers in the neighbourhood. The kitchen was situated at the extreme end of the building, and was furnished with a chimney that seemed intended only as a protection against rain and snow, for the smoke dispersed itself throughout the whole kitchen, drying the fish which hung from the ceiling, and slowly making its exit through an air-hole. The large apartment boasted a wooden bookshelf, containing about forty volumes. Some of these I turned over, and in spite of my limited knowledge of the Danish language, could make out enough to discover that they were chiefly on religious subjects. But the farmer seemed also to love poetry; among the works of this class in his library, I noticed Kleist, Muller, and even Homer's _Odyssey_. I could make nothing of the Icelandic books; but on inquiring their contents, I was told that they all treated of religious matters. After inspecting these, I walked out into the meadow to search for flowers and herbs. Flowers I found but few, as it was not the right time of the year for them; my search for herbs was more successful, and I even found some wild clover. I saw neither beetles nor butterflies; but, to my no small surprise, heard the humming of two wild bees, one of which I was fortunate enough to catch, and took home to preserve in spirits of wine. On rejoining my party, I found them encamped in the meadow around a table, which had in the meantime been spread with butter, cheese, bread, cake, roast lamb, raisins and almonds, a few oranges, and wine. Neither chairs nor benches were to be had, for even wealthy peasants only possess planks nailed to the walls of their rooms; so we all sat down upon the grass, and did ample justice to the capital coffee which made the commencement of the meal. Laughter and jokes predominated to such an extent, that I could have fancied myself among impulsive Italians instead of cold Northmen. There was no lack of wit; but to-day I was unfortunately its butt. And what was my fault?--only my stupid modesty. The conversation was carried on in the Danish language; some members of our party spoke French and others German, but I purposely abstained from availing myself of their acquirements, in order not to disturb the hilarity of the conversation. I sat silently among them, and was perfectly contented in listening to their merriment. But my behaviour was set down as proceeding from stupidity, and I soon gathered from their discourse that they were comparing me to the "stone guest" in Mozart's _Don Giovanni_. If these kind people had only surmised the true reason of my keeping silence, they would perhaps have thanked me for doing so. As we sat at our meal, I heard a voice in the farmhouse singing an Icelandic song. At a distance it resembled the humming of bees; on a nearer approach it sounded monotonous, drawling, and melancholy. While we were preparing for our departure, the farmer, his wife, and the servants approached, and shook each of us by the hand. This is the usual mode of saluting such _high_ people as we numbered among our party. The true national salutation is a hearty kiss. On my arrival at home the effect of the strong coffee soon began to manifest itself. I could not sleep at all, and had thus ample leisure to make accurate observations as to the length of the day and of the twilight. Until eleven o'clock at night I could read ordinary print in my room. From eleven till one o'clock it was dusk, but never so dark as to prevent my reading in the open air. In my room, too, I could distinguish the smallest objects, and even tell the time by my watch. At one o'clock I could again read in my room. EXCURSION TO VIDOE. The little island of Vidoe, four miles distant from Reikjavik, is described by most travellers as the chief resort of the eider-duck. I visited the island on the 8th of June, but was disappointed in my expectations. I certainly saw many of these birds on the declivities and in the chasms of the rocks, sitting quietly on their nests, but nothing approaching the thousands I had been led to expect. On the whole, I may perhaps have seen from one hundred to a hundred and fifty nests. The most remarkable circumstance connected with the eider-ducks is their tameness during the period of incubation. I had always regarded as myths the stories told about them in this respect, and should do so still had I not convinced myself of the truth of these assertions by laying hands upon the ducks myself. I could go quite up to them and caress them, and even then they would not often leave their nests. Some few birds, indeed, did so when I wished to touch them; but they did not fly up, but contented themselves with coolly walking a few paces away from the nest, and there sitting quietly down until I had departed. But those which already had live young, beat out boldly with their wings when I approached, struck at me with their bills, and allowed themselves to be taken up bodily rather than leave the nest. They are about the size of our ducks; their eggs are of a greenish grey, rather larger than hen's eggs, and taste very well. Altogether they lay about eleven eggs. The finest down is that with which they line their nests at first; it is of a dark grey colour. The Icelanders take away this down, and the first nest of eggs. The poor bird now robs herself once more of a quantity of down (which is, however, not of so fine a quality as the first), and again lays eggs. For the second time every thing is taken from her; and not until she has a third time lined the nest with her down is the eider-duck left in peace. The down of the second, and that of the third quality especially, are much lighter than that of the first. I also was sufficiently cruel to take a few eggs and some down out of several of the nests. {34} I did not witness the dangerous operation of collecting this down from between the clefts of rocks and from unapproachable precipices, where people are let down, or to which they are drawn up, by ropes, at peril of their lives. There are, however, none of these break-neck places in the neighbourhood of Reikjavik. SALMON FISHERY. I made another excursion to a very short distance (two miles) from Reikjavik, in the company of Herr Bernhoft and his daughter, to the Laxselv (salmon river) to witness the salmon-fishing, which takes place every week from the middle of June to the middle of August. It is conducted in a very simple manner. The fish come up the river in the spawning season; the stream is then dammed up with several walls of stone loosely piled to the height of some three feet; and the retreat of the fish to the sea is thus cut off. When the day arrives on which the salmon are to be caught, a net is spread behind each of these walls. Three or four such dams are erected at intervals, of from eighty to a hundred paces, so that even if the fishes escape one barrier, they are generally caught at the next. The water is now made to run off as much as possible; the poor salmon dart to and fro, becoming every moment more and more aware of the sinking of the water, and crowd to the weirs, cutting themselves by contact with the sharp stones of which they are built. This is the deepest part of the water; and it is soon so thronged with fish, that men, stationed in readiness, can seize them in their hands and fling them ashore. The salmon possess remarkable swiftness and strength. The fisherman is obliged to take them quickly by the head and tail, and to throw them ashore, when they are immediately caught by other men, who fling them still farther from the water. If this is not done with great quickness and care, many of the fishes escape. It is wonderful how these creatures can struggle themselves free, and leap into the air. The fishermen are obliged to wear woollen mittens, or they would be quite unable to hold the smooth salmon. At every day's fishing, from five hundred to a thousand fish are taken, each weighing from five to fifteen pounds. On the day when I was present eight hundred were killed. This salmon-stream is farmed by a merchant of Reikjavik. The fishermen receive very liberal pay,--in fact, one-half of the fish taken. And yet they are dissatisfied, and show so little gratitude, as seldom to finish their work properly. So, for instance, they only brought the share of the merchant to the harbour of Reikjavik, and were far too lazy to carry the salmon from the boat to the warehouse, a distance certainly not more than sixty or seventy paces from the shore. They sent a message to their employer, bidding him "send some fresh hands, for they were much too tired." Of course, in a case like this, all remonstrance is unavailing. As in the rest of the world, so also in Iceland, every occasion that offers is seized upon for a feast or a merry-making. The day on which I witnessed the salmon-fishing happened to be one of the few fine days that occur during a summer in Iceland. It was therefore unanimously concluded by several merchants, that the day and the salmon-fishing should be celebrated by a _dejeuner a la fourchette_. Every one contributed something, and a plentiful and elegant breakfast was soon arranged, which quite resembled an entertainment of the kind in our country; this one circumstance excepted, that we were obliged to seat ourselves on the ground, by reason of a scarcity of tables and benches. Spanish and French wines, as well as cold punch, were there in plenty, and the greatest hilarity prevailed. I made a fourth excursion, but to a very inconsiderable distance,--in fact, only a mile and a half from Reikjavik. It was to see a hot and slightly sulphurous spring, which falls into a river of cold water. By this lucky meeting of extremes, water can be obtained at any temperature, from the boiling almost to the freezing point. The townspeople take advantage of this good opportunity in two ways, for bathing and for washing clothes. The latter is undoubtedly the more important purpose of application, and a hut has been erected, in order to shield the poor people from wind and rain while they are at work. Formerly this hut was furnished with a good door and with glazed windows, and the key was kept at an appointed place in the town, whence any one might fetch it. But the servants and peasant girls were soon too lazy to go for the key; they burst open the lock, and smashed the windows, so that now the hut has a very ruinous appearance, and affords but little protection against the weather. How much alike mankind are every where, and how seldom they do right, except when it gives them no trouble, and then, unfortunately, there is not much merit to be ascribed to them, as their doing right is merely the result of a lucky chance! Many people also bring fish and potatoes, which they have only to lay in the hot water, and in a short time both are completely cooked. This spring is but little used for the purpose of bathing; at most perhaps by a few children and peasants. Its medicinal virtues, if it possesses any, are completely unknown. THE SULPHUR-SPRINGS AND SULPHUR-MOUNTAINS OF KRISUVIK. The 4th of June was fixed for my departure. I had only to pack up some bread and cheese, sugar and coffee, then the horses were saddled, and at seven o'clock the journey was happily commenced. I was alone with my guide, who, like the rest of his class, could not be considered as a very favourable specimen of humanity. He was very lazy, exceedingly self-interested, and singularly loath to devote any part of his attention either to me or to the horses, preferring to concentrate it upon brandy, an article which can unfortunately be procured throughout the whole country. I had already seen the district between Reikjavik and Havenfiord at my first arrival in Iceland. At the present advanced season of the year it wore a less gloomy aspect: strawberry-plants and violets,--the former, however, without blossoms, and the latter inodorous,--were springing up between the blocks of lava, together with beautiful ferns eight or ten inches high. In spite of the trifling distance, I noticed, as a rule, that vegetation was here more luxuriant than at Reikjavik; for at the latter place I had found no strawberry-plants, and the violets were not yet in blossom. This difference in the vegetation is, I think, to be ascribed to the high walls of lava existing in great abundance round Havenfiord; they protect the tender plants and ferns from the piercing winds. I noticed that both the grass and the plants before mentioned throve capitally in the little hollows formed by masses of lava. A couple of miles beyond Havenfiord I saw the first birch-trees, which, however, did not exceed two or three feet in height, also some bilberry-plants. A number of little butterflies, all of one colour, and, as it seemed to me, of the same species, fluttered among the shrubs and plants. The manifold forms and varied outline of the lava-fields present a remarkable and really a marvellous appearance. Short as this journey is--for ten hours are amply sufficient for the trip to Krisuvik,--it presents innumerable features for contemplation. I could only gaze and wonder. I forgot every thing around me, felt neither cold nor storm, and let my horse pick his way as slowly as he chose, so that I had once almost become separated from my guide. One of the most considerable of the streams of lava lay in a spacious broad valley. The lava-stream itself, about two miles long, and of a considerable breadth, traversing the whole of the plain, seemed to have been called into existence by magic, as there was no mountain to be seen in the neighbourhood from which it could have emerged. It appeared to be the covering of an immense crater, formed, not of separate stones and blocks, but of a single and slightly porous mass of rock ten or twelve feet thick, broken here and there by clefts about a foot in breadth. Another, and a still larger valley, many miles in circumference, was filled with masses of lava shaped like waves, reminding the beholder of a petrified sea. From the midst rose a high black mountain, contrasting beautifully with the surrounding masses of light-grey lava. At first I supposed the lava must have streamed forth from this mountain, but soon found that the latter was perfectly smooth on all sides, and terminated in a sharp peak. The remaining mountains which shut in the valley were also perfectly closed, and I looked in vain for any trace of a crater. We now reached a small lake, and soon afterwards arrived at a larger one, called Kleinfarvatne. Both were hemmed in by mountains, which frequently rose abruptly from the waters, leaving no room for the passage of the horses. We were obliged sometimes to climb the mountains by fearfully dizzy paths; at others to scramble downwards, almost clinging to the face of the rock. At some points we were even compelled to dismount from our horses, and scramble forward on our hands and knees. In a word, these dangerous points, which extended over a space of about seven miles, were certainly quite as bad as any I had encountered in Syria; if any thing, they were even more formidable. I was, however, assured that I should have no more such places to encounter during all my further journeys in Iceland, and this information quite reconciled me to the roads in this country. For the rest, the path was generally tolerably safe even during this tour, which continually led me across fields of lava. A journey of some eight-and-twenty miles brought us at length into a friendly valley; clouds of smoke, both small and great, were soon discovered rising from the surrounding heights, and also from the valley itself; these were the sulphur-springs and sulphur-mountains. I could hardly restrain my impatience while we traversed the couple of miles which separated us from Krisuvik. A few small lakes were still to be crossed; and at length, at six o'clock in the evening, we reached our destination. With the exception of a morsel of bread and cheese, I had eaten nothing since the morning; still I could not spare time to make coffee, but at once dismounted, summoned my guide, and commenced my pilgrimage to the smoking mountains. At the outset our way lay across swampy places and meadow lands; but soon we had to climb the mountains themselves, a task rendered extremely difficult by the elastic, yielding soil, in which every footstep imprinted itself deeply, suggesting to the traveller the unpleasant possibility of his sinking through,--a contingency rendered any thing but agreeable by the neighbourhood of the boiling springs. At length I gained the summit, and saw around me numerous basins filled with boiling water, while on all sides, from hill and valley, columns of vapour rose out of numberless clefts in the rocks. From a cleft in one rock in particular a mighty column of vapour whirled into the air. On the windward side I could approach this place very closely. The ground was only lukewarm in some places, and I could hold my hand for several moments to the gaps from which steam issued. No trace of a crater was to be seen. The bubbling and hissing of the steam, added to the noise of the wind, occasioned such a deafening clamour, that I was very glad to feel firmer ground beneath my feet, and to leave the place in haste. It really seemed as if the interior of the mountain had been a boiling caldron. The prospect from these mountains is very fine. Numerous valleys and mountains innumerable offered themselves to my view, and I could even discern the isolated black rock past which I had ridden five or six hours previously. I now commenced my descent into the valley; at a few hundred paces the bubbling and hissing were already inaudible. I supposed that I had seen every thing worthy of notice; but much that was remarkable still remained. I particularly noticed a basin some five or six feet in diameter, filled with boiling mud. This mud has quite the appearance of fine clay dissolved in water; its colour was a light grey. From another basin, hardly two feet in diameter, a mighty column of steam shot continually into the air with so much force and noise that I started back half stunned, and could have fancied the vault of heaven would burst. This basin is situated in a corner of the valley, closely shut in on three sides by hills. In the neighbourhood many hot springs gushed forth; but I saw no columns of water, and my guide assured me that such a phenomenon was never witnessed here. There is more danger in passing these spots than even in traversing the mountains. In spite of the greatest precautions, I frequently sank in above the ankles, and would then draw back with a start, and find my foot covered with hot mud. From the place where I had broken through, steam and hot mud, or boiling water, rose into the air. Though my guide, who walked before me, carefully probed the ground with his stick, he several times sank through half-way to the knee. These men are, however, so much accustomed to contingencies of this kind that they take little account of them. My guide would quietly repair to the next spring and cleanse his clothes from mud. As I was covered with it to above the ankles, I thought it best to follow his example. For excursions like these it is best to come provided with a few boards, five or six feet in length, with which to cover the most dangerous places. At nine o'clock in the evening, but yet in the full glare of the sun, we arrived at Krisuvik. I now took time to look at this place, which I found to consist of a small church and a few miserable huts. I crept into one of these dens; it was so dark that a considerable time elapsed before I could distinguish objects, the light was only admitted through a very small aperture. I found in this hut a few persons who were suffering from the eruption called "lepra," a disease but too commonly met with in Iceland. Their hands and faces were completely covered with this eruption; if it spreads over the whole body the patient languishes slowly away, and is lost without remedy. Churches are in this country not only used for purposes of public worship, but also serve as magazines for provisions, clothes, &c., and as inns for travellers. I do not suppose that a parallel instance of desecration could be met with even among the most uncivilised nations. I was assured, indeed, that these abuses were about to be remedied. A reform of this kind ought to have been carried out long ago; and even now the matter seems to remain an open point; for wherever I came the church was placed at my disposal for the night, and every where I found a store of fish, tallow, and other equally odoriferous substances. The little chapel at Krisuvik is only twenty-two feet long by ten broad; on my arrival it was hastily prepared for my reception. Saddles, ropes, clothes, hats, and other articles which lay scattered about, were hastily flung into a corner; mattresses and some nice soft pillows soon appeared, and a very tolerable bed was prepared for me on a large chest in which the vestments of the priest, the coverings of the altar, &c., were deposited. I would willingly have locked myself in, eaten my frugal supper, and afterwards written a few pages of my diary before retiring to rest; but this was out of the question. The entire population of the village turned out to see me, old and young hastened to the church, and stood round in a circle and gazed at me. Irksome as this curiosity was, I was obliged to endure it patiently, for I could not have sent these good people away without seriously offending them; so I began quietly to unpack my little portmanteau, and proceeded to boil my coffee over a spirit-lamp. A whispering consultation immediately began; they seemed particularly struck by my mode of preparing coffee, and followed every one of my movements with eager eyes. My frugal meal dispatched, I resolved to try the patience of my audience, and, taking out my journal, began to write. For a few minutes they remained quiet, then they began to whisper one to another, "She writes, she writes," and this was repeated numberless times. There was no sign of any disposition to depart; I believe I could have sat there till doomsday, and failed to tire my audience out. At length, after this scene had lasted a full hour, I could stand it no longer, and was fain to request my amiable visitors to retire, as I wished to go to bed. My sleep that night was none of the sweetest. A certain feeling of discomfort always attaches to the fact of sleeping in a church alone, in the midst of a grave-yard. Besides this, on the night in question such a dreadful storm arose that the wooden walls creaked and groaned as though their foundations were giving way. The cold was also rather severe, my thermometer inside the church shewing only two degrees above zero. I was truly thankful when approaching day brought with it the welcome hour of departure. June 5th. The heavy sleepiness and extreme indolence of an Icelandic guide render departure before seven o'clock in the morning a thing not to be thought of. This is, however, of little consequence, as there is no night in Iceland at this time of year. Although the distance was materially increased by returning to Reikjavik by way of Grundivik and Keblevik, I chose this route in order to pass through the wildest of the inhabited tracts in Iceland. The first stage, from Krisuvik to Grundivik, a distance of twelve to fourteen miles, lay through fields of lava, consisting mostly of small blocks of stone and fragments, filling the valley so completely that not a single green spot remained. I here met with masses of lava which presented an appearance of singular beauty. They were black mounds, ten or twelve feet in height, piled upon each other in the most varied forms, their bases covered with a broad band of whitish-coloured moss, while the tops were broken into peaks and cones of the most fantastic shapes. These lava-streams seem to date from a recent period, as the masses are somewhat scaly and glazed. Grundivik, a little village of a few wretched cottages, lies like an oasis in this desert of lava. My guide wished to remain here, asserting that there was no place between this and Keblevik where I could pass the night, and that it would be impossible for our horses, exhausted as they were with yesterday's march, to carry us to Keblevik that night. The true reason of this suggestion was that he wished to prolong the journey for another day. Luckily I had a good map with me, and by dint of consulting it could calculate distances with tolerable accuracy; it was also my custom before starting on a journey to make particular inquiries as to how I should arrange the daily stages. So I insisted upon proceeding at once; and soon we were wending our way through fields of lava towards Stad, a small village six or seven miles distant from Grundivik. On the way I noticed a mountain of most singular appearance. In colour it closely resembled iron; its sides were perfectly smooth and shining, and streaks of the colour of yellow ochre traversed it here and there. Stad is the residence of a priest. Contrary to the assertions of my guide, I found this place far more cheerful and habitable than Grundivik. Whilst our horses were resting, the priest paid me a visit, and conducted me, not, as I anticipated, into his house, but into the church. Chairs and stools were quickly brought there, and my host introduced his wife and children to me, after which we partook of coffee, bread and cheese, &c. On the rail surrounding the altar hung the clothes of the priest and his family, differing little in texture and make from those of the peasants. The priest appeared to be a very intelligent, well-read man. I could speak the Danish language pretty fluently, and was therefore able to converse with him on various subjects. On hearing that I had already been in Palestine, he put a number of questions to me, from which I could plainly see that he was alike well acquainted with geography, history, natural science, &c. He accompanied me several miles on my road, and we chatted away the time very pleasantly. The distance between Krisuvik and Keblevik is about forty-two miles. The road lies through a most dreary landscape, among vast desert plains, frequently twenty-five to thirty miles in circumference, entirely divested of all traces of vegetation, and covered throughout their extreme area by masses of lava--gloomy monuments of volcanic agency. And yet here, at the very heart of the subterranean fire, I saw only a single mountain, the summit of which had fallen in, and presented the appearance of a crater. The rest were all completely closed, terminating sometimes in a beautiful round top, and sometimes in sharp peaks; in other instances they formed long narrow chains. Who can tell whence these all-destroying masses of lava have poured forth, or how many hundred years they have lain in these petrified valleys? Keblevik lies on the sea-coast; but the harbour is insecure, so that ships remain here at anchor only so long as is absolutely necessary; there are frequently only two or three ships in the harbour. A few wooden houses, two of which belong to Herr Knudson, and some peasants' cottages, are the only buildings in this little village. I was hospitably received, and rested from the toils of the day at the house of Herr Siverson, Herr Knudson's manager. On the following day (June 6th) I had a long ride to Reikjavik, thirty-six good miles, mostly through fields of lava. The whole tract of country from Grundivik almost to Havenfiord is called "The lava-fields of Reikianes." Tired and almost benumbed with cold, I arrived in the evening at Reikjavik, with no other wish than to retire to rest as fast as possible. In these three days I had ridden 114 miles, besides enduring much from cold, storms, and rain. To my great surprise, the roads had generally been good; there were, however, many places highly dangerous and difficult. But what mattered these fatigues, forgotten, as they were, after a single night's rest? what were they in comparison to the unutterably beautiful and marvellous phenomena of the north, which will remain ever present to my imagination so long as memory shall be spared me? The distances of this excursion were: From Reikjavik to Krisuvik, 37 miles; from Krisuvik to Keblevik, 39 miles; from Keblevik to Reikjavik, 38 miles: total, 114 miles. CHAPTER V As the weather continued fine, I wished to lose no time in continuing my wanderings. I had next to make a tour of some 560 miles; it was therefore necessary that I should take an extra horse, partly that it might carry my few packages, consisting of a pillow, some rye-bread, cheese, coffee, and sugar, but chiefly that I might be enabled to change horses every day, as one horse would not have been equal to the fatigue of so long a journey. My former guide could not accompany me on my present journey, as he was unacquainted with most of the roads. My kind protectors, Herr Knudson and Herr Bernhoft, were obliging enough to provide another guide for me; a difficult task, as it is a rare occurrence to find an Icelander who understands the Danish language, and who happens to be sober when his services are required. At length a peasant was found who suited our purpose; but he considered two florins per diem too little pay, so I was obliged to give an additional zwanziger. On the other hand, it was arranged that the guide should also take two horses, in order that he might change every day. The 16th of June was fixed for the commencement of our journey. From the very first day my guide did not shew himself in an amiable point of view. On the morning of our departure his saddle had to be patched together, and instead of coming with two horses, he appeared with only one. He certainly promised to buy a second when we should have proceeded some miles, adding that it would be cheaper to buy one at a little distance from the "capital." I at once suspected this was merely an excuse of the guide's, and that he wished thereby to avoid having the care of four horses. The event proved I was right; not a single horse could be found that suited, and so my poor little animal had to carry the guide's baggage in addition to my own. Loading the pack-horses is a business of some difficulty, and is conducted in the following manner: sundry large pieces of dried turf are laid upon the horse's back, but not fastened; over these is buckled a round piece of wood, furnished with two or three pegs. To these pegs the chests and packages are suspended. If the weight is not quite equally balanced, it is necessary to stop and repack frequently, for the whole load at once gets askew. The trunks used in this country are massively constructed of wood, covered with a rough hide, and strengthened on all sides with nails, as though they were intended to last an eternity. The poor horses have a considerable weight to bear in empty boxes alone, so that very little real luggage can be taken. The weight which a horse has to carry during a long journey should never exceed 150lbs. It is impossible to remember how many times our baggage had to be repacked during a day's journey. The great pieces of turf would never stay in their places, and every moment something was wrong. Nothing less than a miracle, however, can prevail on an Icelander to depart from his regular routine. His ancestors packed in such and such a manner, and so he must pack also. {35} We had a journey of above forty miles before us the first day, and yet, on account of the damaged saddle, we could not start before eight o'clock in the morning. The first twelve or fourteen miles of our journey lay through the great valley in which Reikjavik is situated; the valley contains many low hills, some of which we had to climb. Several rivers, chief among which was the Laxselv, opposed our progress, but at this season of the year they could be crossed on horseback without danger. Nearly all the valleys through which we passed to-day were covered with lava, but nevertheless offered many beautiful spots. Many of the hills we passed seemed to me to be extinct volcanoes; the whole upper portion was covered with colossal slabs of lava, as though the crater had been choked up with them. Lava of the same description and colour, but in smaller pieces, lay strewed around. For the first twelve or fourteen miles the sea is visible from the brow of every successive hill. The country is also pretty generally inhabited; but afterwards a distance of nearly thirty miles is passed, on which there is not a human habitation. The traveller journeys from one valley into another, and in the midst of these hill-girt deserts sees a single small hut, erected for the convenience of those who, in the winter, cannot accomplish the long distance in one day, and must take up their quarters for the night in the valley. No one must, however, rashly hope to find here a human being in the shape of a host. The little house is quite uninhabited, and consists only of a single apartment with four naked walls. The visitor must depend on the accommodation he carries with him. The plains through which we travelled to-day were covered throughout with one and the same kind of lava. It occurs in masses, and also in smaller stones, is not very porous, of a light grey colour, and mixed, in many instances, with sand or earth. Some miles from Thingvalla we entered a valley, the soil of which is fine, but nevertheless only sparingly covered with grass, and full of little acclivities, mostly clothed with delicate moss. I have no doubt that the indolence of the inhabitants alone prevents them from materially improving many a piece of ground. The worst soil is that in the neighbourhood of Reikjavik; yet there we see many a garden, and many a piece of meadow-land, wrung, as it were, from the barren earth by labour and pains. Why should not the same thing be done here--the more so as nature has already accomplished the preliminary work? Thingvalla, our resting-place for to-night, is situate on a lake of the same name, and only becomes visible when the traveller is close upon it. The lake is rather considerable, being almost three miles in length, and at some parts certainly more than two miles in breadth; it contains two small islands,--Sandey and Nesey. My whole attention was still riveted by the lake and its naked and gloomy circle of mountains, when suddenly, as if by magic, I found myself standing on the brink of a chasm, into which I could scarcely look without a shudder; involuntarily I thought of Weber's _Freyschutz_ and the "Wolf's Hollow." {36} The scene is the more startling from the circumstance that the traveller approaching Thingvalla in a certain direction sees only the plains beyond this chasm, and has no idea of its existence. It was a fissure some five or six fathoms broad, but several hundred feet in depth; and we were forced to descend by a small, steep, dangerous path, across large fragments of lava. Colossal blocks of stone, threatening the unhappy wanderer with death and destruction, hang loosely, in the form of pyramids and of broken columns, from the lofty walls of lava, which encircle the whole long ravine in the form of a gallery. Speechless, and in anxious suspense, we descend a part of this chasm, hardly daring to look up, much less to give utterance to a single sound, lest the vibration should bring down one of these avalanches of stone, to the terrific force of which the rocky fragments scattered around bear ample testimony. The distinctness with which echo repeats the softest sound and the lightest footfall is truly wonderful. The appearance presented by the horses, which are allowed to come down the ravine after their masters have descended, is most peculiar. One could fancy they were clinging to the walls of rock. This ravine is known by the name of Almanagiau. Its entire length is about a mile, but a small portion only can be traversed; the rest is blocked up by masses of lava heaped one upon the other. On the right hand, the rocky wall opens, and forms an outlet, over formidable masses of lava, into the beautiful valley of Thingvalla. I could have fancied I wandered through the depths of a crater, which had piled around itself these stupendous barriers during a mighty eruption in times long gone by. The valley of Thingvalla is considered one of the most beautiful in Iceland. It contains many meadows, forming, as it were, a place of refuge for the inhabitants, and enabling them to keep many head of cattle. The Icelanders consider this little green valley the finest spot in the world. Not far from the opening of the ravine, on the farther bank of the river Oxer, lies the little village of Thingvalla, consisting of three or four cottages and a small chapel. A few scattered farms and cottages are situated in the neighbourhood. Thingvalla was once one of the most important places in Iceland; the stranger is still shewn the meadow, not far from the village, on which the Allthing (general assembly) was held annually in the open air. Here the people and their leaders met, pitching their tents after the manner of nomads. Here it was also that many an opinion and many a decree were enforced by the weight of steel. The chiefs appeared, ostensibly for peace, at the head of their tribe; yet many of them returned not again, but beneath the sword-stroke of their enemies obtained that peace which no man seeketh, but which all men find. On one side the valley is skirted by the lake, on the other it is bounded by lofty mountains, some of them still partly covered with snow. Not far from the entrance of the ravine, the river Oxer rushes over a wall of rock of considerable height, forming a beautiful waterfall. It was still fine clear daylight when I reached Thingvalla, and the sky rose pure and cloudless over the far distance. It seemed therefore the more singular to me to see a few clouds skimming over the surface of the mountains, now shrouding a part of them in vapour, now wreathing themselves round their summits, now vanishing entirely, to reappear again at a different point. This is a phenomenon frequently observed in Iceland during the finest days, and one I had often noticed in the neighbourhood of Reikjavik. Under a clear and cloudless sky, a light mist would appear on the brow of a mountain,--in a moment it would increase to a large cloud, and after remaining stationary for a time, it frequently vanished suddenly, or soared slowly away. However often it may be repeated, this appearance cannot fail to interest the observer. Herr Beck, the clergyman at Thingvalla, offered me the shelter of his hut for the night; as the building, however, did not look much more promising than the peasants' cottages by which it was surrounded, I preferred quartering myself in the church, permission to do so being but too easily obtained on all occasions. This chapel is not much larger than that at Krisuvik, and stands at some distance from the few surrounding cottages. This was perhaps the reason why I was not incommoded by visitors. I had already conquered any superstitious fears derived from the proximity of my silent neighbours in the churchyard, and passed the night quietly on one of the wooden chests of which I found several scattered about. Habit is certainly every thing; after a few nights of gloomy solitude one thinks no more about the matter. June 17th. Our journey of to-day was more formidable than that of yesterday. I was assured that Reikholt (also called Reikiadal) was almost fifty miles distant. Distances cannot always be accurately measured by the map; impassable barriers, only to be avoided by circuitous routes, often oppose the traveller's progress. This was the case with us to-day. To judge from the map, the distance from Thingvalla to Reikholt seemed less by a great deal than that from Reikjavik to Thingvalla, and yet we were full fourteen hours accomplishing it--two hours longer than on our yesterday's journey. So long as our way lay through the valley of Thingvalla there was no lack of variety. At one time there was an arm of the river Oxer to cross, at another we traversed a cheerful meadow; sometimes we even passed through little shrubberies,--that is to say, according to the Icelandic acceptation of the term. In my country these lovely shrubberies would have been cleared away as useless underwood. The trees trail along the ground, seldom attaining a height of more than two feet. When one of these puny stems reaches four feet in height, it is considered a gigantic tree. The greater portion of these miniature forests grow on the lava with which the valley is covered. The formation of the lava here assumes a new character. Up to this point it has mostly appeared either in large masses or in streams lying in strata one above the other; but here the lava covered the greater portion of the ground in the form of immense flat slabs or blocks of rock, often split in a vertical direction. I saw long fissures of eight or ten feet in breadth, and from ten to fifteen feet in depth. In these clefts the flowers blossom earlier, and the fern grows taller and more luxuriantly, than in the boisterous upper world. After the valley of Thingvalla has been passed the journey becomes very monotonous. The district beyond is wholly uninhabited, and we travelled many miles without seeing a single cottage. From one desert valley we passed into another; all were alike covered with light-grey or yellowish lava, and at intervals also with fine sand, in which the horses sunk deeply at every step. The mountains surrounding these valleys were none of the highest, and it was seldom that a jokul or glacier shone forth from among them. The mountains had a certain polished appearance, their sides being perfectly smooth and shining. In some instances, however, masses of lava formed beautiful groups, bearing a great resemblance to ruins of ancient buildings, and standing out in peculiarly fine relief from the smooth walls. These mountains are of different colours; they are black or brown, grey or yellow, &c.; and the different shades of these colours are displayed with marvellous effect in the brilliant sunshine. Nine hours of uninterrupted riding brought us into a large tract of moorland, very scantily covered with moss. Yet this was the first and only grazing-place to be met with in all the long distance from Thingvalla. We therefore made a halt of two hours, to let our poor horses pick a scanty meal. Large swarms of minute gnats, which seemed to fly into our eyes, nose, and mouth, annoyed us dreadfully during our stay in this place. On this moor there was also a small lake; and here I saw for the first time a small flock of swans. Unfortunately these creatures are so very timid, that the most cautious approach of a human being causes them to rise with the speed of lightning into the air. I was therefore obliged perforce to be content with a distant view of these proud birds. They always keep in pairs, and the largest flock I saw did not consist of more than four such pairs. Since my first arrival in Iceland I had considered the inhabitants an indolent race of people; to-day I was strengthened in my opinion by the following slight circumstance. The moorland on which we halted to rest was separated from the adjoining fields of lava by a narrow ditch filled with water. Across this ditch a few stones and slabs had been laid, to form a kind of bridge. Now this bridge was so full of holes that the horses could not tell where to plant their feet, and refused obstinately to cross it, so that in the end we were obliged to dismount and lead them across. We had scarcely passed this place, and sat down to rest, when a caravan of fifteen horses, laden with planks, dried fish, &c. arrived at the bridge. Of course the poor creatures observed the dangerous ground, and could only be driven by hard blows to advance. Hardly twenty paces off there were stones in abundance; but rather than devote a few minutes to filling up the holes, these lazy people beat their horses cruelly, and exposed them to the risk of breaking their legs. I pitied the poor animals, which would be compelled to recross the bridge, so heartily, that, after they are gone, I devoted a part of my resting-time to collecting stones and filling up the holes,--a business which scarcely occupied me a quarter of an hour. It is interesting to notice how the horses know by instinct the dangerous spots in the stony wastes, and in the moors and swamps. On approaching these places they bend their heads towards the earth, and look sharply round on all sides. If they cannot discover a firm resting-place for the feet, they stop at once, and cannot be urged forward without many blows. After a halt of two hours we continued our journey, which again led us across fields of lava. At past nine o'clock in the evening we reached an elevated plain, after traversing which for half an hour we saw stretched at our feet the valley of Reikholt or Reikiadal; it is fourteen to seventeen miles long, of a good breadth, and girt round by a row of mountains, among which several jokuls sparkle in their icy garments. A sunset seen in the sublime wildness of Icelandic scenery has a peculiarly beautiful effect. Over these vast plains, divested of trees or shrubs, covered with dark lava, and shut in by mountains almost of a sable hue, the parting sun sheds an almost magical radiance. The peaks of the mountains shine in the bright parting rays, the jokuls are shrouded in the most delicate roseate hue, while the lower parts of the mountains lie in deep shadow, and frown darkly on the valleys, which resemble a sheet of dark blue water, with an atmosphere of a bluish-red colour floating above it. The most impressive feature of all is the profound silence and solitude; not a sound can be heard, not a living creature is to be seen; every thing appears dead. Throughout the broad valleys not a town nor a village, no, not even a solitary house or a tree or shrub, varies the prospect. The eye wanders over the vast desert, and finds not one familiar object on which it can rest. To-night, as at past eleven o'clock we reached the elevated plain, I saw a sunset which I shall never forget. The sun disappeared behind the mountains, and in its stead a gorgeous ruddy gleam lighted up hill and valley and glacier. It was long ere I could turn away my eyes from the glittering heights, and yet the valley also offered much that was striking and beautiful. Throughout almost its entire length this valley formed a meadow, from the extremities of which columns of smoke and boiling springs burst forth. The mists had almost evaporated, and the atmosphere was bright and clear, more transparent even than I had seen it in any other country. I now for the first time noticed, that in the valley itself the radiance was almost as clear as the light of day, so that the most minute objects could be plainly distinguished. This was, however, extremely necessary, for steep and dangerous paths lead over masses of lava into the valley. On one side ran a little river, forming many picturesque waterfalls, some of them above thirty feet in height. I strained my eyes in vain to discover any where, in this great valley, a little church, which, if it only offered me a hard bench for a couch, would at any rate afford me a shelter from the sharp night-wind; for it is really no joke to ride for fifteen hours, with nothing to eat but bread and cheese, and then not even to have the pleasant prospect of a hotel _a la villa de Londres_ or _de Paris_. Alas, my wishes were far more modest. I expected no porter at the gate to give the signal of my arrival, no waiter, and no chambermaid; I only desired a little spot in the neighbourhood of the dear departed Icelanders. I was suddenly recalled from these happy delusions by the voice of the guide, who cried out: "Here we are at our destination for to-night." I looked joyfully round; alas! I could only see a few of those cottages which are never observed until you almost hit your nose against one of them, as the grass-covered walls can hardly be distinguished from the surrounding meadow. It was already midnight. We stopped, and turned our horses loose, to seek supper and rest in the nearest meadow. Our lot was a less fortunate one. The inhabitants were already buried in deep slumbers, from which even the barking set up by the dogs at our approach failed to arouse them. A cup of coffee would certainly have been very acceptable to me; yet I was loath to rouse any one merely for this. A piece of bread satisfied my hunger, and a draught of water from the nearest spring tasted most deliciously with it. After concluding my frugal meal, I sought out a corner beside a cottage, where I was partially sheltered from the too-familiar wind; and wrapping my cloak around me, lay down on the ground, having wished myself, with all my heart, a good night's rest and pleasant dreams, in the broad daylight, {37} under the canopy of heaven. Just dropping off to sleep, I was surprised by a mild rain, which, of course, at once put to flight every idea of repose. Thus, after all, I was obliged to wake some one up, to obtain the shelter of a roof. The best room, _i.e._ the store-room, was thrown open for my accommodation, and a small wooden bedstead placed at my disposal. Chambers of this kind are luckily found wherever two or three cottages lie contiguous to each other; they are certainly far from inviting, as dried fish, train-oil, tallow, and many other articles of the same description combine to produce a most unsavoury atmosphere. Yet they are infinitely preferable to the dwellings of the peasants, which, by the by, are the most filthy dens that can be imagined. Besides being redolent of every description of bad odour, these cottages are infested with vermin to a degree which can certainly not be surpassed, except in the dwellings of the Greenlanders and Laplanders. June 18th. Yesterday we had been forced to put upon our poor horses a wearisome distance of more than fifty miles, as the last forty miles led us through desert and uninhabited places, boasting not even a single cottage. To-day, however, our steeds had a light duty to perform, for we only proceeded seven miles to the little village of Reikiadal, where I halted to-day, in order to visit the celebrated springs. The inconsiderable village called Reikiadal, consisting only of a church and a few cottages, is situated amidst pleasant meadows. Altogether this valley is rich in beautiful meadow-lands; consequently one sees many scattered homesteads and cottages, with fine herds of sheep, and a tolerable number of horses; cows are less plentiful. The church at Reikiadal is among the neatest and most roomy of those which came under my observation. The dwelling of the priest too, though only a turf-covered cottage, is large enough for the comfort of the occupants. This parish extends over a considerable area, and is not thinly inhabited. My first care on my arrival was to beg the clergyman, Herr Jonas Jonason, to procure for me, as expeditiously as possible, fresh horses and a guide, in order that I might visit the springs. He promised to provide me with both within half an hour; and yet it was not until three hours had been wasted, that, with infinite pains, I saw my wish fulfilled. Throughout my stay in Iceland, nothing annoyed me more than the slowness and unconcern displayed by the inhabitants in all their undertakings. Every wish and every request occupies a long time in its fulfilment. Had I not been continually at the good pastor's side, I believe I should scarcely have attained my object. At length every thing was ready, and the pastor himself was kind enough to be my guide. We rode about four miles through this beautiful vale, and in this short distance were compelled at least six times to cross the river Sidumule, which rolls its most tortuous course through the entire valley. At length the first spring was reached; it emerges from a rock about six feet in height, standing in the midst of a moor. The upper cavity of the natural reservoir, in which the water continually boils and seethes, is between two and three feet in diameter. This spring never stops; the jet of water rises two, and sometimes even four feet high, and is about eighteen inches thick. It is possible to increase the volume of the jet for a few seconds, by throwing large stones or lumps of earth into the opening, and thus stirring up the spring. The stones are cast forcibly forth, and the lumps of earth, dissolved by the action of the water, impart to the latter a dingy colour. Whoever has seen the jet of water at Carlsbad, in Bohemia, can well imagine the appearance of this spring, which closely resembles that of Carlsbad. {38} In the immediate neighbourhood of the spring is an abyss, in which water is continually seething, but never rises into the air. At a little distance, on a high rock, rising out of the river Sidumule, not far from the shore, are other springs. They are three in number, each at a short distance from the next, and occupy nearly the entire upper surface of the rock. Lower down we find a reservoir of boiling water; and at the foot of the rock, and on the nearest shore, are many more hot springs; but most of these are inconsiderable. Many of these hot springs emerge almost from the cold river itself. The chief group, however, lies still farther off, on a rock which may be about twenty feet in height, and fifty in length. It is called Tunga Huer, and rises from the midst of a moor. On this rock there are no less than sixteen springs, some emerging from its base, others rather above the middle, but none from the top of the rock. The construction of the basins and the height and diameter of the jets were precisely similar to those I have already described. All these sixteen springs are so near each other that they do not even occupy two sides of the rock. It is impossible to form an idea of the magnificence of this singular spectacle, which becomes really fairy-like, if the beholder have the courage to climb the rock itself, a proceeding of some danger, though of little difficulty. The upper stratum of the rock is soft and warm, presenting almost the appearance of mud thickened with sand and small stones. Every footstep leaves a trace behind it, and the visitor has continually before his eyes the fear of breaking through, and falling into a hot spring hidden from view by a thin covering. The good pastor walked in advance of me, with a stick, and probed the dangerous surface as much as possible. I was loath to stay behind, and suddenly we found ourselves at the summit of the rock. Here we could take in, at one view, the sixteen springs gushing from both its sides. If the view from below had been most interesting and singular, how shall I describe its appearance as seen from above? Sixteen jets of water seen at one glance, sixteen reservoirs, in all their diversity of form and construction, opening at once beneath the feet of the beholder, seemed almost too wonderful a sight. Forgetting all pusillanimous feelings, I stood and honoured the Creator in these his marvellous works. For a long time I stood, and could not tire of gazing into the abysses from whose darkness the masses of white and foaming water sprung hissing into the air, to fall again, and hasten in quiet union towards the neighbouring river. The good pastor found it necessary to remind me several times that our position here was neither of the safest nor of the most comfortable, and that it was therefore high time to abandon it. I had ceased to think of the insecurity of the ground we trod, and scarcely noticed the mighty clouds of hot vapour which frequently surrounded and threatened to suffocate us, obliging us to step suddenly back with wetted faces. It was fortunate that these waters contain but a very small quantity of brimstone, otherwise we could scarcely have long maintained our elevated position. The rock from which these springs rise is formed of a reddish mass, and the bed of the river into which the water flows is also completely covered with little stones of the same colour. On our way back we noticed, near a cottage, another remarkable phenomenon. It was a basin, in whose depths the water boils and bubbles violently; and near this basin are two unsightly holes, from which columns of smoke periodically rise with a great noise. Whilst this is going on, the basin fills itself more and more with water, but never so much as to overflow, or to force a jet of water into the air; then the steam and the noise cease in both cavities, and the water in the reservoir sinks several feet. This strange phenomenon generally lasts about a minute, and is repeated so regularly, that a bet could almost be made, that the rising and falling of the water, and the increased and lessened noise of the steam, shall be seen and heard sixty or sixty-five times within an hour. In communication with this basin is another, situate at a distance of about a hundred paces in a small hollow, and filled like the former with boiling water. As the water in the upper basin gradually sinks, and ceases to seethe, it begins to rise in the lower one, and is at length forced two or three feet into the air; then it falls again, and thus the phenomenon is continually repeated in the upper and the lower basin alternately. At the upper spring there is also a vapour-bath. This is formed by a small chamber situate hard by the basin, built of stones and roofed with turf. It is further provided with a small and narrow entrance, which cannot be passed in an upright position. The floor is composed of stone slabs, probably covering a hot spring, for they are very warm. The person wishing to use this bath betakes himself to this room, and carefully closes every cranny; a suffocating heat, which induces violent perspiration over the whole frame, is thus generated. The people, however, seldom avail themselves of this bath. On my return I had still to visit a basin with a jet of water, in a fine meadow near the church; a low wall of stone has been erected round this spring to prevent the cattle from scalding themselves if they should approach too near in the ardour of grazing. Some eighty paces off is to be seen the wool-bath erected by Snorri Sturluson. It consists of a stone basin three or four feet in depth, and eighteen or twenty in diameter. The approach is by a few steps leading to a low stone bench, which runs round the basin. The water is obtained from the neighbouring spring, but is of so high a temperature that it is impossible to bathe without previously cooling it. The bath stands in the open air, and no traces are left of the building which once covered it. It is now used for clothes and sheep's wool. I had now seen all the interesting springs on this side of the valley. Some columns of vapour, which may be observed from the opposite end of the valley, proceed from thermal springs, that offer no remarkable feature save their heat. On our return the priest took me to the churchyard, which lay at some distance from his dwelling, and showed me the principal graves. Though I thought the sight very impressive, it was not calculated to invigorate me, when I considered that I must pass the approaching night alone in the church, amidst these resting-places of the departed. The mound above each grave is very high, and the greater part of them are surmounted by a kind of wooden coffin, which at first sight conveys the impression that the dead person is above ground. I could not shake off a feeling of discomfort; and such is the power of prejudice, that--I acknowledge my weakness--I was even induced to beg that the priest would remove one of the covers. Though I knew full well that the dead man was slumbering deep in the earth, and not in this coffin, I felt a shudder pass over me as the lid was removed, and I saw--as the priest had assured me I should do--merely a tombstone with the usual inscription, which this coffin-like covering is intended to protect against the rude storms of the winter. Close beside the entrance to the church is the mound beneath which rest the bones of Snorri Sturluson, the celebrated poet; {39} over this grave stands a small runic stone of the length of the mound itself. This stone is said to have once been completely covered with runic characters; but all trace of these has been swept away by the storms of five hundred winters, against which the tomb had no protecting coffin. The stone, too, is split throughout its entire length into two pieces. The mound above the grave is often renewed, so that the beholder could often fancy he saw a new-made grave. I picked all the buttercups I could find growing on the grave, and preserved them carefully in a book. Perhaps I may be able to give pleasure to several of my countrywomen by offering them a floweret from the grave of the greatest of Icelandic poets. June 19th. In order to pursue my journey without interruption, I hired fresh horses, and allowed my own, which were rather fatigued, to accompany us unloaded. My object in this further excursion was to visit the very remarkable cavern of Surthellir, distant a good thirty-three miles from this place. The clergyman was again kind enough to make the necessary arrangements for me, and even to act as my Mentor on the journey. Though we were only three strong, we departed with a retinue of seven horses, and for nearly ten miles rode back the same way by which I had come from Reikholt on the preceding morning; then we turned off to the left, and crossing hills and acclivities, reached other valleys, which were partly traversed by beautiful streams of lava, and partly interspersed with forests--_forests_, as I have already said, according to Icelandic notions. The separate stems were certainly slightly higher than those in the valley of Thingvalla. At Kalmannstunga we left the spare horses, and took with us a man to serve as guide in the cavern, from which we were now still some seven miles distant. The great valley in which this cavern lies is reckoned among the most remarkable in Iceland. It is a most perfect picture of volcanic devastation. The most beautiful masses of lava, in the most varied and picturesque forms, occupy the whole immeasurable valley. Lava is to be seen there in a rough glassy state, forming exquisite flames and arabesques; and in immense slabs, lying sometimes scattered, sometimes piled in strata one above the other, as though they had been cast there by a flood. Among these, again, lie mighty isolated streams, which must have been frozen in the midst of their course. From the different colours of the lava, and their transitions from light grey to black, we can judge of the eruptions which have taken place at different periods. The mountains surrounding this valley are mostly of a sombre hue; some are even black, forming a striking contrast to the neighbouring jokuls, which, in their large expanse, present the appearance almost of a sea of ice. I found one of these jokuls of a remarkable size; its shining expanse extended far down into the valley, and its upper surface was almost immeasurable. The other mountains were all smooth, as though polished by art; in the foreground I only noticed one which was covered with wonderful forms of dried lava. A deathlike silence weighed on the whole country round, on hill and on valley alike. Every thing seemed dead, all round was barren and desert, so that the effect was truly Icelandic. The greater portion of Iceland might be with justice designated the "Northern Desert." The cavern of Surthellir lies on a slightly elevated extended plain, where it would certainly not be sought for, as we are accustomed to see natural phenomena of this description only in the bowels of rocks. It is, therefore, with no little surprise that the traveller sees suddenly opening before him a large round basin about fifteen fathoms in diameter, and four in depth. It was with a feeling of awe that I looked downwards on the countless blocks of rock piled one upon the other, extending on one side to the edge of the hollow, across which the road led to the dark ravines farther on. We were compelled to scramble forward on our hands and knees, until we reached a long broad passage, which led us at first imperceptibly downwards, and then ran underneath the plain, which formed a rocky cavern above our heads. I estimated the different heights of this roof at not less than from eighteen to sixty feet; but it seldom reached a greater elevation than the latter. Both roof and walls are in some places very pointed and rough: a circumstance to be ascribed to the stalactites which adhere to them, without, however, forming figures or long sharp points. From this principal path several smaller ones lead far into the interior of this stony region; but they do not communicate with each other, and one is compelled to return from each side-path into the main road. Some of these by-paths are short, narrow, and low; others, on the contrary, are long, broad, and lofty. In one of the most retired of these by-paths I was shewn a great number of bones, which, I was told, were those of slaughtered sheep and other animals. I could gather, from the account given by the priest of the legend concerning them, that, in days of yore, this cave was the resort of a mighty band of robbers. This must have been a long, long time ago, as this is related as a legend or a fable. For my part, I could not tell what robbers had to do in Iceland. Pirates had often come to the island; but for these gentry this cavern was too far from the sea. I cannot even imagine beasts of prey to have been there; for the whole country round about is desert and uninhabited, so that they could have found nothing to prey upon. In fact, I turned over in my mind every probability, and can only say that it appeared to me a most remarkable circumstance to find in this desert place, so far from any living thing, a number of bones, which, moreover, looked as fresh as if the poor animals to whom they once belonged had been eaten but a short time ago. Unfortunately I could obtain no satisfactory information on this point. It is difficult to imagine any thing more laborious than to wander about in this cavern. As the road had shewed itself at the entrance of the cavern, so it continued throughout its whole extent. The path consisted entirely of loose fragments of lava heaped one upon the other, over which we had to clamber with great labour. None of us could afford to help the others; each one was fully occupied with himself. There was not a single spot to be seen on which we could have stood without holding fast at the same time with our hands. We were sometimes obliged to seat ourselves on a stone, and so to slide down; at others, to take hands and pull one another to the top of high blocks of stone. We came to several immense basins, or craters, which opened above our heads, but were inaccessible, the sides being too steep for us to climb. The light which entered through these openings was scarcely enough to illumine the principal path, much less the numerous by-paths. At Kalmannstunga I had endeavoured to procure torches, but was obliged to consider myself fortunate in getting a few tapers. It is necessary to provide oneself with torches at Reikjavik. The parts of the cavern beneath the open craters were still covered with a considerable quantity of snow, by which our progress was rendered very dangerous. We frequently sunk in, and at other times caught our feet between the stones, so that we could scarcely maintain our balance. In the by-paths situated near these openings an icy rind had formed itself, which was now covered with water. Farther on, the ice had melted; but it was generally very dirty, as a stratum of sand mixed with water lay there in place of the stones. The chief path alone was covered with blocks of lava; in the smaller paths I found only strata of sand and small pieces of lava. The magical illumination produced by the sun's rays shining through one of these craters into the cavern produced a splendid effect. The sun shone perpendicularly through the opening, spread a dazzling radiance over the snow, and diffused a pale delicate light around us. The effect of this point of dazzling light was the more remarkable from its contrasting strongly with the two dark chasms, from the first of which we had emerged to continue our journey through the obscurity of the second. This subterranean labyrinth is said to extend in different directions for many miles. We explored a portion of the chief path and several by-paths, and after a march of two hours returned heartily tired to the upper world. We then rested a quarter of an hour, and afterwards returned at a good round pace to Kalmannstunga. Unfortunately I do not possess sufficient geognostic knowledge to be able to set this cavern down as an extinct volcano. But in travelling in a country where every hill and mountain, every thing around, in fact, consists of lava, even the uninitiated in science seeks to discover the openings whence these immense masses have poured. The stranger curiously regards the top of each mountain, thinking every where to behold a crater, but both hill and dale appear smooth and closed. With what joy then does he hail the thought of having discovered, in this cavern, something to throw light upon the sources of these things! I, at least, fancied myself walking on the hearth of an extinct volcano; for all I saw, from the masses of stone piled beneath my feet and the immense basin above my head, were both of lava. If I am right in my conjecture, I do not know; I only speak according to my notions and my views. I was obliged to pass this night in a cottage. Kalmannstunga contains three such cottages, but no chapel. Luckily I found one of these houses somewhat larger and more cleanly than its neighbours; it could almost come under the denomination of a farm. The occupants, too, had been employed during my ride to the cavern in cleansing the best chamber, and preparing it, as far as possible, for my reception. The room in question was eleven feet long by seven broad; the window was so small and so covered with dirt that, although the sun was shining in its full glory, I could scarcely see to write. The walls, and even the floor, were boarded--a great piece of luxury in a country where wood is so scarce. The furniture consisted of a broad bedstead, two chests of drawers, and a small table. Chairs and benches are a kind of _terra incognita_ in the dwellings of the Icelandic peasantry; besides, I do not know where such articles could be stowed in a room of such dimensions as that which I occupied. My hostess, the widow of a wealthy peasant, introduced to me her four children, who were very handsome, and very neatly dressed. I begged the good mother to tell me the names of the young ones, so that I might at least know a few Icelandic names. She appeared much flattered at my request, and gave me the names as follows: Sigrudur, Gudrun, Ingebor, and Lars. I should have felt tolerably comfortable in my present quarters, accustomed as I am to bear privations of all kinds with indifference, if they would but have left me in peace. But the reader may fancy my horror when the whole population, not only of the cottage itself, but also of the neighbouring dwellings, made their appearance, and, planting themselves partly in my chamber and partly at the door, held me in a far closer state of siege than even at Krisuvik. I was, it appeared, quite a novel phenomenon in the eyes of these good people, and so they came one and all and stared at me; the women and children were, in particular, most unpleasantly familiar; they felt my dress, and the little ones laid their dirty little countenances in my lap. Added to this, the confined atmosphere from the number of persons present, their lamentable want of cleanliness, and their filthy habit of spitting, &c., all combined to form a most dreadful whole. During these visits I did more penance than by the longest fasts; and fasting, too, was an exercise I seldom escaped, as I could touch few Icelandic dishes. The cookery of the Icelandic peasants is wholly confined to the preparation of dried fish, with which they eat fermented milk that has often been kept for months; on very rare occasions they have a preparation of barley-meal, which is eaten with flat bread baked from Icelandic moss ground fine. I could not but wonder at the fact that most of these people expected to find me acquainted with a number of things generally studied only by men; they seemed to have a notion that in foreign parts women should be as learned as men. So, for instance, the priests always inquired if I spoke Latin, and seemed much surprised on finding that I was unacquainted with the language. The common people requested my advice as to the mode of treating divers complaints; and once, in the course of one of my solitary wanderings about Reikjavik, on my entering a cottage, they brought before me a being whom I should scarcely have recognised as belonging to the same species as myself, so fearfully was he disfigured by the eruption called "lepra." Not only the face, but the whole body also was covered with it; the patient was quite emaciated, and some parts of his body were covered with sores. For a surgeon this might have been an interesting sight, but I turned away in disgust. But let us turn from this picture. I would rather tell of the angel's face I saw in Kalmannstunga. It was a girl, ten or twelve years of age, beautiful and lovely beyond description, so that I wished I had been a painter. How gladly would I have taken home with me to my own land, if only on canvass, the delicate face, with its roguish dimples and speaking eyes! But perhaps it is better as it is; the picture might by some unlucky chance have fallen into the hands of some too-susceptible youth, who, like Don Sylvio de Rosalva, in Wieland's _Comical Romance_, would immediately have proceeded to travel through half the world to find the original of this enchanting portrait. His spirit of inquiry would scarcely have carried him to Iceland, as such an apparition would never be suspected to exist in such a country, and thus the unhappy youth would be doomed to endless wandering. June 20th. The distance from Kalmannstunga to Thingvalla is fifty-two miles, and the journey is certainly one of the most dreary and fatiguing of all that can be made in Iceland. The traveller passes from one desert valley into another; he is always surrounded by high mountains and still higher glaciers, and wherever he turns his eyes, nature seems torpid and dead. A feeling of anxious discomfort seizes upon the wanderer, he hastens with redoubled speed through the far-stretched deserts, and eagerly ascends the mountains piled up before him, in the hope that better things lie beyond. It is in vain; he only sees the same solitudes, the same deserts, the same mountains. On the elevated plateaux several places were still covered with snow; these we were obliged to cross, though we could frequently hear the rushing of the water beneath its snowy covering. We were compelled also to pass over coatings of ice spread lightly over rivers, and presenting that blue colour which is a certain sign of danger. Our poor horses were sometimes very restive; but it was of no use; they were beaten without mercy until they carried us over the dangerous places. The pack-horse was always driven on in front with many blows; it had to serve as pioneer, and try if the road was practicable. Next came my guide, and I brought up the rear. Our poor horses frequently sank up to their knees in the snow, and twice up to the saddle-girths. This was one of the most dangerous rides I have ever had. I could not help continually thinking what I should do if my guide were to sink in so deeply that he could not extricate himself; my strength would not have been sufficient to rescue him, and whither should I turn to seek for help? All around us was nothing but a desert and snow. Perhaps my lot might have been to die of hunger. I should have wandered about seeking dwellings and human beings, and have entangled myself so completely among these wastes that I could never have found my way. When at a distance I descried a new field of snow (and unfortunately we came upon them but too frequently), I felt very uncomfortable; those alone who have themselves been in a similar situation can estimate the whole extent of my anxiety. If I had been travelling in company with others, these fears would not have disturbed me; for there reciprocal assistance can be rendered, and the consciousness of this fact seems materially to diminish the danger. During the season in which the snow ceases to form a secure covering, this road is but little travelled. We saw nowhere a trace of footsteps, either of men or animals; we were the only living beings in this dreadful region. I certainly scolded my guide roundly for bringing me by such a road. But what did I gain by this? It would have been as dangerous to turn back as to go on. A change in the weather, which till now had been rather favourable, increased the difficulties of this journey. Already when we left Kalmannstunga, the sky began to be overcast, and the sun enlivened us with its rays only for a few minutes at a time. On our reaching the higher mountains the weather became worse; for here we encountered clouds and fog, which wreaked their vengeance upon us, and which only careered by to make room for others. An icy storm from the neighbouring glaciers was their constant companion, and made me shiver so much that I could scarcely keep my saddle. We had now ridden above thirteen hours. The rain poured down incessantly, and we were half dead with cold and wet; so I at length determined to halt for the night at the first cottage: at last we found one between two or three miles from Thingvalla. I had now a roof above my head; but beyond this I had gained nothing. The cottage consisted of a single room, and was almost completely filled by four broad bedsteads. I counted seven adults and three children, who had all to be accommodated in these four beds. In addition to this, the kvef, a kind of croup, prevailed this spring to such an extent that scarcely any one escaped it. Wherever I went, I found the people afflicted with this complaint; and here this was also the case; the noise of groaning and coughing on all sides was quite deplorable. The floor, moreover, was revoltingly dirty. The good people were so kind as immediately to place one of their beds at my disposal; but I would rather have passed the night on the threshold of the door than in this disgusting hole. I chose for my lodging-place the narrow passage which separated the kitchen from the room; I found there a couple of blocks, across which a few boards had been laid, and this constituted the milk-room: it might have been more properly called the smoke-room; for in the roof were a few air-holes, through which the smoke escaped. In this smoke or milk-room--whichever it may be called--I prepared to pass the night as best I could. My cloak being wet through, I had been compelled to hang it on a stick to dry; and thus found myself under the necessity of borrowing a mattress from these unhealthy people. I laid myself down boldly, and pretended sleepiness, in order to deliver myself from the curiosity of my entertainers. They retired to their room, and so I was alone and undisturbed. But yet I could not sleep; the cold wind, blowing in upon me through the air-holes, chilled and wetted as I already was, kept me awake against my will. I had also another misfortune to endure. As often as I attempted to sit upright on my luxurious couch, my head would receive a severe concussion. I had forgotten the poles which are fixed across each of these antechambers, for the purpose of hanging up fish to dry, &c. Unfortunately I could not bear this arrangement in mind until after I had received half a dozen salutations of this description. June 21st. At length the morning so long sighed for came; the rain had indeed ceased; but the clouds still hung about the mountains, and promised a speedy fall; I nevertheless resolved rather to submit myself to the fury of the elements than to remain longer in my present quarters, and so ordered the horses to be saddled. Before my departure roast lamb and butter were offered me. I thanked my entertainers; but refrained from tasting any thing, excusing myself on the plea of not feeling hungry, which was in reality the case; for if I only looked at the dirty people who surrounded me, my appetite vanished instantly. So long as my stock of bread and cheese lasted, I kept to it, and ate nothing else. Taking leave of my good hosts, we continued our journey to Reikjavik, by the same road on which I had travelled on my journey hither. This had not been my original plan on starting from Reikjavik; I had intended to proceed from Thingvalla directly to the Geyser, to Hecla, &c.; but the horses were already exhausted, and the weather so dreadfully bad, without prospect of speedy amendment, that I preferred returning to Reikjavik, and waiting for better times in my pleasant little room at the house of the good baker. We rode on as well as we could amidst ceaseless storms of wind and rain. The most disagreeable circumstance of all was our being obliged to spend the hours devoted to rest in the open air, under a by no means cloudless sky, as during our whole day's journey we saw not a single hut, save the solitary one in the lava desert, which serves as a resting-place for travellers during the winter. So we continued our journey until we reached a scanty meadow. Here I had my choice either to walk about for two hours, or to sit down upon the wet grass. I could find nothing better to do than to turn my back upon the wind and rain, to remain standing on one spot, to have patience, and for amusement to observe the direction in which the clouds scudded by. At the same time I discussed my frugal meal, more for want of something to do than from hunger; if I felt thirsty, I had only to turn round and open my mouth. If there are natures peculiarly fitted for travelling, I am fortunate in being blessed with such an one. No rain or wind was powerful enough to give me even a cold. During this whole excursion I had tasted no warm or nourishing food; I had slept every night upon a bench or a chest; had ridden nearly 255 miles in six days; and had besides scrambled about bravely in the cavern of Surthellir; and, in spite of all this privation and fatigue, I arrived at Reikjavik in good health and spirits. Short summary of this journey: Miles First day, from Reikjavik to 46 Thingvalla Second day, from Thingvalla to 51 Reikholt Third day, from Reikholt to the 19 different springs, and back again Fourth day, from Reikholt to 40 Surthellir, and back to Kalmannstunga Fifth day, from Kalmannstunga to 51 Thingvalla Sixth day, from Thingvalla to 46 Reikjavik Total 253 CHAPTER VI The weather soon cleared up, and I continued my journey to the Geyser and to Mount Hecla on the 24th June. On the first day, when we rode to Thingvalla, we passed no new scenery, but saw instead an extremely beautiful atmospheric phenomenon. [Picture: The Geysers] As we approached the lake, some thin mist-clouds lowered over it and over the earth, so that it seemed as if it would rain. One portion of the firmament glowed with the brightest blue; while the other part was obscured by thick clouds, through which the sun was just breaking. Some of its rays reached the clouds of mist, and illuminated them in a wonderfully beautiful manner. The most delicate shades of colour seemed breathed, as it were, over them like a dissolving rainbow, whose glowing colours were intermingled and yet singly perceptible. This play of colours continued for half an hour, then faded gradually till it vanished entirely, and the ordinary atmosphere took its place. It was one of the most beautiful appearances I had ever witnessed. June 25th. The roads separate about a mile behind the little town of Thingvalla; the one to the left goes to Reikholt, the right-hand one leads to the Geyser. We rode for some time along the shores of the lake, and found at the end of the valley an awful chasm in the rock, similar to the one of Almanagiau, which we had passed on such a wretched road. The contiguous valley bore a great resemblance to that of Thingvalla; but the third one was again fearful. Lava covered it, and was quite overgrown with that whitish moss, which has a beautiful appearance when it only covers a portion of the lava, and when black masses rise above it, but which here presented a most monotonous aspect. We also passed two grottoes which opened at our feet. At the entrance of one stood a pillar of rock supporting an immense slab of lava, which formed an awe-inspiring portal. I had unfortunately not known of the existence of these caves, and was consequently unprepared to visit them. Torches, at least, would have been requisite. But I subsequently heard that they were not at all deep, and contained nothing of interest. In the course of the day we passed through valleys such as I had seen nowhere else in Iceland. Beautiful meadow-lawns, perfectly level, covered the country for miles. These rich valleys were, of course, tolerably well populated; we frequently passed three or four contiguous cottages, and saw horses, cows, and sheep grazing on these fields in considerable numbers. The mountains which bounded these valleys on the left seemed to me very remarkable; they were partly brown, black, or dark blue, like the others; but the bulk of which they were composed I considered to be fine loam-soil layers, if I may trust my imperfect mineralogical knowledge. Some of these mountains were topped by large isolated lava rocks, real giants; and it seemed inexplicable to me how they could stand on the soft soil beneath. In one of these valleys we passed a considerable lake, on and around which rose circling clouds of steam proceeding from hot springs, but of no great size. But after we had already travelled about twenty-five miles, we came to the most remarkable object I had ever met with; this was a river with a most peculiar bed. This river-bed is broad and somewhat steep; it consists of lava strata, and is divided lengthwise in the middle by a cleft eighteen to twenty feet deep, and fifteen to eighteen feet broad, towards which the bubbling and surging waters rush, so that the sound is heard at some distance. A little wooden bridge, which stands in the middle of the stream, and over which the high waves constantly play, leads over the chasm. Any one not aware of the fact can hardly explain this appearance to himself, nor understand the noise and surging of the stream. The little bridge in the centre would be taken for the ruins of a fallen bridge, and the chasm is not seen from the shore, because the foaming waves overtop it. An indescribable fear would seize upon the traveller when he beheld the venturous guide ride into the stream, and was obliged to follow without pity or mercy. The priest of Thingvalla had prepared me for the scene, and had advised me to _walk_ over the bridge; but as the water at this season stood so high that the waves from both sides dashed two feet above the bridge, I could not descend from my horse, and was obliged to ride across. The whole passage through the stream is so peculiar, that it must be seen, and can scarcely be described. The water gushes and plays on all sides with fearful force; it rushes into the chasm with impetuous violence, forms waterfalls on both sides, and breaks itself on the projecting rocks. Not far from the bridge the cleft terminates; and the whole breadth of the waters falls over rocks thirty to forty feet high. The nearer we approached the centre, the deeper, more violent, and impetuous grew the stream, and the more deafening was the noise. The horses became restless and shy; and when we came to the bridge, they began to tremble, they reared, they turned to all sides but the right one, and refused to obey the bridle. With infinite trouble we at last succeeded in bringing them across this dangerous place. The valley which is traversed by this peculiar river is narrow, and quite enclosed by lava mountains and hills; the inanimate, silent nature around is perfectly adapted to imprint this scene for ever on the traveller's memory. This remarkable stream had been the last difficulty; and now we proceeded quietly and safely through the beautiful valleys till we approached the Geyser, which a projecting hillock enviously concealed from my anxiously curious gaze. At last this hillock was passed; and I saw the Geyser with its surrounding scenery, with its immense steam pillars, and the clouds and cloudlets rising from it. The hill was about two miles distant from the Geyser and the other hot springs. There they were, boiling and bubbling all around, and through the midst lay the road to the basin. Eighty paces from it we halted. And now I stood before the chief object of my journey; I saw it, it was so near me, and yet I did not venture to approach it. But a peasant who had followed us from one of the neighbouring cottages, and had probably guessed my anxiety and my fear, took me by the hand and constituted himself my cicerone. He had unfortunately, it being Sunday, paid too great a devotion to the brandy-bottle, so that he staggered rather than walked, and I hesitated to trust myself to the guidance of this man, not knowing whether he had reason enough left to distinguish how far we might with safety venture. My guide, who had accompanied me from Reikjavik, assured me indeed that I might trust him in spite of his intoxication, and that he would himself go with us to translate the peasant's Icelandic jargon into Danish; but nevertheless I followed with great trepidation. He led me to the margin of the basin of the great Geyser, which lies on the top of a gentle elevation of about ten feet, and contains the outer and the inner basins. The diameter of the outer basin may be about thirty feet; that of the inner one six to seven feet. Both were filled to the brim, the water was pure as crystal, but boiled and bubbled only slightly. We soon left this spot; for when the basins are quite filled with water it is very dangerous to approach them, as they may empty themselves any moment by an eruption. We therefore went to inspect the other springs. My unsteady guide pointed those out which we might unhesitatingly approach, and warned me from the others. Then we returned to the great Geyser, where he gave me some precautionary rules, in case of an intervening eruption, and then left me to prepare some accommodation for my stay. I will briefly enumerate the rules he gave me. "The pillar of water always rises perpendicularly, and the overflowing water has its chief outlets on one and the same side. The water does indeed escape on the other side, but only in inconsiderable quantities, and in shapeless little ducts, which one may easily evade. On this side one may therefore approach within forty paces even during the most violent eruptions. The eruption announces itself by a dull roaring; and as soon as this is heard, the traveller must hastily retire to the above-named distance, as the eruption always follows very quickly after the noise. The water, however, does not rise high every time, often only very inconsiderably, so that, to see a very fine explosion, it is often necessary to stay some days here." The French scholar, M. P. Geimard, has provided for the accommodation of travellers with a truly noble disinterestedness. He traversed the whole of Iceland some years ago and left two large tents behind him; one here, and the other in Thingvalla. The one here is particularly appropriate, as travellers are frequently obliged, as stated above, to wait several days for a fine eruption. Every traveller certainly owes M. Geimard the warmest thanks for this convenience. A peasant, the same who guides travellers to the springs, has the charge of it, and is bound to pitch it for any one for a fee of one or two florins. When my tent was ready it was nearly eleven o'clock. My companions retired, and I remained alone. It is usual to watch through the night in order not to miss an eruption. Now, although an alternate watching is no very arduous matter for several travellers, it became a very hard task for me alone, and an Icelandic peasant cannot be trusted; an eruption of Mount Hecla would scarcely arouse him. I sat sometimes before and sometimes in my tent, and listened with anxious expectation for the coming events; at last, after midnight--the witching hour--I heard some hollow sounds, as if a cannon were being fired at a great distance, and its echoing sounds were borne by the breeze. I rushed from my tent and expected subterranean noises, violent cracking and trembling of the earth, according to the descriptions I had read. I could scarcely repress a slight sensation of fear. To be alone at midnight in such a scene is certainly no joke. Many of my friends may remember my telling them, before my departure, that I expected I should need the most courage on my Icelandic journey during the nights at the Geyser. These hollow sounds were repeated, at very short intervals, thirteen times; and each time the basin overflowed and ejected a considerable quantity of water. The sounds did not seem to proceed from subterranean ragings, but from the violent agitation of the waters. In a minute and a half all was over; the water no longer overflowed, the caldron and basin remained filled, and I returned to my tent disappointed in every way. This phenomenon was repeated every two hours and a half, or, at the latest, every three hours and a half. I saw and heard nothing else all night, the next day, or the second night. I waited in vain for an eruption. When I had accustomed myself to these temporary effusions of my neighbour, I either indulged in a gentle slumber in the intermediate time, or I visited the other springs and explored. I wished to discover the boiling vapour and the coloured springs which many travellers assert they have seen here. All the hot-springs are united with a circumference of 800 to 900 paces: several of them are very remarkable, but the majority insignificant. They are situated in the angle of an immense valley at the foot of a hill, behind which extends a chain of mountains. The valley is entirely covered with grass, and the vegetation only decreases a little in the immediate vicinity of the springs. Cottages are built every where in the neighbourhood; the nearest to the springs are only about 700 to 800 paces distant. I counted twelve large basins with boiling and gushing springs; of smaller ones there were many more. Among the gushing springs the Strokker is the most remarkable. It boils and bubbles with most extraordinary violence at a depth of about twenty feet, shoots up suddenly, and projects its waters into the air. Its eruptions sometimes last half an hour, and the column occasionally ascends to a height of forty feet. I witnessed several of its eruptions; but unfortunately not one of the largest. The highest I saw could not have been above thirty feet, and did not last more than a quarter of an hour. The Strokker is the only spring, except the Geyser, which has to be approached with great caution. The eruptions sometimes succeed each other quickly, and sometimes cease for a few hours, and are not preceded by any sign. Another spring spouts constantly, but never higher than three to four feet. A third one lies about four or five feet deep, in a rather broad basin, and produces only a few little bubbles. But this calmness is deceptive: it seldom lasts more than half a minute, rarely two or three minutes; then the spring begins to bubble, to boil, and to wave and spout to a height of two or three feet; without, however, reaching the level of the basin. In some springs I heard boiling and foaming like a gentle bellowing; but saw no water, sometimes not even steam, rising. Two of the most remarkable springs which can perhaps be found in the world are situated immediately above the Geyser, in two openings, which are separated by a wall of rock scarcely a foot wide. This partition does not rise above the surface of the soil, but descends into the earth; the water boils slowly, and has an equable, moderate discharge. The beauty of these springs consists in their remarkable transparency. All the varied forms and caves, the projecting peaks, and edges of rock, are visible far down, until the eye is lost in the depths of darkness. But the greatest beauty of the spring is the splendid colouring proceeding from the rock; it is of the tenderest, most transparent, pale blue and green, and resembles the reflection of a Bengal flame. But what is most strange is, that this play of colour proceeds from the rock, and only extends eight to ten inches from it, while the other water is colourless as common water, only more transparent, and purer. I could not believe it at first, and thought it must be occasioned by the sun; I therefore visited the springs at different times, sometimes when the sun shone brightly, sometimes when it was obscured by clouds, once even after its setting; but the colouring always remained the same. One may fearlessly approach the brink of these springs. The platform which projects directly from them, and under which one can see in all directions, is indeed only a thin ledge of rock, but strong enough to prevent any accident. The beauty consists, as I have said, in the magical illumination, and in the transparency, by which all the caves and grottoes to the greatest depths become visible to the eye. Involuntarily I thought of Schiller's _Diver_. {40} I seemed to see the goblet hang on the peaks and jags of the rock; I could fancy I saw the monsters rise from the bottom. It must be a peculiar pleasure to read this splendid poem in such an appropriate spot. I found scarcely any basins of Brodem or coloured waters. The only one of the kind which I saw was a small basin, in which a brownish-red substance, rather denser than water, was boiling. Another smaller spring, with dirty brown water, I should have quite overlooked, if I had not so industriously searched for these curiosities. At last, after long waiting, on the second day of my stay, on the 27th June, at half-past eight in the morning, I was destined to see an eruption of the Geyser in its greatest perfection. The peasant, who came daily in the morning and in the evening to inquire whether I had already seen an eruption, was with me when the hollow sounds which precede it were again heard. We hastened out, and I again despaired of seeing any thing; the water only overflowed as usual, and the sound was already ceasing. But all at once, when the last sounds had scarcely died away, the explosion began. Words fail me when I try to describe it: such a magnificent and overpowering sight can only be seen once in a lifetime. All my expectations and suppositions were far surpassed. The water spouted upwards with indescribable force and bulk; one pillar rose higher than the other; each seemed to emulate the other. When I had in some measure recovered from the surprise, and regained composure, I looked at the tent. How little, how dwarfish it seemed as compared to the height of these pillars of water! And yet it was about twenty feet high. It did, indeed, lie ten feet lower than the basin of the Geyser; but if tent had been raised above tent, these ten feet could only be deducted once, and I calculated, though my calculation may not be correct, that one would need to pile up five or six tents to have the height of one of the pillars. Without exaggeration, I think the largest spout rose above one hundred feet high, and was three to four feet in diameter. Fortunately I had looked at my watch at the beginning of the hollow sounds, the forerunners of the eruption, for during its continuance I should probably have forgotten to do so. The whole lasted four minutes, of which the greater half must have been taken up by the eruption itself. When this wonderful scene was over, the peasant accompanied me to the basin. We could now approach it and the boiler without danger, and examine both at leisure. There was now nothing to fear; the water had entirely disappeared from the outer basin. We entered it and approached the inner basin, in which the water had sunk seven or eight feet, where it boiled and bubbled fiercely. With a hammer I broke some crust out of the outer as well as out of the inner basin; the former was white, the latter brown. I also tasted the water; it had not an unpleasant taste, and can only contain an inconsiderable proportion of sulphur, as the steam does not even smell of it. I went to the basin of the Geyser every half hour to observe how much time was required to fill it again. After an hour I could still descend into the outer basin; but half an hour later the inner basin was already full, and commenced to overflow. As long as the water only filled the inner basin it boiled violently; but the higher it rose in the outer one, the less it boiled, and nearly ceased when the basin was filled: it only threw little bubbles here and there. After a lapse of two hours--it was just noon--the basin was filled nearly to the brim; and while I stood beside it the water began again to bubble violently, and to emit the hollow sounds. I had scarcely time to retreat, for the pillars of water rose immediately. This time they spouted during the noise, and were more bulky than those of the first explosion, which might proceed from their not rising so high, and therefore remaining more compact. Their height may have been from forty to fifty feet. The basins this time remained nearly as full after the eruption as before. I had now seen two eruptions of the Geyser, and felt amply compensated for my persevering patience and watchfulness. But I was destined to be more fortunate, and to experience its explosions in all their variety. The spring spouted again at seven o'clock in the evening, ascended higher than at noon, and brought up some stones, which looked like black spots and points in the white frothy water-column. And during the third night it presented itself under another phase: the water rose in dreadful, quickly-succeeding waves, without throwing rays; the basin overflowed violently, and generated such a mass of steam as is rarely seen. The wind accidentally blew it to the spot where I stood, and it enveloped me so closely that I could scarcely see a few feet off. But I perceived neither smell nor oppression, merely a slight degree of warmth. June 28th. As I had now seen the Geyser play so often and so beautifully, I ordered my horses for nine o'clock this morning, to continue my journey. I made the more haste to leave, as a Dutch prince was expected, who had lately arrived at Reikjavik, with a large retinue, in a splendid man-of-war. I had the luck to see another eruption before my departure at half-past eight o'clock; and this one was nearly as beautiful as the first. This time also the outer basin was entirely emptied, and the inner one to a depth of six or seven feet. I could therefore again descend into the basin, and bid farewell to the Geyser at the very brink of the crater, which, of course, I did. I had now been three nights and two days in the immediate vicinity of the Geyser, and had witnessed five eruptions, of which two were of the most considerable that had ever been known. But I can assure my readers that I did not find every thing as I had anticipated it according to the descriptions and accounts I had read. I never heard a greater noise than I have mentioned, and never felt any trembling of the earth, although I paid the greatest attention to every little circumstance, and held my head to the ground during an eruption. It is singular how many people repeat every thing they hear from others--how some, with an over-excited imagination, seem to see, hear, and feel things which do not exist; and how others, again, tell the most unblushing falsehoods. I met an example of this in Reikjavik, in the house of the apothecary Moller, in the person of an officer of a French frigate, who asserted that he had "ridden to the very edge of the crater of Mount Vesuvius." He probably did not anticipate meeting any one in Reikjavik who had also been to the crater of Vesuvius. Nothing irritates me so much as such falsehoods and boastings; and I could not therefore resist asking him how he had managed that feat. I told him that I had been there, and feared danger as little as he could do; but that I had been compelled to descend from my donkey near the top of the mountain, and let my feet carry me the remainder of the journey. He seemed rather embarrassed, and pretended he had meant to say _nearly_ to the crater; but I feel convinced he will tell this story so often that he will at last believe it himself. I hope I do not weary my readers by dwelling so long on the subject of the Geyser. I will now vary the subject by relating a few circumstances that came under my notice, which, though trifling in themselves, were yet very significant. The most unimportant facts of an almost unknown country are often interesting, and are often most conclusive evidences of the general character of the nation. I have already spoken of my intoxicated guide. It is yet inexplicable to me how he could have conducted me so safely in such a semi-conscious state; and had he not been the only one, I should certainly not have trusted myself to his guidance. Of the want of cleanliness of the Icelanders, no one who has not witnessed it can have any idea; and if I attempted to describe some of their nauseous habits, I might fill volumes. They seem to have no feeling of propriety, and I must, in this respect, rank them as far inferior to the Bedouins and Arabs--even to the Greenlanders. I can, therefore, not conceive how this nation could once have been distinguished for wealth, bravery, and civilisation. On this day I proceeded on my journey about twenty-eight miles farther to Skalholt. For the first five miles we retraced our former road; then we turned to the left and traversed the beautiful long valley in which the Geyser is situated. For many miles we could see its clouds of steam rising to the sky. The roads were tolerable only when they passed along the sides of hills and mountains; in the plains they were generally marshy and full of water. We sometimes lost all traces of a road, and only pushed on towards the quarter in which the place of our destination was situated; and feared withal to sink at every pace into the soft and unresisting soil. I found the indolence of the Icelandic peasants quite unpardonable. All the valleys through which we passed were large morasses richly overgrown with grass. If the single parishes would unite to dig trenches and drain the soil, they would have the finest meadows. This is proved near the many precipices where the water has an outlet; in these spots the grass grows most luxuriantly, and daisies and herbs flourish there, and even wild clover. A few cottages are generally congregated on these oases. Before arriving at the village of Thorfastadir, we already perceived Hecla surrounded by the beautiful jokuls. I arrived at Thorfastadir while a funeral was going on. As I entered the church the mourners were busily seeking courage and consolation in the brandy-bottle. The law commands, indeed, that this be not done in the church; but if every one obeyed the law, what need would there be of judges? The Icelanders must think so, else they would discontinue the unseemly practice. When the priest came, a psalm or a prayer--I could not tell which it was, being Icelandic--was so earnestly shouted by peasants under the leadership of the priest and elders, that the good people waxed quite warm and out of breath. Then the priest placed himself before the coffin, which, for want of room, had been laid on the backs of the seats, and with a very loud voice read a prayer which lasted more than half an hour. With this the ceremony within the church was concluded, and the coffin was carried round the church to the grave, followed by the priest and the rest of the company. This grave was deeper than any I had ever seen. When the coffin had been lowered, the priest threw three handfuls of earth upon it, but none of the mourners followed his example. Among the earth which had been dug out of the grave I noticed four skulls, several human bones, and a board of a former coffin. These were all thrown in again upon the coffin, and the grave filled in presence of the priest and the people. One man trod the soil firm, then a little mound was made and covered with grass-plots which were lying ready. The whole business was completed with miraculous speed. The little town of Skalholt, my station this night, was once as celebrated in religious matters as Thingvalla had been politically famous. Here, soon after the introduction of Christianity, the first bishopric was founded in 1098, and the church is said to have been one of the largest and richest. Now Skalholt is a miserable place, and consists of three or four cottages, and a wretched wooden church, which may perhaps contain a hundred persons; it has not even its own priest, but belongs to Thorfastadir. My first business on arriving was to inspect the yet remaining relics of past ages. First I was shewn an oil-picture which hangs in the church, and is said to represent the first bishop of Skalholt, Thorlakur, who was worshipped almost as a saint for his strict and pious life. After this, preparations were made to clear away the steps of the altar and several boards of the flooring. I stood expectantly looking on, thinking that I should now have to descend into a vault to inspect the embalmed body of the bishop. I must confess this prospect was not the most agreeable, when I thought of the approaching night which I should have to spend in this church, perhaps immediately over the grave of the old skeleton. I had besides already had too much to do with the dead for one day, and could not rid myself of the unpleasant grave-odour which I had imbibed in Thorfastadir, and which seemed to cling to my dress and my nose. {41} I was therefore not a little pleased when, instead of the dreaded vault and mummy, I was only shewn a marble slab, on which were inscribed the usual notifications of the birth, death, &c. of this great bishop. Besides this, I saw an old embroidered stole and a simple golden chalice, both of which are said to be relics of the age of Thorlakar. Then we ascended into the so-called store-room, which is only separated from the lower portion of the church by a few boards, and which extends to the altar. Here are kept the bells and the organ, if the church possesses one, the provisions, and a variety of tools. They opened an immense chest for me there, which seemed to contain only large pieces of tallow made in the form of cheeses; but under this tallow I found the library, where I discovered an interesting treasure. This was, besides several very old books in the Icelandic tongue, three thick folio volumes, which I could read very easily; they were German, and contained Luther's doctrines, letters, epistles, &c. I had now seen all there was to be seen, and began to satisfy my physical wants by calling for some hot water to make coffee, &c. As usual, all the inhabitants of the place ranged themselves in and before the church, probably to increase their knowledge of the human race by studying my peculiarities. I soon, however, closed the door, and prepared a splendid couch for myself. At my first entrance into the church, I had noticed a long box, quite filled with sheep's wool. I threw my rugs over this, and slept as comfortably as in the softest bed. In the morning I carefully teased the wool up again, and no one could then have imagined where I had passed the night. Nothing amused me more, when I had lodgings of this description, than the curiosity of the people, who would rush in every morning, as soon as I opened the door. The first thing they said to each other was always, "Krar hefur hun sovid" (Where can she have slept?). The good people could not conceive how it was possible to spend a night _alone_ in a church surrounded by a churchyard; they perhaps considered me an evil spirit or a witch, and would too gladly have ascertained how such a creature slept. When I saw their disappointed faces, I had to turn away not to laugh at them. June 29th. Early the next morning I continued my journey. Not far from Skalholt we came to the river Thiorsa, which is deep and rapid. We crossed in a boat; but the horses had to swim after us. It is often very troublesome to make the horses enter these streams; they see at once that they will have to swim. The guide and boatmen cannot leave the shore till the horses have been forced into the stream; and even then they have to throw stones, to threaten them with the whip, and to frighten them by shouts and cries, to prevent them from returning. When we had made nearly twelve miles on marshy roads, we came to the beautiful waterfall of the Huitha. This fall is not so remarkable for its height, which is scarcely more than fifteen to twenty feet, as for its breadth, and for its quantity of water. Some beautiful rocks are so placed at the ledge of the fall, that they divide it into three parts; but it unites again immediately beneath them. The bed of the river, as well as its shores, is of lava. The colour of the water is also a remarkable feature in this river; it inclines so much to milky white, that, when the sun shines on it, it requires no very strong imaginative power to take the whole for milk. Nearly a mile above the fall we had to cross the Huitha, one of the largest rivers in Iceland. Thence the road lies through meadows, which are less marshy than the former ones, till it comes to a broad stream of lava, which announces the vicinity of the fearful volcano of Hecla. I had hitherto not passed over such an expanse of country in Iceland as that from the Geyser to this place without coming upon streams of lava. And this lava-stream seemed to have felt some pity for the beautiful meadows, for it frequently separated into two branches, and thus enclosed the verdant plain. But it could not withstand the violence of the succeeding masses; it had been carried on, and had spread death and destruction everywhere. The road to it, through plains covered with dark sand, and over steep hills intervening, was very fatiguing and laborious. We proceeded to the little village of Struvellir, where we stopped to give our horses a few hours' rest. Here we found a large assembly of men and animals. {42} It happened to be Sunday, and a warm sunny day, and so a very full service was held in the pretty little church. When it was over, I witnessed an amusing rural scene. The people poured out of the church,--I counted ninety-six, which is an extraordinarily numerous assemblage for Iceland,--formed into little groups, chatting and joking, not forgetting, however, to moisten their throats with brandy, of which they had taken care to bring an ample supply. Then they bridled their horses and prepared for departure; now the kisses poured in from all sides, and there was no end of leave-taking, for the poor people do not know whether they shall ever meet again, and when. In all Iceland welcome and farewell is expressed by a loud kiss,--a practice not very delightful for a non-Icelander, when one considers their ugly, dirty faces, the snuffy noses of the old people, and the filthy little children. But the Icelanders do not mind this. They all kissed the priest, and the priest kissed them; and then they kissed each other, till the kissing seemed to have no end. Rank is not considered in this ceremony; and I was not a little surprised to see how my guide, a common farm-labourer, kissed the six daughters of a judge, or the wife and children of a priest, or a judge and the priest themselves, and how they returned the compliment without reserve. Every country has its peculiar customs! The religious ceremonies generally begin about noon, and last two or three hours. There being no public inn in which to assemble, and no stable in which the horses can be fastened, all flock to the open space in front of the church, which thus becomes a very animated spot. All have to remain in the open air. When the service was over, I visited the priest, Herr Horfuson; he was kind enough to conduct me to the Salsun, nine miles distant, principally to engage a guide to Hecla for me. I was doubly rejoiced to have this good man at my side, as we had to cross a dangerous stream, which was very rapid, and so deep that the water rose to the horses' breasts. Although we raised our feet as high as possible, we were yet thoroughly wet. This wading across rivers is one of the most unpleasant modes of travelling. The horse swims more than it walks, and this creates a most disagreeable sensation; one does not know whither to direct one's eyes; to look into the stream would excite giddiness, and the sight of the shore is not much better, for that seems to move and to recede, because the horse, by the current, is forced a little way down the river. To my great comfort the priest rode by my side to hold me, in case I should not be able to keep my seat. I passed fortunately through this probation; and when we reached the other shore, Herr Horfuson pointed out to me how far the current had carried us down the river. The valley in which Salsun and the Hecla are situated is one of those which are found only in Iceland. It contains the greatest contrasts. Here are charming fields covered with a rich green carpet of softest grass, and there again hills of black, shining lava; even the fertile plains are traversed by streams of lava and spots of sand. Mount Hecla notoriously has the blackest lava and the blackest sand; and it may be imagined how the country looks in its immediate neighbourhood. One hill only to the left of Hecla is reddish brown, and covered with sand and stones of a similar colour. The centre is much depressed, and seems to form a large crater. Mount Hecla is directly united with the lava-mountains piled round it, and seems from the plain only as a higher point. It is surrounded by several glaciers, whose dazzling fields of snow descend far down, and whose brilliant plains have probably never been trod by human feet; several of its sides were also covered with snow. To the left of the valley near Salsun, and at the foot of a lava-hill, lies a lovely lake, on whose shores a numerous flock of sheep were grazing. Near it rises another beautiful hill, so solitary and isolated, that it looks as if it had been cast out by its neighbours and banished hither. Indeed, the whole landscape here is so peculiarly Icelandic, so strange and remarkable, that it will ever remain impressed on my memory. Salsun lies at the foot of Mount Hecla, but is not seen before one reaches it. Arrived at Salsun, our first care was to seek a guide, and to bargain for every thing requisite for the ascension of the mountain. The guide was to procure a horse for me, and to take me and my former guide to the summit of Hecla. He demanded five thaler and two marks (about fifteen shillings), a most exorbitant sum, on which he could live for a month. But what could we do? He knew very well that there was no other guide to be had, and so I was forced to acquiesce. When all was arranged, my kind companion left me, wishing me success on my arduous expedition. I now looked out for a place in which I could spend the night, and a filthy hole fell to my lot. A bench, rather shorter that my body, was put into it, to serve as my bed; beside it hung a decayed fish, which had infected the whole room with its smell. I could scarcely breathe; and as there was no other outlet, I was obliged to open the door, and thus receive the visits of the numerous and amiable inhabitants. What a strengthening and invigorating preparation for the morrow's expedition! At the foot of Mount Hecla, and especially in this village, every thing seems to be undermined. Nowhere, not even on Mount Vesuvius, had I heard such hollow, droning sounds as here,--the echoes of the heavy footsteps of the peasants. These sounds made a very awful impression on me as I lay all night alone in that dark hole. My Hecla guide, as I shall call him to distinguish him from my other guide, advised me to start at two o'clock in the morning, to which I assented, well knowing, however, that we should not have mounted our horses before five o'clock. As I had anticipated, so it happened. At half-past five we were quite prepared and ready for departure. Besides bread and cheese, a bottle of water for myself, and one of brandy for my guides, we were also provided with long sticks, tipped with iron points to sound the depth of the snow, and to lean upon. We were favoured by a fine warm sunny morning, and galloped briskly over the fields and the adjoining plains of sand. My guide considered the fine weather a very lucky omen, and told me that M. Geimard, the before-mentioned French scholar, had been compelled to wait three days for fine weather. Nine years had elapsed, and no one had ascended the mountain since then. A prince of Denmark, who travelled through Iceland some years before, had been there, but had returned without effecting his purpose. Our road at first led us through beautiful fields, and then over plains of black sand enclosed on all sides by streams, hillocks, and mountains of piled-up lava. Closer and closer these fearful masses approach, and scarcely permit a passage through a narrow cleft; we had to climb over blocks and hills of lava, where it is difficult to find a firm resting-place for the foot. The lava rolled beside and behind us, and we had to proceed carefully not to fall or be hit by the rolling lava. But most dangerous were the chasms filled with snow over which we had to pass; the snow had been softened by the warmth of the season, so that we sank into it nearly every step, or, what was worse, slipped back more than we had advanced. I scarcely think there can be another mountain whose ascent offers so many difficulties. After a labour of about three hours and a half we neared the summit of the mountain, where we were obliged to leave our horses. I should, indeed, have preferred to do so long before, as I was apprehensive of the poor animals falling as they climbed over these precipices--one might almost call them rolling mountains--but my guide would not permit it. Sometimes we came to spots where they were useful, and then he maintained that I must ride as far as possible to reserve my strength for the remaining difficulties. And he was right; I scarcely believe I should have been able to go through it on foot, for when I thought we were near the top, hills of lava again rose between us, and we seemed farther from our journey's end than before. My guide told me that he had never taken any one so far on horseback, and I can believe it. Walking was bad enough--riding was fearful. At every fresh declivity new scenes of deserted, melancholy districts were revealed to us; every thing was cold and dead, every where there was black burnt lava. It was a painful feeling to see so much, and behold nothing but a stony desert, an immeasurable chaos. There were still two declivities before us,--the last, but the worst. We had to climb steep masses of lava, sharp and pointed, which covered the whole side of the mountain. I do not know how often I fell and cut my hands on the jagged points of the lava. It was a fearful journey! The dazzling whiteness of the snow contrasted with the bright black lava beside it had an almost blinding effect. When crossing fields of snow I did not look at the lava; for having tried to do so once or twice, I could not see my way afterwards, and had nearly grown snow-blind. [Picture: Hecla] After two hours' more labour we reached the summit of the mountain. I stood now on Mount Hecla, and eagerly sought the crater on the snowless top, but did not find it. I was the more surprised, as I had read detailed accounts of it in several descriptions of travel. I traversed the whole summit of the mountain and climbed to the adjoining jokul, but did not perceive an opening, a fissure, a depressed space, nor any sign of a crater. Lower down in the sides of the mountain, but not in the real cone, I saw some clefts and fissures from which the streams of lava probably poured. The height of the mountain is said to be 4300 feet. During the last hour of our ascent the sun had grown dim. Clouds of mist blown from the neighbouring glaciers enshrouded the hill-tops, and soon enveloped us so closely that we could scarcely see ten paces before us. At last they dissolved, fortunately not in rain but in snow, which profusely covered the black uneven lava. The snow remained on the ground, and the thermometer stood at one degree of cold. In a little while the clear blue sky once more was visible, and the sun again shone over us. I remained on the top till the clouds had separated beneath us, and afforded me a better distant view over the country. My pen is unfortunately too feeble to bring vividly before my readers the picture such as I beheld it here, and to describe to them the desolation, the extent and height of these lava-masses. I seemed to stand in a crater, and the whole country appeared only a burnt-out fire. Here lava was piled up in steep inaccessible mountains; there stony rivers, whose length and breadth seemed immeasurable, filled the once-verdant fields. Every thing was jumbled together, and yet the course of the last eruption could be distinctly traced. I stood there, in the centre of horrible precipices, caves, streams, valleys, and mountains, and scarcely comprehended how it was possible to penetrate so far, and was overcome with terror at the thought which involuntarily obtruded itself--the possibility of never finding my way again out of these terrible labyrinths. Here, from the top of Mount Hecla, I could see far into the uninhabited country, the picture of a petrified creation, dead and motionless, and yet magnificent,--a picture which once seen can never again fade from the memory, and which alone amply compensates for all the previous troubles and dangers. A whole world of glaciers, lava-mountains, snow and ice-fields, rivers and lakes, into which no human foot has ever ventured to penetrate. How nature must have laboured and raged till these forms were created! And is it over now? Has the destroying element exhausted itself; or does it only rest, like the hundred-headed Hydra, to break forth with renewed strength, and desolate those regions which, pushed to the verge of the sea-shore, encircle the sterile interior as a modest wreath? I thank God that he has permitted me to behold this chaos in his creation; but I thank him more heartily that he has placed me to dwell in regions where the sun does more than merely give light; where it inspires and fertilises animals and plants, and fills the human heart with joy and thankfulness towards its Creator. {43} The Westmann Isles, which are said to be visible from the top of Hecla, I could not see; they were probably covered by clouds. During the ascent of the Hecla I had frequently touched lava,--sometimes involuntarily, when I fell; sometimes voluntarily, to find a hot or at least a warm place. I was unfortunate enough only to find cold ones. The falling snow was therefore most welcome, and I looked anxiously around to see a place where the subterranean heat would melt it. I should then have hastened thither and found what I sought. But unfortunately the snow remained unmelted every where. I could neither see any clouds of smoke, although I gazed steadily at the mountain for hours, and could from my post survey it far down the sides. As we descended we found the snow melting at a depth of 500 to 600 feet; lower down, the whole mountain smoked, which I thought was the consequence of the returning warmth of the sun, for my thermometer now stood at nine degrees of heat. I have noticed the same circumstance often on unvolcanic mountains. The spots from which the smoke rose were also cold. The smooth jet-black, bright, and dense lava is only found on the mountain itself and in its immediate vicinity. But all lava is not the same: there is jagged, glassy, and porous lava; the former is black, and so is the sand which covers one side of Hecla. The farther the lava and sand are from the mountain, the more they lose this blackness, and their colour plays into iron-colour and even into light-grey; but the lighter-coloured lava generally retains the brightness and smoothness of the black lava. After a troublesome descent, having spent twelve hours on this excursion, we arrived safely at Salsun; and I was on the point of returning to my lodging, somewhat annoyed at the prospect of spending another night in such a hole, when my guide surprised me agreeably by the proposition to return to Struvellir at once. The horses, he said, were sufficiently rested, and I could get a good room there in the priest's house. I soon packed, and in a short time we were again on horseback. The second time I came to the deep Rangaa, I rode across fearlessly, and needed no protection at any side. Such is man: danger only alarms him the first time; when he has safely surmounted it once, he scarcely thinks of it the second time, and wonders how he can have felt any fear. I saw five little trees standing in a field near the stream. The stems of these, which, considering the scarcity of trees in Iceland, may be called remarkable phenomena, were crooked and knotty, but yet six or seven feet high, and about four or five inches in diameter. As my guide had foretold, I found a very comfortable room and a good bed in the priest's house. Herr Horfuson is one of the best men I have ever met with. He eagerly sought opportunities for giving me pleasure, and to him I owe several fine minerals and an Icelandic book of the year 1601. May God reward his kindness and benevolence! July 1st. We retraced our steps as far as the river Huitha, over which we rowed, and then turned in another direction. Our journey led us through beautiful valleys, many of them producing abundance of grass; but unfortunately so much moss grew among it, that these large plains were not available for pastures, and only afforded comfort to travellers by their aspect of cheerfulness. They were quite dry. The valley in which Hjalmholm, our resting-place for this night, was situated, is traversed by a stream of lava, which had, however, been modest enough not to fill up the whole valley, but to leave a space for the pretty stream Elvas, and for some fields and hillocks, on which many cottages stood. It was one of the most populous valleys I had seen in Iceland. Hjalmholm is situated on a hill. In it lives the Sysselmann of the Rangaar district, in a large and beautiful house such as I saw no where in Iceland except in Reikjavik. He had gone to the capital of the island as member of the Allthing; but his daughters received me very hospitably and kindly. We talked and chatted much; I tried to display my knowledge of the Danish language before them, and must often have made use of curious phrases, for the girls could not contain their laughter. But that did not abash me; I laughed with them, applied to my dictionary, which I carried with me, and chatted on. They seemed to gather no very high idea of the beauty of my countrywomen from my personal appearance; for which I humbly crave the forgiveness of my countrywomen, assuring them that no one regrets the fact more than I do. But dame Nature always treats people of my years very harshly, and sets a bad example to youth of the respect due to age. Instead of honouring us and giving us the preference, she patronises the young folks, and every maiden of sixteen can turn up her nose at us venerable matrons. Besides my natural disqualifications, the sharp air and the violent storms to which I had been subjected had disfigured my face very much. They had affected me more than the burning heat of the East. I was very brown, my lips were cracked, and my nose, alas, even began to rebel against its ugly colour. It seemed anxious to possess a new, dazzling white, tender skin, and was casting off the old one in little bits. The only circumstance which reinstated me in the good opinion of the young girls was, that having brushed my hair unusually far out of my face, a white space became visible. The girls all cried out simultaneously, quite surprised and delighted: "Hun er quit" (she is white). I could not refrain from laughing, and bared my arm to prove to them that I did not belong to the Arab race. A great surprise was destined me in this house; for, as I was ransacking the Sysselmann's book-case, I found Rotteck's Universal History, a German Lexicon, and several poems and writings of German poets. July 2d. The way from Kalmannstunga to Thingvalla leads over nothing but lava, and the one to-day went entirely through marshes. As soon as we had crossed one, another was before us. Lava seemed to form the soil here, for little portions of this mineral rose like islands out of the marshes. The country already grew more open, and we gradually lost sight of the glaciers. The high mountains on the left seemed like hills in the distance, and the nearer ones were really hills. After riding about nine miles we crossed the large stream of Elvas in a boat, and then had to tread carefully across a very long, narrow bank, over a meadow which was quite under water. If a traveller had met us on this bank, I do not know what we should have done; to turn round would have been as dangerous as to sink into the morass. Fortunately one never meets any travellers in Iceland. Beyond the dyke the road runs for some miles along the mountains and hills, which all consist of lava, and are of a very dark, nearly black colour. The stones on these hills were very loose; in the plain below many colossal pieces were lying, which must have fallen down; and many others threatened to fall every moment. We passed the dangerous spot safely, without having had to witness such a scene. I often heard a hollow sound among these hills; I at first took it for distant thunder, and examined the horizon to discover the approaching storm. But when I saw neither clouds nor lightning, I perceived that I must seek the origin of the sounds nearer, and that they proceeded from the falling portions of rock. The higher mountains to the left fade gradually more and more from view; but the river Elvas spreads in such a manner, and divides into so many branches, that one might mistake it for a lake with many islands. It flows into the neighbouring sea, whose expanse becomes visible after surmounting a few more small hills. The vale of Reikum, which we now entered, is, like that of Reikholt, rich in hot springs, which are congregated partly in the plain, partly on or behind the hills, in a circumference of between two and three miles. When we had reached the village of Reikum I sent my effects at once to the little church, took a guide, and proceeded to the boiling springs. I found very many, but only two remarkable ones; these, however, belong to the most noteworthy of their kind. The one is called the little Geyser, the other the Bogensprung. The little Geyser has an inner basin of about three feet diameter. The water boils violently at a depth of from two to three feet, and remains within its bounds till it begins to spout, when it projects a beautiful voluminous steam of from 20 to 30 feet high. At half-past eight in the evening I had the good fortune to see one of these eruptions, and needed not, as I had done at the great Geyser, to bivouac near it for days and nights. The eruption lasted some time, and was tolerably equable; only sometimes the column of water sank a little, to rise to its former height with renewed force. After forty minutes it fell quite down into the basin again. The stones we threw in, it rejected at once, or in a few seconds, shivered into pieces, to a height of about 12 to 15 feet. Its bulk must have been 1 to 1.5 feet in diameter. My guide assured me that this spring generally plays only twice, rarely thrice, in twenty-four hours, and not, as I have seen it stated, every six minutes. I remained near it till midnight, but saw no other eruption. This spring very much resembles the Strukker near the great Geyser, the only difference being that the water sinks much lower in the latter. The second of the two remarkable springs, the arched spring, is situated near the little Geyser, on the declivity of a hill. I had never seen such a curious formation for the bed of a spring as this is. It has no basin, but lies half open at your feet, in a little grotto, which is separated into various cavities and holes, and which is half-surrounded by a wall of rock bending over it slightly at a height of about 2 feet, and then rises 10 to 12 feet higher. This spring never is at rest more than a minute; then it begins to rise and boil quickly, and emits a voluminous column, which, striking against the projecting rock, is flattened by it, and rises thence like an arched fan. The height of this peculiarly-spread jet of water may be about 12 feet, the arch it describes 15 to 20 feet, and its breadth 3 to 8 feet. The time of eruption is often longer than that of repose. After an eruption the water always sinks a few feet into the cave, and for 15 or 20 seconds admits of a glance into this wonderful grotto. But it rises again immediately, fills the grotto and the basin, which is only a continuation of the grotto, and springs again. I watched this miraculous play of nature for more than an hour, and could not tear myself from it. This spring, which is certainly the only one of its kind, gratified me much more than the little Geyser. There is another spring called the roaring Geyser; but it is nothing more than a misshapen hole, in which one hears the water boil, but cannot see it. The noise is, also, not at all considerable. July 3d. Near Reikum we crossed a brook into which all the hot springs flow, and which has a pretty fall. We then ascended the adjoining mountain, and rode full two hours on the high plain. The plain itself was monotonous, as it was only covered with lava-stones and moss, but the prospect into the valley was varied and beautiful. Vale and sea were spread before me, and I saw the Westmann Islands, with their beautiful hills, which the envious clouds had concealed from me on the Hecla, lying in the distance. Below me stood some houses in the port-town, Eierbach, and near them the waters of the Elvas flow into the sea. At the end of this mountain-level a valley was situated, which was also filled with lava, but with that jagged black lava which presents such a beautiful appearance. Immense streams crossed it from all sides, so that it almost resembled a black lake separated from the sea by a chain of equally black mountains. We descended into this sombre vale through piles of lava and fields of snow, and went on through valleys and chasms, over fields of lava, plains of meadow-land, past dark mountains and hills, till we reached the chief station of my Icelandic journey, the town of Reikjavik. The whole country between Reikum and Reikjavik, a distance of 45 to 50 miles, is, for the most part, uninhabited. Here and there, in the fields of lava, stand little pyramids of the same substance, which serve as landmarks; and there are two houses built for such persons as are obliged to travel during the winter. But we found much traffic on the road, and often overtook caravans of 15 to 20 horses. Being the beginning of August, it was the time of trade and traffic in Iceland. Then the country people travel to Reikjavik from considerable distances, to change their produce and manufactures, partly for money, partly for necessaries and luxuries. At this period the merchants and factors have not hands enough to barter the goods or close the accounts which the peasants wish to settle for the whole year. At this season an unusual commotion reigns in Reikjavik. Numerous groups of men and horses fill the streets; goods are loaded and unloaded; friends who have not met for a year or more welcome each other, others take leave. On one spot curious tents {44} are erected, before which children play; on another drunken men stagger along, or gallop on horseback, so that one is terrified, and fears every moment to see them fall. This unusual traffic unfortunately only lasts six or eight days. The peasant hastens home to his hay-harvest; the merchant must quickly regulate the produce and manufactures he has purchased, and load his ships with them, so that they may sail and reach their destination before the storms of the autumnal equinox. Miles. From Reikjavik to Thingvalla is 45 From Thingvalla to the Geyser 36 From the Geyser to Skalholt 28 From Skalholt to Salsun 36 From Salsun to Struvellir 9 From Struvellir to Hjalmholm 28 From Hjalmholm to Reikum 32 From Reikum to Reikjavik 45 259 CHAPTER VII During my travels in Iceland I had of course the opportunity of becoming acquainted with its inhabitants, their manners and customs. I must confess that I had formed a higher estimate of the peasants. When we read in the history of that country that the first inhabitants had emigrated thither from civilised states; that they had brought knowledge and religion with them; when we hear of the simple good-hearted people, and their patriarchal mode of life in the accounts of former travellers, and which we know that nearly every peasant in Iceland can read and write, and that at least a Bible, but generally other religions books also, are found in every cot,--one feels inclined to consider this nation the best and most civilised in Europe. I deemed their morality sufficiently secured by the absence of foreign intercourse, by their isolated position, and the poverty of the country. No large town there affords opportunity for pomp or gaiety, or for the commission of smaller or greater sins. Rarely does a foreigner enter the island, whose remoteness, severe climate, inhospitality, and poverty, are uninviting. The grandeur and peculiarity of its natural formation alone makes it interesting, and that does not suffice for the masses. I therefore expected to find Iceland a real Arcadia in regard to its inhabitants, and rejoiced at the anticipation of seeing such an Idyllic life realised. I felt so happy when I set foot on the island that I could have embraced humanity. But I was soon undeceived. I have often been impatient at my want of enthusiasm, which must be great, as I see every thing in a more prosaic form than other travellers. I do not maintain that my view is _right_, but I at least possess the virtue of describing facts as I see them, and do not repeat them from the accounts of others. I have already described the impoliteness and heartlessness of the so-called higher classes, and soon lost the good opinion I had formed of them. I now came to the working classes in the vicinity of Reikjavik. The saying often applied to the Swiss people, "No money, no Swiss," one may also apply to the Icelanders. And of this fact I can cite several examples. Scarcely had they heard that I, a foreigner, had arrived, than they frequently came to me, and brought quite common objects, such as can be found any where in Iceland, and expected me to pay dearly for them. At first I purchased from charity, or to be rid of their importunities, and threw the things away again; but I was soon obliged to give this up, as I should else have been besieged from morning to night. Their anxiety to gain money without labour annoyed me less than the extortionate prices with which they tried to impose on a stranger. For a beetle, such as could be found under every stone, they asked 5 kr. (about 2d.); as much for a caterpillar, of which thousands were lying on the beach; and for a common bird's egg, 10 to 20 kr. (4d. to 8d.) Of course, when I declined buying, they reduced their demand, sometimes to less than half the original sum; but this was certainly not in consequence of their honesty. The baker in whose house I lodged also experienced the selfishness of these people. He had engaged a poor labourer to tar his house, who, when he had half finished his task, heard of other employment. He did not even take the trouble to ask the baker to excuse him for a few days; he went away, and did not return to finish the interrupted work for a whole week. This conduct was the more inexcusable as his children received bread, and even butter, twice a week from the baker. I was fortunate enough to experience similar treatment. Herr Knudson had engaged a guide for me, with whom I was to take my departure in a few days. But it happened that the magistrate wished also to take a trip, and sent for my guide. The latter expected to be better paid by him, and went; he did not come to me to discharge himself, but merely sent me word on the eve of my departure, that he was ill, and could therefore not go with me. I could enumerate many more such examples, which do not much tend to give a high estimate of Icelandic morality. I consoled myself with the hope of finding simplicity and honesty in the more retired districts, and therefore anticipated a twofold pleasure from my journey into the interior. I found many virtues, but unfortunately so many faults, that I am no longer inclined to exalt the Icelandic peasants as examples. The best of their virtues is their honesty. I could leave my baggage unguarded any where for hours, and never missed the least article, for they did not even permit their children to touch any thing. In this point they are so conscientious, that if a peasant comes from a distance, and wishes to rest in a cottage, he never fails to knock at the door, even if it is open. If no one calls "come in," he does not enter. One might fearlessly sleep with open doors. Crimes are of such rare occurrence here, that the prison of Reikjavik was changed into a dwelling-house for the chief warden many years since. Small crimes are punished summarily, either in Reikjavik or at the seat of the Sysselmann. Criminals of a deeper dye are sent to Copenhagen, and are sentenced and punished there. My landlord at Reikjavik, the master-baker Bernhoft, told me that only one crime had been committed in Iceland during the thirteen years that he had resided there. This was the murder of an illegitimate child immediately after its birth. The most frequently occurring crime is cow-stealing. I was much surprised to find that nearly all the Icelanders can read and write. The latter quality only was somewhat rarer with the women. Youths and men often wrote a firm, good hand. I also found books in every cottage, the Bible always, and frequently poems and stories, sometimes even in the Danish language. They also comprehend very quickly; when I opened my map before them, they soon understood its use and application. Their quickness is doubly surprising, if we consider that every father instructs his own children, and sometimes the neighbouring orphans. This is of course only done in the winter; but as winter lasts eight months in Iceland, it is long enough. There is only one school in the whole island, which originally was in Bessestadt, but has been removed to Reikjavik since 1846. In this school only youths who can read and write are received, and they are either educated for priests, and may complete their studies here, or for doctors, apothecaries, or judges, when they must complete their studies in Copenhagen. Besides theology, geometry, geography, history, and several languages, such as Latin, Danish, and, since 1846, German and also French, are taught in the school of Reikjavik. The chief occupation of the Icelandic peasants consists in fishing, which is most industriously pursued in February, March, and April. Then the inhabitants of the interior come to the coasting villages and hire themselves to the dwellers on the beach, the real fishermen, as assistants, taking a portion of the fish as their wages. Fishing is attended to at other times also, but then exclusively by the real fishermen. In the months of July and August many of the latter go into the interior and assist in the hay-harvest, for which they receive butter, sheep's wool, and salt lamb. Others ascend the mountains and gather the Iceland moss, of which they make a decoction, which they drink mixed with milk, or they grind it to flour, and bake flat cakes of it, which serve them in place of bread. The work of the women consists in the preparation of the fish for drying, smoking, or salting; in tending the cattle, in knitting, sometimes in gathering moss. In winter both men and women knit and weave. As regards the hospitality of the Icelanders, {45} I do not think one can give them so very much credit for it. It is true that priests and peasants gladly receive any European traveller, and treat him to every thing in their power; but they know well that the traveller who comes to their island is neither an adventurer nor a beggar, and will therefore pay them well. I did not meet one peasant or priest who did not accept the proffered gift without hesitation. But I must say of the priests that they were every where obliging and ready to serve me, and satisfied with the smallest gift; and their charges, when I required horses for my excursions, were always moderate. I only found the peasant less interested in districts where a traveller scarcely ever appeared; but in such places as were more visited, their charges were often exorbitant. For example, I had to pay 20 to 30 kr. (8d. to 1s.) for being ferried over a river; and then my guide and I only were rowed in the boat, and the horses had to swim. The guide who accompanied me on the Hecla also overcharged me; but he knew that I was forced to take him, as there is no choice of guides, and one does not give up the ascent for the sake of a little money. This conduct shows that the character of the Icelanders does not belong to the best; and that they take advantage of travellers with as much shrewdness as the landlords and guides on the continent. A besetting sin of the Icelanders is their drunkenness. Their poverty would probably not be so great if they were less devoted to brandy, and worked more industriously. It is dreadful to see what deep root this vice has taken. Not only on Sundays, but also on week-days, I met peasants who were so intoxicated that I was surprised how they could keep in their saddle. I am, however, happy to say that I never saw a woman in this degrading condition. Another of their passions is snuff. They chew and snuff tobacco with the same infatuation as it is smoked in other countries. But their mode of taking it is very peculiar. Most of the peasants, and even many of the priests, have no proper snuff-box, but only a box turned of bone, shaped like a powder-flask. When they take snuff, they throw back their head, insert the point of the flask in their nose, and shake a dose of tobacco into it. They then, with the greatest amiability, offer it to their neighbour, he to his, and so it goes round till it reaches the owner again. I think, indeed, that the Icelanders are second to no nation in uncleanliness; not even to the Greenlanders, Esquimaux, or Laplanders. If I were to describe a portion only of what I experienced, my readers would think me guilty of gross exaggeration; I prefer, therefore, to leave it to their imagination; merely saying that they cannot conceive any thing too dirty for Iceland delicacy. Beside this very estimable quality, they are also insuperably lazy. Not far from the coast are immense meadows, so marshy that it is dangerous to cross them. The fault lies less in the soil than the people. If they would only make ditches, and thus dry the ground, they would have the most splendid grass. That this would grow abundantly is proved by the little elevations which rise from above the marshes, and which are thickly covered with grass, herbage, and wild clover. I also passed large districts covered with good soil, and some where the soil was mixed with sand. I frequently debated with Herr Boge, who has lived in Iceland for forty years, and is well versed in farming matters, whether it would not be possible to produce important pasture-grounds and hay-fields with industry and perseverance. He agreed with me, and thought that even potato-fields might be reclaimed, if only the people were not so lazy, preferring to suffer hunger and resign all the comforts of cleanliness rather than to work. What nature voluntarily gives, they are satisfied with, and it never occurs to them to force more from her. If a few German peasants were transported hither, what a different appearance the country would soon have! The best soil in Iceland is on the Norderland. There are a few potato-grounds there, and some little trees, which, without any cultivation, have reached a height of seven to eight feet. Herr Boge, established here for thirty years, had planted some mountain-ash and birch-trees, which had grown to a height of sixteen feet. In the Norderland, and every where except on the coast, the people live by breeding cattle. Many a peasant there possesses from two to four hundred sheep, ten to fifteen cows, and ten to twelve horses. There are not many who are so rich, but at all events they are better off than the inhabitants of the sea-coast. The soil there is for the most part bad, and they are therefore nearly all compelled to have recourse to fishing. Before quitting Iceland, I must relate a tradition told me by many Icelanders, not only by peasants, but also by people of the so-called higher classes, and who all implicitly believe it. It is asserted that the inhospitable interior is likewise populated, but by a peculiar race of men, to whom alone the paths through these deserts are known. These savages have no intercourse with their fellow-countrymen during the whole year, and only come to one of the ports in the beginning of July, for one day at the utmost, to buy several necessaries, for which they pay in money. They then vanish suddenly, and no one knows in which direction they are gone. No one knows them; they never bring their wives or children with them, and never reply to the question whence they come. Their language, also, is said to be more difficult than that of the other inhabitants of Iceland. One gentleman, whom I do not wish to name, expressed a wish to have the command of twenty to twenty-five well-armed soldiers, to search for these wild men. The people who maintain that they have seen these children of nature, assert that they are taller and stronger than other Icelanders; that their horses' hoofs, instead of being shod earth iron, have shoes of horn; and that they have much money, which they can only have acquired by pillage. When I inquired what respectable inhabitants of Iceland had been robbed by these savages, and when and where, no one could give me an answer. For my part, I scarcely think that one man, certainly not a whole race, could live by pillage in Iceland. DEPARTURE FROM ICELAND.--JOURNEY TO COPENHAGEN. I had seen all there was to be seen in Iceland, had finished all my excursions, and awaited with inexpressible impatience the sailing of the vessel which was destined to bring me nearer my beloved home. But I had to stay four very long weeks in Reikjavik, my patience being more exhausted from day to day, and had after this long delay to be satisfied with the most wretched accommodation. The delay was the more tantalising, as several ships left the port in the mean time, and Herr Knudson, with whom I had crossed over from Copenhagen, invited me to accompany him on his return; but all the vessels went to England or to Spain, and I did not wish to visit either of these countries. I was waiting for an opportunity to go to Scandinavia, to have at least a glance at these picturesque districts. At last there were two sloops which intended to sail towards the end of July. The better of the two went to Altona; the destination of the other was Copenhagen. I had intended to travel in the former; but a merchant of Reikjavik had already engaged the only berth,--for there rarely is more than one in such a small vessel,--and I deemed myself lucky to obtain the one in the other ship. Herr Bernhoft thought, indeed, that the vessel might be too bad for such a long journey, and proposed to examine it, and report on its condition. But as I had quite determined to go to Denmark, I requested him to waive the examination, and agree with the captain about my passage. If, as I anticipated, he found the vessel too wretched, his warnings might have shaken my resolution, and I wished to avoid that contingency. We heard, soon, that a young Danish girl, who had been in service in Iceland, wished to return by the same vessel. She had been suffering so much from home-sickness, that she was determined, under any circumstances, to see her beloved fatherland again. If, thought I to myself, the home-sickness is powerful enough to make this girl indifferent to the danger, longing must take its place in my breast and effect the same result. Our sloop bore the consolatory name of Haabet (hope), and belonged to the merchant Fromm, in Copenhagen. Our departure had been fixed for the 26th of July, and after that day I scarcely dared to leave my house, being in constant expectation of a summons on board. Violent storms unfortunately prevented our departure, and I was not called till the 29th of July, when I had to bid farewell to Iceland. This was comparatively easy. Although I had seen many wonderful views, many new and interesting natural phenomena, I yet longed for my accustomed fields, in which we do not find magnificent and overpowering scenes, but lovelier and more cheerful ones. The separation from Herr Knudson and the family of Bernhoft was more difficult. I owed all the kindness I had experienced in the island, every good advice and useful assistance in my travels, only to them. My gratitude to these kind and good people will not easily fade from my heart. At noon I was already on board, and had leisure to admire all the gay flags and streamers with which the French frigate anchoring here had been decked, to celebrate the anniversary of the July revolution. I endeavoured to turn my attention as much as possible to exterior objects, and not to look at our ship, for all that I had involuntarily seen had not impressed me very favourably. I determined also not to enter the cabin till we were in the open sea and the pilots had left our sloop, so that all possibility of return would be gone. Our crew consisted of captain, steersman, two sailors, and a cabin-boy, who bore the title of cook; we added that of valet, as he was appointed to wait on us. When the pilots had left us, I sought the entrance of the cabin,--the only, and therefore the common apartment. It consisted of a hole two feet broad, which gaped at my feet, and in which a perpendicular ladder of five steps was inserted. I stood before it puzzled to know which would be the best mode of descent, but knew no other way than to ask our host the captain. He shewed it me at once, by sitting at the entrance and letting his feet down. Let the reader imagine such a proceeding with our long dresses, and, above all, in bad weather, when the ship was pitched about by storms. But the thought that many other people are worse off, and can get on, was always the anchor of consolation to which I held; I argued with myself that I was made of the same stuff as other human beings, only spoiled and pampered, but that I could bear what they bore. In consequence of this self-arguing, I sat down at once, tried the new sliding-ladder, and arrived below in safety. I had first to accustom my eyes to the darkness which reigned here, the hatches being constructed to admit the light very sparingly. I soon, however, saw too much; for all was raggedness, dirt, and disorder. But I will describe matters in the order in which they occurred to me; for, as I flatter myself that many of my countrywomen will in spirit make this journey with me, and as many of them probably never had the opportunity of being in such a vessel, I wish to describe it to them very accurately. All who are accustomed to the sea will testify that I have adhered strictly to the truth. But to return to the sloop. Its age emulated mine, she being a relic of the last century. At that time little regard was paid to the convenience of passengers, and the space was all made available for freight; a fact which cannot surprise us, as the seaman's life is passed on deck, and the ship was not built for travellers. The entire length of the cabin from one berth to the other was ten feet; the breadth was six feet. The latter space was made still narrower by a box on one side, and by a little table and two little seats on the other, so that only sufficient space remained to pass through. At dinner or supper, the ladies--the Danish girl and myself--sat on the little benches, where we were so squeezed, that we could scarcely move; the two cavaliers--the captain and the steersman--were obliged to stand before the table, and eat their meals in that position. The table was so small that they were obliged to hold their plates in their hands. In short, every thing shewed the cabin was made only for the crew, not for the passengers. The air in this enclosure was also not of the purest; for, besides that it formed our bed-room, dining-room, and drawing-room, it was also used as store-room, for in the side cupboards provisions of various kinds were stored, also oil-colours, and a variety of other matter. I preferred to sit on the deck, exposed to the cold and the storm, or to be bathed by a wave, than to be half stifled below. Sometimes, however, I was obliged to descend, either when rain and storms were too violent, or when the ship was so tossed by contrary winds that the deck was not safe. The rolling and pitching of our little vessel was often so terrible, that we ladies could neither sit nor stand, and were therefore obliged to lie down in the miserable berths for many a weary day. How I envied my companion! she could sleep day and night, which I could not. I was nearly always awake, much to my discomfort; for the hatches and the entrance were closed during the storm, and an Egyptian darkness, as well as a stifling atmosphere, filled the cabin. In regard to food, all passengers, captain and crew, ate of the same dish. The morning meal consisted of miserable tea, or rather of nauseous water having the colour of tea. The sailors imbibed theirs without sugar, but the captain and the steersman took a small piece of candied sugar, which does not melt so quickly as the refined sugar, in their mouth, and poured down cup after cup of tea, and ate ship's biscuit and butter to it. The dinner fare varied. The first day we had salt meat, which is soaked the evening before, and boiled the next day in sea-water. It was so salt, so hard, and so tough, that only a sailor's palate can possibly enjoy it. Instead of soup, vegetables, and pudding, we had pearl-barley boiled in water, without salt or butter; to which treacle and vinegar was added at the dinner-table. All the others considered this a delicacy, and marvelled at my depraved taste when I declared it to be unpalatable. The second day brought a piece of bacon, boiled in sea-water, with the barley repeated. On the third we had cod-fish with peas. Although the latter were boiled hard and without butter, they were the most eatable of all the dishes. On the fourth day the bill of fare of the first was repeated, and the same course followed again. At the end of every dinner we had black coffee. The supper was like the breakfast,--tea-water, ship's biscuit and butter. I wished to have provided myself with some chickens, eggs, and potatoes in Reikjavik, but I could not obtain any of these luxuries. Very few chickens are kept--only the higher officials or merchants have them; eggs of eider-ducks and other birds may often be had, but more are never collected than are wanted for the daily supply, and then only in spring; for potatoes the season was not advanced enough. My readers have now a picture of the luxurious life I led on board the ship. Had I been fortunate enough to voyage in a better vessel, where the passengers are more commodiously lodged and better fed, the seasickness would certainly not have attacked me; but in consequence of the stifling atmosphere of the cabin and the bad food, I suffered from it the first day. But on the second I was well again, regained my appetite, and ate salt meat, bacon, and peas as well as a sailor; the stockfish, the barley, and the coffee and tea, I left untouched. A real sailor never drinks water; and this observation of mine was confirmed by our captain and steersman: instead of beer or wine, they took tea, and, except at meals, cold tea. On Sunday evenings we had a grand supper, for the captain had eight eggs, which he had brought from Denmark, boiled for us four people. The crew had a few glasses of punch-essence mixed in their tea. As my readers are now acquainted with the varied bill of fare in such a ship, I will say a few words of the table-linen. This consisted only of an old sailcloth, which was spread over the table, and looked so dirty and greasy that I thought it would be much better and more agreeable to leave the table uncovered. But I soon repented the unwise thought, and discovered how important this cloth was. One morning I saw our valet treating a piece of sailcloth quite outrageously: he had spread it upon the deck, stood upon it, and brushed it clean with the ship's broom. I recognised our tablecloth by the many spots of dirt and grease, and in the evening found the table bare. But what was the consequence? Scarcely had the tea-pot been placed on the table than it began to slip off; had not the watchful captain quickly caught it, it would have fallen to the ground and bathed our feet with its contents. Nothing could stand on the polished table, and I sincerely pitied the captain that he had not another tablecloth. My readers will imagine that what I have described would have been quite sufficient to make my stay in the vessel any thing but agreeable; but I discovered another circumstance, which even made it alarming. This was nothing less than that our little vessel was constantly letting in a considerable quantity of water, which had to be pumped out every few hours. The captain tried to allay my uneasiness by asserting that every ship admitted water, and ours only leaked a little more because it was so old. I was obliged to be content with his explanation, as it was now too late to think of a change. Fortunately we did not meet with any storms, and therefore incurred less danger. Our journey lasted twenty days, during twelve of which we saw no land; the wind drove us too far east to see the Feroe or the Shetland Isles. I should have cared less for this, had I seen some of the monsters of the deep instead, but we met with scarcely any of these amiable animals. I saw the ray of water which a whale emitted from his nostrils, and which exactly resembled a fountain; the animal itself was unfortunately too far from our ship for us to see its body. A shark came a little nearer; it swam round our vessel for a few moments, so that I could easily look at him: it must have been from sixteen to eighteen feet long. The so-called flying-fish afforded a pretty sight. The sea was as calm as a mirror, the evening mild and moonlight; and so we remained on deck till late, watching the gambols of these animals. As far as we could see, the water was covered with them. We could recognise the younger fishes by their higher springs; they seemed to be three to four feet long, and rose five to six feet above the surface of the sea. Their leaping looked like an attempt at flying, but their gills did not do them good service in the trial, and they fell back immediately. The old fish did not seem to have the same elasticity; they only described a small arch like the dolphins, and only rose so far above the water that we could see the middle part of their body. These fish are not caught; they have little oil, and an unpleasant taste. On the thirteenth day we again saw land. We had entered the Skagerrak, and saw the peninsula of Jutland, with the town of Skaggen. The peninsula looks very dreary from this side; it is flat and covered with sand. On the sixteenth day we entered the Cattegat. For some time past we had always either been becalmed or had had contrary winds, and had been tossed about in the Skagerrak, the Cattegat, and the Sound for nearly a week. On some days we scarcely made fifteen to twenty leagues a day. On such calm days I passed the time with fishing; but the fish were wise enough not to bite my hook. I was daily anticipating a dinner of mackerel, but caught only one. The multitude of vessels sailing into the Cattegat afforded me more amusement; I counted above seventy. The nearer we approached the entrance of the Sound, the more imposing was the sight, and the more closely were the vessels crowded together. Fortunately we were favoured by a bright moonlight; in a dark or stormy night we should not with the greatest precaution and skill have been able to avoid a collision. The inhabitants of more southern regions have no idea of the extraordinary clearness and brilliancy of a northern moonlight night; it seems almost as if the moon had borrowed a portion of the sun's lustre. I have seen splendid nights on the coast of Asia, on the Mediterranean; but here, on the shores of Scandinavia, they were lighter and brighter. I remained on deck all night; for it pleased me to watch the forests of masts crowded together here, and endeavouring simultaneously to gain the entrance to the Sound. I should now be able to form a tolerable idea of a fleet, for this number of ships must surely resemble a merchant-fleet. On the twentieth day of our journey we entered the port of Helsingor. The Sound dues have to be paid here, or, as the sailor calls it, the ship must be cleared. This is a very tedious interruption, and the stopping and restarting of the ship very incommodious. The sails have to be furled, the anchor cast, the boat lowered, and the captain proceeds on shore; hours sometimes elapse before he has finished. When he returns to the ship, the boat has to be hoisted again, the anchor raised, and the sails unfurled. Sometimes the wind has changed in the mean time; and in consequence of these formalities, the port of Copenhagen cannot be reached at the expected time. If a ship is unfortunate enough to reach Helsingor on a dark night, she may not enter at all for fear of a collision. She has to anchor in the Cattegat, and thus suffer two interruptions. If she arrives at Helsingor in the night before four o'clock, she has to wait, as the custom-house is not opened till that time. The skipper is, however, at liberty to proceed direct to Copenhagen, but this liberty costs five thalers (fifteen shillings). If, however, the toll may thus be paid in Copenhagen just as easily, the obligation to stop at Helsingor is only a trick to gain the higher toll; for if a captain is in haste, or the wind is too favourable to be lost, he forfeits the five thalers, and sails on to Copenhagen. Our captain cared neither for time nor trouble; he cleared the ship here, and so we did not reach Copenhagen until two o'clock in the afternoon. After my long absence, it seemed so familiar, so beautiful and grand, as if I had seen nothing so beautiful in my whole life. My readers must bear in mind, however, where I came from, and how long I had been imprisoned in a vessel in which I scarcely had space to move. When I put foot on shore again, I could have imitated Columbus, and prostrated myself to kiss the earth. DEPARTURE FROM COPENHAGEN.--CHRISTIANIA. On the 19th August, the day after my arrival from Iceland, at two o'clock in the afternoon, I had already embarked again; this time in the fine royal Norwegian steamer _Christiania_, of 170 horsepower, bound for the town of Christiania, distant 304 sea-miles from Copenhagen. We had soon passed through the Sound and arrived safely in the Cattegat, in which we steered more to the right than on the journey to Iceland; for we not only intended to see Norway and Sweden, but to cast anchor on the coast. We could plainly see the fine chain of mountains which bound the Cattegat on the right, and whose extreme point, the Kulm, runs into the sea like a long promontory. Lighthouses are erected here, and on the other numerous dangerous spots of the coast, and their lights shine all around in the dark night. Some of the lights are movable, and some stationary, and point out to the sailor which places to avoid. August 20th. Bad weather is one of the greatest torments of a traveller, and is more disagreeable when one passes through districts remarkable for beauty and originality. Both grievances were united to-day; it rained, almost incessantly; and yet the passage of the Swedish coast and of the little fiord to the port of Gottenburg was of peculiar interest. The sea here was more like a broad stream which is bounded by noble rocks, and interspersed by small and large rocks and shoals, over which the waters dashed finely. Near the harbour, some buildings lie partly on and partly between the rocks; these contain the celebrated royal Swedish iron-foundry, called the new foundry. Even numerous American ships were lying here to load this metal. {46} The steamer remains more than four hours in the port of Gottenburg, and we had therefore time to go into the town, distant about two miles, and whose suburbs extend as far as the port. On the landing-quay a captain lives who has always a carriage and two horses ready to drive travellers into the town. There are also one-horse vehicles, and even an omnibus. The former were already engaged; the latter, we were told, drives so slowly, that nearly the whole time is lost on the road; so I and two travelling companions hired the captain's carriage. The rain poured in torrents on our heads; but this did not disturb us much. My two companions had business to transact, and curiosity attracted me. I did not at that time know that I should have occasion to visit this pretty little town again, and would not leave without seeing it. The suburbs are built entirely of wood, and contain many pretty one-story houses, surrounded, for the most part, by little gardens. The situation of the suburbs is very peculiar. Rocks, or little fields and meadows, often lie between the houses; the rocks even now and then cross the streets, and had to be blasted to form a road. The view from one of the hills over which the road to the town lies is truly beautiful. The town has two large squares: on the smaller one stands the large church; on the larger one the town-hall, the post-office, and many pretty houses. In the town every thing is built of bricks. The river Ham flows through the large square, and increases the traffic by the many ships and barks running into it from the sea, and bringing provisions, but principally fuel, to market. Several bridges cross it. A visit to the well-stocked fish-market is also an interesting feature in a short visit to this town. I entered a Swedish house for the first time here. I remarked that the floor was strewed over with the fine points of the fir-trees, which had an agreeable odour, a more healthy one probably than any artificial perfume. I found this custom prevalent all over Sweden and Norway, but only in hotels and in the dwellings of the poorer classes. About eleven o'clock in the forenoon we continued our journey. We steered safely through the many rocks and shoals, and soon reached the open sea again. We did not stand out far from the shore, and saw several telegraphs erected on the rocks. We soon lost sight of Denmark on the left, and arrived at the fortress Friedrichsver towards evening, but could not see much of it. Here the so-called Scheren begin, which extend sixty leagues, and form the Christian's Sound. By what I could see in the dim twilight, the scene was beautiful. Numerous islands, some merely consisting of bare rocks, others overgrown with slender pines, surrounded us on all sides. But our pilot understood his business perfectly, and steered us safely through to Sandesund, spite of the dark night. Here we anchored, for it would have been too dangerous to proceed. We had to wait here for the steamer from Bergen, which exchanged passengers with us. The sea was very rough, and this exchange was therefore extremely difficult to effect. Neither of the steamers would lower a boat; at last our steamer gave way, after midnight, and the terrified and wailing passengers were lowered into it. I pitied them from my heart, but fortunately no accident happened. August 21st I could see the situation of Sandesund better by day; and found it to consist only of a few houses. The water is so hemmed in here that it scarcely attains the breadth of a stream; but it soon widens again, and increases in beauty and variety with every yard. We seemed to ride on a beautiful lake; for the islands lie so close to the mountains in the background, that they look like a continent, and the bays they form like the mouths of rivers. The next moment the scene changes to a succession of lakes, one coming close on the other; and when the ship appears to be hemmed in, a new opening is suddenly presented to the eye behind another island. The islands themselves are of a most varied character: some only consist of bare rocks, with now and then a pine; some are richly covered with fields and groves; and the shore presents so many fine scenes, that one hardly knows where to look in order not to miss any of the beauties of the scenery. Here are high mountains overgrown from the bottom to the summit with dark pine-groves; there again lovely hills, with verdant meadows, fertile fields, pretty farmsteads and yards; and on another side the mountains separate and form a beautiful perspective of precipices and valleys. Sometimes I could follow the bend of a bay till it mingled with the distant clouds; at others we passed the most beautiful valleys, dotted with little villages and towns. I cannot describe the beauties of the scenery in adequate terms: my words are too weak, and my knowledge too insignificant; and I can only give an idea of my emotions, but not describe them. Near Walloe the country grows less beautiful; the mountains decrease into hills, and the water is not studded with islands. The little town itself is almost concealed behind the hills. A remarkable feature is the long row of wooden huts and houses adjoining, which all belong to a salt-work established there. We entered one of the many little arms of the sea to reach the town of Moss. Its situation is beautiful, being built amphi-theatrically on a hillock which leans against a high mountain. A fine building on the sea-shore, whose portico rests upon pillars, is used for a bathing institution. A dock-yard, in which men-of-war are built at the expense of the state, is situated near the town of Horten, which is also picturesquely placed. There does not seem to be much work doing here, for I only saw one ship lying at anchor, and none on the stocks. About eight leagues beyond Horten a mountain rises in the middle of the sea, and divides it into two streams, uniting again beyond it, and forming a pretty view. We did not see Christiania till we were only ten leagues from it. The town, the suburbs, the fortress, the newly-erected royal palace, the freemasons' lodge, &c., lie in a semicircle round the port, and are bounded by fields, meadows, woods, and hills, forming a delightful _coup-d'oeil_. It seems as if the sea could not part from such a lovely view, and runs in narrow streams, through hills and plains, to a great distance beyond the town. Towards eleven o'clock in the forenoon we reached the port of Christiania. We had come from Sandesund in seven hours, and had stopped four times on the way; but the boats with new-comers, with merchandise and letters, had always been ready, had been received, and we had proceeded without any considerable delay. CHAPTER VIII My first care on arriving in this town was to find a countrywoman of mine who had been married to a lawyer here. It is said of the Viennese that they cannot live away from their Stephen's steeple; but here was a proof of the contrary, for there are few couples living so happily as these friends, and yet they were nearly one thousand miles from St. Stephen's steeple. {47} I passed through the whole town on the way from the quay to the hotel, and thence to my friend. The town is not large, and not very pretty. The newly-built portion is the best, for it at least has broad, tolerably long streets, in which the houses are of brick, and sometimes large. In the by-streets I frequently found wooden barracks ready to fall. The square is large, but irregular; and as it is used as a general market-place, it is also very dirty. [Picture: Christiania] In the suburbs the houses are mostly built of wood. There are some rather pretty public buildings; the finest among them are the royal castle and the fortress. They are built on little elevations, and afford a beautiful view. The old royal palace is in the town, but not at all distinguishable from a common private house. The house in which the Storthing {48} assembles is large, and its portico rests on pillars; but the steps are of wood, as in all stone houses in Scandinavia. The theatre seemed large enough for the population; but I did not enter it. The freemasons' lodge is one of the most beautiful buildings in the town; it contains two large saloons, which are used for assemblies or festivities of various kinds, besides serving as the meeting-place of the freemasons. The university seemed almost too richly built; it is not finished yet, but is so beautiful that it would be an ornament to the largest capital. The butchers' market is also very pretty. It is of a semi-circular shape, and is surrounded by arched passages, in which the buyers stand, sheltered from the weather. The whole edifice is built of bricks, left in their natural state, neither stuccoed with mortar nor whitewashed. There are not many other palaces or fine public buildings, and most of the houses are one-storied. One of the features of the place--a custom which is of great use to the traveller, and prevails in all Scandinavian towns--is, that the names of the streets are affixed at every corner, so that the passer-by always knows where he is, without the necessity of asking his way. Open canals run through the town; and on such nights as the almanac announces a full or bright moon the streets are not lighted. Wooden quays surround the harbour, on which several large warehouses, likewise built of wood, are situated; but, like most of the houses, they are roofed with tiles. The arrangement and display of the stores are simple, and the wares very beautiful, though not of home manufacture. Very few factories exist here, and every thing has to be imported. I was much shocked at the raggedly-clad people I met every where in the streets; the young men especially looked very ragged. They rarely begged; but I should not have been pleased to meet them alone in a retired street. I was fortunate enough to be in Christiania at the time when the Storthing was sitting. This takes place every three years; the sessions commence in January or February, and usually last three months; but so much business had this time accumulated, that the king proposed to extend the length of the session. To this fortunate accident I owed the pleasure of witnessing some of the meetings. The king was expected to close the proceedings in September. {49} The hall of meeting is long and large. Four rows of tapestried seats, one rising above the other, run lengthways along the hall, and afford room for eighty legislators. Opposite the benches a table stands on a raised platform, and at this table the president and secretary sit. A gallery, which is open to the public, runs round the upper portion of the hall. Although I understood but little of the Norwegian language, I attended the meetings daily for an hour. I could at least distinguish whether long or short speeches were made, or whether the orator spoke fluently. Unfortunately, the speakers I heard spoke the few words they mustered courage to deliver so slowly and hesitatingly, that I could not form a very favourable idea of Norwegian eloquence. I was told that the Storthing only contained three or four good speakers, and they did not display their talents during my stay. I have never seen such a variety of carriages as I met with here. The commonest and most incommodious are called Carriols. A carriol consists of a narrow, long, open box, resting between two immensely high wheels, and provided with a very small seat. You are squeezed into this contrivance, and have to stretch your feet forward. You are then buckled in with a leather apron as high as the hips, and must remain in this position, without moving a limb, from the beginning to the end of your ride. A board is hung on behind the box for the coachman; and from this perch he, in a kneeling or standing position, directs the horses, unless the temporary resident of the box should prefer to take the reins himself. As it is very unpleasant to hear the quivering of the reins on one side and the smacking of the whip on the other, every one, men and women, can drive. Besides these carriols, there are phaetons, droschkas, but no closed vehicles. The carts which are used for the transport of beer are of a very peculiar construction. The consumption of beer in Christiania is very great, and it is at once bottled when made, and not sold in casks. The carts for the transport of these bottles consist of roomy covered boxes a foot and a half high, which are divided into partitions like a cellaret, in which many bottles can be easily and safely transported from one part to another. Another species of basket, which the servants use to carry such articles as are damp or dirty, and which my readers will excuse my describing, is made of fine white tin, and provided with a handle. Straw baskets are only used for bread, and for dry and clean provisions. There are no public gardens or assemblies in Christiania, but numerous promenades; indeed, every road from the town leads to the most beautiful scenery, and every hill in the neighbourhood affords the most delightful prospects. Ladegardoen is the only spot which is often resorted to by the citizens by carriage or on foot. It affords many and splendid views of the sea and its islands, of the surrounding mountains, valleys, and pine and fir groves. The majority of the country-houses are built here. They are generally small, but pretty, and surrounded by flower-gardens and orchards. While there, I seemed to be far in the south, so green and verdant was the scenery. The corn-fields alone betrayed the north. Not that the corn was poor; on the contrary, I found many ears bending to the ground under their weight; but now, towards the end of August, most of it was standing uncut in the fields. Near the town stands a pine-grove, from which one has splendid views; two monuments are raised in it, but neither of them are of importance: one is raised to the memory of a crown-prince of Sweden, Christian Augustus; the other to Count Hermann Wenel Jarlsberg. JOURNEY TO DELEMARKEN. All I had hitherto seen in Norway had gratified me so much, that I could not resist the temptation of a journey to the wildly romantic regions of Delemarken. I was indeed told that it would be a difficult undertaking for a female, alone and almost entirely ignorant of the language, to make her way through the peasantry. But I found no one to accompany me, and was determined to go; so I trusted to fate, and went alone. According to the inquires I had instituted in respect to this journey, I anticipated that my greatest difficulties would arise from the absence of all institutions for the speedy and comfortable progress of travellers. One is forced to possess a carriage, and to hire horses at every station. It is sometimes possible to hire a vehicle, but this generally consists only of a miserable peasant's cart. I hired, therefore, a carriol for the whole journey, and a horse to the next station, the townlet of Drammen, distant about twenty-four miles. On the 25th August, at three o'clock in the afternoon, I left Christiania, squeezed myself into my carriage, and, following the example of Norwegian dames, I seized the reins. I drove as if I had been used to it from infancy. I turned right and left, and my horse galloped and trotted gaily on. The road to Drammen is exquisite, and would afford rich subjects for an artist. All the beauties of nature are here combined in most perfect harmony. The richness and variety of the scenery are almost oppressive, and would be an inexhaustible subject for the painter. The vegetation is much richer than I had hoped to find it so far north; every hill, every rock, is shaded by verdant foliage; the green of the meadows was of incomparable freshness; the grass was intermingled with flowers and herbs, and the corn-fields bent under their golden weight. I have been in many countries, and have seen beautiful districts; I have been in Switzerland, in Tyrol, in Italy, and in Salzburg; but I never saw such peculiarly beautiful scenery as I found here: the sea every where intruding and following us to Drammen; here forming a lovely lake on which boats were rocking, there a stream rushing through hills and meadows; and then again, the splendid expanse dotted with proud three-masters and with countless islets. After a five hours' ride through rich valleys and splendid groves, I reached the town of Drammen, which lies on the shores of the sea and the river Storri Elf, and whose vicinity was announced by the beautiful country-houses ornamenting the approach to it. A long, well-built wooden bridge, furnished with beautiful iron palisadings, leads over the river. The town of Drammen has pretty streets and houses, and above 6000 inhabitants. The hotel where I lodged was pretty and clean. My bedroom was a large room, with which the most fastidious might have been contented. The supper which they provided for me was, however, most frugal, consisting only of soft-boiled eggs. They gave me neither salt nor bread with them, nor a spoon; nothing but a knife and fork. And it is a mystery to me how soft eggs can be eaten without bread, and with a knife and fork. August 25th. I hired a fresh horse here, with which I proceeded to Kongsberg, eighteen miles farther. The first seven miles afforded a repetition of the romantic scenery of the previous day, with the exception of the sea. But instead I had the beautiful river, until I had ascended a hill, from whose summit I overlooked a large and apparently populous valley, filled with groups of houses and single farms. It is strange that there are very few large towns in Norway; every peasant builds his house in the midst of his fields. Beyond this hill the scenery grows more monotonous. The mountains are lower, the valley narrower, and the road is enclosed by wood or rocks. One peculiarity of Norwegian rocks is their humidity. The water penetrates through countless fissures, but only in such small quantities as to cover the stones with a kind of veil. When the sun shines on these wet surfaces of rock, of which there are many and large ones, they shine like mirrors. Delemarken seems to be tolerably populous. I often met with solitary peasant-huts in the large gloomy forests, and they gave some life to the monotonous landscape. The industry of the Norwegian peasant is very great; for every spot of earth, even on the steepest precipices, bore potatoes, barley, or oats; their houses also look cheerful, and were painted for the most part of a brick-red colour. I found the roads very good, especially the one from Christiania to Drammen; and the one from Drammen to Kongsberg was not very objectionable. There is such an abundance of wood in Norway, that the streets on each side are fenced by wooden enclosures; and every field and meadow is similarly protected against the intrusion of cattle, and the miserable roads through the woods are even covered with round trunks of trees. The peasantry in this district have no peculiar costume; only the head-covering of the females is curious. They wear a lady's hat, such as was fashionable in the last century, ornamented with a bunch behind, and with an immense shade in front. They are made of any material, generally of the remains of old garments; and only on Sundays better ones, and sometimes even silk ones, make their appearance. In the neighbourhood of Kongsberg this head-dress is no longer worn. There they wear little caps like the Suabian peasantry, petticoats commencing under the shoulders, and very short spencers: a very ugly costume, the whole figure being spoilt by the short waist. The town of Kongsberg is rather extended, and is beautifully situated on a hill in the centre of a splendid wooded valley. It is, like all the towns in Norway except Christiania, built of wood; but it has many pretty, neat houses and some broad streets. The stream Storri Elf flows past the town, and forms a small but very picturesque waterfall a little below the bridge. What pleased me most was the colour of the water as it surged over the rock. It was about noon as I drove across the bridge; the sun illuminated the whole country around, and the waves breaking against the rocks seemed by this light of a beautiful pale-yellow colour, so that they resembled thick masses of pure transparent amber. Two remarkable sights claimed my attention at Kongsberg,--a rich silver-mine, and a splendid waterfall called the Labrafoss. But as my time was limited and I could only remain a few hours in Kongsberg, I preferred to see the waterfall and believe the accounts of the silver-mine; which were, that the deepest shaft was eight hundred feet below the surface, and that it was most difficult to remain there, as the cold, the smoke, and the powder-smell had a very noxious effect on the traveller accustomed to light and air. I therefore hired a horse and drove to the fall, which is situated in a narrow pass about four miles from Kongsberg. The river collects in a quiet calm basin a little distance above the fall, and then rushes over the steep precipice with a sudden bound. The considerable depth of the fall and the quality of water make it a very imposing sight. This is increased by a gigantic rock planted like a wall in the lower basin, and opposing its body to the progress of the hurrying waters. The waves rebound from the rock, and, collecting in mighty masses, rush over it, forming several smaller waterfalls in their course. I watched it from a high rock, and was nevertheless covered by the spray to such a degree, that I sometimes could scarcely open my eyes. My guide then took me to the lower part of the fall, so that I might have a view of it from all sides; and each view seemed different and more splendid. I perceived the same yellow transparent colour which I had remarked in the fall at Kongsberg in the waters which dashed over the rock and were illuminated by the sun. I imagine it arises from the rock, which is every where of a brownish-red colour, for the water itself was clear and pure. At four o'clock in the afternoon I left Kongsberg, and drove to Bolkesoe, a distance of eighteen miles. It was by no means a beautiful or an agreeable drive; for the road was very bad, and took me through passes and valleys, across woods and over steep mountains, while the night was dark and unilluminated by the moon. The thought involuntarily entered my mind, how easily my guide, who sat close behind me on the vehicle, could put me out of the world by a gentle blow, and take possession of my effects. But I had confidence in the upright character of the Norwegians, and drove on quietly, devoting my attention entirely to the reins of my little steed, which I had to lead with a sure hand over hill and valley, over ruts and stones, and along precipices. I heard no sound but the rushing of the mountain-river, which leaped, close beside us, over the rocks, and was heard rushing in the far distance. We did not arrive at Bolkesoe until ten o'clock at night. When we stopped before an insignificant-looking peasant's cot, and I remembered my Icelandic night-accommodations, whose exterior this resembled, my courage failed me; but I was agreeably disappointed when the peasant's wife led me up a broad staircase into a large clean chamber furnished with several good beds, some benches, a table, a box, and an iron stove. I found equal comforts on all the stations of my journey. There are no proper hotels or posthouses on the little-frequented Norwegian roads; but the wealthy peasants undertake the duties of both. I would, however, advise every traveller to provide himself with bread and other provisions for the trip; for his peasant-host rarely can furnish him with these. His cows are on the hills during the summer; fowls are far too great a luxury for him; and his bread is scarcely eatable: it consists of large round cakes, scarcely half an inch thick, and very hard; or of equally large cakes scarcely as thick as a knife, and quite dry. The only eatables I found were fish and potatoes; and whenever I could stay for several hours, they fetched milk for me from the hills. The travelling conveniences are still more unattainable; but these I will mention in a future chapter, when my experience will be a little more extensive. August 26th. I could not see the situation of the town of Bolkesoe till daylight to-day, for when I arrived the darkness of night concealed it. It is situated in a pretty wooded vale, on a little hill at whose foot lies a beautiful lake of the same name. The road from here to Tindosoe, about sixteen miles, is not practicable for vehicles, and I therefore left my carriol here and proceeded on horseback. The country grows more quiet and uninhabited, and the valleys become real chasms. Two lakes of considerable size form an agreeable variety to the wildness of the scenery. The larger one, called the Foelsoe, is of a regular form, and above two miles in diameter; it is encircled by picturesque mountains. The effect of the shadows which the pine-covered mountain-tops throw on the lakes is particularly attractive. I rode along its shores for more than an hour, and had leisure to see and examine every thing very accurately, for the horses here travel at a very slow pace. The reason of this is partly that the guide has no horse, and walks beside you in a very sleepy manner; the horse knows its master's peculiarities by long experience, and is only too willing to encourage him in his slow, dull pace. I spent more than five hours in reaching Tindosoe. My next object of interest was the celebrated waterfall of Rykanfoss, to reach which we had to cross a large lake. Although it had rained incessantly for an hour, and the sky looked threatening, I at once hired a boat with two rowers to continue my journey without interruption; for I anticipated a storm, and then I should not have found a boatman who would have ventured a voyage of four or five hours on this dangerous lake. In two hours my boat was ready, and I started in the pouring rain, but rejoiced at least at the absence of fog, which would have concealed the beauties of nature which surrounded me. The lake is eighteen miles long, but in many parts only from two to three miles wide. It is surrounded by mountains, which rise in terraces without the least gap to admit a distant view. As the mountains are nearly all covered with dark fir-groves, and overshadow the whole breadth of the narrow lake, the water seems quite dark, and almost black. This lake is dangerous to navigate on account of the many rocks rising perpendicularly out of the water, which, in a storm, shatter a boat dashed against them to pieces, and the passengers would find an inevitable grave in the deep waters. We had a flesh and a favourable breeze, which blew us quickly to our destination. One of the rocks on the coast has a very loud echo. An island about a mile long divides the lake into equal parts; and when we had passed it, the landscape became quite peculiar. The mountains seemed to push before each other, and try whose foot should extend farthest into the sea. This forms numerous lovely bays; but few of them are adapted for landing, as the dangerous rocks seem to project every where. The little dots of field and meadow which seem to hang against the rock, and the modest cottages of the peasants, which are built on the points of the most dangerous precipices, and over which rocks and stones tower as mountains, present a very curious appearance. The most fearful rocks hang over the huts, and threaten to crush them by falling, which would inevitably carry cottage and field with them into the sea. It is difficult to say whether the boldness or the stupidity of the peasants induces them to choose such localities for their dwellings. From the mountains many rivers flow into the lake, and form beautiful falls. This might only have been the case at that time, because it was raining incessantly, and the water poured down from all sides, so that the mountains seemed embroidered with silver threads. It was a beautiful sight; but I would willingly have relinquished it for a day of sunshine. It is no trifle to be exposed to such a shower-bath from morning till night; I was wet through, and had no hope for better weather, as the sky was clouded all round. My perseverance was nearly exhausted; and I was on the point of relinquishing the purpose of my journey,--the sight of the highest Norwegian waterfall,--when it occurred to me that the bad weather was most favourable for my plan, as each drop of water would increase the splendour of the waterfall. After three hours and a half's rowing we reached Haukaness-am-See, where it is usual to stop a night as there is a pretty farm here, and the distance from the fall is still considerable. August 27th. My first care in the morning was the weather; it was unchanged, and the experienced peasants prophesied that it would remain wet. As I would not return nor wait for better weather, I could only take to my boat again, put on my half-dried cloak, and row on boldly. The termination of the lake, which we soon reached, was already sufficient to compensate for my perseverance. A high mountain advances into the lake, and divides it into two beautiful bays. We entered the left bay, and landed at Mael, which lies at the mouth of the river Rykaness. The distance from Haukaness is a little more than two miles. I had to mount a horse to reach the waterfall, which was yet eleven miles distant. The road runs through a narrow valley, which gradually narrows still more until it can only contain the river; and the traveller is obliged to ascend the heights and grope on along the sides of the mountains. Below in the vale he sees the foam of the waves surging against the rocks; they flow like a narrow band of silver in the deep chasm. Sometimes the path is so high that one neither sees nor hears the river. The last half mile has to be journeyed on foot, and goes past spots which are really dangerous; numerous waterfalls rush from the mountain-sides, and have to be crossed on paths of tree-trunks laid alongside each other; and roads scarcely a foot wide lead along giddy precipices. But the traveller may trust unhesitatingly to his guide's arm, who has hitherto led every one in safety to his destination. The road from Haukaness to the waterfall must be the finest that can be imagined on a bright sunny day; for I was enchanted with the wildly-romantic scenery in spite of the incessant rain and my wet clothes, and would on no consideration have missed this sight. Unfortunately the bad weather increased, and thick fogs rolled down into the valleys. The water flowed down from the mountains, and transformed our narrow path into a brook, through which we had to wade ankle-deep in water. At last we reached the spot which afforded the best view of the fall. It was yet free from mist, and I could still admire the extraordinary beauty of the fall and its quantity of water. I saw the immense mountain-rock which closes the valley, the tremendous pillar of water which dashes over it, and rebounds from the rock projecting in the centre of the fall, filling the whole valley with clouds of spray, and concealing the depth to which it descends. I saw this, one of the rarest and of the most magnificent of natural beauties; but alas, I saw it only for a moment, and had scarcely time to recover from the surprise of the first view when I lost it for ever! I was not destined to see the single grandeurs of the fall and of the surrounding scenery, and was fain to be content with one look, one glance. Impenetrable mists rolled from all sides into the wild glen, and shrouded every thing in complete darkness; I sat on a piece of rock, and gazed for two hours stedfastly at the spot where a faint outline of the fall was scarcely distinguishable through the mist sometimes this faint trace even was lost, and I could perceive its vicinity only by the dreadful sounds of the fall, and by the trembling of the rock beneath my feet. After I had gazed, and hoped, and raised my eyes entreatingly to heaven for a single ray of sunshine, all in vain, I had at last to determine on my return. I left my post almost with tears in my eyes, and turned my head more backwards than forwards as we left the spot. At the least indication of a clearing away of the fog I should have returned. But I retired farther and farther from it till I reached Mael again, where I sadly entered my boat, and proceeded uninterruptedly to Tindosoe. I arrived there towards ten o'clock at night. The wet, the cold, the want of food, and, above all, the depressed and disappointed state of my mind, had so affected me, that I went to bed with a slight attack of fever, and feared that I should not be able to continue my journey on the following day. But my strong constitution triumphed over every thing, and at five o'clock in the morning I was ready to continue my journey to Bolkesoe on horseback. I was obliged to hurry for fear of missing the departure of the steamer from Christiania. The journey to Delemarken had been represented to me as much shorter than I found it in reality; for the constant waiting for horses, boats, guides, &c. takes up very much time. August 28th. I had ordered my horse to be ready at five o'clock, but was obliged to wait for it until seven o'clock. Although I made only a short trip into the interior, I had sufficient opportunities for experiencing the extortions and inconveniences to which a traveller is liable in Norway. No country in Europe is so much in its infancy as regards all conveniences for locomotion. It is true that horses, carriages, boats, &c. can be had at every station, and the law has fixed the price of these commodities; but every thing is in the hands of the peasants and the publicans, and they are so skilled in tormenting the traveller by their intentional slowness, that he is compelled to pay the two-fold tax, in order to proceed a little more quickly. The stations are short, being rarely above five or six miles, and one is therefore constantly changing horses. Arrived at a station, it either happens that there is really no horse to be had, or that this is an ostensible excuse. The traveller is told that the horse has to be fetched from the mountain, and that he can be served in one and a half or two hours. Thus he rides one hour, and waits two. It is also necessary to keep the tariff, as every trifle, the saddle, the carriage, the harness, fetching the horse, the boat, &c., has to be paid for extra; and when the traveller does not know the fixed prices, he is certain to be dreadfully imposed upon. At every station a book lies, containing the legal prices; but it is written in the language of the district, and utterly unintelligible to the stranger. Into this book, which is examined by the judge of the district every month, one may enter complaints against the peasant or publican; but they do not seem to fear it, for the guide who accompanied me to the fall of Rykanfoss endeavoured to cheat me twice in the most barefaced manner, by charging me six-fold for the use of the saddles and the fetching of the horse. When I threatened to inscribe my complaint in the book, he seemed not to care, and insisted on his demand, till I was obliged to pay him. On my return to Mael, I kept my word, asked for the book, and entered my complaint, although I was alone with all the peasants. It was not so much the money which annoyed me, as the shameless imposition. I am of opinion that every one should complain when he is wronged; if it does not benefit him, it will make the matter more easy for his successor. I must confess, in justice to the peasants, that they were very indignant when I told them of the dishonesty of their countryman, and did not attempt to prevent my complaint. To conclude my journey, I need only remark that, although the rain had ceased, the sky was still covered with clouds, and the country shrouded in mist. I therefore took the shorter road to Christiania, by which I had come, although I thereby missed a beautiful district, where I should, as I was told, have seen the most splendid perspective views in Norway. This would have been on the road from Kongsberg over Kroxleben to Christiania. The finest part is near Kroxleben. But the time was too short to take this round, and I returned by way of Drammen. In the village of Muni, about five miles from Kongsberg, where I arrived at seven o'clock in the evening, the amiable host wished to keep me waiting again two hours for a horse; and as this would probably have happened at every station, I was obliged to hire a horse for the whole distance to Christiania, at a threefold price. I slept here for a few hours, left in the night at one o'clock, and arrived at Christiania the following afternoon at two. On this journey I found all those people very kind and obliging with whom I came into no sort of pecuniary relation; but the hosts, the boatmen, the drivers, the guides, were as selfish and grasping as in any other country. I believe that kindness and disinterestedness would only be found in any district by him who has the good fortune to be the first traveller. This little excursion was very dear; and yet I think I could now travel cheaply even in this country, universally acknowledged to be dear. I would go with the steamer along the coast to Hammerfest, buy a little vehicle and a good horse there, and then travel pleasantly, and without annoyance, through the whole country. But for a family who wished to travel in a comfortable covered carriage, it would be incalculably dear, and in many parts impossible, on account of the bad roads. The Norwegian peasantry are strong and robust, but their features are not the most comely, and they seemed neither wealthy nor cleanly. They were generally very poorly clad, and always barefooted. Their cottages, built of wood and covered with tiles, are more roomy than those of the Icelanders; but they are nevertheless dirty and wretched. A weakness of the Norwegians is their fondness for coffee, which they drink without milk or sugar. The old women, as well as the men, smoke their pipes morning and night. Miles. From Christiania to Kongsberg is 41 about From Kongsberg to the waterfall 5 Labrafoss From Kongsberg to Bolkosoe 14 From Bolkosoe to Tindosoe 16 From Tindosoe across the lake to 16 Mael From Mael to the waterfall 11 Rykanfoss 103 CHAPTER IX August 30th. At seven o'clock this morning I left Christiania, accompanied by the good wishes of my countrywoman and her husband, and went back to Gottenburg by the same steamer which had brought me thence ten days before. I need only mention the splendid view of a portion of Christian's Sound--also called Fiord--which I lost on the former journey from the darkness of the night. We passed it in the afternoon. The situation of the little town of Lauervig is superb. It is built on a natural terrace, bordered in the background by beautiful mountains. In front, the fortress of Friedrichsver lies on a mountain surrounded by rocks, on which little watch-towers are erected; to the left lies the vast expanse of sea. We were delayed an hour at Friedrichsver to transfer the travellers for Bergen {50} to a vessel waiting for them, as we had stopped on our previous journey at Sandesund for the same purpose. This is the last view in the fiord; for now we steered into the open sea, and in a few hours we had lost sight of land. We saw nothing but land and water till we arrived the next morning at the Scheren, and steered for Gottenburg. August 31st. The sea had been rough all night, and we therefore reached Gottenburg three hours later than usual. In this agitated sea, the surging of the breakers against the many rocks and islets near Gottenburg has a very curious effect. The few travellers who could keep on their feet, who did not suffer from sea-sickness, and remained on deck, spoke much of the dangerous storm. I had frequently marvelled to hear people who had made a journey, if it were even only a short one of forty to sixty leagues, relate of some fearful storm they had witnessed. Now I comprehended the reason, when I heard the travellers beside me call the brisk breeze, which only occasioned what seamen call a little swell, a dreadful storm; and they will probably tell at home of the dangers they have passed. Storms are, fortunately, not so frequent. I have travelled many thousand leagues, and have often met with stormy weather, especially on the passage from Copenhagen to Iceland; but I only experienced one real storm, but a violent and dangerous one, as I was crossing the Black Sea to Constantinople in April 1842. We arrived at Gottenburg at nine instead of at six o'clock in the morning. I landed at once, to make the celebrated trip through the locks, over the waterfalls of Trollhatta, with the next Stockholm steamer. By the junction of the river Gotha with some of the interior lakes, this great construction crosses the whole country, and connects the North Sea with the Baltic. I found the town of Gottenburg very animated, on account of the presence of the king of Sweden, who was spending a few days here on his way to Christiania to prorogue the Storthing. I arrived on a Sunday, and the king, with his son, were in the church. The streets swarmed with human beings, all crowding towards the cathedral to catch a glimpse of his majesty on his departure. I, of course, mingled with the crowd, and was fortunate enough to see the king and prince come out of the church, enter their carriage, and drive away very near to me. Both were handsome, amiable-looking men. The people rushed after the carriage, and eagerly caught the friendly bows of the intelligent father and his hopeful son; they followed him to his palace, and stationed themselves in front of it, impatiently longing for the moment when the royal pair would appear at a window. I could not have arrived at a more favourable time; for every one was in holiday attire, and the military, the clergy, the officials, citizens and people, were all exerting themselves to the utmost to do honour to their king. I noticed two peasant-girls among the crowd who were peculiarly dressed. They wore black petticoats reaching half way down the calf of the leg, red stockings, red spensers, and white chemises, with long white sleeves; a kerchief was tied round the head. Some of the citizens' wives wore caps like the Suabian caps, covered by a little black, embroidered veil, which, however, left the face free. Here, as in Copenhagen, I noticed boys of ten to twelve years of age among the drummers, and in the bands of the military. The king remained this day and the next in Gottenburg, and continued his journey on the Tuesday. On the two evenings of his stay the windows in the town were ornamented with wreaths of fresh flowers, interspersed with lighted tapers. Some houses displayed transparencies, which, however, did not place the inventive powers of the amiable Gottenburgers in a very favourable light. They were all alike, consisting of a tremendous O (Oscar), surmounted by a royal crown. I was detained four days in Gottenburg; and small consideration seems to be paid to the speedy transport of travellers in Sweden. The steamer for Stockholm started on the day I arrived from Christiania, but unfortunately at five o'clock in the morning; and as in the month of September only two steamers go in the week to Stockholm, I was compelled to wait till Thursday. The time hung heavily on my hands; for I had seen the town itself, and the splendid views on the hills between the suburbs, during my former visit to the town, and the other portions only consisted of bare rocks and cliffs, which were of no interest. September 4th. The press of travellers was so great this time, that two days before the departure the cabins were all engaged; several ladies and gentlemen who would not wait for the next steamer were compelled to be satisfied with the deck, and I was among them; for the probability of such a crowd of passengers had not occurred to me, and I applied for a place only two days before our departure. During the journey fresh passengers were taken in at every station, and the reader may conceive the misery of the poor citizens unused to such hardships. Every one sought a shelter for the night, and the little cabins of the engineer and steersman were given up to some, while others crept into the passages, or squatted down on the steps of the stairs leading to the cabins. A place was offered to me in the engineer's cabin; but as three or four other persons were to share the apartment calculated only for one person, I preferred to bivouac night and day upon deck. One of the gentlemen was kind enough to lend me a thick cloak, in which I could wrap myself; and so I slept much more comfortably under the high canopy of heaven than my companions did in their sweating-room. The arrangements in the vessels navigating the Gotha canal are by no means the best. The first class is very comfortable, and the cabin-place is divided into pretty light divisions for two persons; but the second class is all the more uncomfortable: its cabin is used for a common dining-room by day, and by night hammocks are slung up in it for sleeping accommodation. The arrangements for the luggage are worse still. The canal-boats, having only a very small hold, trunks, boxes, portmanteaus, &c. are heaped up on the deck, not fastened at all, and very insufficiently protected against rain. The consequence of this carelessness on a journey of five or six days was, that the rain and the high waves of the lakes frequently put the after-deck several inches under water, and then the luggage was wetted through. It was worse still in a squall on the Wenner lake; for while the ship was rather roughly tossed about, many a trunk lost its equilibrium and fell from its high position, frequently endangering the safety of the passengers' heads. The fares are, however, very cheap, which seemed doubly strange, as the many locks must cause considerable expense. And now for the journey itself. We started at five o'clock in the morning, and soon arrived in the river Gotha, whose shores for the first few miles are flat and bare. The valley itself is bounded by bare, rocky hills. After about nine miles we came to the town of Kongelf, which is said to have 1000 inhabitants. It is so situated among rocks, that it is almost hidden from view. On a rock opposite the town are the ruins of the fortress Bogus. Now the scenery begins to be a little more diversified, and forests are mingled with the bleak rocks; little valleys appear on both the shores; and the river itself, here divided by an islet, frequently expands to a considerable breadth. The peasants' cottages were larger and better than those in Norway; they are generally painted brick-red, and are often built in groups. The first lock is at Lilla Edet: there are five here; and while the ship passes through them, the passengers have leisure to admire the contiguous low, but broad and voluminous fall of the Gotha. This first batch of locks in the canal extends over some distance past the fall, and they are partly blasted out of the rock, or built of stone. The river past Akestron flows as through a beautiful park; the valley is hemmed in by fertile hills, and leaves space only for the stream and some picturesque paths winding along its shores, and through the pine-groves descending to its banks. In the afternoon we arrived at the celebrated locks near Trollhatta. They are of gigantic construction, which the largest states would be honoured in completing, and which occasion surprise when found in a country ranking high neither in extent nor in influence. There are eleven locks here, which rise 112 feet in a space of 3500 feet. They are broad, deep, blasted out of the rock, and walled round with fine freestone. They resemble the single steps of a giant's staircase; and by this name they might fitly rank as one of the wonders of the world. Lock succeeds lock, mighty gates close them, and the large vessel rises miraculously to the giddy heights in a wildly romantic country. [Picture: Falls of Trollhatta] Scarcely arrived at the locks, the traveller is surrounded by a crowd of boys, who offer their services as guides to the waterfalls near Trollhatta. There is abundance of time for this excursion; for the passage of the ship through the many locks occupies three to four hours, and the excursion can be made in half the time. Before starting, it is, however, advisable to climb the rock to which the locks ascend. A pavilion is erected on its summit, and the view from it down over all the locks is exceedingly fine. Pretty paths hewn out of the wood lead to Trollhatta, which is charmingly situated in a lovely valley, surrounded by woods and hills, on the shore of a river, whose white foaming waves contrast strongly with the dark foliage of the overshadowing groves. The canal, which describes a large semicircle round the chief stream, glitters in the distance; but the highest locks are quite concealed behind rocks; we could neither observe the opening of the gates nor the rising of the water in them, and were therefore surprised when suddenly the masts and then the ship itself rose from the depth. An invisible hand seemed to raise it up between the rocks. The falls of the river are less distinguished for their height than for their diversity and their volumes of water. The principal arm of the river is divided at the point of decline into two equal falls by a little island of rock. A long narrow suspension-bridge leads to this island, and hangs over the fall; but it is such a weak, frail construction, that one person only can cross it at a time. The owner of this dangerous path keeps it private, and imposes a toll of about 3.5d. on all passengers. A peculiar sensation oppresses the traveller crossing the slender path. He sees the stream tearing onwards, breaking itself on the projecting rock, and fall surging into the abyss; he sees the boiling waves beneath, and feels the bridge vibrate at every footstep, and timidly hastens to reach the island, not taking breath to look around until he has found footing; on the firm island. A solid rock projects a little over the fall, and affords him a safe position, whence he sees not only the two falls on either side, but also several others formed above and below his point of view. The scene is so enchanting, that it is difficult to tear oneself away. Beyond Trollhatta the river expands almost to a lake, and is separated into many arms by the numerous islands. The shores lose their beauty, being flat and uninteresting. We unfortunately did not reach the splendid Wennersee, which is from forty-five to sixty-five miles long, and proportionally broad, until evening, when it was already too dark to admire the scenery. Our ship remained some hours before the insignificant village Wennersborg. We had met six or seven steamers on our journey, which all belonged to Swedish or Norwegian merchants; and it afforded us a peculiarly interesting sight to see these ships ascend and descend in the high locks. September 5th. As we were leaving Wennersborg late on the previous night, and were cruising about the sea, a contrary wind, or rather a squall, arose, which would have signified little to a good vessel, but to which our small ship was not equal. The poor captain tried in vain to navigate the steamer across the lake; he was at last compelled to give up the attempt, to return and to cast anchor. We lost our boat during this storm; a high wave dashed over the deck and swept it away: it had probably been as well fastened as our boxes and trunks. Though it was but nine o'clock in the morning, our captain declared that he could not proceed during the day, but that if the weather became more favourable, he would start again about midnight. Fortunately a fishing-boat ventured to come alongside, and some of the passengers landed. I was among them, and made use of this opportunity to visit some cottages lying at the edge of a wood near the lake. They were very small, but consisted of two chambers, which contained several beds and other furniture; the people were also somewhat better clad than the Norwegians. Their food too was not so unpalatable; they boiled a thick mess of coarse black flour, which was eaten with sweet milk. September 6th. We raised anchor at one o'clock in the morning, and in about five hours arrived at the island Eken, which consists entirely of rock, and is surrounded by a multitude of smaller islets and cliffs. This is one of the most important stations in the lake. A large wooden warehouse stands on the shore, and in it is stored the merchandise of the vicinity intended for export; and in return it receives the cargo from the ships. There are always several vessels lying at anchor here. We had now to wind through a cluster of islands, till we again reached the open lake, which, however, was only remarkable for its size. Its shores are bare and monotonous, and only dotted here and there with woods or low hills; the distant view even is not at all noteworthy. One of the finest views is the tolerably large castle of Leko, which lies on a rock, and is surrounded by fertile groves. Further off rises the Kinne Kulle, {51} to which the traveller's attention is directed, because it is said to afford an extended view, not only over the lake, but far into the country. A curious grotto is said to exist in this hill; but unfortunately one loses these sights since the establishment of steamers, for we fly past every object of interest, and the longest journey will soon be described in a few words. A large glass-factory is established at Bromoe, which fabricates window-glass exclusively. We stopped a short time, and took a considerable cargo of the brittle material on board. The factory and the little dwellings attached to it are prettily situated on the undulating ground. Near Sjotorp we entered the river again through several locks. The passage of the Wennersee is calculated at about ten or eleven hours. The river at first winds through woods; and while the ship slowly passes through the locks, it is pleasanter to walk a portion of the distance in their shade. Farther on it flows through broad valleys, which, however, present no very attractive features. September 7th. Early in the morning we crossed the pretty Vikensee, which distinguishes itself, like all Swedish lakes, by the multitude of its islands, cliffs, and rocks. These islands are frequently covered with trees, which make the view more interesting. The lake is 306 feet above the level of the North Sea, and is the highest point of the journey; from thence the locks begin to descend. The number of ascending and descending locks amounts to seventy-two. A short canal leads into the Boltensee, which is comparatively free from islands. The passage across this little lake is very charming; the shores are diversified by hills, woods, meadows, and fields. After it comes the Weltersee, which can be easily defended by the beautiful fortress of Karlsborg. This lake has two peculiarities: one being the extraordinary purity and transparency of its waters; the other, the number of storms which prevail in it. I was told that it frequently raged and stormed on the lake while the surrounding country remained calm and free. The storm sometimes overtakes the ship so suddenly and violently, that escape is impossible; and the sagas and fables told of the deceitful tricks of these waves are innumerable. We fortunately escaped, and crossed its surface cheerfully and merrily. On its shores are situated the beautiful ladies' pensionary, Wadstena, and the celebrated mountain Omberg, at whose foot a battle was fought. The next canal is short, and leads through a lovely wood into the little lake of Norbysee. It is customary to walk this distance, and inspect the simple monument of Count Platen, who made the plans for the locks and canals,--a lasting, colossal undertaking. The monument is surrounded by an iron railing, and consists of a slab bearing an inscription, simply stating in Swedish his name, the date of his death, &c. Nearly opposite the monument, on the other side of the canal, is the town of Motala, distinguished principally for its large iron factories, in which the spacious work-rooms are especially remarkable. Fifteen locks lead from the Norbysee into the Roxersee, which is a descent of 116 feet. The canal winds gracefully through woods and meadows, crossed by pretty roads, and studded with elegant little houses and larger edifices. Distant church-steeples point out the village of Norby, which sometimes peeps forth behind little forests, and then vanishes again from the view of the traveller. When the sun shines on the waters of this canal, it has a beautiful, transparent, pea-green colour, like the purest chrysolite. The view from the hill which rises immediately before the lake of Roxen is exceedingly fine. It looks down upon an immense valley, covered with the most beautiful woods and rocks, and upon the broad lake, whose arm flows far in land. The evening sun shed its last rays over a little town on the lake-shore, and its newly-painted tiles shone brightly in its light beams. While the ship descended through the many locks, we visited the neighbouring church of the village of Vretakloster, which contains the skeletons of several kings in beautifully-made metal coffins. We then crossed the lake, which is from four to five miles broad, and remained all night before the entrance of the canal leading into a bay of the Baltic. September 8th. This canal is one of the longest; its environs are very pretty, and the valley through which it runs is one of the largest we had passed. The town of Soderkoping is situated at the foot of high, picturesque groups of rocks, which extend to a considerable distance. Every valley and every spot of soil in Sweden are carefully cultivated. The people in general are well dressed, and inhabit small but very pretty houses, whose windows are frequently decorated with clean white draperies. I visited several of these houses, as we had abundance of time for such excursions while the ship was going through the locks. I think one might walk the whole distance from Gottenburg to Stockholm in the same time that the ship takes for the journey. We lose some hours daily with the locks, and are obliged to lie still at night on their account. The distance is calculated at from 180 to 250 miles, and the journey takes five days. In the evening we approached the Baltic, which has the same character as the Scheren of the North Sea. The ship threads its way through a shoal of islands and islets, of rocks and cliffs; and it is as difficult to imagine here as there how it is possible to avoid all the projecting cliffs, and guide the ship so safely through them. The sea divides itself into innumerable arms and bays, into small and large lakes, which are formed between the islands and rocks, and are hemmed in by beautiful hills. But nothing can exceed the beauty of the view of the castle Storry Husby, which lies on a high mountain, in a bay. In front of the mountain a beautiful meadow-lawn reaches to the shores of the sea, while the back is surrounded in the distance by a splendid pine-forest. Near this picturesque castle a steeple rises on a neighbouring island, which is all that remains of the ancient castle of Stegeborg. Nothing can be more romantic than the scenery here, and on the whole journey over the fiord; for it presents itself in ever-varying pictures to the traveller's notice. But gradually the hills become lower, the islands more rare; the sea supersedes every thing, and seems jealously anxious to exclude other objects from the traveller's attention, as if it wished to monopolise it. Now we were in the open sea, and saw only water and sky; and then again we were so hemmed in by the rocks and cliffs, that it would be impossible to extricate the ship without the assistance of an experienced pilot. September 9th. We left the sea, and entered another lake, the Malarsee, celebrated for its numerous islands, by a short canal. The town of Sotulje lies at its entrance, charmingly situated in a narrow valley at the foot of a rather steep hill. This lake at first resembles a broad river, but widens at every step, and soon shews itself in its whole expanse. The passage of the Malarsee takes four hours, and is one of the most charming excursions that can be made. It is said to contain about a thousand islets of various sizes; and it may be imagined how varied in form and feature the scenery must be, and, like the fiord of the Baltic, what a constant succession of new scenes it must present. The shores also are very beautiful: in some spots hills descend sharply to the water's edge, the steep rocks forming dangerous points; on others dark, sombre pine-forests grow; and again there are gay valleys and meadows, with villages or single cottages. Many travellers assert that this lake is, after all, very monotonous; but I cannot agree with their opinion. I found it so attractive, that I could repeat the journey many times without wearying of this lovely sameness. It certainly has not the majestic backgrounds of the Swiss lakes; but this profusion of small islands is a pleasing peculiarity which can be found on no other lake. On the summit of a steep precipice of the shore the hat of the unfortunate Eric is hoisted, fastened to a long pole. History tells that this king fled from the enemy in a battle; that one of his soldiers pursued him, and reproached him for his cowardice, whereupon Eric, filled with shame and despair, gave spurs to his horse and leaped into the fearful abyss. At his fall his hat was blown from his head, and was left on this spot. Not far from this point the suburbs of Stockholm make their appearance, being spread round one of the broad arms of the lake. With increasing curiosity we gazed towards the town as we gradually approached it. Many of the pretty villas, which are situated in the valleys or on the sides of the hills as forerunners of the town, come into view, and the suburbs rise amphi-theatrically on the steep shores. The town itself closes the prospect by occupying the whole upper shore of the lake, and is flanked by the suburbs at either side. The Ritterholm church, with its cast-iron perforated towers, and the truly grand royal palace, which is built entirely in the Italian style, can be seen and admired from this distance. We had scarcely cast anchor in the port of Stockholm, when a number of Herculean women came and offered us their services as porters. They were Delekarliers, {52} who frequently come to Stockholm to earn a livelihood as porters, water-carriers, boatwomen, &c. They easily find employment, because they possess two excellent qualities: they are said to be exceedingly honest and hard-working, and, at the same time, have the strength and perseverance of men. Their dress consists of black petticoats, which come half way over the calf of the leg, red bodices, white chemises with long sleeves, short narrow aprons of two colours, red stockings, and shoes with wooden soles an inch thick. They twist a handkerchief round their head, or put on a little close black cap, which fits close on the back part of the head. In Stockholm there are entire houses, as well as single rooms, which, as in a hotel, are let by the day. They are much cheaper than hotels, and are therefore more in demand. I at once hired one of these rooms, which was very clean and bright, and for which, with breakfast, I only paid one riksdaler, which is about one shilling. CHAPTER X As my journey was ostensibly only to Iceland, and as I only paid a flying visit to this portion of Scandinavia, my readers will pardon me if I treat it briefly. This portion of Europe has been so frequently and so excellently described by other travellers, that my observations would be of little importance. I remained in Stockholm six days, and made as good use of my time as I could. The town is situated on the shores of the Baltic Sea and the Malar lake. These two waters are connected by a short canal, on whose shores the most delightful houses are erected. [Picture: Stockholm] My first visit was to the beautiful church of Ritterholm, which is used more for a cemetery and an armory than for a place of worship. The vaults serve as burial-places for the kings, and their monuments are erected in the side-chapels. On each side of the nave of the church are placed effigies of armed knights on horseback, whose armour belonged to the former kings of Sweden. The walls and angles of the church are profusely decorated with flags and standards, said to number five thousand. In addition to this, the keys of conquered towns and fortresses hang along the side-walls, and drums are piled upon the floor; trophies taken from different nations with which Sweden has been at war. Besides these curiosities, several coats of armour and garments of Swedish regents are displayed behind glass-cases in the side-chapels. Among them, the dress which Charles XII. wore on the day of his death, and his hat perforated by a ball, interested me most. His riding-boots stand on the ground beside it. The modern dress and hat, embroidered with gold and ornamented with feathers, of the last king, the founder of the new dynasty, is not less interesting, partly perhaps from the great contrast. The church of St. Nicholas stands on the same side of the canal, and is one of the finest Protestant churches I had seen; it is very evident that it was built in Catholic times, and that its former decorations have been allowed to remain. It contains several large and small oil-paintings, some ancient and some modern monuments, and a profusion of gilding. The organ is fine and large; flanking the entrance of the church are beautiful reliefs, hewn in stone; and above it, carved in wood, a statue of the archangel Michael, larger than life, sitting on horseback on a bridge, in the act of killing the dragon. Near the church is situated the royal palace, which needs a more fluent pen than mine to describe it. It would fill a volume were I to enumerate and describe the treasures, curiosities, and beauties of its construction, or its interior arrangement; I can only say that I never saw any thing to equal it, except the royal palace of Naples. Such an edifice is the more surprising in the north, and in a country which has never been overstocked with wealth. The church of Shifferholm is remarkable only for its position and its temple-like form; it stands on the ledge of a rock facing the royal palace, on the opposite shore of the same indentation of the Baltic. A long bridge of boats leads from the one to the other. The church of St. Catharine is large and beautiful. In an outer angle of the church is shewn the stone on which one of the brothers Sturre was beheaded. {53} On the Ritterplatz stands the Ritterhouse, a very fine palace; also the old royal palace, and several other royal and private mansions; but they are not nearly so numerous nor so fine as in Copenhagen, and the streets and squares also cannot be compared with those of the capital of Denmark. The finest prospect is from a hill in one of the suburbs called the Great Mosbecken; it affords a magnificent view of the sea and the lake, of the town and its suburbs, as far as the points of the mountains, and of the lovely country-houses which border the shores of lake and sea. The town and its environs are so interspersed with islets and rocks, that these seem to be part of the town; and this gives Stockholm such a curious appearance, that I can compare it to no other city I have seen. Wooded hills and naked rocks prolong the view, and their ridges extend into the far distance; while level fields and lawns take up but a very small proportion of the magnificent scenery. On descending from this hill the traveller should not fail to go to Sodermalm, and to inspect the immense iron-stores, where iron is heaped up in countless bars. The corn-market of Stockholm is insignificant. The principal buildings besides those already enumerated are, the bank, the mint, the guard-house, the palace of the crown-prince, the theatre, &c. The latter is interesting, partly because Gustavus III. was shot in it. He fell on the stage, while a grand masquerade was taking place, for which the theatre had been changed into a ball-room. The king was shot by a mask, and died in a few hours. There is not a representation in the theatre every night; and on the one evening of performance during my visit a festival was to be celebrated in the hall of antiquities. The esteemed artist Vogelberg, a native of Sweden, had beautifully sculptured the three heathen gods, Thor, Balder, and Odin, in colossal size, and brought them over from Rome. The statues had only been lately placed, and a large company had been invited to meet in the illuminated saloon, and do honour to the artist. Solemn hymns were to be sung at the uncovering of the statues, beside other festivities. I was fortunate enough to receive an invitation to this festival, which was to commence a little past seven. Before that I went to the theatre, which, I was told, would open at half-past six. I intended to remain there half an hour, and then drive to the palace, where my friends would meet me to accompany me to the festival. I went to the theatre at six, and anxiously waited half an hour for the commencement of the overture; it was after half-past six, and no signs of the commencement. I looked again at the bill, and saw, to my annoyance, that the opera did not begin till seven. But as I would not leave until I had seen the stage, I spent the time in looking at the theatre itself. It is tolerably large, and has five tiers of boxes, but is neither tastefully nor richly decorated. I was most surprised at the exorbitant price and the variety of seats. I counted twenty-six different kinds; it seems that every row has a different price, else I don't understand how they could make such a variety. At last the overture began; I listened to it, saw the curtain rise, looked at the fatal spot, and left after the first air. The door-keeper followed me, took my arm, and wished to give me a return-ticket; and when I told him that I did not require one, as I did not intend to return, he said that it had only just commenced, and that I ought to stop, and not have spent all the money for nothing. I was unfortunately too little acquainted with the Swedish language to explain the reason of my departure, so I could give him no answer, but went away. I, however, heard him say to some one, "I never met with such a woman before; she sat an hour looking at the curtain, and goes away as soon as it rises." I looked round and saw how he shook his head thoughtfully, and pointed with his forefinger to his forehead. I could not refrain from smiling, and enjoyed the scene as much as I should have done the second act of Mozart's _Don Giovanni_. I called for my friends at the royal palace, and spent the evening very agreeably in the brilliantly-illuminated galleries of antiquities and of pictures. I had the pleasure also of being introduced to Herr Vogelberg. His modest, unpretending manners must inspire every one with respect, even if one does not know what distinguished talent he possesses. The royal park is one of the finest sights in the neighbourhood of Stockholm, and is one of the best of its kind. It is a fine large natural park, with an infinity of groves, meadows, hills, and rocks; here and there lies a country-house with its fragrant flower-garden, or tasteful coffee and refreshment houses, which on fine Sundays are filled with visitors from the town. Good roads are made through the park, and commodious paths lead to the finest points of view over sea and land. The bust of the popular poet Bellmann stands on an open sunny spot, and an annual festival is given here in his honour. Deeper in the park lies the so-called Rosenthal (Rose valley), a real Eden. The late king was so partial to this spot, that he spent many hours in the little royal country-house here, which is built on a retired spot in the midst of groves and flower-beds. In front of the palace stands a splendid vase made of a single piece of porphyry. I was told that it was the largest in Europe, but I consider the one in the Museum of Naples much larger. I spent the last hours of my visit to Stockholm in this spot, with the amiable family of Herr Boje from Finnland, whose acquaintance I had made on the journey from Gottenburg to Stockholm. I shall therefore never forget this beautiful park and the agreeable associations connected with it. I made a very agreeable excursion also to the royal palace of Haga, to the large cemetery, and to the military school Karlberg. The royal castle of Haga is surrounded by a magnificent park, which owes little to art; it contains some of the finest trees, with here and there a hill, and is crossed by majestic alleys and well-kept roads for driving and walking. The palace itself is so small, that I could not but admire the moderation of the royal family; but I was informed that this is the smallest of their summer palaces. Nearly opposite to this park is the great cemetery; but as it has only existed for about seventeen years, the trees in it are yet rather young. This would be of little consequence in other countries, but in Sweden the cemeteries serve as promenades, and are crossed by alleys, ornamented with groves, and provided with seats for the accommodation of visitors. This cemetery is surrounded by a dark pine-forest, and really seems quite shut off from the outer world. It is the only burial-place out of the town; the others all lie between the churches and the neighbouring houses, whose fronts often form the immediate boundary. Burials take place there constantly, so that the inhabitants are quite familiar with the aspect of death. From the great cemetery a road leads to the neighbouring Karlberg, which is the academy for military and naval cadets. The extensive buildings attached to this seminary are built on the slope of a mountain, which is washed on one side by the waters of the lake, and surrounded on the other by the beautiful park-plantations. Before leaving Stockholm I had the honour of being introduced to her majesty the Queen of Sweden. She had heard of my travels, and took a particular interest in my account of Palestine. In consequence of this favour, I received the special permission to inspect the whole interior of the palace. Although it was inhabited, I was conducted, not only through the state-rooms, but through all the private rooms of the court. It would be impossible to describe the splendour which reigns here, the treasures of art, the magnificent appointments, and the evident taste every where displayed. I was delighted with all the treasures and splendour, but still more with the warm interest with which her majesty conversed with me about Palestine. This interview will ever dwell on my memory as the bright salient point of my northern expedition. EXCURSION TO THE OLD ROYAL CASTLE OF GRIPTHOLM ON THE MALARSEE Every Sunday morning, at eight o'clock, a little steamer leaves Stockholm for this castle; the distance is about forty-five miles, and is passed in four hours; four hours more are allowed for the stay, and in the evening the steamer returns to Stockholm. This excursion is very interesting, although we pass the greater part of the time on that portion of the lake which we had seen on our arrival, but for the last few miles the ship turned into a pretty bay, at whose apex the castle is situated. It is distinguished for its size, its architecture, and its colossal turrets. It is unfortunately, however, painted with the favourite brick-red colour of the Swedes. Two immense cannons, which the Swedes once gained in battle from the Russians, stand in the courtyard. The apartments in the castle, which are kept in good condition, display neither splendour nor profusion of appointments, indeed almost the contrary. The pretty theatre is, however, an exception: for its walls are inlaid from top to bottom with mirrors, its pillars are gilt, and the royal box tapestried with rich red velvet. There has been no performance here since the death of Gustavus III. The immensely massive walls are a remarkable feature of this palace, and must measure about three yards in thickness in the lower stories. The upper apartments are all large and high, and afford a splendid view of the lake from their windows. But it is impossible to enjoy these beautiful scenes when one thinks of the sad events which have taken place here. Two kings, John III. and Eric XIV., the latter with four of his ministers, who were subsequently beheaded, were imprisoned here for many years. The captivity of John III. would not have been so bad, if captivity were not bad enough in itself. He was confined in a large splendid saloon, but which he was not permitted to quit, and which he would therefore probably have gladly exchanged for the poorest hut and liberty. His wife inhabited two smaller apartments adjoining; she was not treated as a prisoner, and could leave the castle at will. His son Sigismund was born here in the year 1566, and the room and bed in which he was born are still shewn as curiosities. Eric's fate was much more unfortunate, for he was kept in narrow and dark confinement. A small rudely-furnished apartment, with narrow, iron-barred windows, in one of the little turrets was his prison. The entrance was closed by a solid oaken door, in which a small opening had been made, through which his food was given him. For greater security this oaken door was covered by an iron one. Round the outside of the apartment a narrow gallery had been made, on which the guards were posted, and could at all times see their prisoner through the barred windows. The spot is still shewn at one of the windows where the king sat for hours looking into the distance, his head leaning on his hand. What must have been his feelings as he gazed on the bright sky, the verdant turf, and the smiling lake! How many sighs must have been echoed from these walls, how many sleepless nights must he have passed during those two long years in anxious expectation of the future! The guide who took us round the castle maintained that the floor was more worn on this spot than any where else, and that the window-sash had been hollowed by the elbow of the miserable king; but I could not perceive any difference. Eric was kept imprisoned here for two years, and was then taken to another prison. There is a large picture-gallery in this castle; but it contains principally portraits of kings, not only of Sweden, but of other countries, from the Middle Ages down to the present time; also portraits of ministers, generals, painters, poets, and learned men; of celebrated Swedish females, who have sacrificed themselves for their country, and of the most celebrated female beauties. The name and date of birth of each person are affixed to his or her portrait, so that each visitor may find his favourite without guide or catalogue. In many of them the colouring and drawing are wretched enough, but we will hope that the resemblance is all the more striking. On our return several gentlemen were kind enough to direct my attention to the most interesting points of the lake. Among these I must mention Kakeholm, its broadest point; the island of Esmoi, on which a Swedish female gained a battle; Norsberg, also celebrated for a battle which took place there; and Sturrehof, the property of a great Swedish family. Near Bjarkesoe a simple cross is erected, ostensibly on the spot where Christianity was first introduced. Indeed the Malarsee has so many historical associations, in addition to the attractions of its scenery, that it is one of the most interesting seas not only of Sweden but of Europe. JOURNEY FROM STOCKHOLM TO UPSALA AND TO THE IRON-MINES OF DANEMORA September 12th. The intercourse between Stockholm and Upsala is very considerable. A steamer leaves both places every day except Sunday, and traverses the distance in six hours. Tempted by this convenient opportunity of easily and quickly reaching the celebrated town of Upsala, and by the unusually fine weather, I took my passage one evening, and was greatly disappointed when, on the following morning, the rain poured down in torrents. But if travellers paid much attention to the weather, they would not go far; so I nevertheless embarked at half-past seven, and arrived safely in Upsala. I remained in the cabin during the passage, and could not even enjoy the prospect from the cabin-windows, for the rain beat on them from the outside, while inside they were obscured by the heat. But I did not venture on deck, hoping to be favoured by better weather on my return. At last, about three o'clock, when I had been in Upsala more than an hour, the weather cleared up, and I sallied out to see the sights. First I visited the cathedral. I entered, and stood still with astonishment at the chief portal, on looking up at the high roof resting on two rows of pillars, and covering the whole church. It is formed in one beautiful straight line, unbroken by a single arch. The church itself is simple: behind the grand altar a handsome chapel is erected, the ceiling of which is painted azure blue, embossed with golden stars. In this chapel Gustavus I. is interred between his two wives. The monument which covers the grave is large, and made of marble, but clumsy and void of taste. It represents a sarcophagus, on which three bodies, the size of life, are laid; a marble canopy is raised over them. The walls of the chapel are covered with pretty frescoes, representing the most remarkable scenes in the life of this monarch. The most interesting among them are, one in which he enters a peasant's hut in peasant's attire, at the same moment that his pursuers are eagerly inquiring after him in front of the hut; the other, when he stands on a barrel, also dressed as a peasant, and harangues his people. Two large tablets in a broad gold frame contain in Swedish, and not in the Latin language, the explanation of the different pictures, so that every Swede may easily learn the monarch's history. Several other monuments are erected in the side-chapels; those of Catharine Magelone, John III., Gustavus Erichson, who was beheaded, and of the two brothers Sturre, who were murdered. The monument of Archbishop Menander, in white marble, is a tasteful and artistic modern production. The great Linnaeus is buried under a simple marble slab in this church; but his monument is in one of the side-chapels, and not over his grave, and consists of a beautiful dark-brown porphyry slab, on which his portrait is sculptured in relief. The splendid organ, which reaches nearly to the roof of the church, also deserves special attention. The treasure-chamber does not contain great treasures; the blood-stained and dagger-torn garments of the unfortunate brothers Sturre are kept in a glass case here; and here also stands a wooden statue of the heathen god Thor. This wooden affair seems to have originally been an Ecce Homo, which was perhaps the ornament of some village church, then carried off by some unbeliever, and made more shapeless than its creator, not proficient in art, had made it. It has a greater resemblance now to a frightful scarecrow than to any thing else. The churchyard near the church is distinguished for its size and beauty. It is surrounded by a wall of stone two feet high, surmounted by an iron palisading of equal height, broken by stone pillars. On several sides, steps are made into the burying-ground over this partition. In this cemetery, as in the one of Stockholm, one seems to be in a lovely garden, laid out with alleys, arbours, lawns, &c.; but it is more beautiful than the other, because it is older. The graves are half concealed by arbours; many were ornamented with flowers and wreaths, or hedged by rose-bushes. The whole aspect of this cemetery, or rather of this garden, seems equally adapted for the amusement of the living or the repose of the dead. The monuments are in no way distinguished; only two are rather remarkable, for they consist of tremendous pieces of rock in their natural condition, standing upright on the graves. One of these monuments resembles a mountain; it covers the ashes of a general, and is large enough to have covered his whole army; his relatives probably took the graves of Troy as a specimen for their monument. It is moreover inscribed by very peculiar signs, which seemed to me to be runic characters. The good people have united in this monument two characteristics of the ancients of two entirely distinct empires. The university or library building in Upsala is large and beautiful; it is situated on a little hill, with a fine front facing the town. The park, which is, however, still somewhat young, forms the background. {54} Near this building, on the same hill, stands a royal palace, conspicuous for its brick-red colour. It is very large, and the two wings are finished by massive round towers. In the centre of the courtyard, behind the castle, is placed a colossal bust of Gustavus I., and a few paces from it two artificial hills serve as bastions, on which cannons are planted. This being the highest point of the town, affords the best view over it, and over the surrounding country. The town itself is built half of wood and half of stone, and is very pretty, being crossed by broad streets, and ornamented with tastefully laid-out gardens. It has one disadvantage, which is the dark brownish-red colour of the houses, which has a peculiarly sombre appearance in the setting sun. An immense and fertile plain, diversified by dark forests contrasting with the bright green meadows and the yellow stubble-fields, surrounds the town, and in the distance the silvery river Fyris flows towards the sea. Forests close the distant view with their dark shadows. I saw but few villages; they may, however, have been hidden by the trees, for that they exist seems to be indicated by the well-kept high roads crossing the plain in all directions. Before quitting my position on the bastions of the royal palace I cast a glance on the castle-gardens, which were lying lower down the hill, and are separated from the castle by a road; they do not seem to be large, but are very pretty. I should have wished to be able to visit the botanic garden near the town, which was the favourite resort of Linnaeus, whose splendidly-sculptured bust is said to be its chief ornament; but the sun was setting behind the mountains, and I repaired to my chamber, to prepare for my journey to Danemora. September 13th. I left Upsala at four o'clock in the morning, to proceed to the far-famed iron-mines of Danemora, upwards of thirty miles distant, and where I wished to arrive before twelve, as the blasting takes place at that hour, after which the pits are closed. As I had been informed how slowly travelling is done in this country, and how tedious the delays are when the horses are changed, I determined to allow time enough for all interruptions, and yet arrive at the appointed hour. A few miles behind Upsala lies Old Upsala (Gamla Upsala). I saw the old church and the grave-hills in passing; three of the latter are remarkably large, the others smaller. It is presumed that the higher ones cover the graves of kings. I saw similar tumuli during my journey to Greece, on the spot where Troy is said to have stood. The church is not honoured as a ruin; it has yet to do service; and it grieved me to see the venerable building propped up and covered with fresh mortar on many a time-worn spot. Half way between Upsala and Danemora we passed a large castle, not distinguished for its architecture, its situation, or any thing else. Then we neared the river Fyris, and the long lake of Danemora; both are quite overgrown with reeds and grass, and have flat uninteresting shores; indeed the whole journey offers little variety, as the road lies through a plain, only diversified by woods, fields, and pieces of rock. These are interesting features, because one cannot imagine how they came there, the mountains being at a great distance, and the soil by no means rocky. The little town of Danemora lies in the midst of a wood, and only consists of a church and a few large and small detached houses. The vicinity of the mines is indicated before arriving at the place by immense heaps of stones, which are brought by horse-gins from the pits, and which cover a considerable space. I had fortunately arrived in time to see the blastings. Those in the great pit are the most interesting; for its mouth is so very large, that it is not necessary to descend in order to see the pit-men work; all is visible from above. This is a very peculiar and interesting sight. The pit, 480 feet deep, with its colossal doors and entrances leading into the galleries, looks like a picture of the lower world, from which bridges of rocks, projections, arches and caverns formed in the walls, ascend to the upper world. The men look like pigmies, and one cannot follow their movements until the eye has accustomed itself to the depth and to the darkness prevailing below. But the darkness is not very dense; I could distinguish most of the ladders, which seemed to me like children's toys. It was nearly twelve, and the workmen left the pits, with the exception of those in charge of the mines. They ascended by means of little tubs hanging by ropes, and were raised by a windlass. It is a terrible sight to see the men soaring up on the little machine, especially when two or three ascend at once; for then one man stands in the centre, while the other two ride on the edge of the tub. [Picture: Mines of Danemora] I should have liked to descend into the great pit, but it was too late on this day, and I would not wait another. I should not have feared the descent, as I was familiar with such adventures, having explored the salt-mines of Wieliczka and Bochnia, in Gallicia, some years before, in which I had had to let myself down by a rope, which is a much more dangerous method than the tub. With the stroke of twelve, four blasting trains in the large pit were fired. The man whose business it was to apply the match ran away in great haste, and sheltered himself behind a wall of rock. In a few moments the powder flashed, some stones fell, and then a fearful crash was heard all around, followed by the rolling and falling of the blasted masses. Repeated echoes announced the fearful explosion in the interior of the pits: the whole left a terrible impression on me. Scarcely had one mine ceased to rage, when the second began, then the third, and so on. These blastings take place daily in different mines. The other pits are deeper, the deepest being 600 feet; but the mouths are smaller, and the shafts not perpendicular, so that the eye is lost in darkness, which is a still more unpleasant sensation. I gazed with oppressed chest into the dark space, vainly endeavouring to distinguish something. I should not like to be a miner; I could not endure life without the light of day; and when I turned from the dark pits, I cast my eyes thankfully on the cheerful landscape basking in the sun. I returned to Upsala on the same day, having made this little journey by post. I can merely narrate the facts, without giving an opinion on the good or bad conveniences for locomotion, as this was more a pleasure-trip than a journey. As I had hired no carriage, I had a different vehicle at every station, and these vehicles consisted of ordinary two-wheeled wooden carts. My seat was a truss of hay covered with the horse-cloth. If the roads had not been so extremely good, these carts would have shaken terribly; but as it was, I must say that I rode more comfortably than in the carriols of the Norwegians, although they were painted and vanished; for in them I had to be squeezed in with my feet stretched out, and could not change my position. The stations are unequal,--sometimes long, sometimes short. The post-horses are provided here, as in Norway, by wealthy peasants, called Dschns-peasants. These have to collect a certain number of horses every evening for forwarding the travellers the next morning. At every post-house a book is kept, in which the traveller can see how many horses the peasant has, how many have already been hired, and how many are left in the stable. He must then inscribe his name, the hour of his departure, and the number of horses he requires. By this arrangement deception and extortion are prevented, as every thing is open, and the prices fixed. {55} Patience is also required here, though not so much as in Norway. I had always to wait from fifteen to twenty minutes before the carriage was brought and the horses and harness prepared, but never longer; and I must admit that the Swedish post-masters hurried as much as possible, and never demanded double fare, although they must have known that I was in haste. The pace of the horse depends on the will of the coachman and the powers of his steed; but in no other country did I see such consideration paid to the strength of the horses. It is quite ridiculous to see what small loads of corn, bricks, or wood, are allotted to two horses, and how slowly and sleepily they draw their burdens. The number of wooden gates, which divide the roads into as many parts as there are common grounds on it, are a terrible nuisance to travellers. The coachman has often to dismount six or eight times in an hour to open and close these gates. I was told that these delectable gates even exist on the great high road, only not quite in such profusion as on the by-roads. Wood must be as abundant here as in Norway, for every thing is enclosed; even fields which seem so barren as not to be worth the labour or the wood. The villages through which I passed were generally pretty and cheerful, and I found the cottages, which I entered while the horses were changed, neatly and comfortably furnished. The peasants of this district wear a peculiar costume. The men, and frequently also the boys, wear long dark-blue cloth surtouts, and cloth caps on their heads; so that, at a distance, they look like gentlemen in travelling dress. It seems curious to a foreigner to see these apparent gentlemen following the plough or cutting grass. At a nearer view, of course the aspect changes, and the rents and dirt appear, or the leathern apron worn beneath the coat, like carpenters in Austria, becomes visible. The female costume was peculiar only in so far that it was poor and ragged. In dress and shoes the Norwegian and Swedes are behind the Icelanders, but they surpass them in the comfort of their dwellings. September 14th. To-day I returned to Stockholm on the Malarsee, and the weather being more favourable than on my former passage, I could remain on deck the whole time. I saw now that we sailed for several miles on the river Fyris, which flows through woods and fields into the lake. The large plain on which old and new Upsala lie was soon out of sight, and after passing two bridges, we turned into the Malar. At first there are no islands on its flat expanse, and its shores are studded with low tree-covered hills; but we soon, however, arrived at the region of islands, where the passage becomes more interesting, and the beauty of the shores increases. The first fine view we saw was the pretty estate Krusenberg, whose castle is romantically situated on a fertile hill. But much more beautiful and surprising is the splendid castle of Skukloster, a large, beautiful, and regular pile, ornamented with four immense round turrets at the four corners, and with gardens stretching down to the water's edge. From this place the scenery is full of beauty and variety; every moment presents another and a more lovely view. Sometimes the waters expand, sometimes they are hemmed in by islands, and become as narrow as canals. I was most charmed with those spots where the islands lie so close together that no outlet seems possible, till another turn shews an opening between them, with a glimpse of the lake beyond. The hills on the shores are higher, and the promontories larger, the farther the ship advances; and the islands appear to be merely projections of the continent, till a nearer approach dispels the illusion. The village of Sixtuna lies in a picturesque and charming little valley, filled with ruins, principally of round towers, which are said to be the remains of the Roman town of Sixtum; the name being retained by the new town with a slight modification. After this follow cliffs and rocks rising perpendicularly from the sea, and whose vicinity would be by no means desirable in a storm. Of the castle of Rouse only three beautiful domes rise above the trees; a frowning bleak hill conceals the rest from the eye. Then comes a palace, the property of a private individual, only remarkable for its size. The last of the notabilities is the Rokeby bridge, said to be one of the longest in Sweden. It unites the firm land with the island on which the royal castle of Drottingholm stands. The town of Stockholm now becomes visible; we turn into the portion of the lake on which it lies, and arrive there again at two o'clock in the afternoon. FROM STOCKHOLM TO TRAVEMUNDE AND HAMBURGH I bade farewell to Stockholm on the 18th September, and embarked in the steamer _Svithiold_, of 100-horse power, at twelve o'clock at noon, to go to Travemunde. Few passages can be more expensive than this one is. The distance is five hundred leagues, and the journey generally occupies two and a half to three days; for this the fare, without food, is four pounds. The food is also exorbitantly dear; in addition to which the captain is the purveyor; so that there is no appeal for the grossest extortion or insufficiency. It pained me much when one of the poorer travellers, who suffered greatly from sea-sickness, having applied for some soup to the steward, who referred him to the amiable captain, to hear him declare he would make no exception, and that a basin of soup would be charged the whole price of a complete dinner. The poor man was to do without the soup, of which he stood so much in need, or scrape every farthing together to pay a few shillings daily for his dinner. Fortunately for him some benevolent persons on deck paid for his meals. Some of the gentlemen brought their own wine with them, for which they had to pay as much duty to the captain as the wine was worth. To these pleasures of travelling must be added the fact, that a Swedish vessel does not advance at all if the weather is unfavourable. Most of the passengers considered that the engines were inefficient. However this may be, we were delayed twenty-four hours at the first half of our journey, from Stockholm to Calmar, although we had only a slight breeze against us and a rather high sea, but no storm. In Calmar we cast anchor, and waited for more favourable wind. Several gentlemen, whose business in Lubeck was pressing, left the steamer, and continued their journey by land. At first the Baltic very much resembles the Malarsee; for islands, rocks, and a variety of scenery make it interesting. To the right we saw the immensely long wooden bridge of Lindenborg, which unites one of the larger islands with the continent. At the end of one of the turns of the sea lies the town of Wachsholm; and opposite to it, upon a little rocky island, a splendid fortress with a colossal round tower. Judging by the number of cannons planted along the walls, this fortress must be of great importance. A few hours later we passed a similar fortress, Friedrichsborg; it is not in such an open situation as the other, but is more surrounded by forests. We passed at a considerable distance, and could not see much of it, nor of the castle lying on the opposite side, which seems to be very magnificent, and is also surrounded by woods. The boundaries of the right shore now disappear, but then again appear as a terrible heap of naked rocks, at whose extreme edge is situated the fine fortress Dolero. Near it groups of houses are built on the bare rocks projecting into the sea, and form an extensive town. September 19th. To-day we were on the open, somewhat stormy sea. Towards noon we arrived at the Calmar Sound, formed by the flat, uniform shores of the long island Oland on the left, and on the right by Schmoland. In front rose the mountain-island the Jungfrau, to which every Swede points with self-satisfied pride. Its height is only remarkable compared with the flatness around; beside the proud giant-mountain of the same name in Switzerland it would seem like a little hill. September 20th. On account of the contrary wind, we had cast anchor here last night, and this morning continued the journey to Calmar, where we arrived about two in the forenoon. The town is situated on an immense plain, and is not very interesting. A few hours may be agreeably spent here in visiting the beautiful church and the antiquated castle, and we had more than enough leisure for it. Wind and weather seemed to have conspired against us, and the captain announced an indefinite stay at this place. At first we could not land, as the waves were too high; but at last one of the larger boats came alongside, and the more curious among us ventured to row to the land in the unsteady vessel. The exterior of the church resembles a fine antiquated castle from its four corner towers and the lowness of its dome, which rises very little above the building, and also because the other turrets here and there erected for ornament are scarcely perceptible. The interior of the church is remarkable for its size, its height, and a particularly fine echo. The tones of the organ are said to produce a most striking effect. We sent for the organist, but he was nowhere to be found; so we had to content ourselves with the echo of our own voices. We went from this place to the old royal castle built by Queen Margaret in the sixteenth century. The castle is so dilapidated inside that a tarrying in the upper chambers is scarcely advisable. The lower rooms of the castle have been repaired, and are used as prisons; and as we passed, arms were stretched forth from some of the barred windows, and plaintive voices entreated the passers-by to bestow some trifle upon the poor inmates. Upwards of 140 prisoners are said to be confined here. {56} About three o'clock in the afternoon the wind abated, and we continued our journey. The passage is very uniform, and we saw only flat, bare shores; a group of trees even was a rarity. September 21st. When I came on deck this morning the Sound was far behind us. To the left we had the open sea; on the right, instead of the bleak Schmoland, we had the bleaker Schonen, which was so barren, that we hardly saw a paltry fishing-village between the low sterile hills. At nine o'clock in the morning we anchored in the port of Ystadt. The town is pretty, and has a large square, in which stand the house of the governor, the theatre, and the town-hall. The streets are broad, and the houses partly of wood and partly of stone. The most interesting feature is the ancient church, and in it a much-damaged wooden altar-piece, which is kept in the vestry. Though the figures are coarse and disproportionate, one must admire the composition and the carving. The reliefs on the pulpit, and a beautiful monument to the right of the altar, also deserve admiration. These are all carved in wood. In the afternoon we passed the Danish island Malmo. At last, after having been nearly four days on the sea instead of two days and a half, we arrived safely in the harbour of Travemunde on the 22d September at two o'clock in the morning. And now my sea-journeys were over; I parted sorrowfully from the salt waters, for it is so delightful to see the water's expanse all around, and traverse its mirror-like surface. The sea presents a beautiful picture, even when it storms and rages, when waves tower upon waves, and threaten to dash the vessel to pieces or to engulf it--when the ship alternately dances on their points, or shoots into the abyss; and I frequently crept for hours in a corner, or held fast to the sides of the ship, and let the waves dash over me. I had overcome the terrible sea-sickness during my numerous journeys, and could therefore freely admire these fearfully beautiful scenes of excited nature, and adore God in His grandest works. We had scarcely cast anchor in the port when a whole array of coachmen surrounded us, volunteering to drive us overland to Hamburgh, a journey of thirty-six miles, which it takes eight hours to accomplish. Travemunde is a pretty spot, which really consists of only one street, in which the majority of the houses are hotels. The country from here to Lubeck, a distance of ten miles, is very pretty. A splendid road, on which the carriages roll smoothly along, runs through a charming wood past a cemetery, whose beauty exceeds that of Upsala; but for the monuments, one might take it for one of the most splendid parks or gardens. I regretted nothing so much as being unable to spend a day in Lubeck, for I felt very much attracted by this old Hanse town, with its pyramidically-built houses, its venerable dome, and other beautiful churches, its spacious squares, &c.; but I was obliged to proceed, and could only gaze at and admire it as I hurried through. The pavement of the streets is better than I had seen it in any northern town; and on the streets, in front of the houses, I saw many wooden benches, on which the inhabitants probably spend their summer evenings. I saw here for the first time again the gay-looking street-mirrors used in Hamburgh. The Trave, which flows between Travemunde and Lubeck, has to be crossed by boat. Near Oldesloe are the salt-factories, with large buildings and immensely high chimneys; an old romantic castle, entirely surrounded by water, lies near Arensburg. Past Arensburg the country begins to be uninteresting, and remains so as far as Hamburgh; but it seems to be very fertile, as there is an abundance of green fields and fine meadows. The little journey from Lubeck to Hamburgh is rather dear, on account of the almost incredible number of tolls and dues the poor coachmen have to pay. They have first to procure a license to drive from Lubeck into Hamburgh territory, which costs about 1_s._ 3_d._; then mine had to pay twice a double toll of 8_d._, because we passed through before five o'clock in the morning, and the gates, which are not opened till five o'clock, were unfastened especially for us; besides these, there was a penny toll on nearly every mile. This dreadful annoyance of the constant stopping and the toll-bars is unknown in Norway and in Sweden. There, an annual tax is paid for every horse, and the owner can then drive freely through the whole country, as no toll-bars are erected. The farm-houses here are very large and far-spread, but the reason is, that stable, barn, and shippen are under the same roof: the walls of the houses are of wood filled in with bricks. After passing Arensburg, we saw the steeples of Wandsbeck and Hamburgh in the distance; the two towns seem to be one, and are, in fact, only separated by pretty country-houses. But Wandsbeck compared to Hamburgh is a village, not a town. I arrived in Hamburgh about two o'clock in the afternoon; and my relatives were so astonished at my arrival, that they almost took me for a ghost. I was at first startled by their reception, but soon understood the reason of it. At the time I left Iceland another vessel went to Altona, by which I sent a box of minerals and curiosities to my cousin in Hamburgh. The sailor who brought the box gave such a description of the wretched vessel in which I had gone to Copenhagen, that, after having heard nothing of me for two months, he thought I must have gone to the bottom of the sea with the ship. I had indeed written from Copenhagen, but the letter had been lost; and hence their surprise and delight at my arrival. CHAPTER XI I had not much time to spare, so that I could only stay a few days with my relatives in Hamburgh; on the 26th September, I went in a little steamer from Hamburgh to Harburg, where we arrived in three quarters of an hour. From thence I proceeded in a stage-carriage to Celle, about sixty-five miles. The country is not very interesting; it consists for the most part of plains, which degenerate into heaths and marshes; but there are a few fertile spots peeping out here and there. September 27th. We arrived at Celle in the night. From here to Lehrte, a distance of about seven miles, I had to hire a private conveyance, but from Lehrte the railway goes direct to Berlin. {57} Many larger and smaller towns are passed on this road; but we saw little of them, as the stations all lie at some distance, and the railway-train only stops a few minutes. The first town we passed was Brunswick. Immediately beyond the town lies the pretty ducal palace, built in the Gothic style, in the centre of a fine park. Wolfenbuttel seems to be a considerable town, judging by the quantity of houses and church-steeples. A pretty wooden bridge, with an elegantly-made iron balustrade, is built here across the Ocker. From the town, a beautiful lane leads to a gentle hill, on whose top stands a lovely building, used as a coffee-house. As soon as one has passed the Hanoverian domains the country, though it is not richer in natural curiosities, is less abundant in marshes and heaths, and is very well-cultivated land. Many villages are spread around, and many a charming town excites the wish to travel through at a slower pace. We passed Schepenstadt, Jersheim, and Wegersleben, which latter town already belongs to Prussia. In Ashersleben and in Magdeburg we changed carriages. Near Salze we saw some fine buildings which belong to the extensive saltworks existing here. Jernaudau is a colony of Moravians. I should have wished to visit the town of Kotten,--for nothing can be more charming than the situation of the town in the midst of fragrant gardens,--but we unfortunately only stopped there a few minutes. The town of Dessau is also surrounded by pretty scenery: several bridges cross the various arms of the Elbe; that over the river itself rests on solid stone columns. Of Wittenberg we only saw house tops and church-steeples; the same of Juterbog, which looks as if it were newly built. Near Lukewalde the regions of sand begin, and the uniformity is only broken by a little ridge of wooded hills near Trebbin; but when these are past, the railway passes on to Berlin through a melancholy, unmitigated desert of sand. I had travelled from six o'clock this morning until seven in the evening, over a distance of about two hundred and twenty miles, during which time we had frequently changed carriages. The number of passengers we had taken up on the road was very great, on account of the Leipzic fairs; sometimes the train had thirty-five to forty carriages, three locomotives, and seven to eight hundred passengers; and yet the greatest order had prevailed. It is a great convenience that one can take a ticket from Lehrte to Berlin, although the railway passes through so many different states, because then one needs not look after the luggage or any thing else. The officials on the railway are all very civil. As soon as the train stopped, the guards announced with a loud voice the time allowed, however long or short it might be; so that the passengers could act accordingly, and take refreshments in the neighbouring hotels. The arrangements for alighting are very convenient: the carriages run into deep rails at the stations, so that the ground is level with the carriages, and the entrance and exit easy. The carriages are like broad coaches; two seats ran breadthwise across them, with a large door at each side. The first and second class contain eight persons in each division, the third class ten. The carriages are all numbered, so that every passenger can easily find his seat. By these simple arrangements the traveller may descend and walk about a little, even though the train should only stop two minutes, or even purchase some refreshments, without any confusion or crowding. These conveniences are, of course, impossible when the carriages have the length of a house, and contain sixty or seventy persons within locked doors, and where the doors are opened by the guards, who only call out the name of the station without announcing how long the stay is. In such railways it is not advisable for travellers to leave their seats; for before they can pass from one end of the carriage to the other, through the narrow door and down the steep steps, the horn is sounded, and at the same time the train moves on; the sound being the signal for the engine-driver, the passengers having none. In these states there was also not the least trouble with the passport and the intolerable pass-tickets. No officious police-soldier comes to the carriage, and prevents the passengers alighting before they have answered all his questions. If passports had to be inspected on this journey, it would take a few days, for they must always be taken to the passport-office, as they are never examined on the spot. Such annoying interruptions often occur several times in the same state. And one need not even come from abroad to experience them, as a journey from a provincial to a capital town affords enough scope for annoyance. I had no reason to complain of such annoyances in any of the countries through which I had hitherto passed. My passport was only demanded in my hotel in the capitals of the countries, if I intended to remain several days. In Stockholm, however, I found a curious arrangement; every foreigner there is obliged to procure a Swedish passport, and pay half-a-crown for it, if he only remains a few hours in the town. This is, in reality, only a polite way of taking half-a-crown from the strangers, as they probably do not like to charge so much for a simple _vise_! STAY IN BERLIN--RETURN TO VIENNA I have never seen a town more beautifully or regularly built than Berlin,--I mean, the town of Berlin itself,--only the finest streets, palaces, and squares of Copenhagen would bear a comparison with it. I spent but a few days here, and had therefore scarcely time to see the most remarkable and interesting sights. The splendid royal palace, the extensive buildings for the picture-gallery and museums, the great dome--all these are situated very near each other. The Dome church is large and regularly built; a chapel, surrounded by an iron enclosure, stands at each side of the entrance. Several kings are buried here, and antiquated sarcophagi cover their remains, known as the kings' graves. Near them stands a fine cast-iron monument, beneath which Count Brandenburg lies. The Catholic church is built in the style of the Rotunda in Rome; but, unlike it, the light falls from windows made around the walls, and not from above. Beautiful statues and a simple but tasteful altar are the only ornaments of this church. The portico is ornamented by beautiful reliefs. The Werder church is a modern erection, built in the Gothic style, and its turrets are ornamented by beautiful bronze reliefs. The walls inside are inlaid with coloured wood up to the galleries, where they terminate in Gothic scroll-work. The organ has a full, clear tone; in front of it stands a painting which, at first sight, resembles a scene from heathen mythology more than a sacred subject. A number of cupids soar among wreaths of flowers, and surround three beautiful female figures. The mint and the architectural college stand near this church. The former is covered with fine sculptures; the latter is square, of a brick-red colour, without any architectural embellishment, and perfectly resembling an unusually large private house. The ground-floor is turned into fine shops. Near the palace lies the Opera Square, in which stand the celebrated opera-house, the arsenal, the university, the library, the academy, the guardhouse, and several royal palaces. Three statues ornament the square: those of General Count Bulov, General Count Scharnhorst, and General Prince Blucher. They are all three beautifully sculptured, but the drapery did not please me; it consisted of the long military cloth cloak, which, opening in front, afforded a glimpse of the splendid uniforms. The arsenal is one of the finest buildings in Berlin, and forms a square; at the time of my stay some repairs were being made, so that it was closed. I had to be content with glimpses through the windows of the first floor, which showed me immense saloons filled by tremendous cannons, ranged in rows. The guardhouse is contiguous, and resembles a pretty temple, with its portico of columns. The opera-house forms a long detached square. It would have a much better effect if the entrances were not so wretched. The one at the grand portal looks like a narrow, miserable church-door, low and gloomy. The other entrances are worse still, and one would not suppose that they could lead to such a splendid interior, whose appointments are indescribably luxurious and commodious. The pit is filled by rows of comfortably-cushioned chairs with cushioned backs, numbered, but not barred. The boxes are divided by very low partitions, so that the aristocratic world seems to sit on a tribune. The seats in the pit and the first and second tiers are covered with dark-red silk damask; the royal box is a splendid saloon, the floor of which is covered with the finest carpets. Beautiful oil-paintings, in tasteful gold frames, ornament the plafond; but the magnificent chandelier is the greatest curiosity. It looks so massively worked in bronze, that it is painful to see the heavy mass hang so loosely over the heads of the spectators. But it is only a delusion; for it is made of paste-board, and bronzed over. Innumerable lamps light the place; but one thing which I miss in such elegant modern theatres is a clock, which has a place in nearly every Italian theatre. The other buildings on this square are also distinguished for their size and the beauty of their architecture. An unusually broad stone bridge, with a finely-made iron balustrade, is built over a little arm of the Spree, and unites the square of the opera with that on which the palace stands. The royal museum is one of the finest architectural piles, and its high portal is covered with beautiful frescoes. The picture-gallery contains many _chefs-d'oeuvre_; and I regretted that I had not more time to examine it and the hall of antiquities, having only three hours for the two. From the academy runs a long street lined with lime-trees, and which is therefore called Under-the-limes (_unter den Linden_). This alley forms a cheerful walk to the Brandenburg-gate, beyond which the pleasure-gardens are situated. The longest and finest streets which run into the lime-alley are the Friedrichs Street and the Wilhelms Street. The Leipziger Street also belongs to the finest, but does not run into this promenade. The Gens-d'arme Square is distinguished by the French and German churches, at least by their exterior,--by their high domes, columns, and porticoes. The interiors are small and insignificant. On this square stands also the royal theatre, a tasteful pile of great beauty, with many pillars, and statues of muses and deities. I ascended the tower on which the telegraph works, on account of the view over the town and the flat neighbourhood. A very civil official was polite enough to explain the signs of the telegraph to me, and to permit me to look at the other telegraphs through his telescope. The Konigstadt, situated on the opposite shore of the Spree, not far from the royal palace, contains nothing remarkable. Its chief street, the Konigsstrasse, is long, but narrow and dirty. Indeed it forms a great contrast to the town of Berlin in every thing; the streets are narrow, short, and winding. The post-office and the theatres are the most remarkable buildings. The luxury displayed in the shop-windows is very great. Many a mirror and many a plate-glass window reminded me of Hamburgh's splendour, which surpasses that of Berlin considerably. There are not many excursions round Berlin, as the country is flat and sandy. The most interesting are to the pleasure-gardens, Charlottenburg, and, since the opening of the railway, to Potsdam. The park or pleasure-garden is outside the Brandenburg-gate; it is divided into several parts, one of which reminded me of our fine Prater in Vienna. The beautiful alleys were filled with carriages, riders, and pedestrians; pretty coffee-houses enlivened the woody portions, and merry children gambolled on the green lawns. I felt so much reminded of my beloved Prater, that I expected every moment to see a well-known face, or receive a friendly greeting. Kroll's Casino, sometimes called the Winter-garden, is built on this side of the park. I do not know how to describe this building; it is quite a fairy palace. All the splendour which fancy can invent in furniture, gilding, painting, or tapestry, is here united in the splendid halls, saloons, temples, galleries, and boxes. The dining-room, which will dine 1800 persons, is not lighted by windows, but by a glass roof vaulted over it. Rows of pillars support the galleries, or separate the larger and smaller saloons. In the niches, and in the corners, round the pillars, abound fragrant flowers, and plants in chaste vases or pots, which transform this place into a magical garden in winter. Concerts and _reunions_ take place here every Sunday, and the press of visitors is extraordinary, although smoking is prohibited. This place will accommodate 5000 persons. That side of the park which lies in the direction of the Potsdam-gate resembles an ornamental garden, with its well-kept alleys, flower-beds, terraces, islets, and gold-fish ponds. A handsome monument to the memory of Queen Louise is erected on the Louise island here. On this side, the coffee-house Odeon is the best, but cannot be compared to Kroll's casino. Here also are rows of very elegant country-houses, most of which are built in the Italian style. CHARLOTTENBURG This place is about half an hour's distance from the Brandenburg-gate, where the omnibuses that depart every minute are stationed. The road leads through the park, beyond which lies a pretty village, and adjoining it is the royal country-palace of Charlottenburg. The palace is built in two stories, of which the upper one is very low, and is probably only used for the domestics. The palace is more broad than deep; the roof is terrace-shaped, and in its centre rises a pretty dome. The garden is simple, and not very large, but contains a considerable orangery. In a dark grove stands a little building, the mausoleum in which the image of Queen Louise has been excellently executed by the famed artist Rauch. Here also rest the ashes of the late king. There is also an island with statues in the midst of a large pond, on which some swans float proudly. It is a pity that dirt does not stick to these white-feathered animals, else they would soon be black swans; for the pond or river surrounding the island is one of the dirtiest ditches I have ever seen. Fatigue would be very intolerable in this park, for there are very few benches, but an immense quantity of gnats. POTSDAM. The distance from Berlin to Potsdam is eighteen miles, which is passed by the railroad in three-quarters of an hour. The railway is very conveniently arranged; the carriages are marked with the names of the station, and the traveller enters the carriage on which the place of his destination is marked. Thus, the passengers are never annoyed by the entrance or exit of passengers, as all occupying the same carriage descend at the same time. The road is very uninteresting; but this is compensated for by Potsdam itself, for which a day is scarcely sufficient. Immediately in front of the town flows the river Havel, crossed by a long, beautiful bridge, whose pillars are of stone, and the rest of the bridge of iron. The large royal palace lies on the opposite shore, and is surrounded by a garden. The garden is not very extensive, but large enough for the town, and is open to the public. The palace is built in a splendid style, but is unfortunately quite useless, as the court has beautiful summer-palaces in the neighbourhood of Potsdam, and spends the winter in Berlin. The castle square is not very good; it is neither large nor regular, and not even level. On it stands the large church, which is not yet completed, but promises to be a fine structure. The town is tolerably large, and has many fine houses. The streets, especially the Nauner Street, are wide and long, but badly paved; the stones are laid with the pointed side upwards, and for foot-passengers there is a stone pavement two feet broad on one side of the street only. The promenade of the townspeople is called Am Kanal (beside the canal), and is a fine square, through which the canal flows, and is ornamented with trees. Of the royal pleasure-palaces I visited that of Sans Souci first. It is surrounded by a pretty park, and lies on a hill, which is divided into six terraces. Large conservatories stand on each side of these; and in front of them are long alleys of orange and lemon-trees. The palace has only a ground floor, and is surrounded by arbours, trees, and vines, so that it is almost concealed from view. I could not inspect the interior, as the royal family was living there. A side-path leads from here to the Ruinenberg, on which the ruins of a larger and a smaller temple, raised by the hand of art, are tastefully disposed. The top of the hill is taken up by a reservoir of water. From this point one can see the back of the palace of Sans Souci, and the so-called new palace, separated from the former by a small park, and distant only about a quarter of an hour. The new palace, built by Frederick the Great, is as splendid as one can imagine. It forms a lengthened square, with arabesques and flat columns, and has a flat roof, which is surrounded by a stone balustrade, and ornamented by statues. The apartments are high and large, and splendidly painted, tapestried, and furnished. Oil-paintings, many of them very good, cover the walls. One might fill a volume with the description of all the wonders of this place, which is, however, not inhabited. Behind the palace, and separated from it by a large court, are two beautiful little palaces, connected by a crescent-shaped hall of pillars; broad stone steps lead to the balconies surrounding the first story of the edifices. They are used as barracks, and are, as such, the most beautiful I have ever seen. From here a pleasant walk leads to the lovely palace of Charlottenburg. Coming from the large new palace it seemed too small for the dwelling even of the crown-prince. I should have taken it for a splendid pavilion attached to the new palace, to which the royal family sometimes walked, and perhaps remained there to take refreshment. But when I had inspected it more closely, and seen all the comfortable little rooms, furnished with such tasteful luxury, I felt that the crown-prince could not have made a better choice. Beautiful fountains play on the terraces; the walls of the corridors and anterooms are covered with splendid frescoes, in imitation of those found in Pompeii. The rooms abound in excellent engravings, paintings, and other works of art; and the greatest taste and splendour is displayed even in the minor arrangements. A pretty Chinese chiosque, filled with good statues, which have been unfortunately much damaged and broken, stands near the palace. These three beautiful royal residences are situated in parks, which are so united that they seem only as one. The parks are filled with fine trees, and verdant fields crossed by well-kept paths and drives; but I saw very few flower-beds in them. When I had contemplated every thing at leisure, I returned to the palace of Sans Souci, to see the beautiful fountains, which play twice a week, on Tuesday and Friday, from noon till evening. The columns projected from the basin in front of the castle are so voluminous, and rise with such force, that I gazed in amazement at the artifice. It is real pleasure to be near the basin when the sun shines in its full splendour, forming the most beautiful rainbows in the falling shower of drops. Equally beautiful is a fountain rising from a high vase, enwreathed by living flowers, and falling over it, so that it forms a quick, brisk fountain, transparent, and pure as the finest crystal. The lid of the vase, also enwreathed with growing flowers, rises above the fountain. The Neptune's grotto is of no great beauty; the water falls from an urn placed over it, and forms little waterfalls as it flows over nautilus-shells. The marble palace lies on the other side of Potsdam, and is half an hour's distance from these palaces; but I had time enough to visit it. Entering the park belonging to this palace, a row of neat peasants' cottages is seen on the left; they are all alike, but separated by fruit, flower, or kitchen-gardens. The palace lies at the extreme end of the park, on a pretty lake formed by the river Havel. It certainly has some right to the name of marble palace; but it seems presumption to call it so when compared to the marble palaces of Venice, or the marble mosques of Constantinople. The walls of the building are of brick left in its natural colour. The lower and upper frame-work, the window-sashes, and the portals, are all of marble. The palace is partly surrounded by a gallery supported on marble columns. The stairs are of fine white marble, and many of the apartments are laid with this mineral. The interior is not nearly so luxurious as the other palaces. This was the last of the sights I saw in Potsdam or the environs of Berlin; for I continued my journey to Vienna on the following day. Before quitting Berlin, I must mention an arrangement which is particularly convenient for strangers--namely, the fares for hackney-carriages. One need ask no questions, but merely enter the carriage, tell the coachman where to drive, and pay him six-pence. This moderate fare is for the whole town, which is somewhat extensive. At all the railway stations there are numbers of these vehicles, which will drive to any hotel, however far it may be from the station, for the same moderate fare. If only all cab-drivers were so accommodating! October 1st. The railway goes through Leipzic to Dresden, where I took the mail-coach for Prague at eight o'clock the same evening, and arrived there in eighteen hours. As it was night when we passed, we did not enjoy the beautiful views of the Nollendorf mountain. In the morning we passed two handsome monuments, one of them, a pyramid fifty-four feet high, to the memory of Count Colloredo, the other to the memory of the Russian troops who had fallen here; both have been erected since the wars of Napoleon. On we went through charming districts to the famed bathing-place Teplitz, which is surrounded by the most beautiful scenery; and can bear comparison with the finest bathing-places of the world. Further on we passed a solitary basaltic rock, Boren, which deserves attention for its beauty and as a natural curiosity. We unfortunately hurried past it, as we wished to reach Prague before six o'clock, so that we might not miss the train to Vienna. My readers may imagine our disappointment on arriving at the gates of Prague, when our passports were taken from us and not returned. In vain we referred to the _vise_ of the boundary-town Peterswalde; in vain we spoke of our haste. The answer always was, "That is nothing to us; you can have your papers back to-morrow at the police-office." Thus we were put off, and lost twenty-four hours. I must mention a little joke I had on the ride from Dresden to Prague. Two gentlemen and a lady beside myself occupied the mail-coach; the lady happened to have read my diary of Palestine, and asked me, when she heard my name, if I were that traveller. When I had acknowledged I was that same person, our conversation turned on that and on my present journey. One of the gentlemen, Herr Katze, was very intelligent, and conversed in a most interesting manner on countries, nationalities, and scientific subjects. The other gentleman was probably equally well informed, but he made less use of his acquirements. Herr Katze remained in Teplitz, and the other gentleman proceeded with us to Vienna. Before arriving at our destination, he asked me if Herr Katze had not requested me to mention his name in my next book, and added, that if I would promise to do the same, he would tell me his name. I could not refrain from smiling, but assured him that Herr Katze had not thought of such a thing, and begged him not to communicate his name to me, so that he might see that we females were not so curious as we are said to be. But the poor man could not refrain from giving me his name--Nicholas B.--before we parted. I do not insert it for two reasons: first, because I did not promise to name him; and secondly, because I do not think it would do him any service. The railway from Prague to Vienna goes over Olmutz, and makes such a considerable round, that the distance is now nearly 320 miles, and the arrangements on the railway are very imperfect. There were no hotels erected on the road, and we had to be content with fruit, beer, bread, and butter, &c. the whole time. And these provisions were not easily obtained, as we could not venture to leave the carriages. The conductor called out at every station that we should go on directly, although the train frequently stood upwards of half an hour; but as we did not know that before, we were obliged to remain on our seats. The conductors were not of the most amiable character, which may perhaps be ascribed to the climate; for when we approached the boundary of the Austrian states at Peterswalde, the inspector received us very gruffly. We wished him good evening twice, but he took no notice of it, and demanded our papers in a loud and peremptory tone; he probably thought us as deaf as we thought him. At Ganserndorf, twenty-five miles from Vienna, they took our papers from us in a very uncivil, uncourteous manner. On the 4th of October, 1845, after an absence of six months, I arrived again in sight of the dear Stephen's steeple, as most of my countrywomen would say. I had suffered many hardships; but my love of travelling would not have been abated, nor would my courage have failed me, had they been ten times greater. I had been amply compensated for all. I had seen things which never occur in our common life, and had met with people as they are rarely met with--in their natural state. And I brought back with me the recollections of my travels, which will always remain, and which will afford me renewed pleasure for years. And now I take leave of my dear readers, requesting them to accept with indulgence my descriptions, which are always true, though they may not be amusing. If I have, as I can scarcely hope, afforded them some amusement, I trust they will in return grant me a small corner in their memories. In conclusion, I beg to add an Appendix, which may not be uninteresting to many of my readers, namely: 1. A document which I procured in Reikjavik, giving the salaries of the royal Danish officials, and the sources from whence they are paid. 2. A list of Icelandic insects, butterflies, flowers, and plants, which I collected and brought home with me. APPENDIX A Salaries of the Royal Danish Officials in Iceland, which they receive from the Icelandic land-revenues. Florins {58} The Governor of Iceland 2000 Office expenses 600 The deputy for the western 1586 district Office expenses 400 Rent 200 The deputy for the northern and 1286 eastern districts Office expenses 400 The bishop of Iceland, who draws 800 his salary from the school-revenues, has paid him from this treasury The members of the Supreme Court: One judge 1184 First assessor 890 Second assessor 740 The land-bailiff of Iceland 600 Office expenses 200 Rent 150 The town-bailiff of Reikjavik 300 The first police-officer of 200 Reikjavik, who is at the same time gaoler, and therefore has 50 _fl._ more than the second officer The second police-officer 150 The mayor of Reikjavik only draws 150 from this treasury his house-rent, which is The sysselman of the Westmanns 296 Islands The other sysselmen, each 230 Medical department and midwifery: The physician 900 House-rent 150 Apothecary of Reikjavik 185 House-rent 150 The second apothecary at 90 Sikkisholm Six surgeons in the country, 300 each House-rent for some 30 For others 25 A medical practitioner on the 110 Northland Reikjavik has two midwives, 50 each receives The other midwives in Iceland, 100 amounting to thirty, each receives These midwives are instructed and examined by the land physician, who has the charge of paying them annually. Organist of Reikjavik 100 From the school-revenues The bishop receives 1200 The teachers at the high school: The teacher of theology 800 The head assistant, besides 500 free lodging The second assistant 500 House-rent 50 The third assistant 500 House-rent 50 The resident at the school 170 LIST OF INVERTEBRATED ANIMALS collected in Iceland 1. CRUSTACEA. Pagarus Bernhardus, _Linnaeus_. 2. INSECTA. a. _Coleoptera_. Nebria rubripes, _Dejean_. Patrobus hyperboreus. Calathus melanocephalus, _Fabr_. Notiophilus aquaticus. Amara vulgaris, _Duftsihm_. Ptinus fur, _Linn_. Aphodius Lapponum, _Schh_. Otiorhynchus laevigatus, _Dhl_. Otiorhynchus Pinastri, _Fabr_. Otiorhynchus ovatus. Staphylinus maxillosus. Byrrhus pillula. b. _Neuroptera_. Limnophilus lineola, _Schrank_. c. _Hymenoptera_. Pimpla instigator, _Gravh_. Bombus subterraneus, _Linn_. d. _Lepidoptera_. Geometra russata, Hub. Geom. alche millata. Geom. spec. nov. e. _Diptera_. Tipula lunata, _Meig_. Scatophaga stercoraria. Musca vomitaria. Musca mortuorum. Helomyza serrata. Lecogaster islandicus, _Scheff_. {59} Anthomyia decolor, _Fallin_. LIST OF ICELANDIC PLANTS _collected by Ida Pfeiffer in the Summer of the year_ 1845 _Felices_. Cystopteris fragilis. _Equisetaceae_. Equisetum Teltamegra. _Graminae_. Festuca uniglumis. _Cyperaceae_. Carea filiformis. Carea caespitosa. Eriophorum caespitosum. _Juncaceae_. Luzula spicata. Luzula campestris. _Salicineae_. Salix polaris. _Polygoneae_. Remux arifolus. Oxyria reniformes. _Plumbagineae_. Armeria alpina (in the interior mountainous districts). _Compositae_. Chrysanthemum maritimum (on the sea-shore, and on marshy fields). Hieracium alpinum (on grassy plains). Taraxacum alpinum. Erigeron uniflorum (west of Havenfiord, on rocky soil). _Rubiaceae_. Gallium pusillum. Gallium verum. _Labiatae_. Thynus serpyllum. _Asperifoliae_. Myosotis alpestris. Myosotis scorpioicles. _Scrophularineae_. Bartsia alpina (in the interior north-western valleys). Rhinanthus alpestris. _Utricularieae_. Pinguicula alpina. Pinguicula vulgaris. _Umbelliferae_. Archangelica officinalis (Havenfiord). _Saxifrageae_. Saxifraga caespitosa (the real Linnaean plant: on rocks round Hecla). _Ranunculaceae_. Ranunculus auricomus. Ranunculus nivalis. Thalictrum alpinum (growing between lava, near Reikjavik). Caltha palustris. _Cruciferae_. Draba verna. Cardamine pratensis. _Violariceae_. Viola hirta. _Caryophylleae_. Sagina stricta. Cerastium semidecandrum. Lepigonum rubrum. Silene maritima. Lychnis alpina (on the mountain-fields round Reikjavik). _Empetreae_. Empetrum nigrum. _Geraniaceae_. Geranium sylvaticum (in pits near Thingvalla). _Troseaceae_. Parnassia palustris. _OEnothereae_. Epilobium latifolium (in clefts of the mountain at the foot of Hecla). Epilobium alpinum (in Reiker valley, west of Havenfiord). _Rosaceae_. Rubus arcticus. Potentilla anserina. Potentilla gronlandica (on rocks near Kallmanstunga and Kollismola). Alchemilla montana. Sanguisorba officinalis. Geum rivale. Dryas octopela (near Havenfiord). _Papilionaceae_. Trifolium repens. FOOTNOTES: {1} In this Gutenberg eText only Madame Pfeiffer's work appears--DP. {2} Madame Pfeiffer's first journey was to the Holy Land in 1842; and on her return from Iceland she started in 1846 on a "Journey round the World," from which she returned in the end of 1848. This adventurous lady is now (1853) travelling among the islands of the Eastern Archipelago. {3} A florin is worth about 2_s._ 1_d._; sixty kreutzers go to a florin. {4} At Kuttenberg the first silver groschens were coined, in the year 1300. The silver mines are now exhausted, though other mines, of copper, zinc, &c. are wrought in the neighbourhood. The population is only half of what it once was. --ED. {5} The expression of Madame Pfeiffer's about Frederick "paying his score to the Austrians," is somewhat vague. The facts are these. In 1757 Frederick the Great of Prussia invaded Bohemia, and laid siege to Prague. Before this city an Austrian army lay, who were attacked with great impetuosity by Frederick, and completely defeated. But the town was defended with great valour; and during the time thus gained the Austrian general Daun raised fresh troops, with which he took the field at Collin. Here he was attacked by Frederick, who was routed, and all his baggage and cannon captured. This loss was "paying his score;" and the defeat was so complete, that the great monarch sat down by the side of a fountain, and tracing figures in the sand, was lost for a long time in meditation on the means to be adopted to retrieve his fortune. {6} I mention this little incident to warn the traveller against parting with his effects. {7} The true version of this affair is as follows. John of Nepomuk was a priest serving under the Archbishop of Prague. The king, Wenceslaus, was a hasty, cruel tyrant, who was detested by all his subjects, and hated by the rest of Germany. Two priests were guilty of some crime, and one of the court chamberlains, acting under royal orders, caused the priests to be put to death. The archbishop, indignant at this, placed the chamberlain under an interdict. This so roused the king that he attempted to seize the archbishop, who took refuge in flight. John of Nepomuk, however, and another priest, were seized and put to the torture to confess what were the designs of the archbishop. The king seems to have suspected that the queen was in some way connected with the line of conduct pursued by the archbishop. John of Nepomuk, however, refused, even though the King with his own hand burned him with a torch. Irritated by his obstinate silence, the king caused the poor monk to be cast over the bridge into the Moldau. This monk was afterwards canonised, and made the patron saint of bridges.--ED. {8} Albert von Wallenstein (or Waldstein), the famous Duke of Friedland, is celebrated as one of the ablest commanders of the imperial forces during the protracted religious contest known in German history as the "Thirty Years' War." During its earlier period Wallenstein greatly distinguished himself, and was created by the Emperor Ferdinand Duke of Friedland and generalissimo of the imperial forces. In the course of a few months Wallenstein raised an army of forty thousand men in the Emperor's service. The strictest discipline was preserved _within_ his camp, but his troops supported themselves by a system of rapine and plunder unprecedented even in those days of military license. Merit was rewarded with princely munificence, and the highest offices were within the reach of every common soldier who distinguished himself;--trivial breaches of discipline were punished with death. The dark and ambitious spirit of Wallenstein would not allow him to rest satisfied with the rewards and dignities heaped upon him by his imperial master. He temporised and entered into negotiations with the enemy; and during an interview with a Swedish general (Arnheim), is even said to have proposed an alliance to "hunt the Emperor to the devil." It is supposed that he aspired to the sovereignty of Bohemia. Ferdinand was informed of the ambitious designs of his general, and at length determined that Wallenstein should die. He despatched one of his generals, Gallas, to the commander-in-chief, with a mandate depriving him of his dignity of generalissimo, and nominating Gallas as his successor. Surprised before his plans were ripe, and deserted by many on whose support he had relied, Wallenstein retired hastily upon Egra. During a banquet in the castle, three of his generals who remained faithful to their leader were murdered in the dead of night. Roused by the noise, Wallenstein leapt from his bed, and encountered three soldiers who had been hired to despatch him. Speechless with astonishment and indignation, he stretched forth his arms, and receiving in his breast the stroke of a halbert, fell dead without a groan, in the fifty-first year of his age. The following anecdote, curiously illustrative of the state of affairs in Wallenstein's camp, is related by Schiller in his _History of the Thirty Years' War_, a work containing a full account of the life and actions of this extraordinary man. "The extortions of Wallenstein's soldiers from the peasants had at one period reached such a pitch, that severe penalties were denounced against all marauders; and every soldier who should be convicted of theft was threatened with a halter. Shortly afterwards, it chanced that Wallenstein himself met a soldier straying in the field, whom he caused to be seized, as having violated the law, and condemned to the gallows without a trial, by his usual word of doom: "Let the rascal be hung!" The soldier protested, and proved his innocence. "Then let them hang the innocent," cried the inhuman Wallenstein; "and the guilty will tremble the more." The preparations for carrying this sentence into effect had already commenced, when the soldier, who saw himself lost without remedy, formed the desperate resolution that he would not die unrevenged. Rushing furiously upon his leader, he was seized and disarmed by the bystanders before he could carry his intention into effect. "Now let him go," said Wallenstein; "it will excite terror enough.""--ED. {9} Poniatowski was the commander of the Polish legion in the armies of Napoleon, by whom he was highly respected. At the battle of Leipzig, fought in October 1813, Poniatowski and Marshal MacDonald were appointed to command the rear of Napoleon's army, which, after two days hard fighting, was compelled to retreat before the Allies. These generals defended the retreat of the army so gallantly, that all the French troops, except those under their immediate command, had evacuated the town. The rear-guard was preparing to follow, when the only bridge over the Elster that remained open to them was destroyed, through some mistake. This effectually barred the escape of the rear of Napoleon's army. A few, among whom was Marshal MacDonald, succeeded in swimming across; but Poniatowski, after making a brave resistance, and refusing to surrender, was drowned in making the same attempt.--ED. {10} Leipzig has long been famous as the chief book-mart of Germany. At the great Easter meetings, publishers from all the different states assemble at the "Buchhandler Borse," and a large amount of business is done. The fairs of Leipzig have done much towards establishing the position of this city as one of the first trading towns in Germany. They take place three times annually: at New-year, at Easter, and at Michaelmas; but the Easter fair is by far the most important. These commercial meetings last about three weeks, and during this time the town presents a most animated appearance, as the streets are thronged with the costumes of almost every nation, the smart dress of the Tyrolese contrasting gaily with the sombre garb of the Polish Jews. The amount of business transacted at these fairs is very considerable; on several occasions, above twenty thousand dealers have assembled. The trade is principally in woollen cloths; but lighter wares, and even ornaments of every description, are sold to a large extent. The manner in which every available place is taken advantage of is very curious: archways, cellars, passages, and courtyards are alike filled with merchandise, and the streets are at times so crowded as to be almost impassable. When the three weeks have passed, the wooden booths which have been erected in the market-place and the principal streets are taken down, the buyers and sellers vanish together, and the visitor would scarcely recognise in the quiet streets around him the bustling busy city of a few days ago.--ED. {11} The fire broke out on 4th May 1842, and raged with the utmost fury for three days. Whole streets were destroyed, and at least 2000 houses burned to the ground. Nearly half a million of money was raised in foreign countries to assist in rebuilding the city, of which about a tenth was contributed by Britain. Such awful fires, fearful though they are at the time, seem absolutely necessary to great towns, as they cause needful improvements to be made, which the indolence or selfishness of the inhabitants would otherwise prevent. There is not a great city that has not at one time or another suffered severely from fire, and has risen out of the ruins greater than before.--ED. {12} There are no docks at Hamburgh, consequently all the vessels lie in the river Elbe, and both receive and discharge their cargoes there. Madame Pfeiffer, however, is mistaken in supposing that only London could show a picture of so many ships and so much commercial activity surpassing that of Hamburgh. Such a picture, more impressive even than that seen in the Elbe, is exhibited every day in the Mersey or the Hudson.--ED. {13} Kiel, however, is a place of considerable trade; and doubtless the reason why Madame Pfeiffer saw so few vessels at it was precisely the same reason why she saw so many at Hamburgh. Kiel contains an excellent university.--ED. {14} At sea I calculate by sea-miles, of which sixty go to a degree. {15} This great Danish sculptor was born of poor parents at Copenhagen, on the 19th November, 1770; his father was an Icelander, and earned his living by carving figure-heads for ships. Albert, or "Bertel," as he is more generally called, was accustomed during his youth to assist his father in his labours on the wharf. At an early age he visited the Academy at Copenhagen, where his genius soon began to make itself conspicuous. At the age of sixteen he had won a silver, and at twenty a gold medal. Two years later he carried off the "great" gold medal, and was sent to study abroad at the expense of the Academy. In 1797 we find him practising his art at Rome under the eye of Zoega the Dane, who does not, however, seem to have discovered indications of extraordinary genius in the labours of his young countryman. But a work was soon to appear which should set all questions as to Thorwaldsen's talent for ever at rest. In 1801 he produced his celebrated statue of "Jason," which was at once pronounced by the great Canova to be "a work in a new and a grand style." After this period the path of fame lay open before the young sculptor; his bas-reliefs of "Summer" and "Autumn," the "Dance of the Muses," "Cupid and Psyche," and numerous other works, followed each other in rapid succession; and at length, in 1812, Thorwaldsen produced his extraordinary work, "The Triumph of Alexander." In 1819 Thorwaldsen returned rich and famous to the city he had quitted as a youth twenty-three years before; he was received with great honour, and many feasts and rejoicings were held to celebrate his arrival. After a sojourn of a year Thorwaldsen again visited Rome, where he continued his labours until 1838, when, wealthy and independent, he resolved to rest in his native country. This time his welcome to Copenhagen was even more enthusiastic than in 1819. The whole shore was lined with spectators, and amid thundering acclamations the horses were unharnessed from his carriage, and the sculptor was drawn in triumph by the people to his _atelier_. During the remainder of his life Thorwaldsen passed much of his time on the island of Nyso, where most of his latest works were executed. On Sunday, March 9th, 1842, he had been conversing with a circle of friends in perfect health. Halm's tragedy of _Griselda_ was announced for the evening, and Thorwaldsen proceeded to the theatre to witness the performance. During the overture he rose to allow a stranger to pass, then resumed his seat, and a moment afterwards his head sunk on his breast--he was dead! His funeral was most sumptuous. Rich and poor united to do honour to the memory of the great man, who had endeared himself to them by his virtues as by his genius. The crown-prince followed the coffin, and the people of Copenhagen stood in two long rows, and uncovered their heads as the coffin of the sculptor was carried past. The king himself took part in the solemnity. At the time of his decease Thorwaldsen had completed his seventy-second year.--ED. {16} Tycho de Brahe was a distinguished astronomer, who lived between 1546 and 1601. He was a native of Denmark. His whole life may be said to have been devoted to astronomy. A small work that he published when a young man brought him under the notice of the King of Denmark, with whose assistance he constructed, on the small island of Hulln, a few miles north of Copenhagen, the celebrated Observatory of Uranienburg. Here, seated in "the ancient chair" referred to in the text, and surrounded by numerous assistants, he directed for seventeen years a series of observations, that have been found extremely accurate and useful. On the death of his patron he retired to Prague in Bohemia, where he was employed by Rodolph II. then Emperor of Germany. Here he was assisted by the great Kepler, who, on Tycho's death in 1601, succeeded him.--ED. {17} The fisheries of Iceland have been very valuable, and indeed the chief source of the commerce of the country ever since it was discovered. The fish chiefly caught are cod and the tusk or cat-fish. They are exported in large quantities, cured in various ways. Since the discovery of Newfoundland, however, the fisheries of Iceland have lost much of their importance. So early as 1415, the English sent fishing vessels to the Icelandic coast, and the sailors who were on board, it would appear, behaved so badly to the natives that Henry V. had to make some compensation to the King of Denmark for their conduct. The greatest number of fishing vessels from England that ever visited Iceland was during the reign of James I., whose marriage with the sister of the Danish king might probably make England at the time the most favoured nation. It was in his time that an English pirate, "Gentleman John," as he was called, committed great ravages in Iceland, for which James had afterwards to make compensation. The chief markets for the fish are in the Catholic countries of Europe. In the seventeenth century, a great traffic in fish was carried on between Iceland and Spain.--ED. {18} The dues charged by the Danish Government on all vessels passing through the Sound have been levied since 1348, and therefore enjoy a prescriptive right of more than five hundred years. They bring to the Danish Government a yearly revenue of about a quarter of a million; and, in consideration of the dues, the Government has to support certain lighthouses, and otherwise to render safe and easy the navigation of this great entrance to the Baltic. Sound-dues were first paid in the palmy commercial days of the Hanseatic League. That powerful combination of merchants had suffered severely from the ravages of Danish pirates, royal and otherwise; but ultimately they became so powerful that the rich merchant could beat the royal buccaneer, and tame his ferocity so effectually as to induce him to build and maintain those beacon-lights on the shores of the Sound, for whose use they and all nations and merchants after them have agreed to pay certain duties.--ED. {19} The Feroe Islands consist of a great many islets, some of them mere rocks, lying about halfway between the north coast of Scotland and Iceland. At one time they belonged to Norway, but came into the possession of Denmark at the same time as Iceland. They are exceedingly mountainous, some of the mountains attaining an elevation of about 2800 feet. The largest town or village does not contain more than 1500 or 1600 inhabitants. The population live chiefly on the produce of their large flocks of sheep, and on the down procured, often at great risk to human life, from the eider-duck and other birds by which the island is frequented.--ED. {20} I should be truly sorry if, in this description of our "life aboard ship," I had said any thing which could give offence to my kind friend Herr Knudson. I have, however, presumed that every one is aware that the mode of life at sea is different to life in families. I have only to add, that Herr Knudson lived most agreeably not only in Copenhagen, but what is far more remarkable, in Iceland also, and was provided with every comfort procurable in the largest European towns. {21} It is not only at sea that ingenious excuses for drinking are invented. The lovers of good or bad liquor on land find these reasons as "plenty as blackberries," and apply them with a marvellous want of stint or scruple. In warm climates the liquor is drank to keep the drinker cool, in cold to keep him warm; in health to prevent him from being sick, in sickness to bring him back to health. Very seldom is the real reason, "because I like it," given; and all these excuses and reasons must be regarded as implying some lingering sense of shame at the act, and as forming part of "the homage that vice always pays to virtue."--ED. {22} The sailors call those waves "Spanish" which, coming from the west, distinguish themselves by their size. {23} These islands form a rocky group, only one of which is inhabited, lying about fifteen miles from the coast. They are said to derive their name from some natives of Ireland, called West-men, who visited Iceland shortly after its discovery by the Norwegians. In this there is nothing improbable, for we know that during the ninth and tenth centuries the Danes and Normans, called Easterlings, made many descents on the Irish coast; and one Norwegian chief is reported to have assumed sovereign power in Ireland about the year 866, though he was afterwards deposed, and flung into a lough, where he was drowned: rather an ignominious death for a "sea-king."--ED. {24} This work, which Madame Pfeiffer does not praise too highly, was first published in 1810. After passing through two editions, it was reprinted in 1841, at a cheap price, in the valuable people's editions of standard works, published by Messrs. Chambers of Edinburgh. {25} It is related of Ingold that he carried with him on his voyage the door of his former house in Ireland, and that when he approached the coast he cast it into the sea, watching the point of land which it touched; and on that land he fixed his future home. This land is the same on which the town of Reikjavik now stands. These old sea-kings, like the men of Athens, were "in all things too superstitious."--ED. {26} These sea-rovers, that were to the nations of Europe during the middle ages what the Danes, Norwegians, and other northmen were at an earlier period, enjoyed at this time the full flow of their lawless prosperity. Their insolence and power were so great that many nations, our own included, were glad to purchase, by a yearly payment, exemption from the attacks of these sea-rovers. The Americans paid this tribute so late as 1815. The unfortunate Icelanders who were carried off in the seventeenth century nearly all died as captives in Algiers. At the end of ten years they were liberated; but of the four hundred only thirty-seven were alive when the joyful intelligence reached the place of their captivity; and of these twenty-four died before rejoining their native land.--ED. {27} This town, the capital of Iceland, and the seat of government, is built on an arm of the sea called the Faxefiord, in the south-west part of the island. The resident population does not exceed 500, but this is greatly increased during the annual fairs. It consists mainly of two streets at right angles to each other. It contains a large church built of stone, roofed with tiles; an observatory; the residences of the governor and the bishop, and the prison, which is perhaps the most conspicuous building in the town.--ED. {28} As Madame Pfeiffer had thus no opportunity of attending a ball in Iceland, the following description of one given by Sir George Mackenzie may be interesting to the reader. "We gave a ball to the ladies of Reikjavik and the neighbourhood. The company began to assemble about nine o'clock. We were shewn into a small low-roofed room, in which were a number of men, but to my surprise I saw no females. We soon found them, however, in one adjoining, where it is the custom for them to wait till their partners go to hand them out. On entering this apartment, I felt considerable disappointment at not observing a single woman dressed in the Icelandic costume. The dresses had some resemblance to those of English chambermaids, but were not so smart. An old lady, the wife of the man who kept the tavern, was habited like the pictures of our great-grandmothers. Some time after the dancing commenced, the bishop's lady, and two others, appeared in the proper dress of the country. "We found ourselves extremely awkward in dancing what the ladies were pleased to call English country dances. The music, which came from a solitary ill-scraped fiddle, accompanied by the rumbling of the same half-rotten drum that had summoned the high court of justice, and by the jingling of a rusty triangle, was to me utterly unintelligible. The extreme rapidity with which it was necessary to go through many complicated evolutions in proper time, completely bewildered us; and our mistakes, and frequent collisions with our neighbours, afforded much amusement to our fair partners, who found it for a long time impracticable to keep us in the right track. When allowed to breathe a little, we had an opportunity of remarking some singularities in the state of society and manners among the Danes of Reikjavik. While unengaged in the dance, the men drink punch, and walk about with tobacco-pipes in their mouths, spitting plentifully on the floor. The unrestrained evacuation of saliva seems to be a fashion all over Iceland; but whether the natives learned it from the Danes, or the Danes from the natives, we did not ascertain. Several ladies whose virtue could not bear a very strict scrutiny were pointed out to us. "During the dances, tea and coffee were handed about; and negus and punch were ready for those who chose to partake of them. A cold supper was provided, consisting of hams, beef, cheese, &c., and wine. While at table, several of the ladies sang, and acquitted themselves tolerably well. But I could not enjoy the performance, on account of the incessant talking, which was as fashionable a rudeness in Iceland as it is now in Britain. This, however, was not considered as in the least unpolite. One of the songs was in praise of the donors of the entertainment; and, during the chorus, the ceremony of touching each other's glasses was performed. After supper, waltzes were danced, in a style that reminded me of soldiers marching in cadence to the dead march in Saul. Though there was no need of artificial light, a number of candles were placed in the rooms. When the company broke up, about three o'clock, the sun was high above the horizon." {29} A man of eighty years of age is seldom seen on the island.--_Kerguelen_. {30} Kerguelen (writing in 1768) says: "They live during the summer principally on cod's heads. A common family make a meal of three or four cods' heads boiled in sea-water."--ED. {31} This bakehouse is the only one in Iceland, and produces as good bread and biscuit as any that can be procured in Denmark. [In Kerguelen's time (1768) bread was very uncommon in Iceland. It was brought from Copenhagen, and consisted of broad thin cakes, or sea-biscuits, made of rye-flour, and extremely black.--ED.] {32} In all high latitudes fat oily substances are consumed to a vast extent by the natives. The desire seems to be instinctive, not acquired. A different mode of living would undoubtedly render them more susceptible to the cold of these inclement regions. Many interesting anecdotes are related of the fondness of these hyperborean races for a kind of food from which we would turn in disgust. Before gas was introduced into Edinburgh, and the city was lighted by oil-lamps, several Russian noblemen visited that metropolis; and it is said that their longing for the luxury of train-oil became one evening so intense, that, unable to procure the delicacy in any other way, they emptied the oil-lamps. Parry relates that when he was wintering in the Arctic regions, one of the seamen, who had been smitten with the charms of an Esquimaux lady, wished to make her a present, and knowing the taste peculiar to those regions, he gave her with all due honours a pound of candles, six to the pound! The present was so acceptable to the lady, that she eagerly devoured the lot in the presence of her wondering admirer.--ED. {33} An American travelling in Iceland in 1852 thus describes, in a letter to the _Boston Post_, the mode of travelling:--"All travel is on horseback. Immense numbers of horses are raised in the country, and they are exceedingly cheap. As for travelling on foot, even short journeys, no one ever thinks of it. The roads are so bad for walking, and generally so good for riding that shoe-leather, to say nothing of fatigue, would cost nearly as much as horse-flesh. Their horses are small, compact, hardy little animals, a size larger than Shetland ponies, but rarely exceeding from 12 or 13.5 hands high. A stranger in travelling must always have a 'guide,' and if he does go equipped for a good journey and intends to make good speed, he wants as many as six horses; one for himself, one for the guide, one for the luggage, and three relay horses. Then when one set of horses are tired the saddles are exchanged to the others. The relay horses are tied together and are either led or driven before the others. A tent is often carried, unless a traveller chooses to chance it for his lodgings. Such an article as an hotel is not kept in Iceland out of the capital. You must also carry your provisions with you, as you will be able to get but little on your route. Plenty of milk can be had, and some fresh-water fish. The luggage is carried in trunks that are hung on each side of the horse, on a rude frame that serves as a pack-saddle. Under this, broad pieces of turf are placed to prevent galling the horse's back." {34} The down of the eider-duck forms a most important and valuable article of Icelandic commerce. It is said that the weight of down procurable from each nest is about half a pound, which is reduced one-half by cleansing. The down is sold at about twelve shillings per pound, so that the produce of each nest is about three shillings. The eider-duck is nearly as large as the common goose; and some have been found on the Fern Islands, off the coast of Northumberland.--ED. {35} The same remark applies with equal force to many people who are not Icelanders. It was once the habit among a portion of the population of Lancashire, on returning from market, to carry their goods in a bag attached to one end of a string slung over their shoulders, which was balanced by a bag containing a stone at the other. Some time ago, it was pointed out to a worthy man thus returning from market, that it would be easier for him to throw away the stone, and make half of his load balance the other half, but the advice was rejected with disdain; the plan he had adopted was that of his forefathers, and he would on no account depart from it.--ED. {36} The description of the Wolf's Hollow occurs in the second act of _Der Freyschutz_, when Rodolph sings: "How horrid, dark, and wild, and drear, Doth this gaping gulf appear! It seems the hue of hell to wear. The bellowing thunder bursts yon clouds, The moon with blood has stained her light! What forms are those in misty shrouds, That stalk before my sight? And now, hush! hush! The owl is hooting in yon bush; How yonder oak-tree's blasted arms Upon me seem to frown! My heart recoils, but all alarms Are vain: fate calls, I must down, down." {37} The reader must bear in mind that, during the season of which I speak, there is no twilight, much less night, in Iceland. {38} The springs of Carlsbad are said to have been unknown until about five hundred years ago, when a hunting-dog belonging to one of the emperors of Germany fell in, and by his howling attracted the hunters to the spot. The temperature of the chief spring is 165 degrees.--ED. {39} History tells of this great Icelandic poet, that owing to his treachery the free island of Iceland came beneath the Norwegian sceptre. For this reason he could never appear in Iceland without a strong guard, and therefore visited the Allthing under the protection of a small army of 600 men. Being at length surprised by his enemies in his house at Reikiadal, he fell beneath their blows, after a short and ineffectual resistance. [Snorri Sturluson, the most distinguished name of which Iceland can boast, was born, in 1178, at Hoam. In his early years he was remarkably fortunate in his worldly affairs. The fortune he derived from his father was small, but by means of a rich marriage, and by inheritance, he soon became proprietor of large estates in Iceland. Some writers say that his guard of 600 men, during his visit to the Allthing, was intended not as a defence, as indicated in Madame Pfeiffer's note, but for the purposes of display, and to impress the inhabitants with forcible ideas of his influence and power. He was invited to the court of the Norwegian king, and there he either promised or was bribed to bring Iceland under the Norwegian power. For this he has been greatly blamed, and stigmatised as a traitor; though it would appear from some historians that he only undertook to do by peaceable means what otherwise the Norwegian kings would have effected by force, and thus saved his country from a foreign invasion. But be this as it may, it is quite clear that he sunk in the estimation of his countrymen, and the feeling against him became so strong, that he was obliged to fly to Norway. He returned, however, in 1239, and in two years afterwards he was assassinated by his own son-in-law. The work by which he is chiefly known is the _Heimskringla_, or Chronicle of the Sea-Kings of Norway, one of the most valuable pieces of northern history, which has been admirably translated into English by Mr. Samuel Laing. This curious name of Heimskringla was given to the work because it contains the words with which begins, and means literally _the circle of the world_.--ED.] {40} A translation of this poem will be found in the Appendix. [Not included in this Gutenberg eText--DP] {41} In Iceland, as in Denmark, it is the custom to keep the dead a week above ground. It may be readily imagined that to a non-Icelandic sense of smell, it is an irksome task to be present at a burial from beginning to end, and especially in summer. But I will not deny that the continued sensation may have partly proceeded from imagination. {42} Every one in Iceland rides. {43} I cannot forbear mentioning a curious circumstance here. When I was at the foot of Mount Etna in 1842, the fiery element was calmed; some months after my departure it flamed with renewed force. When, on my return from Hecla, I came to Reikjavik, I said jocularly that it would be most strange if this Etna of the north should also have an eruption now. Scarcely had I left Iceland more than five weeks when an eruption, more violent than the former one, really took place. This circumstance is the more remarkable, as it had been in repose for eighty years, and was already looked upon as a burnt-out volcano. If I were to return to Iceland now, I should be looked upon as a prophetess of evil, and my life would scarcely be safe. {44} Every peasant in tolerably good circumstances carries a little tent with him when he leaves home for a few days. These tents are, at the utmost, three feet high, five or six feet long, and three broad. {45} "Though their poverty disables them from imitating the hospitality of their ancestors in all respects, yet the desire of doing it still exists: they cheerfully give away the little they have to spare, and express the utmost joy and satisfaction if you are pleased with the gift." _Uno von Troil_, 1772.--ED. {46} The presence of American ships in the port of Gottenburg is not to be wondered at, seeing that nearly three-fourths of all the iron exported from Gottenburg is to America.--ED. {47} "St. Stephen's steeple" is 450 feet high, being about 40 feet higher than St. Paul's, and forms part of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, a magnificent Gothic building, that dates as far back as the twelfth century. It has a great bell, that weighs about eighteen tons, being more than double the weight of the bell in St. Peter's at Rome, and four times the weight of the "Great Tom of Lincoln." The metal used consisted of cannons taken from the Turks during their memorable sieges of Vienna. The cathedral is 350 feet long and 200 wide, being less than St. Paul's in London, which is 510 feet long and 282 wide.--ED. {48} The _Storthing_ is the name given to the Norwegian parliament, which assembles once every three years at Christiania. The time and place of meeting are fixed by law, and the king has no power to prevent or postpone its assembly. It consists of about a hundred members, who divide themselves into two houses. The members must not be under thirty years of age, and must have lived for ten years in Norway. The electors are required to be twenty-five years of age, and to be either burgesses of a town, or to possess property of the annual value of 30_l._ The members must possess the same qualification. The members of the Storthing are usually plain-spoken, sensible men, who have no desire to shine as orators, but who despatch with great native sagacity the business brought before them. This Storthing is the most independent legislative assembly in Europe; for not only has the king no power to prevent its meeting at the appointed time, but should he refuse to assent to any laws that are passed, these laws come into force without his assent, provided they are passed by three successive parliaments.--ED. {49} The present king of Sweden and Norway is Oscar, one of the few fortunate scions of those lowly families that were raised to royal power and dignity by Napoleon. His father, Bernadotte, was the son of an advocate, and entered the French army as a common soldier; in that service he rose to the rank of marshal, and then became crown-prince, and ultimately king of Sweden. He died in 1844. The mother of Oscar was Desiree Clary, a sister of Julie Clary, wife of Joseph Bonaparte, the elder brother of Napoleon. This lady was asked in marriage by Napoleon himself, but her father refused his assent; and instead of becoming an unfortunate empress of France, she became a fortunate queen of Sweden and Norway. Oscar was born at Paris in 1799, and received his education chiefly in Hanover. He accompanied his father to Sweden in 1810, and ascended the throne on his father's death in 1844. In 1824 he married Josephine Beauharnois, daughter of Prince Eugene, and granddaughter of the brilliant and fascinating Josephine, the first and best wife of Napoleon. Oscar is much beloved by his subjects; his administration is mild, just, and equable; and his personal abilities and acquirements are far beyond the average of crowned heads.--ED. {50} Bergen is a town of about twenty-five thousand inhabitants, situated near the Kons Fiord, on the west coast of Norway, and distant about 350 miles from Christiania. It is the seat of a bishopric, and a place of very considerable trade, its exports being chiefly fish. It has given its name to a county and a township in the state of New Jersey. There are three other Bergens,--one in the island of Rugen, one in the Netherlands, and another in the electorate of Hesse. {51} _Kulle_ is the Swedish for hill. {52} Delekarlien is a Swedish province, situated ninety or one hundred miles north of Stockholm. {53} The family of Sturre was one of the most distinguished in Sweden. Sten Sturre introduced printing into Sweden, founded the University of Upsala, and induced many learned men to come over. He was mortally wounded in a battle against the Danes, and died in 1520. His successors as governors, Suante, Nilson Sturre, and his son, Sten Sturre the younger, still live in the memory of the Swedish nation, and are honoured for their patriotism and valour. {54} The University of Upsala is the most celebrated in the north. It owes its origin to Sten Sturre, the regent of the kingdom, by whom it was founded in 1476, on the same plan as the University of Paris. Through the influence of the Jesuits, who wished to establish a new academy in Stockholm, it was dissolved in 1583, but re-established in 1598. Gustavus Vasa, who was educated at Upsala, gave it many privileges, and much encouragement; and Gustavus Adolphus reconstituted it, and give it very liberal endowments. There are twenty-four professors, and the number of students is between four and five hundred.--ED. {55} See novel of _Ivar_, _the Skjuts Boy_, by Miss Emilie Carlen. {56} At Calmar was concluded, in 1397, the famous treaty which bears its name, by which Denmark, Sweden, and Norway were united under one crown, that crown placed nominally on the head of Eric Duke of Pomerania, but virtually on that of his aunt Margaret, who has received the name of "the Semiramis of the North." --ED. {57} There is now a railway direct from Hamburgh to Berlin.--ED. {58} A florin is about two shillings sterling.--_Tr._ {59} Herr T. Scheffer of Modling, near Vienna, gives the following characteristic of this new dipteral animal, which belongs to the family muscidae, and resembles the species borborus: _Antennae_ deflexae, breves, triarticulatae, articulo ultimo phoereco; seda nuda. _Hypoctoma_ subprominulum, fronte lata, setosa. _Oculi_ rotundi, remoti. Abdomen quinque annulatum, dorso nudo. _Tarsi_ simplices. _Alae_ incumbentes, abdomine longiores, nervo primo simplici. Niger, abdomine nitido, antennis pedibusque rufopiceis. 
598	----	HEIMSKRINGLA OR THE CHRONICLE OF THE KINGS OF NORWAY By Snorri Sturlason (c.1179-1241) Originally written in Old Norse, app. 1225 A.D., by the poet and historian Snorri Sturlason. TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: The "Heimskringla" of Snorri Sturlason is a collection of sagas concerning the various rulers of Norway, from about A.D. 850 to the year A.D. 1177. The Sagas covered in this work are the following: 1. Halfdan the Black Saga 2. Harald Harfager's Saga 3. Hakon the Good's Saga 4. Saga of King Harald Grafeld and of Earl Hakon Son of Sigurd 5. King Olaf Trygvason's Saga 6. Saga of Olaf Haraldson (St. Olaf) 7. Saga of Magnus the Good 8. Saga of Harald Hardrade 9. Saga of Olaf Kyrre 10. Magnus Barefoot's Saga 11. Saga of Sigurd the Crusader and His Brothers Eystein and Olaf 12. Saga of Magnus the Blind and of Harald Gille 13. Saga of Sigurd, Inge, and Eystein, the Sons of Harald 14. Saga of Hakon Herdebreid ("Hakon the Broad-Shouldered") 15. Magnus Erlingson's Saga While scholars and historians continue to debate the historical accuracy of Sturlason's work, the "Heimskringla" is still considered an important original source for information on the Viking Age, a period which Sturlason covers almost in its entirety. PREFACE OF SNORRE STURLASON. In this book I have had old stories written down, as I have heard them told by intelligent people, concerning chiefs who have have held dominion in the northern countries, and who spoke the Danish tongue; and also concerning some of their family branches, according to what has been told me. Some of this is found in ancient family registers, in which the pedigrees of kings and other personages of high birth are reckoned up, and part is written down after old songs and ballads which our forefathers had for their amusement. Now, although we cannot just say what truth there may be in these, yet we have the certainty that old and wise men held them to be true. Thjodolf of Hvin was the skald of Harald Harfager, and he composed a poem for King Rognvald the Mountain-high, which is called "Ynglingatal." This Rognvald was a son of Olaf Geirstadalf, the brother of King Halfdan the Black. In this poem thirty of his forefathers are reckoned up, and the death and burial-place of each are given. He begins with Fjolner, a son of Yngvefrey, whom the Swedes, long after his time, worshipped and sacrificed to, and from whom the race or family of the Ynglings take their name. Eyvind Skaldaspiller also reckoned up the ancestors of Earl Hakon the Great in a poem called "Haleygjatal", composed about Hakon; and therein he mentions Saeming, a son of Yngvefrey, and he likewise tells of the death and funeral rites of each. The lives and times of the Yngling race were written from Thjodolf's relation enlarged afterwards by the accounts of intelligent people. As to funeral rites, the earliest age is called the Age of Burning; because all the dead were consumed by fire, and over their ashes were raised standing stones. But after Frey was buried under a cairn at Upsala, many chiefs raised cairns, as commonly as stones, to the memory of their relatives. The Age of Cairns began properly in Denmark after Dan Milkillate had raised for himself a burial cairn, and ordered that he should be buried in it on his death, with his royal ornaments and armour, his horse and saddle-furniture, and other valuable goods; and many of his descendants followed his example. But the burning of the dead continued, long after that time, to be the custom of the Swedes and Northmen. Iceland was occupied in the time that Harald Harfager was the King of Norway. There were skalds in Harald's court whose poems the people know by heart even at the present day, together with all the songs about the kings who have ruled in Norway since his time; and we rest the foundations of our story principally upon the songs which were sung in the presence of the chiefs themselves or of their sons, and take all to be true that is found in such poems about their feats and battles: for although it be the fashion with skalds to praise most those in whose presence they are standing, yet no one would dare to relete to a chief what he, and all those who heard it, knew to be a false and imaginary, not a true account of his deeds; because that would be mockery, not praise. OF THE PRIEST ARE FRODE The priest Are Frode (the learned), a son of Thorgils the son of Geller, was the first man in this country who wrote down in the Norse language narratives of events both old and new. In the beginning of his book he wrote principally about the first settlements in Iceland, the laws and government, and next of the lagmen, and how long each had administered the law; and he reckoned the years at first, until the time when Christianity was introduced into Iceland, and afterwards reckoned from that to his own times. To this he added many other subjects, such as the lives and times of kings of Norway and Denmark, and also of England; beside accounts of great events which have taken place in this country itself. His narratives are considered by many men of knowledge to be the most remarkable of all; because he was a man of good understanding, and so old that his birth was as far back as the year after Harald Sigurdson's fall. He wrote, as he himself says, the lives and times of the kings of Norway from the report of Od Kolson, a grandson of Hal of Sida. Od again took his information from Thorgeir Afradskol, who was an intelligent man, and so old that when Earl Hakon the Great was killed he was dwelling at Nidarnes--the same place at which King Olaf Trygvason afterwards laid the foundation of the merchant town of Nidaros (i.e., Throndhjem) which is now there. The priest Are came, when seven years old, to Haukadal to Hal Thorarinson, and was there fourteen years. Hal was a man of great knowledge and of excellent memory; and he could even remember being baptized, when he was three years old, by the priest Thanghrand, the year before Christianity was established by law in Iceland. Are was twelve years of age when Bishop Isleif died, and at his death eighty years had elapsed since the fall of Olaf Trygvason. Hal died nine years later than Bishop Isleif, and had attained nearly the age of ninety-four years. Hal had traded between the two countries, and had enjoyed intercourse with King Olaf the Saint, by which he had gained greatly in reputation, and he had become well acquainted with the kingdom of Norway. He had fixed his residence in Haukadal when he was thirty years of age, and he had dwelt there sixty-four years, as Are tells us. Teit, a son of Bishop Isleif, was fostered in the house of Hal at Haukadal, and afterwards dwelt there himself. He taught Are the priest, and gave him information about many circumstances which Are afterwards wrote down. Are also got many a piece of information from Thurid, a daughter of the gode Snorre. She was wise and intelligent, and remembered her father Snorre, who was nearly thirty-five years of age when Christianity was introduced into Iceland, and died a year after King Olaf the Saint's fall. So it is not wonderful that Are the priest had good information about ancient events both here in Iceland, and abroad, being a man anxious for information, intelligent and of excellent memory, and having besides learned much from old intelligent persons. But the songs seem to me most reliable if they are sung correctly, and judiciously interpreted. HALFDAN THE BLACK SAGA. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. Of this saga there are other versions found in "Fagrskinna" and in "Flateyjarbok". The "Flateyjarbok" version is to a great extent a copy of Snorre. The story about Halfdan's dream is found both in "Fagrskinna" and in "Flateyjarbok". The probability is that both Snorre and the author of "Fagrskinna" must have transcribed the same original text.--Ed. 1. HALFDAN FIGHTS WITH GANDALF AND SIGTRYG. Halfdan was a year old when his father was killed, and his mother Asa set off immediately with him westwards to Agder, and set herself there in the kingdom which her father Harald had possessed. Halfdan grew up there, and soon became stout and strong; and, by reason of his black hair, was called Halfdan the Black. When he was eighteen years old he took his kingdom in Agder, and went immediately to Vestfold, where he divided that kingdom, as before related, with his brother Olaf. The same autumn he went with an army to Vingulmark against King Gandalf. They had many battles, and sometimes one, sometimes the other gained the victory; but at last they agreed that Halfdan should have half of Vingulmark, as his father Gudrod had had it before. Then King Halfdan proceeded to Raumarike, and subdued it. King Sigtryg, son of King Eystein, who then had his residence in Hedemark, and who had subdued Raumarike before, having heard of this, came out with his army against King Halfdan, and there was great battle, in which King Halfdan was victorious; and just as King Sigtryg and his troops were turning about to fly, an arrow struck him under the left arm, and he fell dead. Halfdan then laid the whole of Raumarike under his power. King Eystein's second son, King Sigtryg's brother, was also called Eystein, and was then king in Hedemark. As soon as Halfdan had returned to Vestfold, King Eystein went out with his army to Raumarike, and laid the whole country in subjection to him. 2. BATTLE BETWEEN HALFDAN AND EYSTEIN. When King Halfdan heard of these disturbances in Raumarike, he again gathered his army together; and went out against King Eystein. A battle took place between them, and Halfdan gained the victory, and Eystein fled up to Hedemark, pursued by Halfdan. Another battle took place, in which Halfdan was again victorious; and Eystein fled northwards, up into the Dales to the herse Gudbrand. There he was strengthened with new people, and in winter he went towards Hedemark, and met Halfdan the Black upon a large island which lies in the Mjosen lake. There a great battle was fought, and many people on both sides were slain, but Halfdan won the victory. There fell Guthorm, the son of the herse Gudbrand, who was one of the finest men in the Uplands. Then Eystein fled north up the valley, and sent his relation Halvard Skalk to King Halfdan to beg for peace. On consideration of their relationship, King Halfdan gave King Eystein half of Hedemark, which he and his relations had held before; but kept to himself Thoten, and the district called Land. He likewise appropriated to himself Hadeland, and thus became a mighty king. 3. HALFDAN'S MARRIAGE Halfdan the Black got a wife called Ragnhild, a daughter of Harald Gulskeg (Goldbeard), who was a king in Sogn. They had a son, to whom Harald gave his own name; and the boy was brought up in Sogn, by his mother's father, King Harald. Now when this Harald had lived out his days nearly, and was become weak, having no son, he gave his dominions to his daughter's son Harald, and gave him his title of king; and he died soon after. The same winter his daughter Ragnhild died; and the following spring the young Harald fell sick and died at ten years of age. As soon as Halfdan the Black heard of his son's death, he took the road northwards to Sogn with a great force, and was well received. He claimed the heritage and dominion after his son; and no opposition being made, he took the whole kingdom. Earl Atle Mjove (the Slender), who was a friend of King Halfdan, came to him from Gaular; and the king set him over the Sogn district, to judge in the country according to the country's laws, and collect scat upon the king's account. Thereafter King Halfdan proceeded to his kingdom in the Uplands. 4. HALFDAN'S STRIFE WITH GANDALF'S SONS. In autumn, King Halfdan proceeded to Vingulmark. One night when he was there in guest quarters, it happened that about midnight a man came to him who had been on the watch on horseback, and told him a war force was come near to the house. The king instantly got up, ordered his men to arm themselves, and went out of the house and drew them up in battle order. At the same moment, Gandalf's sons, Hysing and Helsing, made their appearance with a large army. There was a great battle; but Halfdan being overpowered by the numbers of people fled to the forest, leaving many of his men on this spot. His foster-father, Olver Spake (the Wise), fell here. The people now came in swarms to King Halfdan, and he advanced to seek Gandalf's sons. They met at Eid, near Lake Oieren, and fought there. Hysing and Helsing fell, and their brother Hake saved himself by flight. King Halfdan then took possession of the whole of Vingulmark, and Hake fled to Alfheimar. 5. HALFDAN'S MARRIAGE WITH HJORT'S DAUGHTER. Sigurd Hjort was the name of a king in Ringerike, who was stouter and stronger than any other man, and his equal could not be seen for a handsome appearance. His father was Helge Hvasse (the Sharp); and his mother was Aslaug, a daughter of Sigurd the worm-eyed, who again was a son of Ragnar Lodbrok. It is told of Sigurd that when he was only twelve years old he killed in single combat the berserk Hildebrand, and eleven others of his comrades; and many are the deeds of manhood told of him in a long saga about his feats. Sigurd had two children, one of whom was a daughter, called Ragnhild, then twenty years of age, and an excellent brisk girl. Her brother Guthorm was a youth. It is related in regard to Sigurd's death that he had a custom of riding out quite alone in the uninhabited forest to hunt the wild beasts that are hurtful to man, and he was always very eager at this sport. One day he rode out into the forest as usual, and when he had ridden a long way he came out at a piece of cleared land near to Hadeland. There the berserk Hake came against him with thirty men, and they fought. Sigurd Hjort fell there, after killing twelve of Hake's men; and Hake himself lost one hand, and had three other wounds. Then Hake and his men rode to Sigurd's house, where they took his daughter Ragnhild and her brother Guthorm, and carried them, with much property and valuable articles, home to Hadeland, where Hake had many great farms. He ordered a feast to be prepared, intending to hold his wedding with Ragnhild; but the time passed on account of his wounds, which healed slowly; and the berserk Hake of Hadeland had to keep his bed, on account of his wounds, all the autumn and beginning of winter. Now King Halfdan was in Hedemark at the Yule entertainments when he heard this news; and one morning early, when the king was dressed, he called to him Harek Gand, and told him to go over to Hadeland, and bring him Ragnhild, Sigurd Hjort's daughter. Harek got ready with a hundred men, and made his journey so that they came over the lake to Hake's house in the grey of the morning, and beset all the doors and stairs of the places where the house-servants slept. Then they broke into the sleeping-room where Hake slept, took Ragnhild, with her brother Guthorm, and all the goods that were there, and set fire to the house-servants' place, and burnt all the people in it. Then they covered over a magnificent waggon, placed Ragnhild and Guthorm in it, and drove down upon the ice. Hake got up and went after them a while; but when he came to the ice on the lake, he turned his sword-hilt to the ground and let himself fall upon the point, so that the sword went through him. He was buried under a mound on the banks of the lake. When King Halfdan, who was very quick of sight, saw the party returning over the frozen lake, and with a covered waggon, he knew that their errand was accomplished according to his desire. Thereupon he ordered the tables to be set out, and sent people all round in the neighbourhood to invite plenty of guests; and the same day there was a good feast which was also Halfdan's marriage-feast with Ragnhild, who became a great queen. Ragnhild's mother was Thorny, a daughter of Klakharald king in Jutland, and a sister of Thrye Dannebod who was married to the Danish king, Gorm the Old, who then ruled over the Danish dominions. 6. OF RAGNHILD'S DREAM. Ragnhild, who was wise and intelligent, dreamt great dreams. She dreamt, for one, that she was standing out in her herb-garden, and she took a thorn out of her shift; but while she was holding the thorn in her hand it grew so that it became a great tree, one end of which struck itself down into the earth, and it became firmly rooted; and the other end of the tree raised itself so high in the air that she could scarcely see over it, and it became also wonderfully thick. The under part of the tree was red with blood, but the stem upwards was beautifully green and the branches white as snow. There were many and great limbs to the tree, some high up, others low down; and so vast were the tree's branches that they seemed to her to cover all Norway, and even much more. 7. OF HALFDAN'S DREAM. King Halfdan never had dreams, which appeared to him an extraordinary circumstance; and he told it to a man called Thorleif Spake (the Wise), and asked him what his advice was about it. Thorleif said that what he himself did, when he wanted to have any revelation by dream, was to take his sleep in a swine-sty, and then it never failed that he had dreams. The king did so, and the following dream was revealed to him. He thought he had the most beautiful hair, which was all in ringlets; some so long as to fall upon the ground, some reaching to the middle of his legs, some to his knees, some to his loins or the middle of his sides, some to his neck, and some were only as knots springing from his head. These ringlets were of various colours; but one ringlet surpassed all the others in beauty, lustre, and size. This dream he told to Thorleif, who interpreted it thus:--There should be a great posterity from him, and his descendants should rule over countries with great, but not all with equally great, honour; but one of his race should be more celebrated than all the others. It was the opinion of people that this ringlet betokened King Olaf the Saint. King Halfdan was a wise man, a man of truth and uprightness--who made laws, observed them himself, and obliged others to observe them. And that violence should not come in place of the laws, he himself fixed the number of criminal acts in law, and the compensations, mulcts, or penalties, for each case, according to every one's birth and dignity (1). Queen Ragnhild gave birth to a son, and water was poured over him, and the name of Harald given him, and he soon grew stout and remarkably handsome. As he grew up he became very expert at all feats, and showed also a good understanding. He was much beloved by his mother, but less so by his father. ENDNOTES: (1) The penalty, compensation, or manbod for every injury, due the party injured, or to his family and next of kin if the injury was the death or premeditated murder of the party, appears to have been fixed for every rank and condition, from the murder of the king down to the maiming or beating a man's cattle or his slave. A man for whom no compensation was due was a dishonored person, or an outlaw. It appears to have been optional with the injured party, or his kin if he had been killed, to take the mulct or compensation, or to refuse it, and wait for an opportunity of taking vengeance for the injury on the party who inflicted it, or on his kin. A part of each mulct or compensation was due to the king; and, these fines or penalties appear to have constituted a great proportion of the king's revenues, and to have been settled in the Things held in every district for administering the law with the lagman.--L. 8. HALFDAN'S MEAT VANISHES AT A FEAST King Halfdan was at a Yule-feast in Hadeland, where a wonderful thing happened one Yule evening. When the great number of guests assembled were going to sit down to table, all the meat and all the ale disappeared from the table. The king sat alone very confused in mind; all the others set off, each to his home, in consternation. That the king might come to some certainty about what had occasioned this event, he ordered a Fin to be seized who was particularly knowing, and tried to force him to disclose the truth; but however much he tortured the man, he got nothing out of him. The Fin sought help particularly from Harald, the king's son, and Harald begged for mercy for him, but in vain. Then Harald let him escape against the king's will, and accompanied the man himself. On their journey they came to a place where the man's chief had a great feast, and it appears they were well received there. When they had been there until spring, the chief said, "Thy father took it much amiss that in winter I took some provisions from him,--now I will repay it to thee by a joyful piece of news: thy father is dead; and now thou shalt return home, and take possession of the whole kingdom which he had, and with it thou shalt lay the whole kingdom of Norway under thee." 9. HALFDAN S DEATH. Halfdan the Black was driving from a feast in Hadeland, and it so happened that his road lay over the lake called Rand. It was in spring, and there was a great thaw. They drove across the bight called Rykinsvik, where in winter there had been a pond broken in the ice for cattle to drink at, and where the dung had fallen upon the ice the thaw had eaten it into holes. Now as the king drove over it the ice broke, and King Halfdan and many with him perished. He was then forty years old. He had been one of the most fortunate kings in respect of good seasons. The people thought so much of him, that when his death was known and his body was floated to Ringerike to bury it there, the people of most consequence from Raumarike, Vestfold, and Hedemark came to meet it. All desired to take the body with them to bury it in their own district, and they thought that those who got it would have good crops to expect. At last it was agreed to divide the body into four parts. The head was laid in a mound at Stein in Ringerike, and each of the others took his part home and laid it in a mound; and these have since been called Halfdan's Mounds. HARALD HARFAGER'S SAGA. 1. HARALD'S STRIFE WITH HAKE AND HIS FATHER GANDALF. Harald (1) was but ten years old when he succeeded his father (Halfdan the Black). He became a stout, strong, and comely man, and withal prudent and manly. His mother's brother, Guthorm, was leader of the hird, at the head of the government, and commander ('hertogi') of the army. After Halfdan the Black's death, many chiefs coveted the dominions he had left. Among these King Gandalf was the first; then Hogne and Frode, sons of Eystein, king of Hedemark; and also Hogne Karuson came from Ringerike. Hake, the son of Gandalf, began with an expedition of 300 men against Vestfold, marched by the main road through some valleys, and expected to come suddenly upon King Harald; while his father Gandalf sat at home with his army, and prepared to cross over the fiord into Vestfold. When Duke Guthorm heard of this he gathered an army, and marched up the country with King Harald against Hake. They met in a valley, in which they fought a great battle, and King Harald was victorious; and there fell King Hake and most of his people. The place has since been called Hakadale. Then King Harald and Duke Guthorm turned back, but they found King Gandalf had come to Vestfold. The two armies marched against each other, and met, and had a great battle; and it ended in King Gandalf flying, after leaving most of his men dead on the spot, and in that state he came back to his kingdom. Now when the sons of King Eystein in Hedemark heard the news, they expected the war would come upon them, and they sent a message to Hogne Karuson and to Herse Gudbrand, and appointed a meeting with them at Ringsaker in Hedemark. ENDNOTES: (1) The first twenty chapters of this saga refer to Harald's youth and his conquest of Norway. This portion of the saga is of great importance to the Icelanders, as the settlement of their Isle was a result of Harald's wars. The second part of the saga (chaps. 21-46) treats of the disputes between Harald's sons, of the jarls of Orkney, and of the jarls of More. With this saga we enter the domain of history.--Ed. 2. KING HARALD OVERCOMES FIVE KINGS. After the battle King Harald and Guthorm turned back, and went with all the men they could gather through the forests towards the Uplands. They found out where the Upland kings had appointed their meeting-place, and came there about the time of midnight, without the watchmen observing them until their army was before the door of the house in which Hogne Karuson was, as well as that in which Gudbrand slept. They set fire to both houses; but King Eystein's two sons slipped out with their men, and fought for a while, until both Hogne and Frode fell. After the fall of these four chiefs, King Harald, by his relation Guthorm's success and powers, subdued Hedemark, Ringerike, Gudbrandsdal, Hadeland, Thoten, Raumarike, and the whole northern part of Vingulmark. King Harald and Guthorm had thereafter war with King Gandalf, and fought several battles with him; and in the last of them King Gandalf was slain, and King Harald took the whole of his kingdom as far south as the river Raum. 3. OF GYDA, DAUGHTER OF EIRIE. King Harald sent his men to a girl called Gyda, daughter of King Eirik of Hordaland, who was brought up as foster-child in the house of a great bonde in Valdres. The king wanted her for his concubine; for she was a remarkably handsome girl, but of high spirit withal. Now when the messengers came there, and delivered their errand to the girl, she answered, that she would not throw herself away even to take a king for her husband, who had no greater kingdom to rule over than a few districts. "And methinks," said she, "it is wonderful that no king here in Norway will make the whole country subject to him, in the same way as Gorm the Old did in Denmark, or Eirik at Upsala." The messengers thought her answer was dreadfully haughty, and asked what she thought would come of such an answer; for Harald was so mighty a man, that his invitation was good enough for her. But although she had replied to their errand differently from what they wished, they saw no chance, on this occasion, of taking her with them against her will; so they prepared to return. When they were ready, and the people followed them out, Gyda said to the messengers, "Now tell to King Harald these my words. I will only agree to be his lawful wife upon the condition that he shall first, for my sake, subject to himself the whole of Norway, so that he may rule over that kingdom as freely and fully as King Eirik over the Swedish dominions, or King Gorm over Denmark; for only then, methinks, can he be called the king of a people." 4. KING HARALD'S VOW. Now came the messengers back to King Harald, bringing him the words of the girl, and saying she was so bold and foolish that she well deserved that the king should send a greater troop of people for her, and inflict on her some disgrace. Then answered the king, "This girl has not spoken or done so much amiss that she should be punished, but rather she should be thanked for her words. She has reminded me," said he, "of something which it appears to me wonderful I did not think of before. And now," added he, "I make the solemn vow, and take God to witness, who made me and rules over all things, that never shall I clip or comb my hair until I have subdued the whole of Norway, with scat (1), and duties, and domains; or if not, have died in the attempt." Guthorm thanked the king warmly for his vow; adding, that it was royal work to fulfil royal words. ENDNOTES: (1) Scat was a land-tax, paid to the king in money, malt, meal, or flesh-meat, from all lands, and was adjudged by the Thing to each king upon his accession, and being proposed and accepted as king. 5. THE BATTLE IN ORKADAL. After this the two relations gather together a great force, and prepare for an expedition to the Uplands, and northwards up the valley (Gudbrandsdal), and north over Dovrefjeld; and when the king came down to the inhabited land he ordered all the men to be killed, and everything wide around to be delivered to the flames. And when the people came to know this, they fled every one where he could; some down the country to Orkadal, some to Gaulardal, some to the forests. But some begged for peace, and obtained it, on condition of joining the king and becoming his men. He met no opposition until he came to Orkadal. There a crowd of people had assembled, and he had his first battle with a king called Gryting. Harald won the victory, and King Gryting was made prisoner, and most of his people killed. He took service himself under the king, and swore fidelity to him. Thereafter all the people in Orkadal district went under King Harald, and became his men. 6. KING HARALD S LAWS FOR LAND PROPERTY. King Harald made this law over all the lands he conquered, that all the udal property should belong to him; and that the bondes, both great and small, should pay him land dues for their possessions. Over every district he set an earl to judge according to the law of the land and to justice, and also to collect the land dues and the fines; and for this each earl received a third part of the dues, and services, and fines, for the support of his table and other expenses. Each earl had under him four or more herses, each of whom had an estate of twenty marks yearly income bestowed on him and was bound to support twenty men-at-arms, and the earl sixty men, at their own expenses. The king had increased the land dues and burdens so much, that each of his earls had greater power and income than the kings had before; and when that became known at Throndhjem, many great men joined the king and took his service. 7. BATTLE IN GAULARDAL. It is told that Earl Hakon Grjotgardson came to King Harald from Yrjar, and brought a great crowd of men to his service. Then King Harald went into Gaulardal, and had a great battle, in which he slew two kings, and conquered their dominions; and these were Gaulardal district and Strind district. He gave Earl Hakon Strind district to rule over as earl. King Harald then proceeded to Stjoradal, and had a third battle, in which he gained the victory, and took that district also. There upon the Throndhjem people assembled, and four kings met together with their troops. The one ruled over Veradal, the second over Skaun, third over the Sparbyggja district, and the fourth over Eyin Idre (Inderoen); and this latter had also Eyna district. These four kings marched with their men against King Harald, but he won the battle; and some of these kings fell, and some fled. In all, King Harald fought at the least eight battles, and slew eight kings, in the Throndhjem district, and laid the whole of it under him. 8. HARALD SEIZES NAUMUDAL DISTRICT. North in Naumudal were two brothers, kings,--Herlaug and Hrollaug; and they had been for three summers raising a mound or tomb of stone and lime and of wood. Just as the work was finished, the brothers got the news that King Harald was coming upon them with his army. Then King Herlaug had a great quantity of meat and drink brought into the mound, and went into it himself, with eleven companions, and ordered the mound to be covered up. King Hrollaug, on the contrary, went upon the summit of the mound, on which the kings were wont to sit, and made a throne to be erected, upon which he seated himself. Then he ordered feather-beds to be laid upon the bench below, on which the earls were wont to be seated, and threw himself down from his high seat or throne into the earl's seat, giving himself the title of earl. Now Hrollaug went to meet King Harald, gave up to him his whole kingdom, offered to enter into his service, and told him his whole proceeding. Then took King Harald a sword, fastened it to Hrollaug's belt, bound a shield to his neck, and made him thereupon an earl, and led him to his earl's seat; and therewith gave him the district Naumudal, and set him as earl over it ((A.D. 866)). (1) ENDNOTES: (1) Before writing was in general use, this symbolical way of performing all important legal acts appears to have entered into the jurisprudence of all savage nations; and according to Gibbon, chap. 44, "the jurisprudence of the first Romans exhibited the scenes of a pantomime; the words were adapted to the gestures, and the slightest error or neglect in the forms of proceeding was sufficient to annul the substance of the fairest claims."--Ed. 9. KING HARALD'S HOME AFFAIRS. King Harald then returned to Throndhjem, where he dwelt during the winter, and always afterwards called it his home. He fixed here his head residence, which is called Lade. This winter he took to wife Asa, a daughter of Earl Hakon Grjotgardson, who then stood in great favour and honour with the king. In spring the king fitted out his ships. In winter he had caused a great frigate (a dragon) to be built, and had it fitted-out in the most splendid way, and brought his house-troops and his berserks on board. The forecastle men were picked men, for they had the king's banner. From the stem to the mid-hold was called rausn, or the fore-defence; and there were the berserks. Such men only were received into King Harald's house-troop as were remarkable for strength, courage, and all kinds of dexterity; and they alone got place in his ship, for he had a good choice of house-troops from the best men of every district. King Harald had a great army, many large ships, and many men of might followed him. Hornklofe, in his poem called "Glymdrapa", tells of this; and also that King Harald had a battle with the people of Orkadal, at Opdal forest, before he went upon this expedition. "O'er the broad heath the bowstrings twang, While high in air the arrows sang. The iron shower drives to flight The foeman from the bloody fight. The warder of great Odin's shrine, The fair-haired son of Odin's line, Raises the voice which gives the cheer, First in the track of wolf or bear. His master voice drives them along To Hel--a destined, trembling throng; And Nokve's ship, with glancing sides, Must fly to the wild ocean's tides.-- Must fly before the king who leads Norse axe-men on their ocean steeds." 10. BATTLE AT SOLSKEL King Harald moved out with his army from Throndhjem, and went southwards to More. Hunthiof was the name of the king who ruled over the district of More. Solve Klofe was the name of his son, and both were great warriors. King Nokve, who ruled over Raumsdal, was the brother of Solve's mother. Those chiefs gathered a great force when they heard of King Harald, and came against him. They met at Solskel, and there was a great battle, which was gained by King Harald (A.D. 867). Hornklofe tells of this battle:-- "Thus did the hero known to fame, The leader of the shields, whose name Strikes every heart with dire dismay, Launch forth his war-ships to the fray. Two kings he fought; but little strife Was needed to cut short their life. A clang of arms by the sea-shore,-- And the shields' sound was heard no more." The two kings were slain, but Solve escaped by flight; and King Harald laid both districts under his power. He stayed here long in summer to establish law and order for the country people, and set men to rule them, and keep them faithful to him; and in autumn he prepared to return northwards to Throndhjem. Ragnvald Earl of More, a son of Eystein Glumra, had the summer before become one of Harald's men; and the king set him as chief over these two districts, North More and Raumsdal; strengthened him both with men of might and bondes, and gave him the help of ships to defend the coast against enemies. He was called Ragnvald the Mighty, or the Wise; and people say both names suited him well. King Harald came back to Throndhjem about winter. 11. FALL OF KINGS ARNVID AND AUDBJORN. The following spring (A.D. 868) King Harald raised a great force in Throndhjem, and gave out that he would proceed to South More. Solve Klofe had passed the winter in his ships of war, plundering in North More, and had killed many of King Harald's men; pillaging some places, burning others, and making great ravage; but sometimes he had been, during the winter, with his friend King Arnvid in South More. Now when he heard that King Harald was come with ships and a great army, he gathered people, and was strong in men-at-arms; for many thought they had to take vengeance of King Harald. Solve Klofe went southwards to Firdafylke (the Fjord district), which King Audbjorn ruled over, to ask him to help, and join his force to King Arnvid's and his own. "For," said he, "it is now clear that we all have but one course to take; and that is to rise, all as one man, against King Harald, for we have strength enough, and fate must decide the victory; for as to the other condition of becoming his servants, that is no condition for us, who are not less noble than Harald. My father thought it better to fall in battle for his kingdom, than to go willingly into King Harald's service, or not to abide the chance of weapons like the Naumudal kings." King Solve's speech was such that King Audbjorn promised his help, and gathered a great force together and went with it to King Arnvid, and they had a great army. Now, they got news that King Harald was come from the north, and they met within Solskel. And it was the custom to lash the ships together, stem to stem; so it was done now. King Harald laid his ship against King Arnvid's, and there was the sharpest fight, and many men fell on both sides. At last King Harald was raging with anger, and went forward to the fore-deck, and slew so dreadfully that all the forecastle men of Arnvid's ship were driven aft of the mast, and some fell. Thereupon Harald boarded the ship, and King Arnvid's men tried to save themselves by flight, and he himself was slain in his ship. King Audbjorn also fell; but Solve fled. So says Hornklofe:-- "Against the hero's shield in vain The arrow-storm fierce pours its rain. The king stands on the blood-stained deck, Trampling on many a stout foe's neck; And high above the dinning stound Of helm and axe, and ringing sound Of blade and shield, and raven's cry, Is heard his shout of 'Victory!'" Of King Harald's men, fell his earls Asgaut and Asbjorn, together with his brothers-in-law, Grjotgard and Herlaug, the sons of Earl Hakon of Lade. Solve became afterwards a great sea-king, and often did great damage in King Harald's dominions. 12. KING VEMUND BURNT TO DEATH. After this battle (A.D. 868) King Harald subdued South More; but Vemund, King Audbjorn's brother, still had Firdafylke. It was now late in harvest, and King Harald's men gave him the counsel not to proceed south-wards round Stad. Then King Harald set Earl Ragnvald over South and North More and also Raumsdal, and he had many people about him. King Harald returned to Throndhjem. The same winter (A.D. 869) Ragnvald went over Eid, and southwards to the Fjord district. There he heard news of King Vemund, and came by night to a place called Naustdal, where King Vemund was living in guest-quarters. Earl Ragnvald surrounded the house in which they were quartered, and burnt the king in it, together with ninety men. The came Berdlukare to Earl Ragnvald with a complete armed long-ship, and they both returned to More. The earl took all the ships Vemund had, and all the goods he could get hold of. Berdlukare proceeded north to Throndhjem to King Harald, and became his man; and dreadful berserk he was. 13. DEATH OF EARLS HAKON, AND ATLE MJOVE. The following spring (A.D. 869) King Harald went southwards with his fleet along the coast, and subdued Firdafylke. Then he sailed eastward along the land until he came to Vik; but he left Earl Hakon Grjotgardson behind, and set him over the Fjord district. Earl Hakon sent word to Earl Atle Mjove that he should leave Sogn district, and be earl over Gaular district, as he had been before, alleging that King Harald had given Sogn district to him. Earl Atle sent word that he would keep both Sogn district and Gaular district, until he met King Harald. The two earls quarreled about this so long, that both gathered troops. They met at Fialar, in Stavanger fiord, and had a great battle, in which Earl Hakon fell, and Earl Atle got a mortal wound, and his men carried him to the island of Atley, where he died. So says Eyvind Skaldaspiller:-- "He who stood a rooted oak, Unshaken by the swordsman's stroke, Amidst the whiz of arrows slain, Has fallen upon Fjalar's plain. There, by the ocean's rocky shore, The waves are stained with the red gore Of stout Earl Hakon Grjotgard's son, And of brave warriors many a one." 14. HARALD AND THE SWEDISH KING EIRIK. King Harald came with his fleet eastward to Viken and landed at Tunsberg, which was then a trading town. He had then been four years in Throndhjem, and in all that time had not been in Viken. Here he heard the news that Eirik Eymundson, king of Sweden, had laid under him Vermaland, and was taking scat or land-tax from all the forest settlers; and also that he called the whole country north to Svinasund, and west along the sea, West Gautland; and which altogether he reckoned to his kingdom, and took land-tax from it. Over this country he had set an earl, by name Hrane Gauzke, who had the earldom between Svinasund and the Gaut river, and was a mighty earl. And it was told to King Harald that the Swedish king said he would not rest until he had as great a kingdom in Viken as Sigurd Hring, or his son Ragnar Lodbrok, had possessed; and that was Raumarike and Vestfold, all the way to the isle Grenmar, and also Vingulmark, and all that lay south of it. In all these districts many chiefs, and many other people, had given obedience to the Swedish king. King Harald was very angry at this, and summoned the bondes to a Thing at Fold, where he laid an accusation against them for treason towards him. Some bondes defended themselves from the accusation, some paid fines, some were punished. He went thus through the whole district during the summer, and in harvest he did the same in Raumarike, and laid the two districts under his power. Towards winter he heard that Eirik king of Sweden was, with his court, going about in Vermaland in guest-quarters. 15. HARALD AT A FEAST OF THE PEASANT AKE. King Harald takes his way across the Eid forest eastward, and comes out in Vermaland, where he also orders feasts to be prepared for himself. There was a man by name Ake, who was the greatest of the bondes of Vermaland, very rich, and at that time very aged. He sent men to King Harald, and invited him to a feast, and the king promised to come on the day appointed. Ake invited also King Eirik to a feast, and appointed the same day. Ake had a great feasting hall, but it was old; and he made a new hall, not less than the old one, and had it ornamented in the most splendid way. The new hall he had hung with new hangings, but the old had only its old ornaments. Now when the kings came to the feast, King Eirik with his court was taken into the old hall; but Harald with his followers into the new. The same difference was in all the table furniture, and King Eirik and his men had the old-fashioned vessels and horns, but all gilded and splendid; while King Harald and his men had entirely new vessels and horns adorned with gold, all with carved figures, and shining like glass; and both companies had the best of liquor. Ake the bonde had formerly been King Halfdan the Black s man. Now when daylight came, and the feast was quite ended, and the kings made themselves ready for their journey, and the horses were saddled, came Ake before King Harald, leading in his hand his son Ubbe, a boy of twelve years of age, and said, "If the goodwill I have shown to thee, sire, in my feast, be worth thy friendship, show it hereafter to my son. I give him to thee now for thy service." The king thanked him with many agreeable words for his friendly entertainment, and promised him his full friendship in return. Then Ake brought out great presents, which he gave to the king, and they gave each other thereafter the parting kiss. Ake went next to the Swedish king, who was dressed and ready for the road, but not in the best humour. Ake gave to him also good and valuable gifts; but the king answered only with few words, and mounted his horse. Ake followed the king on the road and talked with him. The road led through a wood which was near to the house; and when Ake came to the wood, the king said to him, "How was it that thou madest such a difference between me and King Harald as to give him the best of everything, although thou knowest thou art my man?" "I think" answered Ake, "that there failed in it nothing, king, either to you or to your attendants, in friendly entertainment at this feast. But that all the utensils for your drinking were old, was because you are now old; but King Harald is in the bloom of youth, and therefore I gave him the new things. And as to my being thy man, thou art just as much my man." On this the king out with his sword, and gave Ake his deathwound. King Harald was ready now also to mount his horse, and desired that Ake should be called. The people went to seek him; and some ran up the road that King Eirik had taken, and found Ake there dead. They came back, and told the news to King Harald, and he bids his men to be up, and avenge Ake the bonde. And away rode he and his men the way King Eirik had taken, until they came in sight of each other. Each for himself rode as hard as he could, until Eirik came into the wood which divides Gautland and Vermaland. There King Harald wheels about, and returns to Vermaland, and lays the country under him, and kills King Eirik's men wheresoever he can find them. In winter King Harald returned to Raumarike, and dwelt there a while. 16. HARALD'S JOURNEY TO TUNSBERG. King Harald went out in winter to his ships at Tunsberg, rigged them, and sailed away eastward over the fiord, and subjected all Vingulmark to his dominion. All winter he was out with his ships, and marauded in Ranrike; so says Thorbjorn Hornklofe:-- "The Norseman's king is on the sea, Tho' bitter wintry cold it be.-- On the wild waves his Yule keeps he. When our brisk king can get his way, He'll no more by the fireside stay Than the young sun; he makes us play The game of the bright sun-god Frey. But the soft Swede loves well the fire The well-stuffed couch, the doway glove, And from the hearth-seat will not move." The Gautlanders gathered people together all over the country. 17. THE BATTLE IN GAUTLAND. In spring, when the ice was breaking up, the Gautlanders drove stakes into the Gaut river to hinder King Harald with his ships from coming to the land. But King Harald laid his ships alongside the stakes, and plundered the country, and burnt all around; so says Horn klofe:-- "The king who finds a dainty feast, For battle-bird and prowling beast, Has won in war the southern land That lies along the ocean's strand. The leader of the helmets, he Who leads his ships o'er the dark sea, Harald, whose high-rigged masts appear Like antlered fronts of the wild deer, Has laid his ships close alongside Of the foe's piles with daring pride." Afterwards the Gautlanders came down to the strand with a great army, and gave battle to King Harald, and great was the fall of men. But it was King Harald who gained the day. Thus says Hornklofe:-- "Whistles the battle-axe in its swing O'er head the whizzing javelins sing, Helmet and shield and hauberk ring; The air-song of the lance is loud, The arrows pipe in darkening cloud; Through helm and mail the foemen feel The blue edge of our king's good steel Who can withstand our gallant king? The Gautland men their flight must wing." 18. HRANE GAUZKE'S DEATH. King Harald went far and wide through Gautland, and many were the battles he fought there on both sides of the river, and in general he was victorious. In one of these battles fell Hrane Gauzke; and then the king took his whole land north of the river and west of the Veneren, and also Vermaland. And after he turned back there-from, he set Duke Guthorm as chief to defend the country, and left a great force with him. King Harald himself went first to the Uplands, where he remained a while, and then proceeded northwards over the Dovrefjeld to Throndhjem, where he dwelt for a long time. Harald began to have children. By Asa he had four sons. The eldest was Guthorm. Halfdan the Black and Halfdan the White were twins. Sigfrod was the fourth. They were all brought up in Throndhjem with all honour. 19. BATTLE IN HAFERSFJORD. News came in from the south land that the people of Hordaland and Rogaland, Agder and Thelemark, were gathering, and bringing together ships and weapons, and a great body of men. The leaders of this were Eirik king of Hordaland; Sulke king of Rogaland, and his brother Earl Sote: Kjotve the Rich, king of Agder, and his son Thor Haklang; and from Thelemark two brothers, Hroald Hryg and Had the Hard. Now when Harald got certain news of this, he assembled his forces, set his ships on the water, made himself ready with his men, and set out southwards along the coast, gathering many people from every district. King Eirik heard of this when he same south of Stad; and having assembled all the men he could expect, he proceeded southwards to meet the force which he knew was coming to his help from the east. The whole met together north of Jadar, and went into Hafersfjord, where King Harald was waiting with his forces. A great battle began, which was both hard and long; but at last King Harald gained the day. There King Eirik fell, and King Sulke, with his brother Earl Sote. Thor Haklang, who was a great berserk, had laid his ship against King Harald's, and there was above all measure a desperate attack, until Thor Haklang fell, and his whole ship was cleared of men. Then King Kjotve fled to a little isle outside, on which there was a good place of strength. Thereafter all his men fled, some to their ships, some up to the land; and the latter ran southwards over the country of Jadar. So says Hornklofe, viz.:-- "Has the news reached you?--have you heard Of the great fight at Hafersfjord, Between our noble king brave Harald And King Kjotve rich in gold? The foeman came from out the East, Keen for the fray as for a feast. A gallant sight it was to see Their fleet sweep o'er the dark-blue sea: Each war-ship, with its threatening throat Of dragon fierce or ravenous brute (1) Grim gaping from the prow; its wales Glittering with burnished shields, (2) like scales Its crew of udal men of war, Whose snow-white targets shone from far And many a mailed spearman stout From the West countries round about, English and Scotch, a foreign host, And swordamen from the far French coast. And as the foemen's ships drew near, The dreadful din you well might hear Savage berserks roaring mad, And champions fierce in wolf-skins clad, (3) Howling like wolves; and clanking jar Of many a mail-clad man of war. Thus the foe came; but our brave king Taught them to fly as fast again. For when he saw their force come o'er, He launched his war-ships from the shore. On the deep sea he launched his fleet And boldly rowed the foe to meet. Fierce was the shock, and loud the clang Of shields, until the fierce Haklang, The foeman's famous berserk, fell. Then from our men burst forth the yell Of victory, and the King of Gold Could not withstand our Harald bold, But fled before his flaky locks For shelter to the island rocks. All in the bottom of the ships The wounded lay, in ghastly heaps; Backs up and faces down they lay Under the row-seats stowed away; And many a warrior's shield, I ween Might on the warrior's back be seen, To shield him as he fled amain From the fierce stone-storm's pelting rain. The mountain-folk, as I've heard say, Ne'er stopped as they ran from the fray, Till they had crossed the Jadar sea, And reached their homes--so keen each soul To drown his fright in the mead bowl." ENDNOTES: (1) The war-ships were called dragons, from being decorated with the head of a dragon, serpent, or other wild animal; and the word "draco" was adopted in the Latin of the Middle Ages to denote a ship of war of the larger class. The snekke was the cutter or smaller war-ship.--L. (2) The shields were hung over the side-rails of the ships.--L. (3) The wolf-skin pelts were nearly as good as armour against the sword. 20. HARALD SUPREME SOVEREIGN IN NORWAY. After this battle King Harald met no opposition in Norway, for all his opponents and greatest enemies were cut off. But some, and they were a great multitude, fled out of the country, and thereby great districts were peopled. Jemtaland and Helsingjaland were peopled then, although some Norwegians had already set up their habitation there. In the discontent that King Harald seized on the lands of Norway, the out-countries of Iceland and the Farey Isles were discovered and peopled. The Northmen had also a great resort to Hjaltland (Shetland Isles) and many men left Norway, flying the country on account of King Harald, and went on viking cruises into the West sea. In winter they were in the Orkney Islands and Hebrides; but marauded in summer in Norway, and did great damage. Many, however, were the mighty men who took service under King Harald, and became his men, and dwelt in the land with him. 21. HARALD'S MARRIAGE AND HIS CHILDREN. When King Harald had now become sole king over all Norway, he remembered what that proud girl had said to him; so he sent men to her, and had her brought to him, and took her to his bed. And these were their children: Alof--she was the eldest; then was their son Hrorek; then Sigtryg, Frode, and Thorgils. King Harald had many wives and many children. Among them he had one wife, who was called Ragnhild the Mighty, a daughter of King Eirik, from Jutland; and by her he had a son, Eirik Blood-axe. He was also married to Svanhild, a daughter of Earl Eystein; and their sons were Olaf Geirstadaalf, Bjorn and Ragnar Rykkil. Lastly, King Harald married Ashild, a daughter of Hring Dagson, up in Ringerike; and their children were, Dag, Hring, Gudrod Skiria, and Ingigerd. It is told that King Harald put away nine wives when he married Ragnhild the Mighty. So says Hornklofe:-- "Harald, of noblest race the head, A Danish wife took to his bed; And out of doors nine wives he thrust,-- The mothers of the princes first. Who 'mong Holmrygians hold command, And those who rule in Hordaland. And then he packed from out the place The children born of Holge's race." King Harald's children were all fostered and brought up by their relations on the mother's side. Guthorm the Duke had poured water over King Harald's eldest son and had given him his own name. He set the child upon his knee, and was his foster-father, and took him with himself eastward to Viken, and there he was brought up in the house of Guthorm. Guthorm ruled the whole land in Viken and the Uplands, when King Harald was absent. 22. KING HARALD'S VOYAGE TO THE WEST. King Harald heard that the vikings, who were in the West sea in winter, plundered far and wide in the middle part of Norway; and therefore every summer he made an expedition to search the isles and out-skerries (1) on the coast. Wheresoever the vikings heard of him they all took to flight, and most of them out into the open ocean. At last the king grew weary of this work, and therefore one summer he sailed with his fleet right out into the West sea. First he came to Hjaltland (Shetland), and he slew all the vikings who could not save themselves by flight. Then King Harald sailed southwards, to the Orkney Islands, and cleared them all of vikings. Thereafter he proceeded to the Sudreys (Hebrides), plundered there, and slew many vikings who formerly had had men-at-arms under them. Many a battle was fought, and King Harald was always victorious. He then plundered far and wide in Scotland itself, and had a battle there. When he was come westward as far as the Isle of Man, the report of his exploits on the land had gone before him; for all the inhabitants had fled over to Scotland, and the island was left entirely bare both of people and goods, so that King Harald and his men made no booty when they landed. So says Hornklofe:-- "The wise, the noble king, great Whose hand so freely scatters gold, Led many a northern shield to war Against the town upon the shore. The wolves soon gathered on the sand Of that sea-shore; for Harald's hand The Scottish army drove away, And on the coast left wolves a prey." In this war fell Ivar, a son of Ragnvald, Earl of More; and King Harald gave Ragnvald, as a compensation for the loss, the Orkney and Shetland isles, when he sailed from the West; but Ragnvald immediately gave both these countries to his brother Sigurd, who remained behind them; and King Harald, before sailing eastward, gave Sigurd the earldom of them. Thorstein the Red, a son of Olaf the White and of Aud the Wealthy, entered into partnership with him; and after plundering in Scotland, they subdued Caithness and Sutherland, as far as Ekkjalsbakke. Earl Sigurd killed Melbridge Tooth, a Scotch earl, and hung his head to his stirrup-leather; but the calf of his leg were scratched by the teeth, which were sticking out from the head, and the wound caused inflammation in his leg, of which the earl died, and he was laid in a mound at Ekkjalsbakke. His son Guthorm ruled over these countries for about a year thereafter, and died without children. Many vikings, both Danes and Northmen, set themselves down then in those countries. ENDNOTES: (1) Skerries are the uninhabited dry or halt-tide rocks of a coast.--L. 23. HARALD HAS HIS HAIR CLIPPED. After King Harald had subdued the whole land, he was one day at a feast in More, given by Earl Ragnvald. Then King Harald went into a bath, and had his hair dressed. Earl Ragnvald now cut his hair, which had been uncut and uncombed for ten years; and therefore the king had been called Lufa (i.e., with rough matted hair). But then Earl Ragnvald gave him the distinguishing name--Harald Harfager (i.e., fair hair); and all who saw him agreed that there was the greatest truth in the surname, for he had the most beautiful and abundant head of hair. 24. ROLF GANGER DRIVEN INTO BANISHMENT. Earl Ragnvald was King Harald's dearest friend, and the king had the greatest regard for him. He was married to Hild, a daughter of Rolf Nefia, and their sons were Rolf and Thorer. Earl Ragnvald had also three sons by concubines,--the one called Hallad, the second Einar, the third Hrollaug; and all three were grown men when their brothers born in marriage were still children Rolf became a great viking, and was of so stout a growth that no horse could carry him, and wheresoever he went he must go on foot; and therefore he was called Rolf Ganger. He plundered much in the East sea. One summer, as he was coming from the eastward on a viking's expedition to the coast of Viken, he landed there and made a cattle foray. As King Harald happened, just at that time, to be in Viken, he heard of it, and was in a great rage; for he had forbid, by the greatest punishment, the plundering within the bounds of the country. The king assembled a Thing, and had Rolf declared an outlaw over all Norway. When Rolf's mother, Hild heard of it she hastened to the king, and entreated peace for Rolf; but the king was so enraged that here entreaty was of no avail. Then Hild spake these lines:-- "Think'st thou, King Harald, in thy anger, To drive away my brave Rolf Ganger Like a mad wolf, from out the land? Why, Harald, raise thy mighty hand? Why banish Nefia's gallant name-son, The brother of brave udal-men? Why is thy cruelty so fell? Bethink thee, monarch, it is ill With such a wolf at wolf to play, Who, driven to the wild woods away May make the king's best deer his prey." Rolf Ganger went afterwards over sea to the West to the Hebrides, or Sudreys; and at last farther west to Valland, where he plundered and subdued for himself a great earldom, which he peopled with Northmen, from which that land is called Normandy. Rolf Ganger's son was William, father to Richard, and grandfather to another Richard, who was the father of Robert Longspear, and grandfather of William the Bastard, from whom all the following English kings are descended. From Rolf Ganger also are descended the earls in Normandy. Queen Ragnhild the Mighty lived three years after she came to Norway; and, after her death, her son and King Harald's was taken to the herse Thorer Hroaldson, and Eirik was fostered by him. 25. OF THE FIN SVASE AND KING HARALD. King Harald, one winter, went about in guest-quarters in the Uplands, and had ordered a Christmas feast to be prepared for him at the farm Thoptar. On Christmas eve came Svase to the door, just as the king went to table, and sent a message to the king to ask if he would go out with him. The king was angry at such a message, and the man who had brought it in took out with him a reply of the king's displeasure. But Svase, notwithstanding, desired that his message should be delivered a second time; adding to it, that he was the Fin whose hut the king had promised to visit, and which stood on the other side of the ridge. Now the king went out, and promised to go with him, and went over the ridge to his hut, although some of his men dissuaded him. There stood Snaefrid, the daughter of Svase, a most beautiful girl; and she filled a cup of mead for the king. But he took hold both of the cup and of her hand. Immediately it was as if a hot fire went through his body; and he wanted that very night to take her to his bed. But Svase said that should not be unless by main force, if he did not first make her his lawful wife. Now King Harald made Snaefrid his lawful wife, and loved her so passionately that he forgot his kingdom, and all that belonged to his high dignity. They had four sons: the one was Sigurd Hrise; the others Halfdan Haleg, Gudrod Ljome and Ragnvald Rettilbeine. Thereafter Snaefrid died; but her corpse never changed, but was as fresh and red as when she lived. The king sat always beside her, and thought she would come to life again. And so it went on for three years that he was sorrowing over her death, and the people over his delusion. At last Thorleif the Wise succeeded, by his prudence, in curing him of his delusion by accosting him thus:--"It is nowise wonderful, king, that thou grievest over so beautiful and noble a wife, and bestowest costly coverlets and beds of down on her corpse, as she desired; but these honours fall short of what is due, as she still lies in the same clothes. It would be more suitable to raise her, and change her dress." As soon as the body was raised in the bed all sorts of corruption and foul smells came from it, and it was necessary in all haste to gather a pile of wood and burn it; but before this could be done the body turned blue, and worms, toads, newts, paddocks, and all sorts of ugly reptiles came out of it, and it sank into ashes. Now the king came to his understanding again, threw the madness out of his mind, and after that day ruled his kingdom as before. He was strengthened and made joyful by his subjects, and his subjects by him and the country by both. 26. OF THJODOLF OF HVIN, THE SKALD. After King Harald had experienced the cunning of the Fin woman, he was so angry that he drove from him the sons he had with her, and would not suffer them before his eyes. But one of them, Gudrod Ljome, went to his foster-father Thjodolf of Hvin, and asked him to go to the king, who was then in the Uplands; for Thjodolf was a great friend of the king. And so they went, and came to the king's house late in the evening, and sat down together unnoticed near the door. The king walked up and down the floor casting his eye along the benches; for he had a feast in the house, and the mead was just mixed. The king then murmured out these lines:-- "Tell me, ye aged gray-haired heroes, Who have come here to seek repose, Wherefore must I so many keep Of such a set, who, one and all, Right dearly love their souls to steep, From morn till night, in the mead-bowl?" Then Thjodolf replies:-- "A certain wealthy chief, I think, Would gladly have had more to drink With him, upon one bloody day, When crowns were cracked in our sword-play." Thjodolf then took off his hat, and the king recognised him, and gave him a friendly reception. Thjodolf then begged the king not to cast off his sons; "for they would with great pleasure have taken a better family descent upon the mother's side, if the king had given it to them." The king assented, and told him to take Gudrod with him as formerly; and he sent Halfdan and Sigurd to Ringerike, and Ragnvald to Hadaland, and all was done as the king ordered. They grew up to be very clever men, very expert in all exercises. In these times King Harald sat in peace in the land, and the land enjoyed quietness and good crops. 27. OF EARL TORFEINAR'S OBTAINING ORKNEY. When Earl Ragnvald in More heard of the death of his brother Earl Sigurd, and that the vikings were in possession of the country, he sent his son Hallad westward, who took the title of earl to begin with, and had many men-at-arms with him. When he arrived at the Orkney Islands, he established himself in the country; but both in harvest, winter, and spring, the vikings cruised about the isles plundering the headlands, and committing depredations on the coast. Then Earl Hallad grew tired of the business, resigned his earldom, took up again his rights as an allodial owner, and afterwards returned eastward into Norway. When Earl Ragnvald heard of this he was ill pleased with Hallad, and said his son were very unlike their ancestors. Then said Einar, "I have enjoyed but little honour among you, and have little affection here to lose: now if you will give me force enough, I will go west to the islands, and promise you what at any rate will please you--that you shall never see me again." Earl Ragnvald replied, that he would be glad if he never came back; "For there is little hope," said he, "that thou will ever be an honour to thy friends, as all thy kin on thy mother's side are born slaves." Earl Ragnvald gave Einar a vessel completely equipped, and he sailed with it into the West sea in harvest. When he came to the Orkney Isles, two vikings, Thorer Treskeg and Kalf Skurfa, were in his way with two vessels. He attacked them instantly, gained the battle, and slew the two vikings. Then this was sung:-- "Then gave he Treskeg to the trolls, Torfeinar slew Skurfa." He was called Torfeinar, because he cut peat for fuel, there being no firewood, as in Orkney there are no woods. He afterwards was earl over the islands, and was a mighty man. He was ugly, and blind of an eye, yet very sharp-sighted withal. 28. KING EIRIK EYMUNDSON'S DEATH. Duke Guthorm dwelt principally at Tunsberg, and governed the whole of Viken when the king was not there. He defended the land, which, at that time, was much plundered by the vikings. There were disturbances also up in Gautland as long as King Eirik Eymundson lived; but he died when King Harald Harfager had been ten years king of all Norway. 29. GUTHORM'S DEATH IN TUNSBERG. After Eirik, his son Bjorn was king of Svithjod for fifty years. He was father of Eirik the Victorious, and of Olaf the father of Styrbjorn. Guthorm died on a bed of sickness at Tunsberg, and King Harald gave his son Guthorm the government of that part of his dominions and made him chief of it. 30. EARL RAGNVALD BURNT IN HIS HOUSE. When King Harald was forty years of age many of his sons were well advanced, and indeed they all came early to strength and manhood. And now they began to take it ill that the king would not give them any part of the kingdom, but put earls into every district; for they thought earls were of inferior birth to them. Then Halfdan Haleg and Gudrod Ljome set off one spring with a great force, and came suddenly upon Earl Ragnvald, earl of More, and surrounded the house in which he was, and burnt him and sixty men in it. Thereafter Halfdan took three long-ships, and fitted them out, and sailed into the West sea; but Gudrod set himself down in the land which Ragnvald formerly had. Now when King Harald heard this he set out with a great force against Gudrod, who had no other way left but to surrender, and he was sent to Agder. King Harald then set Earl Ragnvald's son Thorer over More, and gave him his daughter Alof, called Arbot, in marriage. Earl Thorer, called the Silent, got the same territory his father Earl Ragnvald had possessed. 31. HALFDAN HALEG'S DEATH. Halfdan Haleg came very unexpectedly to Orkney, and Earl Einar immediately fled; but came back soon after about harvest time, unnoticed by Halfdan. They met and after a short battle Halfdan fled the same night. Einar and his men lay all night without tents, and when it was light in the morning they searched the whole island and killed every man they could lay hold of. Then Einar said "What is that I see upon the isle of Rinansey? Is it a man or a bird? Sometimes it raises itself up, and sometimes lies down again." They went to it, and found it was Halfdan Haleg, and took him prisoner. Earl Einar sang the following song the evening before he went into this battle:-- "Where is the spear of Hrollaug? where Is stout Rolf Ganger's bloody spear! I see them not; yet never fear, For Einar will not vengeance spare Against his father's murderers, though Hrollaug and Rolf are somewhat slow, And silent Thorer sits add dreams At home, beside the mead-bowl's streams." Thereafter Earl Einar went up to Halfdan, and cut a spread eagle upon his back, by striking his sword through his back into his belly, dividing his ribs from the backbone down to his loins, and tearing out his lungs; and so Halfdan was killed. Einar then sang:-- "For Ragnvald's death my sword is red: Of vengeance it cannot be said That Einar's share is left unsped. So now, brave boys, let's raise a mound,-- Heap stones and gravel on the ground O'er Halfdan's corpse: this is the way We Norsemen our scat duties pay." Then Earl Einar took possession of the Orkney Isles as before. Now when these tidings came to Norway, Halfdan's brothers took it much to heart, and thought that his death demanded vengeance; and many were of the same opinion. When Einar heard this, he sang:-- "Many a stout udal-man, I know, Has cause to wish my head laid low; And many an angry udal knife Would gladly drink of Eina's life. But ere they lay Earl Einar low,-- Ere this stout heart betrays its cause, Full many a heart will writhe, we know, In the wolf's fangs, or eagle's claws." 32. HARALD AND EINAR RECONCILED. King Harald now ordered a levy, and gathered a great force, with which he proceeded westward to Orkney; and when Earl Einar heard that King Harald was come, he fled over to Caithness. He made the following verses on this occasion:-- "Many a bearded man must roam, An exile from his house and home, For cow or horse; but Halfdan's gore Is red on Rinansey's wild shore. A nobler deed--on Harald's shield The arm of one who ne'er will yield Has left a scar. Let peasants dread The vengeance of the Norsemen's head: I reck not of his wrath, but sing, 'Do thy worst!--I defy thee, king!--'" Men and messages, however, passed between the king and the earl, and at last it came to a conference; and when they met the earl submitted the case altogether to the king's decision, and the king condemned the earl Einar and the Orkney people to pay a fine of sixty marks of gold. As the bondes thought this was too heavy for them to pay, the earl offered to pay the whole if they would surrender their udal lands to him. This they all agreed to do: the poor because they had but little pieces of land; the rich because they could redeem their udal rights again when they liked. Thus the earl paid the whole fine to the king, who returned in harvest to Norway. The earls for a long time afterwards possessed all the udal lands in Orkney, until Sigurd son of Hlodver gave back the udal rights. 33. DEATH OF GUTHORM AND HALFDAN THE WHITE. While King Harald's son Guthorm had the defence of Viken, he sailed outside of the islands on the coast, and came in by one of the mouths of the tributaries of the Gaut river. When he lay there Solve Klofe came upon him, and immediately gave him battle, and Guthorm fell. Halfdan the White and Halfdan the Black went out on an expedition, and plundered in the East sea, and had a battle in Eistland, where Halfdan the White fell. 34. MARRIAGE OF EIRIK. Eirik, Harald's son, was fostered in the house of the herse Thorer, son of Hroald, in the Fjord district. He was the most beloved and honoured by King Harald of all his sons. When Eirik was twelve years old, King Harald gave him five long-ships, with which he went on an expedition,--first in the Baltic; then southwards to Denmark, Friesland, and Saxland; on which expedition he passed four years. He then sailed out into the West sea and plundered in Scotland, Bretland, Ireland, and Valland, and passed four years more in this way. Then he sailed north to Finmark, and all the way to Bjarmaland, where he had many a battle, and won many a victory. When he came back to Finmark, his men found a girl in a Lapland hut, whose equal for beauty they never had seen. She said her name was Gunhild, and that her father dwelt in Halogaland, and was called Ozur Tote. "I am here," she said, "to learn sorcery from two of the most knowing Fins in all Finmark, who are now out hunting. They both want me in marriage. They are so skilful that they can hunt out traces either upon the frozen or the thawed earth, like dogs; and they can run so swiftly on skees that neither man nor beast can come near them in speed. They hit whatever they take aim at, and thus kill every man who comes near them. When they are angry the very earth turns away in terror, and whatever living thing they look upon then falls dead. Now ye must not come in their way; but I will hide you here in the hut, and ye must try to get them killed." They agreed to it, and she hid them, and then took a leather bag, in which they thought there were ashes which she took in her hand, and strewed both outside and inside of the hut. Shortly after the Fins came home, and asked who had been there; and she answered, "Nobody has been here." "That is wonderful," said they, "we followed the traces close to the hut, and can find none after that." Then they kindled a fire, and made ready their meat, and Gunhild prepared her bed. It had so happened that Gunhild had slept the three nights before, but the Fins had watched the one upon the other, being jealous of each other. "Now," she said to the Fins, "come here, and lie down one on each side of me." On which they were very glad to do so. She laid an arm round the neck of each and they went to sleep directly. She roused them up; but they fell to sleep again instantly, and so soundly the she scarcely could waken them. She even raised them up in the bed, and still they slept. Thereupon she too two great seal-skin bags, and put their heads in them, and tied them fast under their arms; and then she gave a wink to the king's men. They run forth with their weapons, kill the two Fins, and drag them out of the hut. That same night came such a dreadful thunder-storm that the could not stir. Next morning they came to the ship, taking Gunhild with them, and presented her to Eirik. Eirik and his followers then sailed southwards to Halogaland and he sent word to Ozur Tote, the girl's father, to meet him. Eirik said he would take his daughter in marriage, to which Ozur Tote consented, and Eirik took Gunhild and went southwards with her (A.D. 922). 35. HARALD DIVIDES HIS KINGDOM. When King Harald was fifty years of age many of his sons were grown up, and some were dead. Many of them committed acts of great violence in the country, and were in discord among themselves. They drove some of the king's earls out of their properties, and even killed some of them. Then the king called together a numerous Thing in the south part of the country, and summoned to it all the people of the Uplands. At this Thing he gave to all his sons the title of king, and made a law that his descendants in the male line should each succeed to the kingly title and dignity; but his descendants by the female side only to that of earl. And he divided the country among them thus:--Vingulmark, Raumarike, Vestfold and Thelamark, he bestowed on Olaf, Bjorn, Sigtryg, Frode, and Thorgils. Hedemark and Gudbrandsdal he gave to Dag, Hring, and Ragnar. To Snaefrid's sons he gave Ringerike, Hadeland, Thoten, and the lands thereto belonging. His son Guthorm, as before mentioned, he had set over the country from Glommen to Svinasund and Ranrike. He had set him to defend the country to the East, as before has been written. King Harald himself generally dwelt in the middle of the country, and Hrorek and Gudrod were generally with his court, and had great estates in Hordaland and in Sogn. King Eirik was also with his father King Harald; and the king loved and regarded him the most of all his sons, and gave him Halogaland and North More, and Raumsdal. North in Throndhjem he gave Halfdan the Black, Halfdan the White, and Sigrod land to rule over. In each of these districts he gave his sons the one half of his revenues, together with the right to sit on a high-seat,--a step higher than earls, but a step lower than his own high-seat. His king's seat each of his sons wanted for himself after his death, but he himself destined it for Eirik. The Throndhjem people wanted Halfdan the Black to succeed to it. The people of Viken, and the Uplands, wanted those under whom they lived. And thereupon new quarrels arose among the brothers; and because they thought their dominions too little, they drove about in piratical expeditions. In this way, as before related, Guthorm fell at the mouth of the Gaut river, slain by Solve Klofe; upon which Olaf took the kingdom he had possessed. Halfdan the White fell in Eistland, Halfdan Haleg in Orkney. King Harald gave ships of war to Thorgils and Frode, with which they went westward on a viking cruise, and plundered in Scotland, Ireland, and Bretland. They were the first of the Northmen who took Dublin. It is said that Frode got poisoned drink there; but Thorgils was a long time king over Dublin, until he fell into a snare of the Irish, and was killed. 36. DEATH OF RAGNVALD RETTILBEINE. Eirik Blood-axe expected to be head king over all his brothers and King Harald intended he should be so; and the father and son lived long together. Ragnvald Rettilbeine governed Hadaland, and allowed himself to be instructed in the arts of witchcraft, and became an area warlock. Now King Harald was a hater of all witchcraft. There was a warlock in Hordaland called Vitgeir; and when the king sent a message to him that he should give up his art of witchcraft, he replied in this verse:-- "The danger surely is not great From wizards born of mean estate, When Harald's son in Hadeland, King Ragnvald, to the art lays hand." But when King Harald heard this, King Eirik Blood-axe went by his orders to the Uplands, and came to Hadeland and burned his brother Ragnvald in a house, along with eighty other warlocks; which work was much praised. 37. DEATH OF GUDROD LJOME. Gudrod Ljome was in winter on a friendly visit to his foster-father Thjodolf in Hvin, and had a well-manned ship, with which he wanted to go north to Rogaland. It was blowing a heavy storm at the time; but Gudrod was bent on sailing, and would not consent to wait. Thjodolf sang thus:-- "Wait, Gudrod, till the storm is past,-- Loose not thy long-ship while the blast Howls over-head so furiously,-- Trust not thy long-ship to the sea,-- Loose not thy long-ship from the shore; Hark to the ocean's angry roar! See how the very stones are tost By raging waves high on the coast! Stay, Gudrod, till the tempest's o'er-- Deep runs the sea off the Jadar's shore." Gudrod set off in spite of what Thjodolf could say: and when they came off the Jadar the vessel sunk with them, and all on board were lost. 38. KING BJORN KAUPMAN'S DEATH. King Harald's son, Bjorn, ruled over Vestfold at that time, and generally lived at Tunsberg, and went but little on war expeditions. Tunsberg at that time was much frequented by merchant vessels, both from Viken and the north country, and also from the south, from Denmark, and Saxland. King Bjorn had also merchant ships on voyages to other lands, by which he procured for himself costly articles, and such things as he thought needful; and therefore his brothers called him Farman (the Seaman), and Kaupman (the Chapman). Bjorn was a man of sense and understanding, and promised to become a good ruler. He made a good and suitable marriage, and had a son by his wife, who was named Gudrod. Eirik Blood-axe came from his Baltic cruise with ships of war, and a great force, and required his brother Bjorn to deliver to him King Harald's share of the scat and incomes of Vestfold. But it had always been the custom before, that Bjorn himself either delivered the money into the king's hands, or sent men of his own with it; and therefore he would continue with the old custom, and would not deliver the money. Eirik again wanted provisions, tents, and liquor. The brothers quarrelled about this; but Eirik got nothing and left the town. Bjorn went also out of the town towards evening up to Saeheim. In the night Eirik came back after Bjorn, and came to Saeheim just as Bjorn and his men were seated at table drinking. Eirik surrounded the house in which they were; but Bjorn with his men went out and fought. Bjorn, and many men with him, fell. Eirik, on the other hand, got a great booty, and proceeded northwards. But this work was taken very ill by the people of Viken, and Eirik was much disliked for it; and the report went that King Olaf would avenge his brother Bjorn, whenever opportunity offered. King Bjorn lies in the mound of Farmanshaug at Saeheim. 39. RECONCILIATION OF THE KINGS. King Eirik went in winter northwards to More, and was at a feast in Solve, within the point Agdanes; and when Halfdan the Black heard of it he set out with his men, and surrounded the house in which they were. Eirik slept in a room which stood detached by itself, and he escaped into the forest with four others; but Halfdan and his men burnt the main house, with all the people who were in it. With this news Eirik came to King Harald, who was very wroth at it, and assembled a great force against the Throndhjem people. When Halfdan the Black heard this he levied ships and men, so that he had a great force, and proceeded with it to Stad, within Thorsbjerg. King Harald lay with his men at Reinsletta. Now people went between them, and among others a clever man called Guthorm Sindre, who was then in Halfdan the Black's army, but had been formerly in the service of King Harald, and was a great friend of both. Guthorm was a great skald, and had once composed a song both about the father and the son, for which they had offered him a reward. But he would take nothing; but only asked that, some day or other, they should grant him any request he should make, which they promised to do. Now he presented himself to King Harald, brought words of peace between them, and made the request to them both that they should be reconciled. So highly did the king esteem him, that in consequence of his request they were reconciled. Many other able men promoted this business as well as he; and it was so settled that Halfdan should retain the whole of his kingdom as he had it before, and should let his brother Eirik sit in peace. After this event Jorun, the skald-maid, composed some verses in "Sendibit" ("The Biting Message"):-- "I know that Harald Fairhair Knew the dark deed of Halfdan. To Harald Halfdan seemed Angry and cruel." 40. BIRTH OF HAKON THE GOOD. Earl Hakon Grjotgardson of Hlader had the whole rule over Throndhjem when King Harald was anywhere away in the country; and Hakon stood higher with the king than any in the country of Throndhjem. After Hakon's death his son Sigurd succeeded to his power in Throndhjem, and was the earl, and had his mansion at Hlader. King Harald's sons, Halfdan the Black and Sigrod, who had been before in the house of his father Earl Hakon, continued to be brought up in his house. The sons of Harald and Sigurd were about the same age. Earl Sigurd was one of the wisest men of his time, and married Bergljot, a daughter of Earl Thorer the Silent; and her mother was Alof Arbot, a daughter of Harald Harfager. When King Harald began to grow old he generally dwelt on some of his great farms in Hordaland; namely, Alreksstader or Saeheim, Fitjar, Utstein, or Ogvaldsnes in the island Kormt. When Harald was seventy years of age he begat a son with a girl called Thora Mosterstang, because her family came from Moster. She was descended from good people, being connected with Kare (Aslakson) of Hordaland; and was moreover a very stout and remarkably handsome girl. She was called the king's servant-girl; for at that time many were subject to service to the king who were of good birth, both men and women. Then it was the custom, with people of consideration, to choose with great care the man who should pour water over their children, and give them a name. Now when the time came that Thora, who was then at Moster, expected her confinement, she would to King Harald, who was then living at Saeheim; and she went northwards in a ship belonging to Earl Sigurd. They lay at night close to the land; and there Thora brought forth a child upon the land, up among the rocks, close to the ship's gangway, and it was a man child. Earl Sigurd poured water over him, and called him Hakon, after his own father, Hakon earl of Hlader. The boy soon grew handsome, large in size, and very like his father King Harald. King Harald let him follow his mother, and they were both in the king's house as long as he was an infant. 41. KING ATHELSTAN'S MESSAGE At this time a king called Aethelstan had taken the Kingdom of England. He was called victorious and faithful. He sent men to Norway to King Harald, with the errand that the messengers should present him with a sword, with the hilt and handle gilt, and also the whole sheath adorned with gold and silver, and set with precious jewels. The ambassador presented the sword-hilt to the king, saying, "Here is a sword which King Athelstan sends thee, with the request that thou wilt accept it." The king took the sword by the handle; whereupon the ambassador said, "Now thou hast taken the sword according to our king's desire, and therefore art thou his subject as thou hast taken his sword." King Harald saw now that this was an insult, for he would be subject to no man. But he remembered it was his rule, whenever anything raised his anger, to collect himself, and let his passion run off, and then take the matter into consideration coolly. Now he did so, and consulted his friends, who all gave him the advice to let the ambassadors, in the first place, go home in safety. 42. HAUK'S JOURNEY TO ENGLAND. The following summer King Harald sent a ship westward to England, and gave the command of it to Hauk Habrok. He was a great warrior, and very dear to the king. Into his hands he gave his son Hakon. Hank proceeded westward in England, and found King Athelstan in London, where there was just at the time a great feast and entertainment. When they came to the hall, Hauk told his men how they should conduct themselves; namely, that he who went first in should go last out, and all should stand in a row at the table, at equal distance from each other; and each should have his sword at his left side, but should fasten his cloak so that his sword should not be seen. Then they went into the hall, thirty in number. Hauk went up to the king and saluted him, and the king bade him welcome. Then Hauk took the child Hakon, and set it on the king's knee. The king looks at the boy, and asks Hauk what the meaning of this is. Hauk replies, "Herald the king bids thee foster his servant-girl's child." The king was in great anger, and seized a sword which lay beside him, and drew it, as if he was going to kill the child. Hauk says, "Thou hast borne him on thy knee, and thou canst murder him if thou wilt; but thou wilt not make an end of all King Harald's sons by so doing." On that Hauk went out with all his men, and took the way direct to his ship, and put to sea,--for they were ready,--and came back to King Harald. The king was highly pleased with this; for it is the common observation of all people, that the man who fosters another's children is of less consideration than the other. From these transactions between the two kings, it appears that each wanted to be held greater than the other; but in truth there was no injury, to the dignity of either, for each was the upper king in his own kingdom till his dying day. 43. HAKON, THE FOSTER-SON OF ATHELSTAN, IS BAPTIZED. King Athelstan had Hakon baptized, and brought up in the right faith, and in good habits, and all sorts of good manners, and he loved Hakon above all his relations; and Hakon was beloved by all men. He was henceforth called Athelstan's foster-son. He was an accomplished skald, and he was larger, stronger and more beautiful than other men; he was a man of understanding and eloquence, and also a good Christian. King Athelstan gave Hakon a sword, of which the hilt and handle were gold, and the blade still better; for with it Hakon cut down a mill-stone to the centre eye, and the sword thereafter was called the Quernbite (1). Better sword never came into Norway, and Hakon carried it to his dying day. ENDNOTES: (1) Quern is the name of the small hand mill-stones still found. in use among the cottars in Orkney, Shetland, and the Hebrides. This sword is mentioned in the Younger Edda. There were many excellent swords in the olden time, and many of them had proper names. 44. EIRIK BROUGHT TO THE SOVEREIGNTY. When King Harald was eighty years of age (A.D. 930) he became very heavy, and unable to travel through the country, or do the business of a king. Then he brought his son Eirik to his high-seat, and gave him the power and command over the whole land. Now when King Harald's other sons heard this, King Halfdan the Black also took a king's high-seat, and took all Throndhjem land, with the consent of all the people, under his rule as upper king. After the death of Bjorn the Chapman, his brother Olaf took the command over Vestfold, and took Bjorn's son, Gudrod, as his foster-child. Olaf's son was called Trygve; and the two foster-brothers were about the same age, and were hopeful and clever. Trygve, especially, was remarkable as a stout and strong man. Now when the people of Viken heard that those of Hordaland had taken Eirik as upper king, they did the same, and made Olaf the upper king in Viken, which kingdom he retained. Eirik did not like this at all. Two years after this, Halfdan the Black died suddenly at a feast in Throndhjem and the general report was that Gunhild had bribed a witch to give him a death-drink. Thereafter the Throndhjem people took Sigrod to be their king. 45. KING HARALD'S DEATH. King Harald lived three years after he gave Eirik the supreme authority over his kingdom, and lived mostly on his great farms which he possessed, some in Rogaland, and some in Hordaland. Eirik and Gunhild had a son on whom King Harald poured water, and gave him his own name, and the promise that he should be king after his father Eirik. King Harald married most of his daughters within the country to his earls, and from them many great families are descended. Harald died on a bed of sickness in Hogaland (A.D. 933), and was buried under a mound at Haugar in Karmtsund. In Haugesund is a church, now standing; and not far from the churchyard, at the north-west side, is King Harald Harfager's mound; but his grave-stone stands west of the church, and is thirteen feet and a half high, and two ells broad. One stone was set at head and one at the feet; on the top lay the slab, and below on both sides were laid small stones. The grave, mound, and stone, are there to the present day. Harald Harfager was, according to the report of men of knowledge, or remarkably handsome appearance, great and strong, and very generous and affable to his men. He was a great warrior in his youth; and people think that this was foretold by his mother's dream before his birth, as the lowest part of the tree she dreamt of was red as blood. The stem again was green and beautiful, which betokened his flourishing kingdom; and that the tree was white at the top showed that he should reach a grey-haired old age. The branches and twigs showed forth his posterity, spread over the whole land; for of his race, ever since. Norway has always had kings. 46. THE DEATH OF OLAF AND OF SIGROD. King Eirik took all the revenues (A.D. 934), which the king had in the middle of the country, the next winter after King Harald's decease. But Olaf took all the revenues eastward in Viken, and their brother Sigrod all that of the Throndhjem country. Eirik was very ill pleased with this; and the report went that he would attempt with force to get the sole sovereignty over the country, in the same way as his father had given it to him. Now when Olaf and Sigrod heard this, messengers passed between them; and after appointing a meeting place, Sigrod went eastward in spring to Viken, and he and his brother Olaf met at Tunsberg, and remained there a while. The same spring (A.D. 934), King Eirik levied a great force, and ships and steered towards Viken. He got such a strong steady gale that he sailed night and day, and came faster than the news of him. When he came to Tunsberg, Olaf and Sigrod, with their forces, went out of the town a little eastward to a ridge, where they drew up their men in battle order; but as Eirik had many more men he won the battle. Both brothers, Olaf and Sigrod, fell there; and both their grave-mounds are upon the ridge where they fell. Then King Eirik went through Viken, and subdued it, and remained far into summer. Gudrod and Trygve fled to the Uplands. Eirik was a stout handsome man, strong, and very manly,--a great and fortunate man of war; but bad-minded, gruff, unfriendly, and silent. Gunhild, his wife, was the most beautiful of women,--clever, with much knowledge, and lively; but a very false person, and very cruel in disposition. The children of King Eirik and Gunhild were, Gamle, the oldest; then Guthorm, Harald, Ragnfrod, Ragnhild, Erling, Gudrod, and Sigurd Sleva. All were handsome, and of manly appearance (1). ENDNOTES: (1) Of Eirik, his wife, and children, see the following sagas. HAKON THE GOOD'S SAGA. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. Of Eirik Blood-axe's five years' reign Snorre has no separate saga. He appears not to have been beloved by the people and his queen Gunhild seems to have had a bad influence on him. Other accounts of Hakon may be found in "Fagrskinna" (chaps. 25-34), "Agrip", "Historia", "Norvegiae", and in "Thjodrek" (chap. 4). The reader is also referred to "Saxo", "Egla", "Laxdaela", "Kormaks Saga", "Gisle Surssons Saga", "Halfred's Saga", "Floamanna Saga", "Viga Glum's Saga", and to "Landnamabok". Skald mentioned in this Saga are:--Glum Geirason, Thord Sjarekson, Guthorm Sindre, Kormak Ogmundson, and Eyvind Skaldaspiller. In the "Egla" are found many poems belonging to this epoch by Egil Skallagrimson. In "Fagrskinna" is found a poem (not given by Snorre) which Gunhild (his wife) had made on King Eirik after his death, telling how Odin welcomed him to Valhal. The author or skald who composed it is not known, but it is considered to be one of the gems of old Norse poetry, and we here quote it in Vigfusson's translation in his "Corpus Poeticum", vol. i. pp. 260, 261. Gudbrand Vigfusson has filled up a few gaps from "Hakonarmat", the poem at the end of this Saga. We have changed Vigfusson's orthography of names, and brought them into harmony with the spelling used in this work:--Ed. "Odin wakes in the morning and cries, as he opens his eyes, with his dream still fresh in his mind:--'What dreams are these? I thought I arose before daybreak to make Valhal ready for a host of slain. I woke up the host of the chosen. I bade them ride up to strew the benches, and to till up the beer-vats, and I bade valkyries to bear the wine, as if a king were coming. I look for the coming of some noble chiefs from the earth, wherefore my heart is glad.' "Brage, Odin's counsellor, now wakes, as a great din is heard without, and calls out:--'What is that thundering? as if a thousand men or some great host were tramping on--the walls and the benches are creaking withal--as if Balder was coming back to the ball of Odin?' "Odin answers:--'Surely thou speakest foolishly, good Brage, although thou art very wise. It thunders for Eirik the king, that is coming to the hall of Odin.' "Then turning to his heroes, he cries:--'Sigmund and Sinfjotle, rise in haste and go forth to meet the prince! Bid him in if it be Eirik, for it is he whom I look for.' "Sigmund answers:--'Why lookest thou more for Eirik, the king, to Odin's hall, than for other kings?' "Odin answers:--'Because he has reddened his brand, and borne his bloody sword in many a land.' "Quoth Sigmund:--'Why didst thou rob him, the chosen king of victory then, seeing thou thoughtest him so brave?' "Odin answered:--'Because it is not surely to be known, when the grey wolf shall come upon the seat of the god.' SECOND SCENE.--Without Valhal. Sigmund and Sinfjotle go outside the hall and meet Eirik. "Quoth Sigmund:--'Hail to thee, Eirik, be welcome here, and come into the hall, thou gallant king! Now I will ask thee, what kings are these that follow thee from the clash of the sword edges?' "Eirik answers:--'They are five kings; I will tell thee all their names; I myself am the sixth (the names followed in the song, whereof the rest is lost.) "Fagrskinna" says "Hakonarmal" was the model of this poem. 1. HAKON CHOSEN KING. Hakon, Athelstan's foster-son, was in England at the time (A.D. 934) he heard of his father King Harald's death, and he immediately made himself ready to depart. King Athelstan gave him men, and a choice of good ships, and fitted him out for his journey most excellently. In harvest time he came to Norway, where he heard of the death of his brothers, and that King Eirik was then in Viken. Then Hakon sailed northwards to Throndhjem, where he went to Sigurd earl of Hlader who was the ablest man in Norway. He gave Hakon a good reception; and they made a league with each other, by which Hakon promised great power to Sigurd if he was made king. They assembled then a numerous Thing, and Sigurd the earl recommended Hakon's cause to the Thing, and proposed him to the bondes as king. Then Hakon himself stood up and spoke; and the people said to each other, two and two, as they heard him, "Herald Harfager is come again, grown and young." The beginning of Hakon's speech was, that he offered himself to the bondes as king, and desired from them the title of king, and aid and forces to defend the kingdom. He promised, on the other hand, to make all the bondes udal-holders, and give every man udal rights to the land he lived on. This speech met such joyful applause, that the whole public cried and shouted that they would take him to be king. And so it was that the Throndhjem people took Hakon, who was then fifteen years old, for king; and he took a court or bodyguard, and servants, and proceeded through the country. The news reached the Uplands that the people in Throndhjem had taken to themselves a king, who in every respect was like King Harald Harfager,--with the difference, that Harald had made all the people of the land vassals, and unfree; but this Hakon wished well to every man, and offered the bondes to give them their udal rights again, which Harald had taken from them. All were rejoiced at this news, and it passed from mouth to mouth,--it flew, like fire in dry grass, through the whole land, and eastward to the land's end. Many bondes came from the Uplands to meet King Hakon. Some sent messengers, some tokens; and all to the same effect--that his men they would be: and the king received all thankfully. 2. KING HAKON'S PROGRESS THROUGH THE COUNTRY. Early in winter (935), the king went to the Uplands, and summoned the people to a Thing; and there streamed all to him who could come. He was proclaimed king at every Thing; and then he proceeded eastward to Viken, where his brother's sons, Trygve and Gudrod, and many others, came unto him, and complained of the sorrow and evil his brother Eirik had wrought. The hatred to King Eirik grew more and more, the more liking all men took to King Hakon; and they got more boldness to say what they thought. King Hakon gave Trygve and Gudrod the title of kings, and the dominions which King Harald had bestowed on their fathers. Trygve got Ranrike and Vingulmark, and Gudrod, Vestfold; but as they were young, and in the years of childhood, he appointed able men to rule the land for them. He gave them the country on the same conditions as it had been given before,--that they should have half of the scat and revenues with him. Towards spring King Hakon returned north, over the Uplands, to Throndhjem. 3. EIRIK'S DEPARTURE FROM THE COUNTRY. King Hakon, early in spring, collected a great army at Throndhjem, and fitted out ships. The people of Viken also had a great force on foot, and intended to join Hakon. King Eirik also levied people in the middle of the country; but it went badly with him to gather people, for the leading men left him, and went over to Hakon. As he saw himself not nearly strong enough to oppose Hakon, he sailed (A.D. 935) out to the West sea with such men as would follow him. He first sailed to Orkney, and took many people with him from that country; and then went south towards England, plundering in Scotland, and in the north parts of England, wherever he could land. Athelstan, the king of England, sent a message to Eirik, offering him dominions under him in England; saying that King Harald his father was a good friend of King Athelstan, and therefore he would do kindly towards his sons. Messengers passed between the two kings; and it came to an agreement that King Eirik should take Northumberland as a fief from King Athelstan, and which land he should defend against the Danes or other vikings. Eirik should let himself be baptized, together with his wife and children, and all the people who had followed him. Eirik accepted this offer, and was baptized, and adopted the right faith. Northumberland is called a fifth part of England. Eirik had his residence at York, where Lodbrok's sons, it was said, had formerly been, and Northumberland was principally inhabited by Northmen. Since Lodbrok's sons had taken the country, Danes and Northmen often plundered there, when the power of the land was out of their hands. Many names of places in the country are Norwegian; as Grimsby, Haukfliot, and many others. 4. EIRIK'S DEATH. King Eirik had many people about him, for he kept many Northmen who had come with him from the East; and also many of his friends had joined him from Norway. But as he had little land, he went on a cruise every summer, and plundered in Scotland, the Hebrides, Ireland, and Bretland, by which he gathered property. King Athelstan died on a sick bed, after a reign of fourteen years, eight weeds, and three days. After him his brother Jatmund was king of England, and he was no friend to the Northmen. King Eirik, also, was in no great favour with him; and the word went about that King Jatmund would set another chief over Northumberland. Now when King Eirik heard this, he set off on a viking cruise to the westward; and from the Orkneys took with him the Earls Arnkel and Erlend, the sons of Earl Torfeinar. Then he sailed to the Hebrides, where there were many vikings and troop-kings, who joined their men to his. With all this force he steered to Ireland first, where he took with him all the men he could, and then to Bretland, and plundered; and sailed thereafter south to England, and marauded there as elsewhere. The people fled before him wherever he appeared. As King Eirik was a bold warrior, and had a great force, he trusted so much to his people that he penetrated far inland in the country, following and plundering the fugitives. King Jatmund had set a king, who was called Olaf, to defend the land; and he gathered an innumerable mass of people, with whom he marched against King Eirik. A dreadful battle ensued, in which many Englishmen fell; but for one who fell came three in his place out of the country behind, and when evening came on the loss of men turned on the side of the Northmen, and many people fell. Towards the end of the day, King Eirik and five kings with him fell. Three of them were Guthorm and his two sons, Ivar and Harek: there fell, also, Sigurd and Ragnvald; and with them Torfeinar's two sons, Arnkel and Erlend. Besides these, there was a great slaughter of Northmen; and those who escaped went to Northumberland, and brought the news to Gunhild and her sons (A.D. 941). 5. GUNHILD AND HER SONS. When Gunhild and her sons knew for certain that King Eirik had fallen, after having plundered the land of the King of England, they thought there was no peace to be expected for them; and they made themselves ready to depart from Northumberland, with all the ships King Eirik had left, and all the men who would go with them. They took also all the loose property, and goods which they had gathered partly as taxes in England, partly as booty on their expeditions. With their army they first steered northward to Orkney, where Thorfin Hausakljufer was earl, a son of Torfeinar, and took up their station there for a time. Eirik's sons subdued these islands and Hjaltland, took scat for themselves, and staid there all the winter; but went on viking cruises in summer to the West, and plundered in Scotland and Ireland. About this Glum Geirason sings:-- "The hero who knows well to ride The sea-horse o'er the foamingtide,-- He who in boyhood wild rode o'er The seaman's horse to Skanea's shore. And showed the Danes his galley's bow, Right nobly scours the ocean now. On Scotland's coast he lights the brand Of flaming war; with conquering hand Drives many a Scottish warrior tall To the bright seats in Odin's hall. The fire-spark, by the fiend of war Fanned to a flame, soon spreads afar. Crowds trembling fly,--the southern foes Fall thick beneath the hero's blows: The hero's blade drips red with gore, Staining the green sward on the shore." 6. BATTLE IN JUTLAND. When King Eirik had left the country, King Hakon, Athelstan's foster-son, subdued the whole of Norway. The first winter (A.D. 936) he visited the western parts, and then went north, and settled in Throndhjem. But as no peace could be reasonably looked for so long as King Eirik with his forces could come to Norway from the West sea, he set himself with his men-at-arms in the middle of the country,--in the Fjord district, or in Sogn, or Hordaland, or Rogaland. Hakon placed Sigurd earl of Hlader over the whole Throradhjem district, as he and his father had before had it under Harald Harfager. When King Hakon heard of his brother Eirik's death, and also that his sons had no footing in England, he thought there was not much to fear from them, and he went with his troops one summer eastward to Viken. At that time the Danes plundered often in Viken, and wrought much evil there; but when they heard that King Hakon was come with a great army, they got out of the way, to Halland; and those who were nearest to King Hakon went out to sea, and over to Jotland (Jutland). When the king heard of this, he sailed after them with all his army. On arriving in Jutland he plundered all round; and when the country people heard of it, they assembled in a great body, and determined to defend their land, and fight. There was a great battle; and King Hakon fought so boldly, that he went forward before his banner without helmet or coat of mail. King Hakon won the victory, and drove the fugitives far up the country. So says Guthorm Sindre, in his song of Hakon:-- "Furrowing the deep-blue sea with oars, The king pursues to Jutland's shores. They met; and in the battle storm Of clashing shields, full many a form Of goodly warrior on the plain, Full many a corpse by Hakon slain, Glutted the ravens, who from far, Scenting the banquet-feast of war, Came in black flocks to Jutland's plains To drink the blood-wine from the veins." 7. BATTLE IN EYRARSUND (THE SOUND). Then Hakon steered southwards with his fleet to seek the vikings, and so on to Sealand. He rowed with two cutters into the Eyrarsund, where he found eleven viking ships, and instantly attacked them. It ended in his gaining the victory, and clearing the viking ships of all their men. So says Guthorm Sindre:-- "Hakon the Brave, whose skill all know To bend in battle storm the bow, Rushed o'er the waves to Sealand's tongue, His two war-ships with gilt shields hung, And cleared the decks with his blue sword That rules the fate of war, on board Eleven ships of the Vindland men.-- Famous is Hakon's name since then." 8. KING HAKON'S EXPEDITION TO DENMARK. Thereafter King Hakon carried war far and wide in Sealand; plundering some, slaying others, taking some prisoners of war, taking ransom from others, and all without opposition. Then Hakon proceeded along the coast of Skane, pillaging everywhere, levying taxes and ransome from the country, and killing all vikings, both Danish and Vindish. He then went eastwards to the district of Gautland, marauded there, and took great ransom from the country. So says Guthorm Sindre:-- "Hakon, who midst the battle shock Stands like a firmly-rooted oak, Subdued all Sealand with the sword: From Vindland vikings the sea-bord Of Scania swept; and, with the shield Of Odin clad, made Gautland yield A ransom of the ruddy gold, Which Hakon to his war-men bold Gave with free hand, who in his feud Against the arrow-storm had stood." King Hakon returned back in autumn with his army and an immense booty; and remained all the winter (A.D. 946) in Viken to defend it against the Danes and Gautlanders, if they should attack it. 9. OF KING TRYGVE. In the same winter King Trygve Olafson returned from a viking cruise in the West sea, having before ravaged in Ireland and Scotland. In spring (A.D. 946) King Hakon went north, and set his brother's son, King Trygve, over Viken to defend that country against enemies. He gave him also in property all that he could reconquer of the country in Denmark, which the summer before King Hakon had subjected to payment of scat to him. So says Guthorm:-- "King Hakon, whose sharp sword dyes red The bright steel cap on many a head, Has set a warrior brave and stout The foreign foeman to keep out,-- To keep that green land safe from war Which black Night bore to dwarf Annar (1). For many a carle whose trade's to wield The battle-axe, and swing the shield, On the swan's ocean-skates has come, In white-winged ships, across the foam,-- Across the sea, from far Ireland, To war against the Norseman's land." ENDNOTES: (1) The dwarf Annar was the husband of Night, and Earth was their daughter.--L. 10. OF GUNHILD S SONS. King Harald Gormson ruled over Denmark at that time. He took it much amiss that King Hakon had made war in his dominions, and the report went that he would take revenge; but this did not take place so soon. When Gunhild and her sons heard there was enmity between Denmark and Norway, they began to turn their course from the West. They married King Eirik's daughter, Ragnhild, to Arnfin, a son of Thorfin Hausakljufer; and as soon as Eirik's sons went away, Thorfin took the earldom again over the Orkney Islands. Gamle Eirikson was somewhat older than the other brothers, but still he was not a grown man. When Gunhild and her sons came from the westward to Denmark, they were well received by King Harald. He gave them great fiefs in his kingdom, so that they could maintain themselves and their men very well. He also took Harald Eirikson to be his foster-son, set him on his knee, and thereafter he was brought up at the Danish king's court. Some of Eirik's sons went out on viking expeditions as soon as they were old enough, and gathered property, ravaging all around in the East sea. They grew up quickly to be handsome men, and far beyond their years in strength and perfection. Glum Geirason tells of one of them in the Grafeld song:-- "I've heard that, on the Eastland coast, Great victories were won and lost. The king, whose hand is ever graced With gift to skald, his banner placed On, and still on; while, midst the play Of swords, sung sharp his good sword's sway As strong in arm as free of gold, He thinn'd the ranks of warriors bold." Then Eirik's sons turned northwards with their troops to Viken and marauded there; but King Trygve kept troops on foot with which he met them, and they had many a battle, in which the victory was sometimes on one side, and sometimes on the other. Sometimes Eirik's sons plundered in Viken, and sometimes Trygve in Sealand and Halland. 11. KING HAKON AS A LAW-GIVER. As long as Hakon was king in Norway, there was good peace between the bondes and merchants; so that none did harm either to the life or goods of the other. Good seasons also there were, both by sea and land. King Hakon was of a remarkably cheerful disposition, clever in words, and very condescending. He was a man of great understanding also, and bestowed attention on law-giving. He gave out the Gula-thing's laws on the advice of Thorleif Spake (the Wise); also the Frosta-thing's laws on the advice of Earl Sigurd, and of other Throndhjem men of wisdom. Eidsiva-thing laws were first established in the country by Halfdan the Black, as has before been written. 12. THE BIRTH OF EARL HAKON THE GREAT. King Hakon kept Yule at Throndhjem, and Earl Sigurd had made a feast for him at Hlader. The night of the first day of Yule the earl's wife, Bergljot, was brought to bed of a boy-child, which afterwards King Hakon poured water over, and gave him his own name. The boy grew up, and became in his day a mighty and able man, and was earl after his father, who was King Hakon's dearest friend. 13. OF EYSTEIN THE BAD. Eystein, a king of the Uplands, whom some called the Great, and some the Bad, once on a time made war in Throndhjem, and subdued Eyna district and Sparbyggia district, and set his own son Onund over them; but the Throndhjem people killed him. Then King Eystein made another inroad into Throndhjem, and ravaged the land far and wide, and subdued it. He then offered the people either his slave, who was called Thorer Faxe, or his dog, whose name was Saur, to be their king. They preferred the dog, as they thought they would sooner get rid of him. Now the dog was, by witchcraft, gifted with three men's wisdom; and when he barked, he spoke one word and barked two. A collar and chain of gold and silver were made for him, and his courtiers carried him on their shoulders when the weather or ways were foul. A throne was erected for him, and he sat upon a high place, as kings are used to sit. He dwelt on Eyin Idre (Idre Isle), and had his mansion in a place now called Saurshaug. It is told that the occasion of his death was that the wolves one day broke into his fold, and his courtiers stirred him up to defend his cattle; but when he ran down from his mound, and attacked the wolves, they tore him into pieces. Many other extraordinary things were done by this King Eystein against the Throndhjem people, and in consequence of this persecution and trouble, many chiefs and people fled and left their udal properties. 14. JAMTALAND AND HELSINGJALAND. Ketil Jamte, a son of Earl Onund of Sparabu, went eastward across the mountain ridge, and with him a great multitude, who took all their farm-stock and goods with them. They cleared the woods, and established large farms, and settled the country afterwards called Jamtaland. Thorer Helsing, Ketil's grandson, on account of a murder, ran away from Jamtaland and fled eastward through the forest, and settled there. Many people followed, and that country, which extends eastward down to the seacoast, was called Helsingjaland; and its eastern parts are inhabited by Swedes. Now when Harald Harfager took possession of the whole country many people fled before him, both people of Throndhjem and of Naumudal districts; and thus new settlers came to Jamtaland, and some all the way to Helsingjaland. The Helsingjaland people travelled into Svithiod for their merchandise, and thus became altogether subjects of that country. The Jamtaland people, again, were in a manner between the two countries; and nobody cared about them, until Hakon entered into friendly intercourse with Jamtaland, and made friends of the more powerful people. Then they resorted to him, and promised him obedience and payment of taxes, and became his subjects; for they saw nothing but what was good in him, and being of Norwegian race they would rather stand under his royal authority than under the king of Sweden: and he gave them laws, and rights to their land. All the people of Helsingjaland did the same,--that is, all who were of Norwegian race, from the other side of the great mountain ridge. 15. HAKON SPREADS CHRISTIANITY. King Hakon was a good Christian when he came to Norway; but as the whole country was heathen, with much heathenish sacrifice, and as many great people, as well as the favour of the common people, were to be conciliated, he resolved to practice his Christianity in private. But he kept Sundays, and the Friday fasts, and some token of the greatest holy-days. He made a law that the festival of Yule should begin at the same time as Christian people held it, and that every man, under penalty, should brew a meal of malt into ale, and therewith keep the Yule holy as long as it lasted. Before him, the beginning of Yule, or the slaughter night, was the night of mid-winter (Dec. 14), and Yule was kept for three days thereafter. It was his intent, as soon as he had set himself fast in the land, and had subjected the whole to his power, to introduce Christianity. He went to work first by enticing to Christianity the men who were dearest to him; and many, out of friendship to him, allowed themselves to be baptized, and some laid aside sacrifices. He dwelt long in the Throndhjem district, for the strength of the country lay there; and when he thought that, by the support of some powerful people there, he could set up Christianity he sent a message to England for a bishop and other teachers; and when they arrived in Norway, Hakon made it known that he would proclaim Christianity over all the land. The people of More and Raumsdal referred the matter to the people of Throndhjem. King Hakon then had several churches consecrated, and put priests into them; and when he came to Throndhjem he summoned the bondes to a Thing, and invited them to accept Christianity. They gave an answer to the effect that they would defer the matter until the Frosta-thing, at which there would be men from every district of the Throndhjem country, and then they would give their determination upon this difficult matter. 16. ABOUT SACRIFICES. Sigurd, earl of Hlader, was one of the greatest men for sacrifices, and so had Hakon his father been; and Sigurd always presided on account of the king at all the festivals of sacrifice in the Throndhjem country. It was an old custom, that when there was to be sacrifice all the bondes should come to the spot where the temple stood and bring with them all that they required while the festival of the sacrifice lasted. To this festival all the men brought ale with them; and all kinds of cattle, as well as horses, were slaughtered, and all the blood that came from them was called "hlaut", and the vessels in which it was collected were called hlaut-vessels. Hlaut-staves were made, like sprinkling brushes, with which the whole of the altars and the temple walls, both outside and inside, were sprinkled over, and also the people were sprinkled with the blood; but the flesh was boiled into savoury meat for those present. The fire was in the middle of the floor of the temple, and over it hung the kettles, and the full goblets were handed across the fire; and he who made the feast, and was a chief, blessed the full goblets, and all the meat of the sacrifice. And first Odin's goblet was emptied for victory and power to his king; thereafter, Niord's and Freyja's goblets for peace and a good season. Then it was the custom of many to empty the brage-goblet (1); and then the guests emptied a goblet to the memory of departed friends, called the remembrance goblet. Sigurd the earl was an open-handed man, who did what was very much celebrated; namely, he made a great sacrifice festival at Hlader of which he paid all the expenses. Kormak Ogmundson sings of it in his ballad of Sigurd:-- "Of cup or platter need has none The guest who seeks the generous one,-- Sigurd the Generous, who can trace His lineage from the giant race; For Sigurd's hand is bounteous, free,-- The guardian of the temples he. He loves the gods, his liberal hand Scatters his sword's gains o'er the land--" ENDNOTES: (1) The brage-goblet, over which vows were made.--L. 17. THE FROSTA-THING. King Hakon came to the Frosta-thing, at which a vast multitude of people were assembled. And when the Thing was seated, the king spoke to the people, and began his speech with saying,--it was his message and entreaty to the bondes and householding men, both great and small, and to the whole public in general, young and old, rich and poor, women as well as men, that they should all allow themselves to be baptized, and should believe in one God, and in Christ the son of Mary and refrain from all sacrifices and heathen gods; and should keep holy the seventh day, and abstain from all work on it, and keep a fast on the seventh day. As soon as the king had proposed this to the bondes, great was the murmur and noise among the crowd. They complained that the king wanted to take their labour and their old faith from them, and the land could not be cultivated in that way. The labouring men and slaves thought that they could not work if they did not get meat; and they said it was the character of King Hakon, and his father, and all the family, to be generous enough with their money, but sparing with their diet. Asbjorn of Medalhus in the Gaulardal stood up, and answered thus to the king's proposal:-- "We bondes, King Hakon, when we elected thee to be our king, and got back our udal rights at the Thing held in Throndhjem, thought we had got into heaven; but now we don't know whether we have really got back our freedom, or whether thou wishest to make vassals of us again by this extraordinary proposal that we should abandon the ancient faith which our fathers and forefathers have held from the oldest times, in the times when the dead were burnt, as well as since that they are laid under mounds, and which, although they were braver than the people of our days, has served us as a faith to the present time. We have also held thee so dear, that we have allowed thee to rule and give law and right to all the country. And even now we bondes will unanimously hold by the law which thou givest us here in the Frosta-thing, and to which we have also given our assent; and we will follow thee, and have thee for our king, as long as there is a living man among us bondes here in this Thing assembled. But thou, king, must use some moderation towards us, and only require from us such things as we can obey thee in, and are not impossible for us. If, however, thou wilt take up this matter with a high hand, and wilt try thy power and strength against us, we bondes have resolved among ourselves to part with thee, and to take to ourselves some other chief, who will so conduct himself towards us that we can freely and safely enjoy that faith that suits our own inclinations. Now, king, thou must choose one or other of these conditions before the Thing is ended." The bondes gave loud applause to this speech, and said it expressed their will, and they would stand or fall by what had been spoken. When silence was again restored, Earl Sigurd said, "It is King Hakon's will to give way to you, the bondes, and never to separate himself from your friendship." The bondes replied, that it was their desire that the king should offer a sacrifice for peace and a good year, as his father was want to do; and thereupon the noise and tumult ceased, and the Thing was concluded. Earl Sigurd spoke to the king afterwards, and advised him not to refuse altogether to do as the people desired, saying there was nothing else for it but to give way to the will of the bondes; "for it is, as thou hast heard thyself, the will and earnest desire of the head-people, as well as of the multitude. Hereafter we may find a good way to manage it." And in this resolution the king and earl agreed (A.D. 950). 18. KING HAKON OFFERS SACRIFICES. The harvest thereafter, towards the winter season, there was a festival of sacrifice at Hlader, and the king came to it. It had always been his custom before, when he was present at a place where there was sacrifice, to take his meals in a little house by himself, or with some few of his men; but the bondes grumbled that he did not seat himself in his high-seat at these the most joyous of the meetings of the people. The earl said that the king should do so this time. The king accordingly sat upon his high-seat. Now when the first full goblet was filled, Earl Sigurd spoke some words over it, blessed it in Odin's name, and drank to the king out of the horn; and the king then took it, and made the sign of the cross over it. Then said Kar of Gryting, "What does the king mean by doing so? Will he not sacrifice?" Earl Sigurd replies, "The king is doing what all of you do, who trust to your power and strength. He is blessing the full goblet in the name of Thor, by making the sign of his hammer over it before he drinks it." On this there was quietness for the evening. The next day, when the people sat down to table, the bondes pressed the king strongly to eat of horse-flesh (1); and as he would on no account do so, they wanted him to drink of the soup; and as he would not do this, they insisted he should at least taste the gravy; and on his refusal they were going to lay hands on him. Earl Sigurd came and made peace among them, by asking the king to hold his mouth over the handle of the kettle, upon which the fat smoke of the boiled horse-flesh had settled itself; and the king first laid a linen cloth over the handle, and then gaped over it, and returned to the high-seat; but neither party was satisfied with this. ENDNOTES: (1) This eating of horse-flesh at these religious festivals was considered the most direct proof of paganism in the following times, and was punished by death or mutilation by Saint Olaf. It was a ceremony apparently commemorative of their Asiatic origin and ancestors. 19. FEAST OF THE SACRIFICE AT MORE. The winter thereafter the king prepared a Yule feast in More, and eight chiefs resolved with each other to meet at it. Four of them were from without the Throndhjem district--namely, Kar of Gryting, Asbjorn of Medalhus, Thorberg of Varnes, and Orm from Ljoxa; and from the Throndhjem district, Botolf of Olvishaug, Narfe of Staf in Veradal, Thrand Hak from Egg, and Thorer Skeg from Husaby in Eyin Idre. These eight men bound themselves, the four first to root out Christianity in Norway, and the four others to oblige the king to offer sacrifice to the gods. The four first went in four ships southwards to More, and killed three priests, and burnt three churches, and then they returned. Now, when King Hakon and Earl Sigurd came to More with their court, the bondes assembled in great numbers; and immediately, on the first day of the feast, the bondes insisted hard with the king that he should offer sacrifice, and threatened him with violence if he refused. Earl Sigurd tried to make peace between them, and brought it so far that the king took some bits of horse-liver, and emptied all the goblets the bondes filled for him without the sign of the cross; but as soon as the feast was over, the king and the earl returned to Hlader. The king was very ill pleased, and made himself ready to leave Throndhjem forthwith with all his people; saying that the next time he came to Throndhjem, he would come with such strength of men-at-arms that he would repay the bondes for their enmity towards him. Earl Sigurd entreated the king not to take it amiss of the bondes; adding, that it was not wise to threaten them, or to make war upon the people within the country, and especially in the Throndhjem district, where the strength of the land lay; but the king was so enraged that he would not listen to a word from anybody. He went out from Throndhjem, and proceeded south to More, where he remained the rest of the winter, and on to the spring season (A.D. 950); and when summer came he assembled men, and the report was that he intended with this army to attack the Throndhjem people. 20. BATTLE AT OGVALDSNES. But just as the king had embarked with a great force of troops, the news was brought him from the south of the country, that King Eirik's sons had come from Denmark to Viken and had driven King Trygve Olafson from his ships at Sotanes, and then had plundered far and wide around in Viken, and that many had submitted to them. Now when King Hakon heard this news, he thought that help was needed; and he sent word to Earl Sigurd, and to the other chiefs from whom he could expect help, to hasten to his assistance. Sigurd the earl came accordingly with a great body of men, among whom were all the Throndhjem people who had set upon him the hardest to offer sacrifice; and all made their peace with the king, by the earl's persuasion. Now King Hakon sailed south along the coast; and when he came south as far as Stad, he heard that Eirik's sons were come to North Agder. Then they advanced against each other, and met at Kormt. Both parties left their ships there, and gave battle at Ogvaldsnes. Both parties had a great force, and it was a great battle. King Hakon went forward bravely, and King Guthorm Eirikson met him with his troop, and they exchanged blows with each other. Guthorm fell, and his standard was cut down. Many people fell around him. The army of Eirik's sons then took flight to their ships and rowed away with the loss of many a man. So says Guthorm Sindre:-- "The king's voice waked the silent host Who slept beside the wild sea-coast, And bade the song of spear and sword Over the battle plain be heard. Where heroes' shields the loudest rang, Where loudest was the sword-blade's clang, By the sea-shore at Kormt Sound, Hakon felled Guthorm to the ground." Now King Hakon returned to his ships, and pursued Gunhild's sons. And both parties sailed all they could sail, until they came to East Adger, from whence Eirik's sons set out to sea, and southwards for Jutland (A.D. 950). Guthorm Sindre speaks of it in his song:-- "And Guthorm's brothers too, who know So skilfully to bend the bow, The conquering hand must also feel Of Hakon, god of the bright steel,-- The sun-god, whose bright rays, that dart Flame-like, are swords that pierce the heart. Well I remember how the King Hakon, the battle's life and spring, O'er the wide ocean cleared away Eirik's brave sons. They durst not stay, But round their ships' sides hung their shields And fled across the blue sea-fields." King Hakon returned then northwards to Norway, but Eirik's sons remained a long time in Denmark. 21. KING HAKON'S LAWS. King Hakon after this battle made a law, that all inhabited land over the whole country along the sea-coast, and as far back from it as the salmon swims up in the rivers, should be divided into ship-raths according to the districts; and it was fixed by law how many ships there should be from each district, and how great each should be, when the whole people were called out on service. For this outfit the whole inhabitants should be bound whenever a foreign army came to the country. With this came also the order that beacons should be erected upon the hills, so that every man could see from the one to the other; and it is told that a war-signal could thus be given in seven days, from the most southerly beacon to the most northerly Thing-seat in Halogaland 22. CONCERNING EIRIK'S SONS. Eirik's sons plundered much on the Baltic coasts and sometimes, as before related, in Norway; but so long as Hakon ruled over Norway there was in general good peace, and good seasons, and he was the most beloved of kings. When Hakon had reigned about twenty years in Norway (A.D. 954), Eirik's sons came from Denmark with a powerful army, of which a great part consisted of the people who had followed them on their expeditions; but a still greater army of Danes had been placed at their disposal by King Harald Gormson. They sailed with a fair wind from Vendil, and came to Agder; and then sailed northwards, night and day, along the coast. But the beacons were not fired, because it had been usual to look for them lighted from the east onwards, and nobody had observed them from the east coast; and besides King Hakon had set heavy penalties for giving false alarm, by lighting the beacons without occasion. The reason of this was, that ships of war and vikings cruised about and plundered among the outlying islands, and the country people took them for Eirik's sons, and lighted the beacons, and set the whole country in trouble and dread of war. Sometimes, no doubt, the sons of Eirik were there; but having only their own troops, and no Danish army with them, they returned to Denmark; and sometimes these were other vikings. King Hakon was very angry at this, because it cost both trouble and money to no purpose. The bondes also suffered by these false alarms when they were given uselessly; and thus it happened that no news of this expedition of Eirik's sons circulated through the land until they had come as far north as Ulfasund, where they lay for seven days. Then spies set off across Eid and northwards to More. King Hakon was at that time in the island Frede, in North More, at a place called Birkistrand, where he had a dwelling-house, and had no troops with him, only his bodyguard or court, and the neighbouring bondes he had invited to his house. 23. OF EGIL ULSERK. The spies came to King Hakon, and told him that Eirik's sons, with a great army, lay just to the south of Stad. Then he called together the most understanding of the men about him, and asked their opinion, whether he should fight with Eirik's sons, although they had such a great multitude with them, or should set off northwards to gather together more men. Now there was a bonde there, by name Egil Ulserk, who was a very old man, but in former days had been strong and stout beyond most men, and a hardy man-at-arms withal, having long carried King Harald Harfager's banner. Egil answered thus to the king's speech,--"I was in several battles with thy father Harald the king, and he gave battle sometimes with many, sometimes with few people; but he always came off with victory. Never did I hear him ask counsel of his friends whether he should fly--and neither shalt thou get any such counsel from us, king; but as we know we have a brave leader, thou shalt get a trusty following from us." Many others agreed with this speech, and the king himself declared he was most inclined to fight with such strength as they could gather. It was so determined. The king split up a war-arrow, which he sent off in all directions, and by that token a number of men was collected in all haste. Then said Egil Ulserk,--"At one time the peace had lasted so long I was afraid I might come to die the death of old age (1), within doors upon a bed of straw, although I would rather fall in battle following my chief. And now it may so turn out in the end as I wished it to be." ENDNOTES: (1) In all the sagas of this pagan time, the dying on a bed of sickness is mentioned as a kind of derogatory end of a man of any celebrity.--L. 24. BATTLE AT FREDARBERG. Eirik's sons sailed northwards around Stad; as soon as the wind suited; and when they had passed it, and heard where King Hakon was, they sailed to meet him. King Hakon had nine ships, with which he lay under Fredarberg in Feeysund; and Eirik's sons had twenty ships, with which they brought up on the south side of the same cape, in Feeysund. King Hakon sent them a message, asking them to go upon the land; and telling them that he had hedged in with hazel boughs a place of combat at Rastarkalf, where there is a flat large field, at the foot of a long and rather low ridge. Then Eirik's sons left their ships, and went northwards over the neck of land within Fredarberg, and onward to Rastarkalf. Then Egil asked King Hakon to give him ten men with ten banners, and the king did so. Then Egil went with his men under the ridge; but King Hakon went out upon the open field with his army, and set up his banner, and drew up his army, saying, "Let us draw up in a long line, that they may not surround us, as they have the most men." And so it was done; and there was a severe battle, and a very sharp attack. Then Egil Ulserk set up the ten banners he had with him, and placed the men who carried them so that they should go as near the summit of the ridge as possible, and leaving a space between each of them. They went so near the summit that the banners could be seen over it, and moved on as if they were coming behind the army of Eirik's sons. Now when the men who stood uppermost in the line of the troops of Eirik's sons saw so many flying banners advancing high over the edge of the ridge, they supposed a great force must be following, who would come behind their army, and between them and their ships. They made each other acquainted with what was going on in a loud shout, and the whole took to flight; and when the king saw it, they fled with the rest. King Hakon now pushes on briskly with his people, pursuing the flying, and killing many. 25. OF KING GAMLE. When Gamle Eirikson came up the ridge of the hill he turned round, and he observed that not more people were following than his men had been engaged with already, and he saw it was but a stratagem of war; so he ordered the war-horns to be blown, his banner to be set up, and he put his men in battle order. On this, all his Northmen stood, and turned with him, but the Danes fled to the ships; and when King Hakon and his men came thither, there was again sharp conflict; but now Hakon had most people. At last the Eirik's sons' force fled, and took the road south about the hill; but a part of their army retreated upon the hill southwards, followed by King Hakon. There is a flat field east of the ridge which runs westward along the range of hills, and is bounded on its west side by a steep ridge. Gamle's men retreated towards this ground; but Hakon followed so closely that he killed some, and others ran west over the ridge, and were killed on that side of it. King Hakon did not part with them till the last man of them was killed. 26. KING GAMLE AND ULSERK FALL. Gamle Eirikson fled from the ridge down upon the plain to the south of the hill. There he turned himself again, and waited until more people gathered to him. All his brothers, and many troops of their men, assembled there. Egil Ulserk was in front, and in advance of Hakon's men, and made a stout attack. He and King Gamle exchanged blows with each other, and King Gamle got a grievous wound; but Egil fell, and many people with him. Then came Hakon the king with the troops which had followed him, and a new battle began. King Hakon pushed on, cutting down men on both sides of him, and killing the one upon the top of the other. So sings Guthorm Sindre:-- "Scared by the sharp sword's singing sound, Brandished in air, the foe gave ground. The boldest warrior cannot stand Before King Hakon's conquering hand; And the king's banner ever dies Where the spear-forests thickest rise. Altho' the king had gained of old Enough of Freyja's tears of gold (1), He spared himself no more than tho' He'd had no well-filled purse to show." When Eirik's sons saw their men falling all round, they turned and fled to their ships; but those who had sought the ships before had pushed off some of them from the land, while some of them were still hauled up and on the strand. Now the sons of Eirik and their men plunged into the sea, and betook themselves to swimming. Gamle Eirikson was drowned; but the other sons of Eirik reached their ships, and set sail with what men remained. They steered southwards to Denmark, where they stopped a while, very ill satisfied with their expedition. ENDNOTES: (1) Freyja's husband was Od; and her tears, when she wept at the long absence of her husband, were tears of gold. Od's wife's tears is the skald's expression here for gold-- understood, no doubt, as readily as any allusion to Plutus would convey the equivalent meaning in modern poetry.--L. 27. EGIL ULSERK'S BURIAL-GROUND. King Hakon took all the ships of the sons of Eirik that had been left upon the strand, and had them drawn quite up, and brought on the land. Then he ordered that Egil Ulserk, and all the men of his army who had fallen, should be laid in the ships, and covered entirely over with earth and stones. King Hakon made many of the ships to be drawn up to the field of battle, and the hillocks over them are to be seen to the present day a little to the south of Fredarberg. At the time when King Hakon was killed, when Glum Geirason, in his song, boasted of King Hakon's fall, Eyvind Skaldaspiller composed these verses on this battle:-- "Our dauntless king with Gamle's gore Sprinkled his bright sword o'er and o'er: Sprinkled the gag that holds the mouth Of the fell demon Fenriswolf (1). Proud swelled our warriors' hearts when he Drove Eirik's sons out to the sea, With all their Guatland host: but now Our warriors weep--Hakon lies low!" High standing stones mark Egil Uslerk s grave. ENDNOTES: (1) The Fenriswolf, one of the children of Loke, begotten with a giantess, was chained to a rock, and gagged by a sword placed in his mouth, to prevent him devouring mankind. Fenriswolf's gag is a skaldic expression for a sword.--L. 28. NEWS OF WAR COMES TO KING HAKON. When King Hakon, Athelstan's foster-son, had been king for twenty-six years after his brother Eirik had left the country, it happened (A.D. 960) that he was at a feast in Hordaland in the house at Fitjar on the island Stord, and he had with him at the feast his court and many of the peasants. And just as the king was seated at the supper-table, his watchmen who were outside observed many ships coming sailing along from the south, and not very far from the island. Now, said the one to the other, they should inform the king that they thought an armed force was coming against them; but none thought it advisable to be the bearer of an alarm of war to the king, as he had set heavy penalties on those who raised such alarms falsely, yet they thought it unsuitable that the king should remain in ignorance of what they saw. Then one of them went into the room and asked Eyvind Finson to come out as fast as possible, for it was very needful. Eyvind immediately came out and went to where he could see the ships, and saw directly that a great army was on the way; and he returned in all haste into the room, and, placing himself before the kind, said, "Short is the hour for acting, and long the hour for feasting." The king cast his eyes upon him, and said, "What now is in the way?" Eyvind said-- "Up king! the avengers are at hand! Eirik's bold sons approach the land! The Judgment of the sword they crave Against their foe. Thy wrath I brave; Tho' well I know 'tis no light thing To bring war-tidings to the king And tell him 'tis no time to rest. Up! gird your armour to your breast: Thy honour's dearer than my life; Therefore I say, up to the strife!" Then said the king, "Thou art too brave a fellow, Eyvind, to bring us any false alarm of war." The others all said it was a true report. The king ordered the tables to be removed, and then he went out to look at the ships; and when it could be clearly seen that these were ships of war, the king asked his men what resolution they should take--whether to give battle with the men they had, or go on board ship and sail away northwards along the land. "For it is easy to see," said he, "that we must now fight against a much greater force than we ever had against us before; although we thought just the same the last time we fought against Gunhild's sons." No one was in a hurry to give an answer to the king; but at last Eyvind replied to the king's speech:-- "Thou who in the battle-plain Hast often poured the sharp spear-rain! Ill it beseems our warriors brave To fly upon the ocean wave: To fly upon the blue wave north, When Harald from the south comes forth, With many a ship riding in pride Upon the foaming ocean-tide; With many a ship and southern viking,-- Let us take shield in hand, brave king!" The king replied, "Thy counsel, Eyvind, is manly, and after my own heart; but I will hear the opinion of others upon this matter." Now as the king's men thought they discerned what way the king was inclined to take, they answered that they would rather fall bravely and like men, than fly before the Danes; adding, that they had often gained the victory against greater odds of numbers. The king thanked them for their resolution, and bade them arm themselves; and all the men did so. The king put on his armour, and girded on his sword Kvernbit, and put a gilt helmet upon his head, and took a spear (Kesja) in his hand, and a shield by his side. He then drew up his courtmen and the bondes in one body, and set up his banner. 29. THE ARMAMENT OF EIRIK'S SONS. After Gamle's death King Harald, Eirik's son, was the chief of the brothers, and he had a great army with him from Denmark. In their army were also their mother's brothers,--Eyvind Skreyja, and Alf Askman, both strong and able men, and great man slayers. The sons of Eirik brought up with their ships off the island, and it is said that their force was not less than six to one,--so much stronger in men were Eirik's sons. 30. KING HAKON'S BATTLE ARRAY. When King Hakon had drawn up his men, it is told of him that he threw off his armour before the battle began. So sings Eyvind Skaldaspiller, in Hakmarmal:-- "They found Blorn's brother bold Under his banner as of old, Ready for battle. Foes advance,-- The front rank raise the shining lance: And now begins the bloody fray! Now! now begins Hild's wild play! Our noble king, whose name strikes fear Into each Danish heart,--whose spear Has single-handed spilt the blood Of many a Danish noble,--stood Beneath his helmet's eagle wing Amidst his guards; but the brave king Scorned to wear armour, while his men Bared naked breasts against the rain Of spear and arrow, his breast-plate rung Against the stones; and, blithe and gay, He rushed into the thickest fray. With golden helm, and naked breast, Brave Hakon played at slaughter's feast." King Hakon selected willingly such men for his guard or court-men as were distinguished for their strength and bravery, as his father King Harald also used to do; and among these was Thoralf Skolmson the Strong, who went on one side of the king. He had helmet and shield, spear and sword; and his sword was called by the name of Footbreadth. It was said that Thoralf and King Hakon were equal in strength. Thord Sjarekson speaks of it in the poem he composed concerning Thoralf:-- "The king's men went with merry words To the sharp clash of shields and flame swords, When these wild rovers of the sea At Fitlar fought. Stout Thoralf he Next to the Northmen's hero came, Scattering wide round the battle flame For in the storm of shields not one Ventured like him with brave Hakon." When both lines met there was a hard combat, and much bloodshed. The combatants threw their spears and then drew their swords. Then King Hakon, and Thoralf with him, went in advance of the banner, cutting down on both sides of them. So says Eyvind Skaldaspiller:-- "The body-coats of naked steel, The woven iron coats of mail, Like water fly before the swing Of Hakon's sword--the champion-king. About each Gotland war-man's head Helm splits, like ice beneath the tread, Cloven by the axe or sharp swordblade, The brave king, foremost in the fight, Dyes crimson-red the spotless white Of his bright shield with foemen's gore.-- Amidst the battle's wild uproar, Wild pealing round from shore to shore." 31. FALL OF SKREYJA AND ASKMAN. King Hakon was very conspicuous among other men, and also when the sun shone his helmet glanced, and thereby many weapons were directed at him. Then Eyvind Finson took a hat and put it over the king's helmet. Now Eyvind Skreyja called out, "Does the king of the Norsemen hide himself, or has he fled? Where is now the golden helmet?" Then Eyvind, and his brother Alf with him, pushed on like fools or madmen. King Hakon shouted to Eyvind, "Come on as thou art coming, and thou shalt find the king of the Norsemen." So says Eyvind Skaldaspiller:-- "The raiser of the storm of shields, The conqueror in battle fields,-- Hakon the brave, the warrior's friend, Who scatters gold with liberal hand, Heard Skreyja's taunt, and saw him rush, Amidst the sharp spears' thickest push, And loudly shouted in reply-- 'If thou wilt for the victory try, The Norseman's king thou soon shall find! Hold onwards, friend! Hast thou a mind!" It was also but a short space of time before Eyvind did come up swinging his sword, and made a cut at the king; but Thoralf thrust his shield so hard against Eyvind that he tottered with the shock. Now the king takes his sword Kvernbit with both hands, and hewed Eyvind through helm and head, and clove him down to the shoulders. Thoralf also slew Alf Askman. So says Eyvind Skaldaspiller:-- "With both his hands the gallant king Swung round his sword, and to the chin Clove Eyvind down: his faithless mail Against it could no more avail, Than the thin plank against the shock When the ship's side beats on the rock. By his bright sword with golden haft Thro' helm, and head, and hair, was cleft The Danish champion; and amain, With terror smitten, fled his men." After this fall of the two brothers, King Hakon pressed on so hard that all men gave way before his assault. Now fear came over the army of Eirik's sons, and the men began to fly; and King Hakon, who was at the head of his men, pressed on the flying, and hewed down oft and hard. Then flew an arrow, one of the kind called "flein", into Hakon's arm, into the muscles below the shoulder; and it is said by many people that Gunhild's shoe-boy, whose name was Kisping, ran out and forwards amidst the confusion of arms, called out "Make room for the king-killer," and shot King Hakon with the flein. Others again say that nobody could tell who shot the king, which is indeed the most likely; for spears, arrows, and all kinds of missiles flew as thick as a snow-drift. Many of the people of Eirik's sons were killed, both on the field of battle and on the way to the ships, and also on the strand, and many threw themselves into the water. Many also, among whom were Eirik's sons, got on board their ships, and rowed away as fast as they could, and Hakon's men after them. So says Thord Sjarekson:-- "The wolf, the murderer, and the thief, Fled from before the people's chief: Few breakers of the peace grew old Under the Northmen's king so bold. When gallant Hakon lost his life Black was the day, and dire the strife. It was bad work for Gunhild's sons, Leading their pack of Hungry Danes From out the south, to have to fly, And many a bonde leave to die, Leaning his heavy wounded head On the oar-bench for feather-bed. Thoralf was nearest to the side Of gallant Hakon in the tide Of battle; his the sword that best Carved out the raven's bloody feast: Amidst the heaps of foemen slain He was named bravest on the plain." 32. HAKON'S DEATH. When King Hakon came out to his ship he had his wound bound up; but the blood ran from it so much and so constantly, that it could not be stopped; and when the day was drawing to an end his strength began to leave him. Then he told his men that he wanted to go northwards to his house at Alreksstader; but when he came north, as far as Hakonarhella Hill, they put in towards the land, for by this time the king was almost lifeless. Then he called his friends around him, and told them what he wished to be done with regard to his kingdom. He had only one child, a daughter, called Thora, and had no son. Now he told them to send a message to Eirik's sons, that they should be kings over the country; but asked them to hold his friends in respect and honour. "And if fate," added he, "should prolong my life, I will, at any rate, leave the country, and go to a Christian land, and do penance for what I have done against God; but should I die in heathen land, give me any burial you think fit." Shortly afterwards Hakon expired, at the little hill on the shore-side at which he was born. So great was the sorrow over Hakon's death, that he was lamented both by friends and enemies; and they said that never again would Norway see such a king. His friends removed his body to Saeheim, in North Hordaland, and made a great mound, in which they laid the king in full armour and in his best clothes, but with no other goods. They spoke over his grave, as heathen people are used to do, and wished him in Valhal. Eyvind Skaldaspiller composed a poem on the death of King Hakon, and on how well he was received in Valhal. The poem is called "Hakonarmal":-- "In Odin's hall an empty place Stands for a king of Yngve's race; 'Go, my valkyries,' Odin said, 'Go forth, my angels of the dead, Gondul and Skogul, to the plain Drenched with the battle's bloody rain, And to the dying Hakon tell, Here in Valhal shall he dwell.' "At Stord, so late a lonely shore, Was heard the battle's wild uproar; The lightning of the flashing sword Burned fiercely at the shore of Stord. From levelled halberd and spearhead Life-blood was dropping fast and red; And the keen arrows' biting sleet Upon the shore at Stord fast beat. "Upon the thundering cloud of shield Flashed bright the sword-storm o'er the field; And on the plate-mail rattled loud The arrow-shower's rushing cloud, In Odin's tempest-weather, there Swift whistling through the angry air; And the spear-torrents swept away Ranks of brave men from light of day. "With batter'd shield, and blood-smear'd sword Slits one beside the shore of Stord, With armour crushed and gashed sits he, A grim and ghastly sight to see; And round about in sorrow stand The warriors of his gallant band: Because the king of Dags' old race In Odin's hall must fill a place. "Then up spake Gondul, standing near Resting upon her long ash spear,-- 'Hakon! the gods' cause prospers well, And thou in Odin's halls shalt dwell!' The king beside the shore of Stord The speech of the valkyrie heard, Who sat there on his coal-black steed, With shield on arm and helm on head. "Thoughtful, said Hakon, 'Tell me why Ruler of battles, victory Is so dealt out on Stord's red plain? Have we not well deserved to gain?' 'And is it not as well dealt out?' Said Gondul. 'Hearest thou not the shout? The field is cleared--the foemen run-- The day is ours--the battle won!' "Then Skogul said, 'My coal-black steed, Home to the gods I now must speed, To their green home, to tell the tiding That Hakon's self is thither riding.' To Hermod and to Brage then Said Odin, 'Here, the first of men, Brave Hakon comes, the Norsemen's king,-- Go forth, my welcome to him bring.' "Fresh from the battle-field came in, Dripping with blood, the Norsemen'a king. 'Methinks,' said he, great Odin's will Is harsh, and bodes me further ill; Thy son from off the field to-day From victory to snatch away!' But Odin said, 'Be thine the joy Valhal gives, my own brave boy!' "And Brage said, 'Eight brothers here Welcome thee to Valhal's cheer, To drain the cup, or fights repeat Where Hakon Eirik's earls beat.' Quoth the stout king, 'And shall my gear, Helm, sword, and mail-coat, axe and spear, Be still at hand! 'Tis good to hold Fast by our trusty friends of old.' "Well was it seen that Hakon still Had saved the temples from all ill (1); For the whole council of the gods Welcomed the king to their abodes. Happy the day when men are born Like Hakon, who all base things scorn.-- Win from the brave and honoured name, And die amidst an endless fame. "Sooner shall Fenriswolf devour The race of man from shore to shore, Than such a grace to kingly crown As gallant Hakon want renown. Life, land, friends, riches, all will fly, And we in slavery shall sigh. But Hakon in the blessed abodes For ever lives with the bright gods." ENDNOTES: (1) Hakon, although a Christian, appears to have favoured the old religion, and spared the temples of Odin, and therefore a place in Valhal is assigned him.--L. SAGA OF KING HARALD GRAFELD AND OF EARL HAKON SON OF SIGURD. PRELIMINARY REMARKS This saga might be called Gunhild's Saga, as she is the chief person in it. The reign of King Harald and Earl Hakon is more fully described in the next saga, that is, Olaf Trygvason's. Other literature on this epoch: "Agrip" (chap. 8), "Historia Norvegia", (p. 12), "Thjodrek" (chap. 5), "Saxo" (pp. 479-482), "Egla" (chaps. 81, 82), "Floamanna" (chap. 12), "Fareyinga" (chaps. 2, 4, 10), "Halfred's Saga" (chap. 2), "Hord Grimkelsons Saga" (chaps. 13, 18), "Kormak" (chaps. 19-27), "Laxdaela" (chaps. 19-21), "Njala" (chaps, 3-6). The skalds of this saga are:--Glum Geirason, Kormak Agmundson, Eyvind Skaldaspiller, and Einar Helgason Skalaglam. 1. GOVERNMENT OF THE SONS OF EIRIK. When King Hakon was killed, the sons of Eirik took the sovereignty of Norway. Harald, who was the oldest of the living brothers, was over them in dignity. Their mother Gunhild, who was called the King-mother, mixed herself much in the affairs of the country. There were many chiefs in the land at that time. There was Trygve Olafson in the Eastland, Gudrod Bjornson in Vestfold, Sigurd earl of Hlader in the Throndhjem land; but Gunhild's sons held the middle of the country the first winter. There went messages and ambassadors between Gunhild's sons and Trygve and Gudrod, and all was settled upon the footing that they should hold from Gunhild's sons the same part of the country which they formerly had held under King Hakon. A man called Glum Geirason, who was King Harald's skald, and was a very brave man, made this song upon King Hakon's death:-- "Gamle is avenged by Harald! Great is thy deed, thou champion bold! The rumour of it came to me In distant lands beyond the sea, How Harald gave King Hakon's blood To Odin's ravens for their food." This song was much favoured. When Eyvind Finson heard of it he composed the song which was given before, viz.:-- "Our dauntless king with Gamle's gore Sprinkled his bright sword o'er and o'er," &c. This song also was much favoured, and was spread widely abroad; and when King Harald came to hear of it, he laid a charge against Evyind affecting his life; but friends made up the quarrel, on the condition that Eyvind should in future be Harald's skald, as he had formerly been King Hakon's. There was also some relationship between them, as Gunhild, Eyvind's mother, was a daughter of Earl Halfdan, and her mother was Ingibjorg, a daughter of Harald Harfager. Thereafter Eyvind made a song about King Harald:-- "Guardian of Norway, well we know Thy heart failed not when from the bow The piercing arrow-hail sharp rang On shield and breast-plate, and the clang Of sword resounded in the press Of battle, like the splitting ice; For Harald, wild wolf of the wood, Must drink his fill of foeman's blood." Gunhild's sons resided mostly in the middle of the country, for they did not think it safe for them to dwell among the people of Throndhjem or of Viken, where King Hakon's best friends lived; and also in both places there were many powerful men. Proposals of agreement then passed between Gunhild's sons and Earl Sigurd, or they got no scat from the Throndhjem country; and at last an agreement was concluded between the kings and the earl, and confirmed by oath. Earl Sigurd was to get the same power in the Throndhjem land which he had possessed under King Hakon, and on that they considered themselves at peace. All Gunhild's sons had the character of being penurious; and it was said they hid their money in the ground. Eyvind Skaldaspiller made a song about this:-- "Main-mast of battle! Harald bold! In Hakon's days the skald wore gold Upon his falcon's seat; he wore Rolf Krake's seed, the yellow ore Sown by him as he fled away, The avenger Adils' speed to stay. The gold crop grows upon the plain; But Frode's girls so gay (1) in vain Grind out the golden meal, while those Who rule o'er Norway's realm like foes, In mother earth's old bosom hide The wealth which Hakon far and wide Scattered with generous hand: the sun Shone in the days of that great one, On the gold band of Fulla's brow,(2) On gold-ringed hands that bend the bow, On the skald's hand; but of the ray Of bright gold, glancing like the spray Of sun-lit waves, no skald now sings-- Buried are golden chains and rings." Now when King Harald heard this song, he sent a message to Eyvind to come to him, and when Eyvind came made a charge against him of being unfaithful. "And it ill becomes thee," said the king, "to be my enemy, as thou hast entered into my service." Eyvind then made these verses:-- "One lord I had before thee, Harald! One dear-loved lord! Now am I old, And do not wish to change again,-- To that loved lord, through strife and pain, Faithful I stood; still true to Hakon,-- To my good king, and him alone. But now I'm old and useless grown, My hands are empty, wealth is flown; I am but fir for a short space In thy court-hall to fill a place." But King Harald forced Eyvind to submit himself to his clemency. Eyvind had a great gold ring, which was called Molde, that had been dug up out of the earth long since. This ring the King said he must have as the mulet for the offence; and there was no help for it. Then Eyvind sang:-- "I go across the ocean-foam, Swift skating to my Iceland home Upon the ocean-skates, fast driven By gales by Thurse's witch fire given. For from the falcon-bearing hand Harald has plucked the gold snake band My father wore--by lawless might Has taken what is mine by right." Eyvind went home; but it is not told that he ever came near the king again. ENDNOTES: (1) Menja and Fenja were strong girls of the giant race, whom Frode bought in Sweden to grind gold and good luck to him; and their meal means gold.--L. (2) Fulla was one of Frig's attendants, who wore a gold band on the forehead, and the figure means gold,--that the sun shone on gold rings on the hands of the skalds in Hakon's days.--L. 2. CHRISTIANITY OF GUNHILD'S SONS. Gunhild's sons embraced Christianity in England, as told before; but when they came to rule over Norway they made no progress in spreading Christianity--only they pulled down the temples of the idols, and cast away the sacrifices where they had it in their power, and raised great animosity by doing so. The good crops of the country were soon wasted in their days, because there were many kings, and each had his court about him. They had therefore great expenses, and were very greedy. Besides, they only observed those laws of King Hakon which suited themselves. They were, however, all of them remarkably handsome men--stout, strong, and expert in all exercises. So says Glum Geirason, in the verses he composed about Harald, Gunhild's son:-- "The foeman's terror, Harald bold, Had gained enough of yellow gold; Had Heimdal's teeth (1) enough in store, And understood twelve arts or more." The brothers sometimes went out on expeditions together, and sometimes each on his own account. They were fierce, but brave and active; and great warriors, and very successful. ENDNOTES: (1) Heimdal was one of the gods, whose horse was called Gold-top; and the horse's teeth were of gold. 3. COUNCILS BY GUNHILD AND HER SONS. Gunhild the King-mother, and her sons, often met, and talked together upon the government of the country. Once Gunhild asked her sons what they intended to do with their kingdom of Throndhjem. "Ye have the title of king, as your forefathers had before you; but ye have little land or people, and there are many to divide with. In the East, at Viken, there are Trygve and Gudrod; and they have some right, from relationship, to their governments. There is besides Earl Sigurd ruling over the whole Throndhjem country; and no reason can I see why ye let so large a kingdom be ruled by an earl, and not by yourselves. It appears wonderful to me that ye go every summer upon viking cruises against other lands, and allow an earl within the country to take your father's heritage from you. Your grandfather, whose name you bear, King Harald, thought it but a small matter to take an earl's life and land when he subdued all Norway, and held it under him to old age." Harald replied, "It is not so easy, mother, to cut off Earl Sigurd as to slay a kid or a calf. Earl Sigurd is of high birth, powerful in relations, popular, and prudent; and I think if the Throndhjem people knew for certain there was enmity between us, they would all take his side, and we could expect only evil from them. I don't think it would be safe for any of us brothers to fall into the hands of the Throndhjem people." Then said Gunhild, "We shall go to work another way, and not put ourselves forward. Harald and Erling shall come in harvest to North More, and there I shall meet you, and we shall consult together what is to be done." This was done. 4. GUNHILD'S SONS AND GRJOTGARD. Earl Sigurd had a brother called Grjotgard, who was much younger, and much less respected; in fact, was held in no title of honour. He had many people, however, about him, and in summer went on viking cruises, and gathered to himself property. Now King Harald sent messengers to Throndhjem with offers of friendship, and with presents. The messengers declared that King Harald was willing to be on the same friendly terms with the earl that King Hakon had been; adding, that they wished the earl to come to King Harald, that their friendship might be put on a firm footing. The Earl Sigurd received well the king's messengers and friendly message, but said that on account of his many affairs he could not come to the king. He sent many friendly gifts, and many glad and grateful words to the king, in return for his friendship. With this reply the messengers set off, and went to Grjotgard, for whom they had the same message, and brought him good presents, and offered him King Harald's friendship, and invited him to visit the king. Grjotgard promised to come and at the appointed time he paid a visit to King Harald and Gunhild, and was received in the most friendly manner. They treated him on the most intimate footing, so that Grjotgard had access to their private consultations and secret councils. At last the conversation, by an understanding between the king and queen, was turned upon Earl Sigurd; and they spoke to Grjotgard about the earl having kept him so long in obscurity, and asked him if he would not join the king's brothers in an attack on the earl. If he would join with them, the king promised Grjotgard that he should be his earl, and have the same government that Sigurd had. It came so far that a secret agreement was made between them, that Grjotgard should spy out the most favourable opportunity of attacking by surprise Earl Sigurd, and should give King Harald notice of it. After this agreement Grjotgard returned home with many good presents from the king. 5. SIGURD BURNT IN A HOUSE IN STJORADAL Earl Sigurd went in harvest into Stjoradal to guest-quarters, and from thence went to Oglo to a feast. The earl usually had many people about him, for he did not trust the king; but now, after friendly messages had passed between the king and him, he had no great following of people with him. Then Grjotgard sent word to the king that he could never expect a better opportunity to fall upon Earl Sigurd; and immediately, that very evening, Harald and Erling sailed into Throndhjem fjord with several ships and many people. They sailed all night by starlight, and Grjotgard came out to meet them. Late in the night they came to Oglo, where Earl Sigurd was at the feast, and set fire to the house; and burnt the house, the earl, and all his men. As soon as it was daylight, they set out through the fjord, and south to More, where they remained a long time. 6. HISTORY OF HAKON, SIGURD'S SON. Hakon, the son of Earl Sigurd, was up in the interior of the Throndhjem country when he heard this news. Great was the tumult through all the Throndhjem land, and every vessel that could swim was put into the water; and as soon as the people were gathered together they took Earl Sigurd's son Hakon to be their earl and the leader of the troops, and the whole body steered out of Throndhjem fjord. When Gunhild's sons heard of this, they set off southwards to Raumsdal and South More; and both parties kept eye on each other by their spies. Earl Sigurd was killed two years after the fall of King Hakon (A.D. 962). So says Eyvind Skaldaspiller in the "Haleygjatal":-- "At Oglo, as I've heard, Earl Sigurd Was burnt to death by Norway's lord,-- Sigurd, who once on Hadding's grave A feast to Odin's ravens gave. In Oglo's hall, amidst the feast, When bowls went round and ale flowed fast, He perished: Harald lit the fire Which burnt to death the son of Tyr." Earl Hakan, with the help of his friends, maintained himself in the Throndhjem country for three years; and during that time (A.D. 963-965) Gunhild's sons got no revenues from it. Hakon had many a battle with Gunhild's sons, and many a man lost his life on both sides. Of this Einar Skalaglam speaks in his lay, called "Vellekla," which he composed about Earl Hakon:-- "The sharp bow-shooter on the sea Spread wide his fleet, for well loved he The battle storm: well loved the earl His battle-banner to unfurl, O'er the well-trampled battle-field He raised the red-moon of his shield; And often dared King Eirik's son To try the fray with the Earl Hakon." And he also says:-- "Who is the man who'll dare to say That Sigurd's son avoids the fray? He gluts the raven--he ne'er fears The arrow's song or flight of spears, With thundering sword he storms in war, As Odin dreadful; or from far He makes the arrow-shower fly To swell the sail of victory. The victory was dearly bought, And many a viking-fight was fought Before the swinger of the sword Was of the eastern country lord." And Einar tells also how Earl Hakon avenged his father's murderer:-- "I praise the man, my hero he, Who in his good ship roves the sea, Like bird of prey, intent to win Red vengeance for his slaughtered kin. From his blue sword the iron rain That freezes life poured down amain On him who took his father's life, On him and his men in the strife. To Odin many a soul was driven,-- To Odin many a rich gift given. Loud raged the storm on battle-field-- Axe rang on helm, and sword on shield." The friends on both sides at last laid themselves between, and brought proposals of peace; for the bondes suffered by this strife and war in the land. At last it was brought to this, by the advice of prudent men, that Earl Hakon should have the same power in the Throndhjem land which his father Earl Sigurd had enjoyed; and the kings, on the other hand, should have the same dominion as King Hakon had: and this agreement was settled with the fullest promises of fidelity to it. Afterwards a great friendship arose between Earl Hakon and Gunhild, although they sometimes attempted to deceive each other. And thus matters stood for three years longer (A.D. 966-968), in which time Earl Hakon sat quietly in his dominions. 7. OF HARALD GRAFELD. King Hakon had generally his seat in Hordaland and Rogaland, and also his brothers; but very often, also, they went to Hardanger. One summer it happened that a vessel came from Iceland belonging to Icelanders, and loaded with skins and peltry. They sailed to Hardanger, where they heard the greatest number of people assembled; but when the folks came to deal with them, nobody would buy their skins. Then the steersman went to King Harald, whom he had been acquainted with before, and complained of his ill luck. The king promised to visit him, and did so. King Harald was very condescending, and full of fun. He came with a fully manned boat, looked at the skins, and then said to the steersman, "Wilt thou give me a present of one of these gray-skins?" "Willingly," said the steersman, "if it were ever so many." On this the king wrapped himself up in a gray-skin, and went back to his boat; but before they rowed away from the ship, every man in his suite bought such another skin as the king wore for himself. In a few days so many people came to buy skins, that not half of them could be served with what they wanted; and thereafter the king was called Harald Grafeld (Grayskin). 8. EARL EIRIK'S BIRTH. Earl Hakon came one winter to the Uplands to a feast, and it so happened that he had intercourse with a girl of mean birth. Some time after the girl had to prepare for her confinement, and she bore a child, a boy, who had water poured on him, and was named Eirik. The mother carried the boy to Earl Hakon, and said that he was the father. The earl placed him to be brought up with a man called Thorleif the Wise, who dwelt in Medaldal, and was a rich and powerful man, and a great friend of the earl. Eirik gave hopes very early that he would become an able man, was handsome in countenance, and stout and strong for a child; but the earl did not pay much attention to him. The earl himself was one of the handsomest men in countenance,--not tall, but very strong, and well practised in all kinds of exercises; and withal prudent, of good understanding, and a deadly man at arms. 9. KING TRYGVE OLAFSON'S MURDER. It happened one harvest (A.D. 962) that Earl Hakon, on a journey in the Uplands, came to Hedemark; and King Trygve Olafson and King Gudrod Bjornson met him there, and Dale-Gudbrand also came to the meeting. They had agreed to meet, and they talked together long by themselves; but so much only was known of their business, that they were to be friends of each other. They parted, and each went home to his own kingdom. Gunhild and her sons came to hear of this meeting, and they suspected it must have been to lay a treasonable plot against the kings; and they often talked of this among themselves. When spring (A.D. 963) began to set in, King Harald and his brother King Gudrod proclaimed that they were to make a viking cruise, as usual, either in the West sea, or the Baltic. The people accordingly assembled, launched the ships into the sea, and made themselves ready to sail. When they were drinking the farewell ale,--and they drank bravely,--much and many things were talked over at the drink-table, and, among other things, were comparisons between different men, and at last between the kings themselves. One said that King Harald excelled his brothers by far, and in every way. On this King Gudrod was very angry, and said that he was in no respect behind Harald, and was ready to prove it. Instantly both parties were so inflamed that they challenged each other to battle, and ran to their arms. But some of the guests who were less drunk, and had more understanding, came between them, and quieted them; and each went to his ship, but nobody expected that they would all sail together. Gudrod sailed east ward along the land, and Harald went out to sea, saying he would go to the westward; but when he came outside of the islands he steered east along the coast, outside of the rocks and isles. Gudrod, again, sailed inside, through the usual channel, to Viken, and eastwards to Folden. He then sent a message to King Trygve to meet him, that they might make a cruise together in summer in the Baltic to plunder. Trygve accepted willingly, and as a friend, the invitation; and as heard King Gudrod had but few people with him, he came to meet him with a single boat. They met at Veggen, to the east of Sotanes; but just as they were come to the meeting place, Gudrod's men ran up and killed King Trygve and twelve men. He lies buried at a place called Trygve's Cairn (A.D. 963). 10. KING GUDROD'S FALL. King Harald sailed far outside of the rocks and isles; but set his course to Viken, and came in the night-time to Tunsberg, and heard that Gudrod Bjornson was at a feast a little way up the country. Then King Harald set out immediately with his followers, came in the night, and surrounded the house. King Gudrod Bjornson went out with his people; but after a short resistance he fell, and many men with him. Then King Harald joined his brother King Gudrod, and they subdued all Viken. 11. OF HARALD GRENSKE. King Gudrod Bjornson had made a good and suitable marriage, and had by his wife a son called Harald, who had been sent to be fostered to Grenland to a lenderman called Hroe the White. Hroe's son, called Hrane Vidforle (the Far-travelled), was Harald's foster-brother, and about the same age. After his father Gudrod's fall, Harald, who was called Grenske, fled to the Uplands, and with him his foster-brother Hrane, and a few people. Harald staid a while there among his relations; but as Eirik's sons sought after every man who interfered with them, and especially those who might oppose them, Harald Grenske's friends and relations advised him to leave the country. Harald therefore went eastward into Svithjod, and sought shipmates, that he might enter into company with those who went out a cruising to gather property. Harald became in this way a remarkably able man. There was a man in Svithjod at that time called Toste, one of the most powerful and clever in the land among those who had no high name or dignity; and he was a great warrior, who had been often in battle, and was therefore called Skoglar-Toste. Harald Grenske came into his company, and cruised with Toste in summer; and wherever Harald came he was well thought of by every one. In the winter Harald, after passing two years in the Uplands, took up his abode with Toste, and lived five years with him. Toste had a daughter, who was both young and handsome, but she was proud and high-minded. She was called Sigrid, and was afterwards married to the Swedish king, Eirik the Victorious, and had a son by him, called Olaf the Swede, who was afterwards king of Svithjod. King Eirik died in a sick-bed at Upsala ten years after the death of Styrbjorn. 12. EARL HAKON'S FEUDS. Gunhild's sons levied a great army in Viken (A.D. 963), and sailed along the land northwards, collecting people and ships on the way out of every district. They then made known their intent, to proceed northwards with their army against Earl Hakon in Throndhjem. When Earl Hakon heard this news, he also collected men, and fitted out ships; and when he heard what an overwhelming force Gunhild's sons had with them, he steered south with his fleet to More, pillaging wherever he came, and killing many people. He then sent the whole of the bonde army back to Throndhjem; but he himself, with his men-at-arms, proceeded by both the districts of More and Raumsdal, and had his spies out to the south of Stad to spy the army of Gunhild's sons; and when he heard they were come into the Fjords, and were waiting for a fair wind to sail northwards round Stad, Earl Hakon set out to sea from the north side of Stad, so far that his sails could not be seen from the land, and then sailed eastward on a line with the coast, and came to Denmark, from whence he sailed into the Baltic, and pillaged there during the summer. Gunhild's sons conducted their army north to Throndhjem, and remained there the whole summer collecting the scat and duties. But when summer was advanced they left Sigurd Slefa and Gudron behind; and the other brothers returned eastward with the levied army they had taken up in summer. 13. OF EARL HAKON AND GUNHILD'S SONS. Earl Hakon, towards harvest (A.D. 963), sailed into the Bothnian Gulf to Helsingjaland, drew his ships up there on the beach, and took the land-ways through Helsingjaland and Jamtaland, and so eastwards round the dividing ridge (the Kjol, or keel of the country), and down into the Throndhjem district. Many people streamed towards him, and he fitted out ships. When the sons of Gunhild heard of this they got on board their ships, and sailed out of the Fjord; and Earl Hakon came to his seat at Hlader, and remained there all winter. The sons of Gunhild, on the other hand, occupied More; and they and the earl attacked each other in turns, killing each other's people. Earl Hakon kept his dominions of Throndhjem, and was there generally in the winter; but in summer he sometimes went to Helsingjaland, where he went on board of his ships and sailed with them down into the Baltic, and plundered there; and sometimes he remained in Throndhjem, and kept an army on foot, so that Gunhild's sons could get no hold northwards of Stad. 14. SIGURD SLEFA'S MURDER. One summer Harald Grayskin with his troops went north to Bjarmaland, where be forayed, and fought a great battle with the inhabitants on the banks of the Vina (Dwina). King Harald gained the victory, killed many people, plundered and wasted and burned far and wide in the land, and made enormous booty. Glum Geirason tells of it thus:-- "I saw the hero Harald chase With bloody sword Bjarme's race: They fly before him through the night, All by their burning city's light. On Dwina's bank, at Harald's word, Arose the storm of spear and sword. In such a wild war-cruise as this, Great would he be who could bring peace." King Sigurd Slefa came to the Herse Klyp's house. Klyp was a son of Thord, and a grandson of Hordakare, and was a man of power and great family. He was not at home; but his wife Alof give a good reception to the king, and made a great feast at which there was much drinking. Alof was a daughter of Asbjorn, and sister to Jarnskegge, north in Yrjar. Asbjorn's brother was called Hreidar, who was father to Styrkar, whose son was Eindride, father of Einar Tambaskielfer. In the night the king went to bed to Alof against her will, and then set out on his journey. The harvest thereafter, King Harald and his brother King Sigurd Slefa went to Vors, and summoned the bondes to a Thing. There the bondes fell on them, and would have killed them, but they escaped and took different roads. King Harald went to Hardanger, but King Sigurd to Alrekstader. Now when the Herse Klyp heard of this, he and his relations assembled to attack the king; and Vemund Volubrjot (1) was chief of their troop. Now when they came to the house they attacked the king, and Herse Klyp, it is said, ran him through with his sword and killed him; but instantly Klyp was killed on the spot by Erling Gamle (A.D. 965). ENDNOTES: (1) Volubrjotr.--Literally "the one who breaks the vala", that is, breaks the skulls of witches. 15. GRJOTGARD'S FALL. King Harald Grafeld and his brother King Gudrod gathered together a great army in the east country, with which they set out northwards to Throndhjem (A.D. 968). When Earl Hakon heard of it he collected men, and set out to More, where he plundered. There his father's brother, Grjotgard, had the command and defence of the country on account of Gunhild's sons, and he assembled an army by order of the kings. Earl Hakon advanced to meet him, and gave him battle; and there fell Grjotgard and two other earls, and many a man besides. So says Einar Skalaglam:-- "The helm-crown'd Hakon, brave as stout, Again has put his foes to rout. The bowl runs o'er with Odin's mead, (1) That fires the skald when mighty deed Has to be sung. Earl Hakon's sword, In single combat, as I've heard, Three sons of earls from this one fray To dwell with Odin drove away." (2) Thereafter Earl Hakon went out to sea, and sailed outside the coast, and came to Denmark. He went to the Danish King, Harald Gormson, and was well received by him, and staid with him all winter (A.D. 969). At that time there was also with the Danish king a man called Harald, a son of Knut Gormson, and a brother's son of King Harald. He was lately come home from a long viking cruise, on which he had gathered great riches, and therefore he was called Gold Harald. He thought he had a good chance of coming to the Danish kingdom. ENDNOTES: (1) Odin's mead, called Bodn, was the blood or mead the sons of Brage, the god of poets, drank to inspire them.--L. (2) To dwell with Odin,--viz. slew them.--L. 16. KING ERLING'S FALL. King Harald Grafeld and his brothers proceeded northwards to Throndhjem, where they met no opposition. They levied the scat-duties, and all other revenues, and laid heavy penalties upon the bondes; for the kings had for a long time received but little income from Throndhjem, because Earl Hakon was there with many troops, and was at variance with these kings. In autumn (A.D. 968) King Harald went south with the greater part of the men-at-arms, but King Erlin remained behind with his men. He raised great contributions from the bondes, and pressed severely on them; at which the bondes murmured greatly, and submitted to their losses with impatience. In winter they gathered together in a great force to go against King Erling, just as he was at a feast; and they gave battle to him, and he with the most of his men fell (A.D. 969). 17. THE SEASONS IN NORWAY AT THIS TIME. While Gunhild's sons reigned in Norway the seasons were always bad, and the longer they reigned the worse were the crops; and the bondes laid the blame on them. They were very greedy, and used the bondes harshly. It came at length to be so bad that fish, as well as corn, were wanting. In Halogaland there was the greatest famine and distress; for scarcely any corn grew, and even snow was lying, and the cattle were bound in the byres (1) all over the country until midsummer. Eyvind Skaldaspiller describes it in his poem, as he came outside of his house and found a thick snowdrift at that season:-- "Tis midsummer, yet deep snows rest On Odin's mother's frozen breast: Like Laplanders, our cattle-kind In stall or stable we must bind." ENDNOTES: (1) Byres = gards or farms. 18. THE ICELANDERS AND EYVIND THE SKALD. Eyvind composed a poem about the people of Iceland, for which they rewarded him by each bonde giving him three silver pennies, of full weight and white in the fracture. And when the silver was brought together at the Althing, the people resolved to have it purified, and made into a row of clasps; and after the workmanship of the silver was paid, the row of clasps was valued at fifty marks. This they sent to Eyvind; but Eyvind was obliged to separate the clasps from each other, and sell them to buy food for his household. But the same spring a shoal of herrings set in upon the fishing ground beyond the coast-side, and Eyvind manned a ship's boat with his house servants and cottars, and rowed to where the herrings were come, and sang:-- "Now let the steed of ocean bound O'er the North Sea with dashing sound: Let nimble tern and screaming gull Fly round and round--our net is full. Fain would I know if Fortune sends A like provision to my friends. Welcome provision 'tis, I wot, That the whale drives to our cook's pot." So entirely were his movable goods exhausted, that he was obliged to sell his arrows to buy herrings, or other meat for his table:-- "Our arms and ornaments of gold To buy us food we gladly sold: The arrows of the bow gave we For the bright arrows of the sea." (1) ENDNOTES: (1) Herrings, from their swift darting along, are called the arrows of the sea. KING OLAF TRYGVASON'S SAGA. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. Hitherto the narrative has been more or less fragmentary. With Olaf Trygvason's Saga reliable history begins, and the narration is full and connected. The story of Hakon the earl is incorporated in this saga. Accounts of Olaf Trygvason may be found in Od the Monk's legendary saga, in parts of "Agrip", "Historia Norvegiae", and in Thjodrek. Icelandic works on this epoch are: "Egla", "Eyrbyggja", "Finboga", "Floamanna", "Faereyinga", "Hallfredar Saga", "Havardar Saga", "Are's Islendinga-bok", "Kristni Saga", "Laxdaela", "Ljosvetninga", "Njala", "Orkneyinga", "Viga Glums Saga", and "Viga Styrs Saga". The skalds quoted are: Glum Geirason, Eyvind Finson, Skaldaspiller, Einar Skalaglam, Tind Halkelson, Eyjolf Dadaskald, Hallarstein, Halfred Vandraedaskald, Haldor Ukristne, Skule Thorsteinson, and Thord Kolbeinson. 1. OLAF TRYGVASON'S BIRTH. King Trygve Olafson had married a wife who was called Astrid. She was a daughter of Eirik Bjodaskalle, a great man, who dwelt at Oprustader. But after Trygve's death (A.D. 963) Astrid fled, and privately took with her all the loose property she could. Her foster-father, Thorolf Lusarskeg, followed her, and never left her; and others of her faithful followers spied about to discover her enemies, and where they were. Astrid was pregnant with a child of King Trygve, and she went to a lake, and concealed herself in a holm or small island in it with a few men. Here her child was born, and it was a boy; and water was poured over it, and it was called Olaf after the grandfather. Astrid remained all summer here in concealment; but when the nights became dark, and the day began to shorten and the weather to be cold, she was obliged to take to the land, along with Thorolf and a few other men. They did not seek for houses unless in the night-time, when they came to them secretly; and they spoke to nobody. One evening, towards dark, they came to Oprustader, where Astrid's father Eirik dwelt, and privately sent a man to Eirik to tell him; and Eirik took them to an out-house, and spread a table for them with the best of food. When Astrid had been here a short time her travelling attendants left her, and none remained, behind with her but two servant girls, her child Olaf, Thorolf Lusarskeg, and his son Thorgils, who was six years old; and they remained all winter (A.D. 964). 2. OF GUNHILD S SONS. After Trygve Olafson's murder, Harald Grafeld and his brother Gudrod went to the farm which he owned; but Astrid was gone, and they could learn no tidings of her. A loose report came to their ears that she was pregnant to King Trygve; but they soon went away northwards, as before related. As soon as they met their mother Gunhild they told her all that had taken place. She inquired particularly about Astrid, and they told her the report they had heard; but as Gunhild's sons the same harvest and winter after had bickerings with Earl Hakon, as before related, they did not seek after Astrid and her son that winter. 3. ASTRID'S JOURNEY. The spring after (A.D. 964) Gunhild sent spies to the Uplands, and all the way down to Viken, to spy what they could about Astrid; and her men came back, and could only tell her that Astrid must be with her father Eirik, and it was probable was bringing up her infant, the son of Trygve. Then Gunhild, without delay, sent off men well furnished with arms and horses, and in all a troop of thirty; and as their leader she sent a particular friend of her own, a powerful man called Hakon. Her orders were to go to Oprustader, to Eirik, and take King Trygve's son from thence, and bring the child to her; and with these orders the men went out. Now when they were come to the neighbourhood of Oprustader, some of Eirik's friends observed the troop of travellers, and about the close of the day brought him word of their approach. Eirik immediately, in the night, made preparation for Astrid's flight, gave her good guides, and send her away eastward to Svithjod, to his good friend Hakon Gamle, who was a powerful man there. Long before day they departed, and towards evening they reached a domain called Skaun. Here they saw a large mansion, towards which they went, and begged a night's lodging. For the sake of concealment they were clad in mean clothing. There dwelt here a bonde called Bjorn Eiterkveisa, who was very rich, but very inhospitable. He drove them away; and therefore, towards dark, they went to another domain close by that was called Vidar. Thorstein was the name of the bonde; and he gave them lodging, and took good care of them, so that they slept well, and were well entertained. Early that morning Gunhild's men had come to Oprustader, and inquired for Astrid and her son. As Eirik told them she was not there, they searched the whole house, and remained till late in the day before they got any news of Astrid. Then they rode after her the way she had taken, and late at night they came to Bjorn Eiterkveisa in Skaun, and took up their quarters there. Hakon asked Bjorn if he knew anything about Astrid, and he said some people had been there in the evening wanting lodgings; "but I drove them away, and I suppose they have gone to some of the neighbouring houses." Thorstein's labourer was coming from the forest, having left his work at nightfall, and called in at Bjorn's house because it was in his way; and finding there were guests come to the house, and learning their business, he comes to Thorstein and tells him of it. As about a third part of the night was still remaining, Thorstein wakens his guests and orders them in an angry voice to go about their business; but as soon as they were out of the house upon the road, Thorstein tells them that Gunhild's messengers were at Bjorn's house, and are upon the trace of them. They entreat of him to help them, and he gave them a guide and some provisions. He conducted them through a forest to a lake, in which there was an islet overgrown with reeds. They waded out to the islet, and hid themselves among the reeds. Early in the morning Hakon rode away from Bjorn's into the township, and wherever he came he asked after Astrid; and when he came to Thorstein's he asked if she had been there. He said that some people had been there; but as soon as it was daylight they had set off again, eastwards, to the forest. Hakon made Thorstein go along with them, as he knew all the roads and hiding-places. Thorstein went with them; but when they were come into the woods, he led them right across the way Astrid had taken. They went about and about the whole day to no purpose, as they could find no trace of her, so they turned back to tell Gunhild the end of their travel. Astrid and her friends proceeded on their journey, and came to Svithjod, to Hakon Gamle (the Old), where she and her son remained a long time, and had friendly welcome. 4. HAKON'S EMBASSY TO SWEDEN. When Gunhild, the mother of the kings, heard that Astrid and her son Olaf were in the kingdom of Svithjod, she again sent Hakon, with a good attendance, eastward, to Eirik king of Sweden, with presents and messages of friendship. The ambassadors were well received and well treated. Hakon, after a time, disclosed his errand to the king, saying that Gunhild had sent him with the request that the king would assist him in getting hold of Olaf Trygvason, to conduct him to Norway, where Gunhild would bring him up. The king gave Hakon people with him, and he rode with them to Hakon the Old, where Hakon desired, with many friendly expressions, that Olaf should go with him. Hakon the Old returned a friendly answer, saying that it depended entirely upon Olaf's mother. But Astrid would on no account listen to the proposal; and the messengers had to return as they came, and to tell King Eirik how the matter stood. The ambassadors then prepared to return home, and asked the king for some assistance to take the boy, whether Hakon the Old would or not. The king gave them again some attendants; and when they came to Hakon the Old, they again asked for the boy, and on his refusal to deliver him they used high words and threatened violence. But one of the slaves, Buste by name, attacked Hakon, and was going to kill him; and they barely escaped from the thralls without a cudgelling, and proceeded home to Norway to tell Gunhild their ill success, and that they had only seen Olaf. 5. OF SIGURD EIRIKSON. Astrid had a brother called Sigurd, a son of Eirik Bjodaskalle, who had long been abroad in Gardarike (Russia) with King Valdemar, and was there in great consideration. Astrid had now a great inclination to travel to her brother there. Hakon the Old gave her good attendants, and what was needful for the journey, and she set out with some merchants. She had then been two years (A.D. 965-966) with Hakon the Old, and Olaf was three years of age. As they sailed out into the Baltic, they were captured by vikings of Eistland, who made booty both of the people and goods, killing some, and dividing others as slaves. Olaf was separated from his mother, and an Eistland man called Klerkon got him as his share along with Thorolf and Thorgils. Klerkon thought that Thorolf was too old for a slave, and that there was not much work to be got out of him, so he killed him; but took the boys with him, and sold them to a man called Klerk for a stout and good ram. A third man, called Reas, bought Olaf for a good cloak. Reas had a wife called Rekon, and a son by her whose name was Rekone. Olaf was long with them, was treated well, and was much beloved by the people. Olaf was six years in Eistland in this banishment (A.D. 987-972). 6. OLAF IS SET FREE IN EISTLAND. Sigurd, the son of Eirik (Astrid's brother), came into Eistland from Novgorod, on King Valdemar's business to collect the king's taxes and rents. Sigurd came as a man of consequence, with many followers and great magnificence. In the market-place he happened to observe a remarkably handsome boy; and as he could distinguish that he was a foreigner, he asked him his name and family. He answered him, that his name was Olaf; that he was a son of Trygve Olafson; and Astrid, a daughter of Eirik Bjodaskalle, was his mother. Then Sigurd knew that the boy was his sister's son, and asked him how he came there. Olaf told him minutely all his adventures, and Sigurd told him to follow him to the peasant Reas. When he came there he bought both the boys, Olaf and Thorgils, and took them with him to Holmgard. But, for the first, he made nothing known of Olaf's relationship to him, but treated him well. 7. KLERKON KILLED BY OLAF. Olaf Trygvason was one day in the market-place, where there was a great number of people. He recognized Klerkon again, who had killed his foster-father Thorolf Lusarskeg. Olaf had a little axe in his hand, and with it he clove Klerkon's skull down to the brain, and ran home to his lodging, and told his friend Sigurd what he had done. Sigurd immediately took Olaf to Queen Allogia's house, told her what had happened, and begged her to protect the boy. She replied, that the boy appeared far too comely to allow him to be slain; and she ordered her people to be drawn out fully armed. In Holmgard the sacredness of peace is so respected, that it is law there to slay whoever puts a man to death except by judgment of law; and, according to this law and usage, the whole people stormed and sought after the boy. It was reported that he was in the Queen's house, and that there was a number of armed men there. When this was told to the king, he went there with his people, but would allow no bloodshed. It was settled at last in peace, that the king should name the fine for the murder; and the queen paid it. Olaf remained afterwards with the queen, and was much beloved. It is a law at Holmgard, that no man of royal descent shall stay there without the king's permission. Sigurd therefore told the queen of what family Olaf was, and for what reason he had come to Russia; namely, that he could not remain with safety in his own country: and begged her to speak to the king about it. She did so, and begged the king to help a king's son whose fate had been so hard; and in consequence of her entreaty the king promised to assist him, and accordingly he received Olaf into his court, and treated him nobly, and as a king's son. Olaf was nine years old when he came to Russia, and he remained nine years more (A.D. 978-981) with King Valdemar. Olaf was the handsomest of men, very stout and strong, and in all bodily exercises he excelled every Northman that ever was heard of. 8. OF HAKON EARL OF HLADER. Earl Hakon, Sigurd's son, was with the Danish king, Harald Gormson, the winter after he had fled from Norway before Gunhild's sons. During the winter (A.D. 969) the earl had so much care and sorrow that he took to bed, and passed many sleepless nights, and ate and drank no more than was needful to support his strength. Then he sent a private message to his friends north in Throndhjem, and proposed to them that they should kill King Erling, if they had an opportunity; adding, that he would come to them in summer. The same winter the Throndhjem people accordingly, as before related, killed King Erling. There was great friendship between Earl Hakon and Gold Harald, and Harald told Hakon all his intentions. He told him that he was tired of a ship-life, and wanted to settle on the land; and asked Hakon if he thought his brother King Harald would agree to divide the kingdom with him if he asked it. "I think," replied Hakon, "that the Danish king would not deny thy right; but the best way to know is to speak to the king himself. I know for certain so much, that you will not get a kingdom if you don't ask for it." Soon after this conversation Gold Harald spoke to the king about the matter, in the presence of many great men who were friends to both; and Gold Harald asked King Harald to divide the kingdom with him in two equal parts, to which his royal birth and the custom of the Danish monarchy gave him right. The king was highly incensed at this demand, and said that no man had asked his father Gorm to be king over half of Denmark, nor yet his grandfather King Hordaknut, or Sigurd Orm, or Ragnar Lodbrok; and he was so exasperated and angry, that nobody ventured to speak of it to him. 9. OF GOLD HARALD. Gold Harald was now worse off than before; for he had got no kingdom, and had got the king's anger by proposing it. He went as usual to his friend Hakon, and complained to him of his fate, and asked for good advice, and if he could help him to get his share of the kingdom; saying that he would rather try force, and the chance of war, than give it up. Hakon advised him not to speak to any man so that this should be known; "for," said he, "it concerns thy life: and rather consider with thyself what thou art man enough to undertake; for to accomplish such a purpose requires a bold and firm man, who will neither stick at good nor evil to do that which is intended; for to take up great resolutions, and then to lay them aside, would only end in dishonour." Gold Harald replies--"I will so carry on what I begin, that I will not hesitate to kill Harald with my own hands, if I can come thereby to the kingdom he denies me, and which is mine by right." And so they separated. Now King Harald comes also to Earl Hakon, and tells him the demand on his kingdom which Gold Harald had made, and also his answer, and that he would upon no account consent to diminish his kingdom. "And if Gold Harald persists in his demand, I will have no hesitation in having him killed; for I will not trust him if he does not renounce it." The earl answered,--"My thoughts are, that Harald has carried his demand so far that he cannot now let it drop, and I expect nothing but war in the land; and that he will be able to gather a great force, because his father was so beloved. And then it would be a great enormity if you were to kill your relation; for, as things now stand, all men would say that he was innocent. But I am far from saying, or advising, that you should make yourself a smaller king than your father Gorm was, who in many ways enlarged, but never diminished his kingdom." The king replies,--"What then is your advice,--if I am neither to divide my kingdom, nor to get rid of my fright and danger?" "Let us meet again in a few days," said Earl Hakon, "and I will then have considered the matter well, and will give you my advice upon it." The king then went away with his people. 10. COUNCILS HELD BY HAKON AND HARALD. Earl Hakon had now great reflection, and many opinions to weigh, and he let only very few be in the house with him. In a few days King Harald came again to the earl to speak with him, and ask if he had yet considered fully the matter they had been talking of. "I have," said the earl, "considered it night and day ever since, and find it most advisable that you retain and rule over the whole of your kingdom just as your father left it; but that you obtain for your relation Harald another kingdom, that he also may enjoy honour and dignity." "What kind of kingdom is that," said the king, "which I can give to Harald, that I may possess Denmark entire?" "It is Norway," said the earl. "The kings who are there are oppressive to the people of the country, so that every man is against them who has tax or service to pay." The king replies,--"Norway is a large country, and the people fierce, and not good to attack with a foreign army. We found that sufficiently when Hakon defended that country; for we lost many people, and gained no victory. Besides, Harald the son of Eirik is my foster-son, and has sat on my knee." The earl answers, "I have long known that you have helped Gunhild's sons with your force, and a bad return you have got for it; but we shall get at Norway much more easily than by fighting for it with all the Danish force. Send a message to your foster-son Harald, Eirik's son, and offer him the lands and fiefs which Gunhild's sons held before in Denmark. Appoint him a meeting, and Gold Harald will soon conquer for himself a kingdom in Norway from Harald Grafeld." The king replies, that it would be called a bad business to deceive his own foster-son. "The Danes," answered the earl, "will rather say that it was better to kill a Norwegian viking than a Danish, and your own brother's son." They spoke so long over the matter, that they agreed on it. 11. HARALD GORMSON'S MESSAGE TO NORWAY. Thereafter Gold Harald had a conference with Earl Hakon; and the earl told him he had now advanced his business so far, that there was hope a kingdom might stand open for him in Norway. "We can then continue," said he, "our ancient friendship, and I can be of the greatest use to you in Norway. Take first that kingdom. King Harald is now very old, and has but one son, and cares but little about him, as he is but the son of a concubine." The Earl talked so long to Gold Harald that the project pleased him well; and the king, the earl, and Gold Harald often talked over the business together. The Danish king then sent messengers north to Norway to Harald Grafeld, and fitted them out magnificently for their journey. They were well received by Harald. The messengers told him that Earl Hakon was in Denmark, but was lying dangerously sick, and almost out of his senses. They then delivered from Harald, the Danish king, the invitation to Harald Grafeld, his foster-son, to come to him and receive investiture of the fiefs he and his brothers before him had formerly held in Denmark; and appointing a meeting in Jutland. Harald Grafeld laid the matter before his mother and other friends. Their opinions were divided. Some thought that the expedition was not without its danger, on account of the men with whom they had to deal; but the most were in haste to begin the journey, for at that time there was such a famine in Norway that the kings could scarcely feed their men-at-arms; and on this account the Fjord, on which the kings resided, usually got the name of Hardanger (Hardacre). In Denmark, on the other hand, there had been tolerably good crops; so that people thought that if King Harald got fiefs, and something to rule over there they would get some assistance. It was therefore concluded, before the messengers returned, that Harald should travel to Denmark to the Danish king in summer, and accept the conditions King Harald offered. 12. TREACHERY OF HARALD AND HAKON. Harald Grafeld went to Denmark in the summer (A.D. 969) with three long-ships; and Herse Arinbjorn, from the Fjord district, commanded one of them. King Harald sailed from Viken over to Limfjord in Jutland, and landed at the narrow neck of land where the Danish king was expected. Now when Gold Harald heard of this, he sailed there with nine ships which he had fitted out before for a viking cruise. Earl Hakon had also his war force on foot; namely, twelve large ships, all ready, with which he proposed to make an expedition. When Gold Harald had departed Earl Hakon says to the king, "Now I don't know if we are not sailing on an expedition, and yet are to pay the penalty of not having joined it. Gold Harald may kill Harald Grafeld, and get the kingdom of Norway; but you must not think he will be true to you, although you do help him to so much power, for he told me in winter that he would take your life if he could find opportunity to do so. Now I will win Norway for you, and kill Gold Harald, if you will promise me a good condition under you. I will be your earl; swear an oath of fidelity to you, and, with your help, conquer all Norway for you; hold the country under your rule; pay you the scat and taxes; and you will be a greater king than your father, as you will have two kingdoms under you." The king and the earl agreed upon this, and Hakon set off to seek Gold Harald. 13. DEATH OF HARALD GRAFELD. Gold Harald came to the neck of land at Limfjord, and immediately challenged Harald Grafeld to battle; and although Harald had fewer men, he went immediately on the land, prepared for battle, and drew up his troops. Before the lines came together Harald Grafeld urged on his men, and told them to draw their swords. He himself advanced the foremost of the troop, hewing down on each side. So says Glum Geirason, in Grafeld's lay:-- "Brave were thy words in battlefield, Thou stainer of the snow-white shield!-- Thou gallant war-god! With thy voice Thou couldst the dying man rejoice: The cheer of Harald could impart Courage and life to every heart. While swinging high the blood-smeared sword, By arm and voice we knew our lord." There fell Harald Grafeld. So says Glum Geirason:-- "On Limfjord's strand, by the tide's flow, Stern Fate has laid King Harald low; The gallant viking-cruiser--he Who loved the isle-encircling sea. The generous ruler of the land Fell at the narrow Limfjord strand. Enticed by Hakon's cunning speech To his death-bed on Limfjord's beach." The most of King Harald's men fell with him. There also fell Herse Arinbjorn. This happened fifteen years after the death of Hakon, Athelstan's foster-son, and thirteen years after that of Sigurd earl of Hlader. The priest Are Frode says that Earl Hakon was thirteen years earl over his father's dominions in Throndhjem district before the fall of Harald Grafeld; but, for the last six years of Harald Grafeld's life, Are Frode says the Earl Hakon and Gunhild's sons fought against each other, and drove each other out of the land by turns. 14. GOLD HARALD'S DEATH. Soon after Harald Grafeld's fall, Earl Hakon came up to Gold Harald, and the earl immediately gave battle to Harald. Hakon gained the victory, and Harald was made prisoner; but Hakon had him immediately hanged on a gallows. Hakon then went to the Danish king, and no doubt easily settled with him for the killing his relative Gold Harald. 15. DIVISION OF THE COUNTRY. Soon after King Harald Gormson ordered a levy of men over all his kingdom, and sailed with 600 ships (1). There were with him Earl Hakon, Harald Grenske, a son of King Gudrod, and many other great men who had fled from their udal estates in Norway on account of Gunhild's sons. The Danish king sailed with his fleet from the south to Viken, where all the people of the country surrendered to him. When he came to Tunsberg swarms of people joined him; and King Harald gave to Earl Hakon the command of all the men who came to him in Norway, and gave him the government over Rogaland, Hordaland, Sogn, Fjord-district, South More, Raumsdal, and North More. These seven districts gave King Harald to Earl Hakon to rule over, with the same rights as Harald Harfager gave with them to his sons; only with the difference, that Hakon should there, as well as in Throndhjem, have the king's land-estates and land-tax, and use the king's money and goods according to his necessities whenever there was war in the country. King Harald also gave Harald Grenske Vingulmark, Vestfold, and Agder all the way to Lidandisnes (the Naze), together with the title of king; and let him have these dominions with the same rights as his family in former times had held them, and as Harald Harfager had given with them to his sons. Harald Grenske was then eighteen years old, and he became afterwards a celebrated man. Harald king of Denmark returned home thereafter with all his army. ENDNOTES: (1) i.e., 720 ships, as they were counted by long hundreds, 100=120. 16. GUNHILD'S SONS LEAVE THE COUNTRY. Earl Hakon proceeded northwards along the coast with his force; and when Gunhild and her sons got the tidings they proceeded to gather troops, but were ill off for men. Then they took the same resolution as before, to sail out to sea with such men as would follow them away to the westward (A.D. 969). They came first to the Orkney Islands, and remained there a while. There were in Orkney then the Earls Hlodver. Arnfid, Ljot, and Skule, the sons of Thorfin Hausakljufer. Earl Hakon now brought all the country under him, and remained all winter (A.D. 970) in Throndhjem. Einar Skalaglam speaks of his conquests in "Vellekla":-- "Norway's great watchman, Harald, now May bind the silk snood on his brow-- Seven provinces he seized. The realm Prospers with Hakon at the helm." As Hakon the earl proceeded this summer along the coast subjecting all the people to him, he ordered that over all his dominions the temples and sacrifices should be restored, and continued as of old. So it is said in the "Vellekla":-- "Hakon the earl, so good and wise, Let all the ancient temples rise;-- Thor's temples raised with fostering hand That had been ruined through the land. His valiant champions, who were slain On battle-fields across the main, To Thor, the thunder-god, may tell How for the gods all turns out well. The hardy warrior now once more Offers the sacrifice of gore; The shield-bearer in Loke's game Invokes once more great Odin's name. The green earth gladly yields her store, As she was wont in days of yore, Since the brave breaker of the spears The holy shrines again uprears. The earl has conquered with strong hand All that lies north of Viken land: In battle storm, and iron rain Hakon spreads wide his sword's domain." The first winter that Hakon ruled over Norway the herrings set in everywhere through the fjords to the land, and the seasons ripened to a good crop all that had been sown. The people, therefore, laid in seed for the next year, and got their lands sowed, and had hope of good times. 17. HAKON'S BATTLE WITH RAGNFRED. King Ragnfred and King Gudrod, both sons of Gunhild and Eirik, were now the only sons of Gunhild remaining in life. So says Glum Geirason in Grafeld's lay:-- "When in the battle's bloody strife The sword took noble Harald's life, Half of my fortunes with him fell: But his two brothers, I know well, My loss would soon repair, should they Again in Norway bear the sway, And to their promises should stand, If they return to rule the land." Ragnfred began his course in the spring after he had been a year in the Orkney Islands. He sailed from thence to Norway, and had with him fine troops, and large ships. When he came to Norway he learnt that Earl Hakon was in Throndhjem; therefore he steered northwards around Stad, and plundered in South More. Some people submitted to him; for it often happens, when parties of armed men scour over a country, that those who are nearest the danger seek help where they think it may be expected. As soon as Earl Hakon heard the news of disturbance in More, he fitted out ships, sent the war-token through the land, made ready in all haste, and proceeded out of the fjord. He had no difficulty in assembling men. Ragnfred and Earl Hakon met at the north corner of More; and Hakon, who had most men, but fewer ships, began the battle. The combat was severe, but heaviest on Hakon's side; and as the custom then was, they fought bow to bow, and there was a current in the sound which drove all the ships in upon the land. The earl ordered to row with the oars to the land where landing seemed easiest. When the ships were all grounded, the earl with all his men left them, and drew them up so far that the enemy might not launch them down again, and then drew up his men on a grass-field, and challenged Ragnfred to land. Ragnfred and his men laid their vessels in along the land, and they shot at each other a long time; but upon the land Ragnfred would not venture: and so they separated. Ragnfred sailed with his fleet southwards around Stad; for he was much afraid the whole forces of the country would swarm around Hakon. Hakon, on his part, was not inclined to try again a battle, for he thought the difference between their ships in size was too great; so in harvest he went north to Throndhjem, and staid there all winter (A.D. 971). King Ragnfred consequently had all the country south of Stad at his mercy; namely, Fjord district, Hordaland, Sogn, Rogaland; and he had many people about him all winter. When spring approached he ordered out the people and collected a large force. By going about the districts he got many men, ships, and warlike stores sent as he required. 18. BATTLE BETWEEN HAKON AND RAGNFRED. Towards spring Earl Hakon ordered out all the men north in the country; and got many people from Halogaland and Naumudal; so that from Bryda to Stad he had men from all the sea-coast. People flocked to him from all the Throndhjem district and from Raumsdal. It was said for certain that he had men from four great districts, and that seven earls followed him, and a matchless number of men. So it is said in the "Vellekla":-- "Hakon, defender of the land, Armed in the North his warrior-band To Sogn's old shore his force he led, And from all quarters thither sped War-ships and men; and haste was made By the young god of the sword-blade, The hero-viking of the wave, His wide domain from foes to save. With shining keels seven kings sailed on To meet this raven-feeding one. When the clash came, the stunning sound Was heard in Norway's farthest bound; And sea-borne corpses, floating far, Brought round the Naze news from the war." Earl Hakon sailed then with his fleet southwards around Stad; and when he heard that King Ragnfred with his army had gone towards Sogn, he turned there also with his men to meet him: and there Ragnfred and Hakon met. Hakon came to the land with his ships, marked out a battle-field with hazel branches for King Ragnfred, and took ground for his own men in it. So it is told in the "Vellekla":-- "In the fierce battle Ragnfred then Met the grim foe of Vindland men; And many a hero of great name Fell in the sharp sword's bloody game. The wielder of fell Narve's weapon, The conquering hero, valiant Hakon Had laid his war-ships on the strand, And ranged his warriors on the land." There was a great battle; but Earl Hakon, having by far the most people, gained the victory. It took place on the Thinganes, where Sogn and Hordaland meet. King Rangfred fled to his ships, after 300 of his men had fallen. So it is said in the "Vellekla":-- "Sharp was the battle-strife, I ween,-- Deadly and close it must have been, Before, upon the bloody plain, Three hundred corpses of the slain Were stretched for the black raven's prey; And when the conquerors took their way To the sea-shore, they had to tread O'er piled-up heaps of foemen dead." After this battle King Ragnfred fled from Norway; but Earl Hakon restored peace to the country, and allowed the great army which had followed him in summer to return home to the north country, and he himself remained in the south that harvest and winter (A.D. 972). 19. EARL HAKON'S MARRIAGE. Earl Hakon married a girl called Thora, a daughter of the powerful Skage Skoptason, and very beautiful she was. They had two sons, Svein and Heming, and a daughter called Bergljot who was afterwards married to Einar Tambaskielfer. Earl Hakon was much addicted to women, and had many children; among others a daughter Ragnhild, whom he married to Skopte Skagason, a brother of Thora. The Earl loved Thora so much that he held Thora's family in higher respect than any other people, and Skopte his brother-in-law in particular; and he gave him many great fiefs in More. Whenever they were on a cruise together, Skopte must lay his ship nearest to the earl's, and no other ship was allowed to come in between. 20. DEATH OF SKOPTE. One summer that Earl Hakon was on a cruise, there was a ship with him of which Thorleif Spake (the Wise) was steersman. In it was also Eirik, Earl Hakon's son, then about ten or eleven years old. Now in the evenings, as they came into harbour, Eirik would not allow any ship but his to lie nearest to the earl's. But when they came to the south, to More, they met Skopte the earl's brother-in-law, with a well-manned ship; and as they rowed towards the fleet, Skopte called out that Thorleif should move out of the harbour to make room for him, and should go to the roadstead. Eirik in haste took up the matter, and ordered Skopte to go himself to the roadstead. When Earl Hakon heard that his son thought himself too great to give place to Skopte, he called to them immediately that they should haul out from their berth, threatening them with chastisement if they did not. When Thorleif heard this, he ordered his men to slip their land-cable, and they did so; and Skopte laid his vessel next to the earl's as he used to do. When they came together, Skopte brought the earl all the news he had gathered, and the earl communicated to Skopte all the news he had heard; and Skopte was therefore called Tidindaskopte (the Newsman Skopte). The winter after (A.D. 973) Eirik was with his foster-father Thorleif, and early in spring he gathered a crew of followers, and Thorleif gave him a boat of fifteen benches of rowers, with ship furniture, tents, and ship provisions; and Eirik set out from the fjord, and southwards to More. Tidindaskopte happened also to be going with a fully manned boat of fifteen rowers' benches from one of his farms to another, and Eirik went against him to have a battle. Skopte was slain, but Eirik granted life to those of his men who were still on their legs. So says Eyjolf Dadaskald in the "Banda Lay":-- "At eve the youth went out To meet the warrior stout-- To meet stout Skopte--he Whose war-ship roves the sea Like force was on each side, But in the whirling tide The young wolf Eirik slew Skopte, and all his crew And he was a gallant one, Dear to the Earl Hakon. Up, youth of steel-hard breast-- No time hast thou to rest! Thy ocean wings spread wide-- Speed o'er the foaming tide! Speed on--speed on thy way! For here thou canst not stay." Eirik sailed along the land and came to Denmark, and went to King Harald Gormson, and staid with him all winter (A.D. 974). In spring the Danish king sent him north to Norway, and gave him an earldom, and the government of Vingulmark and Raumarike, on the same terms as the small scat-paying kings had formerly held these domains. So says Eyjolf Dadaskald:-- "South through ocean's spray His dragon flew away To Gormson's hall renowned. Where the bowl goes bravely round. And the Danish king did place This youth of noble race Where, shield and sword in hand, He would aye defend his land." Eirik became afterwards a great chief. 21. OLAF TRYGVASON'S JOURNEY FROM RUSSIA. All this time Olaf Trygvason was in Gardarike (Russia), and highly esteemed by King Valdemar, and beloved by the queen. King Valdemar made him chief over the men-at-arms whom he sent out to defend the land. So says Hallarsteid:-- "The hater of the niggard band, The chief who loves the Northman's land, Was only twelve years old when he His Russian war-ships put to sea. The wain that ploughs the sea was then Loaded with war-gear by his men-- With swords, and spears, and helms: and deep Out to the sea his good ships sweep." Olaf had several battles, and was lucky as a leader of troops. He himself kept a great many men-at-arms at his own expense out of the pay the king gave him. Olaf was very generous to his men, and therefore very popular. But then it came to pass, what so often happens when a foreigner is raised to higher power and dignity than men of the country, that many envied him because he was so favoured by the king, and also not less so by the queen. They hinted to the king that he should take care not to make Olaf too powerful,--"for such a man may be dangerous to you, if he were to allow himself to be used for the purpose of doing you or your kingdom harm; for he is extremely expert in all exercises and feats, and very popular. We do not, indeed, know what it is he can have to talk of so often with the queen." It was then the custom among great monarchs that the queen should have half of the court attendants, and she supported them at her own expense out of the scat and revenue provided for her for that purpose. It was so also at the court of King Valdemar that the queen had an attendance as large as the king, and they vied with each other about the finest men, each wanting to have such in their own service. It so fell out that the king listened to such speeches, and became somewhat silent and blunt towards Olaf. When Olaf observed this, he told it to the queen; and also that he had a great desire to travel to the Northern land, where his family formerly had power and kingdoms, and where it was most likely he would advance himself. The queen wished him a prosperous journey, and said he would be found a brave man wherever he might be. Olaf then made ready, went on board, and set out to sea in the Baltic. As he was coming from the east he made the island of Borgundarholm (Bornholm), where he landed and plundered. The country people hastened down to the strand, and gave him battle; but Olaf gained the victory, and a large booty. 22. OLAF TRYGVASON'S MARRIAGE. While Olaf lay at Borgundarholm there came on bad weather, storm, and a heavy sea, so that his ships could not lie there; and he sailed southwards under Vindland, where they found a good harbour. They conducted themselves very peacefully, and remained some time. In Vindland there was then a king called Burizleif, who had three daughters,--Geira, Gunhild, and Astrid. The king's daughter Geira had the power and government in that part where Olaf and his people landed, and Dixen was the name of the man who most usually advised Queen Geira. Now when they heard that unknown people were came to the country, who were of distinguished appearance, and conducted themselves peaceably, Dixen repaired to them with a message from Queen Geira, inviting the strangers to take up their winter abode with her; for the summer was almost spent, and the weather was severe and stormy. Now when Dixen came to the place he soon saw that the leader was a distinguished man, both from family and personal appearance, and he told Olaf the queen's invitation with the most kindly message. Olaf willingly accepted the invitation, and went in harvest (A.D. 982) to Queen Geira. They liked each other exceedingly, and Olaf courted Queen Geira; and it was so settled that Olaf married her the same winter, and was ruler, along with Queen Geira, over her dominions. Halfred Vandredaskald tells of these matters in the lay he composed about King Olaf:-- "Why should the deeds the hero did In Bornholm and the East he hid? His deadly weapon Olaf bold Dyed red: why should not this be told?" 23. EARL HAKON PAYS NO SCAT. Earl Hakon ruled over Norway, and paid no scat; because the Danish king gave him all the scat revenue that belonged to the king in Norway, for the expense and trouble he had in defending the country against Gunhild's sons. 24. HARALD OPPOSES CHRISTIANITY. The Emperor Otta (Otto) was at that time in the Saxon country, and sent a message to King Harald, the Danish king, that he must take on the true faith and be baptized, he and all his people whom he ruled; "otherwise," says the emperor, "we will march against him with an army." The Danish king ordered the land defence to be fitted out, Danavirke (1) (the Danish wall) to be well fortified, and his ships of war rigged out. He sent a message also to Earl Hakon in Norway to come to him early in spring, and with as many men as he could possibly raise. In spring (A.D. 975) Earl Hakon levied an army over the whole country which was very numerous, and with it he sailed to meet the Danish king. The king received him in the most honourable manner. Many other chiefs also joined the Danish king with their men, so that he had gathered a very large army. ENDNOTES: (1) Danavirke. The Danish work was a wall of earth, stones, and wood, with a deep ditch in front, and a castle at every hundred fathoms, between the rivers Eider and Slien, constructed by Harald Blatand (Bluetooth) to oppose the progress of Charlemagne. Some traces of it still exist. --L. 25. OLAF TRYGVASON'S WAR EXPEDITION. Olaf Trygvason had been all winter (A.D. 980) in Vindland, as before related, and went the same winter to the baronies in Vindland which had formerly been under Queen Geira, but had withdrawn themselves from obedience and payment of taxes. There Olaf made war, killed many people, burnt out others, took much property, and laid all of them under subjection to him, and then went back to his castle. Early in spring Olaf rigged out his ships and set off to sea. He sailed to Skane and made a landing. The people of the country assembled, and gave him battle; but King Olaf conquered, and made a great booty. He then sailed eastward to the island of Gotland, where he captured a merchant vessel belonging to the people of Jamtaland. They made a brave defence; but the end of it was that Olaf cleared the deck, killed many of the men, and took all the goods. He had a third battle in Gotland, in which he also gained the victory, and made a great booty. So says Halfred Vandredaskald:-- "The king, so fierce in battle-fray, First made the Vindland men give way: The Gotlanders must tremble next; And Scania's shores are sorely vexed By the sharp pelting arrow shower The hero and his warriors pour; And then the Jamtaland men must fly, Scared by his well-known battle-cry." 26. OTTA AND HAKON IN BATTLE. The Emperor Otta assembled a great army from Saxland, Frakland, Frisland, and Vindland. King Burizleif followed him with a large army, and in it was his son-in-law, Olaf Trygvason. The emperor had a great body of horsemen, and still greater of foot people, and a great army from Holstein. Harald, the Danish king, sent Earl Hakon with the army of Northmen that followed him southwards to Danavirke, to defend his kingdom on that side. So it is told in the "Vellekla":-- "Over the foaming salt sea spray The Norse sea-horses took their way, Racing across the ocean-plain Southwards to Denmark's green domain. The gallant chief of Hordaland Sat at the helm with steady hand, In casque and shield, his men to bring From Dovre to his friend the king. He steered his war-ships o'er the wave To help the Danish king to save Mordalf, who, with a gallant band Was hastening from the Jutes' wild land, Across the forest frontier rude, With toil and pain through the thick wood. Glad was the Danish king, I trow, When he saw Hakon's galley's prow. The monarch straightway gave command To Hakon, with a steel-clad band, To man the Dane-work's rampart stout, And keep the foreign foemen out." The Emperor Otta came with his army from the south to Danavirke, but Earl Hakon defended the rampart with his men. The Dane-work (Danavirke) was constructed in this way:--Two fjords run into the land, one on each side; and in the farthest bight of these fjords the Danes had made a great wall of stone, turf, and timber, and dug a deep and broad ditch in front of it, and had also built a castle over each gate of it. There was a hard battle there, of which the "Vellekla" speaks:-- "Thick the storm of arrows flew, Loud was the din, black was the view Of close array of shield and spear Of Vind, and Frank, and Saxon there. But little recked our gallant men; And loud the cry might be heard then Of Norway's brave sea-roving son-- 'On 'gainst the foe! On! Lead us on!" Earl Hakon drew up his people in ranks upon all the gate-towers of the wall, but the greater part of them he kept marching along the wall to make a defence wheresoever an attack was threatened. Many of the emperor's people fell without making any impression on the fortification, so the emperor turned back without farther attempt at an assault on it. So it is said in the "Vellekla":-- "They who the eagle's feast provide In ranked line fought side by side, 'Gainst lines of war-men under shields\ Close packed together on the fields, Earl Hakon drive by daring deeds The Saxons to their ocean-steeds; And the young hero saves from fall The Danavirke--the people's wall." After this battle Earl Hakon went back to his ships, and intended to sail home to Norway; but he did not get a favourable wind, and lay for some time outside at Limafjord. 27. HARALD AND HAKON ARE BAPTIZED. The Emperor Otta turned back with his troops to Slesvik, collected his ships of war, and crossed the fjord of Sle into Jutland. As soon as the Danish king heard of this he marched his army against him, and there was a battle, in which the emperor at last got the victory. The Danish king fled to Limafjord and took refuge in the island Marsey. By the help of mediators who went between the king and the emperor, a truce and a meeting between them were agreed on. The Emperor Otta and the Danish king met upon Marsey. There Bishop Poppo instructed King Harald in the holy faith; he bore red hot irons in his hands, and exhibited his unscorched hands to the king. Thereafter King Harald allowed himself to be baptized, and also the whole Danish army. King Harald, while he was in Marsey, had sent a message to Hakon that he should come to his succour; and the earl had just reached the island when the king had received baptism. The king sends word to the earl to come to him, and when they met the king forced the earl to allow himself also to be baptized. So Earl Hakon and all the men who were with him were baptized; and the king gave them priests and other learned men with them, and ordered that the earl should make all the people in Norway be baptized. On that they separated; and the earl went out to sea, there to wait for a wind. 28. HAKON RENOUNCES CHRISTIANITY. When a wind came with which he thought he could get clear out to sea, he put all the learned men on shore again, and set off to the ocean; but as the wind came round to the south-west, and at last to west, he sailed eastward, out through Eyrarsund, ravaging the land on both sides. He then sailed eastward along Skane, plundering the country wherever he came. When he got east to the skerries of East Gautland, he ran in and landed, and made a great blood-sacrifice. There came two ravens flying which croaked loudly; and now, thought the earl, the blood-offering has been accepted by Odin, and he thought good luck would be with him any day he liked to go to battle. Then he set fire to his ships, landed his men, and went over all the country with armed hand. Earl Ottar, who ruled over Gautland, came against him, and they held a great battle with each other; but Earl Hakon gained the day, and Earl Ottar and a great part of his men were killed. Earl Hakon now drove with fire and sword over both the Gautlands, until he came into Norway; and then he proceeded by land all the way north to Throndhjem. The "Vellekla" tells about this:-- "On the silent battle-field, In viking garb, with axe and shield, The warrior, striding o'er the slain, Asks of the gods 'What days will gain?' Two ravens, flying from the east, Come croaking to the bloody feast: The warrior knows what they foreshow-- The days when Gautland blood will flow. A viking-feast Earl Hakon kept, The land with viking fury swept, Harrying the land far from the shore Where foray ne'er was known before. Leaving the barren cold coast side, He raged through Gautland far and wide,-- Led many a gold-decked viking shield O'er many a peaceful inland field. Bodies on bodies Odin found Heaped high upon each battle ground: The moor, as if by witchcraft's power, Grows green, enriched by bloody shower. No wonder that the gods delight To give such luck in every fight To Hakon's men--for he restores Their temples on our Norway shores." 29. THE EMPEROR OTTA RETURNS HOME. The Emperor Otta went back to his kingdom in the Saxon land, and parted in friendship with the Danish king. It is said that the Emperor Otta stood godfather to Svein, King Harald's son, and gave him his name; so that he was baptized Otta Svein. King Harald held fast by his Christianity to his dying day. King Burizleif went to Vindland, and his son-in-law King Olaf went with him. This battle is related also by Halfred Vandredaskald in his song on Olaf:-- "He who through the foaming surges His white-winged ocean-coursers urges, Hewed from the Danes, in armour dressed, The iron bark off mail-clad breast." 30. OLAF'S JOURNEY FROM VINDLAND. Olaf Trygvason was three years in Vindland (A.D. 982-984) when Geira his queen fell sick, and she died of her illness. Olaf felt his loss so great that he had no pleasure in Vindland after it. He provided himself, therefore, with warships, and went out again a plundering, and plundered first in Frisland, next in Saxland, and then all the way to Flaemingjaland (Flanders). So says Halfred Vandredaskald:-- "Olaf's broad axe of shining steel For the shy wolf left many a meal. The ill-shaped Saxon corpses lay Heaped up, the witch-wife's horses' (1) prey. She rides by night: at pools of blood. Where Frisland men in daylight stood, Her horses slake their thirst, and fly On to the field where Flemings lie. The raven-friend in Odin's dress-- Olaf, who foes can well repress, Left Flemish flesh for many a meal With his broad axe of shining steel." ENDNOTES: (1) Ravens were the witches' horses.--L. 31. KING OLAF'S FORAYS. Thereafter Olaf Trygvason sailed to England, and ravaged wide around in the land. He sailed all the way north to Northumberland, where he plundered; and thence to Scotland, where he marauded far and wide. Then he went to the Hebrides, where he fought some battles; and then southwards to Man, where he also fought. He ravaged far around in Ireland, and thence steered to Bretland, which he laid waste with fire and sword, and all the district called Cumberland. He sailed westward from thence to Valland, and marauded there. When he left the west, intending to sail to England, he came to the islands called the Scilly Isles, lying westward from England in the ocean. Thus tells Halfred Vandraskald of these events:-- The brave young king, who ne'er retreats, The Englishman in England beats. Death through Northumberland is spread From battleaxe and broad spearhead. Through Scotland with his spears he rides; To Man his glancing ships he guides: Feeding the wolves where'er he came, The young king drove a bloody game. The gallant bowmen in the isles Slew foemen, who lay heaped in piles. The Irish fled at Olaf's name-- Fled from a young king seeking fame. In Bretland, and in Cumberland, People against him could not stand: Thick on the fields their corpses lay, To ravens and howling wolves a prey." Olaf Trygvason had been four years on this cruise (A.D. 985-988), from the time he left Vindland till he came to the Scilly Islands. 32. KING OLAF IS BAPTIZED. While Olaf Trygvason lay in the Scilly Isles he heard of a seer, or fortune-teller, on the islands, who could tell beforehand things not yet done, and what he foretold many believed was really fulfilled. Olaf became curious to try this man's gift of prophecy. He therefore sent one of his men, who was the handsomest and strongest, clothed him magnificently, and bade him say he was the king; for Olaf was known in all countries as handsomer, stronger, and braver than all others, although, after he had left Russia, he retained no more of his name than that he was called Ole, and was Russian. Now when the messenger came to the fortune-teller, and gave himself out for the king, he got the answer, "Thou art not the king, but I advise thee to be faithful to thy king." And more he would not say to that man. The man returned, and told Olaf, and his desire to meet the fortune-teller was increased; and now he had no doubt of his being really a fortune-teller. Olaf repaired himself to him, and, entering into conversation, asked him if he could foresee how it would go with him with regard to his kingdom, or of any other fortune he was to have. The hermit replies in a holy spirit of prophecy, "Thou wilt become a renowned king, and do celebrated deeds. Many men wilt thou bring to faith and baptism, and both to thy own and others' good; and that thou mayst have no doubt of the truth of this answer, listen to these tokens: When thou comest to thy ships many of thy people will conspire against thee, and then a battle will follow in which many of thy men will fall, and thou wilt be wounded almost to death, and carried upon a shield to thy ship; yet after seven days thou shalt be well of thy wounds, and immediately thou shalt let thyself be baptized." Soon after Olaf went down to his ships, where he met some mutineers and people who would destroy him and his men. A fight took place, and the result was what the hermit had predicted, that Olaf was wounded, and carried upon a shield to his ship, and that his wound was healed in seven days. Then Olaf perceived that the man had spoken truth, that he was a true fortune-teller, and had the gift of prophecy. Olaf went once more to the hermit, and asked particularly how he came to have such wisdom in foreseeing things to be. The hermit replied, that the Christian God himself let him know all that he desired; and he brought before Olaf many great proofs of the power of the Almighty. In consequence of this encouragement Olaf agreed to let himself be baptized, and he and all his followers were baptized forthwith. He remained here a long time, took the true faith, and got with him priests and other learned men. 33. OLAF MARRIES GYDA. In autumn (A.D. 988) Olaf sailed from Scilly to England, where he put into a harbour, but proceeded in a friendly way; for England was Christian, and he himself had become Christian. At this time a summons to a Thing went through the country, that all men should come to hold a Thing. Now when the Thing was assembled a queen called Gyda came to it, a sister of Olaf Kvaran, who was king of Dublin in Ireland. She had been married to a great earl in England, and after his death she was at the head of his dominions. In her territory there was a man called Alfvine, who was a great champion and single-combat man. He had paid his addresses to her; but she gave for answer, that she herself would choose whom of the men in her dominions she would take in marriage; and on that account the Thing was assembled, that she might choose a husband. Alfvine came there dressed out in his best clothes, and there were many well-dressed men at the meeting. Olaf had come there also; but had on his bad-weather clothes, and a coarse over-garment, and stood with his people apart from the rest of the crowd. Gyda went round and looked at each, to see if any appeared to her a suitable man. Now when she came to where Olaf stood she looked at him straight in the face, and asked "what sort of man he was?" He said, "I am called Ole; and I am a stranger here." Gyda replies, "Wilt thou have me if I choose thee?" "I will not say no to that," answered he; and he asked what her name was, and her family, and descent. "I am called Gyda," said she; "and am daughter of the king of Ireland, and was married in this country to an earl who ruled over this territory. Since his death I have ruled over it, and many have courted me, but none to whom I would choose to be married." She was a young and handsome woman. They afterwards talked over the matter together, and agreed, and Olaf and Gyda were betrothed. 34. KING OLAF AND ALFVINE'S DUEL. Alfvine was very ill pleased with this. It was the custom then in England, if two strove for anything, to settle the matter by single combat (1); and now Alfvine challenges Olaf Trygvason to fight about this business. The time and place for the combat were settled, and that each should have twelve men with him. When they met, Olaf told his men to do exactly as they saw him do. He had a large axe; and when Alfvine was going to cut at him with his sword he hewed away the sword out of his hand, and with the next blow struck down Alfvine himself. He then bound him fast. It went in the same way with all Alfvine's men. They were beaten down, bound, and carried to Olaf's lodging. Thereupon he ordered Alfvine to quit the country, and never appear in it again; and Olaf took all his property. Olaf in this way got Gyda in marriage, and lived sometimes in England, and sometimes in Ireland. ENDNOTES: (1) Holm-gang: so called because the combatants went to a holm or uninhabited isle to fight in Norway.--L. 35. KING OLAF GETS HIS DOG VIGE. While Olaf was in Ireland he was once on an expedition which went by sea. As they required to make a foray for provisions on the coast, some of his men landed, and drove down a large herd of cattle to the strand. Now a peasant came up, and entreated Olaf to give him back the cows that belonged to him. Olaf told him to take his cows, if he could distinguish them; "but don't delay our march." The peasant had with him a large house-dog, which he put in among the herd of cattle, in which many hundred head of beasts were driven together. The dog ran into the herd, and drove out exactly the number which the peasant had said he wanted; and all were marked with the same mark, which showed that the dog knew the right beasts, and was very sagacious. Olaf then asked the peasant if he would sell him the dog. "I would rather give him to you," said the peasant. Olaf immediately presented him with a gold ring in return, and promised him his friendship in future. This dog was called Vige, and was the very best of dogs, and Olaf owned him long afterwards. 36. HARALD GORMSON SAILS AGAINST ICELAND. The Danish king, Harald Gormson, heard that Earl Hakon had thrown off Christianity, and had plundered far and wide in the Danish land. The Danish king levied an army, with which he went to Norway; and when he came to the country which Earl Hakon had to rule over he laid waste the whole land, and came with his fleet to some islands called Solunder. Only five houses were left standing in Laeradal; but all the people fled up to the mountains, and into the forest, taking with them all the moveable goods they could carry with them. Then the Danish king proposed to sail with his fleet to Iceland, to avenge the mockery and scorn all the Icelanders had shown towards him; for they had made a law in Iceland, that they should make as many lampoons against the Danish king as there were headlands in his country; and the reason was, because a vessel which belonged to certain Icelanders was stranded in Denmark, and the Danes took all the property, and called it wreck. One of the king's bailiffs called Birger was to blame for this; but the lampoons were made against both. In the lampoons were the following lines:-- "The gallant Harald in the field Between his legs lets drop his shield; Into a pony he was changed. And kicked his shield, and safely ranged. And Birger, he who dwells in halls For safety built with four stone walls, That these might be a worthy pair, Was changed into a pony mare." 37. HARALD SENDS A WARLOCK TO ICELAND. King Harald told a warlock to hie to Iceland in some altered shape, and to try what he could learn there to tell him: and he set out in the shape of a whale. And when he came near to the land he went to the west side of Iceland, north around the land, where he saw all the mountains and hills full of guardian-spirits, some great, some small. When he came to Vapnafjord he went in towards the land, intending to go on shore; but a huge dragon rushed down the dale against him with a train of serpents, paddocks, and toads, that blew poison towards him. Then he turned to go westward around the land as far as Eyjafjord, and he went into the fjord. Then a bird flew against him, which was so great that its wings stretched over the mountains on either side of the fjord, and many birds, great and small, with it. Then he swam farther west, and then south into Breidafjord. When he came into the fjord a large grey bull ran against him, wading into the sea, and bellowing fearfully, and he was followed by a crowd of land-spirits. From thence he went round by Reykjanes, and wanted to land at Vikarsskeid, but there came down a hill-giant against him with an iron staff in his hands. He was a head higher than the mountains, and many other giants followed him. He then swam eastward along the land, and there was nothing to see, he said, but sand and vast deserts, and, without the skerries, high-breaking surf; and the ocean between the countries was so wide that a long-ship could not cross it. At that time Brodhelge dwelt in Vapnafjord, Eyjolf Valgerdson in Eyjafjord, Thord Geller in Breidafjord, and Thorod Gode in Olfus. Then the Danish king turned about with his fleet, and sailed back to Denmark. Hakon the earl settled habitations again in the country that had been laid waste, and paid no scat as long as he lived to Denmark. 38. HARALD GORMSON'S DEATH. Svein, King Harald's son, who afterwards was called Tjuguskeg (forked beard), asked his father King Harald for a part of his kingdom; but now, as before, Harald would not listen to dividing the Danish dominions, and giving him a kingdom. Svein collected ships of war, and gave out that he was going on a viking cruise; but when all his men were assembled, and the Jomsborg viking Palnatoke had come to his assistance he ran into Sealand to Isafjord, where his father had been for some time with his ships ready to proceed on an expedition. Svein instantly gave battle, and the combat was severe. So many people flew to assist King Harald, that Svein was overpowered by numbers, and fled. But King Harald received a wound which ended in his death: and Svein was chosen King of Denmark. At this time Sigvalde was earl over Jomsborg in Vindland. He was a son of King Strutharald, who had ruled over Skane. Heming, and Thorkel the Tall, were Sigvalde's brothers. Bue the Thick from Bornholm, and Sigurd his brother, were also chiefs among the Jomsborg vikings: and also Vagn, a son of Ake and Thorgunna, and a sister's son of Bue and Sigurd. Earl Sigvalde had taken King Svein prisoner, and carried him to Vindland, to Jomsborg, where he had forced him to make peace with Burizleif, the king of the Vinds, and to take him as the peace-maker between them. Earl Sigvalde was married to Astrid, a daughter of King Burizleif; and told King Svein that if he did not accept of his terms, he would deliver him into the hands of the Vinds. The king knew that they would torture him to death, and therefore agreed to accept the earl's mediation. The earl delivered this judgment between them--that King Svein should marry Gunhild, King Burizleif's daughter; and King Burizleif again Thyre, a daughter of Harald, and King Svein's sister; but that each party should retain their own dominions, and there should be peace between the countries. Then King Svein returned home to Denmark with his wife Gunhild. Their sons were Harald and Knut (Canute) the Great. At that time the Danes threatened much to bring an army into Norway against Earl Hakon. 39. VOW OF THE JOMSBORG VIKINGS. King Svein made a magnificent feast, to which he invited all the chiefs in his dominions; for he would give the succession-feast, or the heirship-ale, after his father Harald. A short time before, Strutharald in Skane, and Vesete in Bornholm, father to Bue the Thick and to Sigurd, had died; and King Svein sent word to the Jomsborg vikings that Earl Sigvalde and Bue, and their brothers, should come to him, and drink the funeral-ale for their fathers in the same feast the king was giving. The Jomsborg vikings came to the festival with their bravest men, forty ships of them from Vindland, and twenty ships from Skane. Great was the multitude of people assembled. The first day of the feast, before King Svein went up into his father's high-seat, he drank the bowl to his father's memory, and made the solemn vow, that before three winters were past he would go over with his army to England, and either kill King Adalrad (Ethelred), or chase him out of the country. This heirship bowl all who were at the feast drank. Thereafter for the chiefs of the Jomsborg vikings was filled and drunk the largest horn to be found, and of the strongest drink. When that bowl was emptied, all men drank Christ's health; and again the fullest measure and the strongest drink were handed to the Jomsborg vikings. The third bowl was to the memory of Saint Michael, which was drunk by all. Thereafter Earl Sigvalde emptied a remembrance bowl to his father's honour, and made the solemn vow, that before three winters came to an end he would go to Norway, and either kill Earl Hakon, or chase him out of the country. Thereupon Thorkel the Tall, his brother, made a solemn vow to follow his brother Sigvalde to Norway, and not flinch from the battle so long as Sigvalde would fight there. Then Bue the Thick vowed to follow them to Norway, and not flinch so long as the other Jomsborg vikings fought. At last Vagn Akason vowed that he would go with them to Norway, and not return until he had slain Thorkel Leira, and gone to bed to his daughter Ingebjorg without her friends' consent. Many other chiefs made solemn vows about different things. Thus was the heirship-ale drunk that day, but the next morning, when the Jomsborg vikings had slept off their drink, they thought they had spoken more than enough. They held a meeting to consult how they should proceed with their undertaking, and they determined to fit out as speedily as possible for the expedition; and without delay ships and men-at-arms were prepared, and the news spread quickly. 40. EIRIK AND HAKON MAKE A WAR LEVY. When Earl Eirik, the son of Hakon, who at that time was in Raumarike, heard the tidings, he immediately gathered troops, and went to the Uplands, and thence over the mountains to Throndhjem, and joined his father Earl Hakon. Thord Kolbeinson speaks of this in the lay of Eirik:-- "News from the south are flying round; The bonde comes with look profound, Bad news of bloody battles bringing, Of steel-clad men, of weapons ringing. I hear that in the Danish land Long-sided ships slide down the strand, And, floating with the rising tide, The ocean-coursers soon will ride." The earls Hakon and Eirik had war-arrows split up and sent round the Throndhjem country; and despatched messages to both the Mores, North More and South More, and to Raumsdal, and also north to Naumudal and Halogaland. They summoned all the country to provide both men and ships. So it is said in Eirik's lay: "The skald must now a war-song raise, The gallant active youth must praise, Who o'er the ocean's field spreads forth Ships, cutters, boats, from the far north. His mighty fleet comes sailing by,-- The people run to see them glide, Mast after mast, by the coast-side." Earl Hakon set out immediately to the south, to More, to reconnoitre and gather people; and Earl Eirik gathered an army from the north to follow. 41. EXPEDITION OF THE JOMSBORG VIKINGS. The Jomsborg vikings assembled their fleet in Limafjord, from whence they went to sea with sixty sail of vessels. When they came under the coast of Agder, they steered northwards to Rogaland with their fleet, and began to plunder when they came into the earl's territory; and so they sailed north along the coast, plundering and burning. A man, by name Geirmund, sailed in a light boat with a few men northwards to More, and there he fell in with Earl Hakon, stood before his dinner table, and told the earl the tidings of an army from Denmark having come to the south end of the land. The earl asked if he had any certainty of it. Then Geirmund stretched forth one arm, from which the hand was cut off, and said, "Here is the token that the enemy is in the land." Then the earl questioned him particularly about this army. Geirmund says it consists of Jomsborg vikings, who have killed many people, and plundered all around. "And hastily and hotly they pushed on," says he "and I expect it will not be long before they are upon you." On this the earl rode into every fjord, going in along the one side of the land and out at the other, collecting men; and thus he drove along night and day. He sent spies out upon the upper ridges, and also southwards into the Fjords; and he proceeded north to meet Eirik with his men. This appears from Eirik's lay:-- "The earl, well skilled in war to speed O'er the wild wave the viking-steed, Now launched the high stems from the shore, Which death to Sigvalde's vikings bore. Rollers beneath the ships' keels crash, Oar-blades loud in the grey sea splash, And they who give the ravens food Row fearless through the curling flood." Eirik hastened southwards with his forces the shortest way he could. 42. OF THE JOMSBORG VIKINGS. Earl Sigvalde steered with his fleet northwards around Stad, and came to the land at the Herey Isles. Although the vikings fell in with the country people, the people never told the truth about what the earl was doing; and the vikings went on pillaging and laying waste. They laid to their vessels at the outer end of Hod Island, landed, plundered, and drove both men and cattle down to the ships, killing all the men able to bear arms. As they were going back to their ships, came a bonde, walking near to Bue's troop, who said to them, "Ye are not doing like true warriors, to be driving cows and calves down to the strand, while ye should be giving chase to the bear, since ye are coming near to the bear's den." "What says the old man?" asked some. "Can he tell us anything about Earl Hakon?" The peasant replies, "The earl went yesterday into the Hjorundarfjord with one or two ships, certainly not more than three, and then he had no news about you." Bue ran now with his people in all haste down to the ships, leaving all the booty behind. Bue said, "Let us avail ourselves now of this news we have got of the earl, and be the first to the victory." When they came to their ships they rode off from the land. Earl Sigvalde called to them, and asked what they were about. They replied, "The earl is in the fjord;" on which Earl Sigvalde with the whole fleet set off, and rowed north about the island Hod. 43. BATTLE WITH THE JOMSBORG VIKINGS. The earls Hakon and Eirik lay in Halkelsvik, where all their forces were assembled. They had 150 ships, and they had heard that the Jomsborg vikings had come in from sea, and lay at the island Hod; and they, in consequence, rowed out to seek them. When they reached a place called Hjorungavag they met each other, and both sides drew up their ships in line for an attack. Earl Sigvalde's banner was displayed in the midst of his army, and right against it Earl Hakon arranged his force for attack. Earl Sigvalde himself had 20 ships, but Earl Hakon had 60. In Earl's army were these chiefs,--Thorer Hjort from Halogaland, and Styrkar from Gimsar. In the wing of the opposite array of the Jomsborg vikings was Bue the Thick, and his brother Sigurd, with 20 ships. Against him Earl Eirik laid himself with 60 ships; and with him were these chiefs,--Gudbrand Hvite from the Uplands, and Thorkel Leira from Viken. In the other wing of the Jomsborg vikings' array was Vagn Akason with 20 ships; and against him stood Svein the son of Hakon, in whose division was Skegge of Yrjar at Uphaug, and Rognvald of Aervik at Stad, with 60 ships. It is told in the Eirik's lay thus:-- "The bonde's ships along the coast Sailed on to meet the foemen's host; The stout earl's ships, with eagle flight, Rushed on the Danes in bloody fight. The Danish ships, of court-men full, Were cleared of men,--and many a hull Was driving empty on the main, With the warm corpses of the slain." Eyvind Skaldaspiller says also in the "Haleygja-tal":-- "Twas at the peep of day,-- Our brave earl led the way; His ocean horses bounding-- His war-horns loudly sounding! No joyful morn arose For Yngve Frey's base foes These Christian island-men Wished themselves home again." Then the fleets came together, and one of the sharpest of conflicts began. Many fell on both sides, but the most by far on Hakon's side; for the Jomsborg vikings fought desperately, sharply, and murderously, and shot right through the shields. So many spears were thrown against Earl Hakon that his armour was altogether split asunder, and he threw it off. So says Tind Halkelson:-- "The ring-linked coat of strongest mail Could not withstand the iron hail, Though sewed with care and elbow bent, By Norn (1), on its strength intent. The fire of battle raged around,-- Odin's steel shirt flew all unbound! The earl his ring-mail from him flung, Its steel rings on the wet deck rung; Part of it fell into the sea,-- A part was kept, a proof to be How sharp and thick the arrow-flight Among the sea-steeds in this fight." ENDNOTES: (1) Norn, one of the Fates, stands here for women, whose business it was to sew the rings of iron upon the cloth which made these ring-mail coats or shirts. The needles, although some of them were of gold, appear to have been without eyes, and used like shoemaker's awls.--L. 44. EARL SIGVALDE'S FLIGHT. The Jomsborg vikings had larger and higher-sided ships; and both parties fought desperately. Vagn Akason laid his ship on board of Svein Earl Hakon's son's ship, and Svein allowed his ship to give way, and was on the point of flying. Then Earl Eirik came up, and laid his ship alongside of Vagn, and then Vagn gave way, and the ships came to lie in the same position as before. Thereupon Eirik goes to the other wing, which had gone back a little, and Bue had cut the ropes, intending to pursue them. Then Eirik laid himself, board to board, alongside of Bue's ship, and there was a severe combat hand to hand. Two or three of Eirik's ships then laid themselves upon Bue's single vessel. A thunder-storm came on at this moment, and such a heavy hail-storm that every hailstone weighed a pennyweight. The Earl Sigvalde cut his cable, turned his ship round, and took flight. Vagn Akason called to him not to fly; but as Earl Sigvalde paid no attention to what he said, Vagn threw his spear at him, and hit the man at the helm. Earl Sigvalde rowed away with 35 ships, leaving 25 of his fleet behind. 45. BUE THROWS HIMSELF OVERBOARD. Then Earl Hakon laid his ship on the other side of Bue's ship, and now came heavy blows on Bue's men. Vigfus, a son of Vigaglum, took up an anvil with a sharp end, which lay upon the deck, and on which a man had welded the hilt to his sword just before, and being a very strong man cast the anvil with both hands at the head of Aslak Holmskalle, and the end of it went into his brains. Before this no weapon could wound this Aslak, who was Bue's foster-brother, and forecastle commander, although he could wound right and left. Another man among the strongest and bravest was Havard Hoggande. In this attack Eirik's men boarded Bue's ship, and went aft to the quarter-deck where Bue stood. There Thorstein Midlang cut at Bue across his nose, so that the nosepiece of his helmet was cut in two, and he got a great wound; but Bue, in turn, cut at Thorstein's side, so that the sword cut the man through. Then Bue lifted up two chests full of gold, and called aloud, "Overboard all Bue s men," and threw himself overboard with his two chests. Many of his people sprang overboard with him. Some fell in the ship, for it was of no use to call for quarter. Bue's ship was cleared of people from stem to stern, and afterwards all the others, the one after the other. 46. VIKINGS BOUND TOGETHER IN ONE CHAIN. Earl Eirik then laid himself alongside of Vagn's ship, and there was a brave defence; but at last this ship too was cleared, and Vagn and thirty men were taken prisoners, and bound, and brought to land. Then came up Thorkel Leira, and said, "Thou madest a solemn vow, Vagn, to kill me, but now it seems more likely that I will kill thee." Vagn and his men sat all upon a log of wood together. Thorkel had an axe in his hands, with which he cut at him who sat outmost on the log. Vagn and the other prisoners were bound so that a rope was fastened on their feet, but they had their hands free. One of them said, "I will stick this cloak-pin that I have in my hand into the earth, if it be so that I know anything, after my head is cut off." His head was cut off, but the cloak-pin fell from his hand. There sat also a very handsome man with long hair, who twisted his hair over his head, put out his neck, and said, "Don't make my hair bloody." A man took the hair in his hands and held it fast. Thorkel hewed with his axe; but the viking twitched his head so strongly that he who was holding his hair fell forwards, and the axe cut off both his hands, and stuck fast in the earth. Then Earl Eirik came up, and asked, "Who is that handsome man?" He replies, "I am called Sigurd, and am Bue's son. But are all the Jomsborg vikings dead?" Eirik says, "Thou art certainly Boe's son. Wilt thou now take life and peace?" "That depends," says he, "upon who it is that offers it." "He offers who has the power to do it--Earl Eirik." "That will I," says he, "from his hands." And now the rope was loosened from him. Then said Thorkel Leira, "Although thou should give all these men life and peace, earl, Vagn Akason shall never come from this with life." And he ran at him with uplifted axe; but the viking Skarde swung himself in the rope, and let himself fall just before Thorkel's feet, so that Thorkel ell over him, and Vagn caught the axe and gave Thorkel a death-wound. Then said the earl, "Vagn, wilt thou accept life?" "That I will," says he, "if you give it to all of us." "Loose them from the rope," said the earl, and it was done. Eighteen were killed, and twelve got their lives. 47. DEATH OF GISSUR OF VALDERS. Earl Hakon, and many with him, were sitting upon a piece of wood, and a bow-string twanged from Bue's ship, and the arrow struck Gissur from Valders, who was sitting next the earl, and was clothed splendidly. Thereupon the people went on board, and found Havard Hoggande standing on his knees at the ship's railing, for his feet had been cut off (1), and he had a bow in his hand. When they came on board the ship Havard asked, "Who fell by that shaft?" They answered, "A man called Gissur." "Then my luck was less than I thought," said he. "Great enough was the misfortune," replied they; "but thou shalt not make it greater." And they killed him on the spot. The dead were then ransacked, and the booty brought all together to be divided; and there were twenty-five ships of the Jomsborg vikings in the booty. So says Tind: "Many a viking's body lay Dead on the deck this bloody day, Before they cut their sun-dried ropes, And in quick flight put all their hopes. He whom the ravens know afar Cleared five-and-twenty ships of war: A proof that in the furious fight None can withstand the Norsemen's might." Then the army dispersed. Earl Hakon went to Throndhjem, and was much displeased that Earl Eirik had given quarter to Vagn Akason. It was said that at this battle Earl Hakon had sacrificed for victory his son, young Erling, to the gods; and instantly came the hailstorm, and the defeat and slaughter of the Jomsborg vikings. Earl Eirik went to the Uplands, and eastward by that route to his own kingdom, taking Vagn Akason with him. Earl Eirik married Vagn to Ingebjorg, a daughter of Thorkel Leira, and gave him a good ship of war and all belonging to it, and a crew; and they parted the best of friends. Then Vagn went home south to Denmark, and became afterwards a man of great consideration, and many great people are descended from him. ENDNOTES: (1) This traditionary tale of a warrior fighting on his knees after his legs were cut off, appears to have been a popular idea among the Northmen, and is related by their descendants in the ballad o Chevy Chase.--L. 48. KING HARALD GRENSKE'S DEATH. Harald Grenske, as before related, was king in Vestfold, and was married to Asta, a daughter of Gudbrand Kula. One summer (A.D. 994) Harald Grenske made an expedition to the Baltic to gather property, and he came to Svithjod. Olaf the Swede was king there, a son of Eirik the Victorious, and Sigrid, a daughter of Skoglartoste. Sigrid was then a widow, and had many and great estates in Svithjod. When she heard that her foster-brother was come to the country a short distance from her, she sent men to him to invite him to a feast. He did not neglect the invitation, but came to her with a great attendance of his followers, and was received in the most friendly way. He and the queen sat in the high-seat, and drank together towards the evening, and all his men were entertained in the most hospitable manner. At night, when the king went to rest, a bed was put up for him with a hanging of fine linen around it, and with costly bedclothes; but in the lodging-house there were few men. When the king was undressed, and had gone to bed, the queen came to him, filled a bowl herself for him to drink, and was very gay, and pressed to drink. The king was drunk above measure, and, indeed, so were they both. Then he slept, and the queen went away, and laid herself down also. Sigrid was a woman of the greatest understanding, and clever in many things. In the morning there was also the most excellent entertainment; but then it went on as usual when people have drunk too much, that next day they take care not to exceed. The queen was very gay, and she and the king talked of many things with each other; among other things she valued her property, and the dominions she had in Svithjod, as nothing less than his property in Norway. With that observation the king was nowise pleased, and he found no pleasure in anything after that, but made himself ready for his journey in an ill humor. On the other hand, the queen was remarkably gay, and made him many presents, and followed him out to the road. Now Harald returned about harvest to Norway, and was at home all winter; but was very silent and cast down. In summer he went once more to the Baltic with his ships, and steered to Svithjod. He sent a message to Queen Sigrid that he wished to have a meeting with her and she rode down to meet him. They talked together and he soon brought out the proposal that she should marry him. She replied, that this was foolish talk for him, who was so well married already that he might think himself well off. Harald says, "Asta is a good and clever woman; but she is not so well born as I am." Sigrid replies, "It may be that thou art of higher birth, but I think she is now pregnant with both your fortunes." They exchanged but few words more before the queen rode away. King Harald was now depressed in mind, and prepared himself again to ride up the country to meet Queen Sigrid. Many of his people dissuaded him; but nevertheless he set off with a great attendance, and came to the house in which the queen dwelt. The same evening came another king, called Vissavald, from Gardarike (Russia), likewise to pay his addresses to Queen Sigrid. Lodging was given to both the kings, and to all their people, in a great old room of an out-building, and all the furniture was of the same character; but there was no want of drink in the evening, and that so strong that all were drunk, and the watch, both inside and outside, fell fast asleep. Then Queen Sigrid ordered an attack on them in the night, both with fire and sword. The house was burnt, with all who were in it and those who slipped out were put to the sword. Sigrid said that she would make these small kings tired of coming to court her. She was afterwards called Sigrid the Haughty (Storrada). 49. BIRTH OF OLAF, SON OF HARALD GRENSKE. This happened the winter after the battle of the Jomsborg vikings at Hjorungavag. When Harald went up the country after Sigrid, he left Hrane behind with the ships to look after the men. Now when Hrane heard that Harald was cut off, he returned to Norway the shortest way he could, and told the news. He repaired first to Asta, and related to her all that had happened on the journey, and also on what errand Harald had visited Queen Sigrid. When Asta got these tidings she set off directly to her father in the Uplands, who received her well; but both were enraged at the design which had been laid in Svithjod, and that King Harald had intended to set her in a single condition. In summer (A.D. 995) Asta, Gudbrand's daughter, was confined, and had a boy child, who had water poured over him, and was called Olaf. Hrane himself poured water over him, and the child was brought up at first in the house of Gudbrand and his mother Asta. 50. ABOUT EARL HAKON. Earl Hakon ruled over the whole outer part of Norway that lies on the sea, and had thus sixteen districts under his sway. The arrangement introduced by Harald Harfager, that there should be an earl in each district, was afterward continued for a long time; and thus Earl Hakon had sixteen earls under him. So says the "Vellekla":-- "Who before has ever known Sixteen earls subdued by one? Who has seen all Norway's land Conquered by one brave hero's hand? It will be long in memory held, How Hakon ruled by sword and shield. When tales at the viking's mast go round, His praise will every mouth resound." While Earl Hakon ruled over Norway there were good crops in the land, and peace was well preserved in the country among the bondes. The Earl, for the greater part of his lifetime, was therefore much beloved by the bondes; but it happened, in the longer course of time, that the earl became very intemperate in his intercourse with women, and even carried it so far that he made the daughters of people of consideration be carried away and brought home to him; and after keeping them a week or two as concubines, he sent them home. He drew upon himself the indignation of me relations of these girls; and the bondes began to murmur loudly, as the Throndhjem people have the custom of doing when anything goes against their judgment. 51. THORER KLAKKA'S JOURNEY. Earl Hakon, in the mean time, hears some whisper that to the westward, over the Nor h sea, was a man called Ole, who was looked upon as a king. From the conversation of some people, he fell upon the suspicion that he must be of the royal race of Norway. It was, indeed, said that this Ole was from Russia; but the earl had heard that Trygve Olafson had had a son called Olaf, who in his infancy had gone east to Gardarike, and had been brought up by King Valdemar. The earl had carefully inquired about this man, and had his suspicion that he must be the same person who had now come to these western countries. The earl had a very good friend called Thorer Klakka, who had been long upon viking expeditions, sometimes also upon merchant voyages; so that he was well acquainted all around. This Thorer Earl Hakon sends over the North sea, and told him to make a merchant voyage to Dublin, many were in the habit of doing, and carefully to discover who this Ole was. Provided he got any certainty that he was Olaf Trygvason, or any other of the Norwegian royal race, then Thorer should endeavor to ensnare him by some deceit, and bring him into the earl's power. 52. OLAF TRYGVASON COMES TO NORWAY. On this Thorer sails westward to Ireland, and hears that Ole is in Dublin with his wife's father King Olaf Kvaran. Thorer, who was a plausible man, immediately got acquainted with Ole; and as they often met, and had long conversations together, Ole began to inquire about news from Norway, and above all of the Upland kings and great people,--which of them were in life, and what dominations they now had. He asked also about Earl Hakon, and if he was much liked in the country. Thorer replies, that the earl is such a powerful man that no one dares to speak otherwise than he would like; but that comes from there being nobody else in the country to look to. "Yet, to say the truth, I know it to be the mind of many brave men, and of whole communities, that they would much rather see a king of Harald Harfager's race come to the kingdom. But we know of no one suited for this, especially now that it is proved how vain every attack on Earl Hakon must be." As they often talked together in the same strain, Olaf disclosed to Thorer his name and family, and asked him his opinion, and whether he thought the bondes would take him for their king if he were to appear in Norway. Thorer encouraged him very eagerly to the enterprise, and praised him and his talents highly. Then Olaf's inclination to go to the heritage of his ancestors became strong. Olaf sailed accordingly, accompanied by Thorer, with five ships; first to the Hebrides, and from thence to the Orkneys. At that time Earl Sigurd, Hlodver's son, lay in Osmundswall, in the island South Ronaldsa, with a ship of war, on his way to Caithness. Just at the same time Olaf was sailing with his fleet from the westward to the islands, and ran into the same harbour, because Pentland Firth was not to be passed at that tide. When the king was informed that the earl was there, he made him be called; and when the earl came on board to speak with the king, after a few words only had passed between them, the king says the earl must allow himself to be baptized, and all the people of the country also, or he should be put to death directly; and he assured the earl he would lay waste the islands with fire and sword, if the people did not adopt Christianity. In the position the earl found himself, he preferred becoming Christian, and he and all who were with him were baptized. Afterwards the earl took an oath to the king, went into his service, and gave him his son, whose name was Hvelp (Whelp), or Hunde (Dog), as an hostage; and the king took Hvelp to Norway with him. Thereafter Olaf went out to sea to the eastward, and made the land at Morster Island, where he first touched the ground of Norway. He had high mass sung in a tent, and afterwards on the spot a church was built. Thorer Klakka said now to the king, that the best plan for him would be not to make it known who he was, or to let any report about him get abroad; but to seek out Earl Hakon as fast as possible and fall upon him by surprise. King Olaf did so, sailing northward day and night, when wind permitted, and did not let the people of the country know who it was that was sailing in such haste. When he came north to Agdanes, he heard that the earl was in the fjord, and was in discord with the bondes. On hearing this, Thorer saw that things were going in a very different way from what he expected; for after the battle with the Jomsborg vikings all men in Norway were the most sincere friends of the earl on account of the victory he had gained, and of the peace and security he had given to the country; and now it unfortunately turns out that a great chief has come to the country at a time when the bondes are in arms against the earl. 53. EARL HAKON'S FLIGHT. Earl Hakon was at a feast in Medalhus in Gaulardal and his ships lay out by Viggja. There was a powerful bonde, by name Orm Lyrgja, who dwelt in Bunes, who had a wife called Gudrun, a daughter of Bergthor of Lundar. She was called the Lundasol; for she was the most-beautiful of women. The earl sent his slaves to Orm, with the errand that they should bring Orm's wife, Gudrun, to the earl. The thralls tell their errand, and Orm bids them first seat themselves to supper; but before they had done eating, many people from the neighbourhood, to whom Orm had sent notice, had gathered together: and now Orm declared he would not send Gudrun with the messengers. Gudrun told the thralls to tell the earl that she would not come to him, unless he sent Thora of Rimul after her. Thora was a woman of great influence, and one of the earl's best beloved. The thralls say that they will come another time, and both the bonde and his wife would be made to repent of it; and they departed with many threats. Orm, on the other hand, sent out a message-token to all the neighbouring country, and with it the message to attack Earl Hakon with weapons and kill him. He sent also a message to Haldor in Skerdingsstedja, who also sent out his message-token. A short time before, the earl had taken away the wife of a man called Brynjolf, and there had very nearly been an insurrection about that business. Having now again got this message-token, the people made a general revolt, and set out all to Medalhus. When the earl heard of this, he left the house with his followers, and concealed himself in a deep glen, now called Jarlsdal (Earl's Dale). Later in the day, the earl got news of the bondes' army. They had beset all the roads; but believed the earl had escaped to his ships, which his son Erlend, a remarkably handsome and hopeful young man, had the command of. When night came the earl dispersed his people, and ordered them to go through the forest roads into Orkadal; "for nobody will molest you," said he, "when I am not with you. Send a message to Erlend to sail out of the fjord, and meet me in More. In the mean time I will conceal myself from the bondes." Then the earl went his way with one thrall or slave, called Kark, attending him. There was ice upon the Gaul (the river of Gaulardal), and the earl drove his horse upon it, and left his coat lying upon the ice. They then went to a hole, since called Jarlshella (the Earl's Hole), where they slept. When Kark awoke he told his dream,--that a black threatening mad had come into the hole, and was angry that people should have entered it; and that the man had said, "Ulle is dead." The earl said that his son Erlend must be killed. Kark slept again and was again disturbed in his sleep; and when he awoke he told his dream,--that the same man had again appeared to him, and bade him tell the earl that all the sounds were closed. From this dream the earl began to suspect that it betokened a short life to him. They stood up, and went to the house of Rimul. The earl now sends Kark to Thora, and begs of her to come secretly to him. She did so and received the earl kindly and he begged her to conceal him for a few nights until the army of the bondes had dispersed. "Here about my house," said she, "you will be hunted after, both inside and outside; for many know that I would willingly help you if I can. There is but one place about the house where they could never expect to find such a man as you, and that is the swine-stye." When they came there the earl said, "Well, let it be made ready for us; as to save our life is the first and foremost concern." The slave dug a great hole in it, bore away the earth that he dug out, and laid wood over it. Thora brought the tidings to the earl that Olaf Trygvason had come from sea into the fjord, and had killed his son Erlend. Then the earl and Kark both went into the hole. Thora covered it with wood, and threw earth and dung over it, and drove the swine upon the top of it. The swine-style was under a great stone. 54. ERLEND'S DEATH. Olaf Trygvason came from sea into the fjord with five long-ships, and Erlend, Hakon's son, rowed towards him with three ships. When the vessels came near to each other, Erlend suspected they might be enemies, and turned towards the land. When Olaf and his followers saw long-ships coming in haste out of the fjord, and rowing towards them, they thought Earl Hakon must be here; and they put out all oars to follow them. As soon as Erlend and his ships got near the land they rowed aground instantly, jumped overboard, and took to the land; but at the same instant Olaf's ship came up with them. Olaf saw a remarkably handsome man swimming in the water, and laid hold of a tiller and threw it at him. The tiller struck Erlend, the son of Hakon the earl, on the head, and clove it to the brain; and there left Erlend his life. Olaf and his people killed many; but some escaped, and some were made prisoners, and got life and freedom that they might go and tell what had happened. They learned then that the bondes had driven away Earl Hakon, and that he had fled, and his troops were all dispersed. 55. EARL HAKON'S DEATH. The bondes then met Olaf, to the joy of both, and they made an agreement together. The bondes took Olaf to be their king, and resolved, one and all, to seek out Earl Hakon. They went up Gaulardal; for it seemed to them likely that if the earl was concealed in any house it must be at Rimul, for Thora was his dearest friend in that valley. They come up, therefore, and search everywhere, outside and inside the house, but could not find him. Then Olaf held a House Thing (trusting), or council out in the yard, and stood upon a great stone which lay beside the swine-stye, and made a speech to the people, in which he promised to enrich the man with rewards and honours who should kill the earl. This speech was heard by the earl and the thrall Kark. They had a light in their room. "Why art thou so pale," says the earl, "and now again black as earth? Thou hast not the intention to betray me?" "By no means," replies Kark. "We were born on the same night," says the earl, "and the time will be short between our deaths." King Olaf went away in the evening. When night came the earl kept himself awake but Kark slept, and was disturbed in his sleep. The earl woke him, and asked him "what he was dreaming of?" He answered, "I was at Hlader and Olaf Trygvason was laying a gold ring about my neck." The earl says, "It will be a red ring Olaf will lay about thy neck if he catches thee. Take care of that! From me thou shalt enjoy all that is good, therefore betray me not." They then kept themselves awake both; the one, as it were, watching upon the other. But towards day the earl suddenly dropped asleep; but his sleep was so unquiet that he drew his heels under him, and raised his neck, as if going to rise, and screamed dreadfully high. On this Kark, dreadfully alarmed, drew a large knife out of his belt, stuck it in the earl's throat, and cut it across, and killed Earl Hakon. Then Kark cut off the earl's head, and ran away. Late in the day he came to Hlader, where he delivered the earl's head to King Olaf, and told all these circumstances of his own and Earl Hakon's doings. Olaf had him taken out and beheaded. 56. EARL HAKON'S HEAD. King Olaf, and a vast number of bondes with him, then went out to Nidarholm, and had with him the heads of Earl Hakon and Kark. This holm was used then for a place of execution of thieves and ill-doers, and there stood a gallows on it. He had the heads of the earl and of Kark hung upon it, and the whole army of the bondes cast stones at them, screaming and shouting that the one worthless fellow had followed the other. They then sent up to Gaulardal for the earl's dead body. So great was the enmity of the Throndhjem people against Earl Hakon, that no man could venture to call him by any other name than Hakon the Bad; and he was so called long after those days. Yet, sooth to say of Earl Hakon, he was in many respects fitted to be a chief: first, because he was descended from a high race; then because he had understanding and knowledge to direct a government; also manly courage in battle to gain victories, and good luck in killing his enemies. So says Thorleif Raudfeldson:-- "In Norway's land was never known A braver earl than the brave Hakon. At sea, beneath the clear moon's light, No braver man e'er sought to fight. Nine kings to Odin's wide domain Were sent, by Hakon's right hand slain! So well the raven-flocks were fed-- So well the wolves were filled with dead!" Earl Hakon was very generous; but the greatest misfortunes attended even such a chief at the end of his days: and the great cause of this was that the time was come when heathen sacrifices and idolatrous worship were doomed to fall, and the holy faith and good customs to come in their place. 57. OLAF TRYGVASON ELECTED KING. Olaf Trvgvason was chosen at Throndhjem by the General Thing to be the king over the whole country, as Harald Harfager had been. The whole public and the people throughout all the land would listen to nothing else than that Olaf Trygvason should be king. Then Olaf went round the whole country, and brought it under his rule, and all the people of Norway gave in their submission; and also the chiefs in the Uplands and in Viken, who before had held their lands as fiefs from the Danish king, now became King Olaf's men, and held their hands from him. He went thus through the whole country during the first winter (A.D. 996) and the following summer. Earl Eirik, the son of Earl Hakon, his brother Svein, and their friends and relations, fled out of the country, and went east to Sweden to King Olaf the Swede, who gave them a good reception. So says Thord Kolbeinson:-- "O thou whom bad men drove away, After the bondes by foul play, Took Hakon's life! Fate will pursue These bloody wolves, and make them rue. When the host came from out the West, Like some tall stately war-ship's mast, I saw the son of Trygve stand, Surveying proud his native land." And again,-- "Eirik has more upon his mind, Against the new Norse king designed, Than by his words he seems to show-- And truly it may well be so. Stubborn and stiff are Throndhjem men, But Throndhjem's earl may come again; In Swedish land he knows no rest-- Fierce wrath is gathering in his breast." 58. LODIN'S MARRIAGE Lodin was the name of a man from Viken who was rich and of good family. He went often on merchant voyages, and sometimes on viking cruises. It happened one summer that he went on a merchant voyage with much merchandise in a ship of his own. He directed his course first to Eistland, and was there at a market in summer. To the place at which the market was held many merchant goods were brought, and also many thralls or slaves for sale. There Lodin saw a woman who was to be sold as a slave: and on looking at her he knew her to be Astrid Eirik's daughter, who had been married to King Trygve. But now she was altogether unlike what she had been when he last saw her; for now she was pale, meagre in countenance, and ill clad. He went up to her, and asked her how matters stood with her. She replied, "It is heavy to be told; for I have been sold as a slave, and now again I am brought here for sale." After speaking together a little Astrid knew him, and begged him to buy her; and bring her home to her friends. "On this condition," said he, "I will bring thee home tn Norway, that thou wilt marry me." Now as Astrid stood in great need, and moreover knew that Lodin was a man of high birth, rich, and brave, she promised to do so for her ransom. Lodin accordingly bought Astrid, took her home to Norway with him, and married her with her friends' consent. Their children were Thorkel Nefia, Ingerid, and Ingegerd. Ingebjorg and Astrid were daughters of Astrid by King Trygve. Eirik Bjodaskalle's sons were Sigird, Karlshofud, Jostein, and Thorkel Dydril, who were all rich and brave people who had estates east in the country. In Viken in the east dwelt two brothers, rich and of good descent; one called Thorgeir, and the other Hyrning; and they married Lodin and Astrid's daughters, Ingerid and Ingegerd. 59. OLAF BAPTIZES THE COUNTRY OF VIKEN. When Harald Gormson, king of Denmark, had adopted Christianity, he sent a message over all his kingdom that all people should be baptized, and converted to the true faith. He himself followed his message, and used power and violence where nothing else would do. He sent two earls, Urguthrjot and Brimilskjar, with many people to Norway, to proclaim Christianity there. In Viken, which stood directly under the king's power, this succeeded, and many were baptized of the country folk. But when Svein Forked-beard, immediately after his father King Harald's death, went out on war expeditions in Saxland, Frisland, and at last in England, the Northmen who had taken up Christianity returned back to heathen sacrifices, just as before; and the people in the north of the country did the same. But now that Olaf Trygvason was king of Norway, he remained long during the summer (A.D. 996) in Viken, where many of his relatives and some of his brothers-in-law were settled, and also many who had been great friends of his father; so that he was received with the greatest affection. Olaf called together his mother's brothers, his stepfather Lodin, and his brothers-in-law Thorgeir and Hyrning, to speak with them, and to disclose with the greatest care the business which he desired they themselves should approve of, and support with all their power; namely, the proclaiming Christianity over all his kingdom. He would, he declared, either bring it to this, that all Norway should be Christian, or die. "I shall make you all," said he, "great and mighty men in promoting this work; for I trust to you most, as blood relations or brothers-in-law." All agreed to do what he asked, and to follow him in what he desired. King Olaf immediately made it known to the public that he recommended Christianity to all the people in his kingdom, which message was well received and approved of by those who had before given him their promise; and these being the most powerful among the people assembled, the others followed their example, and all the inhabitants of the east part of Viken allowed themselves to be baptized. The king then went to the north part of Viken and invited every man to accept Christianity; and those who opposed him he punished severely, killing some, mutilating others, and driving some into banishment. At length he brought it so far, that all the kingdom which his father King Trvgve had ruled over, and also that of his relation Harald Grenske, accepted of Christianity; and during that summer (A.D. 996) and the following winter (A.D. 997) all Viken was made Christian. 60. OF THE HORDALAND PEOPLE. Early in spring (A.D. 997) King Olaf set out from Viken with a great force northwards to Agder, and proclaimed that every man should be baptized. And thus the people received Christianity, for nobody dared oppose the king's will, wheresoever he came. In Hordaland, however, were many bold and great men of Hordakare's race. He, namely, had left four sons,--the first Thorleif Spake; the second, Ogmund, father of Thorolf Skialg, who was father of Erling of Sole; the third was Thord father of the Herse Klyp who killed King Sigurd Slefa, Gunhild's son; and lastly, Olmod, father of Askel, whose son was Aslak Fitjaskalle; and that family branch was the greatest and most considered in Hordaland. Now when this family heard the bad tidings, that the king was coming along the country from the eastward with a great force, and was breaking the ancient law of the people, and imposing punishment and hard conditions on all who opposed him, the relatives appointed a meeting to take counsel with each other, for they knew the king would come down upon them at once: and they all resolved to appear in force at the Gula-Thing, there to hold a conference with King Olaf Trygvason. 61. ROGALAND BAPTIZED. When King Olaf came to Rogaland, he immediately summoned the people to a Thing; and when the bondes received the message-token for a Thing, they assembled in great numbers well armed. After they had come together, they resolved to choose three men, the best speakers of the whole, who should answer King Olaf, and argue with the king; and especially should decline to accept of anything against the old law, even if the king should require it of them. Now when the bondes came to the Thing, and the Thing was formed, King Olaf arose, and at first spoke good-humoredly to the people; but they observed he wanted them to accept Christianity, with all his fine words: and in the conclusion he let them know that those who should speak against him, and not submit to his proposal, must expect his displeasure and punishment, and all the ill that it was in his power to inflict. When he had ended his speech, one of the bondes stood up, who was considered the most eloquent, and who had been chosen as the first who should reply to King Olaf. But when he would begin to speak such a cough seized him, and such a difficulty of breathing, that he could not bring out a word, and had to sit down again. Then another bonde stood up, resolved not to let an answer be wanting, although it had gone so ill with the former: but he stammered so that he could not get a word uttered, and all present set up a laughter, amid which the bonde sat down again. And now the third stood up to make a speech against King Olaf's; but when he began he became so hoarse and husky in his throat, that nobody could hear a word he said, and he also had to sit down. There was none of the bondes now to speak against the king, and as nobody answered him there was no opposition; and it came to this, that all agreed to what the king had proposed. All the people of the Thing accordingly were baptized before the Thing was dissolved. 62. ERLING SKJALGSON'S WOOING. King Olaf went with his men-at-arms to the Gula-Thing; for the bondes had sent him word that they would reply there to his speech. When both parties had come to the Thing, the king desired first to have a conference with the chief people of the country; and when the meeting was numerous the king set forth his errand,--that he desired them, according to his proposal, to allow themselves to be baptized. Then said Olmod the Old, "We relations have considered together this matter, and have come to one resolution. If thou thinkest, king, to force us who are related together to such things as to break our old law, or to bring us under thyself by any sort of violence, then will we stand against thee with all our might: and be the victory to him to whom fate ordains it. But if thou, king, wilt advance our relations' fortunes, then thou shalt have leave to do as thou desirest, and we will all serve thee with zeal in thy purpose." The king replies, "What do you propose for obtaining this agreement?" Then answers Olmod, "The first is, that thou wilt give thy sister Astrid in marriage to Erling Skjalgson, our relation, whom we look upon as the most hopeful young man in all Norway." King Olaf replied, that this marriage appeared to him also very suitable; "as Erling is a man of good birth, and a good-looking man in appearance: but Astrid herself must answer to this proposal." Thereupon the king spoke to his sister. She said, "It is but of little use that I am a king's sister, and a king's daughter, if I must marry a man who has no high dignity or office. I will rather wait a few years for a better match." Thus ended this conference. 63. HORDALAND BAPTIZED. King Olaf took a falcon that belonged to Astrid, plucked off all its feathers, and then sent it to her. Then said Astrid, "Angry is my brother." And she stood up, and went to the king, who received her kindly, and she said that she left it to the king to determine her marriage. "I think," said the king, "that I must have power enough in this land to raise any man I please to high dignity." Then the king ordered Olmod and Erling to be called to a conference, and all their relations; and the marriage was determined upon, and Astrid betrothed to Erling. Thereafter the king held the Thing, and recommended Christianity to the bondes; and as Olmod, and Erling, and all their relations, took upon themselves the most active part in forwarding the king's desire, nobody dared to speak against it; and all the people were baptized, and adopted Christianity. 64. ERLING SKJALGSON'S WEDDING. Erling Skjalgson had his wedding in summer, and a great many people were assembled at it. King Olaf was also there, and offered Erling an earldom. Erling replied thus: "All my relations have been herses only, and I will take no higher title than they have; but this I will accept from thee, king, that thou makest me the greatest of that title in the country." The king consented; and at his departure the king invested his brother-in law Erling with all the land north of the Sognefjord, and east to the Lidandisnes, on the same terms as Harald Harfager had given land to his sons, as before related. 65. RAUMSDAL AND FJORD-DISTRICTS BAPTIZED. The same harvest King Olaf summoned the bondes to a Thing of the four districts at Dragseid, in Stad: and there the people from Sogn, the Fjord-districts, South More, and Raumsdal, were summoned to meet. King Olaf came there with a great many people who had followed him from the eastward, and also with those who had joined him from Rogaland and Hordaland. When the king came to the Thing, he proposed to them there, as elsewhere, Christianity; and as the king had such a powerful host with him, they were frightened. The king offered them two conditions,--either to accept Christianity, or to fight. But the bondes saw they were in no condition to fight the king, and resolved, therefore, that all the people should agree to be baptized. The king proceeded afterwards to North More, and baptized all that district. He then sailed to Hlader, in Throndhjem; had the temple there razed to the ground; took all the ornaments and all property out of the temple, and from the gods in it; and among other things the great gold ring which Earl Hakon had ordered to be made, and which hung in the door of the temple; and then had the temple burnt. But when the bondes heard of this, they sent out a war-arrow as a token through the whole district, ordering out a warlike force, and intended to meet the king with it. In the meantime King Olaf sailed with a war force out of the fjord along the coast northward, intending to proceed to Halogaland, and baptize there. When he came north to Bjarnaurar, he heard from Halogaland that a force was assembled there to defend the country against the king. The chiefs of this force were Harek of Thjotta, Thorer Hjort from Vagar, and Eyvind Kinrifa. Now when King Olaf heard this, he turned about and sailed southwards along the land; and when he got south of Stad proceeded at his leisure, and came early in winter (A.D. 998) all the way east to Viken. 66. OLAF PROPOSES MARRIAGE TO QUEEN SIGRID. Queen Sigrid in Svithjod, who had for surname the Haughty, sat in her mansion, and during the same winter messengers went between King Olaf and Sigrid to propose his courtship to her, and she had no objection; and the matter was fully and fast resolved upon. Thereupon King Olaf sent to Queen Sigrid the great gold ring he had taken from the temple door of Hlader, which was considered a distinguished ornament. The meeting for concluding the business was appointed to be in spring on the frontier, at the Gaut river. Now the ring which King Olaf had sent Queen Sigrid was highly prized by all men; yet the queen's gold-smiths, two brothers, who took the ring in their hands, and weighed it, spoke quietly to each other about it, and in a manner that made the queen call them to her, and ask "what they smiled at?" But they would not say a word, and she commanded them to say what it was they had discovered. Then they said the ring is false. Upon this she ordered the ring to be broken into pieces, and it was found to be copper inside. Then the queen was enraged, and said that Olaf would deceive her in more ways than this one. In the same year (A.D. 998) King Olaf went into Ringenke, and there the people also were baptized. 67. OLAF HARALDSON BAPTIZED. Asta, the daughter of Gudbrand, soon after the fall of Harald Grenske married again a man who was called Sigurd Syr, who was a king in Ringerike. Sigurd was a son of Halfdan, and grandson of Sigurd Hrise, who was a son of Harald Harfager. Olaf, the son of Asta and Harald Grenske, lived with Asta, and was brought up from childhood in the house of his stepfather, Sigurd Syr. Now when King Olaf Trygvason came to Ringerike to spread Christianity, Sigurd Syr and his wife allowed themselves to be baptized, along with Olaf her son; and Olaf Trygvason was godfather to Olaf, the stepson of Harald Grenske. Olaf was then three years old. Olaf returned from thence to Viken, where he remained all winter. He had now been three years king in Norway (A.D. 998). 68. MEETING OF OLAF AND SIGRID. Early in spring (A.D. 998) King Olaf went eastwards to Konungahella to the meeting with Queen Sigrid; and when they met the business was considered about which the winter before they had held communication, namely, their marriage; and the business seemed likely to be concluded. But when Olaf insisted that Sigrid should let herself be baptized, she answered thus:--"I must not part from the faith which I have held, and my forefathers before me; and, on the other hand, I shall make no objection to your believing in the god that pleases you best." Then King Olaf was enraged, and answered in a passion, "Why should I care to have thee, an old faded woman, and a heathen jade?" and therewith struck her in the face with his glove which he held in his hands, rose up, and they parted. Sigrid said, "This may some day be thy death." The king set off to Viken, the queen to Svithjod. 69. THE BURNING OF WARLOCKS. Then the king proceeded to Tunsberg, and held a Thing, at which he declared in a speech that all the men of whom it should be known to a certainty that they dealt with evil spirits, or in witchcraft, or were sorcerers, should be banished forth of the land. Thereafter the king had all the neighborhood ransacked after such people, and called them all before him; and when they were brought to the Thing there was a man among them called Eyvind Kelda, a grandson of Ragnvald Rettilbeine, Harald Harfager's son. Eyvind was a sorcerer, and particularly knowing in witchcraft. The king let all these men be seated in one room, which was well adorned, and made a great feast for them, and gave them strong drink in plenty. Now when they were all very drunk, he ordered the house be set on fire, and it and all the people within it were consumed, all but Eyvind Kelda, who contrived to escape by the smoke-hole in the roof. And when he had got a long way off, he met some people on the road going to the king, and he told them to tell the king that Eyvind Kelda had slipped away from the fire, and would never come again in King Olaf's power, but would carry on his arts of witchcraft as much as ever. When the people came to the king with such a message from Eyvind, the king was ill pleased that Eyvind had escaped death. 70. EYVIND KELDA'S DEATH. When spring (A.D. 998) came King Olaf went out to Viken, and was on visits to his great farms. He sent notice over all Viken that he would call out an army in summer, and proceed to the north parts of the country. Then he went north to Agder; and when Easter was approaching he took the road to Rogaland with 300 (=360) men, and came on Easter evening north to Ogvaldsnes, in Kormt Island, where an Easter feast was prepared for him. That same night came Eyvind Kelda to the island with a well-manned long-ship, of which the whole crew consisted of sorcerers and other dealers with evil spirits. Eyvind went from his ship to the land with his followers, and there they played many of their pranks of witchcraft. Eyvind clothed them with caps of darkness, and so thick a mist that the king and his men could see nothing of them; but when they came near to the house at Ogvaldsnes, it became clear day. Then it went differently from what Eyvind had intended: for now there came just such a darkness over him and his comrades in witchcraft as they had made before, so that they could see no more from their eyes than from the back of their heads but went round and round in a circle upon the island. When the king's watchman saw them going about, without knowing what people these were, they told the king. Thereupon he rose up with his people, put on his clothes, and when he saw Eyvind with his men wandering about he ordered his men to arm, and examine what folk these were. The king's men discovered it was Eyvind, took him and all his company prisoners, and brought them to the king. Eyvind now told all he had done on his journey. Then the king ordered these all to be taken out to a skerry which was under water in flood tide, and there to be left bound. Eyvind and all with him left their lives on this rock, and the skerry is still called Skrattasker. 71. OLAF AND ODIN'S APPARITION. It is related that once on a time King Olaf was at a feast at this Ogvaldsnes, and one eventide there came to him an old man very gifted in words, and with a broad-brimmed hat upon his head. He was one-eyed, and had something to tell of every land. He entered into conversation with the king; and as the king found much pleasure in the guest's speech, he asked him concerning many things, to which the guest gave good answers: and the king sat up late in the evening. Among other things, the king asked him if he knew who the Ogvald had been who had given his name both to the ness and to the house. The guest replied, that this Ogvald was a king, and a very valiant man, and that he made great sacrifices to a cow which he had with him wherever he went, and considered it good for his health to drink her milk. This same King Ogvald had a battle with a king called Varin, in which battle Ogvald fell. He was buried under a mound close to the house; "and there stands his stone over him, and close to it his cow also is laid." Such and many other things, and ancient events, the king inquired after. Now, when the king had sat late into the night, the bishop reminded him that it was time to go to bed, and the king did so. But after the king was undressed, and had laid himself in bed, the guest sat upon the foot-stool before the bed, and still spoke long with the king; for after one tale was ended, he still wanted a new one. Then the bishop observed to the king, it was time to go to sleep, and the king did so; and the guest went out. Soon after the king awoke, asked for the guest, and ordered him to be called, but the guest was not to be found. The morning after, the king ordered his cook and cellar-master to be called, and asked if any strange person had been with them. They said, that as they were making ready the meat a man came to them, and observed that they were cooking very poor meat for the king's table; whereupon he gave them two thick and fat pieces of beef, which they boiled with the rest of the meat. Then the king ordered that all the meat should be thrown away, and said this man can be no other than the Odin whom the heathens have so long worshipped; and added, "but Odin shall not deceive us." 72. THE THING IN THRONDHJEM. King Olaf collected a great army in the east of the country towards summer, and sailed with it north to Nidaros in the Throndhjem country. From thence he sent a message-token over all the fjord, calling the people of eight different districts to a Thing; but the bondes changed the Thing-token into a war-token; and called together all men, free and unfree, in all the Throndhjem land. Now when the king met the Thing, the whole people came fully armed. After the Thing was seated, the king spoke, and invited them to adopt Christianity; but he had only spoken a short time when the bondes called out to him to be silent, or they would attack him and drive him away. "We did so," said they, "with Hakon foster-son of Athelstan, when he brought us the same message, and we held him in quite as much respect as we hold thee." When King Olaf saw how incensed the bondes were, and that they had such a war force that he could make no resistance, he turned his speech as if he would give way to the bondes, and said, "I wish only to be in a good understanding with you as of old; and I will come to where ye hold your greatest sacrifice-festival, and see your customs, and thereafter we shall consider which to hold by." And in this all agreed; and as the king spoke mildly and friendly with the bondes, their answer was appeased, and their conference with the king went off peacefully. At the close of it a midsummer sacrifice was fixed to take place in Maeren, and all chiefs and great bondes to attend it as usual. The king was to be at it. 73. JARNSKEGGE OR IRON BEARD. There was a great bonde called Skegge, and sometimes Jarnskegge, or Iron Beard, who dwelt in Uphaug in Yrjar. He spoke first at the Thing to Olaf; and was the foremost man of the bondes in speaking against Christianity. The Thing was concluded in this way for that time,--the bondes returned home, and the king went to Hlader. 74. THE FEAST AT HLADER. King Olaf lay with his ships in the river Nid, and had thirty vessels, which were manned with many brave people; but the king himself was often at Hlader, with his court attendants. As the time now was approaching at which the sacrifices should be made at Maeren, the king prepared a great feast at Hlader, and sent a message to the districts of Strind, Gaulardal, and out to Orkadal, to invite the chiefs and other great bondes. When the feast was ready, and the chiefs assembled, there was a handsome entertainment the first evening, at which plenty of liquor went round, and the guests were made very drunk. The night after they all slept in peace. The following morning, when the king was dressed, he had the early mass sung before him; and when the mass was over, ordered to sound the trumpets for a House Thing: upon which all his men left the ships to come up to the Thing. When the Thing was seated, the king stood up, and spoke thus: "We held a Thing at Frosta, and there I invited the bondes to allow themselves to be baptized; but they, on the other hand, invited me to offer sacrifice to their gods, as King Hakon, Athelstan's foster-son, had done; and thereafter it was agreed upon between us that we should meet at Maerin, and there make a great sacrifice. Now if I, along with you, shall turn again to making sacrifice, then will I make the greatest of sacrifices that are in use; and I will sacrifice men. But I will not select slaves or malefactors for this, but will take the greatest men only to be offered to the gods; and for this I select Orm Lygra of Medalhus, Styrkar of Gimsar, Kar of Gryting, Asbjorn Thorbergson of Varnes, Orm of Lyxa, Haldor of Skerdingsstedja;" and besides these he named five others of the principal men. All these, he said, he would offer in sacrifice to the gods for peace and a fruitful season; and ordered them to be laid hold of immediately. Now when the bondes saw that they were not strong enough to make head against the king, they asked for peace, and submitted wholly to the king's pleasure. So it was settled that all the bondes who had come there should be baptized, and should take an oath to the king to hold by the right faith, and to renounce sacrifice to the gods. The king then kept all these men as hostages who came to his feast, until they sent him their sons, brothers, or other near relations. 75. OF THE THING IN THRONDHJEM. King Olaf went in with all his forces into the Throndhjem country; and when he came to Maeren all among the chiefs of the Throndhjem people who were most opposed to Christianity were assembled, and had with them all the great bondes who had before made sacrifice at that place. There was thus a greater multitude of bondes than there had been at the Frosta-Thing. Now the king let the people be summoned to the Thing, where both parties met armed; and when the Thing was seated the king made a speech, in which he told the people to go over to Christianity. Jarnskegge replies on the part of the bondes, and says that the will of the bondes is now, as formerly, that the king should not break their laws. "We want, king," said he, "that thou shouldst offer sacrifice, as other kings before thee have done." All the bondes applauded his speech with a loud shout, and said they would have all things according to what Skegge said. Then the king said he would go into the temple of their gods with them, and see what the practices were when they sacrificed. The bondes thought well of this proceeding, and both parties went to the temple. 76. THE THRONDHJEM PEOPLE BAPTIZED. Now King Olaf entered into the temple with some few of his men and a few bondes; and when the king came to where their gods were, Thor, as the most considered among their gods, sat there adorned with gold and silver. The king lifted up his gold-inlaid axe which he carried in his hands, and struck Thor so that the image rolled down from its seat. Then the king's men turned to and threw down all the gods from their seats; and while the king was in the temple, Jarnskegge was killed outside of the temple doors, and the king's men did it. When the king came forth out of the temple he offered the bondes two conditions,--that all should accept of Christianity forthwith, or that they should fight with him. But as Skegge was killed, there was no leader in the bondes' army to raise the banner against King Olaf; so they took the other condition, to surrender to the king's will and obey his order. Then King Olaf had all the people present baptized, and took hostages from them for their remaining true to Christianity; and he sent his men round to every district, and no man in the Throndhjem country opposed Christianity, but all people took baptism. 77. A TOWN IN THE THRONDHJEM COUNTRY. King Olaf with his people went out to Nidaros, and made houses on the flat side of the river Nid, which he raised to be a merchant town, and gave people ground to build houses upon. The king's house he had built just opposite Skipakrok; and he transported thither, in harvest, all that was necessary for his winter residence, and had many people about him there. 78. KING OLAF'S MARRIAGE. King Olaf appointed a meeting with the relations of Jarnskegge, and offered them the compensation or penalty for his bloodshed; for there were many bold men who had an interest in that business. Jarnskegge had a daughter called Gudrun; and at last it was agreed upon between the parties that the king should take her in marriage. When the wedding day came King Olaf and Gudrun went to bed together. As soon as Gudrun, the first night they lay together, thought the king was asleep, she drew a knife, with which she intended to run him through; but the king saw it, took the knife from her, got out of bed, and went to his men, and told them what had happened. Gudrun also took her clothes, and went away along with all her men who had followed her thither. Gudrun never came into the king's bed again. 79. BUILDING OF THE SHIP CRANE. The same autumn (A.D. 998) King Olaf laid the keel of a great long-ship out on the strand at the river Nid. It was a snekkja; and he employed many carpenters upon her, so that early in winter the vessel was ready. It had thirty benches for rowers, was high in stem and stern, but was not broad. The king called this ship Tranen (the Crane). After Jarnskegge's death his body was carried to Yrjar, and lies there in the Skegge mound on Austrat. 80. THANGBRAND THE PRIEST GOES TO ICELAND. When King Olaf Trygvason had been two years king of Norway (A.D. 997), there was a Saxon priest in his house who was called Thangbrand, a passionate, ungovernable man, and a great man-slayer; but he was a good scholar, and a clever man. The king would not have him in his house upon account of his misdeeds; but gave him the errand to go to Iceland, and bring that land to the Christian faith. The king gave him a merchant vessel: and, as far as we know of this voyage of his, he landed first in Iceland at Austfjord in the southern Alptfjord, and passed the winter in the house of Hal of Sida. Thangbrand proclaimed Christianity in Iceland, and on his persuasion Hal and all his house people, and many other chiefs, allowed themselves to be baptized; but there were many more who spoke against it. Thorvald Veile and Veterlide the skald composed a satire about Thangbrand; but he killed them both outright. Thangbrand was two years in Iceland, and was the death of three men before he left it. 81. OF SIGURD AND HAUK. There was a man called Sigurd, and another called Hauk, both of Halogaland, who often made merchant voyages. One summer (A.D. 998) they had made a voyage westward to England; and when they came back to Norway they sailed northwards along the coast, and at North More they met King Olaf's people. When it was told the king that some Halogaland people were come who were heathen, he ordered the steersmen to be brought to him, and he asked them if they would consent to be baptized; to which they replied, no. The king spoke with them in many ways, but to no purpose. He then threatened them with death and torture: but they would not allow themselves to be moved. He then had them laid in irons, and kept them in chains in his house for some time, and often conversed with them, but in vain. At last one night they disappeared, without any man being able to conjecture how they got away. But about harvest they came north to Harek of Thjotta, who received them kindly, and with whom they stopped all winter (A.D. 999), and were hospitably entertained. 82. OF HAREK OF THJOTTA. It happened one good-weather day in spring (A.D. 999) that Harek was at home in his house with only few people, and time hung heavy on his hands. Sigurd asked him if he would row a little for amusement. Harek was willing; and they went to the shore, and drew down a six-oared skiff; and Sigurd took the mast and rigging belonging to the boat out of the boat-house, for they often used to sail when they went for amusement on the water. Harek went out into the boat to hang the rudder. The brothers Sigurd and Hauk, who were very strong men, were fully armed, as they were used to go about at home among the peasants. Before they went out to the boat they threw into her some butter-kits and a bread-chest, and carried between them a great keg of ale. When they had rowed a short way from the island the brothers hoisted the sail, while Harek was seated at the helm; and they sailed away from the island. Then the two brothers went aft to where Harek the bonde was sitting; and Sigurd says to him, "Now thou must choose one of these conditions,--first, that we brothers direct this voyage; or, if not, that we bind thee fast and take the command; or, third, that we kill thee." Harek saw how matters stood with him. As a single man, he was not better than one of those brothers, even if he had been as well armed; so it appeared to him wisest to let them determine the course to steer, and bound himself by oath to abide by this condition. On this Sigurd took the helm, and steered south along the land, the brothers taking particular care that they did not encounter people. The wind was very favourable; and they held on sailing along until they came south to Throndhjem and to Nidaros, where they found the king. Then the king called Harek to him, and in a conference desired him to be baptized. Harek made objections; and although the king and Harek talked over it many times, sometimes in the presence of other people, and sometimes alone, they could not agree upon it. At last the king says to Harek, "Now thou mayst return home, and I will do thee no injury; partly because we are related together, and partly that thou mayst not have it to say that I caught thee by a trick: but know for certain that I intend to come north next summer to visit you Halogalanders, and ye shall then see if I am not able to punish those who reject Christianity." Harek was well pleased to get away as fast as he could. King Olaf gave Harek a good boat of ten or twelve pair of oars, and let it be fitted out with the best of everything needful; and besides he gave Harek thirty men, all lads of mettle, and well appointed. 83. EYVIND KINRIFA'S DEATH. Harek of Thjotta went away from the town as fast as he could; but Hauk and Sigurd remained in the king's house, and both took baptism. Harek pursued his voyage until he came to Thjotta. He sent immediately a message to his friend Eyvind Kinrifa, with the word that he had been with King Olaf; but would not let himself be cowed down to accept Christianity. The message at the same time informed him that King Olaf intended coming to the north in summer against them, and they must be at their posts to defend themselves; it also begged Eyvind to come and visit him, the sooner the better. When this message was delivered to Eyvind, he saw how very necessary it was to devise some counsel to avoid falling into the king's hands. He set out, therefore, in a light vessel with a few hands as fast as he could. When he came to Thjotta he was received by Harek in the most friendly way, and they immediately entered into conversation with each other behind the house. When they had spoken together but a short time, King Olaf's men, who had secretly followed Harek to the north, came up, and took Eyvind prisoner, and carried him away to their ship. They did not halt on their voyage until they came to Throndhjem, and presented themselves to King Olaf at Nidaros. Then Eyvind was brought up to a conference with the king, who asked him to allow himself to be baptized, like other people; but Eyvind decidedly answered he would not. The king still, with persuasive words, urged him to accept Christianity, and both he and the bishop used many suitable arguments; but Eyvind would not allow himself to be moved. The king offered him gifts and great fiefs, but Eyvind refused all. Then the king threatened him with tortures and death, but Eyvind was steadfast. Then the king ordered a pan of glowing coals to be placed upon Eyvind's belly, which burst asunder. Eyvind cried, "Take away the pan, and I will say something before I die," which also was done. The king said, "Wilt thou now, Eyvind, believe in Christ?" "No," said Eyvind, "I can take no baptism; for I am an evil spirit put into a man's body by the sorcery of Fins because in no other way could my father and mother have a child." With that died Eyvind, who had been one of the greatest sorcerers. 84. HALOGALAND MADE CHRISTIAN. The spring after (A.D. 999) King Olaf fitted out and manned his ships, and commanded himself his ship the Crane. He had many and smart people with him; and when he was ready, he sailed northwards with his fleet past Bryda, and to Halogaland. Wheresoever he came to the land, or to the islands, he held a Thing, and told the people to accept the right faith, and to be baptized. No man dared to say anything against it, and the whole country he passed through was made Christian. King Olaf was a guest in the house of Harek of Thjotta, who was baptized with all his people. At parting the king gave Harek good presents; and he entered into the king's service, and got fiefs, and the privileges of lendsman from the king. 85. THORER HJORT'S DEATH. There was a bonde, by name Raud the Strong, who dwelt in Godey in Salten fjord. Raud was a very rich man, who had many house servants; and likewise was a powerful man, who had many Fins in his service when he wanted them. Raud was a great idolater, and very skillful in witchcraft, and was a great friend of Thorer Hjort, before spoken of. Both were great chiefs. Now when they heard that King Olaf was coming with a great force from the south to Halogaland, they gathered together an army, ordered out ships, and they too had a great force on foot. Raud had a large ship with a gilded head formed like a dragon, which ship had thirty rowing benches, and even for that kind of ship was very large. Thorer Hjort had also a large ship. These men sailed southwards with their ships against King Olaf, and as soon as they met gave battle. A great battle there was, and a great fall of men; but principally on the side of the Halogalanders, whose ships were cleared of men, so that a great terror came upon them. Raud rode with his dragon out to sea, and set sail. Raud had always a fair wind wheresoever he wished to sail, which came from his arts of witchcraft; and, to make a short story, he came home to Godey. Thorer Hjort fled from the ships up to the land: but King Olaf landed people, followed those who fled, and killed them. Usually the king was the foremost in such skirmishes, and was so now. When the king saw where Thorer Hjort, who was quicker on foot than any man, was running to, he ran after him with his dog Vige. The king said, "Vige! Vige! Catch the deer." Vige ran straight in upon him; on which Thorer halted, and the king threw a spear at him. Thorer struck with his sword at the dog, and gave him a great wound; but at the same moment the king's spear flew under Thorer's arm, and went through and through him, and came out at his other-side. There Thorer left his life; but Vige was carried to the ships. 86. KING OLAF'S VOYAGE TO GODEY. King Olaf gave life and freedom to all the men who asked it and agreed to become Christian. King Olaf sailed with his fleet northwards along the coast, and baptized all the people among whom he came; and when he came north to Salten fjord, he intended to sail into it to look for Raud, but a dreadful tempest and storm was raging in the fjord. They lay there a whole week, in which the same weather was raging within the fjord, while without there was a fine brisk wind only, fair for proceeding north along the land. Then the king continued his voyage north to Omd, where all the people submitted to Christianity. Then the king turned about and sailed to the south again; but when he came to the north side of Salten fjord, the same tempest was blowing, and the sea ran high out from the fjord, and the same kind of storm prevailed for several days while the king was lying there. Then the king applied to Bishop Sigurd, and asked him if he knew any counsel about it; and the bishop said he would try if God would give him power to conquer these arts of the Devil. 87. OF RAUD'S BEING TORTURED. Bishop Sigurd took all his mass robes and went forward to the bow of the king's ship; ordered tapers to be lighted, and incense to be brought out. Then he set the crucifix upon the stem of the vessel, read the Evangelist and many prayers, besprinkled the whole ship with holy water, and then ordered the ship-tent to be stowed away, and to row into the fjord. The king ordered all the other ships to follow him. Now when all was ready on board the Crane to row, she went into the fjord without the rowers finding any wind; and the sea was curled about their keel track like as in a calm, so quiet and still was the water; yet on each side of them the waves were lashing up so high that they hid the sight of the mountains. And so the one ship followed the other in the smooth sea track; and they proceeded this way the whole day and night, until they reached Godey. Now when they came to Raud's house his great ship, the dragon, was afloat close to the land. King Olaf went up to the house immediately with his people; made an attack on the loft in which Raud was sleeping, and broke it open. The men rushed in: Raud was taken and bound, and of the people with him some were killed and some made prisoners. Then the king's men went to a lodging in which Raud's house servants slept, and killed some, bound others, and beat others. Then the king ordered Raud to be brought before him, and offered him baptism. "And," says the king, "I will not take thy property from thee, but rather be thy friend, if thou wilt make thyself worthy to be so." Raud exclaimed with all his might against the proposal, saying he would never believe in Christ, and making his scoff of God. Then the king was wroth, and said Raud should die the worst of deaths. And the king ordered him to be bound to a beam of wood, with his face uppermost, and a round pin of wood set between his teeth to force his mouth open. Then the king ordered an adder to be stuck into the mouth of him; but the serpent would not go into his mouth, but shrunk back when Raud breathed against it. Now the king ordered a hollow branch of an angelica root to be stuck into Raud's mouth; others say the king put his horn into his mouth, and forced the serpent to go in by holding a red-hot iron before the opening. So the serpent crept into the mouth of Raud and down his throat, and gnawed its way out of his side; and thus Raud perished. King Olaf took here much gold and silver, and other property of weapons, and many sorts of precious effects; and all the men who were with Raud he either had baptized, or if they refused had them killed or tortured. Then the king took the dragonship which Raud had owned, and steered it himself; for it was a much larger and handsomer vessel than the Crane. In front it had a dragon's head, and aft a crook, which turned up, and ended with the figure of the dragon's tail. The carved work on each side of the stem and stern was gilded. This ship the king called the Serpent. When the sails were hoisted they represented, as it were, the dragon's wings; and the ship was the handsomest in all Norway. The islands on which Raud dwelt were called Gylling and Haering; but the whole islands together were called Godey Isles, and the current between the isles and the mainland the Godey Stream. King Olaf baptized the whole people of the fjord, and then sailed southwards along the land; and on this voyage happened much and various things, which are set down in tales and sagas,--namely, how witches and evil spirits tormented his men, and sometimes himself; but we will rather write about what occurred when King Olaf made Norway Christian, or in the other countries in which he advanced Christianity. The same autumn Olaf with his fleet returned to Throndhjem, and landed at Nidaros, where he took up his winter abode. What I am now going to write about concerns the Icelanders. 88. OF THE ICELANDERS. Kjartan Olafson, a son's son of Hoskuld, and a daughter's son of Egil Skallagrimson, came the same autumn (A.D. 999) from Iceland to Nidaros, and he was considered to be the most agreeable and hopeful man of any born in Iceland. There was also Haldor, a son of Gudmund of Modruveller; and Kolbein, a son of Thord, Frey's gode, and a brother's son of Brennuflose; together with Sverting, a son of the gode Runolf. All these were heathens; and besides them there were many more,--some men of power, others common men of no property. There came also from Iceland considerable people, who, by Thangbrand's help, had been made Christians; namely, Gissur the white, a son of Teit Ketilbjornson; and his mother was Alof, daughter of herse Bodvar, who was the son of Vikingakare. Bodvar's brother was Sigurd, father of Eirik Bjodaskalle, whose daughter Astrid was King Olaf's mother. Hjalte Skeggjason was the name of another Iceland man, who was married to Vilborg, Gissur the White's daughter. Hjalte was also a Christian; and King Olaf was very friendly to his relations Gissur and Hjalte, who live with him. But the Iceland men who directed the ships, and were heathens, tried to sail away as soon as the king came to the town of Nidaros, for they were told the king forced all men to become Christians; but the wind came stiff against them, and drove them back to Nidarholm. They who directed the ships were Thorarin Nefjulson, the skald Halfred Ottarson, Brand the Generous, and Thorleik, Brand's son. It was told the king that there were Icelanders with ships there, and all were heathen, and wanted to fly from a meeting with the king. Then the king sent them a message forbidding them to sail, and ordering them to bring their ships up to the town, which they did, but without discharging the cargoes. (They carried on their dealings and held a market at the king's pier. In spring they tried three times to slip away, but never succeeded; so they continued lying at the king's pier. It happened one fine day that many set out to swim for amusement, and among them was a man who distinguished himself above the others in all bodily exercises. Kjartan challenged Halfred Vandredaskald to try himself in swimming against this man, but he declined it. "Then will I make a trial," said Kjartan, casting off his clothes, and springing into the water. Then he set after the man, seizes hold of his foot, and dives with him under water. They come up again, and without speaking a word dive again, and are much longer under water than the first time. They come up again, and without saying a word dive a third time, until Kjartan thought it was time to come up again, which, however, he could in no way accomplish, which showed sufficiently the difference in their strength. They were under water so long that Kjartan was almost drowned. They then came up, and swam to land. This Northman asked what the Icelander's name was. Kjartan tells his name. He says, "Thou art a good swimmer; but art thou expert also in other exercises?" Kjartan replied, that such expertness was of no great value. The Northman asks, "Why dost thou not inquire of me such things as I have asked thee about?" Kjartan replies, "It is all one to me who thou art, or what thy name is." "Then will I," says he, "tell thee: I am Olaf Trygvason." He asked Kjartan much about Iceland, which he answered generally, and wanted to withdraw as hastily as he could; but the king said, "Here is a cloak which I will give thee, Kjartan." And Kjartan took the cloak with many thanks.) (1) ENDNOTES: (1) The part included in parenthesis is not found in the original text of "Heimskringla", but taken from "Codex Frisianus". 89. BAPTISM OF THE ICELANDERS. When Michaelmas came, the king had high mass sung with great splendour. The Icelanders went there, listening to the fine singing and the sound of the bells; and when they came back to their ships every man told his opinion of the Christian man's worship. Kjartan expressed his pleasure at it, but most of the others scoffed at it; and it went according to the proverb, "the king had many ears," for this was told to the king. He sent immediately that very day a message to Kjartan to come to him. Kjartan went with some men, and the king received him kindly. Kjartan was a very stout and handsome man, and of ready and agreeable speech. After the king and Kjartan had conversed a little, the king asked him to adopt Christianity. Kjartan replies, that he would not say no to that, if he thereby obtained the king's friendship; and as the king promised him the fullest friendship, they were soon agreed. The next day Kjartan was baptized, together with his relation Bolle Thorlakson, and all their fellow-travelers. Kjartan and Bolle were the king's guests as long as they were in their white baptismal clothes, and the king had much kindness for them. Wherever they came they were looked upon as people of distinction. 90. HALFRED VANDREDASKALD BAPTIZED. As King Olaf one day was walking in the street some men met him, and he who went the foremost saluted the king. The king asked the man his name, and he called himself Halfred. "Art thou the skald?" said the king. "I can compose poetry," replied he. "Wilt thou then adopt Christianity, and come into my service?" asked the king. "If I am baptized," replies he, "it must be on one condition,--that thou thyself art my godfather; for no other will I have." The king replies, "That I will do." And Halfred was baptized, the king holding him during the baptism. Afterwards the king said, "Wilt thou enter into my service?" Halfred replied, "I was formerly in Earl Hakon's court; but now I will neither enter into thine nor into any other service, unless thou promise me it shall never be my lot to be driven away from thee." "It has been reported to me," said the king, "that thou are neither so prudent nor so obedient as to fulfil my commands." "In that case," replied Halfred, "put me to death." "Thou art a skald who composes difficulties," says the king; "but into my service, Halfred, thou shalt be received." Halfred says, "if I am to be named the composer of difficulties, what cost thou give me, king, on my name-day?" The king gave him a sword without a scabbard, and said, "Now compose me a song upon this sword, and let the word sword be in every line of the strophe." Halfred sang thus: "This sword of swords is my reward. For him who knows to wield a sword, And with his sword to serve his lord, Yet wants a sword, his lot is hard. I would I had my good lord's leave For this good sword a sheath to choose: I'm worth three swords when men use, But for the sword-sheath now I grieve." Then the king gave him the scabbard, observing that the word sword was wanting in one line of his strophe. "But there instead are three swords in one of the lines," says Halfred. "That is true," replies the king.--Out of Halfred's lays we have taken the most of the true and faithful accounts that are here related about Olaf Trygvason. 91. THANGBRAND RETURNS FROM ICELAND. The same harvest (A.D. 999) Thangbrand the priest came back from Iceland to King Olaf, and told the ill success of his journey; namely, that the Icelanders had made lampoons about him; and that some even sought to kill him, and there was little hope of that country ever being made Christian. King Olaf was so enraged at this, that he ordered all the Icelanders to be assembled by sound of horn, and was going to kill all who were in the town, but Kjartan, Gissur, and Hjalte, with the other Icelanders who had become Christians, went to him, and said, "King, thou must not fail from thy word--that however much any man may irritate thee, thou wilt forgive him if he turn from heathenism and become Christian. All the Icelanders here are willing to be baptized; and through them we may find means to bring Christianity into Iceland: for there are many amongst them, sons of considerable people in Iceland, whose friends can advance the cause; but the priest Thangbrand proceeded there as he did here in the court, with violence and manslaughter, and such conduct the people there would not submit to." The king harkened to those remonstrances; and all the Iceland men who were there were baptized. 92. OF KING OLAF'S FEATS. King Olaf was more expert in all exercises than any man in Norway whose memory is preserved to us in sagas; and he was stronger and more agile than most men, and many stories are written down about it. One is that he ascended the Smalsarhorn, and fixed his shield upon the very peak. Another is, that one of his followers had climbed up the peak after him, until he came to where he could neither get up nor down; but the king came to his help, climbed up to him, took him under his arm, and bore him to the flat ground. King Olaf could run across the oars outside of the vessel while his men were rowing the Serpent. He could play with three daggers, so that one was always in the air, and he took the one falling by the handle. He could walk all round upon the ship's rails, could strike and cut equally well with both hands, and could cast two spears at once. King Olaf was a very merry frolicsome man; gay and social; was very violent in all respects; was very generous; was very finical in his dress, but in battle he exceeded all in bravery. He was distinguished for cruelty when he was enraged, and tortured many of his enemies. Some he burnt in fire; some he had torn in pieces by mad dogs; some he had mutilated, or cast down from high precipices. On this account his friends were attached to him warmly, and his enemies feared him greatly; and thus he made such a fortunate advance in his undertakings, for some obeyed his will out of the friendliest zeal, and others out of dread. 93. BAPTISM OF LEIF EIRIKSON. Leif, a son of Eirik the Red, who first settled in Greenland, came this summer (A.D. 999) from Greenland to Norway; and as he met King Olaf he adopted Christianity, and passed the winter (A.D. 1000) with the king. 94. FALL OF KING GUDROD. Gudrod, a son of Eirik Bloodaxe and Gunhild, had been ravaging in the west countries ever since he fled from Norway before the Earl Hakon. But the summer before mentioned (A.D. 999), where King Olaf Trygvason had ruled four years over Norway, Gudrod came to the country, and had many ships of war with him. He had sailed from England; and when he thought himself near to the Norway coast, he steered south along the land, to the quarter where it was least likely King Olaf would be. Gudrod sailed in this way south to Viken; and as soon as he came to the land he began to plunder, to subject the people to him, and to demand that they should accept of him as king. Now as the country people saw that a great army was come upon them, they desired peace and terms. They offered King Gudrod to send a Thing-message over all the country, and to accept of him at the Thing as king, rather than suffer from his army; but they desired delay until a fixed day, while the token of the Thing's assembling was going round through the land. The king demanded maintenance during the time this delay lasted. The bondes preferred entertaining the king as a guest, by turns, as long as he required it; and the king accepted of the proposal to go about with some of his men as a guest from place to place in the land, while others of his men remained to guard the ships. When King Olaf's relations, Hyrning and Thorgeir, heard of this, they gathered men, fitted out ships, and went northwards to Viken. They came in the night with their men to a place at which King Gudrod was living as a guest, and attacked him with fire and weapons; and there King Gudrod fell, and most of his followers. Of those who were with his ships some were killed, some slipped away and fled to great distances; and now were all the sons of Eirik and Gunhild dead. 95. BUILDING OF THE SHIP LONG SERPENT. The winter after, King Olaf came from Halogaland (A.D. 1000), he had a great vessel built at Hladhamrar, which was larger than any ship in the country, and of which the beam-knees are still to be seen. The length of keel that rested upon the grass was seventy-four ells. Thorberg Skafhog was the man's name who was the master-builder of the ship; but there were many others besides,--some to fell wood, some to shape it, some to make nails, some to carry timber; and all that was used was of the best. The ship was both long and broad and high-sided, and strongly timbered. While they were planking the ship, it happened that Thorberg had to go home to his farm upon some urgent business; and as he remained there a long time, the ship was planked up on both sides when he came back. In the evening the king went out, and Thorberg with him, to see how the vessel looked, and everybody said that never was seen so large and so beautiful a ship of war. Then the king returned to the town. Early next morning the king returns again to the ship, and Thorberg with him. The carpenters were there before them, but all were standing idle with their arms across. The king asked, "what was the matter?" They said the ship was destroyed; for somebody had gone from, stem to stern, and cut one deep notch after the other down the one side of the planking. When the king came nearer he saw it was so, and said, with an oath, "The man shall die who has thus destroyed the vessel out of envy, if he can be discovered, and I shall bestow a great reward on whoever finds him out." "I can tell you, king," said Thorberg, "who has done this piece of work."-- "I don't think," replies the king, "that any one is so likely to find it out as thou art." Thorberg says, "I will tell you, king, who did it. I did it myself." The king says, "Thou must restore it all to the same condition as before, or thy life shall pay for it." Then Thorberg went and chipped the planks until the deep notches were all smoothed and made even with the rest; and the king and all present declared that the ship was much handsomer on the side of the hull which Thorberg, had chipped, and bade him shape the other side in the same way; and gave him great thanks for the improvement. Afterwards Thorberg was the master builder of the ship until she was entirely finished. The ship was a dragon, built after the one the king had captured in Halogaland; but this ship was far larger, and more carefully put together in all her parts. The king called this ship Serpent the Long, and the other Serpent the Short. The long Serpent had thirty-four benches for rowers. The head and the arched tail were both gilt, and the bulwarks were as high as in sea-going ships. This ship was the best and most costly ship ever made in Norway. 96. EARL EIRIK, THE SON OF HAKON. Earl Eirik, the son of Earl Hakon, and his brothers, with many other valiant men their relations, had left the country after Earl Hakon's fall. Earl Eirik went eastwards to Svithjod, to Olaf, the Swedish king, and he and his people were well received. King Olaf gave the earl peace and freedom in the land, and great fiefs; so that he could support himself and his men well. Thord Kolbeinson speaks of this in the verses before given. Many people who fled from the country on account of King Olaf Trygvason came out of Norway to Earl Eirik; and the earl resolved to fit out ships and go a-cruising, in order to get property for himself and his people. First he steered to Gotland, and lay there long in summer watching for merchant vessels sailing towards the land, or for vikings. Sometimes he landed and ravaged all round upon the sea-coasts. So it is told in the "Banda-drapa":-- "Eirik, as we have lately heard, Has waked the song of shield and sword-- Has waked the slumbering storm of shields Upon the vikings' water-fields: From Gotland's lonely shore has gone Far up the land, and battles won: And o'er the sea his name is spread, To friends a shield, to foes a dread." Afterwards Earl Eirik sailed south to Vindland, and at Stauren found some viking ships, and gave them battle. Eirik gained the victory, and slew the vikings. So it is told in the "Banda-drapa":-- "Earl Eirik, he who stoutly wields The battle-axe in storm of shields, With his long ships surprised the foe At Stauren, and their strength laid low Many a corpse floats round the shore; The strand with dead is studded o'er: The raven tears their sea-bleached skins-- The land thrives well when Eirik wins." 97. EIRIK'S FORAY ON THE BALTIC COASTS. Earl Eirik sailed back to Sweden in autumn, and staid there all winter (A.D. 997); but in the spring fitted out his war force again, and sailed up the Baltic. When he came to Valdemar's dominions he began to plunder and kill the inhabitants, and burn the dwellings everywhere as he came along, and to lay waste the country. He came to Aldeigiuburg, and besieged it until he took the castle; and he killed many people, broke down and burned the castle, and then carried destruction all around far and wide in Gardarike. So it is told in the "Banda-drapa":-- "The generous earl, brave and bold, Who scatters his bright shining gold, Eirik with fire-scattering hand, Wasted the Russian monarch's land,-- With arrow-shower, and storm of war, Wasted the land of Valdemar. Aldeiga burns, and Eirik's might Scours through all Russia by its light." Earl Eirik was five years in all on this foray; and when he returned from Gardarike he ravaged all Adalsysla and Eysysla, and took there four viking ships from the Danes and killed every man on board. So it is told in the "Banda-drapa":-- "Among the isles flies round the word, That Eirik's blood-devouring sword Has flashed like fire in the sound, And wasted all the land around. And Eirik too, the bold in fight, Has broken down the robber-might Of four great vikings, and has slain All of the crew--nor spared one Dane. In Gautland he has seized the town, In Syssels harried up and down; And all the people in dismay Fled to the forests far away. By land or sea, in field or wave, What can withstand this earl brave? All fly before his fiery hand-- God save the earl, and keep the land." When Eirik had been a year in Sweden he went over to Denmark (A.D. 996) to King Svein Tjuguskeg, the Danish king, and courted his daughter Gyda. The proposal was accepted, and Earl Eirik married Gyda; and a year after (A.D. 997) they had a son, who was called Hakon. Earl Eirik was in the winter in Denmark, or sometimes in Sweden; but in summer he went a-cruising. 98. KING SVEIN'S MARRIAGE. The Danish king, Svein Tjuguskeg, was married to Gunhild, a daughter of Burizleif, king of the Vinds. But in the times we have just been speaking of it happened that Queen Gunhild fell sick and died. Soon after King Svein married Sigrid the Haughty, a daughter of Skoglartoste, and mother of the Swedish king Olaf; and by means of this relationship there was great friendship between the kings and Earl Eirik, Hakon's son. 99. KING BURIZLEIF'S MARRIAGE. Burizleif, the king of the Vinds, complained to his relation Earl Sigvalde, that the agreement was broken which Sigvalde had made between King Svein and King Burizleif, by which Burizleif was to get in marriage Thyre, Harald's daughter, a sister of King Svein: but that marriage had not proceeded, for Thyre had given positive no to the proposal to marry her to an old and heathen king. "Now," said King Burizleif to Earl Sigvalde, "I must have the promise fulfilled." And he told Earl Sigvalde to go to Denmark, and bring him Thyre as his queen. Earl Sigvalde loses no time, but goes to King Svein of Denmark, explains to him the case; and brings it so far by his persuasion, that the king delivered his sister Thyre into his hands. With her went some female attendants, and her foster-father, by name Ozur Agason, a man of great power, and some other people. In the agreement between the king and the earl, it was settled that Thyre should have in property the possessions which Queen Gunhild had enjoyed in Vindland, besides other great properties as bride-gifts. Thyre wept sorely, and went very unwillingly. When the earl came to Vindland, Burizleif held his wedding with Queen Thyre, and received her in marriage; bus as long as she was among heathens she would neither eat nor drink with them, and this lasted for seven days. 100. OLAF GETS THYRE IN MARRIAGE. It happened one night that Queen Thyre and Ozur ran away in the dark, and into the woods, and, to be short in our story, came at last to Denmark. But here Thyre did not dare to remain, knowing that if her brother King Svein heard of her, he would send her back directly to Vindland. She went on, therefore, secretly to Norway, and never stayed her journey until she fell in with King Olaf, by whom she was kindly received. Thyre related to the king her sorrows, and entreated his advice in her need, and protection in his kingdom. Thyre was a well-spoken woman, and the king had pleasure in her conversation. He saw she was a handsome woman, and it came into his mind that she would be a good match; so he turns the conversation that way, and asks if she will marry him. Now, as she saw that her situation was such that she could not help herself, and considered what a luck it was for her to marry so celebrated a man, she bade him to dispose himself of her hand and fate; and, after nearer conversation, King Olaf took Thyre in marriage. This wedding was held in harvest after the king returned from Halogaland (A.D. 999), and King Olaf and Queen Thyre remained all winter (A.D. 1000) at Nidaros. The following spring Queen Thyre complained often to King Olaf, and wept bitterly over it, that she who had so great property in Vindland had no goods or possessions here in the country that were suitable for a queen; and sometimes she would entreat the king with fine words to get her property restored to her, and saying that King Burizleif was so great a friend of King Olaf that he would not deny King Olaf anything if they were to meet. But when King Olaf's friends heard of such speeches, they dissuaded him from any such expedition. It is related at the king one day early in spring was walking in the street, and met a man in the market with many, and, for that early season, remarkably large angelica roots. The king took a great stalk of the angelica in his hand, and went home to Queen Thyre's lodging. Thyre sat in her room weeping as the king came in. The king said, "Set here, queen, is a great angelica stalk, which I give thee." She threw it away, and said, "A greater present Harald Gormson gave to my mother; and he was not afraid to go out of the land and take his own. That was shown when he came here to Norway, and laid waste the greater part of the land, and seized on all the scat and revenues; and thou darest not go across the Danish dominions for this brother of mine, King Svein." As she spoke thus, King Olaf sprang up, and answered with loud oath, "Never did I fear thy brother King Svein; and if we meet he shall give way before me!" 101. OLAF'S LEVY FOR WAR. Soon after the king convoked a Thing in the town, and proclaimed to all the public, that in summer would go abroad upon an expedition out of the country, and would raise both ships and men from every district; and at the same time fixed how many ships would have from the whole Throndhjem fjord. Then he sent his message-token south and north, both along the sea-coast and up in the interior of the country, to let an army be gathered. The king ordered the Long Serpent to be put into the water, along with all his other ships both small and great. He himself steered the Long Serpent. When the crews were taken out for the ships, they were so carefully selected that no man on board the Long Serpent was older than sixty or younger than twenty years, and all were men distinguished for strength and courage. Those who were Olaf's bodyguard were in particular chosen men, both of the natives and of foreigners, and the boldest and strongest. 102. CREW ON BOARD OF THE LONG SERPENT. Ulf the Red was the name of the man who bore King Olaf's banner, and was in the forecastle of the Long Serpent; and with him was Kolbjorn the marshal, Thorstein Uxafot, and Vikar of Tiundaland, a brother of Arnliot Gelline. By the bulkhead next the forecastle were Vak Raumason from Gaut River, Berse the Strong, An Skyte from Jamtaland, Thrand the Strong from Thelamork, and his brother Uthyrmer. Besides these were, of Halogaland men, Thrand Skjalge and Ogmund Sande, Hlodver Lange from Saltvik, and Harek Hvasse; together with these Throndhjem men--Ketil the High, Thorfin Eisle, Havard and his brothers from Orkadal. The following were in the fore-hold: Bjorn from Studla, Bork from the fjords. Thorgrim Thjodolfson from Hvin, Asbjorn and Orm, Thord from Njardarlog, Thorstein the White from Oprustadar, Arnor from More, Halstein and Hauk from the Fjord district, Eyvind Snak, Bergthor Bestil, Halkel from Fialer, Olaf Dreng, Arnfin from Sogn, Sigurd Bild, Einar from Hordaland, and Fin, and Ketil from Rogaland and Grjotgard the Brisk. The following were in the hold next the mast: Einar Tambaskelfer, who was not reckoned as fully experienced, being only eighteen years old; Thorstein Hlifarson, Thorolf, Ivar Smetta, and Orm Skogarnef. Many other valiant men were in the Serpent, although we cannot tell all their names. In every half division of the hold were eight men, and each and all chosen men; and in the fore-hold were thirty men. It was a common saying among people, that the Long Serpent's crew was as distinguished for bravery, strength, and daring, among other men, as the Long Serpent was distinguished among other ships. Thorkel Nefja, the king's brother, commanded the Short Serpent; and Thorkel Dydril and Jostein, the king's mother's brothers, had the Crane; and both these ships were well manned. King Olaf had eleven large ships from Throndhjem, besides vessels with twenty rowers' benches, smaller vessels, and provision-vessels. 103. ICELAND BAPTIZED. When King Olaf had nearly rigged out his fleet in Nidaros, he appointed men over the Throndhjem country in all districts and communities. He also sent to Iceland Gissur the White and Hjalte Skeggjason, to proclaim Christianity there; and sent with them a priest called Thormod, along with several men in holy orders. But he retained with him, as hostages, four Icelanders whom he thought the most important; namely, Kjartan Olafson, Haldor Gudmundson, Kolbein Thordson, and Sverting Runolfson. Of Gissur and Hjalte's progress, it is related that they came to Iceland before the Althing, and went to the Thing; and in that Thing Christianity was introduced by law into Iceland, and in the course of the summer all the people were baptized (A.D. 1000). 104. GREENLAND BAPTIZED The same spring King Olaf also sent Leif Eirikson (A.D. 1000) to Greenland to proclaim Christianity there, and Leif went there that summer. In the ocean he took up the crew of a ship which had been lost, and who were clinging to the wreck. He also found Vinland the Good; arrived about harvest in Greenland; and had with him for it a priest and other teachers, with whom he went to Brattahild to lodge with his father Eirik. People called him afterwards Leif the Lucky: but his father Eirik said that his luck and ill luck balanced each other; for if Leif had saved a wreck in the ocean, he had brought a hurtful person with him to Greenland, and that was the priest. 105. RAGNVALD SENDS MESSENGERS TO OLAF. The winter after King Olaf had baptized Halogaland, he and Queen Thyre were in Nidaros; and the summer before Queen Thyre had brought King Olaf a boy child, which was both stout and promising, and was called Harald, after its mother's father. The king and queen loved the infant exceedingly, and rejoiced in the hope that it would grow up and inherit after its father; but it lived barely a year after its birth, which both took much to heart. In that winter were many Icelanders and other clever men in King Olaf's house, as before related. His sister Ingebjorg, Trygve's daughter, King Olaf's sister, was also at the court at that time. She was beautiful in appearance, modest and frank with the people, had a steady manly judgment, and was beloved of all. She was very fond of the Icelanders who were there, but most of Kjartan Olafson, for he had been longer than the others in the king's house; and he found it always amusing to converse with her, for she had both understanding and cleverness in talk. The king was always gay and full of mirth in his intercourse with people; and often asked about the manners of the great men and chiefs in the neighbouring countries, when strangers from Denmark or Sweden came to see him. The summer before Halfred Vandredaskald had come from Gautland, where he had been with Earl Ragnvald, Ulf's son, who had lately come to the government of West Gautland. Ulf, Ragnvald's father, was a brother of Sigurd the Haughty; so that King Olaf the Swede and Earl Ragnvald were brother's and sister's children. Halfred told Olaf many things about the earl: he said he was an able chief, excellently fitted for governing, generous with money, brave and steady in friendship. Halfred said also the earl desired much the friendship of King Olaf, and had spoken of making court Ingebjorg, Trygve's daughter. The same winter came ambassadors from Gautland, and fell in with King Olaf in the north, in Nidaros, and brought the message which Halfred had spoken of,--that the earl desired to be King Olaf's entire friend, and wished to become his brother-in-law by obtaining his sister Ingebjorg in marriage. Therewith the ambassadors laid before the king sufficient tokens in proof that in reality they came from the earl on this errand. The king listened with approbation to their speech; but said that Ingebjorg must determine on his assent to the marriage. The king then talked to his sister about the matter, and asked her opinion about it. She answered to this effect,--"I have been with you for some time, and you have shown brotherly care and tender respect for me ever since you came to the country. I will agree therefore to your proposal about my marriage, provided that you do not marry me to a heathen man." The king said it should be as she wished. The king then spoke to the ambassadors; and it was settled before they departed that in summer Earl Ragnvald should meet the king in the east parts of the country, to enter into the fullest friendship with each other, and when they met they would settle about the marriage. With this reply the earl's messengers went westward, and King Olaf remained all winter in Nidaros in great splendour, and with many people about him. 106. OLAF SENDS EXPEDITION TO VINDLAND. King Olaf proceeded in summer with his ships and men southwards along the land (and past Stad. With him were Queen Thyre and Ingebjorg, Trygveis daughter, the king's sister). Many of his friends also joined him, and other persons of consequence who had prepared themselves to travel with the king. The first man among these was his brother-in-law, Erling Skjalgson, who had with him a large ship of thirty benches of rowers, and which was in every respect well equipt. His brothers-in-law Hyrning and Thorgeir also joined him, each of whom for himself steered a large vessel; and many other powerful men besides followed him. (With all this war-force he sailed southwards along the land; but when he came south as far as Rogaland he stopped there, for Erling Skjalgson had prepared for him a splendid feast at Sole. There Earl Ragnvald, Ulf's son, from Gautland, came to meet the king, and to settle the business which had been proposed in winter in the messages between them, namely, the marriage with Ingebjorg the king's sister. Olaf received him kindly; and when the matter came to be spoken of, the king said he would keep his word, and marry his sister Ingebjorg to him, provided he would accept the true faith, and make all his subjects he ruled over in his land be baptized; The earl agreed to this, and he and all his followers were baptized. Now was the feast enlarged that Erling had prepared, for the earl held his wedding there with Ingebjorg the king's sister. King Olaf had now married off all his sisters. The earl, with Ingebjorg, set out on his way home; and the king sent learned men with him to baptize the people in Gautland, and to teach them the right faith and morals. The king and the earl parted in the greatest friendship.) 107. OLAF'S EXPEDITION VINDLAND. (After his sister Ingebjorg's wedding, the king made ready in all haste to leave the country with his army, which was both great and made up of fine men.) When he left the land and sailed southwards he had sixty ships of war, with which he sailed past Denmark, and in through the Sound, and on to Vindland. He appointed a meeting with King Burizleif; and when the kings met, they spoke about the property which King Olaf demanded, and the conference went off peaceably, as a good account was given of the properties which King Olaf thought himself entitled to there. He passed here much of the summer, and found many of his old friends. 108. CONSPIRACY AGAINST KING OLAF. The Danish king, Svein Tjuguskeg, was married, as before related, to Sigrid the Haughty. Sigrid was King Olaf Trygvason's greatest enemy; the cause of which, as before said, was that King Olaf had broken off with her, and had struck her in the face. She urged King Svein much to give battle to King Olaf Trygvason; saying that he had reason enough, as Olaf had married his sister Thyre without his leave, "and that your predecessors would not have submitted to." Such persuasions Sigrid had often in her mouth; and at last she brought it so far that Svein resolved firmly on doing so. Early in spring King Svein sent messengers eastward into Svithjod, to his son-in-law Olaf, the Swedish king, and to Earl Eirik; and informed them that King Olaf of Norway was levying men for an expedition, and intended in summer to go to Vindland. To this news the Danish king added an invitation to the Swedish king and Earl Eirik to meet King Svein with an army, so that all together they might make an attack; on King Olaf Trygvason. The Swedish king and Earl Eirik were ready enough for this, and immediately assembled a great fleet and an army through all Svithjod, with which they sailed southwards to Denmark, and arrived there after King Olaf Trygvason had sailed to the eastward. Haldor the Unchristian tells of this in his lay on Earl Eirik:-- "The king-subduer raised a host Of warriors on the Swedish coast. The brave went southwards to the fight, Who love the sword-storm's gleaming light; The brave, who fill the wild wolf's mouth, Followed bold Eirik to the south; The brave, who sport in blood--each one With the bold earl to sea is gone." The Swedish king and Earl Eirik sailed to meet the Danish king, and they had all, when together, an immense force. 109. EARL SIGVALDE'S TREACHEROUS PLANS. At the same time that king Svein sent a message to Svithjod for an army, he sent Earl Sigvalde to Vindland to spy out King Olaf Trygvason's proceedings, and to bring it about by cunning devices that King Svein and King Olaf should fall in with each other. So Sigvalde sets out to go to Vindland. First, he came to Jomsborg, and then he sought out King Olaf Trygvason. There was much friendship in their conversation, and the earl got himself into great favour with the king. Astrid, the Earl's wife, King Burizleif's daughter, was a great friend of King Olaf Trygvason, particularly on account of the connection which had been between them when Olaf was married to her sister Geira. Earl Sigvalde was a prudent, ready-minded man; and as he had got a voice in King Olaf's council, he put him off much from sailing homewards, finding various reasons for delay. Olaf's people were in the highest degree dissatisfied with this; for the men were anxious to get home, and they lay ready to sail, waiting only for a wind. At last Earl Sigvalde got a secret message from Denmark that the Swedish king's army was arrived from the east, and that Earl Eirik's also was ready; and that all these chiefs had resolved to sail eastwards to Vindland, and wait for King Olaf at an island which is called Svold. They also desired the earl to contrive matters so that they should meet King Olaf there. 110. KING OLAF'S VOYAGE FROM VINDLAND. There came first a flying report to Vindland that the Danish king, Svein, had fitted out an army; and it was soon whispered that he intended to attack King Olaf. But Earl Sigvalde says to King Olaf, "It never can be King Svein's intention to venture with the Danish force alone, to give battle to thee with such a powerful army; but if thou hast any suspicion that evil is on foot, I will follow thee with my force (at that time it was considered a great matter to have Jomsborg vikings with an army), and I will give thee eleven well-manned ships." The king accepted this offer; and as the light breeze of wind that came was favourable, he ordered the ships to get under weigh, and the war-horns to sound the departure. The sails were hoisted and all the small vessels, sailing fastest, got out to sea before the others. The earl, who sailed nearest to the king's ship, called to those on board to tell the king to sail in his keel-track: "For I know where the water is deepest between the islands and in the sounds, and these large ships require the deepest." Then the earl sailed first with his eleven ships, and the king followed with his large ships, also eleven in number; but the whole of the rest of the fleet sailed out to sea. Now when Earl Sigvalde came sailing close under the island Svold, a skiff rowed out to inform the earl that the Danish king's army was lying in the harbour before them. Then the earl ordered the sails of his vessels to be struck, and they rowed in under the island. Haldor the Unchristian says:-- "From out the south bold Trygve's son With one-and-seventy ships came on, To dye his sword in bloody fight, Against the Danish foeman's might. But the false earl the king betrayed; And treacherous Sigvalde, it is said, Deserted from King Olaf's fleet, And basely fled, the Danes to meet." It is said here that King Olaf and Earl Sigvalde had seventy sail of vessels: and one more, when they sailed from the south. 111. CONSULTATION OF THE KINGS. The Danish King Svein, the Swedish King Olaf, and Earl Eirik, were there with all their forces (1000). The weather being fine and clear sunshine, all these chiefs, with a great suite, went out on the isle to see the vessels sailing out at sea, and many of them crowded together; and they saw among them one large and glancing ship. The two kings said, "That is a large and very beautiful vessel: that will be the Long Serpent." Earl Eirik replied, "That is not the Long Serpent." And he was right; for it was the ship belonging to Eindride of Gimsar. Soon after they saw another vessel coming sailing along much larger than the first; then says King Svein, "Olaf Trygvason must be afraid, for he does not venture to sail with the figure-head of the dragon upon his ship." Says Earl Eirik, "That is not the king's ship yet; for I know that ship by the coloured stripes of cloth in her sail. That is Erling Skialgson's. Let him sail; for it is the better for us that the ship is away from Olaf's fleet, so well equipt as she is." Soon after they saw and knew Earl Sigvalde's ships, which turned in and laid themselves under the island. Then they saw three ships coming along under sail, and one of them very large. King Svein ordered his men to go to their ships, "for there comes the Long Serpent." Earl Eirik says, "Many other great and stately vessels have they besides the Long Serpent. Let us wait a little." Then said many, "Earl Eirik will not fight and avenge his father; and it is a great shame that it should be told that we lay here with so great a force, and allowed King Olaf to sail out to sea before our eyes." But when they had spoken thus for a short time, they saw four ships coming sailing along, of which one had a large dragon-head richly gilt. Then King Svein stood up and said, "That dragon shall carry me this evening high, for I shall steer it." Then said many, "The Long Serpent is indeed a wonderfully large and beautiful vessel, and it shows a great mind to have built such a ship." Earl Eirik said so loud that several persons heard him, "If King Olaf had no ether vessels but only that one, King Svein would never take it from him with the Danish force alone." Thereafter all the people rushed on board their ships, took down the tents, and in all haste made ready for battle. While the chiefs were speaking among themselves as above related, they saw three very large ships coming sailing along, and at last after them a fourth, and that was the Long Serpent. Of the large ships which had gone before, and which they had taken for the Long Serpent, the first was the Crane; the one after that was the Short Serpent; and when they really, saw the Long Serpent, all knew, and nobody had a word to say against it, that it must be Olaf Trygvason who was sailing in such a vessel; and they went to their ships to arm for the fight. An agreement had been concluded among the chiefs, King Svein, King Olaf the Swede, and Earl Eirik, that they should divide Norway among them in three parts, in case they succeeded against Olaf Trygvason; but that he of the chiefs who should first board the Serpent should have her, and all the booty found in her, and each should have the ships he cleared for himself. Earl Eirik had a large ship of war which he used upon his viking expeditions; and there was an iron beard or comb above on both sides of the stem, and below it a thick iron plate as broad as the combs, which went down quite to the gunnel. 112. OF KING OLAF'S PEOPLE. When Earl Sigvalde with his vessels rowed in under the island, Thorkel Dydril of the Crane, and the other ship commanders who sailed with him, saw that he turned his ships towards the isle, and thereupon let fall the sails, and rowed after him, calling out, and asking why he sailed that way. The Earl answered, that he was waiting for king Olaf, as he feared there were enemies in the water. They lay upon their oars until Thorkel Nefia came up with the Short Serpent and the three ships which followed him. When they told them the same they too struck sail, and let the ships drive, waiting for king Olaf. But when the king sailed in towards the isle, the whole enemies' fleet came rowing within them out to the Sound. When they saw this they begged the king to hold on his way, and not risk battle with so great a force. The king replied, high on the quarter-deck where he stood, "Strike the sails; never shall men of mine think of flight. I never fled from battle. Let God dispose of my life, but flight I shall never take." It was done as the king commanded. Halfred tells of it thus:-- "And far and wide the saying bold Of the brave warrior shall be told. The king, in many a fray well tried, To his brave champions round him cried, 'My men shall never learn from me From the dark weapon-cloud to flee.' Nor were the brave words spoken then Forgotten by his faithful men." 113. OLAF'S SHIPS PREPARED FOR BATTLE. King Olaf ordered the war-horns to sound for all his ships to close up to each other. The king's ship lay in the middle of the line, and on one side lay the Little Serpent, and on the other the Crane; and as they made fast the stems together (1), the Long Serpent's stem and the short Serpent's were made fast together; but when the king saw it he called out to his men, and ordered them to lay the larger ship more in advance, so that its stern should not lie so far behind in the fleet. Then says Ulf the Red, "If the Long Serpent is to lie as much more ahead of the other ships as she is longer than them, we shall have hard work of it here on the forecastle." The king replies, "I did not think I had a forecastle man afraid as well as red." Says Ulf, "Defend thou the quarterdeck as I shall the forecastle." The king had a bow in his hands, and laid an arrow on the string, and aimed at Ulf. Ulf said, "Shoot another way, king, where it is more needful: my work is thy gain." ENDNOTES: (1) The mode of fighting in sea battles appears, from this and many other descriptions, to have been for each party to bind together the stems and sterns of their own ships, forming them thus into a compact body as soon as the fleets came within fighting distance, or within spears' throw. They appear to have fought principally from the forecastles; and to have used grappling irons for dragging a vessel out of the line, or within boarding distance.--L. 114. OF KING OLAF. King Olaf stood on the Serpent's quarterdeck, high over the others. He had a gilt shield, and a helmet inlaid with gold; over his armour he had a short red coat, and was easy to be distinguished from other men. When King Olaf saw that the scattered forces of the enemy gathered themselves together under the banners of their ships, he asked, "Who is the chief of the force right opposite to us?" He was answered, that it was King Svein with the Danish army. The king replies, "We are not afraid of these soft Danes, for there is no bravery in them; but who are the troops on the right of the Danes?" He was answered, that it was King Olaf with the Swedish forces. "Better it were," says King Olaf, "for these Swedes to be sitting at home killing their sacrifices, than to be venturing under our weapons from the Long Serpent. But who owns the large ships on the larboard side of the Danes?" "That is Earl Eirik Hakonson," say they. The king replies, "He, methinks, has good reason for meeting us; and we may expect the sharpest conflict with these men, for they are Norsemen like ourselves." 115. THE BATTLE BEGINS. The kings now laid out their oars, and prepared to attack (A.D. 1000). King Svein laid his ship against the Long Serpent. Outside of him Olaf the Swede laid himself, and set his ship's stern against the outermost ship of King Olaf's line; and on the other side lay Earl Eirik. Then a hard combat began. Earl Sigvalde held back with the oars on his ships, and did not join the fray. So says Skule Thorsteinson, who at that time was with Earl Eirik:-- "I followed Sigvalde in my youth, And gallant Eirik, and in truth The' now I am grown stiff and old, In the spear-song I once was bold. Where arrows whistled on the shore Of Svold fjord my shield I bore, And stood amidst the loudest clash When swords on shields made fearful crash." And Halfred also sings thus:-- "In truth I think the gallant king, Midst such a foemen's gathering, Would be the better of some score Of his tight Throndhjem lads, or more; For many a chief has run away, And left our brave king in the fray, Two great kings' power to withstand, And one great earl's, with his small band, The king who dares such mighty deed A hero for his skald would need." 116. FLIGHT OF SVEIN AND OLAF THE SWEDE. This battle was one of the severest told of, and many were the people slain. The forecastle men of the Long Serpent, the Little Serpent, and the Crane, threw grapplings and stem chains into King Svein's ship, and used their weapons well against the people standing below them, for they cleared the decks of all the ships they could lay fast hold of; and King Svein, and all the men who escaped, fled to other vessels, and laid themselves out of bow-shot. It went with this force just as King Olaf Trygvason had foreseen. Then King Olaf the Swede laid himself in their place; but when he came near the great ships it went with him as with them, for he lost many men and some ships, and was obliged to get away. But Earl Eirik laid his ship side by side with the outermost of King Olaf's ships, thinned it of men, cut the cables, and let it drive. Then he laid alongside of the next, and fought until he had cleared it of men also. Now all the people who were in the smaller ships began to run into the larger, and the earl cut them loose as fast as he cleared them of men. The Danes and Swedes laid themselves now out of shooting distance all around Olaf's ship; but Earl Eirik lay always close alongside of the ships, and used hid swords and battle-axes, and as fast as people fell in his vessel others, Danes and Swedes, came in their place. So says Haldor, the Unchristian:-- "Sharp was the clang of shield and sword, And shrill the song of spears on board, And whistling arrows thickly flew Against the Serpent's gallant crew. And still fresh foemen, it is said, Earl Eirik to her long side led; Whole armies of his Danes and Swedes, Wielding on high their blue sword-blades." Then the fight became most severe, and many people fell. But at last it came to this, that all King Olaf Trygvason's ships were cleared of men except the Long Serpent, on board of which all who could still carry their arms were gathered. Then Earl Eirik lay with his ship by the side of the Serpent, and the fight went on with battle-axe and sword. So says Haldor:-- "Hard pressed on every side by foes, The Serpent reels beneath the blows; Crash go the shields around the bow! Breast-plates and breasts pierced thro' and thro! In the sword-storm the Holm beside, The earl's ship lay alongside The king's Long Serpent of the sea-- Fate gave the earl the victory." 117. OF EARL EIRIK. Earl Eirik was in the forehold of his ship, where a cover of shields (1) had been set up. In the fight, both hewing weapons, sword, and axe, and the thrust of spears had been used; and all that could be used as weapon for casting was cast. Some used bows, some threw spears with the hand. So many weapons were cast into the Serpent, and so thick flew spears and arrows, that the shields could scarcely receive them, for on all sides the Serpent was surrounded by war-ships. Then King Olaf's men became so mad with rage, that they ran on board of the enemies ships, to get at the people with stroke of sword and kill them; but many did not lay themselves so near the Serpent, in order to escape the close encounter with battle-axe or sword; and thus the most of Olaf's men went overboard and sank under their weapons, thinking they were fighting on plain ground. So says Halfred:-- "The daring lads shrink not from death;-- O'erboard they leap, and sink beneath The Serpent's keel: all armed they leap, And down they sink five fathoms deep. The foe was daunted at the cheers; The king, who still the Serpent steers, In such a strait--beset with foes-- Wanted but some more lads like those." ENDNOTES: (1) Both in land and sea fights the commanders appear to have been protected from missile weapons,--stones, arrows, spears,--by a shieldburg: that is, by a party of men bearing shields surrounding them in such a way that the shields were a parapet, covering those within the circle. The Romans had a similar military arrangement of shields in sieges--the testudo.--L. 118. OF EINAR TAMBARSKELVER. Einar Tambarskelver, one of the sharpest of bowshooters, stood by the mast, and shot with his bow. Einar shot an arrow at Earl Eirik, which hit the tiller end just above the earl's head so hard that it entered the wood up to the arrow-shaft. The earl looked that way, and asked if they knew who had shot; and at the same moment another arrow flew between his hand and his side, and into the stuffing of the chief's stool, so that the barb stood far out on the other side. Then said the earl to a man called Fin,--but some say he was of Fin (Laplander) race, and was a superior archer,--"Shoot that tall man by the mast." Fin shot; and the arrow hit the middle of Einar's bow just at the moment that Einar was drawing it, and the bow was split in two parts. "What is that," cried King Olaf, "that broke with such a noise?" "Norway, king, from thy hands," cried Einar. "No! not quite so much as that," says the king; "take my bow, and shoot," flinging the bow to him. Einar took the bow, and drew it over the head of the arrow. "Too weak, too weak," said he, "for the bow of a mighty king!" and, throwing the bow aside, he took sword and shield, and fought Valiantly. 119. OLAF GIVES HIS MEN SHARP SWORDS. The king stood on the gangways of the Long Serpent, and shot the greater part of the day; sometimes with the bow, sometimes with the spear, and always throwing two spears at once. He looked down over the ship's sides, and saw that his men struck briskly with their swords, and yet wounded but seldom. Then he called aloud, "Why do ye strike so gently that ye seldom cut?" One among the people answered, "The swords are blunt and full of notches." Then the king went down into the forehold, opened the chest under the throne, and took out many sharp swords, which he handed to his men; but as he stretched down his right hand with them, some observed that blood was running down under his steel glove, but no one knew where he was wounded. 120. THE SERPENT BOARDED. Desperate was the defence in the Serpent, and there was the heaviest destruction of men done by the forecastle crew, and those of the forehold, for in both places the men were chosen men, and the ship was highest, but in the middle of the ship the people were thinned. Now when Earl Eirik saw there were but few people remaining beside the ship's mast, he determined to board; and he entered the Serpent with four others. Then came Hyrning, the king's brother-in-law, and some others against him, and there was the most severe combat; and at last the earl was forced to leap back on board his own ship again, and some who had accompanied him were killed, and others wounded. Thord Kolbeinson alludes to this:-- "On Odin's deck, all wet with blood, The helm-adorned hero stood; And gallant Hyrning honour gained, Clearing all round with sword deep stained. The high mountain peaks shall fall, Ere men forget this to recall." Now the fight became hot indeed, and many men fell on board the Serpent; and the men on board of her began to be thinned off, and the defence to be weaker. The earl resolved to board the Serpent again, and again he met with a warm reception. When the forecastle men of the Serpent saw what he was doing, they went aft and made a desperate fight; but so many men of the Serpent had fallen, that the ship's sides were in many places quite bare of defenders; and the earl's men poured in all around into the vessel, and all the men who were still able to defend the ship crowded aft to the king, and arrayed themselves for his defence. So says Haldor the Unchristian:-- "Eirik cheers on his men,-- 'On to the charge again!' The gallant few Of Olaf's crew Must refuge take On the quarter-deck. Around the king They stand in ring; Their shields enclose The king from foes, And the few who still remain Fight madly, but in vain. Eirik cheers on his men-- 'On to the charge again!'" 121. THE SERPENT'S DECKS CLEARED. Kolbjorn the marshal, who had on clothes and arms like the kings, and was a remarkably stout and handsome man, went up to king on the quarter-deck. The battle was still going on fiercely even in the forehold (1). But as many of the earl's men had now got into the Serpent as could find room, and his ships lay all round her, and few were the people left in the Serpent for defence against so great a force; and in a short time most of the Serpent's men fell, brave and stout though they were. King Olaf and Kolbjorn the marshal both sprang overboard, each on his own side of the ship; but the earl's men had laid out boats around the Serpent, and killed those who leaped overboard. Now when the king had sprung overboard, they tried to seize him with their hands, and bring him to Earl Eirik; but King Olaf threw his shield over his head, and sank beneath the waters. Kolbjorn held his shield behind him to protect himself from the spears cast at him from the ships which lay round the Serpent, and he fell so upon his shield that it came under him, so that he could not sink so quickly. He was thus taken and brought into a boat, and they supposed he was the king. He was brought before the earl; and when the earl saw it was Kolbjorn, and not the king, he gave him his life. At the same moment all of King Olaf's men who were in life sprang overboard from the Serpent; and Thorkel Nefia, the king's brother, was the last of all the men who sprang overboard. It is thus told concerning the king by Halfred:-- "The Serpent and the Crane Lay wrecks upon the main. On his sword he cast a glance,-- With it he saw no chance. To his marshal, who of yore Many a war-chance had come o'er, He spoke a word--then drew in breath, And sprang to his deep-sea death." ENDNOTES: (1) From the occasional descriptions of vessels in this and other battles, it may be inferred that even the Long Serpent, described in the 95th chapter as of 150 feet of keel was only docked fore and aft; the thirty-four benches for rowers occupying the open area in the middle, and probably gangways running along the side for communicating from the quarter-deck to the forcastle.--L. 122. REPORT AMONG THE PEOPLE. Earl Sigvalde, as before related, came from Vindland, in company with King Olaf, with ten ships; but the eleventh ship was manned with the men of Astrid, the king's daughter, the wife of Earl Sigvalde. Now when King Olaf sprang overboard, the whole army raised a shout of victory; and then Earl Sigvalde and his men put their oars in the water and rowed towards the battle. Haldor the Unchristian tells of it thus:-- "Then first the Vindland vessels came Into the fight with little fame; The fight still lingered on the wave, Tho' hope was gone with Olaf brave. War, like a full-fed ravenous beast, Still oped her grim jaws for the feast. The few who stood now quickly fled, When the shout told--'Olaf is dead!'" But the Vindland cutter, in which Astrid's men were, rowed back to Vindland; and the report went immediately abroad and was told by many, that King Olaf had cast off his coat-of-mail under water, and had swum, diving under the longships, until he came to the Vindland cutter, and that Astrid's men had conveyed him to Vindland: and many tales have been made since about the adventures of Olaf the king. Halfred speaks thus about it:-- "Does Olaf live? or is he dead? Has he the hungry ravens fed? I scarcely know what I should say, For many tell the tale each way. This I can say, nor fear to lie, That he was wounded grievously-- So wounded in this bloody strife, He scarce could come away with life." But however this may have been, King Olaf Trygvason never came back again to his kingdom of Norway. Halfred Vandredaskald speaks also thus about it: "The witness who reports this thing Of Trygvason, our gallant king, Once served the king, and truth should tell, For Olaf hated lies like hell. If Olaf 'scaped from this sword-thing, Worse fate, I fear, befel our king Than people guess, or e'er can know, For he was hemm'd in by the foe. From the far east some news is rife Of king sore wounded saving life; His death, too sure, leaves me no care For cobweb rumours in the air. It never was the will of fate That Olaf from such perilous strait Should 'scape with life! this truth may grieve-- 'What people wish they soon believe.'" 123. OF EARL EIRIK, THE SON OF HAKON. By this victory Earl Eirik Hakonson became owner of the Long Serpent, and made a great booty besides; and he steered the Serpent from the battle. So says Haldor:-- "Olaf, with glittering helmet crowned, Had steered the Serpent through the Sound; And people dressed their boats, and cheered As Olaf's fleet in splendour steered. But the descendent of great Heming, Whose race tells many a gallant sea-king, His blue sword in red life-blood stained, And bravely Olaf's long ship gained." Svein, a son of Earl Hakon, and Earl Eirik's brother, was engaged at this time to marry Holmfrid, a daughter of King Olaf the Swedish king. Now when Svein the Danish king, Olaf the Swedish king, and Earl Eirik divided the kingdom of Norway between them, King Olaf got four districts in the Throndhjem country, and also the districts of More and Raumsdal; and in the east part of the land he got Ranrike, from the Gaut river to Svinasund. Olaf gave these dominions into Earl Svein's hands, on the same conditions as the sub kings or earls had held them formerly from the upper-king of the country. Earl Eirik got four districts in the Throndhjem country, and Halogaland, Naumudal, the Fjord districts, Sogn, Hordaland, Rogaland, and North Agder, all the way to the Naze. So says Thord Kolbeinson:-- "All chiefs within our land On Eirik's side now stand: Erling alone, I know Remains Earl Eirik's foe. All praise our generous earl,-- He gives, and is no churl: All men are well content Fate such a chief has sent. From Veiga to Agder they, Well pleased, the earl obey; And all will by him stand, To guard the Norsemen's land. And now the news is spread That mighty Svein is dead, And luck is gone from those Who were the Norsemen's foes." The Danish king Svein retained Viken as he had held it before, but he gave Raumarike and Hedemark to Earl Eirik. Svein Hakonson got the title of earl from Olaf the Swedish king. Svein was one of the handsomest men ever seen. The earls Eirik and Svein both allowed themselves to be baptized, and took up the true faith; but as long as they ruled in Norway they allowed every one to do as he pleased in holding by his Christianity. But, on the other hand, they held fast by the old laws, and all the old rights and customs of the land, and were excellent men and good rulers. Earl Eirik had most to say of the two brothers in all matters of government. SAGA OF OLAF HARALDSON. (1) PRELIMINARY REMARKS. Olaf Haraldson the Saint's Saga is the longest, the most important, and the most finished of all the sagas in "Heimskringla". The life of Olaf will be found treated more or less freely in "Agrip", in "Historia Norvegiae", in "Thjodrek the Monk", in the legendary saga, and in "Fagrskinna". Other old Norse literature relating to this epoch: Are's "Islendingabok", "Landnama", "Kristni Saga", "Biskupa-sogur", "Njala", "Gunlaugs Saga", "Ormstungu", "Bjarnar Saga Hitdaelakappa", "Hallfredar Thattr Vandraedaskalde", "Eyrbyggia", "Viga Styrs Saga", "Laxdaela", "Fostbraedra", "Gretla", "Liosvetninga", "Faereyinga", "Orkneyinga". Olaf Haraldson was born 995, went as a viking at the age of twelve, 1007; visited England, one summer and three winters, 1009-1012; in France two summers and one winter, 1012-1013; spent the winter in Normandy, 1014; returned to Norway and was recognized as King, April 3, 1015; fled from Norway the winter of 1028-1029; fell at Stiklestad, July 29 (or August 31), 1030. Skalds quoted in this saga are:--Ottar Svarte, Sigvat Skald, Thord Kolbeinson, Berse Torfason, Brynjolf, Arnor Jarlaskald, Thord Siarekson, Harek, Thorarin Loftunga, Halvard Hareksblese, Bjarne Gulbraskald, Jokul Bardson, Thormod Kolbrunarskald, Gissur, Thorfin Mun, Hofgardaref. ENDNOTES: (1) King Olaf the Saint reigned from about the year 1015 to 1030. The death of King Olaf Trygvason was in the year 1000: and Earl Eirik held the government for the Danish and Swedish kings about fifteen years.--L. 1. OF SAINT OLAF'S BRINGING UP. Olaf, Harald Grenske's son, was brought up by his stepfather Sigurd Syr and his mother Asta. Hrane the Far-travelled lived in the house of Asta, and fostered this Olaf Haraldson. Olaf came early to manhood, was handsome in countenance, middle-sized in growth, and was even when very young of good understanding and ready speech. Sigurd his stepfather was a careful householder, who kept his people closely to their work, and often went about himself to inspect his corn-rigs and meadowland, the cattle, and also the smith-work, or whatsoever his people had on hand to do. 2. OF OLAF AND KING SIGURD SYR. It happened one day that King Sigurd wanted to ride from home, but there was nobody about the house; so he told his stepson Olaf to saddle his horse. Olaf went to the goats' pen, took out the he-goat that was the largest, led him forth, and put the king's saddle on him, and then went in and told King Sigurd he had saddled his riding horse. Now when King Sigurd came out and saw what Olaf had done, he said "It is easy to see that thou wilt little regard my orders; and thy mother will think it right that I order thee to do nothing that is against thy own inclination. I see well enough that we are of different dispositions, and that thou art far more proud than I am." Olaf answered little, but went his way laughing. 3. OF RING OLAF'S ACCOMPLISHMENTS. When Olaf Haraldson grew up he was not tall, but middle-sized in height, although very thick, and of good strength. He had light brown hair, and a broad face, which was white and red. He had particularly fine eyes, which were beautiful and piercing, so that one was afraid to look him in the face when he was angry. Olaf was very expert in all bodily exercises, understood well to handle his bow, and was distinguished particularly in throwing his spear by hand: he was a great swimmer, and very handy, and very exact and knowing in all kinds of smithwork, whether he himself or others made the thing. He was distinct and acute in conversation, and was soon perfect in understanding and strength. He was beloved by his friends and acquaintances, eager in his amusements, and one who always liked to be the first, as it was suitable he should be from his birth and dignity. He was called Olaf the Great. 4. KING OLAF'S WAR EXPEDITION. Olaf Haraldson was twelve years old when he, for the first time, went on board a ship of war (A.D. 1007). His mother Asta got Hrane, who was called the foster-father of kings, to command a ship of war and take Olaf under his charge; for Hrane had often been on war expeditions. When Olaf in this way got a ship and men, the crew gave him the title of king; for it was the custom that those commanders of troops who were of kingly descent, on going out upon a viking cruise, received the title of king immediately although they had no land or kingdom. Hrane sat at the helm; and some say that Olaf himself was but a common rower, although he was king of the men-at-arms. They steered east along the land, and came first to Denmark. So says Ottar Svarte, in his lay which he made about King Olaf:-- "Young was the king when from his home He first began in ships to roam, His ocean-steed to ride To Denmark o'er the tide. Well exercised art thou in truth-- In manhood's earnest work, brave youth! Out from the distant north Mighty hast thou come forth." Towards autumn he sailed eastward to the Swedish dominions, and there harried and burnt all the country round; for he thought he had good cause of hostility against the Swedes, as they killed his father Harald. Ottar Svarte says distinctly that he came from the east, out by way of Denmark:-- "Thy ship from shore to shore, With many a well-plied car, Across the Baltic foam is dancing.-- Shields, and spears, and helms glancing! Hoist high the swelling sail To catch the freshening gale! There's food for the raven-flight Where thy sail-winged ship shall light; Thy landing-tread The people dread; And the wolf howls for a feast On the shore-side in the east." 5. OLAF'S FIRST BATTLE. The same autumn Olaf had his first battle at Sotasker, which lies in the Swedish skerry circle. He fought there with some vikings, whose leader was Sote. Olaf had much fewer men, but his ships were larger, and he had his ships between some blind rocks, which made it difficult for the vikings to get alongside; and Olaf's men threw grappling irons into the ships which came nearest, drew them up to their own vessels, and cleared them of men. The vikings took to flight after losing many men. Sigvat the skald tells of this fight in the lay in which he reckons up King Olaf's battles:-- "They launch his ship where waves are foaming-- To the sea shore Both mast and oar, And sent his o'er the seas a-roaming. Where did the sea-king first draw blood? In the battle shock At Sote's rock; The wolves howl over their fresh food." 6. FORAY IN SVITHJOD. King Olaf steered thereafter eastwards to Svithjod, and into the Lag (the Maelar lake), and ravaged the land on both sides. He sailed all the way up to Sigtuna, and laid his ships close to the old Sigtuna. The Swedes say the stone-heaps are still to be seen which Olaf had laid under the ends of the gangways from the shore to the ships. When autumn was advanced, Olaf Haraldson heard that Olaf the Swedish king was assembling an army, and also that he had laid iron chains across Stoksund (the channel between the Maelar lake and the sea), and had laid troops there; for the Swedish king thought that Olaf Haraldson would be kept in there till frost came, and he thought little of Olaf's force knowing he had but few people. Now when King Olaf Haraldson came to Stoksund he could not get through, as there was a castle west of the sound, and men-at-arms lay on the south; and he heard that the Swedish king was come there with a great army and many ships. He therefore dug a canal across the flat land Agnafit out to the sea. Over all Svithjod all the running waters fall into the Maelar lake; but the only outlet of it to the sea is so small that many rivers are wider, and when much rain or snow falls the water rushes in a great cataract out by Stoksund, and the lake rises high and floods the land. It fell heavy rain just at this time; and as the canal was dug out to the sea, the water and stream rushed into it. Then Olaf had all the rudders unshipped and hoisted all sail aloft. It was blowing a strong breeze astern, and they steered with their oars, and the ships came in a rush over all the shallows, and got into the sea without any damage. Now went the Swedes to their king, Olaf, and told him that Olaf the Great had slipped out to sea; on which the king was enraged against those who should have watched that Olaf did not get away. This passage has since been called King's Sound; but large vessels cannot pass through it, unless the waters are very high. Some relate that the Swedes were aware that Olaf had cut across the tongue of land, and that the water was falling out that way; and they flocked to it with the intention to hinder Olaf from getting away, but the water undermined the banks on each side so that they fell in with the people, and many were drowned: but the Swedes contradict this as a false report, and deny the loss of people. The king sailed to Gotland in harvest, and prepared to plunder; but the Gotlanders assembled, and sent men to the king, offering him a scat. The king found this would suit him, and he received the scat, and remained there all winter. So says Ottar Svarte:-- "Thou seaman-prince! thy men are paid: The scat on Gotlanders is laid; Young man or old To our seamen bold Must pay, to save his head: The Yngling princes fled, Eysvssel people bled; Who can't defend the wealth they have Must die, or share with the rover brave." 7. THE SECOND BATTLE. It is related here that King Olaf, when spring set in, sailed east to Eysyssel, and landed and plundered; the Eysyssel men came down to the strand and grave him battle. King Olaf gained the victory, pursued those who fled, and laid waste the land with fire and sword. It is told that when King Olaf first came to Eysvssel they offered him scat, and when the scat was to be brought down to the strand the king came to meet it with an armed force, and that was not what the bondes there expected; for they had brought no scat, but only their weapons with which they fought against the king, as before related. So says Sigvat the skald:-- "With much deceit and bustle To the heath of Eysyssel The bondes brought the king, To get scat at their weapon-thing. But Olaf was too wise To be taken by surprise; Their legs scarce bore them off O'er the common test enough." 8. THE THIRD BATTLE. After this they sailed to Finland and plundered there, and went up the country. All the people fled to the forest, and they had emptied their houses of all household goods. The king went far up the country, and through some woods, and came to some dwellings in a valley called Herdaler,--where, however, they made but small booty, and saw no people; and as it was getting late in the day, the king turned back to his ships. Now when they came into the woods again people rushed upon them from all quarters, and made a severe attack. The king told his men to cover themselves with their shields, but before they got out of the woods he lost many people, and many were wounded; but at last, late in the evening, he got to the ships. The Finlanders conjured up in the night, by their witchcraft, a dreadful storm and bad weather on the sea; but the king ordered the anchors to be weighed and sail hoisted, and beat off all night to the outside of the land. The king's luck prevailed more than the Finlanders' witchcraft; for he had the luck to beat round the Balagard's side in the night, and so got out to sea. But the Finnish army proceeded on land, making the same progress as the king made with his ships. So says Sigvat:-- "The third fight was at Herdaler, where The men of Finland met in war The hero of the royal race, With ringing sword-blades face to face. Off Balagard's shore the waves Ran hollow; but the sea-king saves His hard-pressed ship, and gains the lee Of the east coast through the wild sea." 9. THE FOURTH BATTLE IN SUDERVIK. King Olaf sailed from thence to Denmark, where he met Thorkel the Tall, brother of Earl Sigvalde, and went into partnership with him; for he was just ready to set out on a cruise. They sailed southwards to the Jutland coast, to a place called Sudervik, where they overcame many viking ships. The vikings, who usually have many people to command, give themselves the title of kings, although they have no lands to rule over. King Olaf went into battle with them, and it was severe; but King Olaf gained the victory, and a great booty. So says Sigvat:-- "Hark! hark! The war-shout Through Sudervik rings, And the vikings bring out To fight the two kings. Great honour, I'm told, Won these vikings so bold: But their bold fight was vain, For the two brave kings gain." 10. THE FIFTH BATTLE IN FRIESLAND. King Olaf sailed from thence south to Friesland, and lay under the strand of Kinlima in dreadful weather. The king landed with his men; but the people of the country rode down to the strand against them, and he fought them. So says Sigvat:-- "Under Kinlima's cliff, This battle is the fifth. The brave sea-rovers stand All on the glittering sand; And down the horsemen ride To the edge of the rippling tide: But Olaf taught the peasant band To know the weight of a viking's hand." 11. DEATH OF KING SVEIN FORKED BEARD. The king sailed from thence westward to England. It was then the case that the Danish king, Svein Forked Beard, was at that time in England with a Danish army, and had been fixed there for some time, and had seized upon King Ethelred's kingdom. The Danes had spread themselves so widely over England, that it was come so far that King Ethelred had departed from the country, and had gone south to Valland. The same autumn that King Olaf came to England, it happened that King Svein died suddenly in the night in his bed; and it is said by Englishmen that Edmund the Saint killed him, in the same way that the holy Mercurius had killed the apostate Julian. When Ethelred, the king of the English, heard this in Flanders, he returned directly to England; and no sooner was he come back, than he sent an invitation to all the men who would enter into his pay, to join him in recovering the country. Then many people flocked to him; and among others, came King Olaf with a great troop of Northmen to his aid. They steered first to London, and sailed into the Thames with their fleet; but the Danes had a castle within. On the other side of the river is a great trading place, which is called Sudvirke. There the Danes had raised a great work, dug large ditches, and within had built a bulwark of stone, timber, and turf, where they had stationed a strong army. King Ethelred ordered a great assault; but the Danes defended themselves bravely, and King Ethelred could make nothing of it. Between the castle and Southwark (Sudvirke) there was a bridge, so broad that two wagons could pass each other upon it. On the bridge were raised barricades, both towers and wooden parapets, in the direction of the river, which were nearly breast high; and under the bridge were piles driven into the bottom of the river. Now when the attack was made the troops stood on the bridge everywhere, and defended themselves. King Ethelred was very anxious to get possession of the bridge, and he called together all the chiefs to consult how they should get the bridge broken down. Then said King Olaf he would attempt to lay his fleet alongside of it, if the other ships would do the same. It was then determined in this council that they should lay their war forces under the bridge; and each made himself ready with ships and men. 12. THE SIXTH BATTLE. King Olaf ordered great platforms of floating wood to be tied together with hazel bands, and for this he took down old houses; and with these, as a roof, he covered over his ships so widely, that it reached over the ships' sides. Under this screen he set pillars so high and stout, that there both was room for swinging their swords, and the roofs were strong enough to withstand the stones cast down upon them. Now when the fleet and men were ready, they rode up along the river; but when they came near the bridge, there were cast down upon them so many stones and missile weapons, such as arrows and spears, that neither helmet nor shield could hold out against it; and the ships themselves were so greatly damaged, that many retreated out of it. But King Olaf, and the Northmen's fleet with him, rowed quite up under the bridge, laid their cables around the piles which supported it, and then rowed off with all the ships as hard as they could down the stream. The piles were thus shaken in the bottom, and were loosened under the bridge. Now as the armed troops stood thick of men upon the bridge, and there were likewise many heaps of stones and other weapons upon it, and the piles under it being loosened and broken, the bridge gave way; and a great part of the men upon it fell into the river, and all the ethers fled, some into the castle, some into Southwark. Thereafter Southwark was stormed and taken. Now when the people in the castle saw that the river Thames was mastered, and that they could not hinder the passage of ships up into the country, they became afraid, surrendered the tower, and took Ethelred to be their king. So says Ottar Svarte:-- "London Bridge is broken down.-- Gold is won, and bright renown. Shields resounding, War-horns sounding, Hild is shouting in the din! Arrows singing, Mail-coats ringing-- Odin makes our Olaf win!" And he also composed these:-- "King Ethelred has found a friend: Brave Olaf will his throne defend-- In bloody fight Maintain his right, Win back his land With blood-red hand, And Edmund's son upon his throne replace-- Edmund, the star of every royal race!" Sigvat also relates as follows:-- "At London Bridge stout Olaf gave Odin's law to his war-men brave-- 'To win or die!' And their foemen fly. Some by the dyke-side refuge gain-- Some in their tents on Southwark plain! The sixth attack Brought victory back." 13. THE SEVENTH BATTLE. King Olaf passed all the winter with King Ethelred, and had a great battle at Hringmara Heath in Ulfkel's land, the domain which Ulfkel Snilling at that time held; and here again the king was victorious. So says Sigvat the skald:-- "To Ulfkel's land came Olaf bold, A seventh sword-thing he would hold. The race of Ella filled the plain-- Few of them slept at home again! Hringmara heath Was a bed of death: Harfager's heir Dealt slaughter there." And Ottar sings of this battle thus:-- "From Hringmara field The chime of war, Sword striking shield, Rings from afar. The living fly; The dead piled high The moor enrich; Red runs the ditch." The country far around was then brought in subjection to King Ethelred: but the Thingmen (1) and the Danes held many castles, besides a great part of the country. ENDNOTES: (1) Thing-men were hired men-at-arms; called Thing-men probably from being men above the class of thralls or unfree men, and entitled to appear at Things, as being udal-born to land at home. 14. EIGHTH AND NINTH BATTLES OF OLAF. King Olaf was commander of all the forces when they went against Canterbury; and they fought there until they took the town, killing many people and burning the castle. So says Ottar Svarte:-- "All in the grey of morn Broad Canterbury's forced. Black smoke from house-roofs borne Hides fire that does its worst; And many a man laid low By the battle-axe's blow, Waked by the Norsemen's cries, Scarce had time to rub his eyes." Sigvat reckons this King Olaf's eighth battle:-- "Of this eighth battle I can tell How it was fought, and what befell, The castle tower With all his power He could not take, Nor would forsake. The Perthmen fought, Nor quarter sought; By death or flight They left the fight. Olaf could not this earl stout From Canterbury quite drive out." At this time King Olaf was entrusted with the whole land defence of England, and he sailed round the land with his ships of War. He laid his ships at land at Nyjamoda, where the troops of the Thingmen were, and gave them battle and gained the victory. So says Sigvat the skald:-- "The youthful king stained red the hair Of Angeln men, and dyed his spear At Newport in their hearts' dark blood: And where the Danes the thickest stood-- Where the shrill storm round Olaf's head Of spear and arrow thickest fled. There thickest lay the Thingmen dead! Nine battles now of Olaf bold, Battle by battle, I have told." King Olaf then scoured all over the country, taking scat of the people and plundering where it was refused. So says Ottar:-- "The English race could not resist thee, With money thou madest them assist thee; Unsparingly thou madest them pay A scat to thee in every way; Money, if money could be got-- Goods, cattle, household gear, if not. Thy gathered spoil, borne to the strand, Was the best wealth of English land." Olaf remained here for three years (A.D. 1010-1012). 15. THE TENTH BATTLE. The third year King Ethelred died, and his sons Edmund and Edward took the government (A.D. 1012). Then Olaf sailed southwards out to sea, and had a battle at Hringsfjord, and took a castle situated at Holar, where vikings resorted, and burnt the castle. So says Sigvat the skald:-- "Of the tenth battle now I tell, Where it was fought, and what befell. Up on the hill in Hringsfjord fair A robber nest hung in the air: The people followed our brave chief, And razed the tower of the viking thief. Such rock and tower, such roosting-place, Was ne'er since held by the roving race." 16. ELEVENTH, TWELFTH AND THIRTEENTH BATTLES. Then King Olaf proceeded westwards to Grislupollar, and fought there with vikings at Williamsby; and there also King Olaf gained the victory. So says Sigvat:-- "The eleventh battle now I tell, Where it was fought, and what befell. At Grislupol our young fir's name O'ertopped the forest trees in fame: Brave Olaf's name--nought else was heard But Olaf's name, and arm, and sword. Of three great earls, I have heard say, His sword crushed helm and head that day." Next he fought westward on Fetlafjord, as Sigvat tells:-- "The twelfth fight was at Fetlafjord, Where Olaf's honour-seeking sword Gave the wild wolf's devouring teeth A feast of warriors doomed to death." From thence King Olaf sailed southwards to Seljupollar, where he had a battle. He took there a castle called Gunvaldsborg, which was very large and old. He also made prisoner the earl who ruled over the castle and who was called Geirfin. After a conference with the men of the castle, he laid a scat upon the town and earl, as ransom, of twelve thousand gold shillings: which was also paid by those on whom it was imposed. So says Sigvat:-- "The thirteenth battle now I tell, Where it was fought, and what befell. In Seljupol was fought the fray, And many did not survive the day. The king went early to the shore, To Gunvaldsborg's old castle-tower; And a rich earl was taken there, Whose name was Geridin, I am sure." 17. FOURTEENTH BATTLE AND OLAF'S DREAM. Thereafter King Olaf steered with his fleet westward to Karlsar, and tarried there and had a fight. And while King Olaf was lying in Karlsa river waiting a wind, and intending to sail up to Norvasund, and then on to the land of Jerusalem, he dreamt a remarkable dream--that there came to him a great and important man, but of a terrible appearance withal, who spoke to him, and told him to give up his purpose of proceeding to that land. "Return back to thy udal, for thou shalt be king over Norway for ever." He interpreted this dream to mean that he should be king over the country, and his posterity after him for a long time. 18. FIFTEENTH BATTLE. After this appearance to him he turned about, and came to Poitou, where he plundered and burnt a merchant town called Varrande. Of this Ottar speaks:-- "Our young king, blythe and gay, Is foremost in the fray: Poitou he plunders, Tuskland burns,-- He fights and wins where'er he turns." And also Sigvat says:-- "The Norsemen's king is on his cruise, His blue steel staining, Rich booty gaining, And all men trembling at the news. The Norsemen's kings up on the Loire: Rich Partheney In ashes lay; Far inland reached the Norsemen's spear." 19. OF THE EARLS OF ROUEN. King Olaf had been two summers and one winter in the west in Valland on this cruise; and thirteen years had now passed since the fall of King Olaf Trygvason. During this time earls had ruled over Norway; first Hakon's sons Eirik and Svein, and afterwards Eirik's sons Hakon and Svein. Hakon was a sister's son of King Canute, the son of Svein. During this time there were two earls in Valland, William and Robert; their father was Richard earl of Rouen. They ruled over Normandy. Their sister was Queen Emma, whom the English king Ethelred had married; and their sons were Edmund, Edward the Good, Edwy, and Edgar. Richard the earl of Rouen was a son of Richard the son of William Long Spear, who was the son of Rolf Ganger, the earl who first conquered Normandy; and he again was a son of Ragnvald the Mighty, earl of More, as before related. From Rolf Ganger are descended the earls of Rouen, who have long reckoned themselves of kin to the chiefs in Norway, and hold them in such respect that they always were the greatest friends of the Northmen; and every Northman found a friendly country in Normandy, if he required it. To Normandy King Olaf came in autumn (A.D. 1013), and remained all winter (A.D. 1014) in the river Seine in good peace and quiet. 20. OF EINAR TAMBASKELFER. After Olaf Trygvason's fall, Earl Eirik gave peace to Einar Tambaskelfer, the son of Eindride Styrkarson; and Einar went north with the earl to Norway. It is said that Einar was the strongest man and the best archer that ever was in Norway. His shooting was sharp beyond all others; for with a blunt arrow he shot through a raw, soft ox-hide, hanging over a beam. He was better than any man at running on snow-shoes, was a great man at all exercises, was of high family, and rich. The earls Eirik and Svein married their sister Bergliot to Einar. Their son was named Eindride. The earls gave Einar great fiefs in Orkadal, so that he was one of the most powerful and able men in the Throndhjem country, and was also a great friend of the earls, and a great support and aid to them. 21. OF ERLING SKIALGSON. When Olaf Trygvason ruled over Norway, he gave his brother-in-law Erling half of the land scat, and royal revenues between the Naze and Sogn. His other sister he married to the Earl Ragnvald Ulfson, who long ruled over West Gautland. Ragnvald's father, Ulf, was a brother of Sigrid the Haughty, the mother of Olaf the Swedish king. Earl Eirik was ill pleased that Erling Skialgson had so large a dominion, and he took to himself all the king's estates, which King Olaf had given to Erling. But Erling levied, as before, all the land scat in Rogaland; and thus the inhabitants had often to pay him the land scat, otherwise he laid waste their land. The earl made little of the business, for no bailiff of his could live there, and the earl could only come there in guest-quarters, when he had a great many people with him. So says Sigvat:-- "Olaf the king Thought the bonde Erling A man who would grace His own royal race. One sister the king Gave the bonde Erling; And one to an earl, And she saved him in peril." Earl Eirik did not venture to fight with Erling, because he had very powerful and very many friends, and was himself rich and popular, and kept always as many retainers about him as if he held a king's court. Erling was often out in summer on plundering expeditions, and procured for himself means of living; for he continued his usual way of high and splendid living, although now he had fewer and less convenient fiefs than in the time of his brother-in-law King Olaf Trygvason. Erling was one of the handsomest, largest, and strongest men; a better warrior than any other; and in all exercises he was like King Olaf himself. He was, besides, a man of understanding, jealous in everything he undertook, and a deadly man at arms. Sigvat talks thus of him:-- "No earl or baron, young or old, Match with this bonde brave can hold. Mild was brave Erling, all men say, When not engaged in bloody fray: His courage he kept hid until The fight began, then foremost still Erling was seen in war's wild game, And famous still is Erling's name." It was a common saying among the people, that Erling had been the most valiant who ever held lands under a king in Norway. Erlings and Astrid s children were these--Aslak, Skialg, Sigurd, Lodin, Thorer, and Ragnhild, who was married to Thorberg Arnason. Erling had always with him ninety free-born men or more, and both winter and summer it was the custom in his house to drink at the mid-day meal according to a measure (1), but at the night meal there was no measure in drinking. When the earl was in the neighbourhood he had 200 (2) men or more. He never went to sea with less than a fully-manned ship of twenty benches of rowers. Erling had also a ship of thirty-two benches of rowers, which was besides, very large for that size, and which he used in viking cruises, or on an expedition; and in it there were 200 men at the very least. ENDNOTES: (1) There were silver-studs in a row from the rim to the bottom of the drinking born or cup; and as it went round each drank till the stud appeared above the liquor. This was drinking by measure.--L. (2) I.e., 240. 22. OF THE HERSE ERLING SKIALGSON. Erling had always at home on his farm thirty slaves, besides other serving-people. He gave his slaves a certain day's work; but after it he gave them leisure, and leave that each should work in the twilight and at night for himself, and as he pleased. He gave them arable land to sow corn in, and let them apply their crops to their own use. He laid upon each a certain quantity of labour to work themselves free by doing it; and there were many who bought their freedom in this way in one year, or in the second year, and all who had any luck could make themselves free within three years. With this money he bought other slaves: and to some of his freed people he showed how to work in the herring-fishery, to others he showed some useful handicraft; and some cleared his outfields and set up houses. He helped all to prosperity. 23. OF EARL EIRIK. When Earl Eirik had ruled over Norway for twelve years, there came a message to him from his brother-in-law King Canute, the Danish king, that he should go with him on an expedition westward to England; for Eirik was very celebrated for his campaigns, as he had gained the victory in the two hardest engagements which had ever been fought in the north countries. The one was that in which the Earls Hakon and Eirik fought with the Jomsborg vikings; the other that in which Earl Eirik fought with King Olaf Trygvason. Thord Kolbeinson speaks of this:-- "A song of praise Again I raise. To the earl bold The word is told, That Knut the Brave His aid would crave; The earl, I knew, To friend stands true." The earl would not sleep upon the message of the king, but sailed immediately out of the country, leaving behind his son Earl Hakon to take care of Norway; and, as he was but seventeen years of age, Einar Tambaskelfer was to be at his hand to rule the country for him. Eirik met King Canute in England, and was with him when he took the castle of London. Earl Eirik had a battle also to the westward of the castle of London, and killed Ulfkel Snilling. So says Thord Kolbeinson:-- "West of London town we passed, And our ocean-steeds made fast, And a bloody fight begin, England's lands to lose or win. Blue sword and shining spear Laid Ulfkel's dead corpse there, Our Thingmen hear the war-shower sounding Our grey arrows from their shields rebounding." Earl Eirik was a winter in England, and had many battles there. The following autumn he intended to make a pilgrimage to Rome, but he died in England of a bloody flux. 24. THE MURDER OF EDMUND. King Canute came to England the summer that King Ethelred died, and had many battles with Ethelred's sons, in which the victory was sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other. Then King Canute took Queen Emma in marriage; and their children were Harald, Hardacanute, and Gunhild. King Canute then made an agreement with King Edmund, that each of them should have a half of England. In the same month Henry Strion murdered King Edmund. King Canute then drove all Ethelred's sons out of England. So says Sigvat:-- "Now all the sons of Ethelred Were either fallen, or had fled: Some slain by Canute,--some they say, To save their lives had run away." 25. OLAF AND ETHELRED'S SONS. King Ethelred's sons came to Rouen in Valland from England, to their mother's brother, the same summer that King Olaf Haraldson came from the west from his viking cruise, and they were all during the winter in Normandy together. They made an agreement with each other that King Olaf should have Northumberland, if they could succeed in taking England from the Danes. Therefore about harvest, Olaf sent his foster-father Hrane to England to collect men-at-arms; and Ethelred's sons sent tokens to their friends and relations with him. King Olaf, besides, gave him much money with him to attract people to them. Hrane was all winter in England, and got promises from many powerful men of fidelity, as the people of the country would rather have native kings over them; but the Danish power had become so great in England, that all the people were brought under their dominion. 26. BATTLE OF KING OLAF. In spring (A.D. 1014) King Olaf and King Ethelred's sons set out together to the west, and came to a place in England called Jungufurda, where they landed with their army and moved forward against the castle. Many men were there who had promised them their aid. They took the castle; and killed many people. Now when King Canute's men heard of this they assembled an army, and were soon in such force that Ethelred's sons could not stand against it; and they saw no other way left but to return to Rouen. Then King Olaf separated from them, and would not go back to Valland, but sailed northwards along England, all the way to Northumberland, where he put into a haven at a place called Valde; and in a battle there with the townspeople and merchants he gained the victory, and a great booty. 27. OLAF'S EXPEDITION TO NORWAY. King Olaf left his long-ships there behind, but made ready two ships of burden; and had with him 220 men in them, well-armed, and chosen people. He sailed out to sea northwards in harvest, but encountered a tremendous storm and they were in danger of being lost; but as they had a chosen crew, and the king s luck with them, all went on well. So says Ottar:-- "Olaf, great stem of kings, is brave-- Bold in the fight, bold on the wave. No thought of fear Thy heart comes near. Undaunted, 'midst the roaring flood, Firm at his post each shipman stood; And thy two ships stout The gale stood out." And further he says:-- "Thou able chief! with thy fearless crew Thou meetest, with skill and courage true, The wild sea's wrath On thy ocean path. Though waves mast-high were breaking round. Thou findest the middle of Norway's ground, With helm in hand On Saela's strand." It is related here that King Olaf came from the sea to the very middle of Norway; and the isle is called Saela where they landed, and is outside of Stad. King Olaf said he thought it must be a lucky day for them, since they had landed at Saela in Norway; and observed it was a good omen that it so happened. As they were going up in the isle, the king slipped with one foot in a place where there was clay, but supported himself with the other foot. Then said he "The king falls." "Nay," replies Hrane, "thou didst not fall, king, but set fast foot in the soil." The king laughed thereat, and said, "It may be so if God will." They went down again thereafter to their ships, and sailed to Ulfasund, where they heard that Earl Hakon was south in Sogn, and was expected north as soon as wind allowed with a single ship. 28. HAKON TAKEN PRISONER BY OLAF. King Olaf steered his ships within the ordinary ships' course when he came abreast of Fjaler district, and ran into Saudungssund. There he laid his two vessels one on each side of the sound with a thick cable between them. At the same moment Hakon, Earl Eirik's son, came rowing into the sound with a manned ship; and as they thought these were but two merchant-vessels that were lying in the sound, they rowed between them. Then Olaf and his men draw the cable up right under Hakon's ship's keel and wind it up with the capstan. As soon as the vessel's course was stopped her stern was lifted up, and her bow plunged down; so that the water came in at her fore-end and over both sides, and she upset. King Olaf's people took Earl Hakon and all his men whom they could get hold of out of the water, and made them prisoners; but some they killed with stones and other weapons, and some were drowned. So says Ottar:-- "The black ravens wade In the blood from thy blade. Young Hakon so gay, With his ship, is thy prey: His ship, with its gear, Thou hast ta'en; and art here, Thy forefather's land From the earl to demand." Earl Hakon was led up to the king's ship. He was the handsomest man that could be seen. He had long hair, as fine as silk, bound about his bead with a gold ornament. When he sat down in the fore-hold, the king said to him, "It is not false what is said of your family, that ye are handsome people to look at; but now your luck has deserted you." Hakon the earl replied, "It has always been the case that success is changeable; and there is no luck in the matter. It has gone with your family as with mine, to have by turns the better lot. I am little beyond childhood in years; and at any rate we could not have defended ourselves, as we did not expect any attack on the way. It may turn out better with us another time." Then said King Olaf, "Dost thou not apprehend that thou art in that condition that, hereafter, there can be neither victory nor defeat for thee?" The earl replies, "That is what thou only canst determine, king, according to thy pleasure." Olaf says, "What wilt thou give me, earl, if for this time I let thee go, whole and unhurt?" The earl asks what he would take. "Nothing," says the king, "except that thou shalt leave the country, give up thy kingdom, and take an oath that thou shalt never go into battle against me." The earl answered, that he would do so. And now Earl Hakon took the oath that he would never fight against Olaf, or seek to defend Norway against him, or attack him; and King Olaf thereupon gave him and all his men life and peace. The earl got back the ship which had brought him there, and he and his men rowed their way. Thus says Sigvat of him:-- "In old Saudungs sound The king Earl Hakon found, Who little thought that there A foeman was so near. The best and fairest youth Earl Hakon was in truth, That speaks the Danish tongue, And of the race of great Hakon." 29. HAKON'S DEPARTURE FROM NORWAY. After this (A.D. 1014) the earl made ready as fast as possible to leave the country and sail over to England. He met King Canute, his mother's brother, there, and told him all that had taken place between him and King Olaf. King Canute received him remarkably well, placed him in his court in his own house, and gave him great power in his kingdom. Earl Hakon dwelt a long time with King Canute. During the time Svein and Hakon ruled over Norway, a reconciliation with Erling Skialgson was effected, and secured by Aslak, Erling's son, marrying Gunhild, Earl Svein's daughter; and the father and son, Erling and Aslak, retained all the fiefs which King Olaf Trygvason had given to Erling. Thus Erling became a firm friend of the earl's, and their mutual friendship was confirmed by oath. 30. ASTA RECEIVES HER SON OLAF. King Olaf went now eastward along the land, holding Things with the bondes all over the country. Many went willingly with him; but some, who were Earl Svein's friends or relations, spoke against him. Therefore King Olaf sailed in all haste eastward to Viken; went in there with his ships; set them on the land; and proceeded up the country, in order to meet his stepfather, Sigurd Syr. When he came to Vestfold he was received in a friendly way by many who had been his father's friends or acquaintances; and also there and in Folden were many of his family. In autumn (A.D. 1014) he proceeded up the country to his stepfather King Sigurd's, and came there one day very early. As Olaf was coming near to the house, some of the servants ran beforehand to the house, and into the room. Olaf's mother, Asta, was sitting in the room, and around her some of her girls. When the servants told her of King Olaf's approach, and that he might soon be expected, Asta stood up directly, and ordered the men and girls to put everything in the best order. She ordered four girls to bring out all that belonged to the decoration of the room and put it in order with hangings and benches. Two fellows brought straw for the floor, two brought forward four-cornered tables and the drinking-jugs, two bore out victuals and placed the meat on the table, two she sent away from the house to procure in the greatest haste all that was needed, and two carried in the ale; and all the other serving men and girls went outside of the house. Messengers went to seek King Sigurd wherever he might be, and brought to him his dress-clothes, and his horse with gilt saddle, and his bridle, which was gilt and set with precious stones. Four men she sent off to the four quarters of the country to invite all the great people to a feast, which she prepared as a rejoicing for her son's return. All who were before in the house she made to dress themselves with the best they had, and lent clothes to those who had none suitable. 31. KING SIGURD'S DRESS. King Sigurd Syr was standing in his corn-field when the messengers came to him and brought him the news, and also told him all that Asta was doing at home in the house. He had many people on his farm. Some were then shearing corn, some bound it together, some drove it to the building, some unloaded it and put it in stack or barn; but the king, and two men with him, went sometimes into the field, sometimes to the place where the corn was put into the barn. His dress, it is told, was this:--he had a blue kirtle and blue breeches; shoes which were laced about the legs; a grey cloak, and a grey wide-brimmed hat; a veil before his face; a staff in his hand with a gilt-silver head on it and a silver ring around it. Of Sigurd's living and disposition it is related that he was a very gain-making man who attended carefully to his cattle and husbandry, and managed his housekeeping himself. He was nowise given to pomp, and was rather taciturn. But he was a man of the best understanding in Norway, and also excessively wealthy in movable property. Peaceful he was, and nowise haughty. His wife Asta was generous and high-minded. Their children were, Guthorm, the eldest; then Gunhild; the next Halfdan, Ingerid, and Harald. The messengers said to Sigurd, "Asta told us to bring thee word how much it lay at her heart that thou shouldst on this occasion comport thyself in the fashion of great men, and show a disposition more akin to Harald Harfager's race than to thy mother's father's, Hrane Thin-nose, or Earl Nereid the Old, although they too were very wise men." The king replies, "The news ye bring me is weighty, and ye bring it forward in great heat. Already before now Asta has been taken up much with people who were not so near to her; and I see she is still of the same disposition. She takes this up with great warmth; but can she lead her son out of the business with the same splendour she is leading him into it? If it is to proceed so methinks they who mix themselves up in it regard little property or life. For this man, King Olaf, goes against a great superiority of power; and the wrath of the Danish and Swedish kings lies at the foot of his determination, if he ventures to go against them." 32. OF THE FEAST. When the king had said this he sat down, and made them take off his shoes, and put corduvan boots on, to which he bound his gold spurs. Then he put off his cloak and coat, and dressed himself in his finest clothes, with a scarlet cloak over all; girded on his sword, set a gilded helmet upon his head, and mounted his horse. He sent his labouring people out to the neighbourhood, and gathered to him thirty well-clothed men, and rode home with them. As they rode up to the house, and were near the room, they saw on the other side of the house the banners of Olaf coming waving; and there was he himself, with about 100 men all well equipped. People were gathered over all upon the house-tops. King Sigurd immediately saluted his stepson from horseback in a friendly way, and invited him and his men to come in and drink a cup with him. Asta, on the contrary, went up and kissed her son, and invited him to stay with her; and land, and people, and all the good she could do for him stood at his service. King Olaf thanked her kindly for her invitation. Then she took him by the hand, and led him into the room to the high-seat. King Sigurd got men to take charge of their clothes, and give their horses corn; and then he himself went to his high-seat, and the feast was made with the greatest splendour. 33. CONVERSATION OF OLAF AND SIGURD. King Olaf had not been long here before he one day called his stepfather King Sigurd, his mother Asta, and his foster-father Hrane to a conference and consultation. Olaf began thus: "It has so happened," said he, "as is well known to you, that I have returned to this country after a very long sojourn in foreign parts, during all which time I and my men have had nothing for our support but what we captured in war, for which we have often hazarded both life and soul: for many an innocent man have we deprived of his property, and some of their lives; and foreigners are now sitting in the possessions which my father, his father, and their forefathers for a long series of generations owned, and to which I have udal right. They have not been content with this, but have taken to themselves also the properties of all our relations who are descended from Harald Harfager. To some they have left little, to others nothing at all. Now I will disclose to you what I have long concealed in my own mind, that I intend to take the heritage of my forefathers; but I will not wait upon the Danish or Swedish king to supplicate the least thing from them, although they for the time call that their property which was Harald Harfager's heritage. To say the truth, I intend rather to seek my patrimony with battle-axe and sword, and that with the help of all my friends and relations, and of those who in this business will take my side. And in this matter I will so lay hand to the work that one of two things shall happen,--either I shall lay all this kingdom under my rule which they got into their hands by the slaughter of my kinsman Olaf Trygvason, or I shall fall here upon my inheritance in the land of my fathers. Now I expect of thee, Sigurd, my stepfather, as well as other men here in the country who have udal right of succession to the kingdom, according to the law made by King Harald Harfager, that nothing shall be of such importance to you as to prevent you from throwing off the disgrace from our family of being slow at supporting the man who comes forward to raise up again our race. But whether ye show any manhood in this affair or not, I know the inclination of the people well,--that all want to be free from the slavery of foreign masters, and will give aid and strength to the attempt. I have not proposed this matter to any before thee, because I know thou art a man of understanding, and can best judge how this my purpose shall be brought forward in the beginning, and whether we shall, in all quietness, talk about it to a few persons, or instantly declare it to the people at large. I have already shown my teeth by taking prisoner the Earl Hakon, who has now left the country, and given me, under oath, the part of the kingdom which he had before; and I think it will be easier to have Earl Svein alone to deal with, than if both were defending the country against us." King Sigurd answers, "It is no small affair, King Olaf, thou hast in thy mind; and thy purpose comes more, methinks, from hasty pride than from prudence. But it may be there is a wide difference between my humble ways and the high thoughts thou hast; for whilst yet in thy childhood thou wast full always of ambition and desire of command, and now thou art experienced in battles, and hast formed thyself upon the manner of foreign chiefs. I know therefore well, that as thou hast taken this into thy head, it is useless to dissuade thee from it; and also it is not to be denied that it goes to the heart of all who have courage in them, that the whole Harfager race and kingdom should go to the ground. But I will not bind myself by any promise, before I know the views and intentions of other Upland kings; but thou hast done well in letting me know thy purpose, before declaring it publicly to the people. I will promise thee, however, my interest with the kings, and other chiefs, and country people; and also, King Olaf, all my property stands to thy aid, and to strengthen thee. But we will only produce the matter to the community so soon as we see some progress, and expect some strength to this undertaking; for thou canst easily perceive that it is a daring measure to enter into strife with Olaf the Swedish king, and Canute, who is king both of Denmark and England; and thou requirest great support under thee, if it is to succeed. It is not unlikely, in my opinion, that thou wilt get good support from the people, as the commonalty always loves what is new; and it went so before, when Olaf Trygvason came here to the country, that all rejoiced at it, although he did not long enjoy the kingdom." When the consultation had proceeded so far, Asta took up the word. "For my part, my son, I am rejoiced at thy arrival, but much more at thy advancing thy honour. I will spare nothing for that purpose that stands in my power, although it be but little help that can be expected from me. But if a choice could be made, I would rather that thou shouldst be the supreme king of Norway, even if thou shouldst not sit longer in thy kingdom than Olaf Trygvason did, than that thou shouldst not be a greater king than Sigurd Syr is, and die the death of old age." With this the conference closed. King Olaf remained here a while with all his men. King Sigurd entertained them, day about, the one day with fish and milk, the other day with flesh-meat and ale. 34. KINGS IN THE UPLAND DISTRICTS. At that time there were many kings in the Uplands who had districts to rule over, and the most of them were descended from Harald Harfager. In Hedemark two brothers ruled--Hrorek and Ring; in Gudbrandsdal, Gudrod; and there was also a king in Raumarike; and one had Hadaland and Thoten; and in Valders also there was a king. With these district-kings Sigurd had a meeting up in Hadaland, and Olaf Haraldson also met with them. To these district-kings whom Sigurd had assembled he set forth his stepson Olaf's purpose, and asked their aid, both of men and in counsel and consent; and represented to them how necessary it was to cast off the yoke which the Danes and Swedes had laid upon them. He said that there was now a man before them who could head such an enterprise; and he recounted the many brave actions which Olaf had achieved upon his war-expeditions. Then King Hrorek says, "True it is that Harald Harfager's kingdom has gone to decay, none of his race being supreme king over Norway. But the people here in the country have experienced many things. When King Hakon, Athelstan's foster-son, was king, all were content; but when Gunhild's sons ruled over the country, all were so weary of their tyranny and injustice that they would rather have foreign men as kings, and be themselves more their own rulers; for the foreign kings were usually abroad and cared little about the customs of the people if the scat they laid on the country was paid. When enmity arose between the Danish king Harald and Earl Hakon, the Jomsborg vikings made an expedition against Norway; then the whole people arose, and threw the hostilities from themselves; and thereafter the people encouraged Earl Hakon to keep the country, and defend it with sword and spear against the Danish king. But when he had set himself fast in the kingdom with the help of the people, he became so hard and overbearing towards the country-folks, that they would no longer suffer him. The Throndhjem people killed him, and raised to the kingly power Olaf Trygvason, who was of the udal succession to the kingdom, and in all respects well fitted to be a chief. The whole country's desire was to make him supreme king, and raise again the kingdom which Harald Harfager had made for himself. But when King Olaf thought himself quite firmly seated in his kingdom, no man could rule his own concerns for him. With us small kings he was so unreasonable, as to take to himself not only all the scat and duties which Harald Harfager had levied from us, but a great deal more. The people at last had so little freedom under him, that it was not allowed to every man to believe in what god he pleased. Now since he has been taken away we have kept friendly with the Danish king; have received great help from him when we have had any occasion for it; and have been allowed to rule ourselves, and live in peace and quiet in the inland country, and without any overburden. I am therefore content that things be as they are, for I do not see what better rights I am to enjoy by one of my relations ruling over the country; and if I am to be no better off, I will take no part in the affair." Then said King Ring, his brother, "I will also declare my opinion that it is better for me, if I hold the same power and property as now, that my relative is king over Norway, rather than a foreign chief, so that our family may again raise its head in the land. It is, besides, my opinion about this man Olaf, that his fate and luck must determine whether he is to obtain the kingdom or not; and if he succeed in making himself supreme king, then he will be the best off who has best deserved his friendship. At present he has in no respect greater power than any of us; nay, indeed, he has less; as we have lands and kingdoms to rule over, and he has nothing, and we are equally entitled by the udal right to the kingdom as he is himself. Now, if we will be his men, give him our aid, allow him to take the highest dignity in the country, and stand by him with our strength, how should he not reward us well, and hold it in remembrance to our great advantage, if he be the honourable man I believe him to be, and all say he is? Therefore let us join the adventure, say I, and bind ourselves in friendship with him." Then the others, one after the other, stood up and spoke; and the conclusion was, that the most of them determined to enter into a league with King Olaf. He promised them his perfect friendship, and that he would hold by and improve the country's laws and rights, if he became supreme king of Norway. This league was confirmed by oath. 35. OLAF GETS THE TITLE OF KING FROM THE THING. Thereafter the kings summoned a Thing, and there King Olaf set forth this determination to all the people, and his demand on the kingly power. He desires that the bondes should receive him as king; and promises, on the other hand, to allow them to retain their ancient laws, and to defend the land from foreign masters and chiefs. On this point he spoke well, and long; and he got great praise for his speech. Then the kings rose and spoke, the one after the other, and supported his cause, and this message to the people. At last it came to this, that King Olaf was proclaimed king over the whole country, and the kingdom adjudged to him according to law in the Uplands (A.D. 1014). 36. KING OLAF TRAVELS IN THE UPLANDS. King Olaf began immediately his progress through the country, appointing feasts before him wherever there were royal farms. First he travelled round in Hadaland, and then he proceeded north to Gudbrandsdal. And now it went as King Sigurd Syr had foretold, that people streamed to him from all quarters; and he did not appear to have need for half of them, for he had nearly 300 men. But the entertainments bespoken did not half serve; for it had been the custom that kings went about in guest-quarters in the Uplands with 60 or 70 men only, and never with more than 100 men. The king therefore hastened over the country, only stopping one night at the same place. When he came north to Dovrefield, he arranged his journey so that he came over the mountain and down upon the north side of it, and then came to Opdal, where he remained all night. Afterwards he proceeded through Opdal forest, and came out at Medaldal, where he proclaimed a Thing, and summoned the bondes to meet him at it. The king made a speech to the Thing, and asked the bondes to accept him as king; and promised, on his part, the laws and rights which King Olaf Trygvason had offered them. The bondes had no strength to make opposition to the king; so the result was that they received him as king, and confirmed it by oath: but they sent word to Orkadal and Skaun of all that they knew concerning Olaf's proceedings. 37. LEVY AGAINST OLAF IN THRONDHJEM. Einar Tambaskelfer had a farm and house at Husaby in Skaun; and now when he got news of Olaf's proceedings, he immediately split up a war-arrow, and sent it out as a token to the four quarters--north, south, east, west,--to call together all free and unfree men in full equipment of war: therewith the message, that they were to defend the land against King Olaf. The message-stick went to Orkadal, and thence to Gaulardal, where the whole war-force was to assemble. 38. OLAF'S PROGRESS IN THRONDHJEM. King Olaf proceeded with his men down into Orkadal, and advanced in peace and with all gentleness; but when he came to Griotar he met the assembled bondes, amounting to more than 700 men. Then the king arrayed his army, for he thought the bondes were to give battle. When the bondes saw this, they also began to put their men in order; but it went on very slowly, for they had not agreed beforehand who among them should be commander. Now when King Olaf saw there was confusion among the bondes, he sent to them Thorer Gudbrandson; and when he came he told them King Olaf did not want to fight them, but named twelve of the ablest men in their flock of people, who were desired to come to King Olaf. The bondes agreed to this; and the twelve men went over a rising ground which is there, and came to the place where the king's army stood in array. The king said to them, "Ye bondes have done well to give me an opportunity to speak with you, for now I will explain to you my errand here to the Throndhjem country. First I must tell you, what ye already must have heard, that Earl Hakon and I met in summer; and the issue of our meeting was, that he gave me the whole kingdom he possessed in the Throndhjem country, which, as ye know, consists of Orkadal, Gaulardal, Strind, and Eyna district. As a proof of this, I have here with me the very men who were present, and saw the earl's and my own hands given upon it, and heard the word and oath, and witnessed the agreement the earl made with me. Now I offer you peace and law, the same as King Olaf Trygvason offered before me." The king spoke well, and long; and ended by proposing to the bondes two conditions--either to go into his service and be subject to him, or to fight him. Thereupon the twelve bondes went back to their people, and told the issue of their errand, and considered with the people what they should resolve upon. Although they discussed the matter backwards and forwards for a while, they preferred at last to submit to the king; and it was confirmed by the oath of the bondes. The king now proceeded on his journey, and the bondes made feasts for him. The king then proceeded to the sea-coast, and got ships; and among others he got a long-ship of twenty benches of rowers from Gunnar of Gelmin; another ship of twenty benches he got from Loden of Viggia; and three ships of twenty benches from the farm of Angrar on the ness which farm Earl Hakon had possessed, but a steward managed it for him, by name Bard White. The king had, besides, four or five boats; and with these vessels he went in all haste into the fjord of Throndhjem. 39. OF EARL SVEIN'S PROCEEDINGS. Earl Svein was at that time far up in the Throndhjem fjord at Steinker, which at that time was a merchant town, and was there preparing for the yule festival (A.D. 1015). When Einar Tambaskelfer heard that the Orkadal people had submitted to King Olaf, he sent men to Earl Svein to bring him the tidings. They went first to Nidaros, and took a rowing-boat which belonged to Einar, with which they went out into the fjord, and came one day late in the evening to Steinker, where they brought to the earl the news about all King Olaf's proceedings. The earl owned a long-ship, which was lying afloat and rigged just outside the town: and immediately, in the evening, he ordered all his movable goods, his people's clothes, and also meat and drink, as much as the vessel could carry, to be put on board, rowed immediately out in the night-time, and came with daybreak to Skarnsund. There he saw King Olaf rowing in with his fleet into the fjord. The earl turned towards the land within Masarvik, where there was a thick wood, and lay so near the rocks that the leaves and branches hung over the vessel. They cut down some large trees, which they laid over the quarter on the sea-side, so that the ship could not be seen for leaves, especially as it was scarcely clear daylight when the king came rowing past them. The weather was calm, and the king rowed in among the islands; and when the king's fleet was out of sight the earl rowed out of the fjord, and on to Frosta, where his kingdom lay, and there he landed. 40. EARL SVEIN'S AND EINAR'S CONSULTATIONS. Earl Svein sent men out to Gaulardal to his brother-in-law, Einar Tambaskelfer; and when Einar came the earl told him how it had been with him and King Olaf, and that now he would assemble men to go out against King Olaf, and fight him. Einar answers, "We should go to work cautiously, and find out what King Olaf intends doing; and not let him hear anything concerning us but that we are quiet. It may happen that if he hears nothing about our assembling people, he may sit quietly where he is in Steinker all the Yule; for there is plenty prepared for him for the Yule feast: but if he hears we are assembling men, he will set right out of the fjord with his vessels, and we shall not get hold of him." Einar's advice was taken; and the earl went to Stjoradal, into guest-quarters among the bondes. When King Olaf came to Steinker he collected all the meat prepared for the Yule feast, and made it be put on board, procured some transport vessels, took meat and drink with him, and got ready to sail as fast as possible, and went out all the way to Nidaros. Here King Olaf Trygvason had laid the foundation of a merchant town, and had built a king's house: but before that Nidaros was only a single house, as before related. When Earl Eirik came to the country, he applied all his attention to his house of Lade, where his father had had his main residence, and he neglected the houses which Olaf had erected at the Nid; so that some were fallen down, and those which stood were scarcely habitable. King Olaf went now with his ships up the Nid, made all the houses to be put in order directly that were still standing, and built anew those that had fallen down, and employed in this work a great many people. Then he had all the meat and drink brought on shore to the houses, and prepared to hold Yule there; so Earl Svein and Einar had to fall upon some other plan. 41. OF SIGVAT THE SKALD. There was an Iceland man called Thord Sigvaldaskald, who had been long with Earl Sigvalde, and afterwards with the earl's brother, Thorkel the Tall; but after the earl's death Thord had become a merchant. He met King Olaf on his viking cruise in the west, and entered into his service, and followed him afterwards. He was with the king when the incidents above related took place. Thord had a son called Sigvat fostered in the house of Thorkel at Apavatn, in Iceland. When he was nearly a grown man he went out of the country with some merchants; and the ship came in autumn to the Throndhjem country, and the crew lodged in the hered (district). The same winter King Olaf came to Throndhjem, as just now related by us. Now when Sigvat heard that his father Thord was with the king, he went to him, and stayed a while with him. Sigvat was a good skald at an early age. He made a lay in honour of King Olaf, and asked the king to listen to it. The king said he did not want poems composed about him, and said he did not understand the skald's craft. Then Sigvat sang:-- "Rider of dark-blue ocean's steeds! Allow one skald to sing thy deeds; And listen to the song of one Who can sing well, if any can. For should the king despise all others, And show no favour to my brothers, Yet I may all men's favour claim, Who sing, still of our great king's fame." King Olaf gave Sigvat as a reward for his verse a gold ring that weighed half a mark, and Sigvat was made one of King Olaf's court-men. Then Sigvat sang:-- "I willingly receive this sword-- By land or sea, on shore, on board, I trust that I shall ever be Worthy the sword received from thee. A faithful follower thou hast bound-- A generous master I have found; Master and servant both have made Just what best suits them by this trade." Earl Svein had, according to custom, taken one half of the harbour-dues from the Iceland ship-traders about autumn (A.D. 1014); for the Earls Eirik and Hakon had always taken one half of these and all other revenues in the Throndhjem country. Now when King Olaf came there, he sent his men to demand that half of the tax from the Iceland traders; and they went up to the king's house and asked Sigvat to help them. He went to the king, and sang:-- "My prayer, I trust, will not be vain-- No gold by it have I to gain: All that the king himself here wins Is not red gold, but a few skins. it is not right that these poor men Their harbour-dues should pay again. That they paid once I know is true; Remit, great king, what scarce is due." 42. OF EARL SVEIN. Earl Svein and Einar Tambaskelfer gathered a large armed force, with which they came by the upper road into Gaulardal, and so down to Nidaros, with nearly 2000 men. King Olaf's men were out upon the Gaular ridge, and had a guard on horseback. They became aware that a force was coming down the Gaulardal, and they brought word of it to the king about midnight. The king got up immediately, ordered the people to be wakened, and they went on board of the ships, bearing all their clothes and arms on board, and all that they could take with them, and then rowed out of the river. Then came the earl's men to the town at the same moment, took all the Christmas provision, and set fire to the houses. King Olaf went out of the fjord down to Orkadal, and there landed the men from their ships. From Orkadal they went up to the mountains, and over the mountains eastwards into Gudbrandsdal. In the lines composed about Kleng Brusason, it is said that Earl Eirik burned the town of Nidaros:-- "The king's half-finished hall, Rafters, root, and all, Is burned down by the river's side; The flame spreads o'er the city wide." 43. OF KING OLAF. King Olaf went southwards through Gudbrandsdal, and thence out to Hedemark. In the depth of winter (A.D. 1015) he went about in guest-quarters; but when spring returned he collected men, and went to Viken. He had with him many people from Hedemark, whom the kings had given him; and also many powerful people from among the bondes joined him, among whom Ketil Kalf from Ringanes. He had also people from Raumarike. His stepfather, Sigurd Syr, gave him the help also of a great body of men. They went down from thence to the coast, and made ready to put to sea from Viken. The fleet, which was manned with many fine fellows, went out then to Tunsberg. 44. OF EARL SVEIN'S FORCES. After Yule (A.D. 1015) Earl Svein gathers all the men of the Throndhjem country, proclaims a levy for an expedition, and fits out ships. At that time there were in the Throndhjem country a great number of lendermen; and many of them were so powerful and well-born, that they descended from earls, or even from the royal race, which in a short course of generations reckoned to Harald Harfager, and they were also very rich. These lendermen were of great help to the kings or earls who ruled the land; for it was as if the lenderman had the bonde-people of each district in his power. Earl Svein being a good friend of the lendermen, it was easy for him to collect people. His brother-in-law, Einar Tambaskelfer, was on his side, and with him many other lendermen; and among them many, both lendermen and bondes, who the winter before had taken the oath of fidelity to King Olaf. When they were ready for sea they went directly out of the fjord, steering south along the land, and drawing men from every district. When they came farther south, abreast of Rogaland, Erling Skialgson came to meet them, with many people and many lendermen with him. Now they steered eastward with their whole fleet to Viken, and Earl Svein ran in there towards the end of Easter. The earl steered his fleet to Grenmar, and ran into Nesjar (A.D. 1015). 45. KING OLAF S FORCES. King Olaf steered his fleet out from Viken, until the two fleets were not far from each other, and they got news of each other the Saturday before Palm Sunday. King Olaf himself had a ship called the Carl's Head, on the bow of which a king's head was carved out, and he himself had carved it. This head was used long after in Norway on ships which kings steered themselves. 46. KING OLAF'S SPEECH. As soon as day dawned on Sunday morning, King Olaf got up, put on his clothes, went to the land, and ordered to sound the signal for the whole army to come on shore. Then he made a speech to the troops, and told the whole assembly that he had heard there was but a short distance between them and Earl Svein. "Now," said he, "we shall make ready; for it can be but a short time until we meet. Let the people arm, and every man be at the post that has been appointed him, so that all may be ready when I order the signal to sound for casting off from the land. Then let us row off at once; and so that none go on before the rest of the ships, and none lag behind when I row out of the harbour: for we cannot tell if we shall find the earl where he was lying, or if he has come out to meet us. When we do meet, and the battle begins, let people be alert to bring all our ships in close order, and ready to bind them together. Let us spare ourselves in the beginning, and take care of our weapons, that we do not cast them into the sea, or shoot them away in the air to no purpose. But when the fight becomes hot and the ships are bound together, then let each man show what is in him of manly spirit." 47. OF THE BATTLE AT NESJAR. King Olaf had in his ship 100 men armed in coats of ring-mail, and in foreign helmets. The most of his men had white shields, on which the holy cross was gilt; but some had painted it in blue or red. He had also had the cross painted in front on all the helmets, in a pale colour. He had a white banner on which was a serpent figured. He ordered a mass to be read before him, went on board ship, and ordered his people to refresh themselves with meat and drink. He then ordered the war-horns to sound to battle, to leave the harbour, and row off to seek the earl. Now when they came to the harbour where the earl had lain, the earl's men were armed, and beginning to row out of the harbour; but when they saw the king's fleet coming they began to bind the ships together, to set up their banners, and to make ready for the fight. When King Olaf saw this he hastened the rowing, laid his ship alongside the earl's, and the battle began. So says Sigvat the skald:-- "Boldly the king did then pursue Earl Svein, nor let him out of view. The blood ran down the reindeer's flank Of each sea-king--his vessel's plank. Nor did the earl's stout warriors spare In battle-brunt the sword and spear. Earl Svein his ships of war pushed on, And lashed their stout stems one to one." It is said that King Olaf brought his ships into battle while Svein was still lying in the harbour. Sigvat the skald was himself in the fight; and in summer, just after the battle, he composed a lay, which is called the "Nesjar Song", in which he tells particularly the circumstances:-- "In the fierce fight 'tis known how near The scorner of the ice-cold spear Laid the Charles' head the earl on board, All eastward of the Agder fjord." Then was the conflict exceedingly sharp, and it was long before it could be seen how it was to go in the end. Many fell on both sides, and many were the wounded. So says Sigvat:-- "No urging did the earl require, Midst spear and sword--the battle's fire; No urging did the brave king need The ravens in this shield-storm to feed. Of limb-lopping enough was there, And ghastly wounds of sword and spear. Never, I think, was rougher play Than both the armies had that day." The earl had most men, but the king had a chosen crew in his ship, who had followed him in all his wars; and, besides, they were so excellently equipped, as before related, that each man had a coat of ring-mail, so that he could not be wounded. So says Sigvat:-- "Our lads, broad-shouldered, tall, and hale, Drew on their cold shirts of ring-mail. Soon sword on sword was shrilly ringing, And in the air the spears were singing. Under our helms we hid our hair, For thick flew arrows through the air. Right glad was I our gallant crew, Steel-clad from head to foot, to view." 48. EARL SVEIN'S FLIGHT. When the men began to fall on board the earl's ships, and many appeared wounded, so that the sides of the vessels were but thinly beset with men, the crew of King Olaf prepared to board. Their banner was brought up to the ship that was nearest the earl's, and the king himself followed the banner. So says Sigvat:-- "'On with the king!' his banners waving: 'On with the king!' the spears he's braving! 'On, steel-clad men! and storm the deck, Slippery with blood and strewed with wreck. A different work ye have to share, His banner in war-storm to bear, From your fair girl's, who round the hall Brings the full mead-bowl to us all.'" Now was the severest fighting. Many of Svein's men fell, and some sprang overboard. So says Sigvat:-- "Into the ship our brave lads spring,-- On shield and helm their red blades ring; The air resounds with stroke on stroke,-- The shields are cleft, the helms are broke. The wounded bonde o'er the side Falls shrieking in the blood-stained tide-- The deck is cleared with wild uproar-- The dead crew float about the shore." And also these lines:-- "The shields we brought from home were white, Now they are red-stained in the fight: This work was fit for those who wore Ringed coats-of-mail their breasts before. Where for the foe blunted the best sword I saw our young king climb on board. He stormed the first; we followed him-- The war-birds now in blood may swim." Now defeat began to come down upon the earl's men. The king's men pressed upon the earl's ship and entered it; but when the earl saw how it was going, he called out to his forecastle-men to cut the cables and cast the ship loose, which they did. Then the king's men threw grapplings over the timber heads of the ship, and so held her fast to their own; but the earl ordered the timber heads to be cut away, which was done. So says Sigvat:-- "The earl, his noble ship to save, To cut the posts loud order gave. The ship escaped: our greedy eyes Had looked on her as a clear prize. The earl escaped; but ere he fled We feasted Odin's fowls with dead:-- With many a goodly corpse that floated Round our ship's stern his birds were bloated." Einar Tambaskelfer had laid his ship right alongside the earl's. They threw an anchor over the bows of the earl's ship, and thus towed her away, and they slipped out of the fjord together. Thereafter the whole of the earl's fleet took to flight, and rowed out of the fjord. The skald Berse Torfason was on the forecastle of the earl's ship; and as it was gliding past the king's fleet, King Olaf called out to him--for he knew Berse, who was distinguished as a remarkably handsome man, always well equipped in clothes and arms--"Farewell, Berse!" He replied, "Farewell, king!" So says Berse himself, in a poem he composed when he fell into King Olaf's power, and was laid in prison and in fetters on board a ship:-- "Olaf the Brave A 'farewell' gave, (No time was there to parley long,) To me who knows the art of song. The skald was fain 'Farewell' again In the same terms back to send-- The rule in arms to foe or friend. Earl Svein's distress I well can guess, When flight he was compelled to take: His fortunes I will ne'er forsake, Though I lie here In chains a year, In thy great vessel all forlorn, To crouch to thee I still will scorn: I still will say, No milder sway Than from thy foe this land e'er knew: To him, my early friend, I'm true." 49. EARL SVEIN LEAVES THE COUNTRY. Now some of the earl's men fled up the country, some surrendered at discretion; but Svein and his followers rowed out of the fjord, and the chiefs laid their vessels together to talk with each other, for the earl wanted counsel from his lendermen. Erling Skialgson advised that they should sail north, collect people, and fight King Olaf again; but as they had lost many people, the most were of opinion that the earl should leave the country, and repair to his brother-in-law the Swedish King, and strengthen himself there with men. Einar Tambaskelfer approved also of that advice, as they had no power to hold battle against Olaf. So they discharged their fleet. The earl sailed across Folden, and with him Einar Tambaskelfer. Erling Skialgson again, and likewise many other lendermen who would not abandon their udal possessions, went north to their homes; and Erling had many people that summer about him. 50. OLAF'S AND SIGURD'S CONSULTATION. When King Olaf and his men saw that the earl had gathered his ships together, Sigurd Syr was in haste for pursuing the earl, and letting steel decide their cause. But King Olaf replies, that he would first see what the earl intended doing--whether he would keep his force together or discharge his fleet. Sigurd Syr said, "It is for thee, king, to command; but," he adds, "I fear, from thy disposition and wilfulness, that thou wilt some day be betrayed by trusting to those great people, for they are accustomed of old to bid defiance to their sovereigns." There was no attack made, for it was soon seen that the earl's fleet was dispersing. Then King Olaf ransacked the slain, and remained there some days to divide the booty. At that time Sigvat made these verses:-- "The tale I tell is true To their homes returned but few Of Svein's men who came to meet King Olaf's gallant fleet. From the North these warmen came To try the bloody game,-- On the waves their corpses borne Show the game that Sunday morn. The Throndhjem girls so fair Their jeers, I think, will spare, For the king's force was but small That emptied Throndhjem's hall. But if they will have their jeer, They may ask their sweethearts dear, Why they have returned shorn Who went to shear that Sunday morn." And also these:-- "Now will the king's power rise, For the Upland men still prize The king who o'er the sea Steers to bloody victory. Earl Svein! thou now wilt know That our lads can make blood flow-- That the Hedemarkers hale Can do more than tap good ale." King Olaf gave his stepfather King Sigurd Syr, and the other chiefs who had assisted him, handsome presents at parting. He gave Ketil of Ringanes a yacht of fifteen benches of rowers, which Ketil brought up the Raum river and into the Mjosen lake. 51. OF KING OLAF. King Olaf sent spies out to trace the earl's doings (A.D. 1015); and when he found that the earl had left the country he sailed out west, and to Viken, where many people came to him. At the Thing there he was taken as king, and so he proceeded all the way to the Naze; and when he heard that Erling Skialgson had gathered a large force, he did not tarry in North Agder, but sailed with a steady fair wind to the Throndhjem country; for there it appeared to him was the greatest strength of the land, if he could subdue it for himself while the earl was abroad. When Olaf came to Throndhjem there was no opposition, and he was elected there to be king. In harvest (A.D. 1015) he took his seat in the town of Nidaros, and collected the needful winter provision (A.D. 1016). He built a king's house, and raised Clement's church on the spot on which it now stands. He parcelled out building ground, which he gave to bondes, merchants, or others who he thought would build. There he sat down with many men-at-arms around him; for he put no great confidence in the Throndhjem people, if the earl should return to the country. The people of the interior of the Throndhjem country showed this clearly, for he got no land-scat from them. 52. PLAN OF SVEIN AND THE SWEDISH KING. Earl Svein went first to Svithjod to his brother-in-law Olaf the Swedish king, told him all that had happened between him and Olaf the Thick, and asked his advice about what he should now undertake. The king said that the earl should stay with him if he liked, and get such a portion of his kingdom to rule over as should seem to him sufficient; "or otherwise," says he, "I will give thee help of forces to conquer the country again from Olaf." The earl chose the latter; for all those among his men who had great possessions in Norway, which was the case with many who were with him, were anxious to get back; and in the council they held about this, it was resolved that in winter they should take the land-way over Helsingjaland and Jamtaland, and so down into the Throndhjem land; for the earl reckoned most upon the faithful help and strength of the Throndhjem people of the interior as soon as he should appear there. In the meantime, however, it was determined to take a cruise in summer in the Baltic to gather property. 53. EARL SVEIN'S DEATH. Earl Svein went eastward with his forces to Russia, and passed the summer (A.D. 1015) in marauding there; but on the approach of autumn returned with his ships to Svithjod. There he fell into a sickness, which proved fatal. After the earl's death some of the people who had followed him remained in Svithjod; others went to Helsingjaland, thence to Jamtaland, and so from the east over the dividing ridge of the country to the Throndhjem district, where they told all that had happened upon their journey: and thus the truth of Earl Svein's death was known (A.D. 1016). 54. OF THE THRONDHJEM PEOPLE. Einar Tambaskelfer, and the people who had followed him went in winter to the Swedish king, and were received in a friendly manner. There were also among them many who had followed the earl. The Swedish king took it much amiss that Olaf the Thick had set himself down in his scat-lands, and driven the earl out of them, and therefore he threatened the king with his heaviest vengeance when opportunity offered. He said that Olaf ought not to have had the presumption to take the dominions which the earl had held of him; and all the Swedish king's men agreed with him. But the Throndhjem people, when they heard for certain that the earl was dead. and could not be expected back to Norway, turned all to obedience to King Olaf. Many came from the interior of the Throndhjem country, and became King Olaf's men; others sent word and tokens that they would service him. Then, in autumn, he went into the interior of Throndhjem, and held Things with the bondes, and was received as king in each district. He returned to Nidaros, and brought there all the king's scat and revenue, and had his winter-seat provided there (A.D. 1016). 55. OF KING OLAF'S HOUSEHOLD. King Olaf built a king's house in Nidaros, and in it was a large room for his court, with doors at both ends. The king's high-seat was in the middle of the room; and within sat his court-bishop, Grimkel, and next him his other priests; without them sat his counsellors; and in the other high-seat opposite to the king sat his marshal, Bjorn, and next to him his pursuivants. When people of importance came to him, they also had a seat of honour. The ale was drunk by the fire-light. He divided the service among his men after the fashion of other kings. He had in his house sixty court-men and thirty pursuivants; and to them he gave pay and certain regulations. He had also thirty house-servants to do the needful work about the house, and procure what was required. He had, besides, many slaves. At the house were many outbuildings, in which the court-men slept. There was also a large room, in which the king held his court-meetings. 56. OF KING OLAF'S HABITS. It was King Olaf's custom to rise betimes in the morning, put on his clothes, wash his hands, and then go to the church and hear the matins and morning mass. Thereafter he went to the Thing-meeting, to bring people to agreement with each other, or to talk of one or the other matter that appeared to him necessary. He invited to him great and small who were known to be men of understanding. He often made them recite to him the laws which Hakon Athelstan's foster-son had made for Throndhjem; and after considering them with those men of understanding, he ordered laws adding to or taking from those established before. But Christian privileges he settled according to the advice of Bishop Grimbel and other learned priests; and bent his whole mind to uprooting heathenism, and old customs which he thought contrary to Christianity. And he succeeded so far that the bondes accepted of the laws which the king proposed. So says Sigvat:-- "The king, who at the helm guides His warlike ship through clashing tides, Now gives one law for all the land-- A heavenly law, which long will stand." King Olaf was a good and very gentle man, of little speech, and open-handed although greedy of money. Sigvat the skald, as before related, was in King Olaf's house, and several Iceland men. The king asked particularly how Christianity was observed in Iceland, and it appeared to him to be very far from where it ought to be; for, as to observing Christian practices, it was told the king that it was permitted there to eat horse-flesh, to expose infants as heathens do, besides many other things contrary to Christianity. They also told the king about many principal men who were then in Iceland. Skapte Thorodson was then the lagman of the country. He inquired also of those who were best acquainted with it about the state of people in other distant countries; and his inquiries turned principally on how Christianity was observed in the Orkney, Shetland, and Farey Islands: and, as far as he could learn, it was far from being as he could have wished. Such conversation was usually carried on by him; or else he spoke about the laws and rights of the country. 57. KING OLAF'S MESSENGERS. The same winter (A.D. 1016) came messengers from the Swedish king, Olaf the Swede, out of Svithjod: and their leaders were two brothers, Thorgaut Skarde and Asgaut the bailiff; and they, had twenty-four men with them, when they came from the eastward, over the ridge of the country down into Veradal, they summoned a Thing of the bondes, talked to them, and demanded of them scat and duties upon account of the king of Sweden. But the bondes, after consulting with each other, determined only to pay the scat which the Swedish king required in so far as King Olaf required none upon his account, but refused to pay scat to both. The messengers proceeded farther down the valley; but received at every Thing they held the same answer, and no money. They went forward to Skaun, held a Thing there, and demanded scat; but it went there as before. Then they came to Stjoradal, and summoned a Thing, but the bondes would not come to it. Now the messengers saw that their business was a failure; and Thorgaut proposed that they should turn about, and go eastward again. "I do not think," says Asgaut, "that we have performed the king's errand unless we go to King Olaf the Thick, since the bondes refer the matter to him." He was their commander; so they proceeded to the town (Nidaros), and took lodging there. The day after they presented themselves to the king, just as he was seated at table, saluted him, and said they came with a message of the Swedish king. The king told them to come to him next day. Next day the king, having heard mass, went to his Thing-house, ordered the messengers of the Swedish king to be called, and told them to produce their message. Then Thorgaut spoke, and told first what his errand was, and next how the Throndhjem people of the interior had replied to it; and asked the king's decision on the business, that they might know what result their errand there was to have. The king answers, "While the earls ruled over the country, it was not to be wondered at if the country people thought themselves bound to obey them, as they were at least of the royal race of the kingdom. But it would have been more just if those earls had given assistance and service to the kings who had a right to the country, rather than to foreign kings, or to stir up opposition to their lawful kings, depriving them of their land and kingdom. With regard to Olaf the Swede, who calls himself entitled to the kingdom of Norway, I, who in fact am so entitled, can see no ground for his claim; but well remember the skaith and damage we have suffered from him and his relations." Then says Asgaut. "It is not wonderful that thou art called Olaf the Thick, seeing thou answerest so haughtily to such a prince's message, and canst not see clearly how heavy the king's wrath will be for thee to support, as many have experienced who had greater strength than thou appearest to have. But if thou wishest to keep hold of thy kingdom, it will be best for thee to come to the king, and be his man; and we shall beg him to give thee this kingdom in fief under him." The king replies with all gentleness, "I will give thee an advice, Asgaut, in return. Go back to the east again to thy king, and tell him that early in spring I will make myself ready, and will proceed eastward to the ancient frontier that divided formerly the kingdom of the kings of Norway from Sweden. There he may come if he likes, that we may conclude a peace with each other; and each of us will retain the kingdom to which he is born." Now the messengers turned back to their lodging, and prepared for their departure, and the king went to table. The messengers came back soon after to the king's house; but the doorkeepers saw it, and reported it to the king, who told them not to let the messengers in. "I will not speak with them," said he. Then the messengers went off, and Thorgaut said he would now return home with his men; but Asgaut insisted still that he would go forward with the king's errand: so they separated. Thorgaut proceeded accordingly through Strind; but Asgaut went into Gaulardal and Orkadal, and intended proceeding southwards to More, to deliver his king's message. When King Olaf came to the knowledge of this he sent out his pursuivants after them, who found them at the ness in Stein, bound their hands behind their backs, and led them down to the point called Gaularas, where they raised a gallows, and hanged them so that they could be seen by those who travelled the usual sea-way out of the fjord. Thorgaut heard this news before he had travelled far on his way home through the Throndhjem country; and he hastened on his journey until he came to the Swedish king, and told him how it had gone with them. The king was highly enraged when he heard the account of it; and he had no lack of high words. 58. OLAF AND ERLING RECONCILED. The spring thereafter (A.D. 1016) King Olaf Haraldson calls out an army from the Throndhjem land, and makes ready to proceed eastward. Some of the Iceland traders were then ready to sail from Norway. With them King Olaf sent word and token to Hjalte Skeggjason, and summoned him to come to him, and at the same time sent a verbal message to Skapte the lagman, and other men who principally took part in the lawgiving of Iceland, to take out of the law whatever appeared contrary to Christianity. He sent, besides, a message of friendship to the people in general. The king then proceeded southwards himself along the coast, stopping at every district, and holding Things with the bondes; and in each Thing he ordered the Christian law to be read, together with the message of salvation thereunto belonging, and with which many ill customs and much heathenism were swept away at once among the common people: for the earls had kept well the old laws and rights of the country; but with respect to keeping Christianity, they had allowed every man to do as he liked. It was thus come so far that the people were baptized in the most places on the sea-coast, but the most of them were ignorant of Christian law. In the upper ends of the valleys, and in the habitations among the mountains, the greater part of the people were heathen; for when the common man is left to himself, the faith he has been taught in his childhood is that which has the strongest hold over his inclination. But the king threatened the most violent proceedings against great or small, who, after the king's message, would not adopt Christianity. In the meantime Olaf was proclaimed king in every Law Thing in the country, and no man spoke against him. While he lay in Karmtsund messengers went between him and Erling Skjalgson, who endeavoured to make peace between them; and the meeting was appointed in Whitings Isle. When they met they spoke with each other about agreement together; but Erling found something else than he expected in the conversation: for when he insisted on having all the fiefs which Olaf Trygvason, and afterwards the Earls Svein and Hakon, had given him, and on that condition would be his man and dutiful friend, the king answered, "It appears to me, Erling, that it would be no bad bargain for thee to get as great fiefs from me for thy aid and friendship as thou hadst from Earl Eirik, a man who had done thee the greatest injury by the bloodshed of thy men; but even if I let thee remain the greatest lenderman in Norway, I will bestow my fiefs according to my own will, and not act as if ye lendermen had udal right to my ancestor's heritage, and I was obliged to buy your services with manifold rewards." Erling had no disposition to sue for even the smallest thing; and he saw that the king was not easily dealt with. He saw also that he had only two conditions before him: the one was to make no agreement with the king, and stand by the consequences; the other to leave it entirely to the king's pleasure. Although it was much against his inclination, he chose the latter, and merely said to the king, "The service will be the most useful to thee which I give with a free will." And thus their conference ended. Erling's relations and friends came to him afterwards, and advised him to give way, and proceed with more prudence and less pride. "Thou wilt still," they said, "be the most important and most respected lenderman in Norway, both on account of thy own and thy relations' abilities and great wealth." Erling found that this was prudent advice, and that they who gave it did so with a good intention, and he followed it accordingly. Erling went into the king's service on such conditions as the king himself should determine and please. Thereafter they separated in some shape reconciled, and Olaf went his way eastward along the coast (A.D. 1016). 59. EILIF OF GAUTLAND'S MURDER. As soon as it was reported that Olaf had come to Viken, the Danes who had offices under the Danish king set off for Denmark, without waiting for King Olaf. But King Olaf sailed in along Viken, holding Things with the bondes. All the people of the country submitted to him, and thereafter he took all the king's taxes, and remained the summer (A.D. 1016) in Viken. He then sailed east from Tunsberg across the fjord, and all the way east to Svinasund. There the Swedish king's dominions begin, and he had set officers over this country; namely, Eilif Gautske over the north part, and Hroe Skialge over the east part, all the way to the Gaut river. Hroe had family friends on both sides of the river, and also great farms on Hising Island, and was besides a mighty and very rich man. Eilif was also of great family, and very wealthy. Now when King Olaf came to Ranrike he summoned the people to a Thing, and all who dwelt on the sea-coast or in the out-islands came to him. Now when the Thing was seated the king's marshal, Bjorn, held a speech to them, in which he told the bondes to receive Olaf as their king, in the same way as had been done in all other parts of Norway. Then stood up a bold bonde by name Brynjolf Ulfalde, and said, "We bondes know where the division-boundaries between the Norway and Danish and Swedish kings' lands have stood by rights in old times; namely, that the Gaut river divided their lands between the Vener lake and the sea; but towards the north the forests until Eid forest, and from thence the ridge of the country all north to Finmark. We know, also, that by turns they have made inroads upon each other's territories, and that the Swedes have long had power all the way to Svinasund. But, sooth to say, I know that it is the inclination of many rather to serve the king of Norway, but they dare not; for the Swedish king's dominions surround us, both eastward, southwards, and also up the country; and besides, it may be expected that the king of Norway must soon go to the north, where the strength of his kingdom lies, and then we have no power to withstand the Gautlanders. Now it is for the king to give us good counsel, for we have great desire to be his men." After the Thing, in the evening, Brynjolf was in the king's tent, and the day after likewise, and they had much private conversation together. Then the king proceeded eastwards along Viken. Now when Eilif heard of his arrival, he sent out spies to discover what he was about; but he himself, with thirty men, kept himself high up in the habitations among the hills, where he had gathered together bondes. Many of the bondes came to King Olaf, but some sent friendly messages to him. People went between King Olaf and Eilif, and they entreated each separately to hold a Thing-meeting between themselves, and make peace in one way or another. They told Eilif that they might expect violent treatment from King Olaf if they opposed his orders; but promised Eilif he should not want men. It was determined that they should come down from the high country, and hold a thing with the bondes and the king. King Olaf thereupon sent the chief of his pursuivants, Thorer Lange, with six men, to Brynjolf. They were equipped with their coats-of-mail under their cloaks, and their hats over their helmets. The following day the bondes came in crowds down with Eilif; and in his suite was Brynjolf, and with him Thorer. The king laid his ships close to a rocky knoll that stuck out into the sea, and upon it the king went with his people, and sat down. Below was a flat field, on which the bondes' force was; but Eilif's men were drawn up, forming a shield-fence before him. Bjorn the marshal spoke long and cleverly upon the king's account, and when he sat down Eilif arose to speak; but at the same moment Thorer Lange rose, drew his sword, and struck Eilif on the neck, so that his head flew off. Then the whole bonde-force started up; but the Gautland men set off in full flight and Thorer with his people killed several of them. Now when the crowd was settled again, and the noise over the king stood up, and told the bondes to seat themselves. They did so, and then much was spoken. The end of it was that they submitted to the king, and promised fidelity to him; and he, on the other hand, promised not to desert them, but to remain at hand until the discord between him and the Swedish Olaf was settled in one way or other. King Olaf then brought the whole northern district under his power, and went in summer eastward as far as the Gaut river, and got all the king's scat among the islands. But when summer (A.D. 1016) was drawing towards an end he returned north to Viken, and sailed up the Raum river to a waterfall called Sarp. On the north side of the fall, a point of land juts out into the river. There the king ordered a rampart to be built right across the ness, of stone, turf, and wood, and a ditch to be dug in front of it; so that it was a large earthen fort or burgh, which he made a merchant town of. He had a king's house put up, and ordered the building of Mary church. He also laid out plans for other houses, and got people to build on them. In harvest (A.D. 1016) he let everything be gathered there that was useful for his winter residence (A.D. 1017), and sat there with a great many people, and the rest he quartered in the neighbouring districts. The king prohibited all exports from Viken to Gautland of herrings and salt, which the Gautland people could ill do without. This year the king held a great Yule feast, to which he invited many great bondes. 60. THE HISTORY OF EYVIND URARHORN. There was a man called Eyvind Urarhorn, who was a great man, of high birth, who had his descent from the East Agder country. Every summer he went out on a viking cruise, sometimes to the West sea, sometimes to the Baltic, sometimes south to Flanders, and had a well-armed cutter (snekkia) of twenty benches of rowers. He had been also at Nesjar, and given his aid to the king; and when they separated the king promised him his favour, and Eyvind, again, promised to come to the king's aid whenever he was required. This winter (A.D. 1017) Eyvind was at the Yule feast of the king, and received goodly gifts from him. Brynjolf Ulfalde was also with the king, and he received a Yule present from the king of a gold-mounted sword, and also a farm called Vettaland, which is a very large head-farm of the district. Brynjolf composed a song about these gifts, of which the refrain was-- "The song-famed hero to my hand Gave a good sword, and Vettaland." The king afterwards gave him the title of Lenderman, and Brynjolf was ever after the king's greatest friend. 61. THRAND WHITE'S MURDER. This winter (A.D. 1017) Thrand White from Throndhjem went east to Jamtaland, to take up scat upon account of King Olaf. But when he had collected the scat he was surprised by men of the Swedish king, who killed him and his men, twelve in all, and brought the scat to the Swedish king. King Olaf was very ill-pleased when he heard this news. 62. CHRISTIANITY PROCLAIMED IN VIKEN. King Olaf made Christian law to be proclaimed in Viken, in the same way as in the North country. It succeeded well, because the people of Viken were better acquainted with the Christian customs than the people in the north; for, both winter and summer, there were many merchants in Viken, both Danish and Saxon. The people of Viken, also, had much trading intercourse with England, and Saxony, and Flanders, and Denmark; and some had been on viking expeditions, and had had their winter abode in Christian lands. 63. HROE'S FALL. About spring-time (A.D. 1017) King Olaf sent a message that Eyvind Urarhorn should come to him; and they spake together in private for a long time. Thereafter Eyvind made himself ready for a viking cruise. He sailed south towards Viken, and brought up at the Eikreys Isles without Hising Isle. There he heard that Hroe Skialge had gone northwards towards Ordost, and had there made a levy of men and goods on account of the Swedish king, and was expected from the north. Eyvind rowed in by Haugasund, and Hroe came rowing from the north, and they met in the sound and fought. Hroe fell there, with nearly thirty men; and Eyvind took all the goods Hroe had with him. Eyvind then proceeded to the Baltic, and was all summer on a viking cruise. 64. FALL OF GUDLEIK AND THORGAUT. There was a man called Gudleik Gerske, who came originally from Agder. He was a great merchant, who went far and wide by sea, was very rich, and drove a trade with various countries. He often went east to Gardarike (Russia), and therefore was called Gudleik Gerske (the Russian). This spring (A.D. 1017) Gudleik fitted out his ship, and intended to go east in summer to Russia. King Olaf sent a message to him that he wanted to speak to him; and when Gudleik came to the king he told him he would go in partnership with him, and told him to purchase some costly articles which were difficult to be had in this country. Gudleik said that it should be according to the king's desire. The king ordered as much money to be delivered to Gudleik as he thought sufficient, and then Gudleik set out for the Baltic. They lay in a sound in Gotland; and there it happened, as it often does, that people cannot keep their own secrets, and the people of the country came to know that in this ship was Olaf the Thick's partner. Gudleik went in summer eastwards to Novgorod, where he bought fine and costly clothes, which he intended for the king as a state dress; and also precious furs, and remarkably splendid table utensils. In autumn (A.D. 1017), as Gudleik was returning from the east, he met a contrary wind, and lay for a long time at the island Eyland. There came Thorgaut Skarde, who in autumn had heard of Gudleik's course, in a long-ship against him, and gave him battle. They fought long, and Gudleik and his people defended themselves for a long time; but the numbers against them were great, and Gudleik and many of his ship's crew fell, and a great many of them were wounded. Thorgaut took all their goods, and King Olaf's, and he and his comrades divided the booty among them equally; but he said the Swedish king ought to have the precious articles of King Olaf, as these, he said, should be considered as part of the scat due to him from Norway. Thereafter Thorgaut proceeded east to Svithjod. These tidings were soon known; and as Eyvind Urarhorn came soon after to Eyland, he heard the news, and sailed east after Thorgaut and his troop, and overtook them among the Swedish isles on the coast, and gave battle. There Thorgaut and the most of his men were killed, and the rest sprang overboard. Eyvind took all the goods and all the costly articles of King Olaf which they had captured from Gudleik, and went with these back to Norway in autumn, and delivered to King Olaf his precious wares. The king thanked him in the most friendly way for his proceeding, and promised him anew his favour and friendship. At this time Olaf had been three years king over Norway (A.D. 1015-1017). 65. MEETING OF OLAF AND RAGNVALD. The same summer (A.D. 1017) King Olaf ordered a levy, and went out eastwards to the Gaut river, where he lay a great part of the summer. Messages were passing between King Olaf, Earl Ragnvald, and the earl's wife, Ingebjorg, the daughter of Trygve. She was very zealous about giving King Olaf of Norway every kind of help, and made it a matter of her deepest interest. For this there were two causes. She had a great friendship for King Olaf; and also she could never forget that the Swedish king had been one at the death of her brother, Olaf Trygvason; and also that he, on that account only, had any presence to rule over Norway. The earl, by her persuasion, turned much towards friendship with King Olaf; and it proceeded so far that the earl and the king appointed a meeting, and met at the Gaut river. They talked together of many things, but especially of the Norwegian and Swedish kings' relations with each other; both agreeing, as was the truth also, that it was the greatest loss, both to the people of Viken and of Gautland, that there was no peace for trade between the two countries; and at last both agreed upon a peace, and still-stand of arms between them until next summer; and they parted with mutual gifts and friendly speeches. 66. KING OLAF THE SWEDE. The king thereupon returned north to Viken, and had all the royal revenues up to the Gaut river; and all the people of the country there had submitted to him. King Olaf the Swede had so great a hatred of Olaf Haraldson, that no man dared to call him by his right name in the king's hearing. They called him the thick man; and never named him without some hard by-name. 67. ACCOUNT OF THEIR RECONCILIATION. The bondes in Viken spoke with each other about there being nothing for it but that the kings should make peace and a league with each other, and insisted upon it that they were badly used by the kings going to war; but nobody was so bold as to bring these murmurs before the king. At last they begged Bjorn the marshal to bring this matter before the king, and entreat him to send messengers to the Swedish king to offer peace on his side. Bjorn was disinclined to do this, and put it off from himself with excuses; but on the entreaties of many of his friends, he promised at last to speak of it to the king; but declared, at the same time, that he knew it would be taken very ill by the king to propose that he should give way in anything to the Swedish king. The same summer (A.D. 1017) Hjalte Skeggjason came over to Norway from Iceland, according to the message sent him by King Olaf, and went directly to the king. He was well received by the king, who told him to lodge in his house, and gave him a seat beside Bjorn the marshal, and Hjalte became his comrade at table. There was good-fellowship immediately between them. Once, when King Olaf had assembled the people and bondes to consult upon the good of the country, Bjorn the marshal said, "What think you, king, of the strife that is between the Swedish king and you? Many people have fallen on both sides, without its being at all more determined than before what each of you shall have of the kingdom. You have now been sitting in Viken one winter and two summers, and the whole country to the north is lying behind your back unseen; and the men who have property or udal rights in the north are weary of sitting here. Now it is the wish of the lendermen, of your other people, and of the bondes that this should come to an end. There is now a truce, agreement, and peace with the earl, and the West Gautland people who are nearest to us; and it appears to the people it would be best that you sent messengers to the Swedish king to offer a reconciliation on your side; and, without doubt, many who are about the Swedish king will support the proposal, for it is a common gain for those who dwell in both countries, both here and there." This speech of Bjorn's received great applause. Then the king said, "It is fair, Bjorn, that the advice thou hast given should be carried out by thyself. Thou shalt undertake this embassy thyself, and enjoy the good of it, if thou hast advised well; and if it involve any man in danger, thou hast involved thyself in it. Moreover, it belongs to thy office to declare to the multitude what I wish to have told." Then the king stood up, went to the church, and had high mass sung before him; and thereafter went to table. The following day Hjalte said to Bjorn, "Why art thou so melancholy, man? Art thou sick, or art thou angry at any one?" Bjorn tells Hjalte his conversation with the king, and says it is a very dangerous errand. Hjalte says, "It is their lot who follow kings that they enjoy high honours, and are more respected than other men, but stand often in danger of their lives: and they must understand how to bear both parts of their lot. The king's luck is great; and much honour will be gained by this business, if it succeed." Bjorn answered, "Since thou makest so light of this business in thy speech, wilt thou go with me? The king has promised that I shall have companions with me on the journey." "Certainly," says Hjalte; "I will follow thee, if thou wilt: for never again shall I fall in with such a comrade if we part." 68. JOURNEY OF BJORN THE MARSHAL. A few days afterwards, when the king was at a Thing-meeting, Bjorn came with eleven others. He says to the king that they were now ready to proceed on their mission, and that their horses stood saddled at the door. "And now," says he, "I would know with what errand I am to go, or what orders thou givest us." The king replies, "Ye shall carry these my words to the Swedish king--that I will establish peace between our countries up to the frontier which Olaf Trygvason had before me; and each shall bind himself faithfully not to trespass over it. But with regard to the loss of people, no man must mention it if peace there is to be; for the Swedish king cannot with money pay for the men the Swedes have deprived us of." Thereupon the king rose, and went out with Bjorn and his followers; and he took a gold-mounted sword and a gold ring, and said, in handing over the sword to Bjorn, "This I give thee: it was given to me in summer by Earl Ragnvald. To him ye shall go; and bring him word from me to advance your errand with his counsel and strength. This thy errand I will think well fulfilled if thou hearest the Swedish king's own words, be they yea or nay: and this gold ring thou shalt give Earl Ragnvald. These are tokens (1) he must know well." Hjalte went up to the king, saluted him, and said, "We need much, king, that thy luck attend us;" and wished that they might meet again in good health. The king asked where Hjalte was going. "With Bjorn," said he. The king said, "It will assist much to the good success of the journey that thou goest too, for thy good fortune has often been proved; and be assured that I shall wish that all my luck, if that be of any weight, may attend thee and thy company." Bjorn and his followers rode their way, and came to Earl Ragnvald's court, where they were well received. Bjorn was a celebrated and generally known man,--known by sight and speech to all who had ever seen King Olaf; for at every Thing, Bjorn stood up and told the king's message. Ingebjorg, the earl's wife, went up to Hjalte and looked at him. She recognized him, for she was living with her brother Olaf Trygvason when Hjalte was there: and she knew how to reckon up the relationship between King Olaf and Vilborg, the wife of Hjalte; for Eirik Bjodaskalle father of Astrid, King Olaf Trygvason's mother, and Bodvar father of Olaf, mother of Gissur White the father of Vilborg, were brother's sons of the lenderman Vikingakare of Vors. They enjoyed here good entertainment. One day Bjorn entered into conversation with the earl and Ingebjorg, in which he set forth his errand, and produced to the earl his tokens. The earl replies, "What hast thou done, Bjorn, that the king wishes thy death? For, so far from thy errand having any success, I do not think a man can be found who could speak these words to the Swedish king without incurring wrath and punishment. King Olaf, king of Sweden, is too proud for any man to speak to him on anything he is angry at." Then Bjorn says, "Nothing has happened to me that King Olaf is offended at; but many of his disposition act both for themselves and others, in a way that only men who are daring can succeed in. But as yet all his plans have had good success, and I think this will turn out well too; so I assure you, earl, that I will actually travel to the Swedish king, and not turn back before I have brought to his ears every word that King Olaf told me to say to him, unless death prevent me, or that I am in bonds, and cannot perform my errand; and this I must do, whether you give any aid or no aid to me in fulfilling the king's wishes." Then said IngebJorg, "I will soon declare my opinion. I think, earl, thou must turn all thy attention to supporting King Olaf the king of Norway's desire that this message be laid before the Swedish king, in whatever way he may answer it. Although the Swedish king's anger should be incurred, and our power and property be at stake, yet will I rather run the risk, than that it should be said the message of King Olaf was neglected from fear of the Swedish king. Thou hast that birth, strength of relations, and other means, that here in the Swedish land it is free to thee to tell thy mind, if it be right and worthy of being heard, whether it be listened to by few or many, great or little people, or by the king himself." The earl replies, "It is known to every one how thou urgest me: it may be, according to thy counsel, that I should promise the king's men to follow them, so that they may get their errand laid before the Swedish king, whether he take it ill or take it well. But I will have my own counsel followed, and will not run hastily into Bjorn's or any other man's measures, in such a highly important matter. It is my will that ye all remain here with me, so long as I think it necessary for the purpose of rightly forwarding this mission." Now as the earl had thus given them to understand that he would support them in the business, Bjorn thanked him most kindly, and with the assurance that his advice should rule them altogether. Thereafter Bjorn and his fellow-travellers remained very long in the earl's house. ENDNOTES: (1) Before writing was a common accomplishment in courts, the only way of accrediting a special messenger between kings and great men was by giving the messenger a token; that is. some article well known by the person receiving the message to be the property of and valued by the person sending it. 69. CONVERSATION OF BJORN AND INGEBJORG. Ingebjorg was particularly kind to them; and Bjorn often spoke with her about the matter, and was ill at ease that their journey was so long delayed. Hjalte and the others often spoke together also about the matter; and Hjalte said; "I will go to the king if ye like; for I am not a man of Norway, and the Swedes can have nothing to say to me. I have heard that there are Iceland men in the king's house who are my acquaintances, and are well treated; namely, the skalds Gissur Black and Ottar Black. From them I shall get out what I can about the Swedish king; and if the business will really be so difficult as it now appears, or if there be any other way of promoting it, I can easily devise some errand that may appear suitable for me." This counsel appeared to Bjorn and Ingebjorg to be the wisest, and they resolved upon it among themselves. Ingebjorg put Hjalte in a position to travel; gave him two Gautland men with him, and ordered them to follow him, and assist him with their service, and also to go wherever he might have occasion to send them. Besides, Ingebjorg gave him twenty marks of weighed silver money for travelling expenses, and sent word and token by him to the Swedish king Olaf's daughter, Ingegerd, that she should give all her assistance to Hjalte's business, whenever he should find himself under the necessity of craving her help. Hjalte set off as soon as he was ready. When he came to King Olaf he soon found the skalds Gissur and Ottar, and they were very glad at his coming. Without delay they went to the king, and told him that a man was come who was their countryman, and one of the most considerable in their native land, and requested the king to receive him well. The king told them to take Hjalte and his fellow-travellers into their company and quarters. Now when Hjalte had resided there a short time, and got acquainted with people, he was much respected by everybody. The skalds were often in the king's house, for they were well-spoken men; and often in the daytime they sat in front of the king's high-seat, and Hjalte, to whom they paid the highest respect in all things, by their side. He became thus known to the king, who willingly entered into conversation with him, and heard from him news about Iceland. 70. OF SIGVAT THE SKALD. It happened that before Bjorn set out from home he asked Sigvat the skald, who at that time was with King Olaf, to accompany him on his journey. It was a journey for which people had no great inclination. There was, however, great friendship between Bjorn and Sigvat. Then Sigvat sang:-- "With the king's marshals all have I, In days gone by, Lived joyously,-- With all who on the king attend, And knee before him humbly bend, Bjorn, thou oft hast ta'en my part-- Pleaded with art, And touched the heart. Bjorn! brave stainer of the sword, Thou art my friend--I trust thy word." While they were riding up to Gautland, Sigvat made these verses:-- "Down the Fjord sweep wind and rain, Our stout ship's sails and tackle strain; Wet to the skin. We're sound within, And gaily o'er the waves are dancing, Our sea-steed o'er the waves high prancing! Through Lister sea Flying all free; Off from the wind with swelling sail, We merrily scud before the gale, And reach the sound Where we were bound. And now our ship, so gay and grand, Glides past the green and lovely land, And at the isle Moors for a while. Our horse-hoofs now leave hasty print; We ride--of ease there's scanty stint-- In heat and haste O'er Gautland's waste: Though in a hurry to be married, The king can't say that we have tarried." One evening late they were riding through Gautland, and Sigvat made these verses:-- "The weary horse will at nightfall Gallop right well to reach his stall; When night meets day, with hasty hoof He plies the road to reach a roof. Far from the Danes, we now may ride Safely by stream or mountain-side; But, in this twilight, in some ditch The horse and rider both may pitch." They rode through the merchant town of Skara, and down the street to the earl's house. He sang:-- "The shy sweet girls, from window high In wonder peep at the sparks that fly From our horses heels, as down the street Of the earl's town we ride so fleet. Spur on!--that every pretty lass May hear our horse-hoofs as we pass Clatter upon the stones so hard, And echo round the paved court-yard." 71. HJALTE SKEGGJASON WHILE HE WAS IN SVITHIOD. One day Hjalte, and the skalds with him, went before the king, and he began thus:--"It has so happened, king, as is known to you, that I have come here after a long and difficult journey; but when I had once crossed the ocean and heard of your greatness, it appeared to me unwise to go back without having seen you in your splendour and glory. Now it is a law between Iceland and Norway, that Iceland men pay landing due when they come into Norway, but while I was coming across the sea I took myself all the landing dues from my ship's people; but knowing that thou have the greatest right to all the power in Norway, I hastened hither to deliver to you the landing dues." With this he showed the silver to the king, and laid ten marks of silver in Gissur Black's lap. The king replies, "Few have brought us any such dues from Norway for some time; and now, Hjalte, I will return you my warmest thanks for having given yourself so much trouble to bring us the landing dues, rather than pay them to our enemies. But I will that thou shouldst take this money from me as a gift, and with it my friendship." Hjalte thanked the king with many words, and from that day set himself in great favour with the king, and often spoke with him; for the king thought, what was true, that he was a man of much understanding and eloquence. Now Hjalte told Gissur and Ottar that he was sent with tokens to the king's daughter Ingegerd, to obtain her protection and friendship; and he begged of them to procure him some opportunity to speak with her. They answered, that this was an easy thing to do; and went one day to her house, where she sat at the drinking table with many men. She received the skalds in a friendly manner, for they were known to her. Hjalte brought her a salutation from the earl's wife, Ingebjorg; and said she had sent him here to obtain friendly help and succour from her, and in proof whereof produced his tokens. The king's daughter received him also kindly, and said he should be welcome to her friendship. They sat there till late in the day drinking. The king's daughter made Hjalte tell her much news, and invited him to come often and converse with her. He did so: came there often, and spoke with the king's daughter; and at last entrusted her with the purpose of Bjorn's and his comrade's journey, and asked her how she thought the Swedish king would receive the proposal that there should be a reconciliation between the kings. The king's daughter replied, that, in her opinion, it would be a useless attempt to propose to the king any reconciliation with Olaf the Thick; for the king was so enraged against him, that he would not suffer his name to be mentioned before him. It happened one day that Hjalte was sitting with the king and talking to him, and the king was very merry and drunk. Then Hjalte said, "Manifold splendour and grandeur have I seen here; and I have now witnessed with my eyes what I have often heard of, that no monarch in the north is so magnificent: but it is very vexatious that we who come so far to visit it have a road so long and troublesome, both on account of the great ocean, but more especially because it is not safe to travel through Norway for those who are coming here in a friendly disposition. But why is there no one to bring proposals for a peace between you and King Olaf the Thick? I heard much in Norway, and in west Gautland, of the general desire that this peace should have taken place; and it has been told me for truth, as the Norway king's words, that he earnestly desires to be reconciled to you; and the reason I know is, that he feels how much less his power is than yours. It is even said that he intends to pay his court to your daughter Ingegerd; and that would lead to a useful peace, for I have heard from people of credit that he is a remarkably distinguished man." The king answers. "Thou must not speak thus, Hjalte; but for this time I will not take it amiss of thee, as thou dost not know what people have to avoid here. That fat fellow shall not be called king in my court, and there is by no means the stuff in him that people talk of: and thou must see thyself that such a connection is not suitable; for I am the tenth king in Upsala who, relation after relation, has been sole monarch over the Swedish, and many other great lands, and all have been the superior kings over other kings in the northern countries. But Norway is little inhabited, and the inhabitants are scattered. There have only been small kings there; and although Harald Harfager was the greatest king in that country, and strove against the small kings, and subdued them, yet he knew so well his position that he did not covet the Swedish dominions, and therefore the Swedish kings let him sit in peace, especially as there was relationship between them. Thereafter, while Hakon Athelstan's foster-son was in Norway he sat in peace, until he began to maraud in Gautland and Denmark; on which a war-force came upon him, and took from him both life and land. Gunhild's sons also were cut off when they became disobedient to the Danish kings; and Harald Gormson joined Norway to his own dominions, and made it subject to scat to him. And we reckon Harald Gormson to be of less power and consideration than the Upsala kings, for our relation Styrbjorn subdued him, and Harald became his man; and yet Eirik the Victorious, my father, rose over Styrbjorn's head when it came to a trial between them. When Olaf Trygvason came to Norway and proclaimed himself king, we would not permit it, but we went with King Svein, and cut him off; and thus we have appropriated Norway, as thou hast not heard, and with no less right than if I had gained it in battle, and by conquering the kings who ruled it before. Now thou canst well suppose, as a man of sense, that I will not let slip the kingdom of Norway for this thick fellow. It is wonderful he does not remember how narrowly he made his escape, when we had penned him in in the Malar lake. Although he slipped away with life from thence, he ought, methinks, to have something else in his mind than to hold out against us Swedes. Now, Hjalte, thou must never again open thy mouth in my presence on such a subject." Hjalte saw sufficiently that there was no hope of the king's listening to any proposal of a peace, and desisted from speaking of it, and turned the conversation to something else. When Hjalte, afterwards, came into discourse with the king's daughter Ingegerd, he tells her his conversation with the king. She told him she expected such an answer from the king. Hjalte begged of her to say a good word to the king about the matter, but she thought the king would listen as little to what she said: "But speak about it I will, if thou requirest it." Hjalte assured her he would be thankful for the attempt. One day the king's daughter Ingegerd had a conversation with her father Olaf; and as she found her father was in a particularly good humour, she said, "What is now thy intention with regard to the strife with Olaf the Thick? There are many who complain about it, having lost their property by it; others have lost their relations by the Northmen, and all their peace and quiet; so that none of your men see any harm that can be done to Norway. It would be a bad counsel if thou sought the dominion over Norway; for it is a poor country, difficult to come at, and the people dangerous: for the men there will rather have any other for their king than thee. If I might advise, thou wouldst let go all thoughts about Norway, and not desire Olaf's heritage; and rather turn thyself to the kingdoms in the East country, which thy forefathers the former Swedish kings had, and which our relation Styrbjorn lately subdued, and let the thick Olaf possess the heritage of his forefathers and make peace with him." The king replies in a rage, "It is thy counsel, Ingegerd, that I should let slip the kingdom of Norway, and give thee in marriage to this thick Olaf."--"No," says he, "something else shall first take place. Rather than that, I shall, at the Upsala Thing in winter, issue a proclamation to all Swedes, that the whole people shall assemble for an expedition, and go to their ships before the ice is off the waters; and I will proceed to Norway, and lay waste the land with fire and sword, and burn everything, to punish them for their want of fidelity." The king was so mad with rage that nobody ventured to say a word, and she went away. Hjalte, who was watching for her, immediately went to her and asked how her errand to the king had turned out. She answered, it turned out as she had expected; that none could venture to put in a word with the king; but, on the contrary, he had used threats; and she begged Hjalte never to speak of the matter again before the king. As Hjalte and Ingegerd spoke together often, Olaf the Thick was often the subject, and he told her about him and his manners; and Hjalte praised the king of Norway what he could, but said no more than was the truth, and she could well perceive it. Once, in a conversation, Hjalte said to her, "May I be permitted, daughter of the king, to tell thee what lies in my mind?" "Speak freely," says she; "but so that I alone can hear it." "Then," said Hjalte, "what would be thy answer, if the Norway king Olaf sent messengers to thee with the errand to propose marriage to thee?" She blushed, and answered slowly but gently, "I have not made up my mind to answer to that; but if Olaf be in all respects so perfect as thou tellest me, I could wish for no other husband; unless, indeed, thou hast gilded him over with thy praise more than sufficiently." Hjalte replied, that he had in no respect spoken better of the king than was true. They often spoke together on the same subject. Ingegerd begged Hjalte to be cautious not to mention it to any other person, for the king would be enraged against him if it came to his knowledge. Hjalte only spoke of it to the skalds Gissur and Ottar, who thought it was the most happy plan, if it could but be carried into effect. Ottar, who was a man of great power of conversation, and much beloved in the court, soon brought up the subject before the king's daughter, and recounted to her, as Hjalte had done, all King Olaf's excellent qualities. Often spoke Hjalte and the others about him; and now that Hjalte knew the result of his mission, he sent those Gautland men away who had accompanied him, and let them return to the earl with letters (1) which the king's daughter Ingegerd sent to the earl and Ingebjorg. Hjalte also let them give a hint to the earl about the conversation he had had with Ingegerd, and her answer thereto: and the messengers came with it to the earl a little before Yule. ENDNOTES: (1) This seems the first notice we have in the sagas of written letters being sent instead of tokens and verbal messages. --L. 72. OLAF'S JOURNEY TO THE UPLANDS. When King Olaf had despatched Bjorn and his followers to Gautland, he sent other people also to the Uplands, with the errand that they should have guest-quarters prepared for him, as he intended that winter (A.D. 1018) to live as guest in the Uplands; for it had been the custom of former kings to make a progress in guest-quarters every third year in the Uplands. In autumn he began his progress from Sarpsborg, and went first to Vingulmark. He ordered his progress so that he came first to lodge in the neighbourhood of the forest habitations, and summoned to him all the men of the habitations who dwelt at the greatest distance from the head-habitations of the district; and he inquired particularly how it stood with their Christianity, and, where improvement was needful, he taught them the right customs. If any there were who would not renounce heathen ways, he took the matter so zealously that he drove some out of the country, mutilated others of hands or feet, or stung their eyes out; hung up some, cut down some with the sword; but let none go unpunished who would not serve God. He went thus through the whole district, sparing neither great nor small. He gave them teachers, and placed these as thickly in the country as he saw needful. In this manner he went about in that district, and had 300 deadly men-at-arms with him; and then proceeded to Raumarike. He soon perceived that Christianity was thriving less the farther he proceeded into the interior of the country. He went forward everywhere in the same way, converting all the people to the right faith, and severely punishing all who would not listen to his word. 73. TREACHERY OF THE UPLAND KINGS. Now when the king who at that time ruled in Raumarike heard of this, he thought it was a very bad affair; for every day came men to him, both great and small, who told him what was doing. Therefore this king resolved to go up to Hedemark, and consult King Hrorek, who was the most eminent for understanding of the kings who at that time were in the country. Now when these kings spoke with each other, they agreed to send a message to Gudrod, the valley-king north in the Gudbrandsdal, and likewise to the king who was in Hadaland, and bid them to come to Hedemark, to meet Hrorek and the other kings there. They did not spare their travelling; for five kings met in Hedemark, at a place called Ringsaker. Ring, King Hrorek's brother, was the fifth of these kings. The kings had first a private conference together, in which he who came from Raumarike first took up the word, and told of King Olaf's proceedings, and of the disturbance he was causing both by killing and mutilating people. Some he drove out of the country, some he deprived of their offices or property if they spoke anything against him; and, besides, he was travelling over the country with a great army, not with the number of people fixed by law for a royal progress in guest-quarters. He added, that he had fled hither upon account of this disturbance, and many powerful people with him had fled from their udal properties in Raumarike. "But although as yet the evil is nearest to us, it will be but a short time before ye will also be exposed to it; therefore it is best that we all consider together what resolution we shall take." When he had ended his speech, Hrorek was desired to speak; and he said, "Now is the day come that I foretold when we had had our meeting at Hadaland, and ye were all so eager to raise Olaf over our heads; namely, that as soon as he was the supreme master of the country we would find it hard to hold him by the horns. We have but two things now to do: the one is, to go all of us to him, and let him do with us as he likes, which I think is the best thing we can do; or the other is, to rise against him before he has gone farther through the country. Although he has 300 or 400 men, that is not too great a force for us to meet, if we are only all in movement together: but, in general, there is less success and advantage to be gained when several of equal strength are joined together, than when one alone stands at the head of his own force; therefore it is my advice, that we do not venture to try our luck against Olaf Haraldson." Thereafter each of the kings spoke according to his own mind some dissuading from going out against King Olaf, others urging it; and no determination was come to, as each had his own reasons to produce. Then Gudrod, the valley-king, took up the word, and spoke:--"It appears wonderful to me, that ye make such a long roundabout in coming to a resolution; and probably ye are frightened for him. We are here five kings, and none of less high birth than Olaf. We gave him the strength to fight with Earl Svein, and with our forces he has brought the country under his power. But if he grudges each of us the little kingdom he had before, and threatens us with tortures, or gives us ill words, then, say I for myself, that I will withdraw myself from the king's slavery; and I do not call him a man among you who is afraid to cut him off, if he come into your hands here up in Hedemark. And this I can tell you, that we shall never bear our heads in safety while Olaf is in life." After this encouragement they all agreed to his determination. Then said Hrorek, "With regard to this determination, it appears to me necessary to make our agreement so strong that no one shall fail in his promise to the other. Therefore, if ye determine upon attacking Olaf at a fixed time, when he comes here to Hedemark, I will not trust much to you if some are north in the valleys, others up in Hedemark; but if our resolution is to come to anything, we must remain here assembled together day and night." This the kings agreed to, and kept themselves there all assembled, ordering a feast to be provided for them at Ringsaker, and drank there a cup to success; sending out spies to Raumarike, and when one set came in sending out others, so that day and night they had intelligence of Olaf's proceedings, and of the numbers of his men. King Olaf went about in Raumarike in guest-quarters, and altogether in the way before related; but as the provision of the guest-quarter was not always sufficient, upon account of his numerous followers, he laid it upon the bondes to give additional contributions wherever he found it necessary to stay. In some places he stayed longer, in others, shorter than was fixed; and his journey down to the lake Miosen was shorter than had been fixed on. The kings, after taking their resolution, sent out message-tokens, and summoned all the lendermen and powerful bondes from all the districts thereabout; and when they had assembled the kings had a private meeting with them, and made their determination known, setting a day for gathering together and carrying it into effect; and it was settled among them that each of the kings should have 300 (1) men. Then they sent away the lendermen to gather the people, and meet all at the appointed place. The most approved of the measure; but it happened here, as it usually does, that every one has some friend even among his enemies. ENDNOTES: (1) I.e., 360. 74. MUTILATING OF THE UPLAND KINGS. Ketil of Ringanes was at this meeting. Now when he came home in the evening he took his supper, put on his clothes, and went down with his house-servants to the lake; took a light vessel which he had, the same that King Olaf had made him a present of, and launched it on the water. They found in the boat-house everything ready to their hands; betook themselves to their oars, and rowed out into the lake. Ketil had forty well-armed men with him, and came early in the morning to the end of the lake. He set off immediately with twenty men, leaving the other twenty to look after the ship. King Olaf was at that time at Eid, in the upper end of Raumarike. Thither Ketil arrived just as the king was coming from matins. The king received Ketil kindly. He said he must speak with the king in all haste; and they had a private conference together. There Ketil tells the king the resolution which the kings had taken, and their agreement, which he had come to the certain knowledge of. When the king learnt this he called his people together, and sent some out to collect riding-horses in the country; others he sent down to the lake to take all the rowing-vessels they could lay hold of, and keep them for his use. Thereafter he went to the church, had mass sung before him, and then sat down to table. After his meal he got ready, and hastened down to the lake, where the vessels were coming to meet him. He himself went on board the light vessel, and as many men with him as it could stow, and all the rest of his followers took such boats as they could get hold of; and when it was getting late in the evening they set out from the land, in still and calm weather. He rowed up the water with 400 men, and came with them to Ringsaker before day dawned; and the watchmen were not aware of the army before they were come into the very court. Ketil knew well in what houses the kings slept, and the king had all these houses surrounded and guarded, so that nobody could get out; and so they stood till daylight. The kings had not people enough to make resistance, but were all taken prisoners, and led before the king. Hrorek was an able but obstinate man, whose fidelity the king could not trust to if he made peace with him; therefore he ordered both his eyes to be punched out, and took him in that condition about with him. He ordered Gudrod's tongue to be cut out; but Ring and two others he banished from Norway, under oath never to return. Of the lendermen and bondes who had actually taken part in the traitorous design, some he drove out of the country, some he mutilated, and with others he made peace. Ottar Black tells of this:-- "The giver of rings of gold, The army leader bold, In vengeance springs On the Hedemark kings. Olaf the bold and great, Repays their foul deceit-- In full repays Their treacherous ways. He drives with steel-clad hand The small kings from the land,-- Greater by far In deed of war. The king who dwelt most north Tongueless must wander forth: All fly away In great dismay. King Olaf now rules o'er What five kings ruled before. To Eid's old bound Extends his ground. No kings in days of yore E'er won so much before: That this is so All Norsemen know." King Olaf took possession of the land these five kings had possessed, and took hostages from the lendermen and bondes in it. He took money instead of guest-quarters from the country north of the valley district, and from Hedemark; and then returned to Raumarike, and so west to Hadaland. This winter (A.D. 1018) his stepfather Sigurd Syr died; and King Olaf went to Ringerike, where his mother Asta made a great feast for him. Olaf alone bore the title of king now in Norway. 75. KING OLAF'S HALF-BROTHERS. It is told that when King Olaf was on his visit to his mother Asta, she brought out her children, and showed them to him. The king took his brother Guthorm on the one knee, and his brother Halfdan on the other. The king looked at Guthorm, made a wry face, and pretended to be angry at them: at which the boys were afraid. Then Asta brought her youngest son, called Harald, who was three years old, to him. The king made a wry face at him also; but he looked the king in the face without regarding it. The king took the boy by the hair, and plucked it; but the boy seized the king's whiskers, and gave them a tug. "Then," said the king, "thou wilt be revengeful, my friend, some day." The following day the king was walking with his mother about the farm, and they came to a playground, where Asta's sons, Guthorm and Halfdan, were amusing themselves. They were building great houses and barns in their play, and were supposing them full of cattle and sheep; and close beside them, in a clay pool, Harald was busy with chips of wood, sailing them, in his sport along the edge. The king asked him what these were; and he answered, these were his ships of war. The king laughed, and said, "The time may come, friend, when thou wilt command ships." Then the king called to him Halfdan and Guthorm; and first he asked Guthorm, "What wouldst thou like best to have?" "Corn land," replied he. "And how great wouldst thou like thy corn land to be?" "I would have the whole ness that goes out into the lake sown with corn every summer." On that ness there are ten farms. The king replies, "There would be a great deal of corn there." And, turning to Halfdan, he asked, "And what wouldst thou like best to have?" "Cows," he replied. "How many wouldst thou like to have?" "When they went to the lake to be watered I would have so many, that they stood as tight round the lake as they could stand." "That would be a great housekeeping," said the king; "and therein ye take after your father." Then the king says to Harald, "And what wouldst thou like best to have?" "House-servants." "And how many wouldst thou have?" "Oh! so many I would like to have as would eat up my brother Halfdan's cows at a single meal." The king laughed, and said to Asta, "Here, mother, thou art bringing up a king." And more is not related of them on this occasion. 76. THE DIVISION OF THE COUNTRY. In Svithjod it was the old custom, as long as heathenism prevailed, that the chief sacrifice took place in Goe month at Upsala. Then sacrifice was offered for peace, and victory to the king; and thither came people from all parts of Svithjod. All the Things of the Swedes, also, were held there, and markets, and meetings for buying, which continued for a week: and after Christianity was introduced into Svithjod, the Things and fairs were held there as before. After Christianity had taken root in Svithjod, and the kings would no longer dwell in Upsala, the market-time was moved to Candlemas, and it has since continued so, and it lasts only three days. There is then the Swedish Thing also, and people from all quarters come there. Svithjod is divided into many parts. One part is West Gautland, Vermaland, and the Marks, with what belongs to them; and this part of the kingdom is so large, that the bishop who is set over it has 1100 churches under him. The other part is East Gautland, where there is also a bishop's seat, to which the islands of Gotland and Eyland belong; and forming all together a still greater bishopric. In Svithjod itself there is a part of the country called Sudermanland, where there is also a bishopric. Then comes Westmanland, or Fiathrundaland, which is also a bishopric. The third portion of Svithjod proper is called Tiundaland; the fourth Attandaland; the fifth Sialand, and what belongs to it lies eastward along the coast. Tiundaland is the best and most inhabited part of Svithjod, under which the other kingdoms stand. There Upsala is situated, the seat of the king and archbishop; and from it Upsala-audr, or the domain of the Swedish kings, takes its name. Each of these divisions of the country has its Lag-thing, and its own laws in many parts. Over each is a lagman, who rules principally in affairs of the bondes: for that becomes law which he, by his speech, determines them to make law: and if king, earl, or bishop goes through the country, and holds a Thing with the bondes, the lagmen reply on account of the bondes, and they all follow their lagmen; so that even the most powerful men scarcely dare to come to their Al-thing without regarding the bondes' and lagmen's law. And in all matters in which the laws differ from each other, Upsala-law is the directing law; and the other lagmen are under the lagman who dwells in Tiundaland. 77. OF THE LAGMAN THORGNY. In Tiundaland there was a lagman who was called Thorgny, whose father was called Thorgny Thorgnyson. His forefathers had for a long course of years, and during many kings' times, been lagmen of Tiundaland. At this time Thorgny was old, and had a great court about him. He was considered one of the wisest men in Sweden, and was Earl Ragnvald's relation and foster-father. 78. MEETING OF RAGNVALD AND INGEGERD. Now we must go back in our story to the time when the men whom the king's daughter Ingegerd and Hjalte had sent from the east came to Earl Ragnvald. They relate their errand to the earl and his wife Ingebjorg, and tell how the king's daughter had oft spoken to the Swedish king about a peace between him and King Olaf the Thick, and that she was a great friend of King Olaf; but that the Swedish king flew into a passion every time she named Olaf, so that she had no hopes of any peace. The Earl told Bjorn the news he had received from the east; but Bjorn gave the same reply, that he would not turn back until he had met the Swedish king, and said the earl had promised to go with him. Now the winter was passing fast, and immediately after Yule the earl made himself ready to travel with sixty men, among whom where the marshal Bjorn and his companions. The earl proceeded eastward all the way to Svithjod; but when he came a little way into the country he sent his men before him to Upsala with a message to Ingegerd the king's daughter to come out to meet him at Ullaraker, where she had a large farm. When the king's daughter got the earl's message she made herself ready immediately to travel with a large attendance, and Hjalte accompanied her. But before he took his departure he went to King Olaf, and said, "Continue always to be the most fortunate of monarchs! Such splendour as I have seen about thee I have in truth never witnessed elsewhere, and wheresoever I come it shall not be concealed. Now, king, may I entreat thy favour and friendship in time to come?" The king replies, "Why art thou in so great a haste, and where art thou going?" Hjalte replies, "I am to ride out to Ullaraker with Ingegerd thy daughter." The king says, "Farewell, then: a man thou art of understanding and politeness, and well suited to live with people of rank." Thereupon Hjalte withdrew. The king's daughter Ingegerd rode to her farm in Ullaraker, and ordered a great feast to be prepared for the earl. When the earl arrived he was welcomed with gladness, and he remained there several days. The earl and the king's daughter talked much, and of many things, but most about the Swedish and Norwegian kings; and she told the earl that in her opinion there was no hope of peace between them. Then said the earl, "How wouldst thou like it, my cousin, if Olaf king of Norway were to pay his addresses to thee? It appears to us that it would contribute most towards a settled peace if there was relationship established between the kings; but I would not support such a matter if it were against thy inclination." She replies, "My father disposes of my hand; but among all my other relations thou art he whose advice I would rather follow in weighty affairs. Dost thou think it would be advisable?" The earl recommended it to her strongly, and reckoned up many excellent achievements of King Olaf's. He told her, in particular, about what had lately been done; that King Olaf in an hours time one morning had taken five kings prisoners, deprived them all of their governments, and laid their kingdoms and properties under his own power. Much they talked about the business, and in all their conversations they perfectly agreed with each other. When the earl was ready he took leave, and proceeded on his way, taking Hjalte with him. 79. RAGNVALD AND THORGNY. Earl Ragnvald came towards evening one day to the house of Lagman Thorgny. It was a great and stately mansion, and many people stood outside, who received the earl kindly, and took care of the horses and baggage. The earl went into the room, where there was a number of people. In the high-seat sat an old man; and never had Bjorn or his companions seen a man so stout. His beard was so long that it lay upon his knee, and was spread over his whole breast; and the man, moreover, was handsome and stately in appearance. The earl went forward and saluted him. Thorgny received him joyfully and kindly, and bade him go to the seat he was accustomed to take. The earl seated himself on the other side, opposite Thorgny. They remained there some days before the earl disclosed his errand, and then he asked Thorgny to go with him into the conversing room. Bjorn and his followers went there with the earl. Then the earl began, and told how Olaf king of Norway had sent these men hither to conclude a peaceful agreement. He showed at great length what injury it was of to the West Gautland people, that there was hostility between their country and Norway. He further related that Olaf the king of Norway had sent ambassadors, who were here present, and to whom he had promised he would attend them to the Swedish king; but he added, "The Swedish king takes the matter so grievously, that he has uttered menaces against those who entertain it. Now so it is, my foster-father, that I do not trust to myself in this matter; but am come on a visit to thee to get good counsel and help from thee in the matter." Now when the earl had done speaking Thorgny sat silent for a while, and then took up the word. "Ye have curious dispositions who are so ambitious of honour and renown, and yet have no prudence or counsel in you when you get into any mischief. Why did you not consider, before you gave your promise to this adventure, that you had no power to stand against King Olaf? In my opinion it is not a less honourable condition to be in the number of bondes and have one's words free, and be able to say what one will, even if the king be present. But I must go to the Upsala Thing, and give thee such help that without fear thou canst speak before the king what thou findest good." The earl thanked him for the promise, remained with Thorgny, and rode with him to the Upsala Thing. There was a great assemblage of people at the Thing, and King Olaf was there with his court. 80. OF THE UPSALA THING. The first day the Thing sat, King Olaf was seated on a stool, and his court stood in a circle around him. Right opposite to him sat Earl Ragnvald and Thorgny in the Thing upon one stool, and before them the earl's court and Thorgny's house-people. Behind their stool stood the bonde community, all in a circle around them. Some stood upon hillocks and heights, in order to hear the better. Now when the king's messages, which are usually handled in the Things, were produced and settled, the marshal Bjorn rose beside the earl's stool, and said aloud, "King Olaf sends me here with the message that he will offer to the Swedish king peace, and the frontiers that in old times were fixed between Norway and Svithjod." He spoke so loud that the Swedish king could distinctly hear him; but at first, when he heard King Olaf's name spoken, he thought the speaker had some message or business of his own to execute; but when he heard of peace, and the frontiers between Norway and Svithjod, he saw from what root it came, and sprang up, and called out that the man should be silent, for that such speeches were useless. Thereupon Bjorn sat down; and when the noise had ceased Earl Ragnvald stood up and made a speech. He spoke of Olaf the Thick's message, and proposal of peace to Olaf the Swedish king; and that all the West Gautland people sent their entreaty to Olaf that he would make peace with the king of Norway. He recounted all the evils the West Gautlanders were suffering under; that they must go without all the things from Norway which were necessary in their households; and, on the other hand, were exposed to attack and hostility whenever the king of Norway gathered an army and made an inroad on them. The earl added, that Olaf the Norway king had sent men hither with the intent to obtain Ingegerd the king's daughter in marriage. When the earl had done speaking Olaf the Swedish king stood up and replied, and was altogether against listening to any proposals of peace, and made many and heavy reproaches against the earl for his impudence in entering into a peaceful truce with the thick fellow, and making up a peaceful friendship with him, and which in truth he considered treason against himself. He added, that it would be well deserved if Earl Ragnvald were driven out of the kingdom. The earl had, in his opinion, the influence of his wife Ingebjorg to thank for what might happen; and it was the most imprudent fancy he could have fallen upon to take up with such a wife. The king spoke long and bitterly, turning his speech always against Olaf the Thick. When he sat down not a sound was to be heard at first. 81. THORGNY'S SPEECH. Then Thorgny stood up; and when he arose all the bondes stood up who had before been sitting, and rushed together from all parts to listen to what Lagman Thorgny would say. At first there was a great din of people and weapons; but when the noise was settled into silent listening, Thorguy made his speech. "The disposition of Swedish kings is different now from what it has been formerly. My grandfather Thorgny could well remember the Upsala king Eirik Eymundson, and used to say of him that when he was in his best years he went out every summer on expeditions to different countries, and conquered for himself Finland, Kirjalaland, Courland, Esthonia, and the eastern countries all around; and at the present day the earth-bulwarks, ramparts, and other great works which he made are to be seen. And, more over, he was not so proud that he would not listen to people who had anything to say to him. My father, again, was a long time with King Bjorn, and was well acquainted with his ways and manners. In Bjorn's lifetime his kingdom stood in great power, and no kind of want was felt, and he was gay and sociable with his friends. I also remember King Eirik the Victorious, and was with him on many a war-expedition. He enlarged the Swedish dominion, and defended it manfully; and it was also easy and agreeable to communicate our opinions to him. But the king we have now got allows no man to presume to talk with him, unless it be what he desires to hear. On this alone he applies all his power, while he allows his scat-lands in other countries to go from him through laziness and weakness. He wants to have the Norway kingdom laid under him, which no Swedish king before him ever desired, and therewith brings war and distress on many a man. Now it is our will, we bondes, that thou King Olaf make peace with the Norway king, Olaf the Thick, and marry thy daughter Ingegerd to him. Wilt thou, however, reconquer the kingdoms in the east countries which thy relations and forefathers had there, we will all for that purpose follow thee to the war. But if thou wilt not do as we desire, we will now attack thee, and put thee to death; for we will no longer suffer law and peace to be disturbed. So our forefathers went to work when they drowned five kings in a morass at the Mula-thing, and they were filled with the same insupportable pride thou hast shown towards us. Now tell us, in all haste, what resolution thou wilt take." Then the whole public approved, with clash of arms and shouts, the lagman's speech. The king stands up and says he will let things go according to the desire of the bondes. "All Swedish kings," he said, "have done so, and have allowed the bondes to rule in all according to their will." The murmur among the bondes then came to an end, and the chiefs, the king, the earl, and Thorgny talked together, and concluded a truce and reconciliation, on the part of the Swedish king, according to the terms which the king of Norway had proposed by his ambassadors; and it was resolved at the Thing that Ingegerd, the king's daughter, should be married to Olaf Haraldson. The king left it to the earl to make the contract feast, and gave him full powers to conclude this marriage affair; and after this was settled at the Thing, they separated. When the earl returned homewards, he and the king's daughter Ingegerd had a meeting, at which they talked between themselves over this matter. She sent Olaf a long cloak of fine linen richly embroidered with gold, and with silk points. The earl returned to Gautland, and Bjorn with him; and after staying with him a short time, Bjorn and his company returned to Norway. When he came to King Olaf he told him the result of his errand, and the king returned him many thanks for his conduct, and said Bjorn had had great success in bringing his errand to so favourabie a conclusion against such animosity. 82. OF KING HROREK'S TREACHERY. On the approach of spring (A.D. 1018) King Olaf went down to the coast, had his ships rigged out, summoned troops to him, and proceeded in spring out from Viken to the Naze, and so north to Hordaland. He then sent messages to all the lendermen, selected the most considerable men in each district, and made the most splendid preparations to meet his bride. The wedding-feast was to be in autumn, at the Gaut river, on the frontiers of the two countries. King Olaf had with him the blind king Hrorek. When his wound was healed, the king gave him two men to serve him, let him sit in the high-seat by his side, and kept him in meat and clothes in no respect Norse than he had kept himself before. Hrorek was taciturn, and answered short and cross when any one spoke to him. It was his custom to make his footboy, when he went out in the daytime, lead him away from people, and then to beat the lad until he ran away. He would then complain to King Olaf that the lad would not serve him. The king changed his servants, but it was as before; no servant would hold it out with King Hrorek. Then the king appointed a man called Svein to wait upon and serve King Hrorek. He was Hrorek's relation, and had formerly been in his service. Hrorek continued with his habits of moroseness, and of solitary walks; but when he and Svein were alone together, he was merry and talkative. He used to bring up many things which had happened in former days when he was king. He alluded, too, to the man who had, in his former days, torn him from his kingdom and happiness, and made him live on alms. "It is hardest of all," says he, "that thou and my other relations, who ought to be men of bravery, are so degenerated that thou wilt not avenge the shame and disgrace brought upon our race." Such discourse he often brought out. Svein said, they had too great a power to deal with, while they themselves had but little means. Hrorek said, "Why should we live longer as mutilated men with disgrace? I, a blind man, may conquer them as well as they conquered me when I was asleep. Come then, let us kill this thick Olaf. He is not afraid for himself at present. I will lay the plan, and would not spare my hands if I could use them, but that I cannot by reason of my blindness; therefore thou must use the weapons against him, and as soon as Olaf is killed I can see well enough that his power must come into the hands of his enemies, and it may well be that I shall be king, and thou shalt be my earl." So much persuasion he used that Svein at last agreed to join in the deed. The plan was so laid that when the king was ready to go to vespers, Svein stood on the threshold with a drawn dagger under his cloak. Now when the king came out of the room, it so happened that he walked quicker than Svein expected; and when he looked the king in the face he grew pale, and then white as a corpse, and his hand sank down. The king observed his terror and said, "What is this, Svein? Wilt thou betray me?" Svein threw down his cloak and dagger, and fell at the king's feet, saying, "All is in Gods hands and thine, king!" The king ordered his men to seize Svein, and he was put in irons. The king ordered Hrorek's seat to be moved to another bench. He gave Svein his life, and he left the country. The king appointed a different lodging for Hrorek to sleep in from that in which he slept himself, and in which many of his court-people slept. He set two of his court-men, who had been long with him, and whose fidelity he had proof of, to attend Hrorek day and night; but it is not said whether they were people of high birth or not. King Hrorek's mood was very different at different times. Sometimes he would sit silent for days together, so that no man could get a word out of him; and sometimes he was so merry and gay, that people found a joke in every word he said. Sometimes his words were very bitter. He was sometimes in a mood that he would drink them all under the benches, and made all his neighbours drunk; but in general he drank but little. King Olaf gave him plenty of pocket-money. When he went to his lodgings he would often, before going to bed, have some stoups of mead brought in, which he gave to all the men in the house to drink, so that he was much liked. 83. OF LITTLE FIN. There was a man from the Uplands called Fin the Little, and some said of him that he was of Finnish (1) race. He was a remarkable little man, but so swift of foot that no horse could overtake him. He was a particularly well-excercised runner with snow-shoes, and shooter with the bow. He had long been in the service of King Hrorek, and often employed in errands of trust. He knew the roads in all the Upland hills, and was well known to all the great people. Now when King Hrorek was set under guards on the journey Fin would often slip in among the men of the guard, and followed, in general, with the lads and serving-men; but as often as he could he waited upon Hrorek, and entered into conversation with him. The king, however, only spoke a word or two with him at a time, to prevent suspicion. In spring, when they came a little way beyond Viken, Fin disappeared from the army for some days, but came back, and stayed with them a while. This happened often, without anyone observing it particularly; for there were many such hangers-on with the army. ENDNOTES: (1) The Laplanders are called Fins In Norway and Sweden.--L. 84. MURDER OF OLAF'S COURT-MEN. King Olaf came to Tunsberg before Easter (A.D. 1018), and remained there late in spring. Many merchant vessels came to the town, both from Saxon-land and Denmark, and from Viken, and from the north parts of the country. There was a great assemblage of people; and as the times were good, there was many a drinking meeting. It happened one evening that King Hrorek came rather late to his lodging; and as he had drunk a great deal, he was remarkably merry. Little Fin came to him with a stoup of mead with herbs in it, and very strong. The king made every one in the house drunk, until they fell asleep each in his berth. Fin had gone away, and a light was burning in the lodging. Hrorek waked the men who usually followed him, and told them he wanted to go out into the yard. They had a lantern with them, for outside it was pitch dark. Out in the yard there was a large privy standing upon pillars, and a stair to go up to it. While Hrorek and his guards were in the yard they heard a man say, "Cut down that devil;" and presently a crash, as if somebody fell. Hrorek said, "These fellows must be dead drunk to be fighting with each other so: run and separate them." They rushed out; but when they came out upon the steps both of them were killed: the man who went out the last was the first killed. There were twelve of Hrorek's men there, and among them Sigurd Hit, who had been his banner-man, and also little Fin. They drew the dead bodies up between the houses, took the king with them, ran out to a boat they had in readiness, and rowed away. Sigvat the skald slept in King Olaf's lodgings. He got up in the night, and his footboy with him, and went to the privy. But as they were returning, on going down the stairs Sigvat's foot slipped, and he fell on his knee; and when he put out his hands he felt the stairs wet. "I think," said he, laughing, "the king must have given many of us tottering legs tonight." When they came into the house in which light was burning the footboy said, "Have you hurt yourself that you are all over so bloody?" He replied, "I am not wounded, but something must have happened here." Thereupon he wakened Thord Folason, who was standard-bearer, and his bedfellow. They went out with a light, and soon found the blood. They traced it, and found the corpses, and knew them. They saw also a great stump of a tree in which clearly a gash had been cut, which, as was afterwards known, had been done as a stratagem to entice those out who had been killed. Sigvat and Thord spoke together and agreed it was highly necessary to let the king know of this without delay. They immediately sent a lad to the lodging where Hrorek had been. All the men in it were asleep; but the king was gone. He wakened the men who were in the house, and told them what had happened. The men arose, and ran out to the yard where the bodies were; but, however needful it appeared to be that the king should know it, nobody dared to waken him. Then said Sigvat to Thord, "What wilt thou rather do, comrade, waken the king, or tell him the tidings?" Thord replies, "I do not dare to waken him, and I would rather tell him the news." Then said Sigvat, "There is minch of the night still to pass, and before morning Hrorek may get himself concealed in such a way that it may be difficult to find him; but as yet he cannot be very far off, for the bodies are still warm. We must never let the disgrace rest upon us of concealing this treason from the king. Go thou, up to the lodging, and wait for me there." Sigvat then went to the church, and told the bell-ringer to toll for the souls of the king's court-men, naming the men who were killed. The-bell-ringer did as he was told. The king awoke at the ringing, sat up in his bed, and asked if it was already the hours of matins. Thord replies, "It is worse than that, for there has occurred a very important affair. Hrorek is fled, and two of the court-men are killed." The king asked how this had taken place, and Thord told him all he knew. The king got up immediately, ordered to sound the call for a meeting of the court, and when the people were assembled he named men to go out to every quarter from the town, by sea and land, to search for Hrorek. Thorer Lange took a boat, and set off with thirty men; and when day dawned they saw two small boats before them in the channel, and when they saw each other both parties rowed as hard as they could. King Hrorek was there with thirty men. When they came quite close to each other Hrorek and his men turned towards the land, and all sprang on shore except the king, who sat on the aft seat. He bade them farewell, and wished they might meet each other again in better luck. At the same moment Thorer with his company rowed to the land. Fin the Little shot off an arrow, which hit Thorer in the middle of the body, and was his death; and Sigurd Hit, with his men, ran up into the forest. Thorer's men took his body, and transported it, together with Hrorek, to Tunsberg. King Olaf undertook himself thereafter to look after King Hrorek, made him be carefully guarded, and took good care of his treason, for which reason he had a watch over him night and day. King Hrorek thereafter was very gay, and nobody could observe but that he was in every way well satisfied. 85. OF HROREK'S ASSAULT. It happened on Ascension-day that King Olaf went to high mass, and the bishop went in procession around the church, and conducted the king; and when they came back to the church the bishop led the king to his seat on the north side of the choir. There Hrorek sat next to the king, and concealed his countenance in his upper cloak. When Olaf had seated himself Hrorek laid his hand on the king's shoulder, and felt it. "Thou hast fine clothes on, cousin, today," said he. King Olaf replies, "It is a festival today, in remembrance that Jesus Christ ascended to heaven from earth." King Hrorek says, "I understand nothing about it so as to hold in my mind what ye tell me about Christ. Much of what ye tell me appears to me incredible, although many wonderful things may have come to pass in old times." When the mass was finished Olaf stood up, held his hands up over his head, and bowed down before the altar, so that his cloak hung down behind his shoulders. Then King Hrorek started up hastily and sharply, and struck at the king with a long knife of the kind called ryting; but the blow was received in the upper cloak at the shoulder, because the king was bending himself forwards. The clothes were much cut, but the king was not wounded. When the king perceived the attack he sprang upon the floor; and Hrorek struck at him again with the knife, but did not reach him, and said, "Art thou flying, Olaf, from me, a blind men?" The king ordered his men to seize him and lead him out of the church, which was done. After this attempt many hastened to King Olaf, and advised that King Hrorek should be killed. "It is," said they, "tempting your luck in the highest degree, king, to keep him with you, and protect him, whatever mischief he may undertake; for night and day he thinks upon taking your life. And if you send him away, we know no one who can watch him so that he will not in all probability escape; and if once he gets loose he will assemble a great multitude, and do much evil." The king replies, "You say truly that many a one has suffered death for less offence than Hrorek's; but willingly I would not darken the victory I gained over the Upland kings, when in one morning hour I took five kings prisoners, and got all their kingdoms: but yet, as they were my relations, I should not be their murderer but upon need. As yet I can scarcely see whether Hrorek puts me in the necessity of killing him or not." It was to feel if King Olaf had armour on or not that Hrorek had laid his hand on the king's shoulder. 86. KING HROREK'S JOURNEY TO ICELAND. There was an Iceland man, by name Thorarin Nefiulfson, who had his relations in the north of the country. He was not of high birth, but particularly prudent, eloquent, and agreeable in conversation with people of distinction. He was also a far-travelled man, who had been long in foreign parts. Thorarin was a remarkably ugly man, principally because he had very ungainly limbs. He had great ugly hands, and his feet were still uglier. Thorarin was in Tunsberg when this event happened which has just been related, and he was known to King Olaf by their having had conversations together. Thorarin was just then done with rigging out a merchant vessel which he owned, and with which he intended to go to Iceland in summer. King Olaf had Thorarin with him as a guest for some days, and conversed much with him; and Thorarin even slept in the king's lodgings. One morning early the king awoke while the others were still sleeping. The sun had newly risen in the sky, and there was much light within. The king saw that Thorarin had stretched out one of his feet from under the bed-clothes, and he looked at the foot a while. In the meantime the others in the lodging awoke; and the king said to Thorarin, "I have been awake for a while, and have seen a sight which was worth seeing; and that is a man's foot so ugly that I do not think an uglier can be found in this merchant town." Thereupon he told the others to look at it, and see if it was not so; and all agreed with the king. When Thorarin observed what they were talking about, he said, "There are few things for which you cannot find a match, and that may be the case here." The king says, "I would rather say that such another ugly foot cannot be found in the town, and I would lay any wager upon it." Then said Thorarin, "I am willing to bet that I shall find an uglier foot still in the town." The king--"Then he who wins shall have the right to get any demand from the other he chooses to make." "Be it so," said Thorarin. Thereupon he stretches out his other foot from under the bed-clothes, and it was in no way handsomer than the other, and moreover, wanted the little toe. "There," said Thorarin, "see now, king, my other foot, which is so much uglier; and, besides, has no little toe. Now I have won." The king replies, "That other foot was so much uglier than this one by having five ugly toes upon it, and this has only four; and now I have won the choice of asking something from thee." "The sovereign's decision must be right," says Thorarin; "but what does the king require of me?" "To take Hrorek," said the king, "to Greenland, and deliver him to Leif Eirikson." Thorarin replies, "I have never been in Greenland." The king--"Thou, who art a far-travelled man, wilt now have an opportunity of seeing Greenland, if thou hast never been there before." At first Thorarin did not say much about it; but as the king insisted on his wish he did not entirely decline, but said, "I will let you hear, king, what my desire would have been had I gained the wager. It would have been to be received into your body of court-men; and if you will grant me that, I will be the more zealous now in fulfilling your pleasure." The king gave his consent, and Thorarin was made one of the court-men. Then Thorarin rigged out his vessel, and when he was ready he took on board King Hrorek. When Thorarin took leave of King Olaf, he said, "Should it now turn out, king, as is not improbable, and often happens, that we cannot effect the voyage to Greenland, but must run for Iceland or other countries, how shall I get rid of this king in a way that will be satisfactory to you?" The king--"If thou comest to Iceland, deliver him into the hands of Gudmund Eyolfson, or of Skapte, the lagman, or of some other chief who will receive my tokens and message of friendship. But if thou comest to other countries nearer to this, do so with him that thou canst know with certainty that King Hrorek never again shall appear in Norway; but do so only when thou seest no other way of doing whatsoever." When Thorarin was ready for sea, and got a wind, he sailed outside of all the rocks and islands, and when he was to the north of the Naze set right out into the ocean. He did not immediately get a good wind, but he avoided coming near the land. He sailed until he made land which he knew, in the south part of Iceland, and sailed west around the land out into the Greenland ocean. There he encountered heavy storms, and drove long about upon the ocean; but when summer was coming to an end he landed again in Iceland in Breidafjord. Thorgils Arason (1) was the first man of any consequence who came to him. Thorarin brings him the king's salutation, message, and tokens, with which was the desire about King Hrorek's reception. Thorgils received these in a friendly way, and invited King Hrorek to his house, where he stayed all winter. But he did not like being there, and begged that Thorgils would let him go to Gudmund; saying he had heard some time or other that there in Gudmund's house, was the most sumptuous way of living in Iceland, and that it was intended he should be in Gudmund's hands. Thorgils let him have his desire, and conducted him with some men to Gudmund at Modruveller. Gudmund received Hrorek kindly on account of the king's message, and he stayed there the next winter. He did not like being there either; and then Gudmund gave him a habitation upon a small farm called Kalfskin, where there were but few neighbours. There Hrorek passed the third winter, and said that since he had laid down his kingdom he thought himself most comfortably situated here; for here he was most respected by all. The summer after Hrorek fell sick, and died; and it is said he is the only king whose bones rest in Iceland. Thorarin Nefiulfson was afterwards for a long time upon voyages; but sometimes he was with King Olaf. ENDNOTES: (1) Thorgils was the son of Are Marson, who visited America (Vindland). Thorgils, who was still alive in the year 1024, was noted for his kindness toward all persecuted persons. 87. BATTLE IN ULFREKS-FJORD. The summer that Thorarin went with Hrorek to Iceland, Hjalte Skeggjason went also to Iceland, and King Olaf gave him many friendly gifts with him when they parted. The same summer Eyvind Urarhorn went on an expedition to the west sea, and came in autumn to Ireland, to the Irish king Konofogor (1). In autumn Einar earl of Orkney and this Irish king met in Ulfreks-fjord, and there was a great battle, in which Konofogor gained the victory, having many more people. The earl fled with a single ship and came back about autumn to Orkney, after losing most of his men and all the booty they had made. The earl was much displeased with his expedition, and threw the blame upon the Northmen, who had been in the battle on the side of the Irish king, for making him lose the victory. ENDNOTES: (1) Konofogor's Irish name was Connor. 88. OLAF PREPARES FOR HIS BRIDAL JOURNEY. Now we begin again our story where we let it slip--at King Olaf's travelling to his bridal, to receive his betrothed Ingegerd the king's daughter. The king had a great body of men with him, and so chosen a body that all the great people he could lay hold of followed him; and every man of consequence had a chosen band of men with him distinguished by birth or other qualifications. The whole were well appointed, and equipped in ships, weapons, and clothes. They steered the fleet eastwards to Konungahella; but when they arrived there they heard nothing of the Swedish king and none of his men had come there. King Olaf remained a long time in summer (A.D. 1018) at Konungahella, and endeavored carefully to make out what people said of the Swedish king's movements, or what were his designs; but no person could tell him anything for certain about it. Then he sent men up to Gautland to Earl Ragnvald, to ask him if he knew how it came to pass that the Swedish king did not come to the meeting agreed on. The earl replies, that he did not know. "But as soon," said he, "as I hear, I shall send some of my men to King Olaf, to let him know if there be any other cause for the delay than the multitude of affairs; as it often happens that the Swedish king's movements are delayed by this more than he could have expected." 89. OF THE SWEDISH KING'S CHILDREN. This Swedish king, Olaf Eirikson, had first a concubine who was called Edla, a daughter of an earl of Vindland, who had been captured in war, and therefore was called the king's slave-girl. Their children were Emund, Astrid, Holmfrid.... They had, besides, a son, who was born the day before St. Jacob's-day. When the boy was to be christened the bishop called him Jacob, which the Swedes did not like, as there never had been a Swedish king called Jacob. All King Olaf's children were handsome in appearance, and clever from childhood. The queen was proud, and did not behave well towards her step-children; therefore the king sent his son Emund to Vindland, to be fostered by his mother's relations, where he for a long time neglected his Christianity. The king's daughter, Astrid, was brought up in West Gautland, in the house of a worthy man called Egil. She was a very lovely girl: her words came well into her conversation; she was merry, but modest, and very generous. When she was grown up she was often in her father's house, and every man thought well of her. King Olaf was haughty and harsh in his speech. He took very ill the uproar and clamour the country people had raised against him at the Upsala Thing, as they had threatened him with violence, for which he laid the chief blame on Earl Ragnvald. He made no preparation for the bridal, according to the agreement to marry his daughter Ingegerd to Olaf the king of Norway, and to meet him on the borders for that purpose. As the summer advanced many of his men were anxious to know what the kings intentions were; whether to keep to the agreement with King Olaf, or break his word, and with it the peace of the country. But no one was so bold as to ask the king, although they complained of it to Ingegerd, and besought her to find out what the king intended. She replied "I have no inclination to speak to the king again about the matters between him and King Olaf; for he answered me ill enough once before when I brought forward Olaf's name." In the meantime Ingegerd, the king's daughter, took it to heart, became melancholy and sorrowful and yet very curious to know what the king intended. She had much suspicion that he would not keep his word and promise to King Olaf; for he appeared quite enraged whenever Olaf the Thick's name was in any way mentioned. 90. OF THE SWEDISH KING OLAF'S HUNTING. One morning early the king rode out with his dogs and falcons, and his men around him. When they let slip the falcons the king's falcon killed two black-cocks in one flight, and three in another. The dogs ran and brought the birds when they had fallen to the ground. The king ran after them, took the game from them himself, was delighted with his sport, and said, "It will be long before the most of you have such success." They agreed in this; adding, that in their opinion no king had such luck in hunting as he had. Then the king rode home with his followers in high spirits. Ingegerd, the king's daughter, was just going out of her lodging when the king came riding into the yard, and she turned round and saluted him. He saluted her in return, laughing; produced the birds, and told her the success of his chase. "Dost thou know of any king," said he, "who made so great a capture in so short a time?" "It is indeed," replied she, "a good morning's hunting, to have got five black-cocks; but it was a still better when, in one morning, the king of Norway, Olaf, took five kings, and subdued all their kingdoms." When the king heard this he sprang from his horse, turned to Ingegerd, and said, "Thou shalt know, Ingegerd, that however great thy love may be for this man, thou shalt never get him, nor he get thee. I will marry thee to some chief with whom I can be in friendship; but never can I be a friend of the man who has robbed me of my kingdom, and done me great mischief by marauding and killing through the land." With that their conversation broke off, and each went away. 91. OLAF THE NORWAY KING'S COUNSELS. Ingegerd, the king's daughter, had now full certainty of King Olaf's intention, and immediately sent men to West Gautland to Earl Ragnvald, and let him know how it stood with the Swedish king, and that the agreement made with the king of Norway was broken; and advising the earl and people of West Gautland to be upon their guard, as no peace from the people of Norway was to be expected. When the earl got this news he sent a message through all his kingdom, and told the people to be cautious, and prepared in case of war or pillage from the side of Norway. He also sent men to King Olaf the Thick, and let him know the message he had received, and likewise that he wished for himself to hold peace and friendship with King Olaf; and therefore he begged him not to pillage in his kingdom. When this message came to King Olaf it made him both angry and sorry; and for some days nobody got a word from him. He then held a House-Thing with his men, and in it Bjorn arose, and first took the word. He began his speech by telling that he had proceeded eastward last winter to establish a peace, and he told how kindly Earl Ragnvald had received him; and, on the other hand, how crossly and heavily the Swedish king had accepted the proposal. "And the agreement," said he, "which was made, was made more by means of the strength of the people, the power of Thorgny, and the aid of the earl, than by the king's good-will. Now, on these grounds, we know for certain that it is the king who has caused the breach of the agreement; therefore we ought by no means to make the earl suffer, for it is proved that he is King Olaf's firm friend." The king wished now to hear from the chiefs and other leaders of troops what course he should adopt. "Whether shall we go against Gautland, and maraud there with such men as we have got; or is there any other course that appears to you more advisable?" He spoke both long and well. Thereafter many powerful men spoke, and all were at last agreed in dissuading from hostilities. They argued thus:--"Although we are a numerous body of men who are assembled here, yet they are all only people of weight and power; but, for a war expedition, young men who are in quest of property and consideration are more suitable. It is also the custom of people of weight and power, when they go into battle or strife, to have many people with them whom they can send out before them for their defence; for the men do not fight worse who have little property, but even better than those who are brought up in the midst of wealth." After these considerations the king resolved to dismiss this army from any expedition, and to give every man leave to return home; but proclaimed, at the same time, that next summer the people over the whole country would be called out in a general levy, to march immediately against the Swedish king, and punish him for his want of faith. All thought well of this plan. Then the king returned northwards to Viken, and took his abode at Sarpsborg in autumn, and ordered all things necessary for winter provision to be collected there; and he remained there all winter (A.D. 1019) with a great retinue. 92. SIGVAT THE SKALD'S JOURNEY EASTWARDS. People talked variously about Earl Ragnvald; some said he was King Olaf's sincere friend; others did not think this likely, and thought it stood in his power to warn the Swedish king to keep his word, and the agreement concluded on between him and King Olaf. Sigvat the poet often expressed himself in conversation as Earl Ragnvald's great friend, and often spoke of him to King Olaf; and he offered to the king to travel to Earl Ragnvald's and spy after the Swedish kings doings, and to attempt, if possible, to get the settlement of the agreement. The king thought well of this plan; for he oft, and with pleasure, spoke to his confidential friends about Ingegerd, the king's daughter. Early in winter (A.D. 1019) Sigvat the skald, with two companions, left Sarpsborg, and proceeded eastwards over the moors to Gautland. Before Sigvat and King Olaf parted he composed these verses:-- "Sit happy in thy hall, O king! Till I come back, and good news bring: The skald will bid thee now farewell, Till he brings news well worth to tell. He wishes to the helmed hero Health, and long life, and a tull flow Of honour, riches, and success-- And, parting, ends his song with this. The farewell word is spoken now __ The word that to the heart lies nearest; And yet, O king! before I go, One word on what I hold the dearest, I fain would say, "O! may God save To thee the bravest of the brave, The land, which is thy right by birth!" This is my dearest with on earth." Then they proceeded eastwards towards Eid, and had difficulty in crossing the river in a little cobble; but they escaped, though with danger: and Sigvat sang:-- "On shore the crazy boat I drew, Wet to the skin, and frightened too; For truly there was danger then; The mocking hill elves laughed again. To see us in this cobble sailing, And all our sea-skill unavailing. But better did it end, you see, Than any of us could foresee." Then they went through the Eid forest, and Sigvat sang:-- "A hundred miles through Eid's old wood, And devil an alehouse, bad or good,-- A hundred miles, and tree and sky Were all that met the weary eye. With many a grumble, many a groan. A hundred miles we trudged right on; And every king's man of us bore On each foot-sole a bleeding sore." They came then through Gautland, and in the evening reached a farm-house called Hof. The door was bolted so that they could not come in; and the servants told them it was a fast-day, and they could not get admittance. Sigvat sang:-- "Now up to Hof in haste I hie, And round the house and yard I pry. Doors are fast locked--but yet within, Methinks, I hear some stir and din. I peep, with nose close to the ground. Below the door, but small cheer found. My trouble with few words was paid-- "'Tis holy time,' the house-folkd said. Heathens! to shove me thus away! I' the foul fiend's claws may you all lay." Then they came to another farm, where the good-wife was standing at the door, and told them not to come in, for they were busy with a sacrifice to the elves. Sigvat sang of it thus:-- "'My poor lad, enter not, I pray!' Thus to me did the old wife say; 'For all of us are heathens here, And I for Odin's wrath do fear.' The ugly witch drove me away, Like scared wolf sneaking from his prey. When she told me that there within Was sacrifice to foul Odin." Another evening, they came to three bondes, all of them of the name of Olver, who drove them away. Sigvat sang:-- "Three of one name, To their great shame, The traveller late Drove from their gate! Travellers may come From our viking-home, Unbidden guests At these Olvers' feasts." They went on farther that evening, and came to a fourth bonde, who was considered the most hospitable man in the country; but he drove them away also. Then Sigvat sang:-- "Then on I went to seek night's rest From one who was said to be the best, The kindest host in the land around, And there I hoped to have quarters found. But, faith,'twas little use to try; For not so much as raise an eye Would this huge wielder of the spade: If he's the hest, it must be said Bad is the best, and the skald's praise Cannot be given to churls like these. I almost wished that Asta's son In the Eid forest had been one When we, his men, were even put Lodging to crave in a heathen's hut. I knew not where the earl to find; Four times driven off by men unkind, I wandered now the whole night o'er, Driven like a dog from door to door." Now when they came to Earl Ragnvald's the earl said they must have had a severe journey. Then Sigvat sang:-- "The message-bearers of the king From Norway came his words to bring; And truly for their master they Hard work have done before to-day. We did not loiter on the road, But on we pushed for thy abode: Thy folk, in sooth, were not so kind That we cared much to lag hehind. But Eid to rest safe we found, From robbers free to the eastern bound: This praise to thee, great earl, is due-- The skald says only what is true." Earl Ragnvald gave Sigvat a gold arm-ring, and a woman said "he had not made the journey with his black eyes for nothing." Sigvat sang:-- "My coal-black eyes Dost thou despise? They have lighted me Across the sea To gain this golden prize: They have lighted me, Thy eyes to see, O'er Iceland's main, O'er hill and plain: Where Nanna's lad would fear to be They have lighted me." Sigvat was long entertained kindly and well in the house of Earl Ragnvald. The earl heard by letters, sent by Ingegerd the king's daughter, that ambassadors from King Jarisleif were come from Russia to King Olaf of Svithjod to ask his daughter Ingegerd in marriage, and that King Olaf had given them hopes that he would agree to it. About the same time King Olaf's daughter Astrid came to Earl Ragnvald's court, and a great feast was made for her. Sigvat soon became acquainted by conversation with the king's daughter, and she knew him by name and family, for Ottar the skald, Sigvat's sister's son, had long intimate acquaintance with King Olaf, the Swedish king. Among other things talked of, Earl Ragnvald asked Sigvat if the king of Norway would not marry the king's daughter Astrid. "If he would do that," said he, "I think we need not ask the Swedish king for his consent." Astrid, the kings daughter, said exactly the same. Soon after Sigvat returns home, and comes to King Olaf at Sarpsborg a little before Yule. When Sigvat came home to King Olaf he went into the hall, and, looking around on the walls, he sang:-- "When our men their arms are taking The raven's wings with greed are shaking; When they come back to drink in hall Brave spoil they bring to deck the wall-- Shield, helms, and panzers (1), all in row, Stripped in the field from lifeless fow. In truth no royal nail comes near Thy splendid hall in precious gear." Afterwards Sigvat told of his journey, and sang these verses:-- "The king's court-guards desire to hear About our journey and our cheer, Our ships in autumn reach the sound, But long the way to Swedish ground. With joyless weather, wind and raind, And pinching cold, and feet in pain-- With sleep, fatigue, and want oppressed, No songs had we--we scarce had rest." And when he came into conversation with the king he sang:-- "When first I met the earl I told How our king loved a friend so bold; How in his heart he loved a man With hand to do, and head to plan. Thou generous king! with zeal and care I sought to advance thy great affair; For messengers from Russian land Had come to ask Ingegerd's hand. The earl, thy friend, bids thee, who art So mild and generous of heart, His servants all who here may come To cherish in thy royal home; And thine who may come to the east In Ragnvald's hall shall find a feast-- In Ragnvald's house shall find a home-- At Ragnvald's court be still welcome. When first I came the people's mind Incensed by Eirik's son I find; And he refused the wish to meet, Alleging treachery and deceit. But I explained how it was here, For earl and king, advantage clear With thee to hold the strictest peace, And make all force and foray cease. The earl is wise, and understands The need of peace for both the lands; And he entreats thee not to break The present peace for vengeance's sake!" He immediately tells King Olaf the news he had heard; and at first the king was much cast down when he heard of King Jarisleif's suit, and he said he expected nothing but evil from King Olaf; but wished he might be able to return it in such a way as Olaf should remember. A while afterwards the king asks Sigvat about various news from Gautland. Sigvat spoke a great deal about Astrid, the kings daughter; how beautiful she was, how agreeable in her conversation; and that all declared she was in no respect behind her sister Ingegerd. The king listened with pleasure to this. Then Sigvat told him the conversation he and Astrid had had between themselves, and the king was delighted at the idea. "The Swedish king," said he, "will scarcely think that I will dare to marry a daughter of his without his consent." But this speech of his was not known generally. King Olaf and Sigvat the skald often spoke about it. The king inquired particularly of Sigvat what he knew about Earl Ragnvald, and "if he be truly our friend," said the king. Sigvat said that the earl was King Olaf's best friend, and sang these verses:-- "The mighty Olaf should not cease With him to hold good terms and peace; For this good earl unwearied shows He is thy friend where all are foes. Of all who dwell by the East Sea So friendly no man is as he: At all their Things he takes thy part, And is thy firm friend, hand and heart." ENDNOTES: (1) The Pantzer--a complete suit of plate-armour. 93. RAGNVALD AND ASTRA'S JOURNEY. After Yule (A.D. 1019), Thord Skotakol, a sister's son of Sigvat, attended by one of Sigvat's footboys, who had been with Sigvat the autumn before in Gautland, went quite secretly from the court, and proceeded to Gautland. When they came to Earl Ragnvald's court, they produced the tokens which Olaf himself had sent to the earl, that he might place confidence in Thord. Without delay the earl made himself ready for a journey, as did Astrid, the king's daughter; and the earl took with him 120 men, who were chosen both from among his courtmen and the sons of great bondes, and who were carefully equipped in all things, clothes, weapons, and horses. Then they rode northwards to Sarpsborg, and came there at Candlemas. 94. OF KING OLAF'S MARRIAGE. King Olaf had put all things in order in the best style. There were all sorts of liquors of the best that could be got, and all other preparations of the same quality. Many people of consequence were summoned in from their residences. When the earl arrived with his retinue the king received him particularly well; and the earl was shown to a large, good, and remarkably well-furnished house for his lodging; and serving-men and others were appointed to wait on him; and nothing was wanting, in any respect, that could grace a feast. Now when the entertainment had lasted some days, the king, the earl, and Astrid had a conference together; and the result of it was, that Earl Ragnvald contracted Astrid, daughter of the Swedish king Olaf, to Olaf king of Norway, with the same dowry which had before been settled that her sister Ingegerd should have from home. King Olaf, on his part, should give Astrid the same bride-gift that had been intended for her sister Ingegerd. Thereupon an eke was made to the feast, and King Olaf and Queen Astrid's wedding was drunk in great festivity. Earl Ragnvald then returned to Gautland, and the king gave the earl many great and good gifts at parting; and they parted the dearest of friends, which they continued to be while they lived. 95. THE AGREEMENT BROKEN BY OLAF. The spring (A.D. 1019) thereafter came ambassadors from King Jarisleif in Novgorod to Svithjod, to treat more particularly about the promise given by King Olaf the preceding summer to marry his daughter Ingegerd to King Jarisleif. King Olaf tallied about the business with Ingegerd, and told her it was his pleasure that she should marry King Jarisleif. She replied. "If I marry King Jarisleif, I must have as my bride-gift the town and earldom of Ladoga." The Russian ambassadors agreed to this, on the part of their sovereign. Then said Ingegerd, "If I go east to Russia, I must choose the man in Svithjod whom I think most suitable to accompany me; and I must stipulate that he shall not have any less title, or in any respect less dignity, privilege, and consideration there, than he has, here." This the king and the ambassadors agreed to, and gave their hands upon it in confirmation of the condition. "And who," asked the king, "is the man thou wilt take with thee as thy attendant?" "That man," she replied, "is my relation Earl Ragnvald." The king replies, "I have resolved to reward Earl Ragnvald in a different manner for his treason against his master in going to Norway with my daughter, and giving her as a concubine to that fellow, who he knew was my greatest enemy. I shall hang him up this summer." Then Ingegerd begged her father to be true to the promise he had made her, and had confirmed by giving his hand upon it. By her entreaties it was at last agreed that the king should promise to let Earl Ragnvald go in peace from Svithjod, but that he should never again appear in the king's presence, or come back to Svithjod while Olaf reigned. Ingegerd then sent messengers to the earl to bring him these tidings, and to appoint a place of meeting. The earl immediately prepared for his journey; rode up to East Gautland; procured there a vessel, and, with his retinue, joined Ingegerd, and they proceeded together eastward to Russia. There Ingegerd was married to King Jarisleif; and their children were Valdemar, Vissivald, and Holte the Bold. Queen Ingegerd gave Earl Ragnvald the town of Ladoga, and earldom belonging to it. Earl Ragnvald was there a long time, and was a celebrated man. His sons and Ingebjorg's were Earl Ulf and Earl Eilif. 96. HISTORY OF THE LAGMAN EMUND. There was a man called Emund of Skara, who was lagman of west Gautland, and was a man of great understanding and eloquence, and of high birth, great connection, and very wealthy; but was considered deceitful, and not to be trusted. He was the most powerful man in West Gautland after the earl was gone. The same spring (A.D. 1019) that Earl Ragnvald left Gautland the Gautland people held a Thing among themselves, and often expressed their anxiety to each other about what the Swedish king might do. They heard he was incensed because they had rather held in friendship with the king of Norway than striven against him; and he was also enraged against those who had attended his daughter Astrid to Norway. Some proposed to seek help and support from the king of Norway, and to offer him their services; others dissuaded from this measure, as West Gautland had no strength to oppose to the Swedes. "And the king of Norway," said they, "is far from us, the chief strength of his country very distant; and therefore let us first send men to the Swedish king to attempt to come to some reconciliation with him. If that fail, we can still turn to the king of Norway." Then the bondes asked Emund to undertake this mission, to which he agreed; and he proceeded with thirty men to East Gautland, where there were many of his relations and friends, who received him hospitably. He conversed there with the most prudent men about this difficult business; and they were all unanimous on one point,--that the king's treatment of them was against law and reason. From thence Emund went into Svithjod, and conversed with many men of consequence, who all expressed themselves in the same way. Emund continued his journey thus, until one day, towards evening, he arrived at Upsala, where he and his retinue took a good lodging, and stayed there all night. The next day Emund waited upon the king, who was just then sitting in the Thing surrounded by many people. Emund went before him, bent his knee, and saluted him. The king looked at him, saluted him, and asked him what news he brought. Emund replies, "There is little news among us Gautlanders; but it appears to us a piece of remarkable news that the proud, stupid Atte, in Vermaland, whom we look upon as a great sportsman, went up to the forest in winter with his snow-shoes and his bow. After he had got as many furs in the mountains as filled his hand-sledge so full that he could scarcely drag it, he returned home from the woods. But on the way he saw a squirrel in the trees, and shot at it, but did not hit; at which he was so angry, that he left the sledge to run after the squirrel: but still the squirrel sprang where the wood was thickest, sometimes among the roots of the trees, sometimes in the branches, sometimes among the arms that stretch from tree to tree. When Atte shot at it the arrows flew too high or too low, and the squirrel never jumped so that Atte could get a fair aim at him. He was so eager upon this chase that he ran the whole day after the squirrel, and yet could not get hold of it. It was now getting dark; so he threw himself down upon the snow, as he was wont, and lay there all night in a heavy snow-storm. Next day Atte got up to look after his sledge, but never did he find it again; and so he returned home. And this is the only news, king, I have to tell." The king says, "This is news of but little importance, if it be all thou hast to tell." Ernund replies, "Lately something happened which may well be called news. Gaute Tofason went with five warships out of the Gaut river, and when he was lying at the Eikrey Isles there came five large Danish merchant-ships there. Gaute and his men immediately took four of the great vessels, and made a great booty without the loss of a man: but the fifth vessel slipped out to sea, and sailed away. Gaute gave chase with one ship, and at first came nearer to them; but as the wind increased, the Danes got away. Then Gaute wanted to turn back; but a storm came on so that he lost his ship at Hlesey, with all the goods, and the greater part of his crew. In the meantime his people were waiting for him at the Eikrey Isles: but the Danes came over in fifteen merchant-ships, killed them all, and took all the booty they had made. So but little luck had they with their greed of plunder." The king replied. "That is great news, and worth being told; but what now is thy errand here?" Emund replies, "I travel, sire, to obtain your judgment in a difficult case, in which our law and the Upsala law do not agree." The king asks, "What is thy appeal case?" Emund replies, "There were two noble-born men of equal birth, but unequal in property and disposition. They quarrelled about some land, and did each other much damage; but most was done to him who was the more powerful of the two. This quarrel, however, was settled, and judged of at a General Thing; and the judgment was, that the most powerful should pay a compensation. But at the first payment, instead of paying a goose, he paid a gosling; for an old swine he paid a sucking pig; and for a mark of stamped gold only a half-mark, and for the other half-mark nothing but clay and dirt; and, moreover, threatened, in the most violent way, the people whom he forced to receive such goods in payment. Now, sire, what is your judgment?" The king replies, "He shall pay the full equivalent whom the judgment ordered to do so, and that faithfully; and further, threefold to his king: and if payment be not made within a year and a day, he shall be cut off from all his property, his goods confiscated, and half go the king's house, and half to the other party." Emund took witnesses to this judgment among the most considerable of the men who were present, according to the laws which were held in the Upsala Thing. He then saluted the king, and went his way; and other men brought their cases before the king, and he sat late in the day upon the cases of the people. Now when the king came to table, he asked where Lagman Emund was. It was answered, he was home at his lodgings. "Then," said the king, "go after him, and tell him to be my guest to-day." Thereafter the dishes were borne in; then came the musicians with harps, fiddles, and musical instruments; and lastly, the cup-bearers. The king was particularly merry, and had many great people at table with him, so that he thought little of Emund. The king drank the whole day, and slept all the night after; but in the morning the king awoke, and recollected what Emund had said the day before: and when he had put on his clothes, he let his wise men be summoned to him; for he had always twelve of the wisest men who sat in judgment with him, and treated the more difficult cases; and that was no easy business, for the king was ill-pleased if the judgment was not according to justice, and yet it was of no use to contradict him. In this meeting the king ordered Lagman Emund to be called before them. The messenger returned, and said, "Sire, Lagman Emund rode away yesterday as soon as he had dined." "Then," said the king, "tell me, ye good chiefs, what may have been the meaning of that law-case which Emund laid before us yesterday?" They replied, "You must have considered it yourself, if you think there was any other meaning under it than what he said." The king replied, "By the two noble-born men whom he spoke of, who were at variance, and of whom one was more powerful than the other, and who did each other damage, he must have meant us and Olaf the Thick." They answered, "It is, sire, as you say." The king--"Our case was judged at the Upsala Thing. But what was his meaning when he said that bad payment was made; namely, a gosling for a goose, a pig for a swine, and clay and dirt for half of the money instead of gold?" Arnvid the Blind replied, "Sire, red gold and clay are things very unlike; but the difference is still greater between king and slave. You promised Olaf the Thick your daughter Ingegerd, who, in all branches of her descent, is born of kings, and of the Upland Swedish race of kings, which is the most noble in the North; for it is traced up to the gods themselves. But now Olaf has got Astrid; and although she is a king's child, her mother was but a slave-woman, and, besides, of Vindish race. Great difference, indeed, must there be between these kings, when the one takes thankfully such a match; and now it is evident, as might be expected, that no Northman is to be placed by the side of the Upsala kings. Let us all give thanks that it has so turned out; for the gods have long protected their descendants, although many now neglect this faith." There were three brothers:--Arnvid the Blind, who had a great understanding, but was so weak-sighted that he was scarcely fit for war; the second was Thorvid the Stammerer, who could not utter two words together at one time, but was remarkably bold and courageous; the third was Freyvid the Deaf, who was hard of hearing. All these brothers were rich and powerful men, of noble birth, great wisdom, and all very dear to the king. Then said King Olaf, "What means that which Emund said about Atte the Dull?" None made any reply, but the one looked at the other. "Speak freely," said the king. Then said Thorvid the Stammerer, "Atte--quarrel--some--greedy--jealous--deceitful--dull." Then said the king, "To whom are these words of reproach and mockery applied?" Freyvid the Deaf replied, "We will speak more clearly if we have your permission." The king--"Speak freely, Freyvid, what you will." Freyvid took up the word, and spoke. "My brother Thorvid, who is considered to be the wisest of us brothers, holds the words 'quarrelsome, greedy, jealous, dull,' to be one and the same thing; for it applies to him who is weary of peace, longs for small things without attaining them, while he lets great and useful things pass away as they came. I am deaf; yet so loud have many spoken out, that I can perceive that all men, both great and small, take it ill that you have not kept your promise to the king of Norway; and, worse than that, that you broke the decision of the community as it was delivered at Upsala Thing. You need not fear either the king of Norway, or the king of Denmark, or any other, so long as the Swedish army will follow you; but if the people of the country unanimously turn against you, we, your friends, see no counsel that can be of advantage to you." The king asks, "Who is the chief who dares to betray the country and me?" Freyvid replies, "All Swedes desire to have the ancient laws, and their full rights. Look but here, sire, how many chiefs are sitting in council with you. I think, in truth, we are but six whom you call your councillors: all the others, so far as I know, have ridden forth through the districts to hold Things with the people; and we will not conceal it from you, that the message-token has gone forth to assemble a Retribution-thing (1). All of us brothers have been invited to take part in the decisions of this council, but none of us will bear the name of traitor to the sovereign; for that our father never was." Then the king said, "What council shall we take in this dangerous affair that is in our hands? Good chiefs give me council, that I may keep my kingdom, and the heritage of my forefathers; for I cannot enter into strife against the whole Swedish force." Arnvid the Blind replies, "Sire, it is my advice that you ride down to Aros with such men as will follow you; take your ship there and go out into the Maeler lake; summon all people to meet you; proceed no longer with haughtiness, but promise every man the law and rights of old established in the country; keep back in this way the message-token, for it cannot as yet, in so short a time have travelled far through the land. Send, then those of your men in whom you have the most confidence to those who have this business on hand, and try if this uproar can be appeased." The king says that he will adopt this advice. "I will," says he, "that ye brothers undertake this business; for I trust to you the most among my men." Thorvid the Stammerer said, "I remain behind. Let Jacob, your son, go with them, for that is necessary." Then said Freyvid, "Let us do as Thorvid says: he will not leave you, and I and Arnvid must travel." This counsel was followed. Olaf went to his ships, and set out into the Maelar lake, and many people came to him. The brothers Arnvid and Freyvid rode out to Ullaraker, and had with them the king's son Jacob; but they kept it a secret that he was there. The brothers observed that there was a great concourse and war-gathering, for the bondes held the Thing night and day. When Arnvid and Freyvid met their relations and friends, they said they would join with the people; and many agreed to leave the management of the business in the hands of the brothers. But all, as one man, declared they would no longer have King Olaf over them, and no longer suffer his unlawful proceedings, and over-weening pride which would not listen to any man's remonstrances, even when the great chiefs spoke the truth to him. When Freyvid observed the heat of the people, he saw in what a bad situation the king's cause was. He summoned the chiefs of the land to a meeting with him and addressed them thus:--"It appears to me, that if we are to depose Olaf Eirikson from his kingdom, we Swedes of the Uplands should be the leading men in it: for so it has always been, that the counsel which the Upland chiefs have resolved among themselves has always been followed by the men of the rest of the country. Our forefathers did not need to take advice from the West Gautlanders about the government of the Swedes. Now we will not be so degenerate as to need Emund to give us counsel; but let us, friends and relations, unite ourselves for the purpose of coming to a determination." All agreed to this, and thought it was well said. Thereafter the people joined this union which the Upland chiefs made among themselves, and Freyvid and Arnvid were chiefs of the whole assemblage. When Emund heard this he suspected how the matter would end, and went to both the brothers to have a conversation with them. Then Freyvid asked Emund, "Who, in your opinion, should we take for king, in case Olaf Eirikson's days are at an end?" Emund--"He whom we think best suited to it, whether he be of the race of chiefs or not." Freyvid answers, "We Uplanders will not, in our time, have the kingdom go out of the old race of our ancestors, which has given us kings for a long course of generations, so long as we have so good a choice as now. King Olaf has two sons, one of whom we will choose for king, although there is a great difference between them. The one is noble-born, and of Swedish race on both sides; the other is a slave-woman's son, and of Vindish race on the mother's side." This decision was received with loud applause, and all would have Jacob for king. Then said Emund. "Ye Upland Swedes have the power this time to determinate the matter; but I will tell you what will happen:--some of those who now will listen to nothing but that the kingdom remain in the old race will live to see the day when they will wish the kingdom in another race, as being of more advantage." Thereupon the brothers Freyvid and Arnvid led the king's son Jacob into the Thing, and saluted him with the title of king; and the Swedes gave him the name of Onund, which he afterwards retained as long as he lived. He was then ten or twelve years old. Thereafter King Onund took a court, and chose chiefs to be around him; and they had as many attendants in their suite as were thought necessary, so that he gave the whole assemblage of bondes leave to return home. After that ambassadors went between the two kings; and at last they had a meeting, and came to an agreement. Olaf was to remain king over the country as long as he lived; but should hold peace and be reconciled with King Olaf of Norway, and also with all who had taken part in this business. Onund should also be king, and have a part of the land, such as the father and son should agree upon; but should be bound to support the bondes in case King Olaf did anything which the bondes would not suffer. ENDNOTES: (1) Refsithing--a Thing for punishment by penalty or death for crimes and misdemeanours.--L. 97. MEETING OF RECONCILIATION BETWEEN THE KINGS, AND THEIR GAME AT DICE. Thereafter ambassadors were sent to Norway to King Olaf, with the errand that he should come with his retinue to a meeting at Konungahella with the Swedish kings, and that the Swedish kings would there confirm their reconciliation. When King Olaf heard this message, he was willing, now as formerly, to enter into the agreement, and proceeded to the appointed place. There the Swedish kings also came; and the relations, when they met, bound themselves mutually to peace and agreement. Olaf the Swedish king was then remarkably mild in manner, and agreeable to talk with. Thorstein Frode relates of this meeting, that there was an inhabited district in Hising which had sometimes belonged to Norway, and sometimes to Gautland. The kings came to the agreement between themselves that they would cast lots by the dice to determine who should have this property, and that he who threw the highest should have the district. The Swedish king threw two sixes, and said King Olaf need scarcely throw. He replied, while shaking the dice in his hand, "Although there be two sixes on the dice, it would be easy, sire, for God Almighty to let them turn up in my favour." Then he threw, and had sixes also. Now the Swedish king threw again, and had again two sixes. Olaf king of Norway then threw, and had six upon one dice, and the other split in two, so as to make seven eyes in all upon it; and the district was adjudged to the king of Norway. We have heard nothing else of any interest that took place at this meeting; and the kings separated the dearest of friends with each other. 98. OF OLAF OF NORWAY, AFTER THE MEETING. After the events now related Olaf returned with his people to Viken. He went first to Tunsberg, and remained there a short time, and then proceeded to the north of the country. In harvest-time he sailed north to Throndhjem, and had winter provision laid in there, and remained there all winter (A.D. 1090). Olaf Haraldson was now sole and supreme king of Norway, and the whole of that sovereignty, as Harald Harfager had possessed it, and had the advantage over that monarch of being the only king in the land. By a peaceful agreement he had also recovered that part of the country which Olaf the Swedish king had before occupied; and that part of the country which the Danish king had got he retook by force, and ruled over it as elsewhere in the country. The Danish king Canute ruled at that time both over Denmark and England; but he himself was in England for the most part, and set chiefs over the country in Denmark, without at that time making any claim upon Norway. 99. HISTORY OF THE EARLS OF ORKNEY. It is related that in the days of Harald Harfager, the king of Norway, the islands of Orkney, which before had been only a resort for vikings, were settled. The first earl in the Orkney Islands was called Sigurd, who was a son of Eystein Giumra, and brother of Ragnvald earl of More. After Sigurd his son Guthorm was earl for one year. After him Torf-Einar, a son of Ragnvald, took the earldom, and was long earl, and was a man of great power. Halfdan Haleg, a son of Harald Harfager, assaulted Torf-Einar, and drove him from the Orkney Islands; but Einar came back and killed Halfdan in the island Ronaldsha. Thereafter King Harald came with an army to the Orkney Islands. Einar fled to Scotland, and King Harald made the people of the Orkney Islands give up their udal properties, and hold them under oath from him. Thereafter the king and earl were reconciled, so that the earl became the king's man, and took the country as a fief from him; but that it should pay no scat or feu-duty, as it was at that time much plundered by vikings. The earl paid the king sixty marks of gold; and then King Harald went to plunder in Scotland, as related in the "Glym Drapa". After Torf-Einar, his sons Arnkel, Erlend, and Thorfin Hausakljufer (1) ruled over these lands. In their days came Eirik Blood-axe from Norway, and subdued these earls. Arnkel and Erlend fell in a war expedition; but Thorfin ruled the country long, and became an old man. His sons were Arnfin, Havard, Hlodver, Liot, and Skule. Their mother was Grelad, a daughter of Earl Dungad of Caithness. Her mother was Groa, a daughter of Thorstein Raud. In the latter days of Earl Thorfin came Eirik Blood-axe's sons, who had fled from Earl Hakon out of Norway, and committed great excesses in Orkney. Earl Thorfin died on a bed of sickness, and his sons after him ruled over the country, and there are many stories concerning them. Hlodver lived the longest of them, and ruled alone over this country. His son was Sigurd the Thick, who took the earldom after him, and became a powerful man and a great warrior. In his days came Olaf Trygvason from his viking expedition in the western ocean, with his troops, landed in Orkney and took Earl Sigurd prisoner in South Ronaldsha, where he lay with one ship. King Olaf allowed the earl to ransom his life by letting himself be baptized, adopting the true faith, becoming his man, and introducing Christianity into all the Orkney Islands. As a hostage, King Olaf took his son, who was called Hunde or Whelp. Then Olaf went to Norway, and became king; and Hunde was several years with King Olaf in Norway, and died there. After his death Earl Sigurd showed no obedience or fealty to King Olaf. He married a daughter of the Scottish king Malcolm, and their son was called Thorfin. Earl Sigurd had, besides, older sons; namely, Sumarlide, Bruse, and Einar Rangmund. Four or five years after Olaf Tryrgvason's fall Earl Sigurd went to Ireland, leaving his eldest sons to rule the country, and sending Thorfin to his mother's father, the Scottish king. On this expedition Earl Sigurd fell in Brian's battle (l). When the news was received in Orkney, the brothers Sumarlide, Bruse, and Einar were chosen earls, and the country was divided into three parts among them. Thorfin Sigurdson was five years old when Earl Sigurd fell. When the Scottish king heard of the earl's death he gave his relation Thorfin Caithness and Sutherland, with the title of earl, and appointed good men to rule the land for him. Earl Thorfin was ripe in all ways as soon as he was grown up: he was stout and strong, but ugly; and as soon as he was a grown man it was easy to see that he was a severe and cruel but a very clever man. So says Arnor, the earls' skald:-- "Under the rim of heaven no other, So young in years as Einar's brother, In battle had a braver hand, Or stouter, to defend the land." ENDNOTES: (1) Hausakljufer--the splitter of skulls.--L. (2) Brian's battle is supposed to have taken place on the 23rd April 1014, at Clontart, near Dublin; and is known in Irish history as the battle of Clontarf, and was one of the bloodiest of the age. It was fought between a viking called Sigtryg and Brian king of Munster, who gained the victory, but lost his life.--L. 100. OF THE EARLS EINAR AND BRUSE. The brothers Einar and Bruse were very unlike in disposition. Bruse was a soft-minded, peaceable man,--sociable, eloquent, and of good understanding. Einar was obstinate, taciturn, and dull; but ambitious, greedy of money, and withal a great warrior. Sumarlide, the eldest of the brothers, was in disposition like Bruse, and lived not long, but died in his bed. After his death Thorfin claimed his share of the Orkney Islands. Einar replied, that Thorfin had the dominions which their father Sigurd had possessed, namely, Caithness and Sutherland, which he insisted were much larger than a third part of Orkney; therefore he would not consent to Thorfin's having any share. Bruse, on the other hand, was willing, he said, to divide with him. "I do not-desire," he said, "more than the third part of the land, and which of right belongs to me." Then Einar took possession of two parts of the country, by which he became a powerful man, surrounded by many followers. He was often in summer out on marauding expeditions, and called out great numbers of the people to join him; but it went always unpleasantly with the division of the booty made on his viking cruises. Then the bondes grew weary of all these burdens; but Earl Einar held fast by them with severity, calling in all services laid upon the people, and allowing no opposition from any man; for he was excessively proud and overbearing. And now there came dearth and scarcity in his lands, in consequence of the services and money outlay exacted from the bondes; while in the part of the country belonging to Bruse there were peace and plenty, and therefore he was the best beloved by the bondes. 101. OF THORKEL AMUNDASON. There was a rich and powerful man who was called Amunde, who dwelt in Hrossey at Sandvik, in Hlaupandanes. His son, called Thorkel, was one of the ablest men in the islands. Amunde was a man of the best understanding, and most respected in Orkney. One spring Earl Einar proclaimed a levy for an expedition, as usual. The bondes murmured greatly against it, and applied to Amunde with the entreaty that he would intercede with the earl for them. He replied, that the earl was not a man who would listen to other people, and insisted that it was of no use to make any entreaty to the earl about it. "As things now stand, there is a good understanding between me and the earl; but, in my opinion, there would be much danger of our quarrelling, on account of our different dispositions and views on both sides; therefore I will have nothing to do with it." They then applied to Thorkel, who was also very loath to interfere, but promised at last to do so, in consequence of the great entreaty of the people. Amunde thought he had given his promise too hastily. Now when the earl held a Thing, Thorkel spoke on account of the people, and entreated the earl to spare the people from such heavy burdens, recounting their necessitous condition. The earl replies favourably, saying that he would take Thorkel's advice. "I had intended to go out from the country with six ships, but now I will only take three with me; but thou must not come again, Thorkel, with any such request." The bondes thanked Thorkel for his assistance, and the earl set out on a viking cruise, and came back in autumn. The spring after, the earl made the same levy as usual, and held a Thing with the bondes. Then Thorkel again made a speech, in which he entreated the earl to spare the people. The earl now was angry, and said the lot of the bondes should be made worse in consequence of his intercession; and worked himself up into such a rage, that he vowed they should not both come next spring to the Thing in a whole skin. Then the Thing was closed. When Amunde heard what the earl and Thorkel had said at the Thing, he told Thorkel to leave the country, and he went over to Caithness to Earl Thorfin. Thorkel was afterwards a long time there, and brought up the earl in his youth, and was on that account called Thorkel the Fosterer; and he became a very celebrated man. 102. THE AGREEMENT OF THE EARLS. There were many powerful men who fled from their udal properties in Orkney on account of Earl Einar's violence, and the most fled over to Caithness to Earl Thorfin: but some fled from the Orkney Islands to Norway, and some to other countries. When Earl Thorfin was grown up he sent a message to his brother Einar, and demanded the part of the dominion which he thought belonged to him in Orkney; namely, a third of the islands. Einar was nowise inclined to diminish his possessions. When Thorfin found this he collected a warforce in Caithness, and proceeded to the islands. As soon as Earl Einar heard of this he collected people, and resolved to defend his country. Earl Bruse also collected men, and went out to meet them, and bring about some agreement between them. An agreement was at last concluded, that Thorfin should have a third part of the islands, as of right belonging to him, but that Bruse and Einar should lay their two parts together, and Einar alone should rule over them; but if the one died before the other, the longest liver should inherit the whole. This agreement seemed reasonable, as Bruse had a son called Ragnvald, but Einar had no son. Earl Thorfin set men to rule over his land in Orkney, but he himself was generally in Caithness. Earl Einar was generally on viking expeditions to Ireland, Scotland, and Bretland. 103. EYVIND URARHORN'S MURDER. One summer (A.D. 1018) that Earl Einar marauded in Ireland, he fought in Ulfreks-fjord with the Irish king Konofogor, as has been related before, and suffered there a great defeat. The summer after this (A.D. 1019) Eyvind Urarhorn was coming from the west from Ireland, intending to go to Norway; but the weather was boisterous, and the current against him, so he ran into Osmundwall, and lay there wind-bound for some time. When Earl Einar heard of this, he hastened thither with many people, took Eyvind prisoner, and ordered him to be put to death, but spared the lives of most of his people. In autumn they proceeded to Norway to King Olaf, and told him Eyvind was killed. The king said little about it, but one could see that he considered it a great and vexatious loss; for he did not usually say much if anything turned out contrary to his wishes. Earl Thorfin sent Thorkel Fosterer to the islands to gather in his scat. Now, as Einar gave Thorkel the greatest blame for the dispute in which Thorfin had made claim to the islands, Thorkel came suddenly back to Caithness from Orkney, and told Earl Thorfin that he had learnt that Earl Einar would have murdered him if his friends and relations had not given him notice to escape. "Now," says he, "it is come so far between the earl and me, that either some thing decisive between us must take place if we meet, or I must remove to such a distance that his power will not reach me." The earl encouraged Thorkel much to go east to Norway to King Olaf. "Thou wilt be highly respected," says he, "wherever thou comest among honourable men; and I know so well thy disposition and the earl's, that it will not be long before ye come to extremities." Thereupon Thorkel made himself ready, and proceeded in autumn to Norway, and then to King Olaf, with whom he stayed the whole winter (A.D. 1020), and was in high favour. The king often entered into conversation with him, and he thought, what was true, that Thorkel was a high-minded man, of good understanding. In his conversations with Thorkel, the king found a great difference in his description of the two earls; for Thorkel was a great friend of Earl Thorfin, but had much to say against Einar. Early in spring (A.D. 1020) the king sent a ship west over the sea to Earl Thorfin, with the invitation to come east and visit him in Norway. The earl did not decline the invitation, for it was accompanied by assurances of friendship. 104. EARL EINAR'S MURDER. Earl Thorfin went east to Norway, and came to King Olaf, from whom he received a kind reception, and stayed till late in the summer. When he was preparing to return westwards again, King Olaf made him a present of a large and fully-rigged long-ship. Thorkel the Fosterer joined company with the earl, who gave him the ship which he brought with him from the west. The king and the earl took leave of each other tenderly. In autumn Earl Thorfin came to Orkney, and when Earl Einar heard of it he went on board his ships with a numerous band of men. Earl Bruse came up to his two brothers, and endeavoured to mediate between them, and a peace was concluded and confirmed by oath. Thorkel Fosterer was to be in peace and friendship with Earl Einar; and it was agreed that each of them should give a feast to the other, and that the earl should first be Thorkel's guest at Sandwick. When the earl came to the feast he was entertained in the best manner; but the earl was not cheerful. There was a great room, in which there were doors at each end. The day the earl should depart Thorkel was to accompany him to the other feast; and Thorkel sent men before, who should examine the road they had to travel that day. The spies came back, and said to Thorkel they had discovered three ambushes. "And we think," said they, "there is deceit on foot." When Thorkel heard this he lengthened out his preparations for the journey, and gathered people about him. The earl told him to get ready, as it was time to be on horseback. Thorkel answered, that he had many things to put in order first, and went out and in frequently. There was a fire upon the floor. At last he went in at one door, followed by an Iceland man from Eastfjord, called Halvard, who locked the door after him. Thorkel went in between the fire and the place where the earl was sitting. The earl asked, "Art thou ready at last, Thorkel?" Thorkel answers, "Now I am ready;" and struck the earl upon the head so that he fell upon the floor. Then said the Icelander, "I never saw people so foolish as not to drag the earl out of the fire;" and took a stick, which he set under the earl's neck, and put him upright on the bench. Thorkel and his two comrades then went in all haste out of the other door opposite to that by which they went in, and Thorkel's men were standing without fully armed. The earl's men now went in, and took hold of the earl. He was already dead, so nobody thought of avenging him: and also the whole was done so quickly; for nobody expected such a deed from Thorkel, and all supposed that there really was, as before related, a friendship fixed between the earl and Thorkel. The most who were within were unarmed, and they were partly Thorkel's good friends; and to this may be added, that fate had decreed a longer life to Thorkel. When Thorkel came out he had not fewer men with him than the earl's troop. Thorkel went to his ship, and the earl's men went their way. The same day Thorkel sailed out eastwards into the sea. This happened after winter; but he came safely to Norway, went as fast as he could to Olaf, and was well received by him. The king expressed his satisfaction at this deed, and Thorkel was with him all winter (A.D. 1091). 105. AGREEMENT BETWEEN KING OLAF AND EARL BRUSE. After Earl Einar's fall Bruse took the part of the country which he had possessed; for it was known to many men on what conditions Einar and Bruse had entered into a partnership. Although Thorfin thought it would be more just that each of them had half of the islands, Bruse retained the two-thirds of the country that winter (A.D. 1021). In spring, however, Thorfin produced his claim, and demanded the half of the country; but Bruse would not consent. They held Things and meetings about the business; and although their friends endeavoured to settle it, Thorfin would not be content with less than the half of the islands, and insisted that Bruse, with his disposition, would have enough even with a third part. Bruse replies, "When I took my heritage after my father I was well satisfied with a third part of the country, and there was nobody to dispute it with me; and now I have succeeded to another third in heritage after my brother, according to a lawful agreement between us; and although I am not powerful enough to maintain a feud against thee, my brother, I will seek some other way, rather than willingly renounce my property." With this their meeting ended. But Bruse saw that he had no strength to contend against Thorfin, because Thorfin had both a greater dominion and also could have aid from his mother's brother, the Scottish king. He resolved, therefore, to go out of the country; and he went eastward to King Olaf, and had with him his son Ragnvald, then ten years old. When the earl came to the king he was well received. The earl now declared his errand, and told the king the circumstances of the whole dispute between him and his brother, and asked help to defend his kingdom of Orkney; promising, in return, the fullest friendship towards King Olaf. In his answer, the king began with showing how Harald Harfager had appropriated to himself all udal rights in Orkney, and that the earls, since that time, have constantly held the country as a fief, not as their udal property. "As a sufficient proof of which," said he, "when Eirik Blood-axe and his sons were in Orkney the earls were subject to them; and also when my relation Olaf Trygvason came there thy father, Earl Sigurd, became his man. Now I have taken heritage after King Olaf, and I will give thee the condition to become my man and then I will give thee the islands as a fief; and we shall try if I cannot give thee aid that will be more to the purpose than Thorfin can get from the Scottish king. If thou wilt not accept of these terms, then will I win back my udal property there in the West, as our forefathers and relations of old possessed it." The earl carefully considered this speech, laid it before his friends, and demanded their advice if he should agree to it, and enter into such terms with King Olaf and become his vassal. "But I do not see what my lot will be at my departure if I say no; for the king has clearly enough declared his claim upon Orkney; and from his great power, and our being in his hands, it is easy for him to make our destiny what he pleases." Although the earl saw that there was much to be considered for and against it he chose the condition to deliver himself and his dominion into the king's power. Thereupon the king took the earl's power, and the government over all the earl's lands, and the earl became his vassal under oath of fealty. 106. THE EARL'S AGREEMENT TO THE KING'S TERMS. Thorfin the earl heard that his brother Bruse had gone east to King Olaf to seek support from him; but as Thorfin had been on a visit to King Olaf before, and had concluded a friendship with him, he thought his case would stand well with the king, and that many would support it; but he believed that many more would do so if he went there himself. Earl Thorfin resolved, therefore, to go east himself without delay; and he thought there would be so little difference between the time of his arrival and Bruse's, that Bruse's errand could not be accomplished before he came to King Olaf. But it went otherwise than Earl Thorfin had expected; for when he came to the king the agreement between the king and Bruse was already concluded and settled, and Earl Thorfin did not know a word about Bruse's having surrendered his udal domains until he came to King Olaf. As soon as Earl Thorfin and King Olaf met, the king made the same demand upon the kingdom of Orkney that he had done to Earl Bruse, and required that Thorfin should voluntarily deliver over to the king that part of the country which he had possessed hitherto. The earl answered in a friendly and respectful way, that the king's friendship lay near to his heart: "And if you think, sire, that my help against other chiefs can be of use, you have already every claim to it; but I cannot be your vessel for service, as I am an earl of the Scottish king, and owe fealty to him." As the king found that the earl, by his answer, declined fulfilling the demand he had made, he said, "Earl, if thou wilt not become my vassal, there is another condition; namely, that I will place over the Orkney Islands the man I please, and require thy oath that thou wilt make no claim upon these lands, but allow whoever I place over them to sit in peace. If thou wilt not accept of either of these conditions, he who is to rule over these lands may expect hostility from thee, and thou must not think it strange if like meet like in this business." The earl begged of the king some time to consider the matter. The king did so, and gave the earl time to take the counsel of his friends on the choosing one or other of these conditions. Then the earl requested a delay until next summer, that he might go over the sea to the west, for his proper counsellors were all at home, and he himself was but a child in respect of age; but the king required that he should now make his election of one or other of the conditions. Thorkel Fosterer was then with the king, and he privately sent a person to Earl Thorfin, and told him, whatever his intentions might be, not to think of leaving Olaf without being reconciled with him, as he stood entirely in Olaf's power. From such hints the earl saw there was no other way than to let the king have his own will. It was no doubt a hard condition to have no hope of ever regaining his paternal heritage, and moreover to bind himself by oath to allow those to enjoy in peace his domain who had no hereditary right to it; but seeing it was uncertain how he could get away, he resolved to submit to the king and become his vassal, as Bruse had done. The king observed that Thorfin was more high-minded, and less disposed to suffer subjection than Bruse, and therefore he trusted less to Thorfin than to Bruse; and he considered also that Thorfin would trust to the aid of the Scottish king, if he broke the agreement. The king also had discernment enough to perceive that Bruse, although slow to enter into an agreement, would promise nothing but what he intended to keep; but as to Thorfin when he had once made up his mind he went readily into every proposal and made no attempt to obtain any alteration of the king's first conditions: therefore the king had his suspicions that the earl would infringe the agreement. 107. EARL THORFIN'S DEPARTURE, AND RECONCILIATION WITH THORKEL. When the king had carefully considered the whole matter by himself, he ordered the signal to sound for a General Thing, to which he called in the earls. Then said the king, "I will now make known to the public our agreement with the Orkney earls. They have now acknowledged my right of property to Orkney and Shetland, and have both become my vassals, all which they have confirmed by oath; and now I will invest them with these lands as a fief: namely, Bruse with one third part and Thorfin with one third, as they formerly enjoyed them; but the other third which Einar Rangmund had, I adjudge as fallen to my domain, because he killed Eyvind Urarhorn, my court-man, partner, and dear friend; and that part of the land I will manage as I think proper. I have also my earls, to tell you it is my pleasure that ye enter into an agreement with Thorkel Amundason for the murder of your brother Einar, for I will take that business, if ye agree thereto, within my own jurisdiction." The earls agreed to this, as to everything else that the king proposed. Thorkel came forward, and surrendered to the king's judgment of the case, and the Thing concluded. King Olaf awarded as great a penalty for Earl Einar's murder as for three lendermen; but as Einar himself was the cause of the act, one third of the mulct fell to the ground. Thereafter Earl Thorfin asked the king's leave to depart, and as soon as he obtained it made ready for sea with all speed. It happened one day, when all was ready for the voyage, the earl sat in his ship drinking; and Thorkel Amundason came unexpectedly to him, laid his head upon the earl's knee, and bade him do with him what he pleased. The earl asked why he did so. "We are, you know, reconciled men, according to the king's decision; so stand up, Thorkel." Thorkel replied, "The agreement which the king made as between me and Bruse stands good; but what regards the agreement with thee thou alone must determine. Although the king made conditions for my property and safe residence in Orkney, yet I know so well thy disposition that there is no going to the islands for me, unless I go there in peace with thee, Earl Thorfin; and therefore I am willing to promise never to return to Orkney, whatever the king may desire." The earl remained silent; and first, after a long pause, he said, "If thou wilt rather, Thorkel, that I shall judge between us than trust to the king's judgment, then let the beginning of our reconciliation be, that you go with me to the Orkney Islands, live with me, and never leave me but with my will, and be bound to defend my land, and execute all that I want done, as long as we both are in life." Thorkel replies, "This shall be entirely at thy pleasure, earl, as well as everything else in my power." Then Thorkel went on, and solemnly ratified this agreement. The earl said he would talk afterwards about the mulct of money, but took Thorkel's oath upon the conditions. Thorkel immediately made ready to accompany the earl on his voyage. The earl set off as soon as all was ready, and never again were King Olaf and Thorfin together. 108. EARL BRUSE'S DEPARTURE. Earl Bruse remained behind, and took his time to get ready. Before his departure the king sent for him, and said, "It appears to me, earl, that in thee I have a man on the west side of the sea on whose fidelity I can depend; therefore I intend to give thee the two parts of the country which thou formerly hadst to rule over; for I will not that thou shouldst be a less powerful man after entering into my service than before: but I will secure thy fidelity by keeping thy son Ragnvald with me. I see well enough that with two parts of the country and my help, thou wilt be able to defend what is thy own against thy brother Thorfin." Bruse was thankful for getting two thirds instead of one third of the country, and soon after he set out, and came about autumn to Orkney; but Ragnvald, Bruse's son, remained behind in the East with King Olaf. Ragnvald was one of the handsomest men that could be seen,--his hair long, and yellow as silk; and he soon grew up, stout and tall, and he was a very able and superb man, both of great understanding and polite manners. He was long with King Olaf. Otter Svarte speaks of these affairs in the poem he composed about King Olaf:-- "From Shetland, far off in the cold North Sea, Come chiefs who desire to be subject to thee: No king so well known for his will, and his might, To defend his own people from scaith or unright. These isles of the West midst the ocean's wild roar, Scarcely heard the voice of their sovereign before; Our bravest of sovereigns before could scarce bring These islesmen so proud to acknowledge their king." 109. OF THE EARLS THORFIN AND BRUSE. The brothers Thorfin and Bruse came west to Orkney; and Bruse took the two parts of the country under his rule, and Thorfin the third part. Thorfin was usually in Caithness and elsewhere in Scotland; but placed men of his own over the islands. It was left to Bruse alone to defend the islands, which at that time were severely scourged by vikings; for the Northmen and Danes went much on viking cruises in the west sea, and frequently touched at Orkney on the way to or from the west, and plundered, and took provisions and cattle from the coast. Bruse often complained of his brother Thorfin, that he made no equipment of war for the defence of Orkney and Shetland, yet levied his share of the scat and duties. Then Thorfin offered to him to exchange, and that Bruse should have one third and Thorfin two thirds of the land, but should undertake the defence of the land, for the whole. Although this exchange did not take place immediately, it is related in the saga of the earls that it was agreed upon at last; and that Thorfin had two parts and Bruse only one, when Canute the Great subdued Norway and King Olaf fled the country. Earl Thorfin Sigurdson has been the ablest earl of these islands, and has had the greatest dominion of all the Orkney earls; for he had under him Orkney, Shetland, and the Hebudes, besides very great possessions in Scotland and Ireland. Arnor, the earls' skald, tells of his possessions:-- "From Thurso-skerry to Dublin, All people hold with good Thorfin-- All people love his sway, And the generous chief obey." Thorfin was a very great warrior. He came to the earldom at five years of age, ruled more than sixty years, and died in his bed about the last days of Harald Sigurdson. But Bruse died in the days of Canute the Great, a short time after the fall of Saint Olaf. 110. OF HAREK OF THJOTTA. Having now gone through this second story, we shall return to that which we left,--at King Olaf Haraldson having concluded peace with King Olaf the Swedish king, and having the same summer gone north to Throndhjem (1019). He had then been king in Norway five years (A.D. 1015-1019). In harvest time he prepared to take his winter residence at Nidaros, and he remained all winter there (A.D. 1020). Thorkel the Fosterer, Amunde's son, as before related, was all that winter with him. King Olaf inquired very carefully how it stood with Christianity throughout the land, and learnt that it was not observed at all to the north of Halogaland, and was far from being observed as it should be in Naumudal, and the interior of Throndhjem. There was a man by name Harek, a son of Eyvind Skaldaspiller, who dwelt in an island called Thjotta in Halogaland. Eyvind had not been a rich man, but was of high family and high mind. In Thjotta, at first, there dwelt many small bondes; but Harek began with buying a farm not very large and lived on it, and in a few years he had got all the bondes that were there before out of the way; so that he had the whole island, and built a large head-mansion. He soon became very rich; for he was a very prudent man, and very successful. He had long been greatly respected by the chiefs; and being related to the kings of Norway, had been raised by them to high dignities. Harek's father's mother Gunhild was a daughter of Earl Halfdan, and Ingebjorg, Harald Harfager's daughter. At the time the circumstance happened which we are going to relate he was somewhat advanced in years. Harek was the most respected man in Halogaland, and for a long time had the Lapland trade, and did the king's business in Lapland; sometimes alone, sometimes with others joined to him. He had not himself been to wait on King Olaf, but messages had passed between them, and all was on the most friendly footing. This winter (A.D. 1020) that Olaf was in Nidaros, messengers passed between the king and Harek of Thjotta. Then the king made it known that he intended going north to Halogaland, and as far north as the land's end; but the people of Halogaland expected no good from this expedition. 111. OF THE PEOPLE OF HALOGALAND. Olaf rigged out five ships in spring (A.D. 1020), and had with him about 300 men. When he was ready for sea he set northwards along the land; and when he came to Naumudal district he summoned the bondes to a Thing, and at every Thing was accepted as king. He also made the laws to be read there as elsewhere, by which the people are commanded to observe Christianity; and he threatened every man with loss of life, and limbs, and property who would not subject himself to Christian law. He inflicted severe punishments on many men, great as well as small, and left no district until the people had consented to adopt the holy faith. The most of the men of power and of the great bondes made feasts for the king, and so he proceeded all the way north to Halogaland. Harek of Thjotta also made a feast for the king, at which there was a great multitude of guests, and the feast was very splendid. Harek was made lenderman, and got the same privileges he had enjoyed under the former chiefs of the country. 112. OF ASMUND GRANKELSON. There was a man called Grankel, or Granketil, who was a rich bonde, and at this time rather advanced in age. In his youth he had been on viking cruises, and had been a powerful fighter; for he possessed great readiness in all sorts of bodily exercises. His son Asmund was equal to his father in all these, and in some, indeed, he excelled him. There were many who said that with respect to comeliness, strength, and bodily expertness, he might be considered the third remarkably distinguished for these that Norway had ever produced. The first was Hakon Athelstan's foster-son; the second, Olaf Trygvason. Grankel invited King Olaf to a feast, which was very magnificent; and at parting Grankel presented the king with many honourable gifts and tokens of friendship. The king invited Asmund, with many persuasions, to follow him; and as Asmund could not decline the honours offered him, he got ready to travel with the king, became his man, and stood in high favour with him. The king remained in Halogaland the greater part of the summer, went to all the Things, and baptized all the people. Thorer Hund dwelt at that time in the island Bjarkey. He was the most powerful man in the North, and also became one of Olaf's lendermen. Many sons of great bondes resolved also to follow King Olaf from Halogaland. Towards the end of summer King Olaf left the North, and sailed back to Throndhjem, and landed at Nidaros, where he passed the winter (A.D. 1021). It was then that Thorkel the Fosterer came from the West from Orkney, after killing Einar Rangmumd, as before related. This autumn corn was dear in Throndhjem, after a long course of good seasons, and the farther north the dearer was the corn; but there was corn enough in the East country, and in the Uplands, and it was of great help to the people of Throndhjem that many had old corn remaining beside them. 113. OF THE SACRIFICES OF THE THRONDHJEM PEOPLE. In autumn the news was brought to King Olaf that the bondes had had a great feast on the first winter-day's eve, at which there was a numerous attendance and much drinking; and it was told the king that all the remembrance-cups to the Asas, or old gods, were blessed according to the old heathen forms; and it was added, that cattle and horses had been slain, and the altars sprinkled with their blood, and the sacrifices accompanied with the prayer that was made to obtain good seasons. It was also reported that all men saw clearly that the gods were offended at the Halogaland people turning Christian. Now when the king heard this news he sent men into the Throndhjem country, and ordered several bondes, whose names he gave, to appear before him. There was a man called Olver of Eggja, so called after his farm on which he lived. He was powerful, of great family, and the head-man of those who on account of the bondes appeared before the king. Now, when they came to the king, he told them these accusations; to which Olver, on behalf of the bondes, replied, that they had had no other feasts that harvest than their usual entertainments, and social meetings, and friendly drinking parties. "But as to what may have been told you of the words which may have fallen from us Throndhjem people in our drinking parties, men of understanding would take good care not to use such language; but I cannot hinder drunken or foolish people's talk." Olver was a man of clever speech, and bold in what he said, and defended the bondes against such accusations. In the end, the king said the people of the interior of Thorndhjem must themselves give the best testimony to their being in the right faith. The bondes got leave to return home, and set off as soon as they were ready. 114. OF THE SACRIFICES BY THE PEOPLE OF THE INTERIOR OF THE THRONDHJEM DISTRICT. Afterwards, when winter was advanced, it was told the king that the people of the interior of Throndhjem had assembled in great number at Maerin, and that there was a great sacrifice in the middle of winter, at which they sacrificed offerings for peace and a good season. Now when the king knew this on good authority to be true, he sent men and messages into the interior, and summoned the bondes whom he thought of most understanding into the town. The bondes held a council among themselves about this message; and all those who had been upon the same occasion in the beginning of winter were now very unwilling to make the journey. Olver, however, at the desire of all the bondes, allowed himself to be persuaded. When he came to the town he went immediately before the king, and they talked together. The king made the same accusation against the bondes, that they had held a mid-winter sacrifice. Olver replies, that this accusation against the bondes was false. "We had," said he, "Yule feasts and drinking feasts wide around in the districts; and the bondes do not prepare their feasts so sparingly, sire, that there is not much left over, which people consume long afterwards. At Maerin there is a great farm, with a large house on it, and a great neighbourhood all around it, and it is the great delight of the people to drink many together in company." The king said little in reply, but looked angry, as he thought he knew the truth of the matter better than it was now represented. He ordered the bondes to return home. "I shall some time or other," said he, "come to the truth of what you are now concealing, and in such a way that ye shall not be able to contradict it. But, however, that may be, do not try such things again." The bondes returned home, and told the result of their journey, and that the king was altogether enraged. 115. MURDER OF OLVER OF EGGJA. At Easter (A.D. 1021) the king held a feast, to which he had invited many of the townspeople as well as bondes. After Easter he ordered his ships to be launched into the water, oars and tackle to be put on board, decks to be laid in the ships, and tilts (1) and rigging to be set up, and to be laid ready for sea at the piers. Immediately after Easter he sent men into Veradal. There was a man called Thoralde, who was the king's bailiff, and who managed the king's farm there at Haug; and to him the king sent a message to come to him as quickly as possible. Thoralde did not decline the journey, but went immediately to the town with the messenger. The king called him in and in a private conversation asked him what truth there was in what had been told him of the principles and living of the people of the interior of Throndhjem, and if it really was so that they practised sacrifices to heathen gods. "I will," says the king, "that thou declare to me the things as they are, and as thou knowest to be true; for it is thy duty to tell me the truth, as thou art my man." Thoralde replies, "Sire, I will first tell you that I have brought here to the town my two children, my wife, and all my loose property that I could take with me, and if thou desirest to know the truth it shall be told according to thy command; but if I declare it, thou must take care of me and mine." The king replies, "Say only what is true on what I ask thee, and I will take care that no evil befall thee." Then said Thoralde, "If I must say the truth, king, as it is, I must declare that in the interior of the Throndhjem land almost all the people are heathen in faith, although some of them are baptized. It is their custom to offer sacrifice in autumn for a good winter, a second at mid-winter, and a third in summer. In this the people of Eyna, Sparby, Veradal, and Skaun partake. There are twelve men who preside over these sacrifice-feasts; and in spring it is Olver who has to get the feast in order, and he is now busy transporting to Maerin everything needful for it." Now when the king had got to the truth with a certainty, he ordered the signal to be sounded for his men to assemble, and for the men-at-arms to go on board ship. He appointed men to steer the ships, and leaders for the people, and ordered how the people should be divided among the vessels. All was got ready in haste, and with five ships and 300 men he steered up the fjord. The wind was favourable, the ships sailed briskly before it, and nobody could have thought that the king would be so soon there. The king came in the night time to Maerin, and immediately surrounded the house with a ring of armed men. Olver was taken, and the king ordered him to be put to death, and many other men besides. Then the king took all the provision for the feast, and had it brought to his ships; and also all the goods, both furniture, clothes, and valuables, which the people had brought there, and divided the booty among his men. The king also let all the bondes he thought had the greatest part in the business be plundered by his men-at-arms. Some were taken prisoners and laid in irons, some ran away, and many were robbed of their goods. Thereafter the bondes were summoned to a Thing; but because he had taken many powerful men prisoners, and held them in his power, their friends and relations resolved to promise obedience to the king, so that there was no insurrection against the king on this occasion. He thus brought the whole people back to the right faith, gave them teachers, and built and consecrated churches. The king let Olver lie without fine paid for his bloodshed, and all that he possessed was adjudged to the king; and of the men he judged the most guilty, some he ordered to be executed, some he maimed, some he drove out of the country, and took fines from others. The king then returned to Nidaros. ENDNOTES: (1) The ships appear to have been decked fore and aft only; and in the middle, where the rowers sat, to have had tilts or tents set up at night to sleep under.--L. 116. OF THE SONS OF ARNE. There was a man called Arne Arnmodson, who was married to Thora, Thorstein Galge's daughter. Their children were Kalf, Fin, Thorberg, Amunde, Kolbjorn, Arnbjorn, and Arne. Their daughter, who was called Ragnhild, was married to Harek of Thjotta. Arne was a lenderman, powerful, and of ability, and a great friend of King Olaf. At that time his sons Kalf and Fin were with the king, and in great favour. The wife whom Olver of Eggja had left was young and handsome, of great family, and rich, so that he who got her might be considered to have made an excellent marriage; and her land was in the gift of the king. She and Olver had two sons, who were still in infancy. Kalf Arneson begged of the king that he would give him to wife the widow of Olver; and out of friendship the king agreed to it, and with her he got all the property Olver had possessed. The king at the same time made him his lenderman, and gave him an office in the interior of the Throndhjem country. Kalf became a great chief, and was a man of very great understanding. 117. KING OLAF'S JOURNEY TO THE UPLANDS. When King Olaf had been seven years (A.D. 1015-1021) in Norway the earls Thorfin and Bruse came to him, as before related, in the summer, from Orkney, and he became master of their land. The same summer Olaf went to North and South More, and in autumn to Raumsdal. He left his ships there, and came to the Uplands, and to Lesjar. Here he laid hold of all the best men, and forced them, both at Lesjar and Dovre, either to receive Christianity or suffer death, if they were not so lucky as to escape. After they received Christianity, the king took their sons in his hands as hostages for their fidelity. The king stayed several nights at a farm in Lesjar called Boar, where he placed priests. Then he proceeded over Orkadal and Lorodal, and came down from the Uplands at a place called Stafabrekka. There a river runs along the valley, called the Otta, and a beautiful hamlet, by name Loar, lies on both sides of the river, and the king could see far down over the whole neighbourhood. "A pity it is," said the king, "so beautiful a hamlet should be burnt." And he proceeded down the valley with his people, and was all night on a farm called Nes. The king took his lodging in a loft, where he slept himself; and it stands to the present day, without anything in it having been altered since. The king was five days there, and summoned by message-token the people to a Thing, both for the districts of Vagar, Lear, and Hedal; and gave out the message along with the token, that they must either receive Christianity and give their sons as hostages, or see their habitations burnt. They came before the king, and submitted to his pleasure; but some fled south down the valley. 118. THE STORY OF DALE-GUDBRAND. There was a man called Dale-Gudbrand, who was like a king in the valley (Gudbrandsdal), but was only herse in title. Sigvat the skald compared him for wealth and landed property to Erling Skjalgson. Sigvat sang thus concerning Erling:-- "I know but one who can compare With Erling for broad lands and gear-- Gudbrand is he, whose wide domains Are most like where some small king reigns. These two great bondes, I would say, Equal each other every way. He lies who says that he can find One by the other left behind." Gudbrand had a son, who is here spoken of. Now when Gudbrand received the tidings that King Olaf was come to Lear, and obliged people to accept Christianity, he sent out a message-token, and summoned all the men in the valley to meet him at a farm called Hundthorp. All came, so that the number could not be told; for there is a lake in the neighbourhood called Laugen, so that people could come to the place both by land and by water. There Gudbrand held a Thing with them, and said, "A man is come to Loar who is called Olaf, and will force upon us another faith than what we had before, and will break in pieces all our gods. He says that he has a much greater and more powerful god; and it is wonderful that the earth does not burst asunder under him, or that our god lets him go about unpunished when he dares to talk such things. I know this for certain, that if we carry Thor, who has always stood by us, out of our temple that is standing upon this farm, Olaf's god will melt away, and he and his men be made nothing so soon as Thor looks upon them." Then the bondes all shouted as one person that Olaf should never get away with life if he came to them; and they thought he would never dare to come farther south through the valley. They chose out 700 men to go northwards to Breida, to watch his movements. The leader of this band was Gudbrand's son, eighteen years of age, and with him were many other men of importance. When they came to a farm called Hof they heard of the king; and they remained three nights there. People streamed to them from all parts, from Lesjar, Loar, and Vagar, who did not wish to receive Christianity. The king and Bishop Sigurd fixed teachers in Loaf and in Vagar. From thence they went round Vagarost, and came down into the valley at Sil, where they stayed all night, and heard the news that a great force of men were assembled against them. The bondes who were in Breida heard also of the king's arrival, and prepared for battle. As soon as the king arose in the morning he put on his armour, and went southwards over the Sil plains, and did not halt until he came to Breida, where he saw a great army ready for battle. Then the king drew up his troops, rode himself at the head of them, and began a speech to the bondes, in which he invited them to adopt Christianity. They replied, "We shall give thee something else to do to-day than to be mocking us;" and raised a general shout, striking also upon their shields with their weapons. Then the king's men ran forward and threw their spears; but the bondes turned round instantly and fled, so that only few men remained behind. Gudbrand's son was taken prisoner; but the king gave him his life, and took him with him. The king was four days here. Then the king said to Gudbrand's son, "Go home now to thy father, and tell him I expect to be with him soon." He went accordingly, and told his father the news, that they had fallen in with the king, and fought with him; but that their whole army, in the very beginning, took flight. "I was taken prisoner," said he, "but the king gave me my life and liberty, and told me to say to thee that he will soon be here. And now we have not 200 men of the force we raised against him; therefore I advise thee, father, not to give battle to that man." Says Gudbrand, "It is easy to see that all courage has left thee, and it was an unlucky hour ye went out to the field. Thy proceeding will live long in the remembrance of people, and I see that thy fastening thy faith on the folly that man is going about with has brought upon thee and thy men so great a disgrace." But the night after, Gudbrand dreamt that there came to him a man surrounded by light, who brought great terror with him, and said to him, "Thy son made no glorious expedition against King Olaf; but still less honour wilt thou gather for thyself by holding a battle with him. Thou with all thy people wilt fall; wolves will drag thee, and all thine, away; ravens wilt tear thee in stripes." At this dreadful vision he was much afraid, and tells it to Thord Istermage, who was chief over the valley. He replies, "The very same vision came to me." In the morning they ordered the signal to sound for a Thing, and said that it appeared to them advisable to hold a Thing with the man who had come from the north with this new teaching, to know if there was any truth in it. Gudbrand then said to his son, "Go thou, and twelve men with thee, to the king who gave thee thy life." He went straightway, and found the king, and laid before him their errand; namely, that the bondes would hold a Thing with him, and make a truce between them and him. The king was content; and they bound themselves by faith and law mutually to hold the peace so long as the Thing lasted. After this was settled the men returned to Gudbrand and Thord, and told them there was made a firm agreement for a truce. The king, after the battle with the son of Gudbrand, had proceeded to Lidstad, and remained there for five days: afterwards he went out to meet the bondes, and hold a Thing with them. On that day there fell a heavy rain. When the Thing was seated, the king stood up and said that the people in Lesjar, Loaf, and Vagar had received Christianity, broken down their houses of sacrifice, and believed now in the true God who had made heaven and earth and knows all things. Thereupon the king sat down, and Gudbrand replies, "We know nothing of him whom thou speakest about. Dost thou call him God, whom neither thou nor any one else can see? But we have a god who call be seen every day, although he is not out to-day, because the weather is wet, and he will appear to thee terrible and very grand; and I expect that fear will mix with your very blood when he comes into the Thing. But since thou sayest thy God is so great, let him make it so that to-morrow we have a cloudy day but without rain, and then let us meet again." The king accordingly returned home to his lodging, taking Gudbrand's son as a hostage; but he gave them a man as hostage in exchange. In the evening the king asked Gudbrand's son what like their god was. He replied, that he bore the likeness of Thor; had a hammer in his hand; was of great size, but hollow within; and had a high stand, upon which he stood when he was out. "Neither gold nor silver are wanting about him, and every day he receives four cakes of bread, besides meat." They then went to bed, but the king watched all night in prayer. When day dawned the king went to mass, then to table, and from thence to the Thing. The weather was such as Gudbrand desired. Now the bishop stood up in his choir-robes, with bishop's coif upon his head, and bishop's staff in his hands. He spoke to the bondes of the true faith, told the many wonderful acts of God, and concluded his speech well. Thord Istermage replies, "Many things we are told of by this horned man with the staff in his hand crooked at the top like a ram's horn; but since ye say, comrades, that your god is so powerful, and can do so many wonders, tell him to make it clear sunshine to-morrow forenoon, and then we shall meet here again, and do one of two things,--either agree with you about this business, or fight you." And they separated for the day. 119. DALE-GUDBRAND IS BAPTIZED. There was a man with King Olaf called Kolbein Sterke (the strong), who came from a family in the Fjord district. Usually he was so equipped that he was girt with a sword, and besides carried a great stake, otherwise called a club, in his hands. The king told Kolbein to stand nearest to him in the morning; and gave orders to his people to go down in the night to where the ships of the bondes lay and bore holes in them, and to set loose their horses on the farms where they were; all which was done. Now the king was in prayer all the night, beseeching God of His goodness and mercy to release him from evil. When mass was ended, and morning was grey, the king went to the Thing. When he came there some bondes had already arrived, and they saw a great crowd coming along, and bearing among them a huge man's image glancing with gold and silver. When the bondes who were at the Thing saw it they started up, and bowed themselves down before the ugly idol. Thereupon it was set down upon the Thing-field; and on the one side of it sat the bondes, and on the other the king and his people. Then Dale-Gudbrand stood up, and said, "Where now, king, is thy god? I think he will now carry his head lower; and neither thou, nor the man with the horn whom ye call bishop, and sits there beside thee, are so bold to-day as on the former days; for now our god, who rules over all, is come, and looks on you with an angry eye; and now I see well enough that ye are terrified, and scarcely dare to raise your eyes. Throw away now all your opposition, and believe in the god who has all your fate in his hands." The king now whispers to Kolbein Sterke, without the bondes perceiving it, "If it come so in the course of my speech that the bondes look another way than towards their idol, strike him as hard as thou canst with thy club." The king then stood up and spoke. "Much hast thou talked to us this morning, and greatly hast thou wondered that thou canst not see our God; but we expect that he will soon come to us. Thou wouldst frighten us with thy god, who is both blind and deaf, and can neither save himself nor others, and cannot even move about without being carried; but now I expect it will be but a short time before he meets his fate: for turn your eyes towards the east,--behold our God advancing in great light." The sun was rising, and all turned to look. At that moment Kolbein gave their god a stroke, so that the idol burst asunder; and there ran out of it mice as big almost as cats, and reptiles, and adders. The bondes were so terrified that some fled to their ships; but when they sprang out upon them they filled with water, and could not get away. Others ran to their horses, but could not find them. The king then ordered the bondes to be called together, saying he wanted to speak with them; on which the bondes came back, and the Thing was again seated. The king rose up and said, "I do not understand what your noise and running mean. Ye see yourselves what your god can do,--the idol ye adorned with gold and silver, and brought meat and provisions to. Ye see now that the protecting powers who used it were the mice and adders, reptiles and paddocks; and they do ill who trust to such, and will not abandon this folly. Take now your gold and ornaments that are lying strewed about on the grass, and give them to your wives and daughters; but never hang them hereafter upon stock or stone. Here are now two conditions between us to choose upon,--either accept Christianity, or fight this very day; and the victory be to them to whom the God we worship gives it." Then Dale-Gudbrand stood up and said, "We have sustained great damage upon our god; but since he will not help us, we will believe in the God thou believest in." Then all received Christianity. The bishop baptized Gudbrand and his son. King Olaf and Bishop Sigurd left behind them teachers, and they who met as enemies parted as friends; and Gudbrand built a church in the valley. 120. HEDEMARK BAPTIZED. King Olaf proceeded from thence to Hedemark, and baptized there; but as he had formerly carried away their kings as prisoners, he did not venture himself, after such a deed, to go far into the country with few people at that time, but a small part of Hedemark was baptized; but the king did not desist from his expedition before he had introduced Christianity over all Hedemark, consecrated churches, and placed teachers. He then went to Hadaland and Thoten, improving the customs of the people, and persisting until all the country was baptized. He then went to Ringerike, where also all people went over to Christianity. The people of Raumarike then heard that Olaf intended coming to them, and they gathered a great force. They said among themselves that the journey Olaf had made among them the last time was not to be forgotten, and he should never proceed so again. The king, notwithstanding, prepared for the journey. Now when the king went up into Raumarike with his forces, the multitude of bondes came against him at a river called Nitja; and the bondes had a strong army, and began the battle as soon as they met; but they soon fell short, and took to flight. They were forced by this battle into a better disposition, and immediately received Christianity; and the king scoured the whole district, and did not leave it until all the people were made Christians. He then went east to Soleys, and baptized that neighbourhood. The skald Ottar Black came to him there, and begged to be received among his men. Olaf the Swedish king had died the winter before (A.D. 1021), and Onund, the son of Olaf, was now the sole king over all Sweden. King Olaf returned, when the winter (A.D. 1022) was far advanced, to Raumarike. There he assembled a numerous Thing, at a place where the Eidsvold Things have since been held. He made a law, that the Upland people should resort to this Thing, and that Eidsvold laws should be good through all the districts of the Uplands, and wide around in other quarters, which also has taken place. As spring was advancing, he rigged his ships, and went by sea to Tunsberg. He remained there during the spring, and the time the town was most frequented, and goods from other countries were brought to the town for sale. There had been a good year in Viken, and tolerable as far north as Stad; but it was a very dear time in all the country north of there. 121. RECONCILIATION OF THE KING AND EINAR. In spring (A.D. 1022) King Olaf sent a message west to Agder, and north all the way to Hordaland and Rogaland, prohibiting the exporting or selling of corn, malt, or meal; adding, that he, as usual, would come there with his people in guest-quarters. The message went round all the districts; but the king remained in Viken all summer, and went east to the boundary of the country. Einar Tambaskelfer had been with the Swedish king Olaf since the death of his relation Earl Svein, and had, as the khag's man, received great fiefs from him. Now that the king was dead, Einar had a great desire to come into friendship agreement with Olaf; and the same spring messages passed between them about it. While the king was lying in the Gaut river, Einar Tambaskelfer came there with some men; and after treating about an agreement, it was settled that Einar should go north to Throndhjem, and there take possession of all the lands and property which Bergliot had received in dower. Thereupon Einar took his way north; but the king remained behind in Viken, and remained long in Sarpsborg in autumn (A.D. 1022), and during the first part of winter. 122. RECONCILIATION OF THE KING AND ERLING. Erling Skjalgson held his dominion so, that all north from Sogn Lake, and east to the Naze, the bondes stood under him; and although he had much smaller royal fiefs than formerly, still so great a dread of him prevailed that nobody dared to do anything against his will, so that the king thought his power too great. There was a man called Aslak Fitiaskalle, who was powerful and of high birth. Erling's father Skjalg, and Aslak's father Askel, were brother's sons. Aslak was a great friend of King Olaf, and the king settled him in South Hordaland, where he gave him a great fief, and great income, and ordered him in no respect to give way to Erling. But this came to nothing when the king was not in the neighbourhood; for then Erling would reign as he used to do, and was not more humble because Aslak would thrust himself forward as his equal. At last the strife went so far that Aslak could not keep his place, but hastened to King Olaf, and told him the circumstances between him and Erling. The king told Aslak to remain with him until he should meet Erling; and sent a message to Erling that he should come to him in spring at Tunsberg. When they all arrived there they held a meeting at which the king said to him, "It is told me concerning thy government, Erling, that no man from Sogn Lake to the Naze can enjoy his freedom for thee; although there are many men there who consider themselves born to udal rights, and have their privileges like others born as they are. Now, here is your relation Aslak, who appears to have suffered great inconvenience from your conduct; and I do not know whether he himself is in fault, or whether he suffers because I have placed him to defend what is mine; and although I name him, there are many others who have brought the same complaint before us, both among those who are placed in office in our districts, and among the bailiffs who have our farms to manage, and are obliged to entertain me and my people." Erling replies to this, "I will answer at once. I deny altogether that I have ever injured Aslak, or any one else, for being in your service; but this I will not deny, that it is now, as it has long been, that each of us relations will willingly be greater than the other: and, moreover, I freely acknowledge that I am ready to bow my neck to thee, King Olaf; but it is more difficult for me to stoop before one who is of slave descent in all his generation, although he is now your bailiff, or before others who are but equal to him in descent, although you bestow honours on them." Now the friends of both interfered, and entreated that they would be reconciled; saying, that the king never could have such powerful aid as from Erling, "if he was your friend entirely." On the other hand, they represent to Erling that he should give up to the king; for if he was in friendship with the king, it would be easy to do with all the others what he pleased. The meeting accordingly ended so that Erling should retain the fiefs he formerly had, and every complaint the king had against Erling should be dropped; but Skjalg, Erling's son, should come to the king, and remain in his power. Then Aslak returned to his dominions, and the two were in some sort reconciled. Erling returned home also to his domains, and followed his own way of ruling them. 123. HERE BEGINS THE STORY OF ASBJORN SELSBANE. There was a man named Sigurd Thoreson, a brother of Thorer Hund of Bjarkey Island. Sigurd was married to Sigrid Skjalg's daughter, a sister of Erling. Their son, called Asbjorn, became as he grew up a very able man. Sigurd dwelt at Omd in Thrandarnes, and was a very rich and respected man. He had not gone into the king's service; and Thorer in so far had attained higher dignity than his brother, that he was the king's lenderman. But at home, on his farm, Sigurd stood in no respect behind his brother in splendour and magnificence. As long as heathenism prevailed, Sigurd usually had three sacrifices every year: one on winter-night's eve, one on mid-winter's eve, and the third in summer. Although he had adopted Christianity, he continued the same custom with his feasts: he had, namely, a great friendly entertainment at harvest time; a Yule feast in winter, to which he invited many; the third feast he had about Easter, to which also he invited many guests. He continued this fashion as long as he lived. Sigurd died on a bed of sickness when Asbjorn was eighteen years old. He was the only heir of his father, and he followed his father's custom of holding three festivals every year. Soon after Asbjorn came to his heritage the course of seasons began to grow worse, and the corn harvests of the people to fail; but Asbjorn held his usual feasts, and helped himself by having old corn, and an old provision laid up of all that was useful. But when one year had passed and another came, and the crops were no better than the year before, Sigrid wished that some if not all of the feasts should be given up. That Asbjorn would not consent to, but went round in harvest among his friends, buying corn where he could get it, and some he received in presents. He thus kept his feasts this winter also; but the spring after people got but little seed into the ground, for they had to buy the seed-corn. Then Sigurd spoke of diminishing the number of their house-servants. That Asbjorn would not consent to, but held by the old fashion of the house in all things. In summer (A.D. 1022) it appeared again that there would be a bad year for corn; and to this came the report from the south that King Olaf prohibited all export of corn, malt, or meal from the southern to the northern parts of the country. Then Asbjorn perceived that it would be difficult to procure what was necessary for a house-keeping, and resolved to put into the water a vessel for carrying goods which he had, and which was large enough to go to sea with. The ship was good, all that belonged to her was of the best, and in the sails were stripes of cloth of various colours. Asbjorn made himself ready for a voyage, and put to sea with twenty men. They sailed from the north in summer; and nothing is told of their voyage until one day, about the time the days begin to shorten, they came to Karmtsund, and landed at Augvaldsnes. Up in the island Karmt there is a large farm, not far from the sea, and a large house upon it called Augvaldsnes, which was a king's house, with an excellent farm, which Thorer Sel, who was the king's bailiff, had under his management. Thorer was a man of low birth, but had swung himself up in the world as an active man; and he was polite in speech, showy in clothes, and fond of distinction, and not apt to give way to others, in which he was supported by the favour of the king. He was besides quick in speech, straightforward, and free in conversation. Asbjorn, with his company, brought up there for the night; and in the morning, when it was light, Thorer went down to the vessel with some men, and inquired who commanded the splendid ship. Asbjorn named his own and his father's name. Thorer asks where the voyage was intended for, and what was the errand. Asbjorn replies, that he wanted to buy corn and malt; saying, as was true, that it was a very dear time north in the country. "But we are told that here the seasons are good; and wilt thou, farmer, sell us corn? I see that here are great corn stacks, and it would be very convenient if we had not to travel farther." Thorer replies, "I will give thee the information that thou needst not go farther to buy corn, or travel about here in Rogaland; for I can tell thee that thou must turn about, and not travel farther, for the king forbids carrying corn out of this to the north of the country. Sail back again, Halogalander, for that will be thy safest course." Asbjorn replies, "If it be so, bonde, as thou sayest, that we can get no corn here to buy, I will, notwithstanding, go forward upon my errand, and visit my family in Sole, and see my relation Erling's habitation." Thorer: "How near is thy relationship to Erling?" Asbjorn: "My mother is his sister." Thorer: "It may be that I have spoken heedlessly, if so be that thou art sister's son of Erling." Thereupon Asbjorn and his crew struck their tents, and turned the ship to sea. Thorer called after them. "A good voyage, and come here again on your way back." Asbjorn promised to do so, sailed away, and came in the evening to Jadar. Asbjorn went on shore with ten men; the other ten men watched the ship. When Asbjorn came to the house he was very well received, and Erling was very glad to see him, placed him beside himself, and asked him all the news in the north of the country. Asbjorn concealed nothing of his business from him; and Erling said it happened unfortunately that the king had just forbid the sale of corn. "And I know no man here." says he, "who has courage to break the king's order, and I find it difficult to keep well with the king, so many are trying to break our friendship." Asbjorn replies, "It is late before we learn the truth. In my childhood I was taught that my mother was freeborn throughout her whole descent, and that Erling of Sole was her boldest relation; and now I hear thee say that thou hast not the freedom, for the king's slaves here in Jadar, to do with thy own corn what thou pleasest." Erling looked at him, smiled through his teeth, and said, "Ye Halogalanders know less of the king's power than we do here; but a bold man thou mayst be at home in thy conversation. Let us now drink, my friend, and we shall see tomorrow what can be done in thy business." They did so, and were very merry all the evening. The following day Erling and Asbjorn talked over the matter again, and Erling said. "I have found out a way for you to purchase corn, Asbjorn. It is the same thing to you whoever is the seller." He answered that he did not care of whom he bought the corn, if he got a good right to his purchase. Erling said. "It appears to me probable that my slaves have quite as much corn as you require to buy; and they are not subject to law, or land regulation, like other men." Asbjorn agreed to the proposal. The slaves were now spoken to about the purchase, and they brought forward corn and malt, which they sold to Asbjorn, so that he loaded his vessel with what he wanted. When he was ready for sea Erling followed him on the road, made him presents of friendship, and they took a kind farewell of each other. Asbjorn got a good breeze, landed in the evening at Karmtsund, near to Augvaldsnes, and remained there for the night. Thorer Sel had heard of Asbjorn's voyage, and also that his vessel was deeply laden. Thorer summoned people to him in the night, so that before daylight he had sixty men; and with these he went against Asbjorn as soon as it was light, and went out to the ship just as Asbjorn and his men were putting on their clothes. Asbjorn saluted Thorer, and Thorer asked what kind of goods Asbjorn had in the vessel. He replied, "Corn and malt." Thorer said, "Then Erling is doing as he usually does, and despising the king's orders, and is unwearied in opposing him in all things, insomuch that it is wonderful the king suffers it." Thorer went on scolding in this way, and when he was silent Asbjorn said that Erling's slaves had owned the corn. Thorer replied hastily, that he did not regard Erling's tricks. "And now, Asbjorn, there is no help for it; ye must either go on shore, or we will throw you overboard; for we will not be troubled with you while we are discharging the cargo." Asbjorn saw that he had not men enough to resist Thorer; therefore he and his people landed, and Thorer took the whole cargo out of the vessel. When the vessel was discharged Thorer went through the ship, and observed. "Ye Halogalanders have good sails: take the old sail of our vessel and give it them; it is good enough for those who are sailing in a light vessel." Thus the sails were exchanged. When this was done Asbjorn and his comrades sailed away north along the coast, and did not stop until they reached home early in whiter. This expedition was talked of far and wide, and Asbjorn had no trouble that winter in making feasts at home. Thorer Hund invited Asbjorn and his mother, and also all whom they pleased to take along with him, to a Yule feast; but Asbjorn sat at home, and would not travel, and it was to be seen that Thorer thought Asbjorn despised his invitation, since he would not come. Thorer scoffed much at Asbjorn's voyage. "Now," said he, "it is evident that Asbjorn makes a great difference in his respect towards his relations; for in summer he took the greatest trouble to visit his relation Erling in Jadar, and now will not take the trouble to come to me in the next house. I don't know if he thinks there may be a Thorer Sel in his way upon every holm." Such words, and the like sarcasms, Asbjorn heard of; and very ill satisfied he was with his voyage, which had thus made him a laughing-stock to the country, and he remained at home all winter, and went to no feasts. 124. MURDER OF THORER SEL. Asbjorn had a long-ship standing in the noust (shipshed), and it was a snekke (cutter) of twenty benches; and after Candlemas (February 2, 1023), he had the vessel put in the water, brought out all his furniture, and rigged her out. He then summoned to him his friends and people, so that he had nearly ninety men all well armed. When he was ready for sea, and got a wind, he sailed south along the coast, but as the wind did not suit, they advanced but slowly. When they came farther south they steered outside the rocks, without the usual ships' channel, keeping to sea as much as it was possible to do so. Nothing is related of his voyage before the fifth day of Easter (April 18, 1023), when, about evening, they came on the outside of Karmt Island. This island is so shaped that it is very long, but not broad at its widest part; and without it lies the usual ships' channel. It is thickly inhabited; but where the island is exposed to the ocean great tracts of it are uncultivated. Asbjorn and his men landed at a place in the island that was uninhabited. After they had set up their ship-tents Asbjorn said, "Now ye must remain here and wait for me. I will go on land in the isle, and spy what news there may be which we know nothing of." Asbjorn had on mean clothes, a broadbrimmed hat, a fork in his hand, but had girt on his sword under his clothes. He went up to the land, and in through the island; and when he came upon a hillock, from which he could see the house on Augvaldsnes, and on as far as Karmtsund, he saw people in all quarters flocking together by land and by sea, and all going up to the house of Augvaldsnes. This seemed to him extraordinary; and therefore he went up quietly to a house close by, in which servants were cooking meat. From their conversation he discovered immediately that the king Olaf had come there to a feast, and that he had just sat down to table. Asbjorn turned then to the feasting-room, and when he came into the ante-room one was going in and another coming out; but nobody took notice of him. The hall-door was open, and he saw that Thorer Sel stood before the table of the high-seat. It was getting late in the evening, and Asbjorn heard people ask Thorer what had taken place between him and Asbjorn; and Thorer had a long story about it, in which he evidently departed from the truth. Among other things he heard a man say, "How did Asbjorn behave when you discharged his vessel?" Thorer replied, "When we were taking out the cargo he bore it tolerably, but not well; and when we took the sail from him he wept." When Asbjorn heard this he suddenly drew his sword, rushed into the hall, and cut at Thorer. The stroke took him in the neck, so that the head fell upon the table before the king, and the body at his feet, and the table-cloth was soiled with blood from top to bottom. The king ordered him to be seized and taken out. This was done. They laid hands on Asbjorn, and took him from the hall. The table-furniture and table-cloths were removed, and also Thorer's corpse, and all the blood wiped up. The king was enraged to the highest; but remained quiet in speech, as he always was when in anger. 125. OF SKJALG, THE SON OF ERLING SKJALGSON. Skjalg Erlingson stood up, went before the king, and said, "Now may it go, as it often does, that every case will admit of alleviation. I will pay thee the mulct for the bloodshed on account of this man, so that he may retain life and limbs. All the rest determine and do, king, according to thy pleasure." The king replies, "Is it not a matter of death, Skjalg, that a man break the Easter peace; and in the next place that he kills a man in the king's lodging; and in the third that he makes my feet his execution-block, although that may appear a small matter to thee and thy father?" Skjalg replies, "It is ill done, king, in as far as it displeases thee; but the deed is, otherwise, done excellently well. But if the deed appear to thee so important, and be so contrary to thy will, yet may I expect something for my services from thee; and certainly there are many who will say that thou didst well." The king replies, "Although thou hast made me greatly indebted to thee, Skjalg, for thy services, yet I will not for thy sake break the law, or cast away my own dignity." Then Skjalg turned round, and went out of the hall. Twelve men who had come with Skjalg all followed him, and many others went out with him. Skjalg said to Thorarin Nefiulfson, "If thou wilt have me for a friend, take care that this man be not killed before Sunday." Thereupon Skjalg and his men set off, took a rowing boat which he had, and rowed south as fast as they could, and came to Jadar with the first glimpse of morning. They went up instantly to the house, and to the loft in which Erling slept. Skjalg rushed so hard against the door that it burst asunder at the nails. Erling and the others who were within started up. He was in one spring upon his legs, grasped his shield and sword, and rushed to the door, demanding who was there. Skjalg named himself, and begs him to open the door. Erling replies, "It was most likely to be thee who hast behaved so foolishly; or is there any one who is pursuing thee?" Thereupon the door was unlocked. Then said Skjalg, "Although it appears to thee that I am so hasty, I suppose our relation Asbjorn will not think my proceedings too quick; for he sits in chains there in the north at Augvaldsnes, and it would be but manly to hasten back and stand by him." The father and son then had a conversation together, and Skjalg related the whole circumstances of Thorer Sel's murder. 126. OF THORARIN NEFIULFSON. King Olaf took his seat again when everything in the hall was put in order, and was enraged beyond measure. He asked how it was with the murderer. He was answered, that he was sitting out upon the doorstep under guard. The king says, "Why is he not put to death?" Thorarin Nefiulfson replies, "Sire, would you not call it murder to kill a man in the night-time?" The king answers, "Put him in irons then, and kill him in the morning." Then Asbjorn was laid in chains, and locked up in a house for the night. The day after the king heard the morning mass, and then went to the Thing, where he sat till high mass. As he was going to mass he said to Thorarin, "Is not the sun high enough now in the heavens that your friend Asbjorn may be hanged?" Thorarin bowed before the king, and said, "Sire, it was said by Bishop Sigurd on Friday last, that the King who has all things in his power had to endure great temptation of spirit; and blessed is he who rather imitates him, than those who condemned the man to death, or those who caused his slaughter. It is not long till tomorrow, and that is a working day." The king looked at him, and said, "Thou must take care then that he is not put to death to-day; but take him under thy charge, and know for certain that thy own life shall answer for it if he escape in any way." Then the king went away. Thorarin went also to where Asbjorn lay in irons, took off his chains, and brought him to a small room, where he had meat and drink set before him, and told him what the king had determined in case Asbjorn ran away. Asbjorn replies, that Thorarin need not be afraid of him. Thorarin sat a long while with him during the day, and slept there all night. On Saturday the king arose and went to the early mass, and from thence he went to the Thing, where a great many bondes were assembled, who had many complaints to be determined. The king sat there long in the day, and it was late before the people went to high mass. Thereafter the king went to table. When he had got meat he sat drinking for a while, so that the tables were not removed. Thorarin went out to the priest who had the church under his care, and gave him two marks of silver to ring in the Sabbath as soon as the king's table was taken away. When the king had drunk as much as he wished the tables were removed. Then said the king, that it was now time for the slaves to go to the murderer and put him to death. In the same moment the bell rang in the Sabbath. Then Thorarin went before the king, and said, "The Sabbath-peace this man must have, although he has done evil." The king said, "Do thou take care, Thorarin, that he do not escape." The king then went to the church, and attended the vesper service, and Thorarin sat the whole day with Asbjorn. On Sunday the bishop visited Asbjorn, confessed him, and gave him orders to hear high mass. Thorarin then went to the king, and asked him to appoint men to guard the murderer. "I will now," he said, "be free of this charge." The king thanked him for his care, and ordered men to watch over Asbjorn, who was again laid in chains. When the people went to high mass Asbjorn was led to the church, and he stood outside of the church with his guard; but the king and all the people stood in the church at mass. 127. ERLING'S RECONCILIATION WITH KING OLAF. Now we must again take up our story where we left it,--that Erling and his son Skjalg held a council on this affair, and according to the resolution of Erling, and of Skjalg and his other sons, it was determined to assemble a force and send out message-tokens. A great multitude of people accordingly came together. They got ready with all speed, rigged their ships, and when they reckoned upon their force they found they had nearly 1500 men. With this war-force they set off, and came on Sunday to Augvaldsnes on Karmt Island. They went straight up to the house with all the men, and arrived just as the Scripture lesson was read. They went directly to the church, took Asbjorn, and broke off his chains. At the tumult and clash of arms all who were outside of the church ran into it; but they who were in the church looked all towards them, except the king, who stood still, without looking around him. Erling and his sons drew up their men on each side of the path which led from the church to the hall, and Erling with his sons stood next to the hall. When high mass was finished the king went immediately out of the church, and first went through the open space between the ranks drawn up, and then his retinue, man by man; and as he came to the door Erling placed himself before the door, bowed to the king, and saluted him. The king saluted him in return, and prayed God to help him. Erling took up the word first, and said, "My relation, Asbjorn, it is reported to me, has been guilty of misdemeanor, king; and it is a great one, if he has done anything that incurs your displeasure. Now I am come to entreat for him peace, and such penalties as you yourself may determine; but that thereby he redeem life and limb, and his remaining here in his native land." The king replies, "It appears to me, Erling, that thou thinkest the case of Asbjorn is now in thy own power, and I do not therefore know why thou speakest now as if thou wouldst offer terms for him. I think thou hast drawn together these forces because thou are determined to settle what is between us." Erling replies, "Thou only, king, shalt determine, and determine so that we shall be reconciled." The king: "Thinkest thou, Erling, to make me afraid? And art thou come here in such force with that expectation? No, that shall not be; and if that be thy thought, I must in no way turn and fly." Erling replies, "Thou hast no occasion to remind me how often I have come to meet thee with fewer men than thou hadst. But now I shall not conceal what lies in my mind, namely, that it is my will that we now enter into a reconciliation; for otherwise I expect we shall never meet again." Erling was then as red as blood in the face. Now Bishop Sigurd came forward to the king and said, "Sire, I entreat you on God Almighty's account to be reconciled with Erling according to his offer,--that the man shall retain life and limb, but that thou shalt determine according to thy pleasure all the other conditions." The king replies, "You will determine." Then said the bishop, "Erling, do thou give security for Asbjorn, such as the king thinks sufficient, and then leave the conditions to the mercy of the king, and leave all in his power." Erling gave a surety to the king on his part, which he accepted. Thereupon Asbjorn received his life and safety, and delivered himself into the king's power, and kissed his hand. Erling then withdrew with his forces, without exchanging salutation with the king; and the king went into the hall, followed by Asbjorn. The king thereafter made known the terms of reconciliation to be these:--"In the first place, Asbjorn, thou must submit to the law of the land, which commands that the man who kills a servant of the king must undertake his service, if the king will. Now I will that thou shalt undertake the office of bailiff which Thorer Sel had, and manage my estate here in Augvaldsnes." Asbjorn replies, that it should be according to the king's will; "but I must first go home to my farm, and put things in order there." The king was satisfied with this, and proceeded to another guest-quarter. Asbjorn made himself ready with his comrades, who all kept themselves concealed in a quiet creek during the time Asbjorn was away from them. They had had their spies out to learn how it went with him, and would not depart without having some certain news of him. 128. OF THORER HUND AND ASBJORN SELSBANE. Asbjorn then set out on his voyage, and about spring (A.D. 1023) got home to his farm. After this exploit he was always called Asbjorn Selsbane. Asbjorn had not been long at home before he and his relation Thorer met and conversed together, and Thorer asked Asbjorn particularly all about his journey, and about all the circumstances which had happened on the course of it. Asbjorn told everything as it had taken place. Then said Thorer, "Thou thinkest that thou hast well rubbed out the disgrace of having been plundered in last harvest." "I think so," replies Asbjorn; "and what is thy opinion, cousin?" "That I will soon tell thee," said Thorer. "Thy first expedition to the south of the country was indeed very disgraceful, and that disgrace has been redeemed; but this expedition is both a disgrace to thee and to thy family, if it end in thy becoming the king's slave, and being put on a footing with that worst of men, Thorer Sel. Show that thou art manly enough to sit here on thy own property, and we thy relations shall so support thee that thou wilt never more come into such trouble." Asbjorn found this advice much to his mind; and before they parted it was firmly, determined that Asbjorn should remain on his farm, and not go back to the king or enter into his service. And he did so, and sat quietly at home on his farm. 129. KING OLAF BAPTIZES IN VORS AND VALDERS. After King Olaf and Erling Skjalgson had this meeting at Augvaldsnes, new differences arose between them, and increased so much that they ended in perfect enmity. In spring (A.D. 1023) the king proceeded to guest-quarters in Hordaland, and went up also to Vors, because he heard there was but little of the true faith among the people there. He held a Thing with the bondes at a place called Vang, and a number of bondes came to it fully armed. The king ordered them to adopt Christianity; but they challenged him to battle, and it proceeded so far that the men were drawn up on both sides. But when it came to the point such a fear entered into the blood of the bondes that none would advance or command, and they chose the part which was most to their advantage; namely, to obey the king and receive Christianity; and before the king left them they were all baptized. One day it happened that the king was riding on his way a singing of psalms, and when he came right opposite some hills he halted and said, "Man after man shall relate these my words, that I think it not advisable for any king of Norway to travel hereafter between these hills." And it is a saying among the people that the most kings since that time have avoided it. The king proceeded to Ostrarfjord, and came to his ships, with which he went north to Sogn, and had his living in guest-quarters there in summer (A.D. 1023); when autumn approached he turned in towards the Fjord district, and went from thence to Valders, where the people were still heathen. The king hastened up to the lake in Valders, came unexpectedly on the bondes, seized their vessels, and went on board of them with all his men. He then sent out message-tokens, and appointed a Thing so near the lake that he could use the vessels if he found he required them. The bondes resorted to the Thing in a great and well-armed host; and when he commanded them to accept Christianity the bondes shouted against him, told him to be silent, and made a great uproar and clashing of weapons. But when the king saw that they would not listen to what he would teach them, and also that they had too great a force to contend with, he turned his discourse, and asked if there were people at the Thing who had disputes with each other which they wished him to settle. It was soon found by the conversation of the bondes that they had many quarrels among themselves, although they had all joined in speaking against Christianity. When the bondes began to set forth their own cases, each endeavored to get some upon his side to support him; and this lasted the whole day long until evening, when the Thing was concluded. When the bondes had heard that the king had travelled to Valders, and was come into their neighborhood, they had sent out message-tokens summoning the free and the unfree to meet in arms, and with this force they had advanced against the king; so that the neighbourhood all around was left without people. When the Thing was concluded the bondes still remained assembled; and when the king observed this he went on board his ships, rowed in the night right across the water, landed in the country there, and began to plunder and burn. The day after the king's men rowed from one point of land to another, and over all the king ordered the habitations to be set on fire. Now when the bondes who were assembled saw what the king was doing, namely, plundering and burning, and saw the smoke and flame of their houses, they dispersed, and each hastened to his own home to see if he could find those he had left. As soon as there came a dispersion among the crowd, the one slipped away after the other, until the whole multitude was dissolved. Then the king rowed across the lake again, burning also on that side of the country. Now came the bondes to him begging for mercy, and offering to submit to him. He gave every man who came to him peace if he desired it, and restored to him his goods; and nobody refused to adopt Christianity. The king then had the people christened, and took hostages from the bondes. He ordered churches to be built and consecrated, and placed teachers in them. He remained a long time here in autumn, and had his ships drawn across the neck of land between the two lakes. The king did not go far from the sides of the lakes into the country, for he did not much trust the bondes. When the king thought that frost might be expected, he went further up the country, and came to Thoten. Arnor, the earl's skald, tells how King Olaf burnt in the Uplands, in the poem he composed concerning the king's brother King Harald:-- "Against the Upland people wroth, Olaf, to most so mild, went forth: The houses burning, All people mourning; Who could not fly Hung on gallows high. It was, I think, in Olaf's race The Upland people to oppress." Afterwards King Olaf went north through the valleys to Dovrefield, and did not halt until he reached the Throndhjem district and arrived at Nidaros, where he had ordered winter provision to be collected, and remained all winter (A.D. 1024). This was the tenth year of his reign. 130. OF EINAR TAMBASKELFER. The summer before Einar Tambaskelfer left the country, and went westward to England (A.D. 1023). There he met his relative Earl Hakon, and stayed some time with him. He then visited King Canute, from whom he received great presents. Einar then went south all the way to Rome, and came back the following summer (A.D. 1024), and returned to his house and land. King Olaf and Einar did not meet this time. 131. THE BIRTH OF KING MAGNUS. There was a girl whose name was Alfhild, and who was usually called the king's slave-woman, although she was of good descent. She was a remarkably handsome girl, and lived in King Olaf's court. It was reported this spring that Alfhild was with child, and the king's confidential friends knew that he was father of the child. It happened one night that Alfhild was taken ill, and only few people were at hand; namely, some women, priests, Sigvat the skald, and a few others. Alfhild was so ill that she was nearly dead; and when she was delivered of a man-child, it was some time before they could discover whether the child was in life. But when the infant drew breath, although very weak, the priest told Sigvat to hasten to the king, and tell him of the event. He replies, "I dare not on any account waken the king; for he has forbid that any man should break his sleep until he awakens of himself." The priest replies, "It is of necessity that this child be immediately baptized, for it appears to me there is but little life in it." Sigvat said, "I would rather venture to take upon me to let thee baptize the child, than to awaken the king; and I will take it upon myself if anything be amiss, and will give the child a name." They did so; and the child was baptized, and got the name of Magnus. The next morning, when the king awoke and had dressed himself, the circumstance was told him. He ordered Sigvat to be called, and said. "How camest thou to be so bold as to have my child baptized before I knew anything about it?" Sigvat replies, "Because I would rather give two men to God than one to the devil." The king--"What meanest thou?" Sigvat--"The child was near death, and must have been the devil's if it had died as a heathen, and now it is God's. And I knew besides that if thou shouldst be so angry on this account that it affected my life, I would be God's also." The king asked, "But why didst thou call him Magnus, which is not a name of our race?" Sigvat--"I called him after King Carl Magnus, who, I knew, had been the best man in the world." Then said the king, "Thou art a very lucky man, Sigvat; but it is not wonderful that luck should accompany understanding. It is only wonderful how it sometimes happens that luck attends ignorant men, and that foolish counsel turns out lucky." The king was overjoyed at the circumstance. The boy grew up, and gave good promise as he advanced in age. 132. THE MURDER OF ASBJORN SELSBANE. The same spring (A.D. 1024) the king gave into the hands of Asmund Grankelson the half of the sheriffdom of the district of Halogaland, which Harek of Thjotta had formerly held, partly in fief, partly for defraying the king's entertainment in guest-quarters. Asmund had a ship manned with nearly thirty well-armed men. When Asmund came north he met Harek, and told him what the king had determined with regard to the district, and produced to him the tokens of the king's full powers. Harek said, "The king had the right to give the sheriffdom to whom he pleased; but the former sovereigns had not been in use to diminish our rights who are entitled by birth to hold powers from the king, and to give them into the hands of the peasants who never before held such offices." But although it was evident that it was against Harek's inclination, he allowed Asmund to take the sheriffdom according to the king's order. Then Asmund proceeded home to his father, stayed there a short time, and then went north to Halogaland to his sheriffdom; and he came north to Langey Island, where there dwelt two brothers called Gunstein and Karle, both very rich and respectable men. Gunstein, the eldest of the brothers, was a good husbandman. Karle was a handsome man in appearance, and splendid in his dress; and both were, in many respects, expert in all feats. Asmund was well received by them, remained with them a while, and collected such revenues of his sheriffdom as he could get. Karle spoke with Asmund of his wish to go south with him and take service in the court of King Olaf, to which Asmund encouraged him much, promising his influence with the king for obtaining for Karle such a situation as he desired; and Karle accordingly accompanied Asmund. Asmund heard that Asbjorn, who had killed Thorer Sel, had gone to the market-meeting of Vagar with a large ship of burden manned with nearly twenty men, and that he was now expected from the south. Asmund and his retinue proceeded on their way southwards along the coast with a contrary wind, but there was little of it. They saw some of the fleet for Vagar sailing towards them; and they privately inquired of them about Asbjorn, and were told he was upon the way coming from the south. Asmund and Karle were bedfellows, and excellent friends. One day, as Asmund and his people were rowing through a sound, a ship of burden came sailing towards them. The ship was easily known, having high bulwarks, was painted with white and red colours, and coloured cloth was woven in the sail. Karle said to Asmund, "Thou hast often said thou wast curious to see Asbjorn who killed Thorer Sel; and if I know one ship from another, that is his which is coming sailing along." Asmund replies, "Be so good, comrade, and tell me which is he when thou seest him." When the ships came alongside of each other, "That is Asbjorn," said Karle; "the man sitting at the helm in a blue cloak." Asmund replies, "I shall make his blue cloak red;" threw a spear at Asbjorn, and hit him in the middle of the body, so that it flew through and through him, and stuck fast in the upper part of the stern-post; and Asbjorn fell down dead from the helm. Then each vessel sailed on its course, and Asbjorn's body was carried north to Thrandarnes. Then Sigrid sent a message to Bjarkey Isle to Thorer Hund, who came to her while they were, in the usual way, dressing the corpse of Asbjorn. When he returned Sigrid gave presents to all her friends, and followed Thorer to his ship; but before they parted she said, "It has so fallen out, Thorer, that my son has suffered by thy friendly counsel, but he did not retain life to reward thee for it; but although I have not his ability yet will I show my good will. Here is a gift I give thee, which I expect thou wilt use. Here is the spear which went through Asbjorn my son, and there is still blood upon it, to remind thee that it fits the wound thou hast seen on the corpse of thy brother's son Asbjorn. It would be a manly deed, if thou shouldst throw this spear from thy hand so that it stood in Olaf's breast; and this I can tell thee, that thou wilt be named coward in every man's mouth, if thou dost not avenge Asbjorn." Thereupon she turned about, and went her way. Thorer was so enraged at her words that he could not speak. He neither thought of casting the spear from him, nor took notice of the gangway; so that he would have fallen into the sea, if his men had not laid hold of him as he was going on board his ship. It was a feathered spear; not large, but the handle was gold-mounted. Now Thorer rowed away with his people, and went home to Bjarkey Isle. Asmund and his companions also proceeded on their way until they came south to Throndhjem, where they waited on King Olaf; and Asmund related to the king all that had happened on the voyage. Karle became one of the king's court-men, and the friendship continued between him and Asmund. They did not keep secret the words that had passed between Asmund and Karle before Asbjorn was killed; for they even told them to the king. But then it happened, according to the proverb, that every one has a friend in the midst of his enemies. There were some present who took notice of the words, and they reached Thorer Hund's ears. 133. OF KING OLAF. When spring (A.D. 1024) was advanced King Olaf rigged out his ships, and sailed southwards in summer along the land. He held Things with the bondes on the way, settled the law business of the people, put to rights the faith of the country, and collected the king's taxes wherever he came. In autumn he proceeded south to the frontier of the country; and King Olaf had now made the people Christians in all the great districts, and everywhere, by laws, had introduced order into the country. He had also, as before related, brought the Orkney Islands under his power, and by messages had made many friends in Iceland, Greenland, and the Farey Islands. King Olaf had sent timber for building a church to Iceland, of which a church was built upon the Thing-field where the General Thing is held, and had sent a bell for it, which is still there. This was after the Iceland people had altered their laws, and introduced Christianity, according to the word King Olaf had sent them. After that time, many considerable persons came from Iceland, and entered into King Olaf's service; as Thorkel Eyjolfson, and Thorleif Bollason, Thord Kolbeinson, Thord Barkarson, Thorgeir Havarson, Thormod Kalbrunar-skald. King Olaf had sent many friendly presents to chief people in Iceland; and they in return sent him such things as they had which they thought most acceptable. Under this show of friendship which the king gave Iceland were concealed many things which afterwards appeared. 134. KING OLAF'S MESSAGE TO ICELAND, AND THE COUNSELS OF THE ICELANDERS. King Olaf this summer (A.D. 1024) sent Thorarin Nefiulfson to Iceland on his errands; and Thorarin went out of Throndhjem fjord along with the king, and followed him south to More. From thence Thorarin went out to sea, and got such a favourable breeze that after four days sail he landed at the Westman Isles, in Iceland. He proceeded immediately to the Althing, and came just as the people were upon the Lawhillock, to which he repaired. When the cases of the people before the Thing had been determined according to law, Thorarin Nefiulfson took up the word as follows:--"We parted four days ago from King Olaf Haraldson, who sends God Almighty's and his own salutation to all the chiefs and principal men of the land; as also to all the people in general, men and women, young and old, rich and poor. He also lets you know that he will be your sovereign if ye will become his subjects, so that he and you will be friends, assisting each other in all that is good." The people replied in a friendly way, that they would gladly be the king's friends, if he would be a friend of the people of their country. Then Thorarin again took up the word:--"This follows in addition to the king's message, that he will in friendship desire of the people of the north district that they give him the island, or out-rock, which lies at the mouth of Eyfjord, and is called Grimsey, for which he will give you from his country whatever good the people of the district may desire. He sends this message particularly to Gudmund of Modruvellir to support this matter, because he understands that Gudmund has most influence in that quarter." Gudmund replies, "My inclination is greatly for King Olaf's friendship, and that I consider much more useful than the out-rock he desires. But the king has not heard rightly if he think I have more power in this matter than any other, for the island is a common. We, however, who have the most use of the isle, will hold a meeting among ourselves about it." Then the people went to their tent-houses; and the Northland people had a meeting among themselves, and talked over the business, and every one spoke according to his judgment. Gudmund supported the matter, and many others formed their opinions by his. Then some asked why his brother Einar did not speak on the subject. "We think he has the clearest insight into most things." Einar answers, "I have said so little about the matter because nobody has asked me about it; but if I may give my opinion, our countrymen might just as well make themselves at once liable to land-scat to King Olaf, and submit to all his exactions as he has them among his people in Norway; and this heavy burden we will lay not only upon ourselves, but on our sons, and their sons, and all our race, and on all the community dwelling and living in this land, which never after will be free from this slavery. Now although this king is a good man, as I well believe him to be, yet it must be hereafter, when kings succeed each other, that some will be good, and some bad. Therefore if the people of this country will preserve the freedom they have enjoyed since the land was first inhabited, it is not advisable to give the king the smallest spot to fasten himself upon the country by, and not to give him any kind of scat or service that can have the appearance of a duty. On the other hand, I think it very proper that the people send the king such friendly presents of hawks or horses, tents or sails, or such things which are suitable gifts; and these are well applied if they are repaid with friendship. But as to Grimsey Isle, I have to say, that although nothing is drawn from it that can serve for food, yet it could support a great war-force cruising from thence in long-ships; and then, I doubt not, there would be distress enough at every poor peasant's door." When Einar had thus explained the proper connection of the matter, the whole community were of one mind that such a thing should not be permitted; and Thorarin saw sufficiently well what the result of his errand was to be. 135. THE ANSWER OF THE ICELANDERS. The day following, Thorarin went again to the Lawhill, and brought forward his errand in the following words:--"King Olaf sends his message to his friends here in the country, among whom he reckons Gudmund Eyjolfson, Snorre Gode, Thorkel Eyjolfson, Skapte the lagman, and Thorstein Halson, and desires them by me to come to him on a friendly visit; and adds, that ye must not excuse yourselves, if you regard his friendship as worth anything." In their answer they thanked the king for his message and added, that they would afterwards give a reply to it by Thorarin when they had more closely considered the matter with their friends. The chiefs now weighed the matter among themselves, and each gave his own opinion about the journey. Snorre and Skapte dissuaded from such a dangerous proceeding with the people of Norway; namely, that all the men who had the most to say in the country should at once leave Iceland. They added, that from this message, and from what Einar had said, they had the suspicion that the king intended to use force and strong measures against the Icelanders if he ruled in the country. Gudmund and Thorkel Eyjolfson insisted much that they should follow King Olaf's invitation, and called it a journey of honour. But when they had considered the matter on all sides, it was at last resolved that they should not travel themselves, but that each of them should send in his place a man whom they thought best suited for it. After this determination the Thing was closed, and there was no journey that summer. Thorarin made two voyages that summer, and about harvest was back again at King Olaf's, and reported the result of his mission, and that some of the chiefs, or their sons, would come from Iceland according to his message. 136. OF THE PEOPLE OF THE FAREY ISLANDS. The same summer (A.D. 1024) there came from the Farey Islands to Norway, on the king's invitation, Gille the lagman, Leif Ossurson, Thoralf of Dimun, and many other bondes' sons. Thord of Gata made himself ready for the voyage; but just as he was setting out he got a stroke of palsy, and could not come, so he remained behind. Now when the people from the Farey Isles arrived at King Olaf's, he called them to him to a conference, and explained the purpose of the journey he had made them take, namely, that he would have scat from the Farey Islands, and also that the people there should be subject to the laws which the king should give them. In that meeting it appeared from the king's words that he would make the Farey people who had come answerable, and would bind them by oath to conclude this union. He also offered to the men whom he thought the ablest to take them into his service, and bestow honour and friendship on them. These Farey men understood the king's words so, that they must dread the turn the matter might take if they did not submit to all that the king desired. Although they held several meetings about the business before it ended, the king's desire at last prevailed. Leif, Gille, and Thoralf went into the king's service, and became his courtmen; and they, with all their travelling companions, swore the oath to King Olaf, that the law and land privilege which he set them should be observed in the Farey Islands, and also the scat be levied that he laid upon them. Thereafter the Farey people prepared for their return home, and at their departure the king gave those who had entered into his service presents in testimony of his friendship, and they went their way. Now the king ordered a ship to be rigged, manned it, and sent men to the Farey Islands to receive the scat from the inhabitants which they should pay him. It was late before they were ready; but they set off at last: and of their journey all that is to be told is, that they did not come back, and no scat either, the following summer; for nobody had come to the Farey Isles, and no man had demanded scat there. 137. OF THE MARRIAGE OF KETIL AND OF THORD TO THE KING'S SISTERS. King Olaf proceeded about harvest time to Viken, and sent a message before him to the Uplands that they should prepare guest-quarters for him, as he intended to be there in winter. Afterwards he made ready for his journey, and went to the Uplands, and remained the winter there; going about in guest-quarters, and putting things to rights where he saw it needful, advancing also the cause of Christianity wheresoever it was requisite. It happened while King Olaf was in Hedemark that Ketil Kalf of Ringanes courted Gunhild, a daughter of Sigurd Syr and of King Olaf's mother Asta. Gunhild was a sister of King Olaf, and therefore it belonged to the king to give consent and determination to the business. He took it in a friendly way; for he know Ketil, that he was of high birth, wealthy, and of good understanding, and a great chief; and also he had long been a great friend of King Olaf, as before related. All these circumstances induced the king to approve of the match, and so it was that Ketil got Gunhild. King Olaf was present at the wedding. From thence the king went north to Gudbrandsdal, where he was entertained in guest-quarters. There dwelt a man, by name Thord Guthormson, on a farm called Steig; and he was the most powerful man in the north end of the valley. When Thord and the king met, Thord made proposals for Isrid, the daughter of Gudbrand, and the sister of King Olaf's mother, as it belonged to the king to give consent. After the matter was considered, it was determined that the marriage should proceed, and Thord got Isrid. Afterwards Thord was the king's faithful friend, and also many of Thord's relations and friends, who followed his footsteps. From thence King Olaf returned south through Thoten and Hadaland, from thence to Ringerike, and so to Viken. In spring (A.D. 1025) he went to Tunsberg, and stayed there while there was the market-meeting, and a great resort of people. He then had his vessels rigged out, and had many people about him. 138. OF THE ICELANDERS. The same summer (A.D. 1025) came Stein, a son of the lagman Skapte, from Iceland, in compliance with King Olaf's message; and with him Thorod, a son of Snorre the gode, and Geller, a son of Thorkel Eyjolfson, and Egil, a son of Hal of Sida, brother of Thorstein Hal. Gudmund Eyjolfson had died the winter before. These Iceland men repaired to King Olaf as soon as they had opportunity; and when they met the king they were well received, and all were in his house. The same summer King Olaf heard that the ship was missing which he had sent the summer before to the Farey Islands after the scat, and nobody knew what had become of it. The king fitted out another ship, manned it, and sent it to the Farey Islands for the scat. They got under weigh, and proceeded to sea; but as little was ever heard of this vessel as of the former one, and many conjectures were made about what had become of them. 139. HERE BEGINS THE STORY OF CANUTE THE GREAT. During this time Canute the Great, called by some Canute the Old, was king of England and Denmark. Canute the Great was a son of Svein Haraldson Forkedbeard, whose forefathers, for a long course of generations, had ruled over Denmark. Harald Gormson, Canute's grandfather, had conquered Norway after the fall of Harald Grafeld, Gunhild's son, had taken scat from it, and had placed Earl Hakon the Great to defend the country. The Danish King, Svein Haraldson, ruled also over Norway, and placed his son-in-law Earl Eirik, the son of Earl Hakon, to defend the country. The brothers Eirik and Svein, Earl Hakon's sons, ruled the land until Earl Eirik went west to England, on the invitation of his brother-in-law Canute the Great, when he left behind his son Earl Hakon, sister's son of Canute the Great, to govern Norway. But when Olaf the Thick came first to Norway, as before related, he took prisoner Earl Hakon the son of Eirik, and deposed him from the kingdom. Then Hakon proceeded to his mother's brother, Canute the Great, and had been with him constantly until the time to which here in our saga we have now come. Canute the Great had conquered England by blows and weapons, and had a long struggle before the people of the land were subdued. But when he had set himself perfectly firm in the government of the country, he remembered that he also had right to a kingdom which he had not brought under his authority; and that was Norway. He thought he had hereditary right to all Norway; and his sister's son Hakon, who had held a part of it, appeared to him to have lost it with disgrace. The reason why Canute and Hakon had remained quiet with respect to their claims upon Norway was, that when King Olaf Haraldson landed in Norway the people and commonalty ran together in crowds, and would hear of nothing but that Olaf should be king over all the country, although some afterwards, who thought that the people upon account of his power had no self-government left to them, went out of the country. Many powerful men, or rich bondes sons, had therefore gone to Canute the Great, and pretended various errands; and every one who came to Canute and desired his friendship was loaded with presents. With Canute, too, could be seen greater splendour and pomp than elsewhere, both with regard to the multitude of people who were daily in attendance, and also to the other magnificent things about the houses he owned and dwelt in himself. Canute the Great drew scat and revenue from the people who were the richest of all in northern lands; and in the same proportion as he had greater revenues than other kings, he also made greater presents than other kings. In his whole kingdom peace was so well established, that no man dared break it. The people of the country kept the peace towards each other, and had their old country law: and for this he was greatly celebrated in all countries. And many of those who came from Norway represented their hardships to Earl Hakon, and some even to King Canute himself; and that the Norway people were ready to turn back to the government of King Canute, or Earl Hakon, and receive deliverance from them. This conversation suited well the earl's inclination, and he carried it to the king, and begged of him to try if King Olaf would not surrender the kingdom, or at least come to an agreement to divide it; and many supported the earl's views. 140. CANUTE'S MESSAGE TO KING OLAF. Canute the Great sent men from the West, from England, to Norway, and equipped them magnificently for the journey. They were bearers of the English king Canute's letter and seal. They came about spring (A.D. 1025) to the king of Norway, Olaf Haraldson, in Tunsberg. Now when it was told the king that ambassadors had arrived from Canute the Great he was ill at ease, and said that Canute had not sent messengers hither with any messages that could be of advantage to him or his people; and it was some days before the ambassadors could come before the king. But when they got permission to speak to him they appeared before the king, and made known King Canute's letter, and their errand which accompanied it; namely, "that King Canute considers all Norway as his property, and insists that his forefathers before him have possessed that kingdom; but as King Canute offers peace to all countries, he will also offer peace to all here, if it can be so settled, and will not invade Norway with his army if it can be avoided. Now if King Olaf Haraldson wishes to remain king of Norway, he will come to King Canute, and receive his kingdom as a fief from him, become his vassal, and pay the scat which the earls before him formerly paid." Thereupon they presented their letters, which contained precisely the same conditions. Then King Olaf replies, "I have heard say, by old stories, that the Danish king Gorm was considered but a small king of a few people, for he ruled over Denmark alone; but the kings who succeeded him thought that was too little. It has since come so far that King Canute rules over Denmark and England, and has conquered for himself a great part of Scotland. Now he claims also my paternal heritage, and will then show some moderation in his covetousness. Does he wish to rule over all the countries of the North? Will he eat up all the kail in England? He shall do so, and reduce that country to a desert, before I lay my head in his hands, or show him any other kind of vassalage. Now ye shall tell him these my words,--I will defend Norway with battle-axe and sword as long as life is given me, and will pay scat to no man for my kingdom." After this answer King Canute's ambassadors made themselves ready for their journey home, and were by no means rejoiced at the success of their errand. Sigvat the skald had been with King Canute, who had given him a gold ring that weighed half a mark. The skald Berse Skaldtorfason was also there, and to him King Canute gave two gold rings, each weighing two marks, and besides a sword inlaid with gold. Sigvat made this song about it:-- "When we came o'er the wave, you cub, When we came o'er the wave, To me one ring, to thee two rings, The mighty Canute gave: One mark to me, Four marks to thee,-- A sword too, fine and brave. Now God knows well, And skalds can tell, What justice here would crave." Sigvat the skald was very intimate with King Canute's messengers, and asked them many questions. They answered all his inquiries about their conversation with King Olaf, and the result of their message. They said the king listened unwillingly to their proposals. "And we do not know," say they, "to what he is trusting when he refuses becoming King Canute's vassal, and going to him, which would be the best thing he could do; for King Canute is so mild that however much a chief may have done against him, he is pardoned if he only show himself obedient. It is but lately that two kings came to him from the North, from Fife in Scotland, and he gave up his wrath against them, and allowed them to retain all the lands they had possessed before, and gave them besides very valuable gifts." Then Sigvat sang:-- "From the North land, the midst of Fife, Two kings came begging peace and life; Craving from Canute life and peace,-- May Olaf's good luck never cease! May he, our gallant Norse king, never Be brought, like these, his head to offer As ransom to a living man For the broad lands his sword has won." King Canute's ambassadors proceeded on their way back, and had a favourable breeze across the sea. They came to King Canute, and told him the result of their errand, and King Olaf's last words. King Canute replies, "King Olaf guesses wrong, if he thinks I shall eat up all the kail in England; for I will let him see that there is something else than kail under my ribs, and cold kail it shall be for him." The same summer (A.D. 1025) Aslak and Skjalg, the sons of Erling of Jadar, came from Norway to King Canute, and were well received; for Aslak was married to Sigrid, a daughter of Earl Svein Hakonson, and she and Earl Hakon Eirikson were brothers' children. King Canute gave these brothers great fiefs over there, and they stood in great favour. 141. KING OLAF'S ALLIANCE WITH ONUND THE KING OF SVITHJOD. King Olaf summoned to him all the lendermen, and had a great many people about him this summer (A.D. 1025), for a report was abroad that King Canute would come from England. People had heard from merchant vessels that Canute was assembling a great army in England. When summer was advanced, some affirmed and others denied that the army would come. King Olaf was all summer in Viken, and had spies out to learn if Canute was come to Denmark. In autumn (A.D. 1025) he sent messengers eastward to Svithjod to his brother-in-law King Onund, and let him know King Canute's demand upon Norway; adding, that, in his opinion, if Canute subdued Norway, King Onund would not long enjoy the Swedish dominions in peace. He thought it advisable, therefore, that they should unite for their defence. "And then," said he, "we will have strength enough to hold out against Canute." King Onund received King Olaf's message favourably, and replied to it, that he for his part would make common cause with King Olaf, so that each of them should stand by the one who first required help with all the strength of his kingdom. In these messages between them it was also determined that they should have a meeting, and consult with each other. The following winter (A.D. 1026) King Onund intended to travel across West Gautland, and King Olaf made preparations for taking his winter abode at Sarpsborg. 142. KING CANUTE'S AMBASSADORS TO ONUND OF SVITHJOD. In autumn King Canute the Great came to Denmark, and remained there all winter (A.D. 1026) with a numerous army. It was told him that ambassadors with messages had been passing between the Swedish and Norwegian kings, and that some great plans must be concerting between them. In winter King Canute sent messengers to Svithjod, to King Onund, with great gifts and messages of friendship. He also told Onund that he might sit altogether quiet in this strife between him and Olaf the Thick; "for thou, Onund," says he, "and thy kingdom, shall be in peace as far as I am concerned." When the ambassadors came to King Onund they presented the gifts which King Canute sent him, together with the friendly message. King Onund did not hear their speech very willingly, and the ambassadors could observe that King Onund was most inclined to a friendship with King Olaf. They returned accordingly, and told King Canute the result of their errand, and told him not to depend much upon the friendship of King Onund. 143. THE EXPEDITION TO BJARMALAND. This winter (A.D. 1026) King Olaf sat in Sarpsborg, and was surrounded by a very great army of people. He sent the Halogalander Karle to the north country upon his business. Karle went first to the Uplands, then across the Dovrefield, and came down to Nidaros, where he received as much money as he had the king's order for, together with a good ship, such as he thought suitable for the voyage which the king had ordered him upon; and that was to proceed north to Bjarmaland. It was settled that the king should be in partnership with Karle, and each of them have the half of the profit. Early in spring Karle directed his course to Halogaland, where his brother Gunstein prepared to accompany him, having his own merchant goods with him. There were about twenty-five men in the ship; and in spring they sailed north to Finmark. When Thorer Hund heard this, he sent a man to the brothers with the verbal message that he intended in summer to go to Bjarmaland, and that he would sail with them, and that they should divide what booty they made equally between them. Karle sent him back the message that Thorer must have twenty-five men as they had, and they were willing to divide the booty that might be taken equally, but not the merchant goods which each had for himself. When Thorer's messenger came back he had put a stout long-ship he owned into the water, and rigged it, and he had put eighty men on board of his house-servants. Thorer alone had the command over this crew, and he alone had all the goods they might acquire on the cruise. When Thorer was ready for sea he set out northwards along the coast, and found Karle a little north of Sandver. They then proceeded with good wind. Gunstein said to his brother, as soon as they met Thorer, that in his opinion Thorer was strongly manned. "I think," said he, "we had better turn back than sail so entirely in Thorer's power, for I do not trust him." Karle replies, "I will not turn back, although if I had known when we were at home on Langey Isle that Thorer Hund would join us on this voyage with so large a crew as he has, I would have taken more hands with us." The brothers spoke about it to Thorer, and asked what was the meaning of his taking more people with him than was agreed upon between them. He replies, "We have a large ship which requires many hands, and methinks there cannot be too many brave lads for so dangerous a cruise." They went in summer as fast in general as the vessels could go. When the wind was light the ship of the brothers sailed fastest, and they separated; but when the wind freshened Thorer overtook them. They were seldom together, but always in sight of each other. When they came to Bjarmaland they went straight to the merchant town, and the market began. All who had money to pay with got filled up with goods. Thorer also got a number of furs, and of beaver and sable skins. Karle had a considerable sum of money with him, with which he purchased skins and furs. When the fair was at an end they went out of the Vina river, and then the truce of the country people was also at an end. When they came out of the river they held a seaman's council, and Thorer asked the crews if they would like to go on the land and get booty. They replied, that they would like it well enough, if they saw the booty before their eyes. Thorer replies, that there was booty to be got, if the voyage proved fortunate; but that in all probability there would be danger in the attempt. All said they would try, if there was any chance of booty. Thorer explained, that it was so established in this land, that when a rich man died all his movable goods were divided between the dead man and his heirs. He got the half part, or the third part, or sometimes less, and that part was carried out into the forest and buried,--sometimes under a mound, sometimes in the earth, and sometimes even a house was built over it. He tells them at the same time to get ready for this expedition at the fall of day. It was resolved that one should not desert the other, and none should hold back when the commander ordered them to come on board again. They now left people behind to take care of the ships, and went on land, where they found flat fields at first, and then great forests. Thorer went first, and the brothers Karle and Gunstein in rear. Thorer commanded the people to observe the utmost silence. "And let us peel the bark off the trees," says he, "so that one tree-mark can be seen from the other." They came to a large cleared opening, where there was a high fence upon which there was a gate that was locked. Six men of the country people held watch every night at this fence, two at a time keeping guard, each two for a third part of the night, when Thorer and his men came to the fence the guard had gone home, and those who should relieve them had not yet come upon guard. Thorer went to the fence, stuck his axe up in it above his head, hauled himself up by it, and so came over the fence, and inside the gate. Karle had also come over the fence, and to the inside of the gate; so that both came at once to the port, took the bar away, and opened the port; and then the people got in within the fence. Then said Thorer, "Within this fence there is a mound in which gold, and silver, and earth are all mixed together: seize that. But within here stands the Bjarmaland people's god Jomala: let no one be so presumptuous as to rob him." Thereupon they went to the mound and took as much of the money as they could carry away in their clothes, with which, as might be expected, much earth was mixed. Thereafter Thorer said that the people now should retreat. "And ye brothers, Karle and Gunstein," says he, "do ye lead the way, and I will go last." They all went accordingly out of the gate: but Thorer went back to Jomala, and took a silver bowl that stood upon his knee full of silver money. He put the silver in his purse, and put his arm within the handle of the bowl, and so went out of the gate. The whole troop had come without the fence; but when they perceived that Thorer had stayed behind, Karle returned to trace him, and when they met upon the path Thorer had the silver bowl with him. Thereupon Karle immediately ran to Jomala; and observing he had a thick gold ornament hanging around his neck, he lifted his axe, cut the string with which the ornament was tied behind his neck, and the stroke was so strong that the head of Jomala rang with such a great sound that they were all astonished. Karle seized the ornament, and they all hastened away. But the moment the sound was made the watchmen came forward upon the cleared space, and blew their horns. Immediately the sound of the loor (1) was heard all around from every quarter, calling the people together. They hastened to the forest, and rushed into it; and heard the shouts and cries on the other side of the Bjarmaland people in pursuit. Thorer Hund went the last of the whole troop; and before him went two men carrying a great sack between them, in which was something that was like ashes. Thorer took this in his hand, and strewed it upon the footpath, and sometimes over the people. They came thus out of the woods, and upon the fields, but heard incessantly the Bjarmaland people pursuing with shouts and dreadful yells. The army of the Bjarmaland people rushed out after them upon the field, and on both sides of them; but neither the people nor their weapons came so near as to do them any harm: from which they perceived that the Bjarmaland people did not see them. Now when they reached their ships Karle and his brother went on board; for they were the foremost, and Thorer was far behind on the land. As soon as Karle and his men were on board they struck their tents, cast loose their land ropes, hoisted their sails, and their ship in all haste went to sea. Thorer and his people, on the other hand, did not get on so quickly, as their vessel was heavier to manage; so that when they got under sail, Karle and his people were far off from land. Both vessels sailed across the White sea (Gandvik). The nights were clear, so that both ships sailed night and day; until one day, towards the time the day turns to shorten, Karle and his people took up the land near an island, let down the sail, cast anchor, and waited until the slack-tide set in, for there was a strong rost before them. Now Thorer came up, and lay at anchor there also. Thorer and his people then put out a boat, went into it, and rowed to Karle's ship. Thorer came on board, and the brothers saluted him. Thorer told Karle to give him the ornament. "I think," said he, "that I have best earned the ornaments that have been taken, for methinks ye have to thank me for getting away without any loss of men; and also I think thou, Karle, set us in the greatest fright." Karle replies, "King Olaf has the half part of all the goods I gather on this voyage, and I intend the ornament for him. Go to him, if you like, and it is possible he will give thee the ornament, although I took it from Jomala." Then Thorer insisted that they should go upon the island, and divide the booty. Gunstein says, "It is now the turn of the tide, and it is time to sail." Whereupon they began to raise their anchor. When Thorer saw that, he returned to his boat and rowed to his own ship. Karle and his men had hoisted sail, and were come a long way before Thorer got under way. They now sailed so that the brothers were always in advance, and both vessels made all the haste they could. They sailed thus until they came to Geirsver, which is the first roadstead of the traders to the North. They both came there towards evening, and lay in the harbour near the landing-place. Thorer's ship lay inside, and the brothers' the outside vessel in the port. When Thorer had set up his tents he went on shore, and many of his men with him. They went to Karle's ship, which was well provided. Thorer hailed the ship, and told the commanders to come on shore; on which the brothers, and some men with them, went on the land. Now Thorer began the same discourse, and told them to bring the goods they got in booty to the land to have them divided. The brothers thought that was not necessary, until they had arrived at their own neighbourhood. Thorer said it was unusual not to divide booty but at their own home, and thus to be left to the honour of other people. They spoke some words about it, but could not agree. Then Thorer turned away; but had not gone far before he came back, and tells his comrades to wait there. Thereupon he calls to Karle, and says he wants to speak with him alone. Karle went to meet him; and when he came near, Thorer struck at him with a spear, so that it went through him. "There," said Thorer, "now thou hast learnt to know a Bjarkey Island man. I thought thou shouldst feel Asbjorn's spear." Karle died instantly, and Thorer with his people went immediately on board their ship. When Gunstein and his men saw Karle fall they ran instantly to him, took his body and carried it on board their ship, struck their tents, and cast off from the pier, and left the land. When Thorer and his men saw this, they took down their tents and made preparations to follow. But as they were hoisting the sail the fastenings to the mast broke in two, and the sail fell down across the ship, which caused a great delay before they could hoist the sail again. Gunstein had already got a long way ahead before Thorer's ship fetched way, and now they used both sails and oars. Gunstein did the same. On both sides they made great way day and night; but so that they did not gain much on each other, although when they came to the small sounds among the islands Gunstein's vessel was lighter in turning. But Thorer's ship made way upon them, so that when they came up to Lengjuvik, Gunstein turned towards the land, and with all his men ran up into the country, and left his ship. A little after Thorer came there with his ship, sprang upon the land after them, and pursued them. There was a woman who helped Gunstein to conceal himself, and it is told that she was much acquainted with witchcraft. Thorer and his men returned to the vessels, and took all the goods out of Gunstein's vessel, and put on board stones in place of the cargo, and then hauled the ship out into the fjord, cut a hole in its bottom, and sank it to the bottom. Thereafter Thorer, with his people, returned home to Bjarkey Isle. Gunstein and his people proceeded in small boats at first, and lay concealed by day, until they had passed Bjarkey, and had got beyond Thorer's district. Gunstein went home first to Langey Isle for a short time, and then proceeded south without any halt, until he came south to Throndhjem, and there found King Olaf, to whom he told all that had happened on this Bjarmaland expedition. The king was ill-pleased with the voyage, but told Gunstein to remain with him, promising to assist him when opportunity offered. Gunstein took the invitation with thanks, and stayed with King Olaf. ENDNOTES: (1) Ludr--the loor--is a long tube or roll of birch-bark used as a horn by the herdboys in the mountains in Norway. --L. 144. MEETING OF KING OLAF AND KING ONUND. King Olaf was, as before related, in Sarpsborg the winter (A.D. 1026) that King Canute was in Denmark. The Swedish king Onund rode across West Gautland the same winter, and had thirty hundred (3600) men with him. Men and messages passed between them; and they agreed to meet in spring at Konungahella. The meeting had been postponed, because they wished to know before they met what King Canute intended doing. As it was now approaching towards winter, King Canute made ready to go over to England with his forces, and left his son Hardaknut to rule in Denmark, and with him Earl Ulf, a son of Thorgils Sprakaleg. Ulf was married to Astrid, King Svein's daughter, and sister of Canute the Great. Their son Svein was afterwards king of Denmark. Earl Ulf was a very distinguished man. When the kings Olaf and Onund heard that Canute the Great had gone west to England, they hastened to hold their conference, and met at Konungahella, on the Gaut river. They had a joyful meeting, and had many friendly conversations, of which something might become known to the public; but they also spake often a great deal between themselves, with none but themselves two present, of which only some things afterwards were carried into effect, and thus became known to every one. At parting the kings presented each other with gifts, and parted the best of friends. King Onund went up into Gautland, and Olaf northwards to Viken, and afterwards to Agder, and thence northwards along the coast, but lay a long time at Egersund waiting a wind. Here he heard that Erling Skjalgson, and the inhabitants of Jadar with him, had assembled a large force. One day the king's people were talking among themselves whether the wind was south or south-west, and whether with that wind they could sail past Jadar or not. The most said it was impossible to fetch round. Then answers Haldor Brynjolfson, "I am of opinion that we would go round Jadar with this wind fast enough if Erling Skjalgson had prepared a feast for us at Sole." Then King Olaf ordered the tents to be struck, and the vessels to be hauled out, which was done. They sailed the same day past Jadar with the best wind, and in the evening reached Hirtingsey, from whence the king proceeded to Hordaland, and was entertained there in guest-quarters. 145. THORALF'S MURDER. The same summer (A.D. 1026) a ship sailed from Norway to the Farey Islands, with messengers carrying a verbal message from King Olaf, that one of his court-men, Leif Ossurson, or Lagman Gille, or Thoralf of Dimun, should come over to him from the Farey Islands. Now when this message came to the Farey Islands, and was delivered to those whom it concerned, they held a meeting among themselves, to consider what might lie under this message, and they were all of opinion that the king wanted to inquire into the real state of the event which some said had taken place upon the islands; namely, the failure and disappearance of the former messengers of the king, and the loss of the two ships, of which not a man had been saved. It was resolved that Thoralf should undertake the journey. He got himself ready, and rigged out a merchant-vessel belonging to himself, manned with ten or twelve men. When it was ready, waiting a wind, it happened, at Austrey, in the house of Thrand of Gata, that he went one fine day into the room where his brother's two sons, Sigurd and Thord, sons of Thorlak, were lying upon the benches in the room. Gaut the Red was also there, who was one of their relations and a man of distinction. Sigurd was the oldest, and their leader in all things. Thord had a distinguished name, and was called Thord the Low, although in reality he was uncommonly tall, and yet in proportion more strong than large. Then Thrand said, "How many things are changed in the course of a man's life! When we were young, it was rare for young people who were able to do anything to sit or lie still upon a fine day, and our forefathers would scarcely have believed that Thoralf of Dimun would be bolder and more active than ye are. I believe the vessel I have standing here in the boat-house will be so old that it will rot under its coat of tar. Here are all the houses full of wool, which is neither used nor sold. It should not be so if I were a few winters younger." Sigurd sprang up, called upon Gaut and Thord, and said he would not endure Thrand's scoffs. They went out to the houseservants, and launched the vessel upon the water, brought down a cargo, and loaded the ship. They had no want of a cargo at home, and the vessel's rigging was in good order, so that in a few days they were ready for sea. There were ten or twelve men in the vessel. Thoralf's ship and theirs had the same wind, and they were generally in sight of each other. They came to the land at Herna in the evening, and Sigurd with his vessel lay outside on the strand, but so that there was not much distance between the two ships. It happened towards evening, when it was dark, that just as Thoralf and his people were preparing to go to bed, Thoralf and another went on shore for a certain purpose. When they were ready, they prepared to return on board. The man who had accompanied Thoralf related afterwards this story,--that a cloth was thrown over his head, and that he was lifted up from the ground, and he heard a great bustle. He was taken away, and thrown head foremost down; but there was sea under him, and he sank under the water. When he got to land, he went to the place where he and Thoralf had been parted, and there he found Thoralf with his head cloven down to his shoulders, and dead. When the ship's people heard of it they carried the body out to the ship, and let it remain there all night. King Olaf was at that time in guest-quarters at Lygra, and thither they sent a message. Now a Thing was called by message-token, and the king came to the Thing. He had also ordered the Farey people of both vessels to be summoned, and they appeared at the Thing. Now when the Thing was seated, the king stood up and said, "Here an event has happened which (and it is well that it is so) is very seldom heard of. Here has a good man been put to death, without any cause. Is there any man upon the Thing who can say who has done it?" Nobody could answer. "Then," said the king, "I cannot conceal my suspicion that this deed has been done by the Farey people themselves. It appears to me that it has been done in this way,--that Sigurd Thorlakson has killed the man, and Thord the Low has cast his comrade into the sea. I think, too, that the motives to this must have been to hinder Thoralf from telling about the misdeed of which he had information; namely, the murder which I suspect was committed upon my messengers." When he had ended his speech, Sigurd Thorlakson stood up, and desired to be heard. "I have never before," said he, "spoken at a Thing, and I do not expect to be looked upon as a man of ready words. But I think there is sufficient necessity before me to reply something to this. I will venture to make a guess that the speech the king has made comes from some man's tongue who is of far less understanding and goodness than he is, and has evidently proceeded from those who are our enemies. It is speaking improbabilities to say that I could be Thoralf's murderer; for he was my foster-brother and good friend. Had the case been otherwise, and had there been anything outstanding between me and Thoralf, yet I am surely born with sufficient understanding to have done this deed in the Farey Islands, rather than here between your hands, sire. But I am ready to clear myself, and my whole ship's crew, of this act, and to make oath according to what stands in your laws. Or, if ye find it more satisfactory, I offer to clear myself by the ordeal of hot iron; and I wish, sire, that you may be present yourself at the proof." When Sigurd had ceased to speak there were many who supported his case, and begged the king that Sigurd might be allowed to clear himself of this accusation. They thought that Sigurd had spoken well, and that the accusation against him might be untrue. The king replies, "It may be with regard to this man very differently, and if he is belied in any respect he must be a good man; and if not, he is the boldest I have ever met with: and I believe this is the case, and that he will bear witness to it himself." At the desire of the people, the king took Sigurd's obligation to take the iron ordeal; he should come the following day to Lygra, where the bishop should preside at the ordeal; and so the Thing closed. The king went back to Lygra, and Sigurd and his comrades to their ship. As soon as it began to be dark at night Sigurd said to his ship's people. "To say the truth, we have come into a great misfortune; for a great lie is got up against us, and this king is a deceitful, crafty man. Our fate is easy to be foreseen where he rules; for first he made Thoralf be slain, and then made us the misdoers, without benefit of redemption by fine. For him it is an easy matter to manage the iron ordeal, so that I fear he will come ill off who tries it against him. Now there is coming a brisk mountain breeze, blowing right out of the sound and off the land; and it is my advice that we hoist our sail, and set out to sea. Let Thrand himself come with his wool to market another summer; but if I get away, it is my opinion I shall never think of coming to Norway again." His comrades thought the advice good, hoisted their sail, and in the night-time took to the open sea with all speed. They did not stop until they came to Farey, and home to Gata. Thrand was ill-pleased with their voyage, and they did not answer him in a very friendly way; but they remained at home, however, with Thrand. The morning after, King Olaf heard of Sigurd's departure, and heavy reports went round about this case; and there were many who believed that the accusation against Sigurd was true, although they had denied and opposed it before the king. King Olaf spoke but little about the matter, but seemed to know of a certainty that the suspicion he had taken up was founded in truth. The king afterwards proceeded in his progress, taking up his abode where it was provided for him. 146. OF THE ICELANDERS. King Olaf called before him the men who had come from Iceland, Thorod Snorrason, Geller Thorkelson, Stein Skaptason, and Egil Halson, and spoke to them thus:--"Ye have spoken to me much in summer about making yourselves ready to return to Iceland, and I have never given you a distinct answer. Now I will tell you what my intention is. Thee, Geller, I propose to allow to return, if thou wilt carry my message there; but none of the other Icelanders who are now here may go to Iceland before I have heard how the message which thou, Geller, shalt bring thither has been received." When the king had made this resolution known, it appeared to those who had a great desire to return, and were thus forbidden, that they were unreasonably and hardly dealt with, and that they were placed in the condition of unfree men. In the meantime Geller got ready for his journey, and sailed in summer (A.D. 1026) to Iceland, taking with him the message he was to bring before the Thing the following summer (A.D. 1027). The king's message was, that he required the Icelanders to adopt the laws which he had set in Norway, also to pay him thane-tax and nose-tax (1); namely, a penny for every nose, and the penny at the rate of ten pennies to the yard of wadmal (2). At the same time he promised them his friendship if they accepted, and threatened them with all his vengeance if they refused his proposals. The people sat long in deliberation on this business; but at last they were unanimous in refusing all the taxes and burdens which were demanded of them. That summer Geller returned back from Iceland to Norway to King Olaf, and found him in autumn in the east in Viken, just as he had come from Gautland; of which I shall speak hereafter in this story of King Olaf. Towards the end of autumn King Olaf repaired north to Throndhjem, and went with his people to Nidaros, where he ordered a winter residence to be prepared for him. The winter (A.D. 1027) that he passed here in the merchant-town of Nidaros was the thirteenth year of his reign. ENDNOTES: (1) Nefgildi (nef=nose), a nose-tax or poll-tax payable to the king. This ancient "nose-tax" was also imposed by the Norsemen on conquered countries, the penalty for defaulters being the loss of their nose. (2) Wadmal was the coarse woollen cloth made in Iceland, and so generally used for clothing that it was a measure of value in the North, like money, for other commodities.--L. 147. OF THE JAMTALAND PEOPLE. There was once a man called Ketil Jamte, a son of Earl Onund of Sparby, in the Throndhjem district. He fled over the ridge of mountains from Eystein Illrade, cleared the forest, and settled the country now called the province of Jamtaland. A great many people joined him from the Throndhjem land, on account of the disturbances there; for this King Eystein had laid taxes on the Throndhjem people, and set his dog, called Saur, to be king over them. Thorer Helsing was Ketil's grandson, and he colonised the province called Helsingjaland, which is named after him. When Harald Harfager subdued the kingdom by force, many people fled out of the country from him, both Throndhjem people and Naumudal people, and thus new settlements were added to Jamtaland; and some settlers went even eastwards to Helsingjaland and down to the Baltic coast, and all became subjects of the Swedish king. While Hakon Athelstan's foster-son was over Norway there was peace, and merchant traffic from Throndhjem to Jamtaland; and, as he was an excellent king, the Jamtalanders came from the east to him, paid him scat, and he gave them laws and administered justice. They would rather submit to his government than to the Swedish king's, because they were of Norwegian race; and all the Helsingjaland people, who had their descent from the north side of the mountain ridge, did the same. This continued long after those times, until Olaf the Thick and the Swedish king Olaf quarrelled about the boundaries. Then the Jamtaland and Helsingjaland people went back to the Swedish king; and then the forest of Eid was the eastern boundary of the land, and the mountain ridge, or keel of the country, the northern: and the Swedish king took scat of Helsingjaland, and also of Jamtaland. Now, thought the king of Norway, Olaf, in consequence of the agreement between him and the Swedish king, the scat of Jamtaland should be paid differently than before; although it had long been established that the Jamtaland people paid their scat to the Swedish king, and that he appointed officers over the country. The Swedes would listen to nothing, but that all the land to the east of the keel of the country belonged to the Swedish king. Now this went so, as it often happens, that although the kings were brothers-in-law and relations, each would hold fast the dominions which he thought he had a right to. King Olaf had sent a message round in Jamtaland, declaring it to be his will that the Jamtaland people should be subject to him, threatening them with violence if they refused; but the Jamtaland people preferred being subjects of the Swedish king. 148. STEIN'S STORY. The Icelanders, Thorod Snorrason and Stein Skaptason, were ill-pleased at not being allowed to do as they liked. Stein was a remarkably handsome man, dexterous at all feats, a great poet, splendid in his apparel, and very ambitious of distinction. His father, Skapte, had composed a poem on King Olaf, which he had taught Stein, with the intention that he should bring it to King Olaf. Stein could not now restrain himself from making the king reproaches in word and speech, both in verse and prose. Both he and Thorod were imprudent in their conversation, and said the king would be looked upon as a worse man than those who, under faith and law, had sent their sons to him, as he now treated them as men without liberty. The king was angry at this. One day Stein stood before the king, and asked if he would listen to the poem which his father Skapte had composed about him. The king replies, "Thou must first repeat that, Stein, which thou hast composed about me." Stein replies, that it was not the case that he had composed any. "I am no skald, sire," said he; "and if I even could compose anything, it, and all that concerns me, would appear to thee of little value." Stein then went out, but thought he perceived what the king alluded to. Thorgeir, one of the king's land-bailiffs, who managed one of his farms in Orkadal, happened to be present, and heard the conversation of the king and Stein, and soon afterwards Thorgeir returned home. One night Stein left the city, and his footboy with him. They went up Gaularas and into Orkadal. One evening they came to one of the king's farms which Thorgeir had the management of, and Thorgeir invited Stein to pass the night there, and asked where he was travelling to. Stein begged the loan of a horse and sledge, for he saw they were just driving home corn. Thorgeir replies, "I do not exactly see how it stands with thy journey, and if thou art travelling with the king's leave. The other day, methinks, the words were not very sweet that passed between the king and thee." Stein said, "If it be so that I am not my own master for the king, yet I will not submit to such treatment from his slaves;" and, drawing his sword, he killed the landbailiff. Then he took the horse, put the boy upon him, and sat himself in the sledge, and so drove the whole night. They travelled until they came to Surnadal in More. There they had themselves ferried across the fjord, and proceeded onwards as fast as they could. They told nobody about the murder, but wherever they came called themselves king's men, and met good entertainment everywhere. One day at last they came towards evening to Giske Isle, to Thorberg Arnason's house. He was not at home himself, but his wife Ragnhild, a daughter of Erling Skjalgson, was. There Stein was well received, because formerly there had been great friendship between them. It had once happened, namely, that Stein, on his voyage from Iceland with his own vessel, had come to Giske from sea, and had anchored at the island. At that time Ragnhild was in the pains of childbirth, and very ill, and there was no priest on the island, or in the neighbourhood of it. There came a message to the merchant-vessel to inquire if, by chance, there was a priest on board. There happened to be a priest in the vessel, who was called Bard; but he was a young man from Westfjord, who had little learning. The messengers begged the priest to go with them, but he thought it was a difficult matter: for he knew his own ignorance, and would not go. Stein added his word to persuade the priest. The priest replies, "I will go if thou wilt go with me; for then I will have confidence, if I should require advice." Stein said he was willing; and they went forthwith to the house, and to where Ragnhild was in labour. Soon after she brought forth a female child, which appeared to be rather weak. Then the priest baptized the infant, and Stein held it at the baptism, at which it got the name of Thora; and Stein gave it a gold ring. Ragnhild promised Stein her perfect friendship, and bade him come to her whenever he thought he required her help. Stein replied that he would hold no other female child at baptism, and then they parted. Now it was come to the time when Stein required this kind promise of Ragnhild to be fulfilled, and he told her what had happened, and that the king's wrath had fallen upon him. She answered, that all the aid she could give should stand at his service; but bade him wait for Thorberg's arrival. She then showed him to a seat beside her son Eystein Orre, who was then twelve years old. Stein presented gifts to Ragnhild and Eystein. Thorberg had already heard how Stein had conducted himself before he got home, and was rather vexed at it. Ragnhild went to him, and told him how matters stood with Stein, and begged Thorberg to receive him, and take care of him. Thorberg replies, "I have heard that the king, after sending out a message-token, held a Thing concerning the murder of Thorgeir, and has condemned Stein as having fled the country, and likewise that the king is highly incensed: and I have too much sense to take the cause of a foreigner in hand, and draw upon myself the king's wrath. Let Stein, therefore, withdraw from hence as quickly as thou canst." Ragnhild replied, that they should either both go or both stay. Thorberg told her to go where she pleased. "For I expect," said he, "that wherever thou goest thou wilt soon come back, for here is thy importance greatest." Her son Eystein Orre then stood forward, and said he would not stay behind if Ragnhild goes. Thorberg said that they showed themselves very stiff and obstinate in this matter. "And it appears that ye must have your way in it, since ye take it so near to heart; but thou art reckoning too much, Ragnhild, upon thy descent, in paying so little regard to King Olaf's word." Ragnhild replied, "If thou art so much afraid to keep Stein with thee here, go with him to my father Erling, or give him attendants, so that he may get there in safety." Thorberg said he would not send Stein there; "for there are enough of things besides to enrage the king against Erling." Stein thus remained there all winter (A.D. 1027). After Yule a king's messenger came to Thorberg, with the order that Thorberg should come to him before midsummer; and the order was serious and severe. Thorberg laid it before his friends, and asked their advice if he should venture to go to the king after what had taken place. The greater number dissuaded him, and thought it more advisable to let Stein slip out of his hands than to venture within the king's power: but Thorberg himself had rather more inclination not to decline the journey. Soon after Thorberg went to his brother Fin, told him the circumstances, and asked him to accompany him. Fin replied, that he thought it foolish to be so completely under woman's influence that he dared not, on account of his wife, keep the fealty and law of his sovereign. "Thou art free," replied Thorberg, "to go with me or not; but I believe it is more fear of the king than love to him that keeps thee back." And so they parted in anger. Then Thorberg went to his brother Arne Arnason, and asked him to go with him to the king. Arne says, "It appears to me wonderful that such a sensible, prudent man, should fall into such a misfortune, without necessity, as to incur the king's indignation. It might be excused if it were thy relation or foster-brother whom thou hadst thus sheltered; but not at all that thou shouldst take up an Iceland man, and harbour the king's outlaw, to the injury of thyself and all thy relations." Thorberg replies, "It stands good, according to the proverb,--a rotten branch will be found in every tree. My father's greatest misfortune evidently was that he had such ill luck in producing sons that at last he produced one incapable of acting, and without any resemblance to our race, and whom in truth I never would have called brother, if it were not that it would have been to my mother's shame to have refused." Thorberg turned away in a gloomy temper, and went home. Thereafter he sent a message to his brother Kalf in the Throndhjem district, and begged him to meet him at Agdanes; and when the messengers found Kalf he promised, without more ado, to make the journey. Ragnhild sent men east to Jadar to her father Erling, and begged him to send people. Erling's sons, Sigurd and Thord, came out, each with a ship of twenty benches of rowers and ninety men. When they came north Thorberg received them joyfully, entertained them well, and prepared for the voyage with them. Thorberg had also a vessel with twenty benches, and they steered their course northwards. When they came to the mouth of the Throndhjem fjord Thorberg's two brothers, Fin and Arne, were there already, with two ships each of twenty benches. Thorberg met his brothers with joy, and observed that his whetstone had taken effect; and Fin replied he seldom needed sharpening for such work. Then they proceeded north with all their forces to Throndhjem, and Stein was along with them. When they came to Agdanes, Kaff Arnason was there before them; and he also had a wellmanned ship of twenty benches. With this war-force they sailed up to Nidaros, where they lay all night. The morning after they had a consultation with each other. Kalf and Erling's sons were for attacking the town with all their forces, and leaving the event to fate; but Thorberg wished that they should first proceed with moderation, and make an offer; in which opinion Fin and Arne also concurred. It was accordingly resolved that Fin and Arne, with a few men, should first wait upon the king. The king had previously heard that they had come so strong in men, and was therefore very sharp in his speech. Fin offered to pay mulct for Thorberg, and also for Stein, and bade the king to fix what the penalties should be, however large; stipulating only for Thorberg safety and his fiefs, and for Stein life and limb. The king replies, "It appears to me that ye come from home so equipped that ye can determine half as much as I can myself, or more; but this I expected least of all from you brothers, that ye should come against me with an army; and this counsel, I can observe, has its origin from the people of Jadar; but ye have no occasion to offer me money in mulct." Fin replies, "We brothers have collected men, not to offer hostility to you, sire, but to offer rather our services; but if you will bear down Thorberg altogether, we must all go to King Canute the Great with such forces as we have." Then the king looked at him, and said, "If ye brothers will give your oaths that ye will follow me in the country and out of the country, and not part from me without my leave and permission, and shall not conceal from me any treasonable design that may come to your knowledge against me, then will I agree to a peace with you brothers." Then Fin returned to his forces, and told the conditions which the king had proposed to them. Now they held a council upon it, and Thorberg, for his part, said he would accept the terms offered. "I have no wish," says he, "to fly from my property, and seek foreign masters; but, on the contrary, will always consider it an honour to follow King Olaf, and be where he is." Then says Kalf, "I will make no oath to King Olaf, but will be with him always, so long as I retain my fiefs and dignities, and so long as the king will be my friend; and my opinion is that we should all do the same." Fin says, "we will venture to let King Olaf himself determine in this matter." Arne Arnason says, "I was resolved to follow thee, brother Thorberg, even if thou hadst given battle to King Olaf, and I shall certainly not leave thee for listening to better counsel; so I intend to follow thee and Fin, and accept the conditions ye have taken." Thereupon the brothers Thorberg, Fin, and Arne, went on board a vessel, rowed into the fjord, and waited upon the king. The agreement went accordingly into fulfillment, so that the brothers gave their oaths to the king. Then Thorberg endeavored to make peace for Stein with the king; but the king replied that Stein might for him depart in safety, and go where he pleased, but "in my house he can never be again." Then Thorberg and his brothers went back to their men. Kalf went to Eggja, and Fin to the king; and Thorberg, with the other men, went south to their homes. Stein went with Erling's sons; but early in the spring (A.D. 1027) he went west to England into the service of Canute the Great, and was long with him, and was treated with great distinction. 149. FIN ARNASON'S EXPEDITION TO HALOGALAND. Now when Fin Arnason had been a short time with King Olaf, the king called him to a conference, along with some other persons he usually held consultation with; and in this conference the king spoke to this effect:--"The decision remains fixed in my mind that in spring I should raise the whole country to a levy both of men and ships, and then proceed, with all the force I can muster, against King Canute the Great: for I know for certain that he does not intend to treat as a jest the claim he has awakened upon my kingdom. Now I let thee know my will, Fin Arnason, that thou proceed on my errand to Halogaland, and raise the people there to an expedition, men and ships, and summon that force to meet me at Agdanes." Then the king named other men whom he sent to Throndhjem, and some southwards in the country, and he commanded that this order should be circulated through the whole land. Of Fin's voyage we have to relate that he had with him a ship with about thirty men, and when he was ready for sea he prosecuted his journey until he came to Halogaland. There he summoned the bondes to a Thing, laid before them his errand, and craved a levy. The bondes in that district had large vessels, suited to a levy expedition, and they obeyed the king's message, and rigged their ships. Now when Fin came farther north in Halogaland he held a Thing again, and sent some of his men from him to crave a levy where he thought it necessary. He sent also men to Bjarkey Island to Thorer Hund, and there, as elsewhere, craved the quota to the levy. When the message came to Thorer he made himself ready, and manned with his house-servants the same vessel he had sailed with on his cruise to Bjarmaland, and which he equipped at his own expense. Fin summoned all the people of Halogaland who were to the north to meet at Vagar. There came a great fleet together in spring, and they waited there until Fin returned from the North. Thorer Hund had also come there. When Fin arrived he ordered the signal to sound for all the people of the levy to attend a House-Thing; and at it all the men produced their weapons, and also the fighting men from each ship-district were mustered. When that was all finished Fin said, "I have also to bring thee a salutation, Thorer Hund, from King Olaf, and to ask thee what thou wilt offer him for the murder of his court-man Karle, or for the robbery in taking the king's goods north in Lengjuvik. I have the king's orders to settle that business, and I wait thy answer to it." Thorer looked about him, and saw standing on both sides many fully armed men, among whom were Gunstein and others of Karle's kindred. Then said Thorer, "My proposal is soon made. I will refer altogether to the king's pleasure the matter he thinks he has against me." Fin replies, "Thou must put up with a less honour; for thou must refer the matter altogether to my decision, if any agreement is to take place." Thorer replies, "And even then I think it will stand well with my case, and therefore I will not decline referring it to thee." Thereupon Thorer came forward, and confirmed what he said by giving his hand upon it; and Fin repeated first all the words he should say. Fin now pronounced his decision upon the agreement,--that Thorer should pay to the king ten marks of gold, and to Gunstein and the other kindred ten marks, and for the robbery and loss of goods ten marks more; and all which should be paid immediately. Thorer says, "This is a heavy money mulct." "Without it," replies Fin, "there will be no agreement." Thorer says, there must time be allowed to gather so much in loan from his followers; but Fin told him to pay immediately on the spot; and besides, Thorer should lay down the great ornament which he took from Karle when he was dead. Thorer asserted that he had not got the ornament. Then Gunstein pressed forward, and said that Karle had the ornament around his neck when they parted, but it was gone when they took up his corpse. Thorer said he had not observed any ornament; but if there was any such thing, it must be lying at home in Bjarkey. Then Fin put the point of his spear to Thorer's breast, and said that he must instantly produce the ornament; on which Thorer took the ornament from his neck and gave it to Fin. Thereafter Thorer turned away, and went on board his ship. Fin, with many other men, followed him, went through the whole vessel, and took up the hatches. At the mast they saw two very large casks; and Fin asked, "What are these puncheons?" Thorer replies, "It is my liquor." Fin says, "Why don't you give us something to drink then, comrade, since you have so much liquor?" Thorer ordered his men to run off a bowlfull from the puncheons, from which Fin and his people got liquor of the best quality. Now Fin ordered Thorer to pay the mulcts. Thorer went backwards and forwards through the ship, speaking now to the one, now to the other, and Fin calling out to produce the pence. Thorer begged him to go to the shore, and said he would bring the money there, and Fin with his men went on shore. Then Thorer came and paid silver; of which, from one purse, there were weighed ten marks. Thereafter Thorer brought many knotted nightcaps; and in some was one mark, in others half a mark, and in others some small money. "This is money my friends and other good people have lent me," said he; "for I think all my travelling money is gone." Then Thorer went back again to his ship, and returned, and paid the silver by little and little; and this lasted so long that the day was drawing towards evening. When the Thing had closed the people had gone to their vessels, and made ready to depart; and as fast as they were ready they hoisted sail and set out, so that most of them were under sail. When Fin saw that they were most of them under sail, he ordered his men to get ready too; but as yet little more than a third part of the mulct had been paid. Then Fin said, "This goes on very slowly, Thorer, with the payment. I see it costs thee a great deal to pay money. I shall now let it stand for the present, and what remains thou shalt pay to the king himself." Fin then got up and went away. Thorer replies, "I am well enough pleased, Fin, to part now; but the good will is not wanting to pay this debt, so that both thou and the king shall say it is not unpaid." Then Fin went on board his ship, and followed the rest of his fleet. Thorer was late before he was ready to come out of the harbour. When the sails were hoisted he steered out over Westfjord, and went to sea, keeping south along the land so far off that the hill-tops were half sunk, and soon the land altogether was sunk from view by the sea. Thorer held this course until he got into the English sea, and landed in England. He betook himself to King Canute forthwith, and was well received by him. It then came out that Thorer had with him a great deal of property; and, with other things, all the money he and Karle had taken in Bjarmaland. In the great liquor-casks there were sides within the outer sides, and the liquor was between them. The rest of the casks were filled with furs, and beaver and sable skins. Thorer was then with King Canute. Fin came with his forces to King Olaf, and related to him how all had gone upon his voyage, and told at the same time his suspicion that Thorer had left the country, and gone west to England to King Canute. "And there I fear he will cause as much trouble." The king replies, "I believe that Thorer must be our enemy, and it appears to me always better to have him at a distance than near." 150. DISPUTE BETWEEN HAREK AND ASMUND. Asmund Grankelson had been this winter (A.D. 1027) in Halogaland in his sheriffdom, and was at home with his father Grankel. There lies a rock out in the sea, on which there is both seal and bird catching, and a fishing ground, and egg-gathering; and from old times it had been an appendage to the farm which Grankel owned, but now Harek of Thjotta laid claim to it. It had gone so far, that some years he had taken by force all the gain of this rock; but Asmund and his father thought that they might expect the king's help in all cases in which the right was upon their side. Both father and son went therefore in spring to Harek, and brought him a message and tokens from King Olaf that he should drop his claim. Harek answered Asmund crossly, because he had gone to the king with such insinuations--"for the just right is upon my side. Thou shouldst learn moderation, Asmund, although thou hast so much confidence in the king's favour. It has succeeded with thee to kill some chiefs, and leave their slaughter unpaid for by any mulct; and also to plunder us, although we thought ourselves at least equal to all of equal birth, and thou art far from being my equal in family." Asmund replies, "Many have experienced from thee, Harek, that thou art of great connections, and too great power; and many in consequence have suffered loss in their property through thee. But it is likely that now thou must turn thyself elsewhere, and not against us with thy violence, and not go altogether against law, as thou art now doing." Then they separated. Harek sent ten or twelve of his house-servants with a large rowing boat, with which they rowed to the rock, took all that was to be got upon it, and loaded their boat. But when they were ready to return home, Asmund Grankelson came with thirty men, and ordered them to give up all they had taken. Harek's house-servants were not quick in complying, so that Asmund attacked them. Some of Harek's men were cudgelled, some wounded, some thrown into the sea, and all they had caught was taken from on board of their boat, and Asmund and his people took it along with them. Then Harek's servants came home, and told him the event. Harek replies, "That is called news indeed that seldom happens; never before has it happened that my people have been beaten." The matter dropped. Harek never spoke about it, but was very cheerful. In spring, however, Harek rigged out a cutter of twenty seats of rowers, and manned it with his house-servants, and the ship was remarkably well fitted out both with people and all necessary equipment; and Harek went to the levy; but when he came to King Olaf, Asmund was there before him. The king summoned Harek and Asmund to him, and reconciled them so that they left the matter entirely to him. Asmund then produced witnesses to prove that Grankel had owned the rock, and the king gave judgment accordingly. The case had a one-sided result. No mulct was paid for Harek's house-servants, and the rock was declared to be Grankel's. Harek observed it was no disgrace to obey the king's decision, whatever way the case itself was decided. 151. THOROD'S STORY. Thorod Snorrason had remained in Norway, according to King Olaf's commands, when Geller Thorkelson got leave to go to Iceland, as before related. He remained there (A.D. 1027) with King Olaf, but was ill pleased that he was not free to travel where he pleased. Early in winter, King Olaf, when he was in Nidaros, made it known that he would send people to Jamtaland to collect the scat; but nobody had any great desire to go on this business, after the fate of those whom King Olaf had sent before, namely, Thrand White and others, twelve in number, who lost their lives, as before related; and the Jamtalanders had ever since been subject to the Swedish king. Thorod Snorrason now offered to undertake this journey, for he cared little what became of him if he could but become his own master again. The king consented, and Thorod set out with eleven men in company. They came east to Jamtaland, and went to a man called Thorar, who was lagman, and a person in high estimation. They met with a hospitable reception; and when they had been there a while, they explained their business to Thorar. He replied, that other men and chiefs of the country had in all respects as much power and right to give an answer as he had, and for that purpose he would call together a Thing. It was so done; the message-token was sent out, and a numerous Thing assembled. Thorar went to the Thing, but the messengers in the meantime remained at home. At the Thing, Thorar laid the business before the people, but all were unanimous that no scat should be paid to the king of Norway; and some were for hanging the messengers, others for sacrificing them to the gods. At last it was resolved to hold them fast until the king of Sweden's sheriffs arrived, and they could treat them as they pleased with consent of the people; and that, in the meantime, this decision should be concealed, and the messengers treated well, and detained under pretext that they must wait until the scat is collected; and that they should be separated, and placed two and two, as if for the convenience of boarding them. Thorod and another remained in Thorar's house. There was a great Yule feast and ale-drinking, to which each brought his own liquor; for there were many peasants in the village, who all drank in company together at Yule. There was another village not far distant, where Thorar's brother-in-law dwelt, who was a rich and powerful man, and had a grown-up son. The brothers-in-law intended to pass the Yule in drinking feasts, half of it at the house of the one and half with the other; and the feast began at Thorar's house. The brothers-in-law drank together, and Thorod and the sons of the peasants by themselves; and it was a drinking match. In the evening words arose, and comparisons between the men of Sweden and of Norway, and then between their kings both of former times and at the present, and of the manslaughters and robberies that had taken place between the countries. Then said the peasants sons, "If our king has lost most people, his sheriffs will make it even with the lives of twelve men when they come from the south after Yule; and ye little know, ye silly fools, why ye are kept here." Thorod took notice of these words, and many made jest about it, and scoffed at them and their king. When the ale began to talk out of the hearts of the Jamtalanders, what Thorod had before long suspected became evident. The day after Thorod and his comrade took all their clothes and weapons, and laid them ready; and at night, when the people were all asleep, they fled to the forest. The next morning, when the Jamtalanders were aware of their flight, men set out after them with dogs to trace them, and found them in a wood in which they had concealed themselves. They brought them home to a room in which there was a deep cellar, into which they were thrown, and the door locked upon them. They had little meat, and only the clothes they had on them. In the middle of Yule, Thorar, with all his freeborn men, went to his brother's-in-law, where he was to be a guest until the last of Yule. Thorar's slaves were to keep guard upon the cellar, and they were provided with plenty of liquor; but as they observed no moderation in drinking, they became towards evening confused in the head with the ale. As they were quite drunk, those who had to bring meat to the prisoners in the cellar said among themselves that they should want for nothing. Thorod amused the slaves by singing to them. They said he was a clever man, and gave him a large candle that was lighted; and the slaves who were in went to call the others to come in; but they were all so confused with the ale, that in going out they neither locked the cellar nor the room after them. Now Thorod and his comrades tore up their skin clothes in strips, knotted them together, made a noose at one end, and threw up the rope on the floor of the room. It fastened itself around a chest, by which they tried to haul themselves up. Thorod lifted up his comrade until he stood on his shoulders, and from thence scrambled up through the hatchhole. There was no want of ropes in the chamber, and he threw a rope down to Thorod; but when he tried to draw him up, he could not move him from the spot. Then Thorod told him to cast the rope over a cross-beam that was in the house, make a loop in it, and place as much wood and stones in the loop as would outweigh him; and the heavy weight went down into the cellar, and Thorod was drawn up by it. Now they took as much clothes as they required in the room; and among other things they took some reindeer hides, out of which they cut sandals, and bound them under their feet, with the hoofs of the reindeer feet trailing behind. But before they set off they set fire to a large corn barn which was close by, and then ran out into the pitch-dark night. The barn blazed, and set fire to many other houses in the village. Thorod and his comrade travelled the whole night until they came to a lonely wood, where they concealed themselves when it was daylight. In the morning they were missed. There was chase made with dogs to trace the footsteps all round the house; but the hounds always came back to the house, for they had the smell of the reindeer hoofs, and followed the scent back on the road that the hoofs had left, and therefore could not find the right direction. Thorod and his comrade wandered long about in the desert forest, and came one evening to a small house, and went in. A man and a woman were sitting by the fire. The man called himself Thorer, and said it was his wife who was sitting there, and the hut belonged to them. The peasant asked them to stop there, at which they were well pleased. He told them that he had come to this place, because he had fled from the inhabited district on account of a murder. Thorod and his comrade were well received, and they all got their supper at the fireside; and then the benches were cleared for them, and they lay down to sleep, but the fire was still burning with a clear light. Thorod saw a man come in from another house, and never had he seen so stout a man. He was dressed in a scarlet cloak beset with gold clasps, and was of very handsome appearance. Thorod heard him scold them for taking guests, when they had scarcely food for themselves. The housewife said, "Be not angry, brother; seldom such a thing happens; and rather do them some good too, for thou hast better opportunity to do so than we." Thorod heard also the stout man named by the name of Arnliot Gelline, and observed that the woman of the house was his sister. Thorod had heard speak of Arnliot as the greatest-of robbers and malefactors. Thorod and his companion slept the first part of the night, for they were wearied with walking; but when a third of the night was still to come, Arnliot awoke them, told them to get up, and make ready to depart. They arose immediately, put on their clothes, and some breakfast was given them; and Arnliot gave each of them also a pair of skees. Arnliot made himself ready to accompany them, and got upon his skees, which were both broad and long; but scarcely had he swung his skee-staff before he was a long way past them. He waited for them, and said they would make no progress in this way, and told them to stand upon the edge of his skees beside him. They did so. Thorod stood nearest to him, and held by Arnliot's belt, and his comrade held by him. Arnliot strode on as quickly with them both, as if he was alone and without any weight. The following day they came, towards night, to a lodge for travellers, struck fire, and prepared some food; but Arnliot told them to throw away nothing of their food, neither bones nor crumbs. Arnliot took a silver plate out of the pocket of his cloak, and ate from it. When they were done eating, Arnliot gathered up the remains of their meal, and they prepared to go to sleep. In the other end of the house there was a loft upon cross-beams, and Arnliot and the others went up, and laid themselves down to sleep. Arnliot had a large halberd, of which the upper part was mounted with gold, and the shaft was so long that with his arm stretched out he could scarcely touch the top of it; and he was girt with a sword. They had both their weapons and their clothes up in the loft beside them. Arnliot, who lay outermost in the loft, told them to be perfectly quiet. Soon after twelve men came to the house, who were merchants going with their wares to Jamtaland; and when they came into the house they made a great disturbance, were merry, and made a great fire before them; and when they took their supper they cast away all the bones around them. They then prepared to go to sleep, and laid themselves down upon the benches around the fire. When they, had been asleep a short time, a huge witch came into the house; and when she came in, she carefully swept together all the bones and whatever was of food kind into a heap, and threw it into her mouth. Then she gripped the man who was nearest to her, riving and tearing him asunder, and threw him upon the fire. The others awoke in dreadful fright, and sprang up, but she took them, and put them one by one to death, so that only one remained in life. He ran under the loft calling for help, and if there was any one on the loft to help him. Arnliot reached down his hand, seized him by the shoulder, and drew him up into the loft. The witch-wife had turned towards the fire, and began to eat the men who were roasting. Now Arnliot stood up, took his halberd, and struck her between the shoulders, so that the point came out at her breast. She writhed with it, gave a dreadful shriek, and sprang up. The halberd slipped from Arnliot's hands, and she ran out with it. Arnliot then went in; cleared away the dead corpses out of the house; set the door and the door-posts up, for she had torn them down in going out; and they slept the rest of the night. When the day broke they got up; and first they took their breakfast. When they had got food, Arnliot said, "Now we must part here. Ye can proceed upon the new-traced path the merchants have made in coming here yesterday. In the meantime I will seek after my halberd, and in reward for my labour I will take so much of the goods these men had with them as I find useful to me. Thou, Thorod, must take my salutation to King Olaf; and say to him that he is the man I am most desirous to see, although my salutation may appear to him of little worth." Then he took his silver plate, wiped it dry with a cloth, and said, "Give King Olaf this plate; salute him, and say it is from me." Then they made themselves ready for their journey, and parted. Thorod went on with his comrade and the man of the merchants company who had escaped. He proceeded until he came to King Olaf in the town (Nidaros); told the king all that had happened, and presented to him the silver plate. The king said it was wrong that Arnliot himself had not come to him; "for it is a pity so brave a hero, and so distinguished a man, should have given himself up to misdeeds." Thorod remained the rest of the winter with the king, and in summer got leave to return to Iceland; and he and King Olaf parted the best of friends. 152. KING OLAF'S LEVY OF MEN. King Olaf made ready in spring (A.D. 1027) to leave Nidaros, and many people were assembled about him, both from Throndhjem and the Northern country; and when he was ready he proceeded first with his men to More, where he gathered the men of the levy, and did the same at Raumsdal. He went from thence to South More. He lay a long time at the Herey Isles waiting for his forces; and he often held House-things, as many reports came to his ears about which he thought it necessary to hold councils. In one of these Things he made a speech, in which he spoke of the loss he suffered from the Farey islanders. "The scat which they promised me," he said, "is not forthcoming; and I now intend to send men thither after it." Then he proposed to different men to undertake this expedition; but the answer was, that all declined the adventure. Then there stood up a stout and very remarkable looking man in the Thing. He was clad in a red kirtle, had a helmet on his head, a sword in his belt, and a large halberd in his hands. He took up the word and said, "In truth here is a great want of men. Ye have a good king; but ye are bad servants who say no to this expedition he offers you, although ye have received many gifts of friendship and tokens of honour from him. I have hitherto been no friend of the king, and he has been my enemy, and says, besides, that he has good grounds for being so. Now, I offer, sire, to go upon this expedition, if no better will undertake it." The king answers, "Who is this brave man who replies to my offer? Thou showest thyself different from the other men here present, in offering thyself for this expedition from which they excuse themselves, although I expected they would willingly have undertaken it; but I do not know thee in the least, and do not know thy name." He replies, "My name, sire, is not difficult to know, and I think thou hast heard my name before. I am Karl Morske." The king--"So this is Karl! I have indeed heard thy name before; and, to say the truth, there was a time when our meeting must have been such, if I had had my will; that thou shouldst not have had to tell it now. But I will not show myself worse than thou, but will join my thanks and my favour to the side of the help thou hast offered me. Now thou shalt come to me, Karl, and be my guest to-day; and then we shall consult together about this business." Karl said it should be so. 153. KARL MORSKE'S STORY. Karl Morske had been a viking, and a celebrated robber. Often had the king sent out men against him, and wished to make an end of him; but Karl, who was a man of high connection, was quick in all his doing's, and besides a man of great dexterity, and expert in all feats. Now when Karl had undertaken this business the king was reconciled to him, gave him his friendship, and let him be fitted out in the best manner for this expedition. There were about twenty men in the ship; and the king sent messages to his friends in the Farey Islands, and recommended him also to Leif Ossurson and Lagman Gille, for aid and defence; and for this purpose furnished Karl with tokens of the full powers given him. Karl set out as soon as he was ready; and as he got a favourable breeze soon came to the Farey Islands, and landed at Thorshavn, in the island Straumey. A Thing was called, to which there came a great number of people. Thrand of Gata came with a great retinue, and Leif and Gille came there also, with many in their following. After they had set up their tents, and put themselves in order, they went to Karl Morske, and saluted each other on both sides in a friendly way. Then Karl produced King Olaf's words, tokens, and friendly message to Leif and Gille, who received them in a friendly manner, invited Karl to come to them, and promised him to support his errand, and give him all the aid in their power, for which he thanked them. Soon after came Thrand of Gata, who also received Karl in the most friendly manner, and said he was glad to see so able a man coming to their country on the king's business, which they were all bound to promote. "I will insist, Karl," says he, "on thy taking-up thy winter abode with me, together with all those of thy people who may appear to thee necessary for thy dignity." Karl replies, that he had already settled to lodge with Leif; "otherwise I would with great pleasure have accepted thy invitation." "Then fate has given great honour to Leif," says Thrand; "but is there any other way in which I can be of service?" Karl replies, that he would do him a great service by collecting the scat of the eastern island, and of all the northern islands. Thrand said it was both his duty and interest to assist in the king's business, and thereupon Thrand returned to his tent; and at that Thing nothing else worth speaking of occurred. Karl took up his abode with Leif Ossurson, and was there all winter (A.D. 1028). Leif collected the scat of Straumey Island, and all the islands south of it. The spring after Thrand of Gata fell ill, and had sore eyes and other complaints; but he prepared to attend the Thing, as was his custom. When he came to the Thing he had his tent put up, and within it another black tent, that the light might not penetrate. After some days of the Thing had passed, Leif and Karl came to Thrand's tent, with a great many people, and found some persons standing outside. They asked if Thrand was in the tent, and were told he was. Leif told them to bid Thrand come out, as he and Karl had some business with him. They came back, and said that Thrand had sore eyes, and could not come out; "but he begs thee, Leif, to come to him within." Leif told his comrades to come carefully into the tent, and not to press forward, and that he who came last in should go out first. Leif went in first, followed by Karl, and then his comrades; and all fully armed as if they were going into battle. Leif went into the black tent and asked if Thrand was there. Thrand answered and saluted Leif. Leif returned his salutation, and asked if he had brought the scat from the northern islands, and if he would pay the scat that had been collected. Thrand replies, that he had not forgotten what had been spoken of between him and Karl, and that he would now pay over the scat. "Here is a purse, Leif, full of silver, which thou canst receive." Leif looked around, and saw but few people in the tent, of whom some were lying upon the benches, and a few were sitting up. Then Leif went to Thrand, and took the purse, and carried it into the outer tent, where it was light, turned out the money on his shield, groped about in it with his hand, and told Karl to look at the silver. When they had looked at it a while, Karl asked Leif what he thought of the silver. He replied, "I am thinking where the bad money that is in the north isles can have come from." Thrand heard this, and said, "Do you not think, Leif, the silver is good?" "No," says he. Thrand replies, "Our relations, then, are rascals not to be trusted. I sent them in spring to collect the scat in the north isles, as I could not myself go anywhere, and they have allowed themselves to be bribed by the bondes to take false money, which nobody looks upon as current and good; it is better, therefore, Leif, to look at this silver which has been paid me as land-rent." Leif thereupon carried back this silver, and received another bag, which he carried to Karl, and they looked over the money together. Karl asked Leif what he thought of this money. He answered, that it appeared to him so bad that it would not be taken in payment, however little hope there might be of getting a debt paid in any other way: "therefore I will not take this money upon the king's account." A man who had been lying on the bench now cast the skin coverlet off which he had drawn over his head, and said, "True is the old word,--he grows worse who grows older: so it is with thee, Thrand, who allowest Karl Morske to handle thy money all the day." This was Gaut the Red. Thrand sprang up at Gaut's words, and reprimanded his relation with many angry words. At last he said that Leif should leave this silver, and take a bag which his own peasants had brought him in spring. "And although I am weak-sighted, yet my own hand is the truest test." Another man who was lying on the bench raised himself now upon his elbow; and this was Thord the Low. He said, "These are no ordinary reproaches we suffer from Karl Morske, and therefore he well deserves a reward for them." Leif in the meantime took the bag, and carried it to Karl; and when they cast their eyes on the money, Leif said, "We need not look long at this silver, for here the one piece of money is better than the other; and this is the money we will have. Let a man come to be present at the counting it out." Thrand says that he thought Leif was the fittest man to do it upon his account. Leif and Karl thereupon went a short way from the tent, sat down, and counted and weighed the silver. Karl took the helmet off his head, and received in it the weighed silver. They saw a man coming to them who had a stick with an axe-head on it in his hand, a hat low upon his head, and a short green cloak. He was bare-legged, and had linen breeches on tied at the knee. He laid his stick down in the field, and went to Karl and said, "Take care, Karl Morske, that thou does not hurt thyself against my axe-stick." Immediately a man came running and calls with great haste to Leif Ossurson, telling him to come as quickly as possible to Lagman Gille's tent; "for," says he, "Sirurd Thorlakson ran in just now into the mouth of the tent, and gave one of Gille's men a desperate wound." Leif rose up instantly, and went off to Gille's tent along with his men. Karl remained sitting, and the Norway people stood around in all corners. Gaut immediately sprang up, and struck with a hand-axe over the heads of the people, and the stroke came on Karl's head; but the wound was slight. Thord the Low seized the stick-axe, which lay in the field at his side, and struck the axe-blade right into Karl's skull. Many people now streamed out of Thrand's tent. Karl was carried away dead. Thrand was much grieved at this event, and offered money-mulcts for his relations; but Leif and Gille, who had to prosecute the business, would accept no mulct. Sigurd was banished the country for having wounded Gille's tent comrade, and Gaut and Thord for the murder of Karl. The Norway people rigged out the vessel which Karl had with him, and sailed eastward to Olaf, and gave him these tidings. He was in no pleasant humour at it, and threatened a speedy vengeance; but it was not allotted by fate to King Olaf to revenge himself on Thrand and his relations, because of the hostilities which had begun in Norway, and which are now to be related. And there is nothing more to be told of what happened after King Olaf sent men to the Farey Islands to take scat of them. But great strife arose after Karl's death in the Farey Islands between the family of Thrand of Gata and Leif Ossurson, and of which there are great sagas. 154. KING OLAF'S EXPEDITION WITH HIS LEVY. Now we must proceed with the relation we began before,--that King Olaf set out with his men, and raised a levy over the whole country (A.D. 1027). All lendermen in the North followed him excepting Einar Tambaskelfer, who sat quietly at home upon his farm since his return to the country, and did not serve the king. Einar had great estates and wealth, although he held no fiefs from the king, and he lived splendidly. King Olaf sailed with his fleet south around Stad, and many people from the districts around joined him. King Olaf himself had a ship which he had got built the winter before (A.D. 1027), and which was called the Visund (1). It was a very large ship, with a bison's head gilded all over upon the bow. Sigvat the skald speaks thus of it:-- "Trygvason's Long Serpent bore, Grim gaping o'er the waves before, A dragon's head with open throat, When last the hero was afloat: His cruise was closed, As God disposed. Olaf has raised a bison's head, Which proudly seems the waves to tread. While o'er its golden forehead dashing The waves its glittering horns are washing: May God dispose A luckier close." The king went on to Hordaland; there he heard the news that Erling Skjalgson had left the country with a great force, and four or five ships. He himself had a large war-ship, and his sons had three of twenty rowing-banks each; and they had sailed westward to England to Canute the Great. Then King Olaf sailed eastward along the land with a mighty war-force, and he inquired everywhere if anything was known of Canute's proceedings; and all agreed in saying he was in England but added that he was fitting out a levy, and intended coming to Norway. As Olaf had a large fleet, and could not discover with certainty where he should go to meet King Canute, and as his people were dissatisfied with lying quiet in one place with so large an armament, he resolved to sail with his fleet south to Denmark, and took with him all the men who were best appointed and most warlike; and he gave leave to the others to return home. Now the people whom he thought of little use having gone home, King Olaf had many excellent and stout men-at-arms besides those who, as before related, had fled the country, or sat quietly at home; and most of the chief men and lendermen of Norway were along with him. ENDNOTES: (1) Visundr is the buffalo; although the modern bison, or American animal of that name, might have been known through the Greenland colonists, who in this reign had visited some parts of America.--L. 155. OF KING OLAF AND KING ONUND. When King Olaf sailed to Denmark, he set his course for Seeland; and when he came there he made incursions on the land, and began to plunder. The country people were severely treated; some were killed, some bound and dragged to the ships. All who could do so took to flight, and made no opposition. King Olaf committed there the greatest ravages. While Olaf was in Seeland, the news came that King Onund Olafson of Sweden had raised a levy, and fallen upon Scania, and was ravaging there; and then it became known what the resolution had been that the two kings had taken at the Gaut river, where they had concluded a union and friendship, and had bound themselves to oppose King Canute. King Onund continued his march until he met his brother-in-law King Olaf. When they met they made proclamation both to their own people and to the people of the country, that they intended to conquer Denmark; and asked the support of the people of the country for this purpose. And it happened, as we find examples of everywhere, that if hostilities are brought upon the people of a country not strong enough to withstand, the greatest number will submit to the conditions by which peace can be purchased at any rate. So it happened here that many men went into the service of the kings, and agreed to submit to them. Wheresoever they went they laid the country all round subjection to them, and otherwise laid waste all with fire and sword. Of this foray Sigvat the skald speaks, in a ballad he composed concerning King Canute the Great:-- "'Canute is on the sea!' The news is told, And the Norsemen bold Repeat it with great glee. And it runs from mouth to mouth-- 'On a lucky day We came away From Throndhjem to the south.' Across the cold East sea, The Swedish king His host did bring, To gain great victory. King Onund came to fight, In Seeland's plains, Against the Danes, With his steel-clad men so bright. Canute is on the land; Side to side His long-ships ride Along the yellow strand. Where waves wash the green banks, Mast to mast, All bound fast, His great fleet lies in ranks." 156. OF KING CANUTE THE GREAT. King Canute had heard in England that King Olaf of Norway had called out a levy, and had gone with his forces to Denmark, and was making great ravages in his dominions there. Canute began to gather people, and he had speedily collected a great army and a numerous fleet. Earl Hakon was second in command over the whole. Sigvat the skald came this summer (A.D. 1027) from the West, from Ruda (Rouen) in Valland, and with him was a man called Berg. They had made a merchant voyage there the summer before. Sigvat had made a little poem about this journey, called "The Western Traveller's Song," which begins thus:-- "Berg! many a merry morn was pass'd, When our vessel was made fast, And we lay on the glittering tide or Rouen river's western side." When Sigvat came to England he went directly to King Canute, and asked his leave to proceed to Norway; for King Canute had forbidden all merchant vessels to sail until he himself was ready with his fleet. When Sigvat arrived he went to the house in which the king was lodged; but the doors were locked, and he had to stand a long time outside, but when he got admittance he obtained the permission he desired. He then sang:-- "The way to Jutland's king I sought; A little patience I was taught. The doors were shut--all full within; The udaller could not get in. But Gorm's great son did condescend To his own chamber me to send, And grant my prayer--although I'm one Whose arms the fetters' weight have known." When Sigvat became aware that King Canute was equipping an armament against King Olaf, and knew what a mighty force King Canute had, he made these lines:-- "The mighty Canute, and Earl Hakon, Have leagued themselves, and counsel taken Against King Olaf's life, And are ready for the strife. In spite of king and earl, I say, 'I love him well--may he get away:' On the Fields, wild and dreary, With him I'd live, and ne'er be weary." Sigvat made many other songs concerning this expedition of Canute and Hakon. He made this among others:-- "'Twas not the earl's intention then 'Twixt Olaf and the udalmen Peace to establish, and the land Upright to hold with Northman's hand; But ever with deceit and lies Eirik's descendant, Hakon, tries To make ill-will and discontent, Till all the udalmen are bent Against King Olaf's rule to rise." 157. OF KING CANUTE'S SHIP THE DRAGON. Canute the Great was at last ready with his fleet, and left the land; and a vast number of men he had, and ships frightfully large. He himself had a dragon-ship, so large that it had sixty banks of rowers, and the head was gilt all over. Earl Hakon had another dragon of forty banks, and it also had a gilt figure-head. The sails of both were in stripes of blue, red, and green, and the vessels were painted all above the water-stroke; and all that belonged to their equipment was most splendid. They had also many other huge ships remarkably well fitted out, and grand. Sigvat the skald talks of this in his song on Canute:-- "Canute is out beneath the sky-- Canute of the clear blue eye! The king is out on the ocean's breast, Leading his grand fleet from the West. On to the East the ship-masts glide, Glancing and bright each long-ship's side. The conqueror of great Ethelred, Canute, is there, his foemen's dread: His dragon with her sails of blue, All bright and brilliant to the view, High hoisted on the yard arms wide, Carries great Canute o'er the tide. Brave is the royal progress--fast The proud ship's keel obeys the mast, Dashes through foam, and gains the land, Raising a surge on Limfjord's strand." It is related that King Canute sailed with this vast force from England, and came with all his force safely to Denmark, where he went into Limfjord, and there he found gathered besides a large army of the men of the country. 158. HARDAKNUT TAKEN TO BE KING IN DENMARK. Earl Ulf Sprakalegson had been set as protector over Denmark when King Canute went to England, and the king had intrusted his son Hardaknut in the earl's hands. This took place the summer before (A.D. 1026), as we related. But the earl immediately gave it out that King Canute had, at parting, made known to him his will and desire that the Danes should take his son Hardaknut as king over the Danish dominions. "On that account," says the earl, "he gave the matter into our hands; as I, and many other chiefs and leading men here in the country, have often complained to King Canute of the evil consequences to the country of being without a king, and that former kings thought it honour and power enough to rule over the Danish kingdom alone; and in the times that are past many kings have ruled over this kingdom. But now there are greater difficulties than have ever been before; for we have been so fortunate hitherto as to live without disturbance from foreign kings, but now we hear the king of Norway is going to attack us, to which is added the fear of the people that the Swedish king will join him; and now King Canute is in England." The earl then produced King Canute's letter and seal, confirming all that the earl asserted. Many other chiefs supported this business; and in consequence of all these persuasions the people resolved to take Hardaknut as king, which was done at the same Thing. The Queen Emma had been principal promoter of this determination; for she had got the letter to be written, and provided with the seal, having cunningly got hold of the king's signet; but from him it was all concealed. Now when Hardaknut and Earl Ulf heard for certain that King Olaf was come from Norway with a large army, they went to Jutland, where the greatest strength of the Danish kingdom lies, sent out message-tokens, and summoned to them a great force; but when they heard the Swedish king was also come with his army, they thought they would not have strength enough to give battle to both, and therefore kept their army together in Jutland, and resolved to defend that country against the kings. The whole of their ships they assembled in Limfjord, and waited thus for King Canute. Now when they heard that King Canute had come from the West to Limfjord they sent men to him, and to Queen Emma, and begged her to find out if the king was angry at them or not, and to let them know. The queen talked over the matter with him, and said, "Your son Hardaknut will pay the full mulct the king may demand, if he has done anything which is thought to be against the king." He replies, that Hardaknut has not done this of his own judgement. "And therefore," says he, "it has turned out as might have been expected, that when he, a child, and without understanding, wanted to be called king, the country, when any evil came and an enemy appeared, must be conquered by foreign princes, if our might had not come to his aid. If he will have any reconciliation with me let him come to me, and lay down the mock title of king he has given himself." The queen sent these very words to Hardaknut, and at the same time she begged him not to decline coming; for, as she truly observed, he had no force to stand against his father. When this message came to Hardaknut he asked the advice of the earl and other chief people who were with him; but it was soon found that when the people heard King Canute the Old was arrived they all streamed to him, and seemed to have no confidence but in him alone. Then Earl Ulf and his fellows saw they had but two roads to take; either to go to the king and leave all to his mercy, or to fly the country. All pressed Hardaknut to go to his father, which advice he followed. When they met he fell at his father's feet, and laid his seal, which accompanied the kingly title, on his knee. King Canute took Hardaknut by the hand, and placed him in as high a seat as he used to sit in before. Earl Ulf sent his son Svein, who was a sister's son of King Canute, and the same age as Hardaknut, to the king. He prayed for grace and reconciliation for his father, and offered himself as hostage for the earl. King Canute ordered him to tell the earl to assemble his men and ships, and come to him, and then they would talk of reconciliation. The earl did so. 159. FORAY IN SCANIA. When King Olaf and King Onund heard that King Canute was come from the West, and also that he had a vast force, they sailed east to Scania, and allowed themselves to ravage and burn in the districts there, and then proceeded eastward along the land to the frontier of Sweden. As soon as the country people heard that King Canute was come from the West, no one thought of going into the service of the two kings. Now the kings sailed eastward along the coast, and brought up in a river called Helga, and remained there some time. When they heard that King Canute was coming eastward with his forces against them, they held a council; and the result was, that King Olaf with his people went up the country to the forest, and to the lake out of which the river Helga flows. There at the riverhead they made a dam of timber and turf, and dammed in the lake. They also dug a deep ditch, through which they led several waters, so that the lake waxed very high. In the river-bed they laid large logs of timber. They were many days about this work, and King Olaf had the management of this piece of artifice; but King Onund had only to command the fleet and army. When King Canute heard of the proceedings of the two kings, and of the damage they had done to his dominions, he sailed right against them to where they lay in Helga river. He had a War-force which was one half greater than that of both the kings together. Sigvat speaks of these things:-- "The king, who shields His Jutland fields From scaith or harm By foeman's arm, Will not allow Wild plundering now: 'The greatest he, On land or sea.'" 160. BATTLE IN HELGA RIVER. One day, towards evening, King Onund's spies saw King Canute coming sailing along, and he was not far off. Then King Onund ordered the war-horns to sound; on which his people struck their tents, put on their weapons, rowed out of the harbour and east round the land, bound their ships together, and prepared for battle. King Onund made his spies run up the country to look for King Olaf, and tell him the news. Then King Olaf broke up the dam, and let the river take its course. King Olaf travelled down in the night to his ships. When King Canute came outside the harbour, he saw the forces of the kings ready for battle. He thought that it would be too late in the day to begin the fight by the time his forces could be ready; for his fleet required a great deal of room at sea, and there was a long distance between the foremost of his ships and the hindmost, and between those outside and those nearest the land, and there was but little wind. Now, as Canute saw that the Swedes and Norwegians had quitted the harbour, he went into it with as many ships as it could hold; but the main strength of the fleet lay without the harbour. In the morning, when it was light, a great part of the men went on shore; some for amusement, some to converse with the people of other ships. They observed nothing until the water came rushing over them like a waterfall, carrying huge trees, which drove in among their ships, damaging all they struck; and the water covered all the fields. The men on shore perished, and many who were in the ships. All who could do it cut their cables; so that the ships were loose, and drove before the stream, and were scattered here and there. The great dragon, which King Canute himself was in, drove before the stream; and as it could not so easily be turned with oars, drove out among Olaf's and Onund's ships. As they knew the ship, they laid her on board on all quarters. But the ship was so high in the hull, as if it were a castle, and had besides such a numerous and chosen crew on board, well armed and exercised, that it was not easy to attack her. After a short time also Earl Ulf came up with his fleet; and then the battle began, and King Canute's fleet gathered together from all quarters. But the kings Olaf and Onund, seeing they had for this time got all the victory that fate permitted them to gain, let their ships retreat, cast themselves loose from King Canute's ship, and the fleets separated. But as the attack had not been made as King Canute had determined, he made no further attempt; and the kings on each side arranged their fleets and put their ships in order. When the fleets were parted, and each sailing its course, Olaf and Onund looked over their forces, and found they had suffered no loss of men. In the meantime they saw that if they waited until King Canute got his large fleet in order to attack them, the difference of force was so great that for them there was little chance of victory. It was also evident that if the battle was renewed, they must suffer a great loss of men. They took the resolution, therefore, to row with the whole fleet eastward along the coast. Observing that King Canute did not pursue them, they raised up their masts and set sail. Ottar Svarte tells thus of it in the poem he composed upon King Canute the Great:-- "The king, in battle fray, Drove the Swedish host away: The wolf did not miss prey, Nor the raven on that day. Great Canute might deride Two kings if he had pride, For at Helga river's side They would not his sword abide." Thord Sjarekson also sang these lines in his death song of King Olaf:-- "King Olaf, Agder's lord, Ne'er shunned the Jutland king, But with his blue-edged sword Broke many a panzer ring. King Canute was not slow: King Onund filled the plain With dead, killed by his bow: The wolf howled o'er the slain." 161. KING OLAF AND KING ONUND'S PLANS. King Olaf and King Onund sailed eastward to the Swedish king's dominions; and one day, towards evening, landed at a place called Barvik, where they lay all night. But then it was observed of the Swedes that they were home-sick; for the greater part of their forces sailed eastward along the land in the night, and did not stop their course until they came home to their houses. Now when King Onund observed this he ordered, as soon as the day dawned, to sound the signal for a House-thing; and the whole people went on shore, and the Thing sat down. Then King Onund took up the word, and spake thus: "So it is, King Olaf, that, as you know, we have been assembled in summer, and have forayed wide around in Denmark, and have gained much booty, but no land. I had 350 vessels, and now have not above 100 remaining with me. Now it appears to me we can make no greater progress than we have made, although you have still the 60 vessels which have followed you the whole summer. It therefore appears to me best that we come back to my kingdom; for it is always good to drive home with the wagon safe. In this expedition we have won something, and lost nothing. Now I will offer you, King Olaf, to come with me, and we shall remain assembled during the winter. Take as much of my kingdom as you will, so that you and the men who follow you may support yourselves well; and when spring comes let us take such measures as we find serviceable. If you, however, will prefer to travel across our country, and go overland to Norway, it shall be free for you to do so." King Olaf thanked King Onund for his friendly offer. "But if I may advise," says he, "then we should take another resolution, and keep together the forces we have still remaining. I had in the first of summer, before I left Norway, 350 ships; but when I left the country I chose from among the whole war-levy those I thought to be the best, and with them I manned 60 ships; and these I still have. Now it appears to me that the part of your war-force which has now run away is the most worthless, and of least resistance; but now I see here all your chiefs and leaders, and I know well that the people who belong to the court-troops (1) are by far the best suited to carry arms. We have here chosen men and superb ships, and we can very well lie all winter in our ships, as viking's custom is. But Canute cannot lie long in Helga river; for the harbour will not hold so many vessels as he has. If he steers eastward after us, we can escape from him, and then people will soon gather to us; but if he return to the harbours where his fleet can lie, I know for certain that the desire to return home will not be less in his army than in ours. I think, also, we have ravaged so widely in summer, that the villagers, both in Scania and in Halland, know well whose favour they have to seek. Canute's army will thus be dispersed so widely, that it is uncertain to whom fate may at the last give the victory; but let us first find out what resolution he takes." Thus King Olaf ended his speech, and it found much applause, and his advice was followed. Spies were sent into King Canute's army, and both the kings Olaf and Onund remained lying where they were. ENDNOTES: (1) The thingmen, or hired body-guard attending the court.--L. 162. OF KING CANUTE AND EARL ULF. When King Canute saw that the kings of Norway and Sweden steered eastward with their forces along the coast, he sent men to ride night and day on the land to follow their movements. Some spies went forward, others returned; so that King Canute had news every day of their progress. He had also spies always in their army. Now when he heard that a great part of the fleet had sailed away from the kings, he turned back with his forces to Seeland, and lay with his whole fleet in the Sound; so that a part lay on the Scania side, and a part on the Seeland side. King Canute himself, the day before Michaelmas, rode with a great retinue to Roeskilde. There his brother-in-law, Earl Ulf, had prepared a great feast for him. The earl was the most agreeable host, but the king was silent and sullen. The earl talked to him in every way to make him cheerful, and brought forward everything which he thought would amuse him; but the king remained stern, and speaking little. At last the earl proposed to him a game at chess, which he agreed to; and a chess-board was produced, and they played together. Earl Ulf was hasty in temper, stiff, and in nothing yielding; but everything he managed went on well in his hands; and he was a great warrior, about whom there are many stories. He was the most powerful man in Denmark next to the king. Earl Ulf's sister Gyda was married to Earl Gudin (Godwin) Ulfnadson; and their sons were Harald king of England, and Earl Toste, Earl Valthiof, Earl Morukare, and Earl Svein. Gyda was the name of their daughter, who was married to the English king Edward the Good. 163. OF THE EARL'S MURDER. When they had played a while the king made a false move, at which the earl took a knight from the king; but the king set the piece again upon the board, and told the earl to make another move; but the earl grew angry, threw over the chess-board, stood up, and went away. The king said, "Runnest thou away, Ulf the coward?" The earl turned round at the door and said, "Thou wouldst have run farther at Helga river, if thou hadst come to battle there. Thou didst not call me Ulf the coward, when I hastened to thy help while the Swedes were beating thee like a dog." The earl then went out, and went to bed. A little later the king also went to bed. The following morning while the king was putting on his clothes he said to his footboy, "Go thou to Earl Ulf, and kill him." The lad went, was away a while, and then came back. The king said, "Hast thou killed the earl?" "I did not kill him, for he was gone to Saint Lucius' church." There was a man called Ivar White, a Norwegian by birth, who was the king's courtman and chamberlain. The king said to him, "Go thou and kill the earl." Ivar went to the church, and in at the choir, and thrust his sword through the earl, who died on the spot. Then Ivar went to the king, with the bloody sword in his hand. The king said, "Hast thou killed the earl?" "I have killed him," says he. "Thou didst well." After the earl was killed the monks closed the church, and locked the doors. When that was told the king he sent a message to the monks, ordering them to open the church and sing high mass. They did as the king ordered; and when the king came to the church he bestowed on it great property, so that it had a large domain, by which that place was raised very high; and these lands have since always belonged to it. King Canute rode down to his ships, and lay there till late in harvest with a very large army. 164. OF KING OLAF AND THE SWEDES. When King Olaf and King Onund heard that King Canute had sailed to the Sound, and lay there with a great force, the kings held a House-thing, and spoke much about what resolution they should adopt. King Olaf wished they should remain there with all the fleet, and see what King Canute would at last resolve to do. But the Swedes held it to be unadvisable to remain until the frost set in, and so it was determined; and King Onund went home with all his army, and King Olaf remained lying after them. 165. OF EGIL AND TOFE. While King Olaf lay there, he had frequently conferences and consultations with his people. One night Egil Halson and Tofe Valgautson had the watch upon the king's ship. Tofe came from West Gautland, and was a man of high birth. While they sat on watch they heard much lamentation and crying among the people who had been taken in the war, and who lay bound on the shore at night. Tofe said it made him ill to hear such distress, and asked Egil to go with him, and let loose these people. This work they set about, cut the cords, and let the people escape, and they looked upon it as a piece of great friendship; but the king was so enraged at it, that they themselves were in the greatest danger. When Egil afterwards fell sick the king for a long time would not visit him, until many people entreated it of him. It vexed Egil much to have done anything the king was angry at, and he begged his forgiveness. The king now dismissed his wrath against Egil, laid his hands upon the side on which Egil's pain was, and sang a prayer; upon which the pain ceased instantly, and Egil grew better. Tofe came, after entreaty, into reconciliation with the king, on condition that he should exhort his father Valgaut to come to the king. He was a heathen; but after conversation with the king he went over to Christianity, and died instantly when he was baptized. 166. TREACHERY TOWARDS KING OLAF. King Olaf had now frequent conferences with his people, and asked advice from them, and from his chiefs, as to what he should determine upon. But there was no unanimity among them--some considering that unadvisable which others considered highly serviceable; and there was much indecision in their councils. King Canute had always spies in King Olaf's army, who entered into conversation with many of his men, offering them presents and favour on account of King Canute. Many allowed themselves to be seduced, and gave promises of fidelity, and to be King Canute's men, and bring the country into his hands if he came to Norway. This was apparent, afterwards, of many who at first kept it concealed. Some took at once money bribes, and others were promised money afterwards; and a great many there were who had got great presents of money from him before: for it may be said with truth of King Canute, that every man who came to him, and who he thought had the spirit of a man and would like his favour, got his hands full of gifts and money. On this account he was very popular, although his generosity was principally shown to foreigners, and was greatest the greater distance they came from. 167. KING OLAF'S CONSULTATIONS. King Olaf had often conferences and meetings with his people, and asked their counsel; but as he observed they gave different opinions, he had a suspicion that there must be some who spoke differently from what they really thought advisable for him, and he was thus uncertain if all gave him due fidelity in council. Some pressed that with the first fair wind they should sail to the Sound, and so to Norway. They said the Danes would not dare to attack them, although they lay with so great a force right in the way. But the king was a man of too much understanding not to see that this was impracticable. He knew also that Olaf Trygvason had found it quite otherwise, as to the Danes not daring to fight, when he with a few people went into battle against a great body of them. The king also knew that in King Canute's army there were a great many Norwegians; therefore he entertained the suspicion that those who gave this advice were more favourable to King Canute than to him. King Olaf came at last to the determination, from all these considerations, that the people who would follow him should make themselves ready to proceed by land across Gautland, and so to Norway. "But our ships," said he, "and all things that we cannot take with us, I will send eastward to the Swedish king's dominions, and let them be taken care of for us there." 168. HAREK OF THJOTTA'S VOYAGE. Harek of Thjotta replied thus to the king's speech: "It is evident that I cannot travel on foot to Norway. I am old and heavy, and little accustomed to walking. Besides, I am unwilling to part with my ship; for on that ship and its apparel I have bestowed so much labour, that it would go much against my inclination to put her into the hands of my enemies." The king said, "Come along with us, Harek, and we shall carry thee when thou art tired of walking." Then Harek sang these lines:-- "I'11 mount my ocean steed, And o'er the sea I'll speed; Forests and hills are not for me,-- I love the moving sea, Though Canute block the Sound, Rather than walk the ground, And leave my ship, I'll see What my ship will do for me." Then King Olaf let everything be put in order for the journey. The people had their walking clothing and weapons, but their other clothes and effects they packed upon such horses as they could get. Then he sent off people to take his ships east to Calmar. There he had the vessels laid up, and the ships' apparel and other goods taken care of. Harek did as he had said, and waited for a wind, and then sailed west to Scania, until, about the decline of the day, he came with a fresh and fair wind to the eastward of Holar. There he let the sail and the vane, and flag and mast be taken down, and let the upper works of the ship be covered over with some grey tilt-canvas, and let a few men sit at the oars in the fore part and aft, but the most were sitting low down in the vessel. When Canute's watchmen saw the ship, they talked with each other about what ship it might be, and made the guess that it must be one loaded with herrings or salt, as they only saw a few men at the oars; and the ship, besides, appeared to them grey, and wanting tar, as if burnt up by the sun, and they saw also that it was deeply loaded. Now when Harek came farther through the Sound, and past the fleet, he raised the mast, hoisted sail, and set up his gilded vane. The sail was white as snow, and in it were red and blue stripes of cloth interwoven. When the king's men saw the ship sailing in this state, they told the king that probably King Olaf had sailed through them. But King Canute replies, that King Olaf was too prudent a man to sail with a single ship through King Canute's fleet, and thought it more likely to be Harek of Thjotta, or the like of him. Many believed the truth to be that King Canute knew of this expedition of Harek, and that it would not have succeeded so if they had not concluded a friendship beforehand with each other; which seemed likely, after King Canute's and Harek's friendly understanding became generally known. Harek made this song as he sailed northward round the isle of Vedrey:-- "The widows of Lund may smile through their tears, The Danish girls may have their jeers; They may laugh or smile, But outside their isle Old Harek still on to his North land steers." Harek went on his way, and never stopped till he came north to Halogaland, to his own house in Thjotta. 169. KING OLAF'S COURSE FROM SVITHJOD. When King Olaf began his journey, he came first into Smaland, and then into West Gautland. He marched quietly and peaceably, and the country people gave him all assistance on his journey. Thus he proceeded until he came into Viken, and north through Viken to Sarpsborg, where he remained, and ordered a winter abode to be prepared (A.D. 1028). Then he gave most of the chiefs leave to return home, but kept the lendermen by him whom he thought the most serviceable. There were with him also all the sons of Arne Arnmodson, and they stood in great favour with the king. Geller Thorkelson, who the summer before had come from Iceland, also came there to the king, as before related. 170. OF SIGVAT THE SKALD. Sigvat the skald had long been in King Olaf's household, as before related, and the king made him his marshal. Sigvat had no talent for speaking in prose; but in skaldcraft he was so practised, that the verses came as readily from his tongue as if he were speaking in usual language. He had made a mercantile journey to Normandy, and in the course of it had come to England, where he met King Canute, and obtained permission from him to sail to Norway, as before related. When he came to Norway he proceeded straight to King Olaf, and found him at Sarpsborg. He presented himself before the king just as he was sitting down to table. Sigvat saluted him. The king looked at Sigvat and was silent. Then Sigvat sang:-- "Great king! thy marshal is come home, No more by land or sea to roam, But by thy side Still to abide. Great king! what seat here shall he take For the king's honour--not his sake? For all seats here To me are dear." Then was verified the old saying, that "many are the ears of a king;" for King Olaf had heard all about Sigvat's journey, and that he had spoken with Canute. He says to Sigvat, "I do not know if thou art my marshal, or hast become one of Canute's men." Sigvat said:-- "Canute, whose golden gifts display A generous heart, would have me stay, Service in his great court to take, And my own Norway king forsake. Two masters at a time, I said, Were one too many for men bred Where truth and virtue, shown to all, Make all men true in Olaf's hall." Then King Olaf told Sigvat to take his seat where he before used to sit; and in a short time Sigvat was in as high favour with the king as ever. 171. OF ERLING SKJALGSON AND HIS SONS. Erling Skjalgson and all his sons had been all summer in King Canute's army, in the retinue of Earl Hakon. Thorer Hund was also there, and was in high esteem. Now when King Canute heard that King Olaf had gone overland to Norway, he discharged his army, and gave all men leave to go to their winter abodes. There was then in Denmark a great army of foreigners, both English, Norwegians, and men of other countries, who had joined the expedition in summer. In autumn (A.D. 1027) Erling Skjalgson went to Norway with his men, and received great presents from King Canute at parting; but Thorer Hund remained behind in King Canute's court. With Erling went messengers from King Canute well provided with money; and in winter they travelled through all the country, paying the money which King Canute had promised to many in autumn for their assistance. They gave presents in money, besides, to many whose friendship could be purchased for King Canute. They received much assistance in their travels from Erling. In this way it came to pass that many turned their support to King Canute, promised him their services, and agreed to oppose King Olaf. Some did this openly, but many more concealed it from the public. King Olaf heard this news, for many had something to tell him about it; and the conversation in the court often turned upon it. Sigvat the skald made a song upon it:-- "The base traitors ply With purses of gold, Wanting to buy What is not to be sold,-- The king's life and throne Wanting to buy: But our souls are our own, And to hell we'll not hie. No pleasure in heaven, As we know full well, To the traitor is given,-- His soul is his hell." Often also the conversation turned upon how ill it beseemed Earl Hakon to raise his hand in arms against King Olaf, who had given him his life when he fell into the king's power; but Sigvat was a particular friend of Earl Hakon, and when he heard the earl spoken against he sang:-- "Our own court people we may blame, If they take gold to their own shame, Their king and country to betray. With those who give it's not the same, From them we have no faith to claim: 'Tis we are wrong, if we give way." 172. OF KING OLAF'S PRESENTS AT YULE. King Olaf gave a great feast at Yule, and many great people had come to him. It was the seventh day of Yule, that the king, with a few persons, among whom was Sigvat, who attended him day and night, went to a house in which the king's most precious valuables were kept. He had, according to his custom, collected there with great care the valuable presents he was to make on New Year's eve. There was in the house no small number of gold-mounted swords; and Sigvat sang:-- "The swords stand there, All bright and fair,-- Those oars that dip in blood: If I in favour stood, I too might have a share. A sword the skald would gladly take, And use it for his master's sake: In favour once he stood, And a sword has stained in blood." The king took a sword of which the handle was twisted round with gold, and the guard was gold-mounted, and gave it to him. It was a valuable article; but the gift was not seen without envy, as will appear hereafter. Immediately after Yule (1028) the king began his journey to the Uplands; for he had a great many people about him, but had received no income that autumn from the North country, for there had been an armament in summer, and the king had laid out all the revenues he could command; and also he had no vessels with which he and his people could go to the North. At the same time he had news from the North, from which he could see that there would be no safety for him in that quarter, unless he went with a great force. For these reasons he determined to proceed through the Uplands, although it was not so long a time since he had been there in guest-quarters as the law prescribes, and as the kings usually had the custom of observing in their visits. When he came to the Uplands the lendermen and the richest bondes invited him to be their guest, and thus lightened his expenses. 173. OF BJORN THE BAILIFF. There was a man called Bjorn who was of Gautland family, and a friend and acquaintance of Queen Astrid, and in some way related to her. She had given him farm-management and other offices in the upper part of Hedemark. He had also the management of Osterdal district. Bjorn was not in esteem with the king, nor liked by the bondes. It happened in a hamlet which Bjorn ruled over, that many swine and cattle were missing: therefore Bjorn ordered a Thing to be called to examine the matter. Such pillage he attributed chiefly to the people settled in forest-farms far from other men; by which he referred particularly to those who dwelt in Osterdal, for that district was very thinly inhabited, and full of lakes and forest-cleanings, and but in few places was any great neighbourhood together. 174. OF RAUD'S SONS. There was a man called Raud who dwelt in Osterdal. His wife was called Ragnhild; and his sons, Dag and Sigurd, were men of great talent. They were present at the Thing, made a reply in defence of the Osterdal people, and removed the accusation from them. Bjorn thought they were too pert in their answer, and too fine in their clothes and weapons; and therefore turned his speech against these brothers, and said it was not unlikely they may have committed these thefts. They denied it, and the Thing closed. Soon after King Olaf, with his retinue, came to guest-quarters in the house of bailiff Bjorn. The matter which had been before the Thing was then complained of to the king; and Bjorn said that Raud's sons appeared to him to have committed these thefts. A messenger was sent for Raud's sons; and when they appeared before the king he said they had not at all the appearance of thieves, and acquitted them. Thereupon they invited the king, with all his retinue, to a three days' entertainment at their father's; and although Bjorn dissuaded him from it, the king went. At Raud's there was a very excellent feast. The king asked Raud what people he and his wife were. Raud answered that he was originally a Swedish man, rich and of high birth; "but I ran away with the wife I have ever since had, and she is a sister of King Hring Dagson." The king then remembered both their families. He found that father and sons were men of understanding, and asked them what they could do. Sigurd said he could interpret dreams, and determine the time of the day although no heavenly bodies could be seen. The king made trial of his art, and found it was as Sigurd had said. Dag stated, as his accomplishment, that he could see the misdeeds and vices of every man who came under his eye, when he chose to observe him closely. The king told him to declare what faults of disposition he saw in the king himself. Dag mentioned a fault which the king was sensible he really had. Then the king asked what fault the bailiff Bjorn had. Dag said Bjorn was a thief; and told also where Bjorn had concealed on his farm the bones, horns, and hides of the cattle he had stolen in autumn; "for he committed," said Dag, "all the thefts in autumn which he accuses other people of." Dag also told the king the places where the king should go after leaving them. When the king departed from Raud's house he was accompanied on the way, and presented with friendly gifts; and Raud's sons remained with the king. The king went first to Bjorn's, and found there that all Dag had told him was true. Upon which he drove Bjorn out of the country; and he had to thank the queen that he preserved life and limbs. 175. THORER'S DEATH. Thorer, a son of Olver of Eggja, a stepson of Kalf Arnason, and a sister's son of Thorer Hund, was a remarkably handsome man, stout and strong. He was at this time eighteen years old; had made a good marriage in Hedemark, by which he got great wealth; and was besides one of the most popular of men, and formed to be a chief. He invited the king and his retinue home to him to a feast. The king accepted the invitation, went to Thorer's, and was well received. The entertainment was very splendid; they were excellently treated, and all that was set before the guests was of the best that could be got. The king and his people talked among themselves of the excellence of everything, and knew not what they should admire the most,--whether Thorer's house outside, or the inside furniture, the table service, or the liquors, or the host who gave them such a feast. But Dag said little about it. The king used often to speak to Dag, and ask him about various things; and he had proved the truth of all that Dag had said, both of things that had happened or were to happen, and therefore the king had much confidence in what he said. The king called Dag to him to have a private conversation together, and spoke to him about many things. Afterwards the king turned the conversation on Thorer,--what an excellent man Thorer was, and what a superb feast he had made for them. Dag answered but little to this, but agreed it was true what the king said. The king then asked Dag what disposition or faith he found in Thorer. Dag replied that he must certainly consider Thorer of a good disposition, if he be really what most people believe him to be. The king told him to answer direct what he was asked, and said that it was his duty to do so. Dag replies, "Then thou must allow me to determine the punishment if I disclose his faith." The king replied that he would not submit his decision to another man, but again ordered Dag to reply to what he asked. Dag replies, "The sovereign's order goes before all. I find this disposition in Thorer, as in so many others, that he is too greedy of money." The king: "Is he then a thief, or a robber?" "He is neither." "What is he then?" "To win money he is a traitor to his sovereign. He has taken money from King Canute the Great for thy head." The king asks, "What proof hast thou of the truth of this?" Dag: "He has upon his right arm, above the elbow, a thick gold ring, which King Canute gave him, and which he lets no man see." This ended their conference, and the king was very wroth. Now as the king sat at table, and the guests had drunk a while with great mirth, and Thorer went round to see the guests well served, the king ordered Thorer to be called to him. He went up before the table, and laid his hands upon it. The king asked, "How old a man art thou, Thorer?" He answered, "I am eighteen years old." "A stout man thou art for those years, and thou hast been fortunate also." Then the king took his right hand, and felt it towards the elbow. Thorer said, "Take care, for I have a boil upon my arm." The king held his hand there, and felt there was something hard under it. "Hast thou not heard," said he, "that I am a physician? Let me see the boil." As Thorer saw it was of no use to conceal it longer, he took off the ring and laid it on the table. The king asked if that was the gift of King Canute. Thorer replied that he could not deny it was. The king ordered him to be seized and laid in irons. Kalf came up and entreated for mercy, and offered money for him, which also was seconded by many; but the king was so wroth that nobody could get in a word. He said Thorer should suffer the doom he had prepared for himself. Thereupon he ordered Thorer to be killed. This deed was much detested in the Uplands, and not less in the Throndhjem country, where many of Thorer's connections were. Kalf took the death of this man much to heart, for he had been his foster-son in childhood. 176. THE FALL OF GRJOTGARD. Grjotgard Olverson, Thorer's brother, and the eldest of the brothers, was a very wealthy man, and had a great troop of people about him. He lived also at this time in Hedemark. When he heard that Thorer had been killed, he made an attack upon the places where the king's goods and men were; but, between whiles, he kept himself in the forest and other secret places. When the king heard of this disturbance, he had inquiry made about Grjotgard's haunts, and found out that he had taken up night-quarters not far from where the king was. King Olaf set out in the night-time, came there about day-dawn, and placed a circle of men round the house in which Grjotgard was sleeping. Grjotgard and his men, roused by the stir of people and clash of arms, ran to their weapons, and Grjotgard himself sprang to the front room. He asked who commanded the troop; and it was answered him, "King Olaf was come there." Grjotgard asked if the king would hear his words. The king, who stood at the door, said that Grjotgard might speak what he pleased, and he would hear his words. Grjotgard said, "I do not beg for mercy;" and at the same moment he rushed out, having his shield over his head, and his drawn sword in his hand. It was not so much light that he could see clearly. He struck his sword at the king; but Arnbjorn ran in, and the thrust pierced him under his armour into his stomach, and Arnbjorn got his deathwound. Grjotgard was killed immediately, and most of his people with him. After this event the king turned back to the south to Viken. 177. KING OLAF SENDS FOR HIS SHIPS AND GOODS. Now when the king came to Tunsberg he sent men out to all the districts, and ordered the people out upon a levy. He had but a small provision of shipping, and there were only bondes' vessels to be got. From the districts in the near neighbourhood many people came to him, but few from any distance; and it was soon found that the people had turned away from the king. King Olaf sent people to Gautland for his ships, and other goods and wares which had been left there in autumn; but the progress of these men was very slow, for it was no better now than in autumn to sail through the Sound, as King Canute had in spring fitted out an army throughout the whole of the Danish dominions, and had no fewer than 1200 vessels. 178. KING OLAF'S COUNSELS. The news came to Norway that King Canute had assembled an immense armament through all Denmark, with which he intended to conquer Norway. When this became known the people were less willing to join King Olaf, and he got but little aid from the bondes. The king's men often spoke about this among themselves. Sigvat tells of it thus:-- "Our men are few, our ships are small, While England's king is strong in all; But yet our king is not afraid-- O! never be such king betrayed! 'Tis evil counsel to deprive Our king of countrymen to strive To save their country, sword in hand: Tis money that betrays our land." The king held meetings with the men of the court, and sometimes House-things with all his people, and consulted with them what they should, in their opinion, undertake. "We must not conceal from ourselves," said he, "that Canute will come here this summer; and that he has, as ye all know, a large force, and we have at present but few men to oppose to him; and, as matters now stand, we cannot depend much on the fidelity of the country people." The king's men replied to his speech in various ways; but it is said that Sigvat the skald replied thus, advising flight, as treachery, not cowardice, was the cause of it:-- "We may well fly, when even our foe Offers us money if we go. I may be blamed, accused of fear; But treachery, not faith, rules here. Men may retire who long have shown Their faith and love, and now alone Retire because they cannot save-- This is no treachery in the brave." 179. HAREK OF THJOTTA BURNS GRANKEL AND HIS MEN. The same spring (A.D. 1028) it happened in Halogaland that Harek of Thjotta remembered how Asmund Grankelson had plundered and beaten his house-servants. A cutter with twenty rowing-benches, which belonged to Harek, was afloat in front of the house, with tent and deck, and he spread the report that he intended to go south to Throndhjem. One evening Harek went on board with his house-servants, about eighty men, who rowed the whole night; and he came towards morning to Grankel's house, and surrounded it with his men. They then made an attack on the house, and set fire to it; and Grankel with his people were burnt, and some were killed outside; and in all about thirty men lost their lives. After this deed Harek returned home, and sat quietly in his farm. Asmund was with King Olaf when he heard of it; therefore there was nobody in Halogaland to sue Harek for mulct for this deed, nor did he offer any satisfaction. 180. KING CANUTE'S EXPEDITION TO NORWAY. Canute the Great collected his forces, and went to Limfjord. When he was ready with his equipment he sailed from thence with his whole fleet to Norway; made all possible speed, and did not land to the eastward of the Fjords, but crossed Folden, and landed in Agder, where he summoned a Thing. The bondes came down from the upper country to hold a Thing with Canute, who was everywhere in that country accepted as king. Then he placed men over the districts, and took hostages from the bondes, and no man opposed him. King Olaf was in Tunsberg when Canute's fleet sailed across the mouth of the fjord. Canute sailed northwards along the coast, and people came to him from all the districts, and promised him fealty. He lay a while in Egersund, where Erling Skjalgson came to him with many people, and King Canute and Erling renewed their league of friendship. Among other things, Canute promised Erling the whole country between Stad and Rygiarbit to rule over. Then King Canute proceeded; and, to be short in our tale, did not stop until he came to Throndhjem, and landed at Nidaros. In Throndhjem he called together a Thing for the eight districts, at which King Canute was chosen king of all Norway. Thorer Hund, who had come with King Canute from Denmark, was there, and also Harek of Thjotta; and both were made sheriffs of the king, and took the oath of fealty to him. King Canute gave them great fiefs, and also right to the Lapland trade, and presented them besides with great gifts. He enriched all men who were inclined to enter into friendly accord with him both with fiefs and money, and gave them greater power than they had before. 181. OF KING CANUTE. When King Canute had laid the whole of Norway trader his authority, he called together a numerous Thing, both of his own people and of the people of the country; and at it he made proclamation, that he made his relation Earl Hakon the governor-in-chief of all the land in Norway that he had conquered in this expedition. In like manner he led his son Hardaknut to the high-seat at his side, gave him the title of king, and therewith the whole Danish dominion. King Canute took as hostages from all lendermen and great bondes in Norway either their sons, brothers, or other near connections, or the men who were dearest to them and appeared to him most suitable; by which he, as before observed, secured their fidelity to him. As soon as Earl Hakon had attained this power in Norway his brother-in-law, Einar Tambaskelfer, made an agreement with him, and received back all the fiefs he formerly had possessed while the earls ruled the country. King Canute gave Einar great gifts, and bound him by great kindness to his interests; and promised that Einar should be the greatest and most important man in Norway, among those who did not hold the highest dignity, as long as he had power over the country. He added to this, that Einar appeared to him the most suitable man to hold the highest title of honour in Norway if no earls remained, and his son Eindride also, on account of his high birth. Einar placed a great value on these promises, and, in return, promised the greatest fidelity. Einar's chiefship began anew with this. 182. OF THORARIN LOFTUNGA. There was a man by name Thorarin Loftunga, an Icelander by birth, and a great skald, who had been much with the kings and other great chiefs. He was now with King Canute the Great, and had composed a flock, or short poem, in his praise. When the king heard of this he was very angry, and ordered him to bring the next day a drapa, or long poem, by the time he went to table; and if he failed to do so, said the king, "he shall be hanged for his impudence in composing such a small poem about King Canute." Thorarin then composed a stave as a refrain, which he inserted in the poem, and also augmented it with several other strophes or verses. This was the refrain:-- "Canute protects his realm, as Jove, Guardian of Greece, his realm above." King Canute rewarded him for the poem with fifty marks of silver. The poem was called the "Headransom" ("Hofudlausn"). Thorarin composed another poem about King Canute, which was called the "Campaign Poem" ("Togdrapa"); and therein he tells King Canute's expedition when he sailed from Denmark to Norway; and the following are strophes from one of the parts of this poem:-- "Canute with all his men is out, Under the heavens in war-ships stout,-- 'Out on the sea, from Limfjord's green, My good, my brave friend's fleet is seen. The men of Adger on the coast Tremble to see this mighty host: The guilty tremble as they spy The victor's fleet beneath the sky. "The sight surpasses far the tale, As glacing in the sun they sail; The king's ship glittering all with gold, And splendour there not to be told. Round Lister many a coal-black mast Of Canute's fleet is gliding past. And now through Eger sound they ride, Upon the gently heaving tide. "And all the sound is covered o'er With ships and sails, from shore to shore, A mighty king, a mighty host, Hiding the sea on Eger coast. And peaceful men in haste now hie Up Hiornagla-hill the fleet to spy, As round the ness where Stad now lies Each high-stemmed ship in splendour flies. "Nor seemed the voyage long, I trow, To warrior on the high-built bow, As o'er the ocean-mountains riding The land and hill seem past him gliding. With whistling breeze and flashing spray Past Stein the gay ships dashed away; In open sea, the southern gale Filled every wide out-bellying sail. "Still on they fly, still northward go, Till he who conquers every foe, The mighty Canute, came to land, Far in the north on Throndhjem's strand. There this great king of Jutland race, Whose deeds and gifts surpass in grace All other kings, bestowed the throne Of Norway on his sister's son. "To his own son he gave the crown (This I must add to his renown) Of Denmark--land of shadowy vales, In which the white swan trims her sails." Here it is told that King Canute's expedition was grander than saga can tell; but Thorarin sang thus because he would pride himself upon being one of King Canute's retinue when he came to Norway. 183. OF THE MESSENGERS SENT BY KING OLAF FOR HIS SHIPS. The men whom King Olaf had sent eastwards to Gautland after his ships took with them the vessels they thought the best, and burnt the rest. The ship-apparel and other goods belonging to the king and his men they also took with them; and when they heard that King Canute had gone to Norway they sailed west through the Sound, and then north to Viken to King Olaf, to whom they delivered his ships. He was then at Tunsberg. When King Olaf learnt that King Canute was sailing north along the coast, King Olaf steered with his fleet into Oslo fjord, and into a branch of it called Drafn, where he lay quiet until King Canute's fleet had sailed southwards again. On this expedition which King Canute made from the North along the coast, he held a Thing in each district, and in every Thing the country was bound by oath in fealty to him, and hostages were given him. He went eastward across the mouths of the fjords to Sarpsborg, and held a Thing there, and, as elsewhere, the country was surrendered to him under oath of fidelity. King Canute then returned south to Denmark, after having conquered Norway without stroke of sword, and he ruled now over three kingdoms. So says Halvard Hareksblese when he sang of King Canute:-- "The warrior-king, whose blood-stain'd shield Has shone on many a hard-fought field, England and Denmark now has won, And o'er three kingdoms rules alone. Peace now he gives us fast and sure, Since Norway too is made secure By him who oft, in days of yore, Glutted the hawk and wolf with gore." 184. OF KING OLAF IN HIS PROCEEDINGS. King Olaf sailed with his ships out to Tunsberg, as soon as he heard that King Canute had turned back, and was gone south to Denmark. He then made himself ready with the men who liked to follow him, and had then thirteen ships. Afterwards he sailed out along Viken; but got little money, and few men, as those only followed him who dwelt in islands, or on outlying points of land. The king landed in such places, but got only the money and men that fell in his way; and he soon perceived that the country had abandoned him. He proceeded on according to the winds. This was in the beginning of winter (A.D. 1029). The wind turned very late in the season in their favour, so that they lay long in the Seley islands, where they heard the news from the North, through merchants, who told the king that Erling Skjalgson had collected a great force in Jadar, and that his ship lay fully rigged outside of the land, together with many other vessels belonging to the bondes; namely, skiffs, fisher-yachts, and great row-boats. Then the king sailed with his fleet from the East, and lay a while in Egersund. Both parties heard of each other now, and Erling assembled all the men he could. 185. OF KING OLAF'S VOYAGE. On Thomasmas, before Yule (Dec. 21), the king left the harbour as soon as day appeared. With a good but rather strong gale he sailed northwards past Jadar. The weather was rainy, with dark flying clouds in the sky. The spies went immediately in through the Jadar country when the king sailed past it; and as soon as Erling heard that the king was sailing past from the East, he let the war-horn call all the people on board, and the whole force hastened to the ships, and prepared for battle. The king's ship passed by Jadar at a great rate; but thereafter turned in towards the land, intending to run up the fjords to gather men and money. Erling Skjalgson perceived this, and sailed after him with a great force and many ships. Swiftly their vessels flew, for they had nothing on board but men and arms: but Erling's ship went much faster than the others; therefore he took in a reef in the sails, and waited for the other vessels. Then the king saw that Erling with his fleet gained upon him fast; for the king's ships were heavily laden, and were besides water-soaked, having been in the sea the whole summer, autumn, and winter, up to this time. He saw also that there would be a great want of men, if he should go against the whole of Erling's fleet when it was assembled. He hailed from ship to ship the orders to let the sails gently sink, and to unship the booms and outriggers, which was done. When Erling saw this he calls out to his people, and orders them to get on more sail. "Ye see," says he, "that their sails are diminishing, and they are getting fast away from our sight." He took the reef out of the sails of his ship, and outsailed all the others immediately; for Erling was very eager in his pursuit of King Olaf. 186. OF ERLING SKJALGSON'S FALL. King Olaf then steered in towards the Bokn fjord, by which the ships came out of sight of each other. Thereafter the king ordered his men to strike the sails, and row forwards through a narrow sound that was there, and all the ships lay collected within a rocky point. Then all the king's men put on their weapons. Erling sailed in through the sound, and observed nothing until the whole fleet was before him, and he saw the king's men rowing towards him with all their ships at once. Erling and his crew let fall the sails, and seized their weapons; but the king's fleet surrounded his ship on all sides. Then the fight began, and it was of the sharpest; but soon the greatest loss was among Erling's men. Erling stood on the quarter-deck of his ship. He had a helmet on his head, a shield before him, and a sword in his hand. Sigvat the skald had remained behind in Viken, and heard the tidings. He was a great friend of Erling, had received presents from him, and had been at his house. Sigvat composed a poem upon Erling's fall, in which there is the following verse:-- "Erling has set his ship on sea-- Against the king away is he: He who oft lets the eagle stain Her yellow feet in blood of slain. His little war-ship side by side With the king's fleet, the fray will bide. Now sword to sword the fight is raging, Which Erling with the king is waging." Then Erling's men began to fall, and at the same moment his ship was carried by boarding, and every man of his died in his place. The king himself was amongst the foremost in the fray. So says Sigvat:-- "The king's men hewed with hasty sword,-- The king urged on the ship to board,-- All o'er the decks the wounded lay: Right fierce and bloody was that fray. In Tungur sound, on Jadar shore, The decks were slippery with red gore; Warm blood was dropping in the sound, Where the king's sword was gleaming round." So entirely had Erling's men fallen, that not a man remained standing in his ship but himself alone; for there was none who asked for quarter, or none who got it if he did ask. There was no opening for flight, for there lay ships all around Erling's ship on every side, and it is told for certain that no man attempted to fly; and Sigvat says:-- "All Erling's men fell in the fray, Off Bokn fjord, this hard-fought day. The brave king boarded, onward cheered, And north of Tungur the deck was cleared. Erling alone, the brave, the stout, Cut off from all, yet still held out; High on the stern--a sight to see-- In his lone ship alone stood he." Then Erling was attacked both from the forecastle and from the other ships. There was a large space upon the poop which stood high above the other ships, and which nobody could reach but by arrow-shot, or partly with the thrust of spear, but which he always struck from him by parrying. Erling defended himself so manfully, that no example is known of one man having sustained the attack of so many men so long. Yet he never tried to get away, nor asked for quarter. So says Sigvat:-- "Skjalg's brave son no mercy craves,-- The battle's fury still he braves; The spear-storm, through the air sharp singing, Against his shield was ever ringing. So Erling stood; but fate had willed His life off Bokn should be spilled. No braver man has, since his day, Past Bokn fjord ta'en his way." When Olaf went back a little upon the fore-deck he saw Erling's behaviour; and the king accosted him thus:--"Thou hast turned against me to-day, Erling." He replies, "The eagle turns his claws in defence when torn asunder." Sigvat the skald tells thus of these words of Erling:-- "Erling, our best defence of old,-- Erling the brave, the brisk, the bold,-- Stood to his arms, gaily crying, 'Eagles should show their claws, though dying:' The very words which once before To Olaf he had said on shore, At Utstein when they both prepared To meet the foe, and danger shared." Then said the king, "Wilt thou enter into my service, Erling?" "That I will," said he; took the helmet off his head, laid down his sword and shield, and went forward to the forecastle deck. The king struck him in the chin with the sharp point of his battle-axe, and said, "I shall mark thee as a traitor to thy sovereign." Then Aslak Fitiaskalle rose up, and struck Erling in the head with an axe, so that it stood fast in his brain, and was instantly his death-wound. Thus Erling lost his life. The king said to Aslak, "May all ill luck attend thee for that stroke; for thou hast struck Norway out of my hands." Aslak replied, "It is bad enough if that stroke displease thee, for I thought it was striking Norway into thy hands; and if I have given thee offence, sire, by this stroke, and have thy ill-will for it, it will go badly with me, for I will get so many men's ill-will and enmity for this deed that I would need all your protection and favour." The king replied that he should have it. Thereafter the king ordered every man to return to his ship, and to get ready to depart as fast as he could. "We will not plunder the slain," says he, "and each man may keep what he has taken." The men returned to the ships and prepared themselves for the departure as quickly as possible; and scarcely was this done before the vessels of the bondes ran in from the south into the sound. It went with the bonde-army as is often seen, that the men, although many in numbers, know not what to do when they have experienced a check, have lost their chief, and are without leaders. None of Erling's sons were there, and the bondes therefore made no attack, and the king sailed on his way northwards. But the bondes took Erling's corpse, adorned it, and carried it with them home to Sole, and also the bodies of all who had fallen. There was great lamentation over Erling; and it has been a common observation among people, that Erling Skjalgson was the greatest and worthiest man in Norway of those who had no high title. Sigvat made these verses upon the occasion:-- "Thus Erling fell--and such a gain To buy with such a loss was vain; For better man than he ne'er died, And the king's gain was small beside. In truth no man I ever knew Was, in all ways, so firm and true; Free from servility and pride, Honoured by all, yet thus he died." Sigvat also says that Aslak had very unthinkingly committed this murder of his own kinsman:-- "Norway's brave defender's dead! Aslak has heaped on his own head The guilt of murdering his own kin: May few be guilty of such sin! His kinsman's murder on him lies-- Our forefathers, in sayings wise, Have said, what is unknown to few, 'Kinsmen to kinsmen should be true.'" 187. OF THE INSURRECTION OF AGDER DISTRICT. Of Erling's sons some at that time were north in Throndhjem, some in Hordaland, and some in the Fjord district, for the purpose of collecting men. When Erling's death was reported, the news came also that there was a levy raising in Agder, Hordaland, and Rogaland. Forces were raised and a great army assembled, under Erling's sons, to pursue King Olaf. When King Olaf retired from the battle with Erling he went northward through the sounds, and it was late in the day. It is related that the king then made the following verses:-- "This night, with battle sounds wild ringing, Small joy to the fair youth is bringing Who sits in Jadar, little dreaming O'er what this night the raven's screaming. The far-descended Erling's life Too soon has fallen; but, in the strife He met the luck they well deserve Who from their faith and fealty swerve." Afterwards the king sailed with his fleet along the land northwards, and got certain tidings of the bondes assembling an army. There were many chiefs and lendermen at this time with King Olaf, and all the sons of Arne. Of this Bjarne Gullbrarskald speaks in the poem he composed about Kalf Arnason:-- "Kalf! thou hast fought at Bokn well; Of thy brave doings all men tell: When Harald's son his men urged on To the hard strife, thy courage shone. Thou soon hadst made a good Yule feast For greedy wolf there in the East: Where stone and spear were flying round, There thou wast still the foremost found. The people suffered in the strife When noble Erling lost his life, And north of Utstein many a speck Of blood lay black upon the deck. The king, 'tis clear, has been deceived, By treason of his land bereaved; And Agder now, whose force is great. Will rule o'er all parts of the state." King Olaf continued his voyage until he came north of Stad, and brought up at the Herey Isles. Here he heard the news that Earl Hakon had a great war-force in Throndhjem, and thereupon the king held a council with his people. Kalf Arnason urged much to advance to Throndhjem, and fight Earl Hakon, notwithstanding the difference of numbers. Many others supported this advice, but others dissuaded from it, and the matter was left to the king's judgment. 188. DEATH OF ASLAK FITIASKALLE. Afterwards the king went into Steinavag, and remained there all night; but Aslak Fitiaskalle ran into Borgund, where he remained the night, and where Vigleik Arnason was before him. In the morning, when Aslak was about returning on board, Vigleik assaulted him, and sought to avenge Erling's murder. Aslak fell there. Some of the king's court-men, who had been home all summer, joined the king here. They came from Frekeysund, and brought the king tidings that Earl Hakon, and many lendermen with him, had come in the morning to Frekeysund with a large force; "and they will end thy days, sire, if they have strength enough." Now the king sent his men up to a hill that was near; and when they came to the top, and looked northwards to Bjarney Island, they perceived that a great armament of many ships was coming from the north, and they hastened back to the king with this intelligence. The king, who was lying there with only twelve ships, ordered the war-horn to sound, the tents to be taken down on his ships, and they took to their oars. When they were quite ready, and were leaving the harbour, the bonde army sailed north around Thiotande with twenty-five ships. The king then steered inside of Nyrfe Island, and inside of Hundsver. Now when King Olaf came right abreast of Borgund, the ship which Aslak had steered came out to meet him, and when they found the king they told him the tidings,--that Vigleik Arnason had killed Aslak Fitiaskalle, because he had killed Erling Skjalgson. The king took this news very angrily, but could not delay his voyage on account of the enemy and he sailed in by Vegsund and Skor. There some of his people left him; among others, Kalf Arnason, with many other lendermen and ship commanders, who all went to meet Earl Hakon. King Olaf, however, proceeded on his way without stopping until he came to Todar fjord, where he brought up at Valdal, and landed from his ship. He had then five ships with him, which he drew up upon the shore, and took care of their sails and materials. Then he set up his land-tent upon a point of land called Sult, where there are pretty flat fields, and set up a cross near to the point of land. A bonde, by name Bruse, who dwelt there in More, and was chief over the valley, came down to King Olaf, together with many other bondes, and received him well, and according to his dignity; and he was friendly, and pleased with their reception of him. Then the king asked if there was a passable road up in the country from the valley to Lesjar; and Bruse replied, that there was an urd in the valley called Skerfsurd not passable for man or beast. King Olaf answers, "That we must try, bonde, and it will go as God pleases. Come here in the morning with your yoke, and come yourself with it, and let us then see. When we come to the sloping precipice, what chance there may be, and if we cannot devise some means of coming over it with horses and people." 189. CLEARING OF THE URD. Now when day broke the bondes drove down with their yokes, as the king had told them. The clothes and weapons were packed upon horses, but the king and all the people went on foot. He went thus until he came to a place called Krosbrekka, and when he came up upon the hill he rested himself, sat down there a while, looked down over the fjord, and said, "A difficult expedition ye have thrown upon my hands, ye lendermen, who have now changed your fealty, although but a little while ago ye were my friends and faithful to me." There are now two crosses erected upon the bank on which the king sat. Then the king mounted a horse, and rode without stopping up the valley, until he came to the precipice. Then the king asked Bruse if there was no summer hut of cattle-herds in the neighbourhood, where they could remain. He said there was. The king ordered his land-tent to be set up, and remained there all night. In the morning the king ordered them to drive to the urd, and try if they could get across it with the waggons. They drove there, and the king remained in the meantime in his tent. Towards evening the king's court-men and the bondes came back, and told how they had had a very fatiguing labour, without making any progress, and that there never could be a road made that they could get across: so they continued there the second night, during which, for the whole night, the king was occupied in prayer. As soon as he observed day dawning he ordered his men to drive again to the urd, and try once more if they could get across it with the waggons; but they went very unwillingly, saying nothing could be gained by it. When they were gone the man who had charge of the king's kitchen came, and said there were only two carcasses of young cattle remaining of provision: "Although you, sire, have 400 men, and there are 100 bondes besides." Then the king ordered that he should set all the kettles on the fire, and put a little bit of meat in each kettle, which was done. Then the king went there, and made the sign of the cross over each kettle, and told them to make ready the meat. The king then went to the urd called Skerfsurd, where a road should be cleared. When the king came all his people were sitting down, quite worn out with the hard labour. Bruse said, "I told you, sire, but you would not believe me, that we could make nothing of this urd." The king laid aside his cloak, and told them to go to work once more at the urd. They did so, and now twenty men could handle stones which before 100 men could not move from the place; and thus before midday the road was cleared so well that it was as passable for men, and for horses with packs, as a road in the plain fields. The king, after this, went down again to where the meat was, which place is called Olaf's Rock. Near the rock is a spring, at which Olaf washed himself; and therefore at the present day, when the cattle in the valley are sick, their illness is made better by their drinking at this well. Thereafter the king sat down to table with all the others; and when he was satisfied he asked if there was any other sheeling on the other side of the urd, and near the mountains, where they could pass the night. Bruse said there was such a sheeling, called Groningar; but that nobody could pass the night there on account of witchcraft, and evil beings who were in the sheeling. Then the king said they must get ready for their journey, as he wanted to be at the sheeling for the night. Then came the kitchen-master to the king, and tells that there was come an extraordinary supply of provisions, and he did not know where it had come from, or how. The king thanked God for this blessing, and gave the bondes who drove down again to their valley some rations of food, but remained himself all night in the sheeling. In the middle of the night, while the people were asleep, there was heard in the cattle-fold a dreadful cry, and these words: "Now Olaf's prayers are burning me," says the spirit, "so that I can no longer be in my habitation; now must I fly, and never more come to this fold." When the king's people awoke in the morning the king proceeded to the mountains, and said to Bruse, "Here shall now a farm be settled, and the bonde who dwells here shall never want what is needful for the support of life; and never shall his crop be destroyed by frost, although the crops be frozen on the farms both above it and below it." Then the king proceeded over the mountains, and came to a farm called Einby, where he remained for the night. King Olaf had then been fifteen years king of Norway (A.D. 1015-1029), including the year both he and Svein were in the country, and this year we have now been telling about. It was, namely, a little past Yule when the king left his ships and took to the land, as before related. Of this portion of his reign the priest Are Thorgilson the Wise was the first who wrote; and he was both faithful in his story, of a good memory, and so old a man that he could remember the men, and had heard their accounts, who were so old that through their age they could remember these circumstances as he himself wrote them in his books, and he named the men from whom he received his information. Otherwise it is generally said that King Olaf had been fifteen years king of Norway when he fell; but they who say so reckon to Earl Svein's government, the last year he was in the country, for King Olaf lived fifteen years afterwards as king. 190. OLAF'S PROPHECIES. When the king had been one night at Lesjar he proceeded on his journey with his men, day by day; first into Gudbrandsdal, and from thence out to Redemark. Now it was seen who had been his friends, for they followed him; but those who had served him with less fidelity separated from him, and some showed him even indifference, or even full hostility, which afterwards was apparent; and also it could be seen clearly in many Upland people that they took very ill his putting Thorer to death, as before related. King Olaf gave leave to return home to many of his men who had farms and children to take care of; for it seemed to them uncertain what safety there might be for the families and property of those who left the country with him. Then the king explained to his friends his intention of leaving the country, and going first east into Svithjod, and there taking his determination as to where he should go; but he let his friends know his intention to return to the country, and regain his kingdoms, if God should grant him longer life; and he did not conceal his expectation that the people of Norway would again return to their fealty to him. "I think," says he, "that Earl Hakon will have Norway but a short time under his power, which many will not think an extraordinary expectation, as Earl Hakon has had but little luck against me; but probably few people will trust to my prophecy, that Canute the Great will in the course of a few years die, and his kingdoms vanish; and there will he no risings in favour of his race." When the king had ended his speech, his men prepared themselves for their departure. The king, with the troop that followed him, turned east to Eid forest. And there were along with him the Queen Astrid; their daughter Ulfhild; Magnus, King Olaf's son; Ragnvald Brusason; the three sons of Arne, Thorberg, Fin, and Arne, with many lendermen; and the king's attendants consisted of many chosen men. Bjorn the marshal got leave to go home, and he went to his farm, and many others of the king's friends returned home with his permission to their farms. The king begged them to let him know the events which might happen in the country, and which it might be important for him to know; and now the king proceeded on his way. 191. KING OLAF PROCEEDS TO RUSSIA. It is to be related of King Olaf's journey, that he went first from Norway eastward through Eid forest to Vermaland, then to Vatnsby, and through the forests in which there are roads, until he came out in Nerike district. There dwelt a rich and powerful man in that part called Sigtryg, who had a son, Ivar, who afterwards became a distinguished person. Olaf stayed with Sigtryg all spring (A.D. 1029); and when summer came he made ready for a journey, procured a ship for himself, and without stopping went on to Russia to King Jarisleif and his queen Ingegerd; but his own queen Astrid, and their daughter Ulfhild, remained behind in Svithjod, and the king took his son Magnus eastward with him. King Jarisleif received King Olaf in the kindest manner, and made him the offer to remain with him, and to have so much land as was necessary for defraying the expense of the entertainment of his followers. King Olaf accepted this offer thankfully, and remained there. It is related that King Olaf was distinguished all his life for pious habits, and zeal in his prayers to God. But afterwards, when he saw his own power diminished, and that of his adversaries augmented, he turned all his mind to God's service; for he was not distracted by other thoughts, or by the labour he formerly had upon his hands, for during all the time he sat upon the throne he was endeavouring to promote what was most useful: and first to free and protect the country from foreign chiefs' oppressions, then to convert the people to the right faith; and also to establish law and the rights of the country, which he did by letting justice have its way, and punishing evil-doers. 192. CAUSES OF THE REVOLT AGAINST KING OLAF. It had been an old custom in Norway that the sons of lendermen, or other great men, went out in war-ships to gather property, and they marauded both in the country and out of the country. But after King Olaf came to the sovereignty he protected the country, so that he abolished all plundering there; and even if they were the sons of powerful men who committed any depredation, or did what the king considered against law, he did not spare them at all, but they must suffer in life or limbs; and no man's entreaties, and no offer of money-penalties, could help them. So says Sigvat:-- "They who on viking cruises drove With gifts of red gold often strove To buy their safety--but our chief Had no compassion for the thief. He made the bravest lose his head Who robbed at sea, and pirates led; And his just sword gave peace to all, Sparing no robber, great or small." And he also says:-- "Great king! whose sword on many a field Food to the wandering wolf did yield, And then the thief and pirate band Swept wholly off by sea and land-- Good king! who for the people's sake Set hands and feet upon a stake, When plunderers of great name and bold Harried the country as of old. The country's guardian showed his might When oft he made his just sword bite Through many a viking's neck and hair, And never would the guilty spare. King Magnus' father, I must say, Did many a good deed in his day. Olaf the Thick was stern and stout, Much good his victories brought out." He punished great and small with equal severity, which appeared to the chief people of the country too severe; and animosity rose to the highest when they lost relatives by the king's just sentence, although they were in reality guilty. This was the origin of the hostility of the great men of the country to King Olaf, that they could not bear his just judgments. He again would rather renounce his dignity than omit righteous judgment. The accusation against him, of being stingy with his money, was not just, for he was a most generous man towards his friends; but that alone was the cause of the discontent raised against him, that he appeared hard and severe in his retributions. Besides, King Canute offered great sums of money, and the great chiefs were corrupted by this, and by his offering them greater dignities than they had possessed before. The inclinations of the people, also, were all in favour of Earl Hakon, who was much beloved by the country folks when he ruled the country before. 193. OF JOKUL BARDSON. Earl Hakon had sailed with his fleet from Throndhjem, and gone south to More against King Olaf, as before related. Now when the king bore away, and ran into the fjord, the earl followed him thither; and then Kalf Arnason came to meet him, with many of the men who had deserted King Olaf. Kalf was well received. The earl steered in through Todar fjord to Valdal, where the king had laid up his ships on the strand. He took the ships which belonged to the king, had them put upon the water and rigged, and cast lots, and put commanders in charge of them according to the lots. There was a man called Jokul, who was an Icelander, a son of Bard Jokulson of Vatnsdal; the lot fell upon Jokul to command the Bison, which King Olaf himself had commanded. Jokul made these verses upon it:-- "Mine is the lot to take the helm Which Olaf owned, who owned the realm; From Sult King Olaf's ship to steer (Ill luck I dread on his reindeer). My girl will never hear the tidings, Till o'er the wild wave I come riding In Olaf's ship, who loved his gold, And lost his ships with wealth untold." We may here shortly tell what happened a long time after.--that this Jokul fell in with King Olaf's men in the island of Gotland, and the king ordered him to be taken out to be beheaded. A willow twig accordingly was plaited in with his hair, and a man held him fast by it. Jokul sat down upon a bank, and a man swung the axe to execute him; but Jokul hearing the sound, raised his head, and the blow struck him in the head, and made a dreadful wound. As the king saw it would be his death-wound, he ordered them to let him lie with it. Jokul raised himself up, and he sang:-- "My hard fate I mourn,-- Alas! my wounds burn, My red wounds are gaping, My life-blood escaping. My wounds burn sore; But I suffer still more From the king's angry word, Than his sharp-biting sword." 194. OF KALF ARNASON. Kalf Arnason went with Earl Hakon north to Throndhjem, and the earl invited him to enter into his service. Kalf said he would first go home to his farm at Eggja, and afterwards make his determination; and Kalf did so. When he came home he found his wife Sigrid much irritated; and she reckoned up all the sorrow inflicted on her, as she insisted, by King Olaf. First, he had ordered her first husband Olver to be killed. "And now since," says she, "my two sons; and thou thyself, Kalf, wert present when they were cut off, and which I little expected from thee." Kalf says, it was much against his will that Thorer was killed. "I offered money-penalty for him," says he; "and when Grjotgard was killed I lost my brother Arnbjorn at the same time." She replies, "It is well thou hast suffered this from the king; for thou mayest perhaps avenge him, although thou wilt not avenge my injuries. Thou sawest how thy foster-son Thorer was killed, with all the regard of the king for thee." She frequently brought out such vexatious speeches to Kalf, to which he often answered angrily; but yet he allowed himself to be persuaded by her to enter into the earl's service, on condition of renewing his fiefs to him. Sigrid sent word to the earl how far she had brought the matter with Kalf. As soon as the earl heard of it, he sent a message to Kalf that he should come to the town to him. Kalf did not decline the invitation, but came directly to Nidaros, and waited on the earl, who received him kindly. In their conversation it was fully agreed upon that Kalf should go into the earl's service, and should receive great fiefs. After this Kalf returned home, and had the greater part of the interior of the Throndhjem country under him. As soon as it was spring Kalf rigged out a ship that belonged to him, and when she was ready he put to sea, and sailed west to England; for he had heard that in spring King Canute was to sail from Denmark to England, and that King Canute had given Harald, a son of Thorkel the High, an earldom in Denmark. Kalf Arnason went to King Canute as soon as he arrived in England. Bjarne Gullbrarskald tells of this:-- "King Olaf eastward o'er the sea To Russia's monarch had to flee; Our Harald's brother ploughed the main, And furrowed white its dark-blue plain. Whilst thou--the truth I still will say, Nor fear nor favour can me sway-- Thou to King Canute hastened fast, As soon as Olaf's luck was past." Now when Kalf came to King Canute the king received him particularly well, and had many conversations with him. Among other things, King Canute, in a conference, asked Kalf to bind himself to raise a warfare against King Olaf, if ever he should return to the country. "And for which," says the king, "I will give thee the earldom, and place thee to rule over Norway; and my relation Hakon shall come to me, which will suit him better, for he is so honourable and trustworthy that I believe he would not even throw a spear against the person of King Olaf if he came back to the country." Kalf lent his ear to what the king proposed, for he had a great desire to attain this high dignity; and this conclusion was settled upon between King Canute and Kalf. Kalf then prepared to return home, and on his departure he received splendid presents from King Canute. Bjarne the skald tells of these circumstances:-- "Sprung from old earls!--to England's lord Thou owest many a thankful word For many a gift: if all be true, Thy interest has been kept in view; For when thy course was bent for home, (Although that luck is not yet come,) 'That Norway should be thine,' 'tis said, The London king a promise made." Kalf thereafter returned to Norway, and came to his farm. 195. OF THE DEATH OF EARL HAKON. Earl Hakon left the country this summer (A.D. 1029), and went to England, and when he came there was well received by the king. The earl had a bride in England, and he travelled to conclude this marriage, and as he intended holding his wedding in Norway, he came to procure those things for it in England which it was difficult to get in Norway. In autumn he made ready for his return, but it was somewhat late before he was clear for sea; but at last he set out. Of his voyage all that can be told is, that the vessel was lost, and not a man escaped. Some relate that the vessel was seen north of Caithness in the evening in a heavy storm, and the wind blowing out of Pentland Firth. They who believe this report say the vessel drove out among the breakers of the ocean; but with certainty people knew only that Earl Hakon was missing in the ocean, and nothing belonging to the ship ever came to land. The same autumn some merchants came to Norway, who told the tidings that were going through the country of Earl Hakon being missing; and all men knew that he neither came to Norway nor to England that autumn, so that Norway that winter was without a head. 196. OF BJORN THE MARSHAL. Bjorn the marshal sat at home on his farm after his parting from King Olaf. Bjorn was a celebrated man; therefore it was soon reported far and wide that he had set himself down in quietness. Earl Hakon and the other chiefs of the country heard this also, and sent persons with a verbal message to Bjorn. When the messengers arrived Bjorn received them well; and afterwards Bjorn called them to him to a conference, and asked their business. He who was their foreman presented to Bjorn the salutations of King Canute, Earl Hakon, and of several chiefs. "King Canute," says he, "has heard much of thee, and that thou hast been long a follower of King Olaf the Thick, and hast been a great enemy of King Canute; and this he thinks not right, for he will be thy friend, and the friend of all worthy men, if thou wilt turn from thy friendship to King Olaf and become his enemy. And the only thing now thou canst do is to seek friendship and protection there where it is most readily to be found, and which all men in this northern world think it most honourable to be favoured with. Ye who have followed Olaf the Thick should consider how he is now separated from you; and that now ye have no aid against King Canute and his men, whose lands ye plundered last summer, and whose friends ye murdered. Therefore ye ought to accept, with thanks, the friendship which the king offers you; and it would become you better if you offered money even in mulct to obtain it." When he had ended his speech Bjorn replies, "I wish now to sit quietly at home, and not to enter into the service of any chief." The messenger answers, "Such men as thou art are just the right men to serve the king; and now I can tell thee there are just two things for thee to choose,--either to depart in peace from thy property, and wander about as thy comrade Olaf is doing; or, which is evidently better, to accept King Canute's and Earl Hakon's friendship, become their man, and take the oaths of fealty to them. Receive now thy reward." And he displayed to him a large bag full of English money. Bjorn was a man fond of money, and self-interested; and when he saw the silver he was silent, and reflected with himself what resolution he should take. It seemed to him much to abandon his property, as he did not think it probable that King Olaf would ever have a rising in his favour in Norway. Now when the messenger saw that Bjorn's inclinations were turned towards the money, he threw down two thick gold rings, and said, "Take the money at once, Bjorn, and swear the oaths to King Canute; for I can promise thee that this money is but a trifle, compared to what thou wilt receive if thou followest King Canute." By the heap of money, the fine promises, and the great presents, he was led by covetousness, took the money, went into King Canute's service, and gave the oaths of fealty to King Canute and Earl Hakon, and then the messengers departed. 197. BJORN THE MARSHAL'S JOURNEY. When Bjorn heard the tidings that Earl Hakon was missing he soon altered his mind, and was much vexed with himself for having been a traitor in his fidelity to King Olaf. He thought, now, that he was freed from the oath by which he had bound himself to Earl Hakon. It seemed to Bjorn that now there was some hope that King Olaf might again come to the throne of Norway if he came back, as the country was without a head. Bjorn therefore immediately made himself ready to travel, and took some men with him. He then set out on his journey, travelling night and day, on horseback when he could, and by ship when he found occasion; and never halted until he came, after Yule, east to Russia to King Olaf, who was very glad to see Bjorn. Then the king inquired much about the news from Norway. Bjorn tells him that Earl Hakon was missing, and the kingdom left without a head. At this news the men who had followed King Olaf were very glad,--all who had left property, connections, and friends in Norway; and the longing for home was awakened in them. Bjorn told King Olaf much news from Norway, and very anxious the king was to know, and asked much how his friends had kept their fidelity towards him. Bjorn answered, it had gone differently with different people. Then Bjorn stood up, fell at the king's feet, held his foot, and said, "All is in your power, sire, and in God's! I have taken money from King Canute's men, and sworn them the oaths of fealty; but now will I follow thee, and not part from thee so long as we both live." The king replies, "Stand up, Bjorn' thou shalt be reconciled with me; but reconcile thy perjury with God. I can see that but few men in Norway have held fast by their fealty, when such men as thou art could be false to me. But true it is also that people sit in great danger when I am distant, and they are exposed to the wrath of my enemies." Bjorn then reckoned up those who had principally bound themselves to rise in hostility against the king and his men; and named, among others, Erling's son in Jadar and their connections, Einar Tambaskelfer, Kalf Arnason, Thorer Hund, and Harek of Thjotta. 198. OF KING OLAF. After King Olaf came to Russia he was very thoughtful, and weighed what counsel he now should follow. King Jarisleif and Queen Ingegerd offered him to remain with them, and receive a kingdom called Vulgaria, which is a part of Russia, and in which land the people were still heathen. King Olaf thought over this offer; but when he proposed it to his men they dissuaded him from settling himself there, and urged the king to betake himself to Norway to his own kingdom: but the king himself had resolved almost in his own mind to lay down his royal dignity, to go out into the world to Jerusalem, or other holy places, and to enter into some order of monks. But yet the thought lay deep in his soul to recover again, if there should be any opportunity for him, his kingdom in Norway. When he thought over this, it recurred to his mind how all things had gone prosperously with him during the first ten years of his reign, and how afterwards every thing he undertook became heavy, difficult, and hard; and that he had been unlucky, on all occasions in which he had tried his luck. On this account he doubted if it would be prudent to depend so much upon his luck, as to go with so little strength into the hands of his enemies, seeing that all the people of the country had taken part with them to oppose King Olaf. Such cares he had often on his mind, and he left his cause to God, praying that He would do what to Him seemed best. These thoughts he turned over in his mind, and knew not what to resolve upon; for he saw how evidently dangerous that was which his inclination was most bent upon. 199. OF KING OLAF'S DREAM. One night the king lay awake in his bed, thinking with great anxiety about his determination, and at last, being tired of thinking, sleep came over him towards morning; but his sleep was so light that he thought he was awake, and could see all that was doing in the house. Then he saw a great and superb man, in splendid clothes, standing by his bed; and it came into the king's mind that this was King Olaf Trygvason who had come to him. This man said to him, "Thou are very sick of thinking about thy future resolutions; and it appears to me wonderful that these thoughts should be so tumultuous in thy soul that thou shouldst even think of laying down the kingly dignity which God hath given thee, and of remaining here and accepting of a kingdom from foreign and unknown kings. Go back rather to that kingdom which thou hast received in heritage, and rule over it with the strength which God hath given thee, and let not thy inferiors take it from thee. It is the glory of a king to be victorious over his enemies, and it is a glorious death to die in battle. Or art thou doubtful if thou hast right on thy side in the strife with thine enemies? Thou must have no doubts, and must not conceal the truth from thyself. Thou must go back to thy country, and God will give open testimony that the kingdom is thine by property." When the king awoke he thought he saw the man's shoulders going out. From this time the king's courage rose, and he fixed firmly his resolution to return to Norway; to which his inclination also tended most, and which he also found was the desire of all his men. He bethought himself also that the country being without a chief could be easily attacked, from what he had heard, and that after he came himself many would turn back towards him. When the king told his determination to his people they all gave it their approbation joyfully. 200. OF KING OLAF'S HEALING POWERS. It is related that once upon a time, while King Olaf was in Russia, it happened that the son of an honest widow had a sore boil upon his neck, of which the lad lay very ill; and as he could not swallow any food, there was little hope of his life. The boy's mother went to Queen Ingegerd, with whom she was acquainted, and showed her the lad. The queen said she knew no remedy for it. "Go," said she, "to King Olaf, he is the best physician here; and beg him to lay his hands on thy lad, and bring him my words if he will not otherwise do it." She did as the queen told her; and when she found the king she says to him that her son is dangerously ill of a boil in his neck, and begs him to lay his hand on the boil. The king tells her he is not a physician, and bids her go to where there were physicians. She replies, that the queen had told her to come to him; "and told me to add the request from her, that you would would use the remedy you understood, and she said that thou art the best physician here in the town." Then the king took the lad, laid his hands upon his neck, and felt the boil for a long time, until the boy made a very wry face. Then the king took a piece of bread, laid it in the figure of the cross upon the palm of his hand, and put it into the boy's mouth. He swallowed it down, and from that time all the soreness left his neck, and in a few days he was quite well, to the great joy of his mother and all his relations. Then first came Olaf into the repute of having as much healing power in his hands as is ascribed to men who have been gifted by nature with healing by the touch; and afterwards when his miracles were universally acknowledged, this also was considered one of his miracles. 201. KING OLAF BURNS THE WOOD SHAVINGS ON HIS HAND FOR HIS SABBATH BREACH. It happened one Sunday that the king sat in his highseat at the dinner table, and had fallen into such deep thought that he did not observe how time went. In one hand he had a knife, and in the other a piece of fir-wood from which he cut splinters from time to time. The table-servant stood before him with a bowl in his hands; and seeing what the king was about, and that he was involved in thought, he said, "It is Monday, sire, to-morrow." The king looked at him when he heard this, and then it came into his mind what he was doing on the Sunday. Then the king ordered a lighted candle to be brought him, swept together all the shavings he had made, set them on fire, and let them burn upon his naked hand; showing thereby that he would hold fast by God's law and commandment, and not trespass without punishment on what he knew to be right. 202. OF KING OLAF. When King Olaf had resolved on his return home, he made known his intention to King Jarisleif and Queen Ingegerd. They dissuaded him from this expedition, and said he should receive as much power in their dominions as he thought desirable; but begged him not to put himself within the reach of his enemies with so few men as he had. Then King Olaf told them of his dream; adding, that he believed it to be God's will and providence that it should be so. Now when they found he was determined on travelling to Norway, they offered him all the assistance to his journey that he would accept from them. The king thanked them in many fine words for their good will; and said that he accepted from them, with no ordinary pleasure, what might be necessary for his undertaking. 203. OF KING OLAF'S JOURNEY FROM RUSSIA. Immediately after Yule (A.D. 1080), King Olaf made himself ready; and had about 200 of his men with him. King Jarisleif gave him all the horses, and whatever else he required; and when he was ready he set off. King Jarisleif and Queen Ingegerd parted from him with all honour; and he left his son Magnus behind with the king. The first part of his journey, down to the sea-coast, King Olaf and his men made on the ice; but as spring approached, and the ice broke up, they rigged their vessels, and when they were ready and got a wind they set out to sea, and had a good voyage. When Olaf came to the island of Gotland with his ships he heard the news--which was told as truth, both in Svithjod, Denmark, and over all Norway--that Earl Hakon was missing, and Norway without a head. This gave the king and his men good hope of the issue of their journey. From thence they sailed, when the wind suited, to Svithjod, and went into the Maelar lake, to Aros, and sent men to the Swedish King Onund appointing a meeting. King Onund received his brother-in-law's message in the kindest manner, and went to him according to his invitation. Astrid also came to King Olaf, with the men who had attended her; and great was the joy on all sides at this meeting. The Swedish king also received his brother-in-law King Olaf with great joy when they met. 204. OF THE LENDERMEN IN NORWAY. Now we must relate what, in the meantime, was going on in Norway. Thorer Hund, in these two winters (A.D. 1029-1030), had made a Lapland journey, and each winter had been a long time on the mountains, and had gathered to himself great wealth by trading in various wares with the Laplanders. He had twelve large coats of reindeer-skin made for him, with so much Lapland witchcraft that no weapon could cut or pierce them any more than if they were armour of ring-mail, nor so much. The spring thereafter Thorer rigged a long-ship which belonged to him, and manned it with his house-servants. He summoned the bondes, demanded a levy from the most northern Thing district, collected in this way a great many people, and proceeded with this force southwards. Harek of Thjotta had also collected a great number of people; and in this expedition many people of consequence took a part, although these two were the most distinguished. They made it known publicly that with this war-force they were going against King Olaf, to defend the country against him, in case he should come from the eastward. 205. OF EINAR TAMBASKELFER. Einar Tambaskelfer had most influence in the outer part of the Throndhjem country after Earl Hakon's death was no longer doubtful; for he and his son Eindride appeared to be the nearest heirs to the movable property the earl had possessed. Then Einar remembered the promises and offers of friendship which King Canute had made him at parting; and he ordered a good vessel which belonged to him to be got ready, and embarked with a great retinue, and when he was ready sailed southwards along the coast, then set out to sea westwards, and sailed without stopping until he came to England. He immediately waited on King Canute, who received him well and joyfully. Then Einar opened his business to the king, and said he was come there to see the fulfillment of the promises the king had made him; namely, that he, Einar, should have the highest title of honour in Norway if Earl Hakon were no more. King Canute replies, that now the circumstances were altered. "I have now," said he, "sent men and tokens to my son Svein in Denmark, and promised him the kingdom of Norway; but thou shalt retain my friendship, and get the dignity and title which thou art entitled by birth to hold. Thou shalt be lenderman with great fiefs, and be so much more raised above other lendermen as thou art more able than they." Einar saw sufficiently how matters stood with regard to his business, and got ready to return home; but as he now knew the king's intentions, and thought it probable if King Olaf came from the East the country would not be very peaceable, it came into his mind that it would be better to proceed slowly, and not to be hastening his voyage, in order to fight against King Olaf, without his being advanced by it to any higher dignity than he had before. Einar accordingly went to sea when he was ready; but only came to Norway after the events were ended which took place there during that summer. 206. OF THE CHIEF PEOPLE IN NORWAY. The chiefs in Norway had their spies east in Svithjod, and south in Denmark, to find out if King Olaf had come from Russia. As soon as these men could get across the country, they heard the news that King Olaf was arrived in Svithjod; and as soon as full certainty of this was obtained, the war message-token went round the land. The whole people were called out to a levy, and a great army was collected. The lendermen who were from Agder, Rogaland, and Hordaland, divided themselves, so that some went towards the north, and some towards the east; for they thought they required people on both sides. Erling's sons from Jadar went eastward, with all the men who lived east of them, and over whom they were chiefs; Aslak of Finey, and Erlend of Gerde, with the lendermen north of them, went towards the north. All those now named had sworn an oath to King Canute to deprive Olaf of life, if opportunity should offer. 207. OF HARALD SIGURDSON'S PROCEEDINGS. Now when it was reported in Norway that King Olaf was come from the East to Svithjod, his friends gathered together to give him aid. The most distinguished man in this flock was Harald Sigurdson, a brother of King Olaf, who then was fifteen years of age, very stout, and manly of growth as if he were full-grown. Many other brave men were there also; and there were in all 600 men when they proceeded from the uplands, and went eastward with their force through Eid forest to Vermaland. From thence they went eastward through the forests to Svithjod and made inquiry about King Olaf's proceedings. 208. OF KING OLAF'S PROCEEDINGS IN SVITHJOD. King Olaf was in Svithjod in spring (A.D. 1030), and had sent spies from thence to Norway. All accounts from that quarter agreed that there was no safety for him if he went there, and the people who came from the north dissuaded him much from penetrating into the country. But he had firmly resolved within himself, as before stated, to go into Norway; and he asked King Onund what strength King Onund would give him to conquer his kingdom. King Onund replied, that the Swedes were little inclined to make an expedition against Norway. "We know," says he, "that the Northmen are rough and warlike, and it is dangerous to carry hostility to their doors, but I will not be slow in telling thee what aid I can give. I will give thee 400 chosen men from my court-men, active and warlike, and well equipt for battle; and moreover will give thee leave to go through my country, and gather to thyself as many men as thou canst get to follow thee." King Olaf accepted this offer, and got ready for his march. Queen Astrid, and Ulfhild the king's daughter, remained behind in Svithjod. 209. KING OLAF ADVANCES TO JARNBERALAND. Just as King Olaf began his journey the men came to him whom the Swedish king had given, in all 400 men, and the king took the road the Swedes showed him. He advanced upwards in the country to the forests, and came to a district called Jarnberaland. Here the people joined him who had come out of Norway to meet him, as before related; and he met here his brother Harald, and many other of his relations, and it was a joyful meeting. They made out together 1200 men. 210. OF DAG HRINGSON. There was a man called Dag, who is said to have been a son of King Hring, who fled the country from King Olaf. This Hring, it is said further, had been a son of Dag, and grandson of Hring, Harald Harfager's son. Thus was Dag King Olaf's relative. Both Hring the father, and Dag the son, had settled themselves in Svithjod, and got land to rule over. In spring, when Olaf came from the East to Svithjod, he sent a message to his relation Dag, that he should join him in this expedition with all the force he could collect; and if they gained the country of Norway again, Dag should have no smaller part of the kingdom under him than his forefathers had enjoyed. When this message came to Dag it suited his inclination well, for he had a great desire to go to Norway and get the dominion his family had ruled over. He was not slow, therefore, to reply, and promised to come. Dag was a quick-speaking, quick-resolving man, mixing himself up in everything; eager, but of little understanding. He collected a force of almost 1200 men, with which he joined King Olaf. 211. OF KING OLAF'S JOURNEY. King Olaf sent a message before him to all the inhabited places he passed through, that the men who wished to get goods and money, and share of booty, and the lands besides which now were in the hands of his enemies, should come to him, and follow him. Thereafter King Olaf led his army through forests, often over desert moors, and often over large lakes; and they dragged, or carried the boats, from lake to lake. On the way a great many followers joined the king, partly forest settlers, partly vagabonds. The places at which he halted for the night are since called Olaf's Booths. He proceeded without any break upon his journey until he came to Jamtaland, from which he marched north over the keel or ridge of the land. The men spread themselves over the hamlets, and proceeded, much scattered, so long as no enemy was expected; but always, when so dispersed, the Northmen accompanied the king. Dag proceeded with his men on another line of march, and the Swedes on a third with their troop. 212. OF VAGABOND-MEN. There were two men, the one called Gauka-Thorer, the other Afrafaste, who were vagabonds and great robbers, and had a company of thirty men such as themselves. These two men were larger and stronger than other men, and they wanted neither courage nor impudence. These men heard speak of the army that was crossing the country, and said among themselves it would be a clever counsel to go to the king, follow him to his country, and go with him into a regular battle, and try themselves in this work; for they had never been in any battle in which people were regularly drawn up in line, and they were curious to see the king's order of battle. This counsel was approved of by their comrades, and accordingly they went to the road on which King Olaf was to pass. When they came there they presented themselves to the king, with their followers, fully armed. They saluted him, and he asked what people they were. They told their names, and said they were natives of the place; and told their errand, and that they wished to go with the king. The king said, it appeared to him there was good help in such folks. "And I have a great inclination," said he, "to take such; but are ye Christian men?" Gauka-Thorer replies, that he is neither Christian nor heathen. "I and my comrades have no faith but on ourselves, our strength, and the luck of victory; and with this faith we slip through sufficiently well." The king replies, "A great pity it is that such brave slaughtering fellows did not believe in Christ their Creator." Thorer replies, "Is there any Christian man, king, in thy following, who stands so high in the air as we two brothers?" The king told them to let themselves be baptized, and to accept the true faith. "Follow me then, and I will advance you to great dignities; but if ye will not do so, return to your former vocation." Afrafaste said he would not take on Christianity, and he turned away. Then said Gauka-Thorer, "It is a great shame that the king drives us thus away from his army, and I never before came where I was not received into the company of other people, and I shall never return back on this account." They joined accordingly the rear with other forest-men, and followed the troops. Thereafter the king proceeded west up to the keel-ridge of the country. 213. OF KING OLAF'S VISION. Now when King Olaf, coming from the east, went over the keel-ridge and descended on the west side of the mountain, where it declines towards the sea, he could see from thence far over the country. Many people rode before the king and many after, and he himself rode so that there was a free space around him. He was silent, and nobody spoke to him, and thus he rode a great part of the day without looking much about him. Then the bishop rode up to him, asked him why he was so silent, and what he was thinking of; for, in general, he was very cheerful, and very talkative on a journey to his men, so that all who were near him were merry. The king replied, full of thought, "Wonderful things have come into my mind a while ago. As I just now looked over Norway, out to the west from the mountains, it came into my mind how many happy days I have had in that land. It appeared to me at first as if I saw over all the Throndhjem country, and then over all Norway; and the longer this vision was before my eyes the farther, methought, I saw, until I looked over the whole wide world, both land and sea. Well I know the places at which I have been in former days; some even which I have only heard speak of, and some I saw of which I had never heard, both inhabited and uninhabited, in this wide world." The bishop replied that this was a holy vision, and very remarkable. 214. OF THE MIRACLE ON THE CORN LAND. When the king had come lower down on the mountain, there lay a farm before him called Sula, on the highest part of Veradal district; and as they came nearer to the house the corn-land appeared on both sides of the path. The king told his people to proceed carefully, and not destroy the corn to the bondes. The people observed this when the king was near; but the crowd behind paid no attention to it, and the people ran over the corn, so that it was trodden flat to the earth. There dwelt a bonde there called Thorgeir Flek, who had two sons nearly grown up. Thorgeir received the king and his people well, and offered all the assistance in his power. The king was pleased with his offer, and asked Thorgeir what was the news of the country, and if any forces were assembled against him. Thorgeir says that a great army was drawn together in the Throndhjem country, and that there were some lendermen both from the south of the country, and from Halogaland in the north; "but I do not know," says he. "if they are intended against you, or going elsewhere." Then he complained to the king of the damage and waste done him by the people breaking and treading down all his corn fields. The king said it was ill done to bring upon him any loss. Then the king rode to where the corn had stood, and saw it was laid flat on the earth; and he rode round the field, and said, "I expect, bonde, that God will repair thy loss, so that the field, within a week, will be better;" and it proved the best of the corn, as the king had said. The king remained all night there, and in the morning he made himself ready, and told Thorgeir the bonde to accompany him and Thorgear offered his two sons also for the journey; and although the king said that he did not want them with him, the lads would go. As they would not stay behind, the king's court-men were about binding them; but the king seeing it said, "Let them come with us; the lads will come safe back again." And it was with the lads as the king foretold. 215. OF THE BAPTISM OF THE VAGABOND FOREST-MEN. Thereafter the army advanced to Staf, and when the king reached Staf's moor he halted. There he got the certain information that the bondes were advancing with an army against him, and that he might soon expect to have a battle with them. He mustered his force here, and, after reckoning them up, found there were in the army 900 heathen men, and when he came to know it he ordered them to allow themselves to be baptized, saying that he would have no heathens with him in battle. "We must not," says he, "put our confidence in numbers, but in God alone must we trust; for through his power and favour we must be victorious, and I will not mix heathen people with my own." When the heathens heard this, they held a council among themselves, and at last 400 men agreed to be baptized; but 500 men refused to adopt Christianity, and that body returned home to their land. Then the brothers Gauka-Thorer and Afrafaste presented themselves to the king, and offered again to follow him. The king asked if they had now taken baptism. Gauka-Thorer replied that they had not. Then the king ordered them to accept baptism and the true faith, or otherwise to go away. They stepped aside to talk with each other on what resolution they should take. Afrafaste said, "To give my opinion, I will not turn back, but go into the battle, and take a part on the one side or the other; and I don't care much in which army I am." Gauka-Thorer replies, "If I go into battle I will give my help to the king, for he has most need of help. And if I must believe in a God, why not in the white Christ as well as in any other? Now it is my advice, therefore, that we let ourselves be baptized, since the king insists so much upon it, and then go into the battle with him." They all agreed to this, and went to the king, and said they would receive baptism. Then they were baptized by a priest, and the baptism was confirmed by the bishop. The king then took them into the troop of his court-men, and said they should fight under his banner in the battle. 216. KING OLAF'S SPEECH. King Olaf got certain intelligence now that it would be but a short time until he had a battle with the bondes; and after he had mustered his men, and reckoned up the force, he had more than 3000 men, which appears to be a great army in one field. Then the king made the following speech to the people: "We have a great army, and excellent troops; and now I will tell you, my men, how I will have our force drawn up. I will let my banner go forward in the middle of the army, and my-court-men, and pursuivants shall follow it, together with the war forces that joined us from the Uplands, and also those who may come to us here in the Throndhjem land. On the right hand of my banner shall be Dag Hringson, with all the men he brought to our aid; and he shall have the second banner. And on the left hand of our line shall the men be whom the Swedish king gave us, together with all the people who came to us in Sweden; and they shall have the third banner. I will also have the people divide themselves into distinct flocks or parcels, so that relations and acquaintances should be together; for thus they defend each other best, and know each other. We will have all our men distinguished by a mark, so as to be a field-token upon their helmets and shields, by painting the holy cross thereupon with white colour. When we come into battle we shall all have one countersign and field-cry,--'Forward, forward, Christian men! cross men! king's men!' We must draw up our meal in thinner ranks, because we have fewer people, and I do not wish to let them surround us with their men. Now let the men divide themselves into separate flocks, and then each flock into ranks; then let each man observe well his proper place, and take notice what banner he is drawn up under. And now we shall remain drawn up in array; and our men shall be fully armed, night and day, until we know where the meeting shall be between us and the bondes." When the king had finished speaking, the army arrayed, and arranged itself according to the king's orders. 217. KING OLAF'S COUNSEL. Thereafter the king had a meeting with the chiefs of the different divisions, and then the men had returned whom the king had sent out into the neighbouring districts to demand men from the bondes. They brought the tidings from the inhabited places they had gone through, that all around the country was stripped of all men able to carry arms, as all the people had joined the bondes' army; and where they did find any they got but few to follow them, for the most of them answered that they stayed at home because they would not follow either party: they would not go out against the king, nor yet against their own relations. Thus they had got but few people. Now the king asked his men their counsel, and what they now should do. Fin Arnason answered thus to the king's question: "I will say what should be done, if I may advise. We should go with armed hand over all the inhabited places, plunder all the goods, and burn all the habitations, and leave not a hut standing, and thus punish the bondes for their treason against their sovereign. I think many a man will then cast himself loose from the bondes' army, when he sees smoke and flame at home on his farm, and does not know how it is going with children, wives, or old men, fathers, mothers, and other connections. I expect also," he added, "that if we succeed in breaking the assembled host, their ranks will soon be thinned; for so it is with the bondes, that the counsel which is the newest is always the dearest to them all, and most followed." When Fin had ended his speech it met with general applause; for many thought well of such a good occasion to make booty, and all thought the bondes well deserved to suffer damage; and they also thought it probable, what Fin said, that many would in this way be brought to forsake the assembled army of the bondes. Now when the king heard the warm expressions of his people he told them to listen to him, and said, "The bondes have well deserved that it should be done to them as ye desire. They also know that I have formerly done so, burning their habitations, and punishing them severely in many ways; but then I proceeded against them with fire and sword because they rejected the true faith, betook themselves to sacrifices, and would not obey my commands. We had then God's honour to defend. But this treason against their sovereign is a much less grievous crime, although it does not become men who have any manhood in them to break the faith and vows they have sworn to me. Now, however, it is more in my power to spare those who have dealt ill with me, than those whom God hated. I will, therefore, that my people proceed gently, and commit no ravage. First, I will proceed to meet the bondes; if we can then come to a reconciliation, it is well; but if they will fight with us, then there are two things before us; either we fail in the battle, and then it will be well advised not to have to retire encumbered with spoil and cattle; or we gain the victory, and then ye will be the heirs of all who fight now against us; for some will fall, and others will fly, but both will have forfeited their goods and properties, and then it will be good to enter into full houses and well-stocked farms; but what is burnt is of use to no man, and with pillage and force more is wasted than what turns to use. Now we will spread out far through the inhabited places, and take with us all the men we can find able to carry arms. Then men will also capture cattle for slaughter, or whatever else of provision that can serve for food; but not do any other ravage. But I will see willingly that ye kill any spies of the bonde army ye may fall in with. Dag and his people shall go by the north side down along the valley, and I will go on along the country road, and so we shall meet in the evening, and all have one night quarter." 218. OF KING OLAF'S SKALDS. It is related that when King Olaf drew up his men in battle order, he made a shield rampart with his troop that should defend him in battle, for which he selected the strongest and boldest. Thereafter he called his skalds, and ordered them to go in within the shield defence. "Ye shall." says the king, "remain here, and see the circumstances which may take place, and then ye will not have to follow the reports of others in what ye afterwards tell or sing concerning it." There were Thormod Kolbrunarskald, Gissur Gulbraskald, a foster-son of Hofgardaref, and Thorfin Mun. Then said Thormod to Gissur, "Let us not stand so close together, brother, that Sigvat the skald should not find room when he comes. He must stand before the king, and the king will not have it otherwise." The king heard this, and said, "Ye need not sneer at Sigvat, because he is not here. Often has he followed me well, and now he is praying for us, and that we greatly need." Thormod replies, "It may be, sire, that ye now require prayers most; but it would be thin around the banner-staff if all thy court-men were now on the way to Rome. True it was what we spoke about, that no man who would speak with you could find room for Sigvat." Thereafter the skalds talked among themselves that it would be well to compose a few songs of remembrance about the events which would soon be taking place. Then Gissur sang:-- "From me shall bende girl never hear A thought of sorrow, care, or fear: I wish my girl knew how gay We arm us for our viking fray. Many and brave they are, we know, Who come against us there below; But, life or death, we, one and all, By Norway's king will stand or fall." And Thorfin Mun made another song, viz.:-- "Dark is the cloud of men and shields, Slow moving up through Verdal's fields: These Verdal folks presume to bring Their armed force against their king. On! let us feed the carrion crow,-- Give her a feast in every blow; And, above all, let Throndhjem's hordes Feel the sharp edge of true men's swords." And Thorrood sang:-- "The whistling arrows pipe to battle, Sword and shield their war-call rattle. Up! brave men, up! the faint heart here Finds courage when the danger's near. Up! brave men, up! with Olaf on! With heart and hand a field is won. One viking cheer!--then, stead of words, We'll speak with our death-dealing swords." These songs were immediately got by heart by the army. 219. OF KING OLAF'S GIFTS FOR THE SOULS OF THOSE WHO SHOULD BE SLAIN. Thereafter the king made himself ready, and marched down through the valley. His whole forces took up their night-quarter in one place, and lay down all night under their shields; but as soon as day broke the king again put his army in order, and that being done they proceeded down through the valley. Many bondes then came to the king, of whom the most joined his army; and all, as one man, told the same tale,--that the lendermen had collected an enormous army, with which they intended to give battle to the king. The king took many marks of silver, and delivered them into the hands of a bonde, and said, "This money thou shalt conceal, and afterwards lay out, some to churches, some to priests, some to alms-men,--as gifts for the life and souls of those who fight against us, and may fall in battle." The bonde replies, "Should you not rather give this money for the soul-mulct of your own men?" The king says, "This money shall be given for the souls of those who stand against us in the ranks of the bondes' army, and fall by the weapons of our own men. The men who follow us to battle, and fall therein, will all be saved together with ourself." 220. OF THORMOD KOLBRUNARSKALD. This night the king lay with his army around him on the field, as before related, and lay long awake in prayer to God, and slept but little. Towards morning a slumber fell on him, and when he awoke daylight was shooting up. The king thought it too early to awaken the army, and asked where Thormod the skald was. Thormod was at hand, and asked what was the king's pleasure. "Sing us a song," said the king. Thormod raised himself up, and sang so loud that the whole army could hear him. He began to sing the old "Bjarkamal", of which these are the first verses:-- "The day is breaking,-- The house cock, shaking His rustling wings, While priest-bell rings, Crows up the morn, And touting horn Wakes thralls to work and weep; Ye sons of Adil, cast off sleep, Wake up! wake up! Nor wassail cup, Nor maiden's jeer, Awaits you here. Hrolf of the bow! Har of the blow! Up in your might! the day is breaking; 'Tis Hild's game (1) that bides your waking." Then the troops awoke, and when the song was ended the people thanked him for it; and it pleased many, as it was suitable to the time and occasion, and they called it the house-carle's whet. The king thanked him for the pleasure, and took a gold ring that weighed half a mark and gave it him. Thormod thanked the king for the gift, and said, "We have a good king; but it is not easy to say how long the king's life may be. It is my prayer, sire, that thou shouldst never part from me either in life or death." The king replies, "We shall all go together so long as I rule, and as ye will follow me." Thormod says, "I hope, sire, that whether in safety or danger I may stand near you as long as I can stand, whatever we may hear of Sigvat travelling with his gold-hilted sword." Then Thormod made these lines:-- "To thee, my king, I'll still be true, Until another skald I view, Here in the field with golden sword, As in thy hall, with flattering word. Thy skald shall never be a craven, Though he may feast the croaking raven, The warrior's fate unmoved I view,-- To thee, my king, I'll still be true." ENDNOTES: (1) Hild's game is the battle, from the name of the war-goddess Hild.--L. 221. KING OLAF COMES TO STIKLESTAD. King Olaf led his army farther down through the valley, and Dag and his men went another way, and the king did not halt until he came to Stiklestad. There he saw the bonde army spread out all around; and there were so great numbers that people were going on every footpath, and great crowds were collected far and near. They also saw there a troop which came down from Veradal, and had been out to spy. They came so close to the king's people that they knew each other. It was Hrut of Viggia, with thirty men. The king ordered his pursuivants to go out against Hrut, and make an end of him, to which his men were instantly ready. The king said to the Icelanders, "It is told me that in Iceland it is the custom that the bondes give their house-servants a sheep to slaughter; now I give you a ram to slaughter." (1) The Icelanders were easily invited to this, and went out immediately with a few men against Hrut, and killed him and the troop that followed him. When the king came to Stiklestad he made a halt, and made the army stop, and told his people to alight from their horses and get ready for battle; and the people did as the king ordered. Then he placed his army in battle array, and raised his banner. Dag was not yet arrived with his men, so that his wing of the battle array was wanting. Then the king said the Upland men should go forward in their place, and raise their banner there. "It appears to me advisable," says the king, "that Harald my brother should not be in the battle, for he is still in the years of childhood only." Harald replies, "Certainly I shall be in the battle, for I am not so weak that I cannot handle the sword; and as to that, I have a notion of tying the sword-handle to my hand. None is more willing than I am to give the bondes a blow; so I shall go with my comrades." It is said that Harald made these lines:-- "Our army's wing, where I shall stand, I will hold good with heart and hand; My mother's eye shall joy to see A battered, blood-stained shield from me. The brisk young skald should gaily go Into the fray, give blow for blow, Cheer on his men, gain inch by inch, And from the spear-point never flinch." Harald got his will, and was allowed to be in the battle. ENDNOTES: (1) Hrut means a young ram.--L. 222. OF THORGILS HALMASON. A bonde, by name Thorgils Halmason, father to Grim the Good, dwelt in Stiklestad farm. Thorgils offered the king his assistance, and was ready to go into battle with him. The king thanked him for the offer. "I would rather," says the king, "thou shouldst not be in the fight. Do us rather the service to take care of the people who are wounded, and to bury those who may fall, when the battle is over. Should it happen, bonde, that I fall in this battle, bestow the care on my body that may be necessary, if that be not forbidden thee." Thorgils promised the king what he desired. 223. OLAF'S SPEECH. Now when King Olaf had drawn up his army in battle array he made a speech, in which he told the people to raise their spirit, and go boldly forward, if it came to a battle. "We have," says he, "many men, and good; and although the bondes may have a somewhat larger force than we, it is fate that rules over victory. This I will make known to you solemnly, that I shall not fly from this battle, but shall either be victorious over the bondes, or fall in the fight. I will pray to God that the lot of the two may befall me which will be most to my advantage. With this we may encourage ourselves, that we have a more just cause than the bondes; and likewise that God must either protect us and our cause in this battle, or give us a far higher recompense for what we may lose here in the world than what we ourselves could ask. Should it be my lot to have anything to say after the battle, then shall I reward each of you according to his service, and to the bravery he displays in the battle; and if we gain the victory, there must be land and movables enough to divide among you, and which are now in the hands of your enemies. Let us at the first make the hardest onset, for then the consequences are soon seen. There being a great difference in the numbers, we have to expect victory from a sharp assault only; and, on the other hand, it will be heavy work for us to fight until we are tired, and unable to fight longer; for we have fewer people to relieve with than they, who can come forward at one time and retreat and rest at another. But if we advance so hard at the first attack that those who are foremost in their ranks must turn round, then the one will fall over the other, and their destruction will be the greater the greater numbers there are together." When the king had ended his speech it was received with loud applause, and the one encouraged the other. 224. OF THORD FOLASON. Thord Folason carried King Olaf's banner. So says Sigvat the skald, in the death-song which he composed about King Olaf, and put together according to resurrection saga:-- "Thord. I have heard, by Olaf's side, Where raged the battle's wildest tide, Moved on, and, as by one accord Moved with them every heart and sword. The banner of the king on high, Floating all splendid in the sky From golden shaft, aloft he bore,-- The Norsemen's rallying-point of yore." 225. OF KING OLAF'S ARMOUR. King Olaf was armed thus:--He had a gold-mounted helmet on his head; and had in one hand a white shield, on which the holy cross was inlaid in gold. In his other hand he had a lance, which to the present day stands beside the altar in Christ Church. In his belt he had a sword, which was called Hneiter, which was remarkably sharp, and of which the handle was worked with gold. He had also a strong coat of ring-mail. Sigvat the skald, speaks of this:-- "A greater victory to gain, Olaf the Stout strode o'er the plain In strong chain armour, aid to bring To his brave men on either wing. High rose the fight and battle-heat,-- the clear blood ran beneath the feet Of Swedes, who from the East came there, In Olaf's gain or loss to share." 226. KING OLAF'S DREAM. Now when King Olaf had drawn up his men the army of the bondes had not yet come near upon any quarter, so the king said the people should sit down and rest themselves. He sat down himself, and the people sat around him in a widespread crowd. He leaned down, and laid his head upon Fin Arnason's knee. There a slumber came upon him, and he slept a little while; but at the same time the bondes' army was seen advancing with raised banners, and the multitude of these was very great. Then Fin awakened the king, and said that the bonde-army advanced against them. The king awoke, and said, "Why did you waken me, Fin, and did not allow me to enjoy my dream?" Fin: "Thou must not be dreaming; but rather thou shouldst be awake, and preparing thyself against the host which is coming down upon us; or, dost thou not see that the whole bonde-crowd is coming?" The king replies, "They are not yet so near to us, and it would have been better to have let me sleep." Then said Fin, "What was the dream, sire, of which the loss appears to thee so great that thou wouldst rather have been left to waken of thyself?" Now the king told his dream,--that he seemed to see a high ladder, upon which he went so high in the air that heaven was open: for so high reached the ladder. "And when you awoke me, I was come to the highest step towards heaven." Fin replies, "This dream does not appear to me so good as it does to thee. I think it means that thou art fey (1); unless it be the mere want of sleep that has worked upon thee." ENDNOTES: (1) Fey means doomed to die. 227. OF ARNLJOT GELLINE'S BAPTISM. When King Olaf was arrived at Stiklestad, it happened, among other circumstances, that a man came to him; and although it was nowise wonderful that there came many men from the districts, yet this must be regarded as unusual, that this man did not appear like the other men who came to him. He was so tall that none stood higher than up to his shoulders: very handsome he was in countenance, and had beautiful fair hair. He was well armed; had a fine helmet, and ring armour; a red shield; a superb sword in his belt; and in his hand a gold-mounted spear, the shaft of it so thick that it was a handful to grasp. The man went before the king, saluted him, and asked if the king would accept his services. The king asked his name and family, also what countryman he was. He replies, "My family is in Jamtaland and Helsingjaland, and my name is Arnljot Gelline; but this I must not forget to tell you, that I came to the assistance of those men you sent to Jamtaland to collect scat, and I gave into their hands a silver dish, which I sent you as a token that I would be your friend." Then the king asked Arnljot if he was a Christian or not. He replied, "My faith has been this, to rely upon my power and strength, and which faith hath hitherto given me satisfaction; but now I intend rather to put my faith, sire, in thee." The king replies, "If thou wilt put faith in me thou must also put faith in what I will teach thee. Thou must believe that Jesus Christ has made heaven and earth, and all mankind, and to him shall all those who are good and rightly believing go after death." Arnljot answers, "I have indeed heard of the white Christ, but neither know what he proposes, nor what he rules over; but now I will believe all that thou sayest to me, and lay down my lot in your hands." Thereupon Arnljot was baptized. The king taught him so much of the holy faith as appeared to him needful, and placed him in the front rank of the order of battle, in advance of his banner, where also Gauka-Thorer and Afrafaste, with their men, were. 228. CONCERNING THE ARMY COLLECTED IN NORWAY. Now shall we relate what we have left behind in our tale,--that the lendermen and bondes had collected a vast host as soon as it was reported that King Olaf was come from Russia, and had arrived in Svithjod; but when they heard that he had come to Jamtaland, and intended to proceed westwards over the keel-ridge to Veradal, they brought their forces into the Throndhjem country, where they gathered together the whole people, free and unfree, and proceeded towards Veradal with so great a body of men that there was nobody in Norway at that time who had seen so large a force assembled. But the force, as it usually happens in so great a multitude, consisted of many different sorts of people. There were many lendermen, and a great many powerful bondes; but the great mass consisted of labourers and cottars. The chief strength of this army lay in the Throndhjem land, and it was the most warm in enmity and opposition to the king. 229. OF BISHOP SIGURD. When King Canute had, as before related, laid all Norway under his power, he set Earl Hakon to manage it, and gave the earl a court-bishop, by name Sigurd, who was of Danish descent, and had been long with King Canute. This bishop was of a very hot temper, and particularly obstinate, and haughty in his speech; but supported King Canute all he could in conversation, and was a great enemy of King Olaf. He was now also in the bondes' army, spoke often before the people, and urged them much to insurrection against King Olaf. 230. BISHOP SIGURD'S SPEECH. At a House-thing, at which a great many people were assembled, the bishop desired to be heard, and made the following speech: "Here are now assembled a great many men, so that probably there will never be opportunity in this poor country of seeing so great a native army; but it would be desirable if this strength and multitude could be a protection; for it will all be needed, if this Olaf does not give over bringing war and strife upon you. From his very earliest youth he has been accustomed to plunder and kill: for which purposes he drove widely around through all countries, until he turned at last against this, where he began to show hostilities against the men who were the best and most powerful; and even against King Canute, whom all are bound to serve according to their ability, and in whose scat-lands he set himself down. He did the same to Olaf the Swedish king. He drove the earls Svein and Hakon away from their heritages; and was even most tyrannical towards his own connections, as he drove all the kings out of the Uplands: although, indeed, it was but just reward for having been false to their oaths of fealty to King Canute, and having followed this King Olaf in all the folly he could invent; so their friendship ended according to their deserts, by this king mutilating some of them, taking their kingdoms himself, and ruining every man in the country who had an honourable name. Ye know yourselves how he has treated the lendermen, of whom many of the worthlest have been murdered, and many obliged to fly from their country; and how he has roamed far and wide through the land with robber-bands, burning and plundering houses, and killing people. Who is the man among us here of any consideration who has not some great injury from him to avenge? Now he has come hither with a foreign troop, consisting mostly of forest-men, vagabonds, and such marauders. Do ye think he will now be more merciful to you, when he is roaming about with such a bad crew, after committing devastations which all who followed him dissuaded him from? Therefore it is now my advice, that ye remember King Canute's words when he told you, if King Olaf attempted to return to the country ye should defend the liberty King Canute had promised you, and should oppose and drive away such a vile pack. Now the only thing to be done is to advance against them, and cast forth these malefactors to the wolves and eagles, leaving their corpses on the spot they cover, unless ye drag them aside to out-of-the-way corners in the woods or rocks. No man would be so imprudent as to remove them to churches, for they are all robbers and evil-doers." When he had ended his speech it was hailed with the loudest applause, and all unanimously agreed to act according to his recommendation. 231. OF THE LENDERMEN. The lendermen who had come together appointed meetings with each other, and consulted together how they should draw up their troops, and who should be their leader. Kalf Arnason said that Harek of Thjotta was best fitted to be the chief of this army, for he was descended from Harald Harfager's race. "The king also is particularly enraged against him on account of the murder of Grankel, and therefore he would be exposed to the severest fate if Olaf recovered the kingdom; and Harek withal is a man experienced in battles, and a man who does much for honour alone." Harek replies, that the men are best suited for this who are in the flower of their age. "I am now," says he, "an old and decaying man, not able to do much in battle: besides, there is near relationship between me and King Olaf; and although he seems not to put great value upon that tie, it would not beseem me to go as leader of the hostilities against him, before any other in this meeting. On the other hand, thou, Thorer, art well suited to be our chief in this battle against King Olaf; and thou hast distinct grounds for being so, both because thou hast to avenge the death of thy relation, and also hast been driven by him as an outlaw from thy property. Thou hast also promised King Canute, as well as thy connections, to avenge the murder of thy relative Asbjorn; and dost thou suppose there ever will be a better opportunity than this of taking vengeance on Olaf for all these insults and injuries?" Thorer replies thus to his speech: "I do not confide in myself so much as to raise the banner against King Olaf, or, as chief, to lead on this army; for the people of Throndhjem have the greatest part in this armament, and I know well their haughty spirit, and that they would not obey me, or any other Halogaland man, although I need not be reminded of my injuries to be roused to vengeance on King Olaf. I remember well my heavy loss when King Olaf slew four men, all distinguished both by birth and personal qualities; namely, my brother's son Asbjorn, my sister's sons Thorer and Grjotgard, and their father Olver; and it is my duty to take vengeance for each man of them. I will not conceal that I have selected eleven of my house-servants for that purpose, and of those who are the most daring; and I do not think we shall be behind others in exchanging blows with King Olaf, should opportunity be given." 232. KALF ARNASON'S SPEECH. Then Kalf Arnason desired to speak. "It is highly necessary," says he, "that this business we have on hand do not turn out a mockery and child-work, now that an army is collected. Something else is needful, if we are to stand battle with King Olaf, than that each should shove the danger from himself; for we must recollect that although King Olaf has not many people compared to this army of ours, the leader of them is intrepid, and the whole body of them will be true to him, and obedient in the battle. But if we who should be the leaders of this army show any fear, and will not encourage the army and go at the head of it, it must happen that with the great body of our people the spirit will leave their hearts, and the next thing will be that each will seek his own safety. Although we have now a great force assembled, we shall find our destruction certain, when we meet King Olaf and his troops, if we, the chiefs of the people, are not confident in our cause, and have not the whole army confidently and bravely going along with us. If it cannot be so, we had better not risk a battle; and then it is easy to see that nothing would be left us but to shelter ourselves under King Olaf's mercy, however hard it might be, as then we would be less guilty than we now may appear to him to be. Yet I know there are men in his ranks who would secure my life and peace if I would seek it. Will ye now adopt my proposal--then shalt thou, friend Thorer, and thou, Harek, go under the banner which we will all of us raise up, and then follow. Let us all be speedy and determined in the resolution we have taken, and put ourselves so at the head of the bondes' army that they see no distrust in us; for then will the common man advance with spirit when we go merrily to work in placing the army in battle-order, and in encouraging the people to the strife." When Kalf had ended they all concurred in what he proposed, and all would do what Kalf thought of advantage. All desired Kalf to be the leader of the army, and to give each what place in it he chose. 233. HOW THE LENDERMEN SET UP THEIR BANNERS. Kalf Arnason then raised his banner, and drew up his house-servants along with Harek of Thjotta and his men. Thorer Hund, with his troop, was at the head of the order of battle in front of the banner; and on both sides of Thorer was a chosen body of bondes, all of them the most active and best armed in the forces. This part of the array was long and thick, and in it were drawn up the Throndhjem people and the Halogalanders. On the right wing was another array; and on the left of the main array were drawn up the men from Rogaland, Hordaland, the Fjord districts, and Scgn, and they had the third banner. 234. OF THORSTEIN KNARRARSMID. There was a man called Thorstein Knarrarsmid, who was a merchant and master ship-carpenter, stout and strong, very passionate, and a great manslayer. He had been in enmity against King Olaf, who had taken from him a new and large merchant-vessel he had built, on account of some manslaughter-mulct, incurred in the course of his misdeeds, which he owed to the king. Thorstein, who was with the bondes' army, went forward in front of the line in which Thorer Hund stood, and said, "Here I will be, Thorer, in your ranks; for I think, if I and King Olaf meet, to be the first to strive a weapon at him, if I can get so near, to repay him for the robbery of the ship he took from me, which was the best that ever went on merchant voyage." Thorer and his men received Thorstein, and he went into their ranks. 235. OF THE PREPARATIONS OF THE BONDES. When the bondes' men and array were drawn up the lendermen addressed the men, and ordered them to take notice of the place to which each man belonged, under which banner each should be, who there were in front of the banner, who were his side-men, and that they should be brisk and quick in taking up their places in the array; for the army had still to go a long way, and the array might be broken in the course of march. Then they encouraged the people; and Kalf invited all the men who had any injury to avenge on King Olaf to place themselves under the banner which was advancing against King Olaf's own banner. They should remember the distress he had brought upon them; and, he said, never was there a better opportunity to avenge their grievances, and to free themselves from the yoke and slavery he had imposed on them. "Let him," says he, "be held a useless coward who does not fight this day boldly; and they are not innocents who are opposed to you, but people who will not spare you if ye spare them." Kalf's speech was received with loud applause, and shouts of encouragement were heard through the whole army. 236. OF THE KING'S AND THE BONDES' ARMIES. Thereafter the bondes' army advanced to Stiklestad, where King Olaf was already with his people. Kalf and Harek went in front, at the head of the army under their banners. But the battle did not begin immediately on their meeting; for the bondes delayed the assault, because all their men were not come upon the plain, and they waited for those who came after them. Thorer Hund had come up with his troop the last, for he had to take care that the men did not go off behind when the battlecry was raised, or the armies were closing with each other; and therefore Kalf and Harek waited for Thorer. For the encouragement of their men in the battle the bondes had the field-cry--"Forward, forward, bondemen!" King Olaf also made no attack, for he waited for Dag and the people who followed him. At last the king saw Dag and his men approaching. It is said that the army of the bondes was not less on this day than a hundred times a hundred men. Sigvat the skald speaks thus of the numbers:-- "I grieve to think the king had brought Too small a force for what he sought: He held his gold too fast to bring The numbers that could make him king. The foemen, more than two to one, The victory by numbers won; And this alone, as I've heard say, Against King Olaf turned the day." 237. MEETING OF THE KING AND THE BONDES. As the armies on both sides stood so near that people knew each other, the king said, "Why art thou here, Kalf, for we parted good friends south in More? It beseems thee ill to fight against us, or to throw a spear into our army; for here are four of thy brothers." Kalf replied, "Many things come to pass differently from what may appear seemly. You parted from us so that it was necessary to seek peace with those who were behind in the country. Now each must remain where he stands; but if I might advise, we should be reconciled." Then Fin, his brother, answered, "This is to be observed of Kalf, that when he speaks fairly he has it in his mind to do ill." The king answered, "It may be, Kalf, that thou art inclined to reconciliation; but, methinks, the bondes do not appear so peaceful." Then Thorgeir of Kviststad said, "You shall now have such peace as many formerly have received at your hands, and which you shall now pay for." The king replies, "Thou hast no occasion to hasten so much to meet us; for fate has not decreed to thee to-day a victory over me, who raised thee to power and dignity from a mean station." 238. BEGINNING OF THE BATTLE OF STIKLESTAD. Now came Thorer Hund, went forward in front of the banner with his troop, and called out, "Forward, forward, bondemen!" Thereupon the bondemen raised the war-cry, and shot their arrows and spears. The king's men raised also a war-shout; and that done, encouraged each other to advance, crying out, "Forward, forward, Christ-men! cross-men! king's men!" When the bondes who stood outermost on the wings heard it, they repeated the same cry; but when the other bondes heard them they thought these were king's men, turned their arms against them, and they fought together, and many were slain before they knew each other. The weather was beautiful, and the sun shone clear; but when the battle began the heaven and the sun became red, and before the battle ended it became as dark as at night. King Olaf had drawn up his army upon a rising ground, and it rushed down from thence upon the bonde-army with such a fierce assault, that the bondes' array went before it; so that the breast of the king's array came to stand upon the ground on which the rear of the bondes' array had stood, and many of the bondes' army were on the way to fly, but the lendermen and their house-men stood fast, and the battle became very severe. So says Sigvat:-- "Thundered the ground beneath their tread, As, iron-clad, thick-tramping, sped The men-at-arms, in row and rank, Past Stiklestad's sweet grassy bank. The clank of steel, the bowstrings' twang, The sounds of battle, loudly rang; And bowman hurried on advancing, Their bright helms in the sunshine glancing." The lendermen urged their men, and forced them to advance. Sigvat speaks of this:-- "Midst in their line their banner flies, Thither the stoutest bonde hies: But many a bonde thinks of home, And many wish they ne'er had come." Then the bonde-army pushed on from all quarters. They who stood in front hewed down with their swords; they who stood next thrust with their spears; and they who stood hindmost shot arrows, cast spears, or threw stones, hand-axes, or sharp stakes. Soon there was a great fall of men in the battle. Many were down on both sides. In the first onset fell Arnljot Gelline, Gauka-Thorer, and Afrafaste, with all their men, after each had killed a man or two, and some indeed more. Now the ranks in front of the king's banner began to be thinned, and the king ordered Thord to carry the banner forward, and the king himself followed it with the troop he had chosen to stand nearest to him in battle; and these were the best armed men in the field, and the most expert in the use of their weapons. Sigvat the skald tells of this:-- "Loud was the battle-storm there, Where the king's banner flamed in air. The king beneath his banner stands, And there the battle he commands." Olaf came forth from behind the shield-bulwark, and put himself at the head of the army; and when the bondes looked him in the face they were frightened, and let their hands drop. So says Sigvat:-- "I think I saw them shrink with fear Who would not shrink from foeman's spear, When Olaf's lion-eye was cast On them, and called up all the past. Clear as the serpent's eye--his look No Throndhjem man could stand, but shook Beneath its glance, and skulked away, Knowing his king, and cursed the day." The combat became fierce, and the king went forward in the fray. So says Sigvat:-- "When on they came in fierce array, And round the king arose the fray, With shield on arm brave Olaf stood, Dyeing his sword in their best blood. For vengeance on his Throndhjem foes, On their best men he dealt his blows; He who knew well death's iron play, To his deep vengeance gave full sway." 239. THORGEIR OF KVISTSTAD'S FALL. King Olaf fought most desperately. He struck the lenderman before mentioned (Thorgeir of Kviststad) across the face, cut off the nose-piece of his helmet, and clove his head down below the eyes so that they almost fell out. When he fell the king said, "Was it not true, Thorgeir, what I told thee, that thou shouldst not be victor in our meeting?" At the same instant Thord stuck the banner-pole so fast in the earth that it remained standing. Thord had got his death-wound, and fell beneath the banner. There also fell Thorfin Mun, and also Gissur Gullbrarskald, who was attacked by two men, of whom he killed one, but only wounded the other before he fell. So says Hofgardaref:-- "Bold in the Iron-storm was he, Firm and stout as forest tree, The hero who, 'gainst two at once, Made Odin's fire from sword-edge glance; Dealing a death-blow to the one, Known as a brave and generous man, Wounding the other, ere he fell,-- His bloody sword his deeds showed well." It happened then, as before related, that the sun, although the air was clear, withdrew from the sight, and it became dark. Of this Sigvat the skald speaks:-- "No common wonder in the sky Fell out that day--the sun on high, And not a cloud to see around, Shone not, nor warmed Norway's ground. The day on which fell out this fight Was marked by dismal dusky light, This from the East I heard--the end Of our great king it did portend." At the same time Dag Hringson came up with his people, and began to put his men in array, and to set up his banner; but on account of the darkness the onset could not go on so briskly, for they could not see exactly whom they had before them. They turned, however, to that quarter where the men of Hordaland and Rogaland stood. Many of these circumstances took place at the same time, and some happened a little earlier, and some a little later. 240. KING OLAF'S FALL. On the one side of Kalf Arnason stood his two relations, Olaf and Kalf, with many other brave and stout men. Kalf was a son of Arnfin Arnmodson, and a brother's son of Arne Arnmodson. On the other side of Kalf Arnason stood Thorer Hund. King Olaf hewed at Thorer Hund, and struck him across the shoulders; but the sword would not cut, and it was as if dust flew from his reindeer-skin coat. So says Sigvat:-- "The king himself now proved the power Of Fin-folk's craft in magic hour, With magic song; for stroke of steel Thor's reindeer coat would never feel, Bewitched by them it turned the stroke Of the king's sword,--a dust-like smoke Rose from Thor's shoulders from the blow Which the king though would end his foe." Thorer struck at the king, and they exchanged some blows; but the king's sword would not cut where it met the reindeer skin, although Thorer was wounded in the hands. Sigvat sang thus of it:-- "Some say that Thorer's not right bold; Why never yet have I been told Of one who did a bolder thing Than to change blows with his true king. Against his king his sword to wield, Leaping across the shield on shield Which fenced the king round in the fight, Shows the dog's (1) courage--brave, not bright." The king said to Bjorn the marshal, "Do thou kill the dog on whom steel will not bite." Bjorn turned round the axe in his hands, and gave Thorer a blow with the hammer of it on the shoulder so hard that he tottered. The king at the same moment turned against Kalf and his relations, and gave Olaf his death-wound. Thorer Hund struck his spear right through the body of Marshal Bjorn, and killed him outright; and Thorer said, "It is thus we hunt the bear." (2) Thorstein Knarrarsmid struck at King Olaf with his axe, and the blow hit his left leg above the knee. Fin Arnason instantly killed Thorstein. The king after the wound staggered towards a stone, threw down his sword, and prayed God to help him. Then Thorer Hund struck at him with his spear, and the stroke went in under his mail-coat and into his belly. Then Kalf struck at him on the left side of the neck. But all are not agreed upon Kalf having been the man who gave him the wound in the neck. These three wounds were King Olaf's death; and after the king's death the greater part of the forces which had advanced with him fell with the king. Bjarne Gullbrarskald sang these verses about Kalf Arnason:-- "Warrior! who Olaf dared withstand, Who against Olaf held the land, Thou hast withstood the bravest, best, Who e'er has gone to his long rest. At Stiklestad thou wast the head; With flying banners onwards led Thy bonde troops, and still fought on, Until he fell--the much-mourned one." Sigvat also made these verses on Bjorn:-- "The marshal Bjorn, too, I find, A great example leaves behind, How steady courage should stand proof, Though other servants stand aloof. To Russia first his steps he bent, To serve his master still intent; And now besides his king he fell,-- A noble death for skalds to tell." ENDNOTES: (1) Thorer's name was Hund--the dog; and a play upon Thorer Hund's name was intended by the skald.--L. (2) Bjorn, the marshal's name, signifies a bear.--L. 241. BEGINNING OF DAG HRINGSON'S ATTACK. Dag Hringson still kept up the battle, and made in the beginning so fierce an assault that the bondes gave way, and some betook themselves to flight. There a great number of the bondes fell, and these lendermen, Erlend of Gerde and Aslak of Finey; and the banner also which they had stood under was cut down. This onset was particularly hot, and was called Dag's storm. But now Kalf Arnason, Harek of Thjotta, and Thorer Hund turned against Dag, with the array which had followed them, and then Dag was overwhelmed with numbers; so he betook himself to flight with the men still left him. There was a valley through which the main body of the fugitives fled, and men lay scattered in heaps on both sides; and many were severely wounded, and many so fatigued that they were fit for nothing. The bondes pursued only a short way; for their leaders soon returned back to the field of battle, where they had their friends and relations to look after. 242. KING OLAF'S MIRACLE SHOWN TO THORER HUND. Thorer Hund went to where King Olaf's body lay, took care of it, laid it straight out on the ground, and spread a cloak over it. He told since that when he wiped the blood from the face it was very beautiful; and there was red in the cheeks, as if he only slept, and even much clearer than when he was in life. The king's blood came on Thorer's hand, and ran up between his fingers to where he had been wounded, and the wound grew up so speedily that it did not require to be bound up. This circumstance was testified by Thorer himself when King Olaf's holiness came to be generally known among the people; and Thorer Hund was among the first of the king's powerful opponents who endeavoured to spread abroad the king's sanctity. 243. OF KALF ARNASON'S BROTHERS. Kalf Arnason searched for his brothers who had fallen, and found Thorberg and Fin. It is related that Fin threw his dagger at him, and wanted to kill him, giving him hard words, and calling him a faithless villain, and a traitor to his king. Kalf did not regard it, but ordered Fin and Thorberg to be carried away from the field. When their wounds were examined they were found not to be deadly, and they had fallen from fatigue, and under the weight of their weapons. Thereafter Kalf tried to bring his brothers down to a ship, and went himself with them. As soon as he was gone the whole bonde-army, having their homes in the neighbourhood, went off also, excepting those who had friends or relations to look after, or the bodies of the slain to take care of. The wounded were taken home to the farms, so that every house was full of them; and tents were erected over some. But wonderful as was the number collected in the bonde-army, no less wonderful was the haste with which this vast body was dispersed when it was once free; and the cause of this was, that the most of the people gathered together from the country places were longing for their homes. 244. OF THE BONDES OF VERADAL. The bondes who had their homes in Veradal went to the chiefs Harek and Thorer, and complained of their distress, saying, "The fugitives who have escaped from the battle have proceeded up over the valley of Veradal, and are destroying our habitations, and there is no safety for us to travel home so long as they are in the valley. Go after them with war-force, and let no mother's son of them escape with life; for that is what they intended for us if they had got the upper hand in the battle, and the same they would do now if they met us hereafter, and had better luck than we. It may also be that they will linger in the valley if they have nothing to be frightened for, and then they would not proceed very gently in the inhabited country." The bondes made many words about this, urging the chiefs to advance directly, and kill those who had escaped. Now when the chiefs talked over this matter among themselves, they thought there was much truth in what the bondes said. They resolved, therefore, that Thorer Hund should undertake this expedition through Veradal, with 600 men of his own troops. Then, towards evening, he set out with his men; and Thorer continued his march without halt until he came in the night to Sula, where he heard the news that Dag Hringson had come there in the evening, with many other flocks of the king's men, and had halted there until they took supper, but were afterwards gone up to the mountains. Then Thorer said he did not care to pursue them up through the mountains, and he returned down the valley again, and they did not kill many of them this time. The bondes then returned to their homes, and the following day Thorer, with his people, went to their ships. The part of the king's men who were still on their legs concealed themselves in the forests, and some got help from the people. 245. OF THE KING'S BROTHER, HARALD SIGURDSON. Harald Sigurdson was severely wounded; but Ragnvald Brusason brought him to a bonde's the night after the battle, and the bonde took in Harald, and healed his wound in secret, and afterwards gave him his son to attend him. They went secretly over the mountains, and through the waste forests, and came out in Jamtaland. Harald Sigurdson was fifteen years old when King Olaf fell. In Jamtaland Harald found Ragnvald Brusason; and they went both east to King Jarisleif in Russia, as is related in the Saga of Harald Sigurdson. 246. OF THORMOD KOLBRUNARSKALD. Thormod Kolbrunarskald was under King Olaf's banner in the battle; but when the king had fallen, the battle was raging so that of the king's men the one fell by the side of the other, and the most of those who stood on their legs were wounded. Thormod was also severely wounded, and retired, as all the others did, back from where there was most danger of life, and some even fled. Now when the onset began which is called Dag's storm, all of the king's men who were able to combat went there; but Thormod did not come into that combat, being unable to fight, both from his wound and from weariness, but he stood by the side of his comrade in the ranks, although he could do nothing. There he was struck by an arrow in the left side; but he broke off the shaft of the arrow, went out of the battle, and up towards the houses, where he came to a barn which was a large building. Thormod had his drawn sword in his hand; and as he went in a man met him, coming out, and said, "It is very bad there with howling and screaming; and a great shame it is that brisk young fellows cannot bear their wounds: it may be that the king's men have done bravely to-day, but they certainly bear their wounds very ill." Thormod asks. "What is thy name?" He called himself Kimbe. Thormod: "Wast thou in the battle, too?" "I was with the bondes, which was the best side," says he. "And art thou wounded any way?" says Thormod. "A little," said Kimbe. "And hast thou been in the battle too?" Thormod replied, "I was with them who had the best." "Art thou wounded?" says Kimbe. "Not much to signify," replies Thormod. As Kimbe saw that Thormod had a gold ring on his arm, he said, "Thou art certainly a king's man. Give me thy gold ring, and I will hide thee. The bondes will kill thee if thou fallest in their way." Thormod says, "Take the ring if thou canst get it: I have lost that which is more worth." Kimbe stretched out his hand, and wanted to take the ring; but Thormod, swinging his sword, cut off his hand; and it is related that Kimbe behaved himself no better under his wound than those he had been blaming just before. Kimbe went off, and Thormod sat down in the barn, and listened to what people were saying. The conversation was mostly about what each had seen in the battle, and about the valour of the combatants. Some praised most King Olaf's courage, and some named others who stood nowise behind him in bravery. Then Thormod sang these verses:-- "Olaf was brave beyond all doubt,-- At Stiklestad was none so stout; Spattered with blood, the king, unsparing, Cheered on his men with deed and daring. But I have heard that some were there Who in the fight themselves would spare; Though, in the arrow-storm, the most Had perils quite enough to boast." 247. THORMOD'S DEATH. Thormod went out, and entered into a chamber apart, in which there were many wounded men, and with them a woman binding their wounds. There was fire upon the floor, at which she warmed water to wash and clean their wounds. Thormod sat himself down beside the door, and one came in, and another went out, of those who were busy about the wounded men. One of them turned to Thormod, looked at him, and said, "Why art thou so dead-pale? Art thou wounded? Why dost thou not call for the help of the wound-healers?" Thormod then sang these verses:-- "I am not blooming, and the fair And slender girl loves to care For blooming youths--few care for me; With Fenja's meal I cannot fee. This is the reason why I feel The slash and thrust of Danish steel; And pale and faint, and bent with pain, Return from yonder battle-plain." Then Thormod stood up and went in towards the fire, and stood there awhile. The young woman said to him, "Go out, man, and bring in some of the split firewood which lies close beside the door." He went out and brought in an armful of wood, which he threw down upon the floor. Then the nurse-girl looked him in the face, and said, "Dreadfully pale is this man--why art thou so?" Then Thormod sang:-- "Thou wonderest, sweet sprig, at me, A man so hideous to see: Deep wounds but rarely mend the face, The crippling blow gives little grace. The arrow-drift o'ertook me, girl,-- A fine-ground arrow in the whirl Went through me, and I feel the dart Sits, lovely girl, too near my heart." The girl said, "Let me see thy wound, and I will bind it." Thereupon Thormod sat down, cast off his clothes, and the girl saw his wounds, and examined that which was in his side, and felt that a piece of iron was in it, but could not find where the iron had gone in. In a stone pot she had stirred together leeks and other herbs, and boiled them, and gave the wounded men of it to eat, by which she discovered if the wounds had penetrated into the belly; for if the wound had gone so deep, it would smell of leek. She brought some of this now to Thormod, and told him to eat of it. He replied, "Take it away, I have no appetite for my broth." Then she took a large pair of tongs, and tried to pull out the iron; but it sat too fast, and would in no way come, and as the wound was swelled, little of it stood out to lay hold of. Now said Thormod, "Cut so deep in that thou canst get at the iron with the tongs, and give me the tongs and let me pull." She did as he said. Then Thormod took a gold ring from his hand, gave it to the nurse-woman, and told her to do with it what she liked. "It is a good man's gift," said he: "King Olaf gave me the ring this morning." Then Thormod took the tongs, and pulled the iron out; but on the iron there was a hook, at which there hung some morsels of flesh from the heart,--some white, some red. When he saw that, he said, "The king has fed us well. I am fat, even at the heart-roots;" and so saying he leant back, and was dead. And with this ends what we have to say about Thormod. 248. OF SOME CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE BATTLE. King Olaf fell on Wednesday, the 29th of July (A.D. 1030). It was near mid-day when the two armies met, and the battle began before half-past one, and before three the king fell. The darkness continued from about half-past one to three also. Sigvat the skald speaks thus of the result of the battle:-- "The loss was great to England's foes, When their chief fell beneath the blows By his own thoughtless people given,-- When the king's shield in two was riven. The people's sovereign took the field, The people clove the sovereign's shield. Of all the chiefs that bloody day, Dag only came out of the fray." And he composed these:-- "Such mighty bonde-power, I ween, With chiefs or rulers ne'er was seen. It was the people's mighty power That struck the king that fatal hour. When such a king, in such a strife, By his own people lost his life, Full many a gallant man must feel The death-wound from the people's steel." The bondes did not spoil the slain upon the field of battle, for immediately after the battle there came upon many of them who had been against the king a kind of dread as it were; yet they held by their evil inclination, for they resolved among themselves that all who had fallen with the king should not receive the interment which belongs to good men, but reckoned them all robbers and outlaws. But the men who had power, and had relations on the field, cared little for this, but removed their remains to the churches, and took care of their burial. 249. A MIRACLE ON A BLIND MAN. Thorgils Halmason and his son Grim went to the field of battle towards evening when it was dusk, took King Olaf's corpse up, and bore it to a little empty houseman's hut which stood on the other side of their farm. They had light and water with them. Then they took the clothes off the body, swathed it in a linen cloth, laid it down in the house, and concealed it under some firewood so that nobody could see it, even if people came into the hut. Thereafter they went home again to the farmhouse. A great many beggars and poor people had followed both armies, who begged for meat; and the evening after the battle many remained there, and sought lodging round about in all the houses, great or small. It is told of a blind man who was poor, that a boy attended him and led him. They went out around the farm to seek a lodging, and came to the same empty house, of which the door was so low that they had almost to creep in. Now when the blind man had come in, he fumbled about the floor seeking a place where he could lay himself down. He had a hat on his head, which fell down over his face when he stooped down. He felt with his hands that there was moisture on the floor, and he put up his wet hand to raise his hat, and in doing so put his fingers on his eyes. There came immediately such an itching in his eyelids, that he wiped the water with his fingers from his eyes, and went out of the hut, saying nobody could lie there, it was so wet. When he came out of the hut he could distinguish his hands, and all that was near him, as far as things can be distinguished by sight in the darkness of light; and he went immediately to the farm-house into the room, and told all the people he had got his sight again, and could see everything, although many knew he had been blind for a long time, for he had been there, before, going about among the houses of the neighbourhood. He said he first got his sight when he was coming out of a little ruinous hut which was all wet inside. "I groped in the water," said he, "and rubbed my eyes with my wet hands." He told where the hut stood. The people who heard him wondered much at this event, and spoke among themselves of what it could be that produced it: but Thorgils the peasant and his son Grim thought they knew how this came to pass; and as they were much afraid the king's enemies might go there and search the hut, they went and took the body out of it, and removed it to a garden, where they concealed it, and then returned to the farm, and slept there all night. 250. OF THORER HUND. The fifth day (Thursday), Thorer Hund came down the valley of Veradal to Stiklestad; and many people, both chiefs and bondes, accompanied him. The field of battle was still being cleared, and people were carrying away the bodies of their friends and relations, and were giving the necessary help to such of the wounded as they wished to save; but many had died since the battle. Thorer Hund went to where the king had fallen, and searched for his body; but not finding it, he inquired if any one could tell him what had become of the corpse, but nobody could tell him where it was. Then he asked the bonde Thorgils, who said, "I was not in the battle, and knew little of what took place there; but many reports are abroad, and among others that King Olaf has been seen in the night up at Staf, and a troop of people with him: but if he fell in the battle, your men must have concealed him in some hole, or under some stone-heap." Now although Thorer Hund knew for certain that the king had fallen, many allowed themselves to believe, and to spread abroad the report, that the king had escaped from the battle, and would in a short time come again upon them with an army. Then Thorer went to his ships, and sailed down the fjord, and the bonde-army dispersed, carrying with them all the wounded men who could bear to be removed. 251. OF KING OLAF'S BODY. Thorgils Halmason and his son Grim had King Olaf's body, and were anxious about preserving it from falling into the hands of the king's enemies, and being ill-treated; for they heard the bondes speaking about burning it, or sinking it in the sea. The father and son had seen a clear light burning at night over the spot on the battlefield where King Olaf's body lay, and since, while they concealed it, they had always seen at night a light burning over the corpse; therefore they were afraid the king's enemies might seek the body where this signal was visible. They hastened, therefore, to take the body to a place where it would be safe. Thorgils and his son accordingly made a coffin, which they adorned as well as they could, and laid the king's body in it; and afterwards made another coffin in which they laid stones and straw, about as much as the weight of a man, and carefully closed the coffins. As soon as the whole bonde-army had left Stiklestad, Thorgils and his son made themselves ready, got a large rowing-boat, and took with them seven or eight men, who were all Thorgil's relations or friends, and privately took the coffin with the king's body down to the boat, and set it under the foot-boards. They had also with them the coffin containing the stones, and placed it in the boat where all could see it; and then went down the fjord with a good opportunity of wind and weather, and arrived in the dusk of the evening at Nidaros, where they brought up at the king's pier. Then Thorgils sent some of his men up to the town to Bishop Sigurd, to say that they were come with the king's body. As soon as the bishop heard this news, he sent his men down to the pier, and they took a small rowing-boat, came alongside of Thorgil's ship, and demanded the king's body. Thorgils and his people then took the coffin which stood in view, and bore it into the boat; and the bishop's men rowed out into the fjord, and sank the coffin in the sea. It was now quite dark. Thorgils and his people now rowed up into the river past the town, and landed at a place called Saurhlid, above the town. Then they carried the king's body to an empty house standing at a distance from other houses, and watched over it for the night, while Thorgils went down to the town, where he spoke with some of the best friends of King Olaf, and asked them if they would take charge of the king's body; but none of them dared to do so. Then Thorgils and his men went with the body higher up the river, buried it in a sand-hill on the banks, and levelled all around it so that no one could observe that people had been at work there. They were ready with all this before break of day, when they returned to their vessel, went immediately out of the river, and proceeded on their way home to Stiklestad. 252. OF THE BEGINNING OF KING SVEIN ALFIFASON'S GOVERNMENT. Svein, a son of King Canute, and of Alfifa, a daughter of Earl Alfrin, had been appointed to govern Jomsborg in Vindland. There came a message to him from his father King Canute, that he should come to Denmark; and likewise that afterwards he should proceed to Norway, and take that kingdom under his charge, and assume, at the same time, the title of king of Norway. Svein repaired to Denmark, and took many people with him from thence, and also Earl Harald and many other people of consequence attended him. Thorarin Loftunga speaks of this in the song he composed about King Svein, called the "Glelogn Song":-- "'Tis told by fame, How grandly came The Danes to tend Their young king Svein. Grandest was he, That all could see; Then, one by one, Each following man More splendour wore Than him before." Then Svein proceeded to Norway, and his mother Alfifa was with him; and he was taken to be king at every Law-thing in the country. He had already come as far as Viken at the time the battle was fought at Stiklestad, and King Olaf fell. Svein continued his journey until he came north, in autumn, to the Throndhjem country; and there, as elsewhere, he was received as king. 253. OF KING SVEIN'S LAWS. King Svein introduced new laws in many respects into the country, partly after those which were in Denmark, and in part much more severe. No man must leave the country without the king's permission; or if he did, his property fell to the king. Whoever killed a man outright, should forfeit all his land and movables. If any one was banished the country, and all heritage fell to him, the king took his inheritance. At Yule every man should pay the king a meal of malt from every harvest steading, and a leg of a three-year old ox, which was called a friendly gift, together with a spand of butter; and every house-wife a rock full of unspun lint, as thick as one could span with the longest fingers of the hand. The bondes were bound to build all the houses the king required upon his farms. Of every seven males one should be taken for the service of war, and reckoning from the fifth year of age; and the outfit of ships should be reckoned in the same proportion. Every man who rowed upon the sea to fish should pay the king five fish as a tax, for the land defence, wherever he might come from. Every ship that went out of the country should have stowage reserved open for the king in the middle of the ship. Every man, foreigner or native, who went to Iceland, should pay a tax to the king. And to all this was added, that Danes should enjoy so much consideration in Norway, that one witness of them should invalidate ten of Northmen (1). When these laws were promulgated the minds of the people were instantly raised against them, and murmurs were heard among them. They who had not taken part against King Olaf said, "Now take your reward and friendship from the Canute race, ye men of the interior Throndhjem who fought against King Olaf, and deprived him of his kingdom. Ye were promised peace and justice, and now ye have got oppression and slavery for your great treachery and crime." Nor was it very easy to contradict them, as all men saw how miserable the change had been. But people had not the boldness to make an insurrection against King Svein, principally because many had given King Canute their sons or other near relations as hostages; and also because no one appeared as leader of an insurrection. They very soon, however, complained of King Svein; and his mother Alfifa got much of the blame of all that was against their desire. Then the truth, with regard to Olaf, became evident to many. ENDNOTES: (1) This may probably have referred not to witnesses of an act, but to the class of witnesses in the jurisprudence of the Middle Ages called compurgators, who testified not the fact, but their confidence in the statements of the accused; and from which, possibly, our English bail for offenders arose. --L. 254. OF KING OLAF'S SANCTITY. This winter (A.D. 1031) many in the Throndhjem land began to declare that Olaf was in reality a holy man, and his sanctity was confirmed by many miracles. Many began to make promises and prayers to King Olaf in the matters in which they thought they required help, and many found great benefit from these invocations. Some in respect of health, others of a journey, or other circumstances in which such help seemed needful. 255. OF EINAR TAMBASKELFER. Einar Tambaskelfer was come home from England to his farm, and had the fiefs which King Canute had given him when they met in Throndhjem, and which were almost an earldom. Einar had not been in the strife against King Olaf, and congratulated himself upon it. He remembered that King Canute had promised him the earldom over Norway, and at the same time remembered that King Canute had not kept his promise. He was accordingly the first great person who looked upon King Olaf as a saint. 256. OF THE SONS OF ARNE. Fin Arnason remained but a short time at Eggja with his brother Kalf; for he was in the highest degree ill-pleased that Kalf had been in the battle against King Olaf, and always made his brother the bitterest reproaches on this account. Thorberg Arnason was much more temperate in his discourse than Fin; but yet he hastened away, and went home to his farm. Kalf gave the two brothers a good long-ship, with full rigging and other necessaries, and a good retinue. Therefore they went home to their farms, and sat quietly at home. Arne Arnason lay long ill of his wounds, but got well at last without injury of any limb, and in winter he proceeded south to his farm. All the brothers made their peace with King Svein, and sat themselves quietly down in their homes. 257. BISHOP SIGURD'S FLIGHT. The summer after (A.D. 1031) there was much talk about King Olaf's sanctity, and there was a great alteration in the expressions of all people concerning him. There were many who now believed that King Olaf must be a saint, even among those who had persecuted him with the greatest animosity, and would never in their conversation allow truth or justice in his favour. People began then to turn their reproaches against the men who had principally excited opposition to the king; and on this account Bishop Sigurd in particular was accused. He got so many enemies, that he found it most advisable to go over to England to King Canute. Then the Throndhjem people sent men with a verbal message to the Uplands, to Bishop Grimkel, desiring him to come north to Throndhjem. King Olaf had sent Bishop Grimkel back to Norway when he went east into Russia, and since that time Grimkel had been in the Uplands. When the message came to the bishop he made ready to go, and it contributed much to this journey that the bishop considered it as true what was told of King Olaf's miracles and sanctity. 258. KING OLAF THE SAINT'S REMAINS DISINTERRED. Bishop Grimkel went to Einar Tambaskelfer, who received him joyfully. They talked over many things, and, among others, of the important events which had taken place in the country; and concerning these they were perfectly agreed. Then the bishop proceeded to the town (Nidaros), and was well received by all the community. He inquired particularly concerning the miracles of King Olaf that were reported, and received satisfactory accounts of them. Thereupon the bishop sent a verbal message to Stiklestad to Thorgils and his son Grim, inviting them to come to the town to him. They did not decline the invitation, but set out on the road immediately, and came to the town and to the bishop. They related to him all the signs that had presented themselves to them, and also where they had deposited the king's body. The bishop sent a message to Einar Tambaskelfer, who came to the town. Then the bishop and Einar had an audience of the king and Alfifa, in which they asked the king's leave to have King Olaf's body taken up out of the earth. The king gave his permission, and told the bishop to do as he pleased in the matter. At that time there were a great many people in the town. The bishop, Einar, and some men with them, went to the place where the king's body was buried, and had the place dug; but the coffin had already raised itself almost to the surface of the earth. It was then the opinion of many that the bishop should proceed to have the king buried in the earth at Clement's church; and it was so done. Twelve months and five days (Aug. 3, A.D. 1031), after King Olaf's death his holy remains were dug up, and the coffin had raised itself almost entirely to the surface of the earth; and the coffin appeared quite new, as if it had but lately been made. When Bishop Grimkel came to King Olaf's opened coffin, there was a delightful and fresh smell. Thereupon the bishop uncovered the king's face, and his appearance was in no respect altered, and his cheeks were as red as if he had but just fallen asleep. The men who had seen King Olaf when he fell remarked, also, that his hair and nails had grown as much as if he had lived on the earth all the time that had passed since his fall. Thereupon King Svein, and all the chiefs who were at the place, went out to see King Olaf's body. Then said Alfifa, "People buried in sand rot very slowly, and it would not have been so if he had been buried in earth." Afterwards the bishop took scissors, clipped the king's hair, and arranged his beard; for he had had a long beard, according to the fashion of that time. Then said the bishop to the king and Alfifa, "Now the king's hair and beard are such as when he gave up the ghost, and it has grown as much as ye see has been cut off." Alfifa answers, "I will believe in the sanctity of his hair, if it will not burn in the fire; but I have often seen men's hair whole and undamaged after lying longer in the earth than this man's." Then the bishop had live coals put into a pan, blessed it, cast incense upon it, and then laid King Olaf's hair on the fire. When all the incense was burnt the bishop took the hair out of the fire, and showed the king and the other chiefs that it was not consumed. Now Alfifa asked that the hair should be laid upon unconsecrated fire; but Einar Tambaskelfer told her to be silent, and gave her many severe reproaches for her unbelief. After the bishop's recognition, with the king's approbation and the decision of the Thing, it was determined that King Olaf should be considered a man truly holy; whereupon his body was transported into Clement's church, and a place was prepared for it near the high altar. The coffin was covered with costly cloth, and stood under a gold embroidered tent. Many kinds of miracles were soon wrought by King Olaf's holy remains. 259. OF KING OLAF'S MIRACLES. In the sand-hill where King Olaf's body had lain on the ground a beautiful spring of water came up and many human ailments and infirmities were cured by its waters. Things were put in order around it, and the water ever since has been carefully preserved. There was first a chapel built, and an altar consecrated, where the king's body had lain; but now Christ's church stands upon the spot. Archbishop Eystein had a high altar raised upon the spot where the king's grave had been, when he erected the great temple which now stands there; and it is the same spot on which the altar of the old Christ church had stood. It is said that Olaf's church stands on the spot on which the empty house had stood in which King Olaf's body had been laid for the night. The place over which the holy remains of King Olaf were carried up from the vessel is now called Olaf's Road, and is now in the middle of the town. The bishop adorned King Olaf's holy remains, and cut his nails and hair; for both grew as if he had still been alive. So says Sigvat the skald:-- "I lie not, when I say the king Seemed as alive in every thing: His nails, his yellow hair still growing, And round his ruddy cheek still flowing, As when, to please the Russian queen, His yellow locks adorned were seen; Or to the blind he cured he gave A tress, their precious sight to save." Thorarin Loftunga also composed a song upon Svein Alfifason, called the "Glelogn Song", in which are these verses:-- "Svein, king of all, In Olaf's hall Now sits on high; And Olaf's eye Looks down from heaven, Where it is given To him to dwell: Or here in cell, As heavenly saint, To heal men's plaint, May our gold-giver Live here for ever! "King Olaf there To hold a share On earth prepared, Nor labour spared A seat to win From heaven's great King; Which he has won Next God's own Son. "His holy form, Untouched by worm, Lies at this day Where good men pray, And nails and hair Grow fresh and fair; His cheek is red, His flesh not dead. "Around his bier, Good people hear The small bells ring Over the king, Or great bell toll; And living soul Not one can tell Who tolls the bell. "Tapers up there, (Which Christ holds dear,) By day and night The altar light: Olaf did so, And all men know In heaven he From sin sits free. "And crowds do come, The deaf and dumb, Cripple and blind, Sick of all kind, Cured to be On bended knee; And off the ground Rise whole and sound. "To Olaf pray To eke thy day, To save thy land From spoiler's hand. God's man is he To deal to thee Good crops and peace; Let not prayer cease. "Book-prayers prevail, If, nail for nail (1), Thou tellest on, Forgetting none." Thorarin Loftunga was himself with King Svein, and heard these great testimonials of King Olaf's holiness, that people, by the heavenly power, could hear a sound over his holy remains as if bells were ringing, and that candles were lighted of themselves upon the altar as by a heavenly fire. But when Thorarin says that a multitude of lame, and blind, and other sick, who came to the holy Olaf, went back cured, he means nothing more than that there were a vast number of persons who at the beginning of King Olaf's miraculous working regained their health. King Olaf's greatest miracles are clearly written down, although they occurred somewhat later. ENDNOTES: (1) Before the entrance of the temples or churches were posts called Ondveigis-sulor, with nails called Rigin-naglar-- the gods' nails--either for ornament, or, as Schoning suggests, to assist the people in reckoning weeks, months, festivals, and in reckoning or keeping tale of prayers repeated, and to recall them to memory, in the same way as beads are used still by the common people in Catholic countries for the same purpose.--L. 260. OF KING OLAF'S AGE AND REIGN. It is reckoned by those who have kept an exact account, that Olaf the Saint was king of Norway for fifteen years from the time Earl Svein left the country; but he had received the title of king from the people of the Uplands the winter before. Sigvat the skald tells this:-- "For fifteen winters o'er the land King Olaf held the chief command, Before he fell up in the North: His fall made known to us his worth. No worthier prince before his day In our North land e'er held the sway, Too short he held it for our good; All men wish now that he had stood." Saint Olaf was thirty-five years old when he fell, according to what Are Frode the priest says, and he had been in twenty pitched battles. So says Sigvat the skald:-- "Some leaders trust in God--some not; Even so their men; but well I wot God-fearing Olaf fought and won Twenty pitched battles, one by one, And always placed upon his right His Christian men in a hard fight. May God be merciful, I pray, To him--for he ne'er shunned his fray." We have now related a part of King Olaf's story, namely, the events which took place while he ruled over Norway; also his death, and how his holiness was manifested. Now shall we not neglect to mention what it was that most advanced his honour. This was his miracles; but these will come to be treated of afterwards in this book. 261. OF THE THRONDHJEM PEOPLE. King Svein, the son of Canute the Great, ruled over Norway for some years; but was a child both in age and understanding. His mother Alfifa had most sway in the country; and the people of the country were her great enemies, both then and ever since. Danish people had a great superiority given them within the country, to the great dissatisfaction of the people; and when conversation turned that way, the people of the rest of Norway accused the Throndhjem people of having principally occasioned King Olaf the Holy's fall, and also that the men of Norway were subject, through them, to the ill government by which oppression and slavery had come upon all the people, both great and small; indeed upon the whole community. They insisted that it was the duty of the Throndhjem people to attempt opposition and insurrection, and thus relieve the country from such tyranny; and, in the opinion of the common people, Throndhjem was also the chief seat of the strength of Norway at that time, both on account of the chiefs and of the population of that quarter. When the Throndhjem people heard these remarks of their countrymen, they could not deny that there was much truth in them, and that in depriving King Olaf of life and land they had committed a great crime, and at the same time the misdeed had been ill paid. The chiefs began to hold consultations and conferences with each other, and the leader of these was Einar Tambaskelfer. It was likewise the case with Kalf Arnason, who began to find into what errors he had been drawn by King Canute's persuasion. All the promises which King Canute had made to Kalf had been broken; for he had promised him the earldom and the highest authority in Norway: and although Kalf had been the leader in the battle against King Olaf, and had deprived him of his life and kingdom, Kalf had not got any higher dignity than he had before. He felt that he had been deceived, and therefore messages passed between the brothers Kalf, Fin, Thorberg, and Arne, and they renewed their family friendship. 262. OF KING SVEIN'S LEVY. When King Svein had been three years in Norway (A.D. 1031-33), the news was received that a force was assembled in the western countries, under a chief who called himself Trygve, and gave out that he was a son of Olaf Trygvason and Queen Gyda of England. Now when King Svein heard that foreign troops had come to the country, he ordered out the people on a levy in the north, and the most of the lendermen hastened to him; but Einar Tambaskelfer remained at home, and would not go out with King Svein. When King Svein's order came to Kalf Arnason at Eggja, that he should go out on a levy with King Svein, he took a twenty-benched ship which he owned, went on board with his house-servants, and in all haste proceeded out of the fjord, without waiting for King Svein, sailed southwards to More, and continued his voyage south until he came to Giske to his brother Thorberg. Then all the brothers, the sons of Arne, held a meeting, and consulted with each other. After this Kalf returned to the north again; but when he came to Frekeysund, King Svein was lying in the sound before him. When Kalf came rowing from the south into the sound they hailed each other, and the king's men ordered Kalf to bring up with his vessel, and follow the king for the defence of the country. Kalf replies, "I have done enough, if not too much, when I fought against my own countrymen to increase the power of the Canute family." Thereupon Kalf rowed away to the north until he came home to Eggja. None of these Arnasons appeared at this levy to accompany the king. He steered with his fleet southwards along the land; but as he could not hear the least news of any fleet having come from the west, he steered south to Rogaland, and all the way to Agder; for many guessed that Trygve would first make his attempt on Viken, because his forefathers had been there, and had most of their strength from that quarter, and he had himself great strength by family connection there. 263. KING TRYGVE OLAFSON'S FALL. When Trygve came from the west he landed first on the coast of Hordaland, and when he heard King Svein had gone south he went the same way to Rogaland. As soon as Svein got the intelligence that Trygve had come from the west he returned, and steered north with his fleet; and both fleets met within Bokn in Soknarsund, not far from the place where Erling Skjalgson fell. The battle, which took place on a Sunday, was great and severe. People tell that Trygve threw spears with both hands at once. "So my father," said he, "taught me to celebrate mass." His enemies had said that he was the son of a priest; but the praise must be allowed him that he showed himself more like a son of King Olaf Trygvason, for this Trygve was a slaughtering man. In this battle King Trygve fell, and many of his men with him; but some fled, and some received quarter and their lives. It is thus related in the ballad of Trygve:-- "Trygve comes from the northern coast, King Svein turns round with all his host; To meet and fight, they both prepare, And where they met grim death was there. From the sharp strife I was not far,-- I heard the din and the clang of war; And the Hordaland men at last gave way, And their leader fell, and they lost the day." This battle is also told of in the ballad about King Svein, thus:-- "My girl! it was a Sunday morn, And many a man ne'er saw its eve, Though ale and leeks by old wives borne The bruised and wounded did relieve. 'Twas Sunday morn, when Svein calls out, 'Stem to stem your vessels bind;' The raven a mid-day feast smells out, And he comes croaking up the wind." After this battle King Svein ruled the country for some time, and there was peace in the land. The winter after it (A.D. 1034) he passed in the south parts of the country. 264. OF THE COUNSELS OF EINAR TAMBASKELFER AND KALF ARNASON. Einar Tambaskelfer and Kalf Arnason had this winter meetings and consultations between themselves in the merchant town (1). Then there came a messenger from King Canute to Kalf Arnason, with a message to send him three dozen axes, which must be chosen and good. Kalf replies, "I will send no axes to King Canute. Tell him I will bring his son Svein so many, that he shall not think he is in want of any." ENDNOTES: (1) Nidaros, or Throndhjem, is usually called merely the merchant town.--L. 265. OF EINAR TAMBASKELFER AND KALF ARNASON'S JOURNEY. Early in spring (A.D. 1034) Einar Tambaskelfer and Kalf Arnason made themselves ready for a journey, with a great retinue of the best and most select men that could be found in the Throndhjem country. They went in spring eastward over the ridge of the country to Jamtaland, from thence to Helsingjaland, and came to Svithjod, where they procured ships, with which in summer they proceeded east to Russia, and came in autumn to Ladoga. They sent men up to Novgorod to King Jarisleif, with the errand that they offered Magnus, the son of King Olaf the Saint, to take him with them, follow him to Norway, and give him assistance to attain his father's heritage and be made king over the country. When this message came to King Jarisleif he held a consultation with the queen and some chiefs, and they all resolved unanimously to send a message to the Northmen, and ask them to come to King Jarisleif and Magnus; for which journey safe conduct was given them. When they came to Novgorod it was settled among them that the Northmen who had come there should become Magnus's men, and be his subjects; and to this Kalf and the other men who had been against King Olaf at Stiklestad were solemnly bound by oath. On the other hand, King Magnus promised them, under oath, secure peace and full reconciliation; and that he would be true and faithful to them all when he got the dominions and kingdom of Norway. He was to become Kalf Arnason's foster-son; and Kalf should be bound to do all that Magnus might think necessary for extending his dominion, and making it more independent than formerly. SAGA OF MAGNUS THE GOOD. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. Magnus reigned from A.D. 1035 to 1047, when he died. During the last year of his reign his half-brother Harald Sigurdson was his co-regent. The history of Magnus is treated in "Agrip.", ch. 28-32; in "Fagrskinna", ch. 119-146; in "Fornmannasogur", part vi., and in "Knytlinga Saga". The skalds quoted in this saga are: Arnor the earls' skald (Arnor Jarlaskald), Sigvat, Thjodulf, Bjarne Gullbrarskald, Thorgeir Flek, Od Kikinaskald. 1. MAGNUS OLAFSON'S JOURNEY FROM THE WEST. After Yule Magnus Olafson began his journey from the East from Novgorod to Ladoga, where he rigged out his ships as soon as the ice was loosened in spring (A.D. 1035). Arnor, the earls' skald, tells of this in the poem on Magnus:-- "It is no loose report that he, Who will command on land and sea, In blood will make his foeman feel Olaf's sword Hneiter's sharp blue steel. This generous youth, who scatters gold, Norway's brave son, but ten years old, Is rigging ships in Russia's lake, His crown, with friend's support, to take." In spring Magnus sailed from the East to Svithjod. So says Arnor:-- "The young sword-stainer called a Thing, Where all his men should meet their king: Heroes who find the eagle food Before their lord in arms stood. And now the curved plank of the bow Cleaves the blue sea; the ocean-plough By grey winds driven across the main, Reaches Sigtuna's grassy plain." Here it is related that when King Magnus and his fellow-travellers sailed from the East to Svithjod, they brought up at Sigtuna. Emund Olafson was then king in Svithjod. Queen Astrid, who had been married to King Olaf the Saint, was also there. She received very gladly and well her stepson King Magnus, and summoned immediately a numerous Thing of Swedes at a place called Hangtar. At the Thing Queen Astrid spoke these words: "Here is come to us a son of Olaf the Saint, called Magnus, who intends to make an expedition to Norway to seek his father's heritage. It is my great duty to give him aid towards this expedition; for he is my stepson, as is well known to all, both Swedes and Norwegians. Neither shall he want men or money, in so far as I can procure them or have influence, in order that his strength may be as great as possible; and all the men who will support this cause of his shall have my fullest friendship; and I would have it known that I intend myself to go with him on this attempt, that all may see I will spare nothing that is in my power to help him." She spoke long and cleverly in this strain; but when she had ended many replied thus: "The Swedes made no honourable progress in Norway when they followed King Olaf his father, and now no better success is to be expected, as this man is but in years of boyhood; and therefore we have little inclination for this expedition." Astrid replies, "All men who wish to be thought of true courage must not be deterred by such considerations. If any have lost connections at the side of King Olaf, or been themselves wounded, now is the time to show a man's heart and courage, and go to Norway to take vengeance." Astrid succeeded so far with words and encouragement that many men determined to go with her, and follow King Magnus to Norway. Sigvat the skald speaks of this:-- "Now Astrtd, Olaf's widowed Queen,-- She who so many a change had seen,-- Took all the gifts of happier days, Jewels and rings, all she could raise, And at a Thing at Hangrar, where The Swedes were numerous, did declare What Olaf's son proposed to do, And brought her gifts--their pay--in view. "And with the Swedes no wiser plan, To bring out every brave bold man, Could have been found, had Magnus been The son himself of the good queen. With help of Christ, she hoped to bring Magnus to be the land's sole king, As Harald was, who in his day Obtained o'er all the upper sway. "And glad are we so well she sped,-- The people's friend is now their head; And good King Magnus always shows How much be to Queen Astrid owes. Such stepmothers as this good queen In truth are very rarely seen; And to this noble woman's praise The skald with joy his song will raise." Thiodolf the skald also says in his song of Magnus:-- "When thy brave ship left the land, The bending yard could scarce withstand The fury of the whistling gale, That split thy many-coloured sail; And many a stout ship, tempest-tost, Was in that howling storm lost That brought them safe to Sigtuna's shore, Far from the sound of ocean's roar." 2. MAGNUS'S EXPEDITION FROM SVITHJOD. King Magnus set out on his journey from Sigtuna with a great force, which he had gathered in Svithjod. They proceeded through Svithjod on foot to Helsingjaland. So says Arnor, the earl's skald:-- "And many a dark-red Swedish shield Marched with thee from the Swedish field. The country people crowded in, To help Saint Olaf's son to win; And chosen men by thee were led, Men who have stained the wolf's tongue red. Each milk-white shield and polished spear Came to a splendid gathering there." Magnus Olafson went from the East through Jamtaland over the keel-ridge of the country and came down upon the Throndhjem district, where all men welcomed the king with joy. But no sooner did the men of King Svein, the son of Alfifa, hear that King Magnus Olafson was come to the country, than they fled on all sides and concealed themselves, so that no opposition was made to King Magnus; for King Svein was in the south part of the country. So says Arnor, the earls' skald:-- "He who the eagle's talons stains Rushed from the East on Throndhjem's plains; The terror of his plumed helm Drove his pale foemen from the realm. The lightning of thy eye so near, Great king! thy foemen could not bear, Scattered they fled--their only care If thou their wretched lives wilt spare." 3. MAGNUS MADE KING. Magnus Olafson advanced to the town (Nidaros), where he was joyfully received. He then summoned the people to the Eyra-thing (1); and when the bondes met at the Thing, Magnus was taken to be king over the whole land, as far as his father Olaf had possessed it. Then the king selected a court, and named lendermen, and placed bailiffs and officers in all domains and offices. Immediately after harvest King Magnus ordered a levy through all Throndhjem land, and he collected men readily; and thereafter he proceeded southwards along the coast. ENDNOTES: (1) Eyra Thing, held on the ayr of the river Nid, that is, on the spit of sand, still called an ayr in the north of Scotland, dividing a lake, pond, or river-mouth from the sea. At the Thing held here the kings of Norway were chosen and proclaimed. It was held to be the proper Thing for settling disputes between kings in Norway.--L. 4. KING SVEIN'S FLIGHT. King Svein Alfifason was staying in South Hordaland when he heard this news of war. He immediately sent out war-tokens to four different quarters, summoned the bondes to him, and made it known to all that they should join him with men and ships to defend the country. All the men who were in the neighbourhood of the king presented themselves; and the king formed a Thing, at which in a speech he set forth his business, and said he would advance against Magnus Olafson and have a battle with him, if the bondes would aid his cause. The king's speech was not very long, and was not received with much approbation by the bondes. Afterwards the Danish chiefs who were about the king made long and clever speeches; but the bondes then took up the word, and answered them; and although many said they would follow Svein, and fight on his side, some refused to do so bluntly, some were altogether silent, and some declared they would join King Magnus as soon as they had an opportunity. Then King Svein says, "Methinks very few of the bondes to whom we sent a message have appeared here; and of those who have come, and tell us to our face that they will join King Magnus as soon as they can, we shall have as little benefit as of those who say they will sit at home quietly. It is the same with those who say nothing at all. But as to those who promise to help us, there are not more than every other man; and that force will avail us little against King Magnus. It is my counsel, therefore, that we do not trust to these bondes; but let us rather go to the land where all the people are sure and true to us, and where we will obtain forces to conquer this country again." As soon as the king had made known this resolution all his men followed it, turned their ship's bows, and hoisted sail. King Svein sailed eastward along the land, and then set right over to Denmark without delay, and Hardaknut received his brother Svein very kindly. At their first meeting Hardaknut offered King Svein to divide the kingdom of Denmark with him, which offer King Svein accepted. 5. KING MAGNUS'S JOURNEY TO NORWAY. In autumn (A.D. 1035) King Magnus proceeded eastward to the end of the country, and was received as king throughout the whole land, and the country people were rejoiced at his arrival. 6. DEATH OF KING CANUTE THE GREAT AND HIS SON SVEIN. King Svein, Canute's son, went to Denmark, as before related, and took part in the government with his brother Hardaknut. In the same autumn King Canute the Great died in England, the 13th November, forty years old, and was buried at Winchester. He had been king of Denmark for twenty-seven years, and over Denmark and England together twenty-four years, and also over Norway for seven years. King Canute's son Harald was then made king in England. The same winter (A.D. 1036) King Svein, Alfifa's son, died in Denmark. Thiodolf the skald made these lines concerning King Magnus:-- "Through Sweden's dirty roads the throng Followed the king in spearmen strong. Svein doth fly, in truth afraid, And partly by his men betrayed; Flying to Denmark o'er the sea, He leaves the land quite clear to thee." Bjarne Gullbrarskald composed the following lines concerning Kalf Arnason:-- "By thee the kings got each his own,-- Magnus by thee got Norway's throne; And Svein in Denmark got a seat, When out of Norway he was beat. Kalf! It was you who showed the way To our young king, the battle-lover,-- From Russia to his father's sway You showed the way, and brought him over." King Magnus ruled over Norway this winter (A.D. 1036), and Hardaknut over Denmark. 7. RECONCILIATION BETWEEN HARDAKNUT AND KING MAGNUS. The following spring (A.D. 1036) the kings on both sides ordered out a levy, and the news was that they would have a battle at the Gaut river; but when the two armies approached each other, the lendermen in the one army sent messengers to their connections and friends in the other; and it came to a proposal for a reconciliation between the two kings, especially as, from both kings being but young and childish, some powerful men, who had been chosen in each of the countries for that purpose, had the rule of the country on their account. It thus was brought about that there was a friendly meeting between the kings, and in this meeting a peace was proposed; and the peace was to be a brotherly union under oath to keep the peace towards each other to the end of their lives; and if one of them should die without leaving a son, the longest liver should succeed to the whole land and people. Twelve of the principal men in each kingdom swore to the kings that this treaty should be observed, so long as any one of them was in life. Then the kings separated, and each returned home to his kingdom; and the treaty was kept as long as both lived. 8. OF QUEEN ASTRID. Queen Astrid, who had been married to King Olaf the Saint, came to Norway with King Magnus her stepson, as before related, and was held by him deservedly in great honour and esteem. Then came also Alfhild, King Magnus's mother, to the court, and the king received her with the greatest affection, and showed her great respect. But it went with Alfhild, as it does with many who come to power and honour, that pride keeps pace with promotion. She was ill pleased that Queen Astrid was treated with more respect, had a higher seat, and more attention. Alfhild wanted to have a seat next to the king, but Astrid called Alfhild her slave-woman, as indeed she had formerly been when Astrid was queen of Norway and King Olaf ruled the land, and therefore would on no account let her have a seat beside her, and they could not lodge in the same house. 9. OF SIGVAT THE SKALD. Sigvat the skald had gone to Rome, where he was at the time of the battle of Stiklestad. He was on his way back from the South when he heard tidings of King Olaf's fall, which gave him great grief. He then sang these lines:-- "One morning early on a hill, The misty town asleep and still, Wandering I thought upon the fields. Strewed o'er with broken mail and shields, Where our king fell,--our kind good king, Where now his happy youthful spring? My father too!--for Thord was then One of the good king's chosen men." One day Sigvat went through a village, and heard a husband lamenting grievously over the loss of his wife, striking his breast, tearing his clothes, weeping bitterly, and saying he wanted to die; and Sigvat sang these lines:-- "This poor man mourns a much-loved wife, Gladly would he be quit of life. Must love be paid for by our grief? The price seems great for joy so brief. But the brave man who knows no fear Drops for his king a silent tear, And feels, perhaps, his loss as deep As those who clamour when they weep." Sigvat came home to Norway to the Throndhjem country, where he had a farm and children. He came from the South along the coast in a merchant vessel, and as they lay in Hillarsund they saw a great many ravens flying about. Then Sigvat said:-- "I see here many a croaking raven Flying about the well-known haven: When Olaf's ship was floating here, They knew that food for them was near; When Olaf's ship lay here wind-bound, Oft screamed the erne o'er Hillar sound, Impatient for the expected prey, And wont to follow to the fray." When Sigvat came north to the town of Throndhjem King Svein was there before him. He invited Sigvat to stay with him, as Sigvat had formerly been with his father King Canute the Great; but Sigvat said he would first go home to his farm. One day, as Sigvat was walking in the street, he saw the king's men at play, and he sang:-- "One day before I passed this way, When the king's guards were at their play, Something there was--I need not tell-- That made me pale, and feel unwell. Perhaps it was I thought, just then, How noble Olaf with his men, In former days, I oft have seen In manly games upon this green." Sigvat then went to his farm; and as he heard that many men upbraided him with having deserted King Olaf, he made these verses:-- "May Christ condemn me still to burn In quenchless fire, if I did turn, And leave King Olaf in his need,-- My soul is free from such base deed. I was at Rome, as men know well Who saw me there, and who can tell That there in danger I was then: The truth I need not hide from men." Sigvat was ill at ease in his home. One day he went out and sang:-- "While Olaf lived, how smiled the land! Mountain and cliff, and pebbly strand. All Norway then, so fresh, so gay, On land or sea, where oft I lay. But now to me all seems so dready, All black and dull--of life I'm weary; Cheerless to-day, cheerless to-morrow-- Here in the North we have great sorrow." Early in winter Sigvat went westward over the ridge of the country to Jamtaland, and onwards to Helsingjaland, and came to Svithjod. He went immediately to Queen Astrid, and was with her a long time, and was a welcome guest. He was also with her brother King Emund, and received from him ten marks of proved silver, as is related in the song of Canute. Sigvat always inquired of the merchants who traded to Novgorod if they could tell him any news of Magnus Olafson. Sigvat composed these lines at that time:-- "I ask the merchant oft who drives His trade to Russia, 'How he thrives, Our noble prince? How lives he there? And still good news--his praise--I hear. To little birds, which wing their way Between the lands, I fain would say, How much we long our prince to see, They seem to hear a wish from me." 10. OF KING MAGNUS'S FIRST ARRIVAL IN SVITHJOD. Immediately after Magnus Olafson came to Svithjod from Russia, Sigvat met him at Queen Astrid's house, and glad they all were at meeting. Sigvat then sang:-- "Thou art come here, prince, young and bold! Thou art come home! With joy behold Thy land and people. From this hour I join myself to thy young power. I could not o'er to Russie hie,-- Thy mother's guardian here was I. It was my punishment for giving Magnus his name, while scarcely living." Afterwards Sigvat travelled with Queen Astrid, and followed Magnus to Norway. Sigvat sang thus:-- "To the crowds streaming to the Thing, To see and hear Magnus their king, Loudly, young king, I'll speak my mind-- 'God to His people has been kind.' If He, to whom be all the praise, Give us a son in all his ways Like to his sire, no folk on earth Will bless so much a royal birth." Now when Magnus became king of Norway Sigvat attended him, and was his dearest friend. Once it happened that Queen Astrid and Alfhild the king's mother had exchanged some sharp words with each other, and Sigvat said:-- "Alfhild! though it was God's will To raise thee--yet remember still The queen-born Astrid should not be Kept out of due respect by thee." 11. KING OLAF'S SHRINE. King Magnus had a shrine made and mounted with gold and silver, and studded with jewels. This shrine was made so that in shape and size it was like a coffin. Under it was an arched way, and above was a raised roof, with a head and a roof-ridge. Behind were plaited hangings; and before were gratings with padlocks, which could be locked with a key. In this shrine King Magnus had the holy remains of King Olaf deposited, and many were the miracles there wrought. Of this Sigvat speaks:-- "For him a golden shrine is made, For him whose heart was ne'er afraid Of mortal man--the holy king, Whom the Lord God to heaven did bring. Here many a man shall feel his way, Stone-blind, unconscious of the day, And at the shrine where Olaf lies Give songs of praise for opened eyes." It was also appointed by law that King Olaf's holy day should be held sacred over all Norway, and that day has been kept ever afterwards as the greatest of Church days. Sigvat speaks of it:-- "To Olaf, Magnus' father, raise, Within my house, the song of praise! With joy, yet grief, we'll keep the day Olaf to heaven was called away. Well may I keep within my breast A day for him in holy rest,-- My upraised hands a golden ring On every branch (1) bear from that king." ENDNOTES: (1) The fingers, the branches of the hand, bore golden fruits from the generosity of the king.--L. 12. OF THORER HUND. Thorer Hund left the country immediately after King Olaf's fall. He went all the way to Jerusalem, and many people say he never came back. Thorer Hund had a son called Sigurd, father of Ranveig who was married to Joan, a son of Arne Arnason. Their children were Vidkun of Bjarkey, Sigurd Hund, Erling, and Jardthrud. 13. OF THE MURDER OF HAREK OF THJOTTA. Harek of Thjotta sat at home on his farm, till King Magnus Olafson came to the country and was made king. Then Harek went south to Throndhjem to King Magnus. At that time Asmund Grankelson was in the king's house. When Harek came to Nidaros, and landed out of the ship, Asmund was standing with the king in the gallery outside the loft, and both the king and Asmund knew Harek when they saw him. "Now," says Asmund to the king, "I will pay Harek for my father's murder." He had in his hand a little thin hatchet. The king looked at him, and said, "Rather take this axe of mine." It was thick, and made like a club. "Thou must know, Asmund," added he, "that there are hard bones in the old fellow." Asmund took the axe, went down, and through the house, and when he came down to the cross-road Harek and his men coming up met him. Asmund struck Harek on the head, so that the axe penetrated to the brains; and that was Harek's death-wound. Asmund turned back directly to the king's house, and the whole edge of the axe was turned with the blow. Then said the king, "What would thy axe have done, for even this one, I think, is spoilt?" King Magnus afterwards gave him a fief and office in Halogaland, and many are the tales about the strife between Asmund and Harek's sons. 14. OF THORGEIR FLEK. Kalf Arnason had at first, for some time, the greatest share of the government of the country under King Magnus; but afterwards there were people who reminded the king of the part Kalf had taken at Stiklestad, and then it became difficult for Kalf to give the king satisfaction in anything. Once it happened there were many men with the king bringing their affairs before him; and Thorgeir Flek from Sula in Veradal, of whom mention is made before in the history of King Olaf the Saint, came to him about some needful business. The king paid no attention to his words, but was listening to people who stood near him. Then Thorgeir said to the king, so loud that all who were around him could hear:-- "Listen, my lord, to my plain word. I too was there, and had to bear A bloody head from Stiklestad: For I was then with Olaf's men. Listen to me: well did I see The men you're trusting the dead corpse thrusting Out of their way, as dead it lay; And striking o'er your father's gore." There was instantly a great uproar, and some told Thorgeir to go out; but the king called him, and not only despatched his business to his satisfaction, but promised him favour and friendship. 15. KALF ARNASON FLIES THE COUNTRY Soon after this the king was at a feast at the farm of Haug in Veradel, and at the dinner-table Kalf Arnason sat upon one side of him, and Einar Tambaskelfer on the other. It was already come so far that the king took little notice of Kalf, but paid most attention to Einar. The king said to Einar, "Let us ride to-day to Stiklestad. I should like to see the memorials of the things which took place there." Einar replies, "I can tell thee nothing about it; but take thy foster-father Kalf with thee; he can give thee information about all that took place." When the tables were removed, the king made himself ready, and said to Kalf, "Thou must go with me to Stiklestad." Kalf replied, "That is really not my duty." Then the king stood up in a passion, and said, "Go thou shalt, Kalf!" and thereupon he went out. Kalf put on his riding clothes in all haste, and said to his foot-boy, "Thou must ride directly to Eggja, and order my house-servants to ship all my property on board my ship before sunset." King Magnus now rides to Stiklestad, and Kalf with him. They alighted from horseback, and went to the place where the battle had been. Then said the king to Kalf, "Where is the spot at which the king fell?" Kalf stretched out his spear-shaft, and said, "There he lay when he fell." The king: "And where wast thou, Kalf?" Kalf: "Here where I am now standing." The king turned red as blood in the face, and said, "Then thy axe could well have reached him." Kalf replied, "My axe did not come near him;" and immediately went to his horse, sprang on horseback, and rode away with all his men; and the king rode back to Haug. Kalf did not stop until he got home in the evening to Eggja. There his ship lay ready at the shore side, and all his effects were on board, and the vessel manned with his house-servants. They set off immediately by night down the fjord, and afterwards proceeded day and night, when the wind suited. He sailed out into the West sea, and was there a long time plundering in Ireland, Scotland, and the Hebudes. Bjarne Gullbrarskald tells of this in the song about Kalf:-- "Brother of Thorberg, who still stood Well with the king! in angry mood He is the first to break with thee, Who well deserves esteemed to be; He is the first who friendship broke, For envious men the falsehood spoke; And he will he the first to rue The breach of friendship 'twixt you two." 16. OF THE THREATS OF THE BONDES. King Magnus added to his property Veggia, which Hrut had been owner of, and Kviststad, which had belonged to Thorgeir, and also Eggja, with all the goods which Kalf had left behind him; and thus he confiscated to the king's estate many great farms, which had belonged to those of the bonde-army who had fallen at Stiklestad. In like manner, he laid heavy fined upon many of those who made the greatest opposition to King Olaf. He drove some out of the country, took large sums of money from others, and had the cattle of others slaughtered for his use. Then the bondes began to murmur, and to say among themselves, "Will he go on in the same way as his father and other chiefs, whom we made an end of when their pride and lawless proceedings became insupportable?" This discontent spread widely through the country. The people of Sogn gathered men, and, it was said, were determined to give battle to King Magnus, if he came into the Fjord district. King Magnus was then in Hordaland, where he had remained a long time with a numerous retinue, and was now come to the resolution to proceed north to Sogn. When the king's friends observed this, twelve men had a meeting, and resolved to determine by casting lots which of them should inform the king of the discontent of the people; and it so happened that the lot fell upon Sigvat. 17. OF THE FREE-SPEAKING SONG ("BERSOGLISVISUR"). Sigvat accordingly composed a poem, which he called the "Free-speaking Song", which begins with saying the king had delayed too long to pacify the people, who were threatening to rise in tumult against him. He said:-- "Here in the south, from Sogn is spread The news that strife draws to a head: The bondes will the king oppose-- Kings and their folk should ne'er be foes. Let us take arms, and briskly go To battle, if it must be so; Defend our king--but still deplore His land plunged in such strife once more." In this song are also these verses:-- "Hakon, who at Fitiar died,-- Hakon the Good, could not abide The viking rule, or robber train, And all men's love he thus did gain. The people since have still in mind The laws of Hakon, just and kind; And men will never see the day When Hakon's laws have passed away. "The bondes ask but what is fair; The Olafs and the Earls, when there Where Magnus sits, confirmed to all Their lands and gear--to great and small, Bold Trygve's son, and Harald's heir, The Olafs, while on earth they were, Observed the laws themselves had made, And none was for his own afraid. "Let not thy counsellors stir thy wrath Against the man who speaks the truth; Thy honour lies in thy good sword, But still more in thy royal word; And, if the people do not lie, The new laws turn out not nigh So Just and mild, as the laws given At Ulfasund in face of heaven. "Dread king! who urges thee to break Thy pledged word, and back to take Thy promise given? Thou warrior bold; With thy own people word to hold, Thy promise fully to maintain, Is to thyself the greatest gain: The battle-storm raiser he Must by his own men trusted be. "Who urges thee, who seek'st renown, The bondes' cattle to cut down? No king before e'er took in hand Such viking-work in his own land. Such rapine men will not long bear, And the king's counsellors will but share In their ill-will: when once inflamed, The king himself for all is blamed. "Do cautious, with this news of treason Flying about--give them no reason. We hange the thief, but then we use Consideration of the excuse. I think, great king (who wilt rejoice Eagle and wolf with battle voice), It would be wise not to oppose Thy bondes, and make them thy foes. "A dangerous sign it is, I fear, That old grey-bearded men appear In corners whispering at the Thing, As if they had bad news to bring. The young sit still,--no laugh, or shout,-- More looks than words passing shout; And groups of whispering heads are seen, On buttoned breasts, with lowering mien. "Among the udalmen, they say The king, if he could have his way, Would seize the bondes' udal land, And free-born men must this withstand. In truth the man whose udal field, By any doom that law can yield From him adjudged the king would take, Could the king's throne and power shake." This verse is the last:-- "A holy bond between us still Makes me wish speedy end to ill: The sluggard waits till afternoon,-- At once great Magnus! grant our boon. Then we will serve with heart and hand, With thee we'll fight by sea or land: With Olaf's sword take Olaf's mind, And to thy bondes be more kind." In this song the king was exhorted to observe the laws which his father had established. This exhortation had a good effect on the king, for many others held the same language to him. So at last the king consulted the most prudent men, who ordered all affairs according to law. Thereafter King Magnus had the law-book composed in writing which is still in use in Throndhjem district, and is called "The Grey Goose" (1). King Magnus afterwards became very popular, and was beloved by all the country people, and therefore he was called Magnus the Good. ENDNOTES: (1) "The Grey Goose", so called probably from the colour of the parchment on which it is written, is one of the most curious relics of the Middle Ages, and give us an unexpected view of the social condition of the Northmen in the eleventh century. Law appears to have been so far advanced among them that the forms were not merely established, but the slightest breach of the legal forms of proceeding involved the loss of the case. The "Grey Goose" embraces subjects not dealt with probably by any other code in Europe at that period. The provision for the poor, the equality of weights and measures, police of markets and of sea havens, provision for illegitimate children of the poor, inns for travellers, wages of servants and support of them in sickness, protection of pregnant women and even of domestic animals from injury, roads, bridges, vagrants, beggars, are subjects treated of in this code.--"Schlegel."--L. 18. OF THE ENGLISH KINGS. The king of the English, King Harald, died (A.D. 1040) five years after his father King Canute, and was buried beside his father at Winchester. After his death his brother Hardaknut, the second son of the old King Canute, was king of England, and was thus king both of Denmark and England. He ruled these kingdoms two years, and then died of sickness in England, leaving no children. He was buried at Winchester beside his father. After his death Edward the Good, a son of the English king Ethelred (and Emma, a daughter of Richard earl of Rouen), was chosen king in England. King Edward the Good was, on his mother's side, a brother of Harald and Hardaknut, the sons of Canute the Great; and the daughter of Canute and Queen Emma was Gunhild, who was married to the Emperor Henry of Germany, who was called Henry the Mild. Gunhild had been three years in Germamy when she fell sick, and she died five years after the death of her father King Canute the Great. 19. OF KING MAGNUS OLAFSON. When King Magnus Olafson heard of Hardaknut's death, he immediately sent people south to Denmark, with a message to the men who had bound themselves by oath to the peace and agreement which was made between King Magnus and Hardaknut, and reminded them of their pledge. He added, as a conclusion, that in summer (A.D. 1042.) he would come with his army to Denmark to take possession of his Danish dominions, in terms of the agreement, or to fall in the field with his army. So says Arnor, the earls' skald:-- "Wise were the words, exceeding wise, Of him who stills the hungriest cries Of beasts of prey--the earl's lord; And soon fulfilled will be his word: 'With his good sword he'll Denmark gain, Or fall upon a bloody plain; And rather than give up his cause, Will leave his corpse to raven's claws.'" 20. KING MAGNUS'S ARMAMENT. Thereafter King Magnus gathered together a great army, and summoned to him all lendermen and powerful bondes, and collected war-ships. When the army was assembled it was very handsome, and well fitted out. He had seventy large vessels when he sailed from Norway. So says Thiodolf the skald:-- "Brave king! the terror of the foe, With thee will many a long-ship go. Full seventy sail are gathered here, Eastward with their great king to steer. And southward now the bright keel glides; O'er the white waves the Bison rides. Sails swell, yards crack, the highest mast O'er the wide sea scarce seen at last." Here it related that King Magnus had the great Bison, which his father King Olaf had built. It had more than thirty banks of rowers; and forward on the bow was a great buffalo head, and aft on the stern-post was its tail. Both the head and the tail, and both sides of the ship, were gilded over. Of this speaks Arnor, the earls' skald:-- "The white foam lashing o'er the deck Oft made the glided head to shake; The helm down, the vessel's heel Oft showed her stem's bright-glacing steel. Around Stavanger-point careering, Through the wild sea's white flames steering, Tackle loud singing to the strain, The storm-horse flies to Denmark's plain." King Magnus set out to sea from Agder, and sailed over to Jutland. So says Arnor:-- "I can relate how through the gale The gallant Bison carried sail. With her lee gunwale in the wave, The king on board, Magnus the brave! The iron-clad Thingmen's chief to see On Jutland's coast right glad were we,-- Right glad our men to see a king Who in the fight his sword could swing." 21. KING MAGNUS COMES TO DENMARK. When King Magnus came to Denmark he was joyfully received. He appointed a Thing without delay, to which he summoned the people of the country, and desired they would take him as king, according to the agreement which had been entered into. As the highest of the chiefs of the country were bound by oath to King Magnus, and were desirous of keeping their word and oath, they endeavoured zealously to promote the cause with the people. It contributed also that King Canute the Great, and all his descendants, were dead; and a third assistance was, that his father King Olaf's sanctity and miracles were become celebrated in all countries. 22. KING MAGNUS CHOSEN KING OF DENMARK. King Magnus afterwards ordered the people to be summoned to Viborg to a Thing. Both in older and later times, the Danes elected their kings at the Viborg Thing. At this Thing the Danes chose Magnus Olafson to be king of all the Danish dorninions. King Magnus remained long in Denmark during the summer (A.D. 1042); and wherever he came the people received him joyfully, and obeyed him willingly. He divided the country into baronies and districts, and gave fiefs to men of power in the land. Late in autumn he returned with his fleet to Norway, but lay for some time at the Gaut river. 23. OF SVEIN ULFSON. There was a man, by name Svein, a son of Earl Ulf, and grandson of Thorgils Sprakaleg. Svein's mother was Astrid, a daughter of King Svein Forkbeard. She was a sister of Canute the Great by the father's side, and of the Swedish King Olaf Eirikson by the mother's side; for her mother was Queen Sigrid the Haughty, a daughter of Skoglar Toste. Svein Ulfson had been a long time living with his relation the Swedish king, ever since King Canute had ordered his father Ulf to be killed, as is related in the saga of old King Canute, that he had his brother-in-law, Earl Ulf, murdered in Roskilde; and on which account Svein had not since been in Denmark. Svein Ulfson was one of the handsomest men that could be seen; he was very stout and strong, and very expert in all exercises, and a well-spoken man withal. Every one who knew him said he had every quality which became a good chief. Svein Ulfson waited upon King Magnus while he lay in the Gaut river, as before mentioned, and the king received him kindly, as he was by many advised to do; for Svein was a particularly popular man. He could also speak for himself to the king well and cleverly; so that it came at lasf to Svein's entering into King Magnus's service, and becoming his man. They often talked together afterwards in private concerning many affairs. 24. SVEIN ULFSON CREATED AN EARL. One day, as King Magnus sat in his high-seat and many people were around him, Svein Ulfson sat upon a footstool before the king. The king then made a speech: "Be it known to you, chiefs, and the people in general, that I have taken the following resolution. Here is a distinguished man, both for family and for his own merits, Svein Ulfson, who has entered into my service, and given me promise of fidelity. Now, as ye know, the Danes have this summer become my men, so that when I am absent from the country it is without a head; and it is not unknown to you how it is ravaged by the people of Vindland, Kurland, and others from the Baltic, as well as by Saxons. Therefore I promised them a chief who could defend and rule their land; and I know no man better fitted, in all respects, for this than Svein Ulfson, who is of birth to be chief of the country. I will therefore make him my earl, and give him the government of my Danish dominions while I am in Norway; just as King Canute the Great set his father, Earl Ulf, over Denmark while he was in England." Then Einar Tambaskelfer said, "Too great an earl--too great an earl, my foster-son!" The king replied in a passion, "Ye have a poor opinion of my judgment, I think. Some consider that ye are too great earls, and others that ye are fit for nothing." Then the king stood up, took a sword, and girt it on the earl's loins, and took a shield and fastened it on his shoulders, put a helmet upon his head, and gave him the title of earl, with the same fiefs in Denmark which his father Earl Ulf had formerly held. Afterwards a shrine was brought forth containing holy relics, and Svein laid his hand hereon, and swore the oath of fidelity to King Magnus; upon which the king led the earl to the highseat by his side. So says Thiodolf:-- "Twas at the Gaut river's shore, With hand on shrine Svein Ulfson swore. King Magnus first said o'er the oath, With which Svein Ulfson pledged his troth. The vows by Svein solemnly given, On holy bones of saints in heaven, To Magnus seemed both fair and fast; He found they were too fair to last." Earl Svein went thereafter to Denmark, and the whole nation received him well. He established a court about him, and soon became a great man. In winter (A.D. 1043), he went much about the country, and made friends among the powerful chiefs; and, indeed, he was beloved by all the people of the land. 25. KING MAGNUS'S FORAY. King Magnus proceeded northward to Norway with his fleet, and wintered there; but when the spring set in (A.D. 1048) he gathered a large force, with which he sailed south to Demnark, having heard the news from Vindland that the Vindland people in Jomsborg had withdrawn from their submission to him. The Danish kings had formerly had a very large earldom there, and they first founded Jomsborg; and now the place was become a very strong fortress. When King Magnus heard of this, he ordered a large fleet and army to be levied in Denmark, and sailed in summer to Vindland with all his forces, which made a very large army altogether. Arnor, the earls' skald, tells of it thus:-- "Now in this strophe, royal youth! I tell no more than the plain truth. Thy armed outfit from the strand Left many a keel-trace on the sand, And never did a king before SO many ships to any shore Lead on, as thou to Vindland's isle: The Vindland men in fright recoil." Now when King Magnus came to Vindland he attacked Jomsborg, and soon took the fortress, killing' many people, burning and destroying both in the town and in the courttry all around, and making the greatest havoc. So says Arnor, the earl's skald:-- "The robbers, hemmed 'twixt death and fire, Knew not how to escape thy ire; O'er Jomsborg castle's highest towers Thy wrath the whirlwind-fire pours. The heathen on his false gods calls, And trembles even in their halls; And by the light from its own flame The king this viking-hold o'ercame." Many people in Vindland submitted to King Magnus, but many more got out of the way and fled. King Magnus returned to Denmark, and prepared to take his winter abode there, and sent away the Danish, and also a great many of the Norwegian people he had brought with him. 26. SVEIN RECEIVES THE TITLE OF KING. The same winter (A.D. 1043), in which Svein Ulfson was raised to the government of the whole Danish dominions, and had made friends of a great number of the principal chiefs in Denmark, and obtained the affections of the people, he assumed by the advice of many of the chiefs the title of king. But when in the spring thereafter he heard that King Magnus had come from the north with a great army, Svein went over to Scania, from thence up to Gautland, and so on to Svithjod to his relation, King Emund, where he remained all summer, and sent spies out to Denmark, to inquire about the king's proceedings and the number of his men. Now when Svein heard that King Magnus had let a great part of his army go away, and also that he was south in Jutland, he rode from Svithjod with a great body of peopie which the Swedish king had given him. When Svein came to Scania the people of that country received him well, treated him as their king, and men joined him in crowds. He then went on to Seeland, where he was also well received, and the whole country joined him. He then went to Fyen, and laid all the islands under his power; and as the people also joined him, he collected a great army and many ships of war. 27. OF KING MAGNUS'S MILITARY FORCE. King Magnus heard this news, and at the same time that the people of Vindland had a large force on foot. He summoned people therefore to come to him, and drew together a great army in Jutland. Otto, also, the Duke of Brunsvik, who had married Ulfhild, King Olaf the Saint's daughter, and the sister of King Magnus, came to him with a great troop. The Danish chiefs pressed King Magnus to advance against the Vindland army, and not allow pagans to march over and lay waste the country; so it was resolved that the king with his army should proceed south to Heidaby. While King Magnus lay at Skotborg river, on Hlyrskog Heath, he got intelligence concerning the Vindland army, and that it was so numerous it could not be counted; whereas King Magnus had so few, that there seemed no chance for him but to fly. The king, however, determined on fighting, if there was any possibility of gaining the victory; but the most dissuaded him from venturing on an engagement, and all, as one man, said that the Vindland people had undoubtedly a prodigious force. Duke Otto, however, pressed much to go to battle. Then the king ordered the whole army to be gathered by the war trumpets into battle array, and ordered all the men to arm, and to lie down for the night under their shields; for he was told the enemy's army had come to the neighbourhood. The king was very thoughtful; for he was vexed that he should be obliged to fly, which fate he had never experienced before. He slept but little all night, and chanted his prayers. 28. OF KING OLAF'S MIRACLE. The following day was Michaelmas eve. Towards dawn the king slumbered, and dreamt that his father, King Olaf the Saint, appeared to him, and said, "Art thou so melancholy and afraid, because the Vindland people come against thee with a great army? Be not afraid of heathens, although they be many; for I shall be with thee in the battle. Prepare, therefore, to give battle to the Vindlanders, when thou hearest my trumpet." When the king awoke he told his dream to his men, and the day was then dawning. At that moment all the people heard a ringing of bells in the air; and those among King Magnus's men who had been in Nidaros thought that it was the ringing of the bell called Glod, which King Olaf had presented to the church of Saint Clement in the town of Nidaros. 29. BATTLE OF HLYRSKOG HEATH. Then King Magnus stood up, and ordered the war trumpets to sound, and at that moment the Vindland army advanced from the south across the river against him; on which the whole of the king's army stood up, and advanced against the heathens. King Magnus threw off from him his coat of ring-mail, and had a red silk shirt outside over his clothes, and had in his hands the battle-axe called Hel (1), which had belonged to King Olaf. King Magnus ran on before all his men to the enemy's army, and instantly hewed down with both hands every man who came against him. So says Arnor, the earls' skald:-- "His armour on the ground he flung His broad axe round his head he swung; And Norway's king strode on in might, Through ringing swords, to the wild fight. His broad axe Hel with both hands wielding, Shields, helms, and skulls before it yielding, He seemed with Fate the world to share, And life or death to deal out there." This battle was not very long; for the king's men were very fiery, and where they came the Vindland men fell as thick as tangles heaped up by the waves on the strand. They who stood behind betook themselves to flight, and were hewed down like cattle at a slaughter. The king himself drove the fugitives eastward over the heath, and people fell all over the moor. So says Thiodolf:-- "And foremost he pursued, And the flying foe down hewed; An eagle's feast each stroke, As the Vindland helms he broke. He drove them o'er the hearth, And they fly from bloody death; But the moor, a mile or more, With the dead was studded o'er." It is a common saying, that there never was so great a slaughter of men in the northern lands, since the time of Christianity, as took place among the Vindland people on Hlyrskog's Heath. On the other side, not many of King Magnus's people were killed, although many were wounded. After the battle the king ordered the wounds of his men to be bound; but there were not so many doctors in the army as were necessary, so the king himself went round, and felt the hands of those he thought best suited for the business; and when he had thus stroked their palms, he named twelve men, who, he thought, had the softest hands, and told them to bind the wounds of the people; and although none of them had ever tried it before, they all became afterwards the best of doctors. There were two Iceland men among them; the one was Thorkil, a son of Geire, from Lyngar; the other was Atle, father of Bard Svarte of Selardal, from whom many good doctors are descended. After this battle, the report of the miracle which King Olaf the Saint had worked was spread widely through the country; and it was the common saying of the people, that no man could venture to fight against King Magnus Olafson, for his father Saint Olaf stood so near to him that his enemies, on that account, never could do him harm. ENDNOTES: (1) Hel--Death: the goddess of Death.--L. 30. BATTLE AT RE. King Magnus immediately turned round with his army against Svein, whom he called his earl, although the Danes called him their king; and he collected ships, and a great force, and on both sides a great strength was assembled. In Svein's army were many chiefs from Scania, Halland, Seeland, and Fyen; while King Magnus, on the other hand, had mostly Norway and Jutland men, and with that war-force he hastened to meet Svein. They met at Re, near Vestland; and there was a great battle, which ended in King Magnus gaining the victory, and Svein taking flight. After losing many people, Svein fled back to Scania, and from thence to Gautland, which was a safe refuge if he needed it, and stood open to him. King Magnus returned to Jutland, where he remained all winter (A.D. 1044) with many people, and had a guard to watch his ships. Arnor, the earls' skald, speaks of this:-- "At Re our battle-loving lord In bloody meeting stained his sword,-- At Re upon the western shore, In Vestland warrior's blood once more." 31. BATTLE AT AROS. Svein Ulfson went directly to his ships as soon as he heard that King Magnus had left his fleet. He drew to him all the men he could, and went round in winter among the islands, Seeland, Fyen, and others. Towards Yule he sailed to Jutland, and went into Limfjord, where many people submitted to him. He imposed scat upon some, but some joined King Magnus. Now when King Magnus heard what Svein was doing, he betook himself to his ships with all the Northmen then in Denmark, and a part of the Danish troops, and steered south along the land. Svein was then in Aros with a great force; and when he heard of King Magnus he laid his vessels without the town, and prepared for battle. When King Magnus heard for certain where Svein was, and that the distance between them was but short, he held a House-thing, and addressed his people thus: "It is reported to me that the earl and his fleet are lying not far from us, and that he has many people. Now I would let you know that I intend to go out against the earl and fight for it, although, we have fewer people. We will, as formerly, put our trust in God, and Saint Olaf, my father, who has given us victory sometimes when we fought, even though we had fewer men than the enemy. Now I would have you get ready to seek out the enemy, and give battle the moment we find him by rowing all to attack, and being all ready for battle." Thereupon the men put on their weapons, each man making himself and his place ready; and then they stretched themselves to their oars. When they saw the earl's ships they rowed towards them, and made ready to attack. When Svein's men saw the forces they armed themselves, bound their ships together, and then began one of the sharpest of battles. So says Thiodolf, the skald:-- "Shield against shield, the earl and king Made shields and swords together ring. The gold-decked heroes made a play Which Hild's iron-shirt men say They never saw before or since On battle-deck; the brave might wince, As spear and arrow whistling flew, Point blank, death-bringing, quick and true." They fought at the bows, so that the men only on the bows could strike; the men on the forecastle thrust with spears: and all who were farther off shot with light spears or javelins, or war-arrows. Some fought with stones or short stakes; and those who were aft of the mast shot with the bow. So Says Thiodolf:-- "Steel-pointed spear, and sharpened stake, Made the broad shield on arm shake: The eagle, hovering in the air, Screamed o'er the prey preparing there. And stones and arrows quickly flew, And many a warrior bold they slew. The bowman never twanged his bow And drew his shaft so oft as now; And Throndhjem's bowmen on that day Were not the first tired of this play: Arrows and darts so quickly fly, You could not follow with the eye." Here it appears how hot the battle was with casting weapons. King Magnus stood in the beginning of the battle within a shield-rampart; but as it appeared to him that matters were going on too slowly, he leaped over the shields, and rushed forward in the ship, encouraging his men with a loud cheer, and springing to the bows, where the battle was going on hand to hand. When his men saw this they urged each other on with mutual cheering, and there was one great hurrah through all the ships. So says Thiodolf:-- "'On with our ships! on to the foe!' Cry Magnus' men--on, on they go. Spears against shields in fury rattle,-- Was never seen so fierce a battle." And now the battle was exceedingly sharp; and in the assault Svein's ship was cleared of all her forecastle men, upon and on both sides of the forecastle. Then Magnus boarded Svein's ship, followed by his men; and one after the other came up, and made so stout an assault that Svein's men gave way, and King Magnus first cleared that ship, and then the rest, one after the other. Svein fled, with a great part of his people; but many fell, and many got life and peace. Thiodolf tells of this:-- "Brave Magnus, from the stern springing On to the stem, where swords were ringing From his sea-raven's beak of gold Deals death around--the brave! the bold! The earl's housemen now begin To shrink and fall: their ranks grow thin-- The king's luck thrives--their decks are cleared, Of fighting men no more appeared. The earl's ships are driven to flight, Before the king would stop the fight: The gold-distributor first then Gave quarters to the vanquished men." This battle was fought on the last Sunday before Yule. So says Thiodolf:-- "'Twas on a Sunday morning bright, Fell out this great and bloody fight, When men were arming, fighting, dying, Or on the red decks wounded lying. And many a man, foredoomed to die, To save his life o'erboard did fly, But sank; for swimming could not save, And dead men rolled in every wave." Magnus took seven ships from Svein's people. So says Thiodolf:-- "Thick Olaf's son seven vessels cleared, And with his fleet the prizes steered. The Norway girls will not be sad To hear such news--each from her lad." He also sings:-- "The captured men will grieve the most Svein and their comrades to have lost; For it went ill with those who fled, Their wounded had no easy bed. A heavy storm that very night O'ertook them flying from the fight; And skulls and bones are tumbling round, Under the sea, on sandy ground." Svein fled immediately by night to Seeland, with the men who had escaped and were inclined to follow him; but King Magnus brought his ships to the shore, and sent his men up the country in the night-time, and early in the morning they came flown to the strand with a great booty in cattle. Thiodolf tells about it:-- "But yesterday with heavy stones We crushed their skulls, and broke their bones, And thinned their ranks; and now to-day Up through their land we've ta'en our way, And driven their cattle to the shore, And filled out ships with food in store. To save his land from our quick swords, Svein will need something more than words." 32. SVEIN'S FLIGHT. King Magnus sailed with his fleet from the south after Svein to Seeland; but as soon as the king came there Svein fled up the country with his men, and Magnus followed them, and pursued the fugitives, killing all that were laid hold of. So says Thiodolf:-- "The Seeland girl asks with fear, 'Whose blood-bespattered shield and spear-- The earl's or king's--up from the shore Moved on with many a warrior more?' We scoured through all their muddy lanes, Woodlands, and fields, and miry plains. Their hasty footmarks in the clay Showed that to Ringsted led their way. "Spattered with mud from heel to head, Our gallant lord his true men led. Will Lund's earl halt his hasty flight, And try on land another fight? His banner yesterday was seen, The sand-bills and green trees between, Through moss and mire to the strand, In arrow flight, leaving the land." Then Svein fled over to Fyen Island, and King Magnus carried fire and sword through Seeland, and burnt all round, because their men had joined Svein's troop in harvest. So says Thiodolf:-- "As Svein in winter had destroyed The royal house, the king employed No little force to guard the land, And the earl's forays to withstand. An armed band one morn he found, And so beset them round and round, That Canute's nephew quickly fled, Or he would have been captive led. "Our Throndhjem king in his just ire Laid waste the land with sword and fire, Burst every house, and over all Struck terror into great and small. To the earl's friends he well repaid Their deadly hate--such wild work made On them and theirs, that from his fury, Flying for life, away they hurry." 33. BURNING IN FYEN. As soon as King Magnus heard that Svein with his troops had gone across to Fyen, he sailed after them; and when Svein heard this news he went on board ship and sailed to Scania, and from thence to Gautland, and at last to the Swedish King. King Magnus landed in Fyen, and plundered and burned over all; and all of Svein's men who came there fled far enough. Thiodolf speaks of it thus:-- "Fiona isle, once green and fair, Lies black and reeking through the air: The red fog rises, thick and hot, From burning farm and smouldering cot. The gaping thralls in terror gaze On the broad upward-spiring blaze, From thatched roofs and oak-built walls, Their murdered masters' stately halls. "Svein's men, my girl, will not forget That thrice they have the Norsemen met, By sea, by land, with steel, with fire, Thrice have they felt the Norse king's ire. Fiona's maids are slim and fair, The lovely prizes, lads, we'll share: Some stand to arms in rank and row, Some seize, bring off, and fend with blow." After this the people of Denmark submitted to King Magnus, and during the rest of the winter, there was peace. King Magnus then appointed some of his men to govern Denmark; and when spring was advanced he sailed northwards with his fleet to Norway, where he remained a great part of the summer. 34. BATTLE AT HELGANES Now, when Svein heard that King Magnus had gone to Norway he rode straight down, and had many people out of Svithjod with him. The people of Scania received him well, and he again collected an army, with which he first crossed over into Seeland and seized upon it and Fyen, and all the other isles. When King Magnus heard of this he gathered together men and ships, and sailed to Denmark; and as soon as he knew where Svein was lying with his ships King Magnus sailed to meet him. They met at a place called Helganes, and the battle began about the fall of day. King Magnus had fewer men, but larger and better equipt vessels. So says Arnor, the earls' skald:-- "At Helganes--so goes the tale-- The brave wolf-feeder, under sail, Made many an ocean-elk (1) his prey, Seized many a ship ere break of day. When twilight fell he urged the fight, Close combat--man to man all night; Through a long harvest night's dark hours, Down poured the battle's iron showers." The battle was very hot, and as night advanced the fall of men was great. King Magnus, during the whole night, threw hand-spears. Thiodolf speaks of this:-- "And there at Helganes sunk down, Sore wounded, men of great renown; And Svein's retainers lost all heart, Ducking before the flying dart. The Norsemen's king let fly his spears, His death-wounds adding to their fears; For each spear-blade was wet all o'er, Up to the shaft in their life-gore." To make a short tale, King Magnus won the victory in this battle, and Svein fled. His ship was cleared of men from stem to stern; and it went so on board many others of his ships. So says Thiodolf:-- "Earl Svein fled from the empty deck, His lonely ship an unmann'd wreck; Magnus the Good, the people's friend, Pressed to the death on the false Svein. Hneiter (2), the sword his father bore, Was edge and point, stained red with gore; Swords sprinkle blood o'er armour bright, When kings for land and power fight." And Arnor says:-- "The cutters of Bjorn's own brother Soon changed their owner for another; The king took them and all their gear; The crews, however, got off clear." A great number of Svein's men fell, and King Magnus and his men had a vast booty to divide. So says Thiodolf:-- "Where the Norsemen the Danish slew, A Gautland shield and breast-plate true Fell to my share of spoil by lot; And something more i' the south I got: (There all the summer swords were ringing) A helm, gay arms, and gear worth bringing, Home to my quiet lovely one I sent--with news how we had won." Svein fled up to Scania with all the men who escaped with him; and King Magnus and his people drove the fugitives up through the country without meeting any opposition either from Svein's men or the bondes. So says Thiodolf:-- "Olaf's brave son then gave command, All his ships' crews should quickly land: King Magnus, marching at their head, A noble band of warriors led. A foray through the land he makes; Denmark in every quarter shakes. Up hill and down the horses scour, Carrying the Danes from Norsemen's power." King Magnus drove with fire and sword through the land. So says Thiodolf:-- "And now the Norsemen storm along, Following their banner in a throng: King Magnus' banner flames on high, A star to guide our roaming by. To Lund, o'er Scania's peaceful field, My shoulder bore my useless shield; A fairer land, a better road, As friend or foe, I never trod." They began to burn the habitations all around, and the people fled on every side. So says Thiodolf:-- "Our ice-cold iron in great store, Our arms, beside the king we bore: The Scanian rogues fly at the view Of men and steel all sharp and true. Their timbered houses flame on high, Red flashing over half the sky; The blazing town flings forth its light, Lighting the cowards on their flight." And he also sang:-- "The king o'er all the Danish land Roams, with his fire-bringing band: The house, the hut, the farm, the town, All where men dwelt is burned down. O'er Denmark's plains and corn-fields, Meadows and moors, are seen our shields: Victorious over all, we chase Svein's wounded men from place to place. "Across Fiona's moor again, The paths late trodden by our men We tread once more, until quite near, Through morning mist, the foes appear. Then up our numerous banners flare In the cold early morning air; And they from Magnus' power who fly Cannot this quick war-work deny." Then Svein fled eastwards along Scania, and King Magnus returned to his ships, and steered eastwards also along the Scanian coast, having got ready with the greatest haste to sail. Thiodolf sings thus about it:-- "No drink but the salt sea On board our ships had we, When, following our king, On board our ships we spring. Hard work on the salt sea, Off Scania's coast, had we; But we laboured for the king, To his foemen death to bring." Svein fled to Gautland, and then sought refuge with the Swedish king, with whom he remained all winter (A.D. 1046), and was treated with great respect. ENDNOTES: (1) Ship.--L. (2) This was the name of Saint Olaf's sword, which Magnus had recovered.--L. 35. OF KING MAGNUS'S CAMPAIGN. When King Magnus had subdued Scania he turned about, and first went to Falster, where he landed, plundered, and killed many people who had before submitted to Svein. Arnor speaks of this:-- "A bloody vengeance for their guile King Magnus takes on Falster Isle; The treacherous Danes his fury feel, And fall before his purpled steel. The battle-field is covered o'er, With eagle's prey from shore to shore; And the king's courtmen were the first To quench with blood the raven's thirst." Thereafter Magnus with his fleet proceeded to the isle of Fyen, went on land, plundered, and made great devastation. So says Arnor, the earls' skald:-- "To fair Fiona's grassy shore His banner now again he bore: He who the mail-shirt's linked chains Severs, and all its lustre stains,-- He will be long remembered there, The warrior in his twentieth year, Whom their black ravens from afar Saluted as he went to war." 36. OF KING MAGNUS'S BATTLES. King Magnus remained in Denmark all that winter (A.D. 1046), and sat in peace. He had held many battles, and had gained the victory in all. So says Od Kikinaskald:-- "'Fore Michaelmas was struck the blow, That laid the Vindland vikings low; And people learned with joy to hear The clang of arms, and leaders' cheer. Short before Yule fell out the day, Southward of Aros, where the fray, Though not enough the foe to quell, Was of the bloodiest men can tell." And Arnor says:-- "Olaf's avenger who can sing? The skald cannot o'ertake the king, Who makes the war-bird daily drain The corpse-blood of his foemen slain. Four battles won within a year,-- Breaker of shields! with swords and spear, And hand to hand, exalt thy fame Above the kings of greatest name." King Magnus had three battles with Svein Ulfson. So says Thiodolf:-- "To our brave Throndhjem sovereign's praise The skald may all his skaldcraft raise; For fortune, and for daring deed, His song will not the truth exceed. After three battles to regain What was his own, unjustly ta'en, Unjustly kept, and dues denied, He levied dues in red-blood dyed." 37. OF KING MAGNUS, AND THORFIN AND RAGNVALD, EARLS OF ORKNEY. While King Magnus the Good, a son of King Olaf the Saint, ruled over Norway, as before related, the Earl Ragnvald Brusason lived with him. Earl Thorfin Sigurdson, the uncle of Ragnvald, ruled then over Orkney. King Magnus sent Ragnvald west to Orkney, and ordered that Thorfin should let him have his father's heritage. Thorfin let Ragnvald have a third part of the land along with him; for so had Erase, the father of Ragnvald, had it at his dying day. Earl Thorfin was married to Ingebjorg, the earl-mother, who was a daughter of Fin Arnason. Earl Ragnvald thought he should have two-thirds of the land, as Olaf the Saint had promised to his father Bruse, and as Bruse had enjoyed as long as Olaf lived. This was the origin of a great strife between these relations, concerning which we have a long saga. They had a great battle in Pentland Firth, in which Kalf Arnason was with Earl Thorfin. So says Bjarne Gullbrarskald:-- "Thy cutters, dashing through the tide, Brought aid to Earl Thorfin's side, Fin's son-in-law, and people say Thy aid made Bruse's son give way. Kalf, thou art fond of warlike toil, Gay in the strife and bloody broil; But here 'twas hate made thee contend Against Earl Ragnvald, the king's friend." 38. OF KING MAGNUS'S LETTER TO ENGLAND. King Magnus ruled then both over Denmark and Norway; and when he had got possession of the Danish dominions he sent ambassadors over to England to King Edward, who brought to him King Magnus's letter and seal. And in this letter there stood, along with a salutation from King Magnus, these words:--"Ye must have heard of the agreement which I and Hardaknut made,--that he of us two who survived the other should have all the land and people which the deceased had possessed. Now it has so turned out, as ye have no doubt heard, that I have taken the Danish dominions as my heritage after Hardaknut. But before he departed this life he had England as well as Denmark; therefore I consider myself now, in consequence of my rights by this agreement, to own England also. Now I will therefore that thou deliver to me the kingdom; otherwise I will seek to take it by arms, both from Denmark and Norway; and let him rule the land to whom fate gives the victory." 39. KING EDWARD'S ANSWER TO KING MAGNUS'S LETTER. Now when King Edward had read this letter, he replied thus: "It is known to all men in this country that King Ethelred, my father, was udal-born to this kingdom, both after the old and new law of inheritance. We were four sons after him; and when he by death left the throne my brother Edmund took the government and kingdom; for he was the oldest of us brothers, and I was well satisfied that it was so. And after him my stepfather, Canute the Great, took the kingdom, and as long as he lived there was no access to it. After him my brother Harald was king as long as he lived; and after him my brother Hardaknut took the kingdoms both of Denmark and England; for he thought that a just brotherly division that he should have both England and Denmark, and that I should have no kingdom at all. Now he died, and then it was the resolution of all the people of the country to take me for king here in England. So long as I had no kingly title I served only superiors in all respects, like those who had no claims by birth to land or kingdom. Now, however, I have received the kingly title, and am consecrated king. I have established my royal dignity and authority, as my father before me; and while I live I will not renounce my title. If King Magnus come here with an army, I will gather no army against him; but he shall only get the opportunity of taking England when he has taken my life. Tell him these words of mine." The ambassadors went back to King Magnus, and told him the answer to their message. King Magnus reflected a while, and answered thus: "I think it wisest, and will succeed best, to let King Edward have his kingdom in peace for me, and that I keep the kingdoms God has put into my hands." SAGA OF HARALD HARDRADE. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. Harald, son of Sigurd Syr, was born in the year A.D. 1015, and left Norway A.D. 1030. He was called Hardrade, that is, the severe counsellor, the tyrant, though the Icelanders never applied this epithet to him. Harald helped the Icelanders in the famine of A.D. 1056, and sent them timber for a church at Thingvol. It was the Norwegians who gave him the name tyrant in contrast to the "debonairete" of Magnus. He came to Norway in A.D. 1046, and became sole king in A.D. 1047. He died in A.D. 1066, and his son and successor Magnus died in A.D. 1069. His saga is to be compared with "Agrip", "Fagrskinna", and "Morkinskinna". The skalds quoted are: Thiodolf, Bolverk, Illuge Bryndalaskald, Stuf the skald, Thorarin Skeggjason, Valgard o' Val, Od Kikinaskald, Grane Skald, Thorleik the Fair, Stein Herdison, Ulf the Marshal, Arnor the earls' skald, Thorkel Skallason, and King Harald Hardrade himself. 1. HARALD ESCAPES FROM THE BATTLE OF STIKLESTAD. Harald, son of Sigurd Syr, brother of Olaf the Saint, by the same mother, was at the battle of Stiklestad, and was fifteen years old when King Olaf the Saint fell, as was before related. Harald was wounded, and escaped with other fugitives. So says Thiodolf:-- "At Haug the fire-sparks from his shield Flew round the king's head on the field, As blow for blow, for Olaf's sake, His sword and shield would give and take. Bulgaria's conqueror, I ween, Had scarcely fifteen winters seen, When from his murdered brother's side His unhelmed head he had to hide." Ragnvald Brusason led Harald from the battle, and the night after the fray took him to a bonde who dwelt in a forest far from other people. The peasant received Harald, and kept him concealed; and Harald was waited upon until he was quite cured of his wounds. Then the bonde's son attended him on the way east over the ridge of the land, and they went by all the forest paths they could, avoiding the common road. The bonde's son did not know who it was he was attending; and as they were riding together between two uninhabited forests, Harald made these verses: "My wounds were bleeding as I rode; And down below the bondes strode, Killing the wounded with the sword, The followers of their rightful lord. From wood to wood I crept along, Unnoticed by the bonde-throng; 'Who knows,' I thought, 'a day may come My name will yet be great at home.'" He went eastward over the ridge through Jamtaland and Helsingjaland, and came to Svithjod, where he found Ragnvald Brusason, and many others of King Olaf's men who had fled from the battle at Stiklestad, and they remained there till winter was over. 2. HARALD'S JOURNEY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. The spring after (A.D. 1031) Harald and Ragnvald got ships, and went east in summer to Russia to King Jarisleif, and were with him all the following winter. So says the skald Bolverk:-- "The king's sharp sword lies clean and bright, Prepared in foreign lands to fight: Our ravens croak to have their fill, The wolf howls from the distant hill. Our brave king is to Russia gone,-- Braver than he on earth there's none; His sharp sword will carve many feast To wolf and raven in the East." King Jarisleif gave Harald and Ragnvald a kind reception, and made Harald and Ellif, the son of Earl Ragnvald, chiefs over the land-defence men of the king. So says Thiodolf:-- "Where Ellif was, one heart and hand The two chiefs had in their command; In wedge or line their battle order Was ranged by both without disorder. The eastern Vindland men they drove Into a corner; and they move The Lesians, although ill at ease, To take the laws their conquerors please." Harald remained several years in Russia, and travelled far and wide in the Eastern land. Then he began his expedition out to Greece, and had a great suite of men with him; and on he went to Constantinople. So says Bolverk:-- "Before the cold sea-curling blast The cutter from the land flew past, Her black yards swinging to and fro, Her shield-hung gunwale dipping low. The king saw glancing o'er the bow Constantinople's metal glow From tower and roof, and painted sails Gliding past towns and wooded vales." 3. OF HARALD. At that time the Greek empire was ruled by the Empress Zoe the Great, and with her Michael Catalactus. Now when Harald came to Constantinople he presented himself to the empress, and went into her pay; and immediately, in autumn, went on board the galleys manned with troops which went out to the Greek sea. Harald had his own men along with him. Now Harald had been but a short time in the army before all the Varings flocked to him, and they all joined together when there was a battle. It thus came to pass that Harald was made chief of the Varings. There was a chief over all the troops who was called Gyrger, and who was a relation of the empress. Gyrger and Harald went round among all the Greek islands, and fought much against the corsairs. 4. OF HARALD AND GYRGER CASTING LOTS. It happened once that Gyrger and the Varings were going through the country, and they resolved to take their night quarters in a wood; and as the Varings came first to the ground, they chose the place which was best for pitching their tents upon, which was the highest ground; for it is the nature of the land there to be soft when rain falls, and therefore it is bad to choose a low situation for your tents. Now when Gyrger, the chief of the army, came up, and saw where the Varings had set up their tents, he told them to remove, and pitch their tents elsewhere, saying he would himself pitch his tents on their ground. Harald replies, "If ye come first to the night quarter, ye take up your ground, and we must go pitch our tents at some other place where we best can. Now do ye so, in the same way, and find a place where ye will. It is, I think, the privilege of us Varings here in the dominions of the Greek emperor to be free, and independent of all but their own commanders, and bound only to serve the emperor and empress." They disputed long and hotly about this, and both sides armed themselves, and were on the way to fight for it; but men of understanding came between and separated them. They said it would be better to come to an agreement about such questions, so that in future no dispute could arise. It came thus to an arbitration between them, at which the best and most sagacious men should give their judgment in the case. At this arbitration it was determined, with the consent of all parties, that lots should be thrown into a box, and the Greeks and Varings should draw which was first to ride, or to row, or to take place in a harbour, or to choose tent ground; and each side should be satisfied with what the drawing of the lots gave them. Accordingly the lots were made and marked. Harald said to Gyrger, "Let me see what mark thou hast put upon thy lot, that we may not both mark our lots in the same way." He did so. Then Harald marked his lot, and put it into the box along with the other. The man who was to draw out the lots then took up one of the lots between his fingers, held it up in the air, and said, "This lot shall be the first to ride, and to row, and to take place in harbour and on the tent field." Harald seized his band, snatched the die, and threw it into the sea, and called out, "That was our lot!" Gyrger said, "Why did you not let other people see it?" Harald replies, "Look at the one remaining in the box,--there you see your own mark upon it." Accordingly the lot which was left behind was examined, and all men saw that Gyrger's mark was upon it, and accordingly the judgment was given that the Varings had gained the first choice in all they had been quarrelling about. There were many things they quarrelled about, but the end always was that Harald got his own way. 5. HARALD'S EXPEDITION IN THE LAND OF THE SARACENS (SERKLAND). They went out all on a campaign in summer. When the whole army was thus assembled Harald kept his men out of the battle, or wherever he saw the least danger, under pretext of saving his men; but where he was alone with his own men only, he fought so desperately that they must either come off victorious or die. It thus happened often that when he commanded the army he gained victories, while Gyrger could do nothing. The troops observed this, and insisted they would be more successful if Harald alone was chief of the whole army, and upbraided the general with never effecting anything, neither himself, nor his people. Gyrger again said that the Varings would give him no assistance, and ordered Harald to go with his men somewhere else, and he, with the rest of his army, would win what they could. Harald accordingly left the army with the Varings and the Latin men, and Gyrger on his side went off with the Greek troops. Then it was seen what each could do. Harald always gained victories and booty; but the Greeks went home to Constantinople with their army, all except a few brave men, who, to gain booty and money, joined themselves to Harald, and took him for their leader. He then went with his troops westward to Africa, which the Varings call Serkland, where he was strengthened with many men. In Serkland he took eighty castles, some of which surrendered, and others were stormed. He then went to Sicily. So says Thiodolf:-- "The serpent's bed of glowing gold He hates--the generous king, the bold! He who four score towers laid low, Ta'en from the Saracenic foe. Before upon Sicilian plains, Shield joined to shield, the fight he gains, The victory at Hild's war game; And now the heathens dread his name." So says also Illuge Bryndala-skald:-- "For Michael's empire Harald fought, And southern lands to Michael brought; So Budle's son his friendship showed When he brought friends to his abode." Here it is said that Michael was king of the Greeks at that time. Harald remained many years in Africa, where he gathered great wealth in gold, jewels, and all sorts of precious things; and all the wealth he gathered there which he did not need for his expenses, he sent with trusty men of his own north to Novgorod to King Jarisleif's care and keeping. He gathered together there extraordinary treasure, as is reasonable to suppose; for he had the plundering of the part of the world richest in gold and valuable things, and he had done such great deeds as with truth are related, such as taking eighty strongholds by his valour. 6. BATTLE IN SICILY. Now when Harald came to Sicily he plundered there also, and sat down with his army before a strong and populous castle. He surrounded the castle; but the walls were so thick there was no possibility of breaking into it, and the people of the castle had enough of provisions, and all that was necessary for defence. Then Harald hit upon an expedient. He made his bird-catchers catch the small birds which had their nests within the castle, but flew into the woods by day to get food for their young. He had small splinters of tarred wood bound upon the backs of the birds, smeared these over with wax and sulphur, and set fire to them. As soon as the birds were let loose they all flew at once to the castle to their young, and to their nests, which they had under the house roofs that were covered with reeds or straw. The fire from the birds seized upon the house roofs; and although each bird could only carry a small burden of fire, yet all at once there was a mighty flame, caused by so many birds carrying fire with them and spreading it widely among the house roofs. Thus one house after the other was set on fire, until the castle itself was in flames. Then the people came out of the castle and begged for mercy; the same men who for many days had set at defiance the Greek army and its leader. Harald granted life and safety to all who asked quarter, and made himself master of the place. 7. BATTLE AT ANOTHER CASTLE. There was another castle before which Harald had come with his army. This castle was both full of people and so strong, that there was no hope of breaking into it. The castle stood upon a flat hard plain. Then Harald undertook to dig a passage from a place where a stream ran in a bed so deep that it could not be seen from the castle. They threw out all the earth into the stream, to be carried away by the water. At this work they laboured day and night, and relieved each other in gangs; while the rest of the army went the whole day against the castle, where the castle people shot through their loop-holes. They shot at each other all day in this way, and at night they slept on both sides. Now when Harald perceived that his underground passage was so long that it must be within the castle walls, he ordered his people to arm themselves. It was towards daybreak that they went into the passage. When they got to the end of it they dug over their heads until they came upon stones laid in lime which was the floor of a stone hall. They broke open the floor and rose into the hall. There sat many of the castle-men eating and drinking, and not in the least expecting such uninvited wolves; for the Varings instantly attacked them sword in hand, and killed some, and those who could get away fled. The Varings pursued them; and some seized the castle gate, and opened it, so that the whole body of the army got in. The people of the castle fled; but many asked quarter from the troops, which was granted to all who surrendered. In this way Harald got possession of the place, and found an immense booty in it. 8. BATTLE AT A THIRD CASTLE. They came to a third castle, the greatest and strongest of them all, and also the richest in property and the fullest of people. Around this castle there were great ditches, so that it evidently could not be taken by the same device as the former; and they lay a long time before it without doing anything. When the castle-men saw this they became bolder, drew up their array on the castle walls, threw open the castle gates, and shouted to the Varings, urging them, and jeering at them, and telling them to come into the castle, and that they were no more fit for battle than so many poultry. Harald told his men to make as if they did not know what to do, or did not understand what was said. "For," says he, "if we do make an assault we can effect nothing, as they can throw their weapons under their feet among us; and if we get in the castle with a party of our people, they have it in their power to shut them in. and shut out the others; for they have all the castle gates beset with men. We shall therefore show them the same scorn they show us, and let them see we do not fear them. Our men shall go out upon the plain nearest to the castle; taking care, however, to keep out of bow-shot. All our men shall go unarmed, and be playing with each other, so that the castle-men may see we do not regard them or their array." Thus it went on for some days, without anything being done. 9. OF ULF AND HALDOR. Two Iceland men were then with Harald; the one was Haldor (1), a son of the gode Snorre, who brought this account to Iceland; the other was Ulf Uspakson, a grandson of Usvifer Spake. Both were very strong men, bold under arms, and Harald's best friends; and both were in this play. Now when some days were passed the castle people showed more courage, and would go without weapons upon the castle wall, while the castle gates were standing open. The Varings observing this, went one day to their sports with the sword under their cloaks, and the helmet under their hats. After playing awhile they observed that the castle people were off their guard; and instantly seizing their weapons, they made at the castle gate. When the men of the castle saw this they went against them armed completely, and a battle began in the castle gate. The Varings had no shields, but wrapped their cloaks round their left arms. Some of them were wounded, some killed, and all stood in great danger. Now came Harald with the men who had remained in the camp, to the assistance of his people; and the castle-men had now got out upon the walls, from which they shot and threw stones down upon them; so that there was a severe battle, and those who were in the castle gates thought that help was brought them slower than they could have wished. When Harald came to the castle gate his standard-bearer fell, and Harald said to Haldor, "Do thou take up the banner now." Haldor took up the banner, and said foolishly, "Who will carry the banner before thee, if thou followest it so timidly as thou hast done for a while?" But these were words more of anger than of truth; for Harald was one of the boldest of men under arms. Then they pressed in, and had a hard battle in the castle; and the end was that Harald gained the victory and took the castle. Haldor was much wounded in the face, and it gave him great pain as long as he lived. ENDNOTES: (1) One of the descendants of this Haldor was Snorre Sturlason, the author of "Heimskringla". 10. BATTLE AT A FOURTH CASTLE. The fourth castle which Harald came to was the greatest of all we have been speaking about. It was so strong that there was no possibility of breaking into it. They surrounded the castle, so that no supplies could get into it. When they had remained here a short time Harald fell sick, and he betook himself to his bed. He had his tent put up a little from the camp, for he found quietness and rest out of the clamour and clang of armed men. His men went usually in companies to or from him to hear his orders; and the castle people observing there was something new among the Varings, sent out spies to discover what this might mean. When the spies came back to the castle they had to tell of the illness of the commander of the Varings, and that no assault on that account had been made on the castle. A while after Harald's strength began to fail, at which his men were very melancholy and cast down; all which was news to the castle-men. At last Harald's sickness increased so rapidly that his death was expected through all the army. Thereafter the Varings went to the castle-men; told them, in a parley, of the death of their commander; and begged of the priests to grant him burial in the castle. When the castle people heard this news, there were many among them who ruled over cloisters or other great establishments within the place, and who were very eager to get the corpse for their church, knowing that upon that there would follow very rich presents. A great many priests, therefore, clothed themselves in all their robes, and went out of the castle with cross and shrine and relics and formed a beautiful procession. The Varings also made a great burial. The coffin was borne high in the air, and over it was a tent of costly linen and before it were carried many banners. Now when the corpse was brought within the castle gate the Varings set down the coffin right across the entry, fixed a bar to keep the gates open, and sounded to battle with all their trumpets, and drew their swords. The whole army of the Varings, fully armed, rushed from the camp to the assault of the castle with shout and cry; and the monks and other priests who had gone to meet the corpse and had striven with each other who should be the first to come out and take the offering at the burial, were now striving much more who should first get away from the Varings; for they killed before their feet every one who was nearest, whether clerk or unconsecrated. The Varings rummaged so well this castle that they killed all the men, pillaged everything and made an enormous booty. 11. OF HARALD. Harald was many years in these campaigns, both in Serkland and in Sicily. Then he came back to Constantinople with his troops and stayed there but a little time before he began his expedition to Jerusalem. There he left the pay he had received from the Greek emperor and all the Varings who accompanied him did the same. It is said that on all these expeditions Harald had fought eighteen regular battles. So says Thiodolf:-- "Harald the Stern ne'er allowed Peace to his foemen, false and proud; In eighteen battles, fought and won, The valour of the Norseman shone. The king, before his home return, Oft dyed the bald head of the erne With bloody specks, and o'er the waste The sharp-claw'd wolf his footsteps traced." 12. HARALD'S EXPEDITION TO PALESTINE. Harald went with his men to the land of Jerusalem and then up to the city of Jerusalem, and wheresoever he came in the land all the towns and strongholds were given up to him. So says the skald Stuf, who had heard the king himself relate these tidings:-- "He went, the warrior bold and brave, Jerusalem, the holy grave, And the interior of the land, To bring under the Greeks' command; And by the terror of his name Under his power the country came, Nor needed wasting fire and sword To yield obediance to his word." Here it is told that this land came without fire and sword under Harald's command. He then went out to Jordan and bathed therein, according to the custom of other pilgrims. Harald gave great gifts to our Lord's grave, to the Holy Cross, and other holy relics in the land of Jerusalem. He also cleared the whole road all the way out to Jordan, by killing the robbers and other disturbers of the peace. So says the skald Stuf:-- "The Agder king cleared far and wide Jordan's fair banks on either side; The robber-bands before him fled, And his great name was widely spread. The wicked people of the land Were punished here by his dread hand, And they hereafter will not miss Much worse from Jesus Christ than this." 13. HARALD PUT IN PRISON. Thereafter he went back to Constantinople. When Harald returned to Constantinople from Jerusalem he longed to return to the North to his native land; and when he heard that Magnus Olafson, his brother's son, had become king both of Norway and Denmark, he gave up his command in the Greek service. And when the empress Zoe heard of this she became angry and raised an accusation against Harald that he had misapplied the property of the Greek emperor which he had received in the campaigns in which he was commander of the army. There was a young and beautiful girl called Maria, a brother's daughter of the empress Zoe, and Harald had paid his addresses to her; but the empress had given him a refusal. The Varings, who were then in pay in Constantinople, have told here in the North that there went a report among well-informed people that the empress Zoe herself wanted Harald for her husband, and that she chiefly blamed Harald for his determination to leave Constantinople, although another reason was given out to the public. Constantinus Monomachus was at that time emperor of the Greeks and ruled along with Zoe. On this account the Greek emperor had Harald made prisoner and carried to prison. 14. KING OLAF'S MIRACLE AND BLINDING THE GREEK EMPEROR. When Harald drew near to the prison King Olaf the Saint stood before him and said he would assist him. On that spot of the street a chapel has since been built and consecrated to Saint Olaf and which chapel has stood there ever since. The prison was so constructed that there was a high tower open above, but a door below to go into it from the street. Through it Harald was thrust in, along with Haldor and Ulf. Next night a lady of distinction with two servants came, by the help of ladders, to the top of the tower, let down a rope into the prison and hauled them up. Saint Olaf had formerly cured this lady of a sickness and he had appeared to her in a vision and told her to deliver his brother. Harald went immediately to the Varings, who all rose from their seats when he came in and received him with joy. The men armed themselves forthwith and went to where the emperor slept. They took the emperor prisoner and put out both the eyes of him. So says Thorarin Skeggjason in his poem:-- "Of glowing gold that decks the hand The king got plenty in this land; But it's great emperor in the strife Was made stone-blind for all his life." So says Thiodolf, the skald, also:-- "He who the hungry wolf's wild yell Quiets with prey, the stern, the fell, Midst the uproar of shriek and shout Stung tho Greek emperor's eyes both out: The Norse king's mark will not adorn, The Norse king's mark gives cause to mourn; His mark the Eastern king must bear, Groping his sightless way in fear." In these two songs, and many others, it is told that Harald himself blinded the Greek emperor; and they would surely have named some duke, count, or other great man, if they had not known this to be the true account; and King Harald himself and other men who were with him spread the account. 15. HARALD'S JOURNEY FROM CONSTANTINOPLE. The same night King Harald and his men went to the house where Maria slept and carried her away by force. Then they went down to where the galleys of the Varings lay, took two of them and rowed out into Sjavid sound. When they came to the place where the iron chain is drawn across the sound, Harald told his men to stretch out at their oars in both galleys; but the men who were not rowing to run all to the stern of the galley, each with his luggage in his hand. The galleys thus ran up and lay on the iron chain. As soon as they stood fast on it, and would advance no farther, Harald ordered all the men to run forward into the bow. Then the galley, in which Harald was, balanced forwards and swung down over the chain; but the other, which remained fast athwart the chain, split in two, by which many men were lost; but some were taken up out of the sound. Thus Harald escaped out of Constantinople and sailed thence into the Black Sea; but before he left the land he put the lady ashore and sent her back with a good escort to Constantinople and bade her tell her relation, the Empress Zoe, how little power she had over Harald, and how little the empress could have hindered him from taking the lady. Harald then sailed northwards in the Ellipalta and then all round the Eastern empire. On this voyage Harald composed sixteen songs for amusement and all ending with the same words. This is one of them:-- "Past Sicily's wide plains we flew, A dauntless, never-wearied crew; Our viking steed rushed through the sea, As viking-like fast, fast sailed we. Never, I think, along this shore Did Norsemen ever sail before; Yet to the Russian queen, I fear, My gold-adorned, I am not dear." With this he meant Ellisif, daughter of King Jarisleif in Novgorod. 16. OF KING HARALD. When Harald came to Novgorod King Jarisleif received him in the most friendly way and he remained there all winter (A.D. 1045). Then he took into his own keeping all the gold and the many kinds of precious things which he had sent there from Constantinople and which together made up so vast a treasure that no man in the Northern lands ever saw the like of it in one man's possession. Harald had been three times in the poluta-svarf while he was in Constantinople. It is the custom, namely, there, that every time one of the Greek emperors dies, the Varings are allowed poluta-svarf; that is, they may go through all the emperor's palaces where his treasures are and each may take and keep what he can lay hold of while he is going through them. 17. KING HARALD'S MARRIAGE. This winter King Jarisleif gave Harald his daughter Elisabeth in marriage. She is called by the Northmen Ellisif. This is related by Stuf the Blind, thus:-- "Agder's chief now got the queen Who long his secret love had been. Of gold, no doubt, a mighty store The princess to her husband bore." In spring he began his journey from Novgorod and came to Aldeigjuborg, where he took shipping and sailed from the East in summer. He turned first to Svithjod and came to Sigtuna. So says Valgard o' Val:-- "The fairest cargo ship e'er bore, From Russia's distant eastern shore The gallant Harald homeward brings-- Gold, and a fame that skald still sings. The ship through dashing foam he steers, Through the sea-rain to Svithjod veers, And at Sigtuna's grassy shores His gallant vessel safely moors." 18. THE LEAGUE BETWEEN KING HARALD AND SVEIN ULFSON. Harald found there before him Svein Ulfson, who the autumn before (A.D. 1045) had fled from King Magnus at Helganes; and when they met they were very friendly on both sides. The Swedish king, Olaf the Swede, was brother of the mother of Ellisif, Harald's wife; and Astrid, the mother of Svein, was King Olaf's sister. Harald and Svein entered into friendship with each other and confirmed it by oath. All the Swedes were friendly to Svein, because he belonged to the greatest family in the country; and thus all the Swedes were Harald's friends and helpers also, for many great men were connected with him by relationship. So says Thiodolf: "Cross the East sea the vessel flew,-- Her oak-keel a white furrow drew From Russia's coast to Swedish land. Where Harald can great help command. The heavy vessel's leeward side Was hid beneath the rushing tide; While the broad sail and gold-tipped mast Swung to and fro in the hard blast." 19. KING HARALD'S FORAY. Then Harald and Svein fitted out ships and gathered together a great force; and when the troops were ready they sailed from the East towards Denmark. So says Valgard:-- "Brave Yngve! to the land decreed To thee by fate, with tempest speed The winds fly with thee o'er the sea-- To thy own udal land with thee. As past the Scanlan plains they fly, The gay ships glances 'twixt sea and sky, And Scanian brides look out, and fear Some ill to those they hold most dear." They landed first in Seeland with their men and herried and burned in the land far and wide. Then they went to Fyen, where they also landed and wasted. So says Valgard:-- "Harald! thou hast the isle laid waste, The Seeland men away hast chased, And the wild wolf by daylight roams Through their deserted silent homes. Fiona too could not withstand The fury of thy wasting hand. Helms burst, shields broke,--Fiona's bounds. Were filled with death's terrific sounds. "Red flashing in the southern sky, The clear flame sweeping broad and high, From fair Roeskilde's lofty towers, On lowly huts its fire-rain pours; And shows the housemates' silent train In terror scouring o'er the plain, Seeking the forest's deepest glen, To house with wolves, and 'scape from men. "Few were they of escape to tell, For, sorrow-worn, the people fell: The only captives form the fray Were lovely maidens led away. And in wild terror to the strand, Down to the ships, the linked band Of fair-haired girls is roughly driven, Their soft skins by the irons riven." 20. KING MAGNUS'S LEVY. King Magnus Olafson sailed north to Norway in the autumn after the battle at Helganes (A.D. 1045). There he hears the news that Harald Sigurdson, his relation, was come to Svithjod; and moreover that Svein Ulfson and Harald had entered into a friendly bond with each other and gathered together a great force, intending first to subdue Denmark and then Norway. King Magnus then ordered a general levy over all Norway and he soon collected a great army. He hears then that Harald and Svein were come to Denmark and were burning and laying waste the land and that the country people were everywhere submitting to them. It was also told that King Harald was stronger and stouter than other men, and so wise withal that nothing was impossible to him, and he had always the victory when he fought a battle; and he was also so rich in gold that no man could compare with him in wealth. Thiodolf speaks thus of it: "Norsemen, who stand the sword of foe Like forest-stems unmoved by blow! My hopes are fled, no peace is near,-- People fly here and there in fear. On either side of Seeland's coast A fleet appears--a white winged host; Magnus form Norway takes his course, Harald from Sweden leads his force. 21. TREATY BETWEEN HARALD AND MAGNUS. Those of Harald's men who were in his counsel said that it would be a great misfortune if relations like Harald and Magnus should fight and throw a death-spear against each other; and therefore many offered to attempt bringing about some agreement between them, and the kings, by their persuasion, agreed to it. Thereupon some men were sent off in a light boat, in which they sailed south in all haste to Denmark, and got some Danish men, who were proven friends of King Magnus, to propose this matter to Harald. This affair was conducted very secretly. Now when Harald heard that his relation, King Magnus, would offer him a league and partition, so that Harald should have half of Norway with King Magnus, and that they should divide all their movable property into two equal parts, he accepted the proposal, and the people went back to King Magnus with this answer. 22. TREATY BETWEEN HARALD AND SVEIN BROKEN. A little after this it happened that Harald and Svein one evening were sitting at table drinking and talking together, and Svein asked Harald what valuable piece of all his property he esteemed the most. He answered, it was his banner Land-waster. Svein asked what was there remarkable about it, that he valued it so highly. Harald replied, it was a common saying that he must gain the victory before whom that banner is borne, and it had turned out so ever since he had owned it. Svein replies, "I will begin to believe there is such virtue in the banner when thou hast held three battles with thy relation Magnus, and hast gained them all." Then answered Harald with an angry voice, "I know my relationship to King Magnus, without thy reminding me of it; and although we are now going in arms against him, our meeting may be of a better sort." Svein changed colour, and said, "There are people, Harald, who say that thou hast done as much before as only to hold that part of an agreement which appears to suit thy own interest best." Harald answers, "It becomes thee ill to say that I have not stood by an agreement, when I know what King Magnus could tell of thy proceedings with him." Thereupon each went his own way. At night, when Harald went to sleep within the bulwarks of his vessel, he said to his footboy, "I will not sleep in my bed to-night, for I suspect there may be treachery abroad. I observed this evening that my friend Svein was very angry at my free discourse. Thou shalt keep watch, therefore, in case anything happen in the night." Harald then went away to sleep somewhere else, and laid a billet of wood in his place. At midnight a boat rowed alongside to the ship's bulwark; a man went on board, lifted up the cloth of the tent of the bulwarks, went up, and struck in Harald's bed with a great ax, so that it stood fast in the lump of wood. The man instantly ran back to his boat again, and rowed away in the dark night, for the moon was set; but the axe remained sticking in the piece of wood as an evidence. Thereupon Harald waked his men and let them know the treachery intended. "We can now see sufficiently," said he, "that we could never match Svein if he practises such deliberate treachery against us; so it will be best for us to get away from this place while we can. Let us cast loose our vessel and row away as quietly as possible." They did so, and rowed during the night northwards along the land; and then proceeded night and day until they came to King Magnus, where he lay with his army. Harald went to his relation Magnus, and there was a joyful meeting betwixt them. So says Thiodolf:-- "The far-known king the order gave, In silence o'er the swelling wave, With noiseless oars, his vessels gay From Denmark west to row away; And Olaf's son, with justice rare, Offers with him the realm to share. People, no doubt, rejoiced to find The kings had met in peaceful mind." Afterwards the two relatives conversed with each other and all was settled by peaceful agreement. 23. KING MAGNUS GIVES HARALD HALF OF NORWAY. King Magnus lay at the shore and had set up tents upon the land. There he invited his relation, King Harald, to be his guest at table; and Harald went to the entertainment with sixty of his men and was feasted excellently. Towards the end of the day King Magnus went into the tent where Harald sat and with him went men carrying parcels consisting of clothes and arms. Then the king went to the man who sat lowest and gave him a good sword, to the next a shield, to the next a kirtle, and so on,--clothes, or weapons, or gold; to all he gave one or the other valuable gift, and the more costly to the more distinguished men among them. Then he placed himself before his relation Harald, holding two sticks in his hand, and said, "Which of these two sticks wilt thou have, my friend?" Harald replies, "The one nearest me." "Then," said King Magnus, "with this stick I give thee half of the Norwegian power, with all the scat and duties, and all the domains thereunto belonging, with the condition that everywhere thou shalt be as lawful king in Norway as I am myself; but when we are both together in one place, I shall be the first man in seat, service and salutation; and if there be three of us together of equal dignity, that I shall sit in the middle, and shall have the royal tent-ground and the royal landing-place. Thou shalt strengthen and advance our kingdom, in return for making thee that man in Norway whom we never expected any man should be so long as our head was above ground." Then Harald stood up, and thanked him for the high title and dignity. Thereupon they both sat down, and were very merry together. The same evening Harald and his men returned to their ships. 24. HARALD GIVES MAGNUS THE HALF OF HIS TREASURES. The following morning King Magnus ordered the trumpets to sound to a General Thing of the people; and when it was seated, he made known to the whole army the gift he had given to his relation Harald. Thorer of Steig gave Harald the title of King there at the Thing; and the same day King Harald invited King Magnus to table with him, and he went with sixty men to King Harald's land-tent, where he had prepared a feast. The two kings sat together on a high-seat, and the feast was splendid; everything went on with magnificence, and the kings' were merry and glad. Towards the close of the day King Harald ordered many caskets to be brought into the tent, and in like manner people bore in weapons, clothes and other sorts of valuables; and all these King Harald divided among King Magnus's men who were at the feast. Then he had the caskets opened and said to King Magnus, "Yesterday you gave us a large kingdom, which your hand won from your and our enemies, and took us in partnership with you, which was well done; and this has cost you much. Now we on our side have been in foreign parts, and oft in peril of life, to gather together the gold which you here see. Now, King Magnus, I will divide this with you. We shall both own this movable property, and each have his equal share of it, as each has his equal half share of Norway. I know that our dispositions are different, as thou art more liberal than I am; therefore let us divide this property equally between us, so that each may have his share free to do with as he will." Then Harald had a large ox-hide spread out, and turned the gold out of the caskets upon it. Then scales and weights were taken and the gold separated and divided by weight into equal parts; and all people wondered exceedingly that so much gold should have come together in one place in the northern countries. But it was understood that it was the Greek emperor's property and wealth; for, as all people say, there are whole houses there full of red gold. The kings were now very merry. Then there appeared an ingot among the rest as big as a man's hand. Harald took it in his hands and said, "Where is the gold, friend Magnus, that thou canst show against this piece?" King Magnus replied, "So many disturbances and levies have been in the country that almost all the gold and silver I could lay up is gone. I have no more gold in my possession than this ring." And he took the ring off his hand and gave it to Harald. Harald looked at it, and said, "That is but little gold, friend, for the king who owns two kingdoms; and yet some may doubt whether thou art rightful owner of even this ring." Then King Magnus replied, after a little reflection, "If I be not rightful owner of this ring, then I know not what I have got right to; for my father, King Olaf the Saint, gave me this ring at our last parting." Then said King Harald, laughing, "It is true, King Magnus, what thou sayest. Thy father gave thee this ring, but he took the ring from my father for some trifling cause; and in truth it was not a good time for small kings in Norway when thy father was in full power." King Harald gave Thorer of Steig at that feast a bowl of mountain birch, that was encircled with a silver ring and had a silver handle, both which parts were gilt; and the bowl was filled with money of pure silver. With that came also two gold rings, which together stood for a mark. He gave him also his cloak of dark purple lined with white skins within, and promised him besides his friendship and great dignity. Thorgils Snorrason, an intelligent man, says he has seen an altar-cloth that was made of this cloak; and Gudrid, a daughter of Guthorm, the son of Thorer of Steig, said, according to Thorgil's account, that she had seen this bowl in her father Guthorm's possession. Bolverk also tells of these matters:-- "Thou, generous king, I have been told, For the green land hast given gold; And Magnus got a mighty treasure, That thou one half might'st rule at pleasure. The people gained a blessed peace, Which 'twixt the kings did never cease; While Svein, disturbed with war's alarms, Had his folk always under arms." 25. OF KING MAGNUS. The kings Magnus and Harald both ruled in Norway the winter after their agreement (A.D. 1047), and each had his court. In winter they went around the Upland country in guest-quarters; and sometimes they were both together, sometimes each was for himself. They went all the way north to Throndhjem, to the town of Nidaros. King Magnus had taken special care of the holy remains of King Olaf after he came to the country; had the hair and nails clipped every twelve month, and kept himself the keys that opened the shrine. Many miracles were worked by King Olaf's holy remains. It was not long before there was a breach in the good understanding between the two kings, as many were so mischievous as to promote discord between them. 26. OF SVEIN ULFSON. Svein Ulfson remained behind in the harbour after Harald had gone away, and inquired about his proceedings. When he heard at last of Magnus and Harald having agreed and joined their forces, he steered with his forces eastward along Scania, and remained there until towards winter, when he heard that King Magnus and King Harald had gone northwards to Norway. Then Svein, with his troops, came south to Denmark and took all the royal income that winter (A.D. 1047). 27. OF THE LEVY OF THE TWO KINGS. Towards spring (A.D. 1047) King Magnus and his relation, King Harald, ordered a levy in Norway. It happened once that the kings lay all night in the same harbour and next day, King Harald, being first ready, made sail. Towards evening he brought up in the harbour in which Magnus and his retinue had intended to pass the night. Harald laid his vessel in the royal ground, and there set up his tents. King Magnus got under sail later in the day and came into the harbour just as King Harald had done pitching his tents. They saw then that King Harald had taken up the king's ground and intended to lie there. After King Magnus had ordered the sails to be taken in, he said, "The men will now get ready along both sides of the vessel to lay out their oars, and some will open the hatches and bring up the arms and arm themselves; for, if they will not make way for us, we will fight them." Now when King Harald sees that King Magnus will give him battle, he says to his men, "Cut our land-fastenings and back the ship out of the ground, for friend Magnus is in a passion." They did so and laid the vessel out of the ground and King Magnus laid his vessel in it. When they were now ready on both sides with their business, King Harald went with a few men on board of King Magnus's ship. King Magnus received him in a friendly way, and bade him welcome. King Harald answered, "I thought we were come among friends; but just now I was in doubt if ye would have it so. But it is a truth that childhood is hasty, and I will only consider it as a childish freak." Then said King Magnus, "It is no childish whim, but a trait of my family, that I never forget what I have given, or what I have not given. If this trifle had been settled against my will, there would soon have followed' some other discord like it. In all particulars I will hold the agreement between us; but in the same way we will have all that belongs to us by that right." King Harald coolly replied, that it is an old custom for the wisest to give way; and returned to his ship. From such circumstances it was found difficult to preserve good understanding between the kings. King Magnus's men said he was in the right; but others, less wise, thought there was some slight put upon Harald in the business. King Harald's men, besides, insisted that the agreement was only that King Magnus should have the preference of the harbour-ground when they arrived together, but that King Harald was not bound to draw out of his place when he came first. They observed, also, that King Harald had conducted himself well and wisely in the matter. Those who viewed the business in the worst light insisted that King Magnus wanted to break the agreement, and that he had done King Harald injustice, and put an affront on him. Such disputes were talked over so long among foolish people, that the spirit of disagreeing affected the kings themselves. Many other things also occurred, in which the kings appeared determined to have each his own way; but of these little will be set down here. 28. KING MAGNUS THE GOOD'S DEATH. The kings, Magnus and Harald, sailed with their fleet south to Denmark; and when Svein heard of their approach, he fled away east to Scania. Magnus and Harald remained in Denmark late in summer, and subdued the whole country. In autumn they were in Jutland. One night, as King Magnus lay in his bed, it appeared to him in a dream that he was in the same place as his father, Saint Olaf, and that he spoke to him thus: "Wilt thou choose, my son, to follow me, or to become a mighty king, and have long life; but to commit a crime which thou wilt never be able to expiate?" He thought he made the answer, "Do thou, father, choose for me." Then the king thought the answer was, "Thou shalt follow me." King Magnus told his men this dream. Soon after he fell sick and lay at a place called Sudathorp. When he was near his death he sent his brother, Thorer, with tokens to Svein Ulfson, with the request to give Thorer the aid he might require. In this message King Magnus also gave the Danish dominions to Svein after his death; and said it was just that Harald should rule over Norway and Svein over Denmark. Then King Magnus the Good died (A.D. 1047), and great was the sorrow of all the people at his death. So says Od Kikinaskald:-- "The tears o'er good King Magnus' bier, The people's tears, were all sincere: Even they to whom he riches gave Carried him heavily to the grave. All hearts were struck at the king's end; His house-thralls wept as for a friend; His court-men oft alone would muse, As pondering o'er unthought of news." 29. KING MAGNUS'S FUNERAL. After this event King Harald held a Thing of his men-at-arms, and told them his intention to go with the army to Viborg Thing, and make himself be proclaimed king over the whole Danish dominions, to which, he said, he had hereditary right after his relation Magnus, as well as to Norway. He therefore asked his men for their aid, and said he thought the Norway man should show himself always superior to the Dane. Then Einar Tambaskelfer replies that he considered it a greater duty to bring his foster-son King Magnus's corpse to the grave, and lay it beside his father, King Olaf's, north in Throndhjem town, than to be fighting abroad and taking another king's dominions and property. He ended his speech with saying that he would rather follow King Magnus dead than any other king alive. Thereupon he had the body adorned in the most careful way, so that most magnificent preparations were made in the king's ship. Then all the Throndhjem people and all the Northmen made themselves ready to return home with the king's body, and so the army was broken up. King Harald saw then that it was better for him to return to Norway to secure that kingdom first, and to assemble men anew; and so King Harald returned to Norway with all his army. As soon as he came to Norway he held a Thing with the people of the country, and had himself proclaimed king everywhere. He proceeded thus from the East through Viken, and in every district in Norway he was named king. Einar Tambaskelfer, and with him all the Throndhjem troops, went with King Magnus's body and transported it to the town of Nidaros, where it was buried in St. Clement's church, where also was the shrine of King Olaf the Saint. King Magnus was of middle size, of long and clear-complexioned countenance, and light hair, spoke well and hastily, was brisk in his actions, and extremely generous. He was a great warrior, and remarkably bold in arms. He was the most popular of kings, prized even by enemies as well as friends. 30. OF SVEIN ULFSON. Svein Ulfson remained that autumn in Scania (A.D. 1047), and was making ready to travel eastward to Sweden, with the intention of renouncing the title of king he had assumed in Denmark; but just as he was mounting his horse some men came riding to him with the first news that King Magnus was dead, and all the Northmen had left Denmark. Svein answered in haste, "I call God to witness that I shall never again fly from the Danish dominions as long as I live." Then he got on his horse and rode south into Scania, where immediately many people crowded to him. That winter he brought under his power all the Danish dominions, and all the Danes took him for their king. Thorer, King Magnus's brother, came to Svein in autumn with the message of King Magnus, as before related, and was well received; and Thorer remained long with Svein and was well taken care of. 31. OF KING HARALD SIGURDSON. King Harald Sigurdson took the royal power over all Norway after the death of King Magnus Olafson; and when he had reigned over Norway one winter and spring was come (A.D. 1048), he ordered a levy through all the land of one-half of all men and ships and went south to Jutland. He herried and burned all summer wide around in the land and came into Godnarfjord, where King Harald made these verses:-- "While wives of husbands fondly dream, Here let us anchor in the stream, In Godnarfjord; we'll safely moor Our sea-homes, and sleep quite secure." Then he spoke to Thiodolf, the skald, and asked him to add to it what it wanted, and he sang:-- "In the next summer, I foresee, Our anchorage in the South will be; To hold our sea-homes on the ground, More cold-tongued anchors will be found." To this Bolverk alludes in his song also, that Harald went to Denmark the summer after King Magnus's death. Bolverk sings thus:-- "Next summer thou the levy raised, And seawards all the people gazed, Where thy sea-steeds in sunshine glancing Over the waves were gaily prancing; While the deep ships that plunder bore Seemed black specks from the distant shore. The Danes, from banks or hillocks green, Looked with dismay upon the scene." 32. OF THORKEL GEYSA'S DAUGHTERS. Then they burned the house of Thorkel Geysa, who was a great lord, and his daughters they carried off bound to their ships. They had made a great mockery the winter before of King Harald's coming with war-ships against Denmark; and they cut their cheese into the shape of anchors, and said such anchors might hold all the ships of the Norway king. Then this was composed:-- "The Island-girls, we were told, Made anchors all our fleet to hold: Their Danish jest cut out in cheese Did not our stern king's fancy please. Now many a maiden fair, may be, Sees iron anchors splash the sea, Who will not wake a maid next morn To laugh at Norway's ships in scorn." It is said that a spy who had seen the fleet of King Harald said to Thorkel Geysa's daughters, "Ye said, Geysa's daughters, that King Harald dared not come to Denmark." Dotta, Thorkel's daughter, replied, "That was yesterday." Thorkel had to ransom his daughters with a great sum. So says Grane:-- "The gold-adorned girl's eye Through Hornskeg wood was never dry, As down towards the sandy shore The men their lovely prizes bore. The Norway leader kept at bay The foe who would contest the way, And Dotta's father had to bring Treasure to satisfy the king." King Harald plundered in Denmark all that summer, and made immense booty; but he had not any footing in the land that summer in Denmark. He went to Norway again in autumn and remained there all winter (A.D. 1049). 33. MARRIAGES AND CHILDREN OF HARALD HARDRADE. The winter after King Magnus the Good died, King Harald took Thora, daughter of Thorberg Arnason, and they had two sons; the oldest called Magnus, and the other Olaf. King Harald and Queen Ellisif had two daughters; the one Maria, the other Ingegerd. The spring after the foray which has just been related King Harald ordered the people out and went with them to Denmark (A.D. 1049), and herried there, and did so summer after summer thereafter. So says Stuf, the skald:-- "Falster lay waste, as people tell,-- The raven in other isles fared well. The Danes were everywhere in fear, For the dread foray every year." 34. OF THE ARMAMENTS OF SVEIN ULFSON AND HARALD. King Svein ruled over all the Danish dominions after King Magnus's death. He sat quiet all the winter; but in summer he lay out in his ships with all his people and it was said he would go north to Norway with the Danish army and make not less havoc there than King Harald had made in Denmark. King Svein proposed to King Harald in winter (A.D. 1049) to meet him the following summer at the Gaut river and fight until in the battle-field their differences were ended, or they were settled peacefully. They made ready on both sides all winter with their ships, and called out in summer one-half of all the fighting men. The same summer came Thorleik the Fair out of Iceland, and composed a poem about King Svein Ulfson. He heard, when he arrived in Norway, that King Harald had sailed south to the Gaut river against King Svein. Then Thorleik sang this:-- "The wily Svein, I think, will meet These inland Norsemen fleet to fleet; The arrow-storm, and heaving sea, His vantage-fight and field will be. God only knows the end of strife, Or which shall have his land and life; This strife must come to such an end, For terms will never bind King Svein." He also sang these verses:-- "Harald, whose red shield oft has shone O'er herried coasts, and fields hard won, Rides in hot wrath, and eager speeds O'er the blue waves his ocean-steeds. Svein, who in blood his arrows stains, Brings o'er the ocean's heaving plains His gold-beaked ships, which come in view Out from the Sound with many a hue." King Harald came with his forces to the appointed meeting-place; but there he heard that King Svein was lying with his fleet at the south side of Seeland. Then King Harald divided his forces; let the greater part of the bonde-troops return home; and took with him his court-men, his lendermen, the best men-at-arms, and all the bonde-troops who lived nearest to the Danish land. They sailed over to Jutland to the south of Vendilskage, and so south to Thioda; and over all they carried fire and sword. So says Stuf, the skald:-- "In haste the men of Thyland fly From the great monarch's threat'ning eye; At the stern Harald's angry look The boldest hearts in Denmark shook." They went forward all the way south to Heidaby, took the merchant town and burnt it. Then one of Harald's men made the following verses:-- "All Heidaby is burned down! Strangers will ask where stood the town. In our wild humour up it blazed, And Svein looks round him all amazed. All Heidaby is burned down! From a far corner of the town I saw, before the peep of morning, Roofs, walls, and all in flame high burning." To this also Thorleik alludes in his verses, when he heard there had been no battle at the Gaut river:-- "The stranger-warrior may inquire Of Harald's men, why in his ire On Heidaby his wrath he turns, And the fair town to ashes burns? Would that the day had never come When Harald's ships returned home From the East Sea, since now the town, Without his gain, is burned down!" 35. HARALD'S ESCAPE INTO THE JUTLAND SEA. Then King Harald sailed north and had sixty ships and the most of them large and heavily laden with the booty taken in summer; and as they sailed north past Thioda King Svein came down from the land with a great force and he challenged King Harald to land and fight. King Harald had little more than half the force of King Svein and therefore he challenged Svein to fight at sea. So says Thorleik the Fair:-- "Svein, who of all men under heaven Has had the luckiest birth-hour given, Invites his foemen to the field, There to contest with blood-stained shield. The king, impatient of delay, Harald, will with his sea-hawks stay; On board will fight, and fate decide If Svein shall by his land abide." After that King Harald sailed north along Vendilskage; and the wind then came against them, and they brought up under Hlesey, where they lay all night. A thick fog lay upon the sea; and when the morning came and the sun rose they saw upon the other side of the sea as if many lights were burning. This was told to King Harald; and he looked at it, and said immediately, "Strike the tilts down on the ships and take to the oars. The Danish forces are coming upon us, and the fog there where they are must have cleared off, and the sun shines upon the dragon-heads of their ships, which are gilded, and that is what we see." It was so as he had said. Svein had come there with a prodigious armed force. They rowed now on both sides all they could. The Danish ships flew lighter before the oars; for the Northmen's ships were both soaked with water and heavily laden, so that the Danes approached nearer and nearer. Then Harald, whose own dragon-ship was the last of the fleet, saw that he could not get away; so he ordered his men to throw overboard some wood, and lay upon it clothes and other good and valuable articles; and it was so perfectly calm that these drove about with the tide. Now when the Danes saw their own goods driving about on the sea, they who were in advance turned about to save them; for they thought it was easier to take what was floating freely about, than to go on board the Northmen to take it. They dropped rowing and lost ground. Now when King Svein came up to them with his ship, he urged them on, saying it would be a great shame if they, with so great a force, could not overtake and master so small a number. The Danes then began again to stretch out lustily at their oars. When King Harald saw that the Danish ships went faster he ordered his men to lighten their ships, and cast overboard malt, wheat, bacon, and to let their liquor run out, which helped a little. Then Harald ordered the bulwarkscreens, the empty casks and puncheons and the prisoners to be thrown overboard; and when all these were driving about on the sea, Svein ordered help to be given to save the men. This was done; but so much time was lost that they separated from each other. The Danes turned back and the Northmen proceeded on their way. So says Thorleik the Fair:-- "Svein drove his foes from Jutland's coast,-- The Norsemen's ships would have been lost, But Harald all his vessels saves, Throwing his booty on the waves. The Jutlanders saw, as he threw, Their own goods floating in their view; His lighten'd ships fly o'er the main While they pick up their own again." King Svein returned southwards with his ships to Hlesey, where he found seven ships of the Northmen, with bondes and men of the levy. When King Svein came to them they begged for mercy, and offered ransom for themselves. So says Thorleik the Fair:-- "The stern king's men good offers make, If Svein will ransom for them take; Too few to fight, they boldly say Unequal force makes them give way. The hasty bondes for a word Would have betaken them to the sword, And have prolonged a bloody strife-- Such men can give no price for life." 36. OF HARALD. King Harald was a great man, who ruled his kingdom well in home-concerns. Very prudent was he, of good understanding; and it is the universal opinion that no chief ever was in northern lands of such deep judgment and ready counsel as Harald. He was a great warrior; bold in arms; strong and expert in the use of his weapons beyond any others, as has been before related, although many of the feats of his manhood are not here written down. This is owing partly to our uncertainty about them, partly to our wish not to put stories into this book for which there is no testimony. Although we have heard, many things talked about, and even circumstantially related, yet we think it better that something may be added to, than that it should be necessary to take something away from our narrative. A great part of his history is put in verse by Iceland men, which poems they presented to him or his sons, and for which reason he was their great friend. He was, indeed, a great friend to all the people of that country; and once, when a very dear time set in, he allowed four ships to transport meal to Iceland, and fixed that the shippund should not be dearer than 100 ells of wadmal. He permitted also all poor people, who could find provisions to keep them on the voyage across the sea, to emigrate from Iceland to Norway; and from that time there was better subsistence in the country, and the seasons also turned out better. King Harold also sent from Norway a bell for the church of which Olaf the Saint had sent the timbers to Iceland, and which was erected on the Thing-plain. Such remembrances of King Harald are found here in the country, besides many great gifts which he presented to those who visited him. 37. OF HALDOR SNORRASON. Haldor Snorrason and Ulf Uspakson, as before related, came to Norway with King Harald. They were, in many respects, of different dispositions. Haldor was very stout and strong, and remarkably handsome in appearance. King Harald gave him this testimony, that he, among all his men, cared least about doubtful circumstances, whether they betokened danger or pleasure; for, whatever turned up, he was never in higher nor in lower spirits, never slept less nor more on account of them, nor ate or drank but according to his custom. Haldor was not a man of many words, but short in conversation, told his opinion bluntly and was obstinate and hard; and this could not please the king, who had many clever people about him zealous in his service. Haldor remained a short time with the king; and then came to Iceland, where he took up his abode in Hjardarholt, and dwelt in that farm to a very advanced age. 38. OF ULF USPAKSON. Ulf Uspakson stood in great esteem with King Harald; for he was a man of great understanding, clever in conversation, active and brave, and withal true and sincere. King Harald made Ulf his marshal, and married him to Jorun, Thorberg's daughter, a sister of Harald's wife, Thora. Ulf and Jorun's children were Joan the Strong of Rasvol, and Brigida, mother of Sauda-Ulf, who was father of Peter Byrdar-Svein, father of Ulf Fly and Sigrid. Joan the Strong's son was Erlend Himalde, father of Archbishop Eystein and his brothers. King Harald gave Ulf the marshal the rights of a lenderman and a fief of twelve marks income, besides a half-district in the Throndhjem land. Of this Stein Herdison speaks in his song about Ulf. 39. OF THE BUILDING OF CHURCHES AND HOUSES. King Magnus Olafson built Olaf's church in the town (Nidaros), on the spot where Olaf's body was set down for the night, and which, at that time, was above the town. He also had the king's house built there. The church was not quite finished when the king died; but King Harald had what was wanting completed. There, beside the house, he began to construct a stone hall, but it was not finished when he died. King Harald had the church called Mary Church built from the foundations up, at the sandhill close to the spot where the king's holy remains were concealed in the earth the first winter after his fall. It was a large temple, and so strongly built with lime that it was difficult to break it when the Archbishop Eystein had it pulled down. Olaf's holy remains were kept in Olaf's church while Mary Church was building. King Harald had the king's house erected below Mary Kirk, at the side of the river, where it now is; and he had the house in which he had made the great hall consecrated and called Gregorius Church. 40. BEGINNING OF HAKON IVARSON'S STORY. There was a man called Ivar the White, who was a brave lenderman dwelling in the Uplands, and was a daughter's son of Earl Hakon the Great. Ivar was the handsomest man that could be seen. Ivar's son was called Hakon; and of him it was said that he was distinguished above all men then in Norway for beauty, strength and perfection of figure. In his very youth he had been sent out on war expeditions, where he acquired great honour and consideration, and became afterwards one of the most celebrated men. 41. OF EINAR TAMBASKELFER. Einar Tambaskelfer was the most powerful lenderman in the Throndhjem land. There was but little friendship between him and King Harald, although Einar retained all the fiefs he had held while Magnus the Good lived. Einar had many large estates, and was married to Bergliot, a daughter of Earl Hakon, as related above. Their son Eindride was grown up, and married to Sigrid, a daughter of Ketil Kalf and Gunhild, King Harald's sister's daughter. Eindride had inherited the beauty of his mother's father, Earl Hakon, and his sons; and in size and strength he took after his father, Einar, and also in all bodily perfections by which Einar had been distinguished above other men. He was, also, as well as his father, the most popular of men, which the sagas, indeed, show sufficiently. 42. OF EARL ORM. Orm was at that time earl in the Uplands. His mother was Ragnhild, a daughter of Earl Hakon the Great, and Orm was a remarkably clever man. Aslak Erlingson was then in Jadar at Sole, and was married to Sigrid, a daughter of Earl Svein Hakonson. Gunhild, Earl Svein's other daughter, was married to the Danish king, Svein Ulfson. These were the descendants of Earl Hakon at that time in Norway, besides many other distinguished people; and the whole race was remarkable for their very beautiful appearance, and the most of them were gifted with great bodily perfection, and were all distinguished and important men. 43. HARALD'S PRIDE. King Harald was very proud, and his pride increased after he was established in the country; and it came so far that at last it was not good to speak against him, or to propose anything different from what he desired. So says Thiodolf, the skald:-- "In arms 'tis right the common man Should follow orders, one by one,-- Should stoop or rise, or run or stand, As his war-leader may command; But now to the king who feeds the ravens The people bend like heartless cravens-- Nothing is left them, but consent To what the king calls his intent." 44. OF THE QUARREL OF KING HARALD AND EINAR TAMBASKELFER. Einar Tambaskelfer was the principal man among the bondes all about Throndhjem, and answered for them at the Things even against the king's men. Einar knew well the law, and did not want boldness to bring forward his opinion at Things, even if the king was present; and all the bondes stood by him. The king was very angry at this, and it came so far that they disputed eagerly against each other. Einar said that the bondes would not put up with any unlawful proceedings from him if he broke through the law of the land; and this occurred several times between them. Einar then began to keep people about him at home, and he had many more when he came into the town if the king was there. It once happened that Einar came to the town with a great many men and ships; he had with him eight or nine great war-ships and nearly 500 men. When he came to the town he went up from the strand with his attendants. King Harald was then in his house, standing out in the gallery of the loft; and when he saw Einar's people going on shore, it is said Harald composed these verses:-- "I see great Tambaskelfer go, With mighty pomp, and pride, and show, Across the ebb-shore up the land,-- Before, behind, an armed band. This bonde-leader thinks to rule, And fill himself the royal stool. A goodly earl I have known With fewer followers of his own. He who strikes fire from the shield, Einar, may some day make us yield, Unless our axe-edge quickly ends, With sudden kiss, what he intends." Einar remained several days in the town. 45. THE FALL OF EINAR AND EINDRIDE. One day there was a meeting held in the town, at which the king himself was present. A thief had been taken in the town, and he was brought before the Thing. The man had before been in the service of Einar, who had been very well satisfied with him. This was told to Einar, and he well knew the king would not let the man off, and more because he took an interest in the matter. Einar, therefore, let his men get under arms, went to the Thing, and took the man by force. The friends on both sides then came between and endeavoured to effect a reconciliation; and they succeeded so far that a meeting-place was appointed, to which both should come. There was a Thing-room in the king's house at the river Nid, and the king went into it with a few men, while the most of his people were out in the yard. The king ordered the shutters of the loft-opening to be turned, so that there was but a little space left clear. When Einar came into the yard with his people, he told his son Eindride to remain outside with the men, "for there is no danger here for me." Eindride remained standing outside at the room-door. When Einar came into the Thing-room, he said, "It is dark in the king's Thing-room." At that moment some men ran against him and assaulted him, some with spears, some with swords. When Eindride heard this he drew his sword and rushed into the room; but he was instantly killed along with his father. The king's men then ran up and placed themselves before the door, and the bondes lost courage, having no leader. They urged each other on, indeed, and said it was a shame they should not avenge their chief; but it came to nothing with their attack. The king went out to his men, arrayed them in battle order, and set up his standard: but the bondes did not venture to assault. Then the king went with all his men on board of his ships, rowed down the river, and then took his way out of the fjord. When Einar's wife Bergliot, who was in the house which Einar had possessed in the town, heard of Einar's fall, she went immediately to the king's house where the bondes army was and urged them to the attack; but at the same moment the king was rowing out of the river. Then said Bergliot, "Now we want here my relation, Hakon Ivarson: Einar's murderer would not be rowing out of the river if Ivar stood here on the riverbank." Then Bergliot adorned Einar's and Eindride's corpses and buried them in Olaf's church, beside King Magnus Olafson's burial-place. After Einar's murder the king was so much disliked for that deed that there was nothing that prevented the lendermen and bondes from attacking the king, and giving him battle, but the want of some leader to raise the banner in the bonde army. 46. OF KING HARALD AND FIN ARNASON. Fin Arnason dwelt at Austrat in Yrjar, and was King Harald's lenderman there. Fin was married to Bergliot, a daughter of Halfdan, who was a son of Sigurd Syr, and brother of Olaf the Saint and of King Harald. Thora, King Harald's wife, was Fin Arnason's brother's daughter: and Fin and all his brothers were the king's dearest friends. Fin Arnason had been for some summers on a viking cruise in the West sea; and Fin, Guthorm Gunhildson and Hakon Ivarson had all been together on that cruise. King Harald now proceeded out of Throndhjem fjord to Austrat, where he was well received. Afterwards the king and Fin conversed with each other about this new event of Einar's and his son's death, and of the murmuring and threatening which the bondes made against the king. Fin took up the conversation briskly, and said, "Thou art managing ill in two ways: first, in doing all manner of mischief; and next, in being so afraid that thou knowest not what to do." The king replied, laughing, "I will send thee, friend, into the town to bring about a reconciliation with the bondes; and if that will not do, thou must go to the Uplands and bring matters to such an understanding with Hakon Ivarson that he shall not be my opponent." Fin replies, "And how wilt thou reward me if I undertake this dangerous errand; for both the people of Throndhjem and the people of Upland are so great enemies to thee that it would not be safe for any of thy messengers to come among them, unless he were one who would be spared for his own sake?" The king replies, "Go thou on this embassy, for I know thou wilt succeed in it if any man can, and bring about a reconciliation; and then choose whatever favour from us thou wilt." Fin says, "Hold thou thy word, king, and I will choose my petition. I will desire to have peace and safe residence in the country for my brother Kalf, and all his estates restored; and also that he receive all the dignity and power he had when he left the country." The king assented to all that Fin laid down, and it was confirmed by witnesses and shake of hand. Then said Fin, "What shall I offer Hakon, who rules most among his relations in the land, to induce him to agree to a treaty and reconciliation with thee?" The king replies, "Thou shalt first hear what Hakon on his part requires for making an agreement; then promote my interest as thou art best able; and deny him nothing in the end short of the kingdom." Then King Harald proceeded southwards to More, and drew together men in considerable numbers. 47. OF FIN ARNASON'S JOURNEY. Fin Arnason proceeded to the town and had with him his house-servants, nearly eighty men. When he came into the town he held a Thing with the town's people. Fin spoke long and ably at the Thing; and told the town's people, and bondes, above all things not to have a hatred against their king, or to drive him away. He reminded them of how much evil they had suffered by acting thus against King Olaf the Saint; and added, that the king was willing to pay penalty for this murder, according to the judgment of understanding and good men. The effect of Fin's speech was that the bondes promised to wait quietly until the messengers came back whom Bergliot had sent to the Uplands to her relative, Hakon Ivarson. Fin then went out to Orkadal with the men who had accompanied him to the town. From thence he went up to Dovrefield, and eastwards over the mountains. He went first to his son-in-law, Earl Orm, who was married to Sigrid, Fin's daughter, and told him his business. 48. OF FIN AND HAKON IVARSON. Then Fin and Earl Orm appointed a meeting with Hakon Ivarson; and when they met Fin explained his errand to Hakon, and the offer which King Harald made him. It was soon seen, from Hakon's speech, that he considered it to be his great duty to avenge the death of his relative, Eindride; and added, that word was come to him from Throndhjem, from which he might expect help in making head against the king. Then Fin represented to Hakon how much better it would be for him to accept of as high a dignity from the king as he himself could desire, rather than to attempt raising a strife against the king to whom he was owing service and duty. He said if he came out of the conflict without victory, he forfeited life and property: "And even if thou hast the victory, thou wilt still be called a traitor to thy sovereign." Earl Orm also supported Fin's speech. After Hakon had reflected upon this he disclosed what lay on his mind, and said, "I will be reconciled with King Harald if he will give me in marriage his relation Ragnhild, King Magnus Olafson's daughter, with such dower as is suitable to her and she will be content with." Fin said he would agree to this on the king's part; and thus it was settled among them. Fin then returned to Throndhjem, and the disturbance and enmity was quashed, so that the king could retain his kingdom in peace at home; and the league was broken which Eindride's relations had made among themselves for opposing King Harald. 49. OF THE COURTSHIP OF HAKON IVARSON. When the day arrived for the meeting at which this agreement with Harald should be finally concluded, Hakon went to King Harald; and in their conference the king said that he, for his part, would adhere to all that was settled in their agreement. "Thou Hakon," says he, "must thyself settle that which concerns Ragnhild, as to her accepting thee in marriage; for it would not be advisable for thee, or for any one, to marry Ragnhild without her consent." Then Hakon went to Ragnhild, and paid his addresses to her. She answered him thus: "I have often to feel that my father, King Magnus, is dead and gone from me, since I must marry a bonde; although I acknowledge thou art a handsome man, expert in all exercises. But if King Magnus had lived he would not have married me to any man less than a king; so it is not to be expected that I will take a man who has no dignity or title." Then Hakon went to King Harald and told him his conversation with Ragnhild, and also repeated the agreement which was made between him and Fin, who was with him, together with many others of the persons who had been present at the conversation between him and Fin. Hakon takes them all to witness that such was the agreement that the king should give Ragnhild the dower she might desire. "And now since she will have no man who has not a high dignity, thou must give me such a title of honour; and, according to the opinion of the people, I am of birth, family and other qualifications to be called earl." The king replies, "When my brother, King Olaf, and his son, King Magnus, ruled the kingdom, they allowed only one earl at a time to be in the country, and I have done the same since I came to the kingly title; and I will not take away from Orm the title of honour I had before given him." Hakon saw now that his business had not advanced, and was very ill pleased; and Fin was outrageously angry. They said the king had broken his word; and thus they all separated. 50. HAKON'S JOURNEY TO DENMARK. Hakon then went out of the country with a well-manned ship. When he came to Denmark he went immediately to his relative, King Svein, who received him honourably and gave him great fiefs. Hakon became King Svein's commander of the coast defence against the vikings,--the Vindland people, Kurland people, and others from the East countries,--who infested the Danish dominions; and he lay out with his ships of war both winter and summer. 51. MURDER OF ASMUND. There was a man called Asmund, who is said to have been King Svein's sister's son, and his foster-son. This Asmund was distinguished among all by his boldness and was much disliked by the king. When Asmund came to years, and to age of discretion, he became an ungovernable person given to murder and manslaughter. The king was ill pleased at this, and sent him away, giving him a good fief, which might keep him and his followers well. As soon as Asmund had got this property from the king he drew together a large troop of people; and as the estate he had got from the king was not sufficient for his expenses he took as his own much more which belonged to the king. When the king heard this he summoned Asmund to him, and when they met the king said that Asmund should remain with the court without keeping any retinue of his own; and this took place as the king desired. But when Asmund had been a little time in the king's court he grew weary of being there, and escaped in the night, returned to his former companions and did more mischief than ever. Now when the king was riding through the country he came to the neighbourhood where Asmund was, and he sent out men-at-arms to seize him. The king then had him laid in irons, and kept him so for some time in hope he would reform; but no sooner did Asmund get rid of his chains than he absconded again, gathered together people and men-at-arms and betook himself to plunder, both abroad and at home. Thus he made great forays, killing and plundering all around. When the people who suffered under these disturbances came to the king and complained to him of their losses, he replied, "Why do ye tell me of this? Why don't you go to Hakon Ivarson, who is my officer for the land-defence, placed on purpose to keep the peace for you peasants, and to hold the vikings in check? I was told that Hakon was a gallant and brave man, but I think he is rather shy when any danger of life is in the way." These words of the king were brought to Hakon, with many additions. Then Hakon went with his men in search of Asmund, and when their ships met Hakon gave battle immediately--and the conflict was sharp, and many men were killed. Hakon boarded Asmund's ship and cut down the men before his feet. At last he and Asmund met and exchanged blows until Asmund fell. Hakon cut off his head, went in all haste to King Svein and found him just sitting down to the dinner-table. Hakon presented himself before the table, laid Asmund's head upon the table before the king, and asked if he knew it. The king made no reply, but became as red as blood in the face. Soon after the king sent him a message, ordering him to leave his service immediately. "Tell him I will do him no harm; but I cannot keep watch over all our relations." (1) ENDNOTES: (1) This incident shows how strong, in those ages, was the tie of relationship, and the point of honour of avenging its injuries--the clanship spirit.--L. 52. HAKON IVARSON'S MARRIAGE. Hakon then left Denmark, and came north to his estates in Norway. His relation Earl Orm was dead. Hakon's relations and friends were glad to see Hakon, and many gallant men gave themselves much trouble to bring about a reconciliation between King Harald and Hakon. It was at last settled in this way, that Hakon got Ragnhild, the king's daughter, and that King Harald gave Hakon the earldom, with the same power Earl Orm had possessed. Hakon swore to King Harald an oath of fidelity to all the services he was liable to fulfill. 53. RECONCILIATION OF KING HARALD AND KALF. Kalf Arnason had been on a viking cruise to the Western countries ever since he had left Norway; but in winter he was often in the Orkney Islands with his relative, Earl Thorfin. Fin Arnason sent a message to his brother Kalf, and told him the agreement which he had made with King Harald, that Kalf should enjoy safety in Norway, and his estates, and all the fiefs he had held from King Magnus. When this message came to Kalf he immediately got ready for his voyage, and went east to Norway to his brother Fin. Then Fin obtained the king's peace for Kalf, and when Kalf and the king met they went into the agreement which Fin and the king had settled upon before. Kalf bound himself to the king in the same way as he had bound himself to serve King Magnus, according to which Kalf should do all that the king desired and considered of advantage to his realm. Thereupon Kalf received all the estates and fiefs he had before. 54. FALL OF KALF ARNASON. The summer following (A.D. 1050) King Harald ordered out a levy, and went to Denmark, where he plundered during the summer; but when he came south to Fyen he found a great force assembled against him. Then the king prepared to land his men from the ships and to engage in a land-fight. He drew up his men on board in order of battle; set Kalf Arnason at the head of one division; ordered him to make the first attack, and told him where they should direct their assault, promising that he would soon make a landing with the others, and come to their assistance. When Kalf came to the land with his men a force came down immediately to oppose them, and Kalf without delay engaged in battle, which, however, did not last long; for Kalf was immediately overpowered by numbers, and betook himself to flight with his men. The Danes pursued them vigorously, and many of the Northmen fell, and among them Kalf Arnason. Now King Harald landed with his array; and they soon came on their way to the field of battle, where they found Kalf's body, and bore it down to the ships. But the king penetrated into the country, killing many people and destroying much. So says Arnor:-- "His shining sword with blood he stains, Upon Fyona's grassy plains; And in the midst of fire and smoke, The king Fyona's forces broke." 55. FIN ARNASON'S EXPEDITION OUT OF THE COUNTRY. After this Fin Arnason thought he had cause to be an enemy of the king upon account of his brother Kalf's death; and said the king had betrayed Kalf to his fall, and had also deceived him by making him entice his brother Kalf to come over from the West and trust to King Harald's faith. When these speeches came out among people, many said that it was very foolish in Fin to have ever supposed that Kalf could obtain the king's sincere friendship and favour; for they thought the king was the man to seek revenge for smaller offences than Kalf had committed against the king. The king let every one say what he chose, and he himself neither said yes or no about the affair; but people perceived that the king was very well pleased with what had happened. King Harald once made these verses:-- "I have, in all, the death-stroke given To foes of mine at least eleven; Two more, perhaps, if I remember, May yet be added to this number, I prize myself upon these deeds, My people such examples needs. Bright gold itself they would despise, Or healing leek-herb underprize, If not still brought before their eyes." Fin Arnason took the business so much to heart that he left the country and went to Denmark to King Svein, where he met a friendly reception. They spoke together in private for a long time; and the end of the business was that Fin went into King Svein's service, and became his man. King Svein then gave Fin an earldom, and placed him in Halland, where he was long earl and defended the country against the Northmen. 56. OF GUTHORM GUNHILDSON. Ketil Kalf and Gunhild of Ringanes had a son called Guthorm, and he was a sister's son to King Olaf and Harald Sigurdson. Guthorm was a gallant man, early advanced to manhood. He was often with King Harald, who loved him much, and asked his advice; for he was of good understanding, and very popular. Guthorm had also been engaged early in forays, and had marauded much in the Western countries with a large force. Ireland was for him a land of peace; and he had his winter quarters often in Dublin, and was in great friendship with King Margad. 57. GUTHORM'S JUNCTION WITH THE IRISH KING MARGAD. The summer after King Margad, and Guthorm with him, went out on an expedition against Bretland, where they made immense booty. But when the king saw the quantity of silver which was gathered he wanted to have the whole booty, and regarded little his friendship for Guthorm. Guthorm was ill pleased that he and his men should be robbed of their share; but the king said, "Thou must choose one of two things,--either to be content with what we determine, or to fight; and they shall have the booty who gain the victory; and likewise thou must give up thy ships, for them I will have." Guthorm thought there were great difficulties on both sides; for it was disgraceful to give up ships and goods without a stroke, and yet it was highly dangerous to fight the king and his force, the king having sixteen ships and Guthorm only five. Then Guthorm desired three days' time to consider the matter with his people, thinking in that time to pacify the king, and come to a better understanding with him through the mediation of others; but he could not obtain from the king what he desired. This was the day before St. Olaf's day. Guthorm chose the condition that they would rather die or conquer like men, than suffer disgrace, contempt and scorn, by submitting to so great a loss. He called upon God, and his uncle Saint Olaf, and entreated their help and aid; promising to give to the holy man's house the tenth of all the booty that fell to their share, if they gained the victory. Then he arranged his men, placed them in battle order against the great force, prepared for battle, and gave the assault. By the help of God, and the holy Saint Olaf, Guthorm won the battle. King Margad fell, and every man, old and young, who followed him; and after that great victor, Guthorm and all his people returned home joyfully with all the booty they had gained by the battle. Every tenth penny of the booty they had made was taken, according to the vow, to King Olaf the Saint's shrine; and there was so much silver that Guthorm had an image made of it, with rays round the head, which was the size of his own, or of his forecastle-man's head; and the image was seven feet high. The image thus produced was given by Guthorm to King Olaf of the Saint's temple, where it has since remained as a memorial of Guthorm's victory and King Olaf the Saint's miracle. 58. MIRACLE OF KING OLAF IN DENMARK. There was a wicked, evil-minded count in Denmark who had a Norwegian servant-girl whose family belonged to Throndhjem district. She worshipped King Olaf the Saint, and believed firmly in his sanctity. But the above mentioned count doubted all that was told of the holy man's miracles, insisted that it was nothing but nonsense and idle talk, and made a joke and scorn of the esteem and honour which all the country people showed the good king. Now when his holyday came, on which the mild monarch ended his life, and which all Northmen kept sacred, this unreasonable count would not observe it, but ordered his servant-girl to bake and put fire in the oven that day. She knew well the count's mad passion, and that he would revenge himself severely on her if she refused doing as he ordered. She went, therefore, of necessity, and baked in the oven, but wept much at her work; and she threatened King Olaf that she never would believe in him, if he did not avenge this misdeed by some mischance or other. And now shall ye come to hear a well-deserved vengeance, and a true miracle. It happened, namely, in the same hour that the count became blind of both eyes, and the bread which she had shoved into the oven was turned into stone! Of these stones some are now in St. Olaf's temple, and in other places; and since that time Olafsmas has been always held holy in Denmark. 59. KING OLAF'S MIRACLE ON A CRIPPLE. West in Valland, a man had such bad health that he became a cripple, and went on his knees and elbows. One day he was upon the road, and had fallen asleep. He dreamt that a gallant man came up to him and asked him where he was going. When he named the neighbouring town, the man said to him, "Go to Saint Olaf's church that stands in London, and there thou shalt be cured." There-upon he awoke, and went straightway to inquire the road to Olaf's church in London. At last he came to London Bridge, and asked the men of the castle if they could tell him where Olaf's church was; but they replied, there were so many churches that they could not tell to whom each of them was consecrated. Soon after a man came up and asked him where he wanted to go, and he answered to Olaf's church. Then said the man, "We shall both go together to Olaf's church, for I know the way to it." Thereupon they went over the bridge to the shrine where Olaf's church was; and when they came to the gates of the churchyard the man mounted over the half-door that was in the gate, but the cripple rolled himself in, and rose up immediately sound and strong: when he looked about him his conductor had vanished. 60. KING HARALD'S FORAY IN DENMARK. King Harald had built a merchant town in the East at Oslo, where he often resided; for there was good supply from the extensive cultivated district wide around. There also he had a convenient station to defend the country against the Danes, or to make an attack upon Denmark, which he was in the custom of doing often, although he kept no great force on foot. One summer King Harald went from thence with a few light ships and a few men. He steered southwards out from Viken, and, when the wind served, stood over to Jutland, and marauded; but the country people collected and defended the country. Then King Harald steered to Limfjord, and went into the fjord. Limfjord is so formed that its entrance is like a narrow river; but when one gets farther into the fjord it spreads out into a wide sea. King Harald marauded on both sides of the land; and when the Danes gathered together on every side to oppose him, he lay at a small island which was uncultivated. They wanted drink on board his ships, and went up into the island to seek water; but finding none, they reported it to the king. He ordered them to look for some long earthworms on the island, and when they found one they brought it to the king. He ordered the people to bring the worm to a fire, and bake it before it, so that it should be thirsty. Then he ordered a thread to be tied round the tail of the worm, and to let it loose. The worm crept away immediately, while thread wound off from the clew as the worm took it away; and the people followed the worm until it sought downwards in the earth. There the king ordered them to dig for water, which they did, and found so much water that they had no want of it. King Harald now heard from his spies that King Svein was come with a large armament to the mouth of the fjord; but that it was too late for him to come into it, as only one ship at a time can come in. King Harald then steered with his fleet in through the fjord to where it was broadest to a place called Lusbreid. In the inmost bight, there is but a narrow neck of land dividing the fjord from the West sea. Thither King Harald rowed with his men towards evening; and at night when it was dark he unloaded his ships, drew them over the neck of land into the West sea, loaded them again, and was ready with all this before day. He then steered northwards along the Jutland coast. People then said that Harald had escaped from the hands of the Danes. Harald said that he would come to Denmark next time with more people and larger vessels. King Harald then proceeded north to Throndhjem. 61. KING HARALD HAD A SHIP BUILT. King Harald remained all winter at Nidaros (A.D. 1062) and had a vessel built out upon the strand, and it was a buss. The ship was built of the same size as the Long Serpent, and every part of her was finished with the greatest care. On the stem was a dragon-head, and on the stern a dragon-tail, and the sides of the bows of the ship were gilt. The vessel was of thirty-five rowers benches, and was large for that size, and was remarkably handsome; for the king had everything belonging to the ship's equipment of the best, both sails and rigging, anchors and cables. King Harald sent a message in winter south to Denmark to King Svein, that he should come northwards in spring; that they should meet at the Gaut river and fight, and so settle the division of the countries that the one who gained the victory should have both kingdoms. 62. KING HARALD'S CHALLENGE. King Harald during this winter called out a general levy of all the people of Norway, and assembled a great force towards spring. Then Harald had his great ship drawn down and put into the river Nid, and set up the dragon's head on her. Thiodolf, the skald, sang about it thus:-- "My lovely girl! the sight was grand When the great war-ships down the strand Into the river gently slid, And all below her sides was hid. Come, lovely girl, and see the show!-- Her sides that on the water glow, Her serpent-head with golden mane, All shining back from the Nid again." Then King Harald rigged out his ship, got ready for sea, and when he had all in order went out of the river. His men rowed very skilfully and beautifully. So says Thiodolf:-- "It was upon a Saturday, Ship-tilts were struck and stowed away, And past the town our dragon glides, That girls might see our glancing sides. Out from the Nid brave Harald steers; Westward at first the dragon veers; Our lads together down with oars, The splash is echoed round the shores. "Their oars our king's men handle well, One stroke is all the eye can tell: All level o'er the water rise; The girls look on in sweet surprise. Such things, they think, can ne'er give way; The little know the battle day. The Danish girls, who dread our shout, Might wish our ship-gear not so stout. "'Tis in the fight, not on the wave, That oars may break and fail the brave. At sea, beneath the ice-cold sky, Safely our oars o'er ocean ply; And when at Throndhjem's holy stream Our seventy cars in distance gleam, We seem, while rowing from the sea, An erne with iron wings to be." King Harald sailed south along the land, and called out the levy everywhere of men and ships. When they came east to Viken they got a strong wind against them and the forces lay dispersed about in the harbour; some in the isles outside, and some in the fjords. So says Thiodolf:-- "The cutters' sea-bleached bows scarce find A shelter from the furious wind Under the inland forests' side, Where the fjord runs its farthest tide. In all the isles and creeks around The bondes' ships lie on the ground, And ships with gunwales hung with shields Seek the lee-side of the green fields." In the heavy storm that raged for some time the great ship had need of good ground tackle. So says Thiodolf:-- "With lofty bow above the seas, Which curl and fly before the breeze, The gallant vessel rides and reels, And every plunge her cable feels. The storm that tries the spar and mast Tries the main-anchor at the last: The storm above, below the rock, Chafe the thick cable with each shock." When the weather became favourable King Harald sailed eastwards to the Gaut river with his fleet and arrived there in the evening. So says Thiodolf:-- "The gallant Harald now has come To Gaut, full half way from his home, And on the river frontier stands, To fight with Svein for life and lands. The night passed o'er, the gallant king Next day at Thumia calls a Thing, Where Svein is challenged to appear-- A day which ravens wish were near." 63. OF KING HARALD'S FLEET. When the Danes heard that the Northmen's army was come to the Gaut river they all fled who had opportunity to get away. The Northmen heard that the Danish king had also called out his forces and lay in the south, partly at Fyen and partly about Seeland. When King Harald found that King Svein would not hold a meeting with him, or a fight, according to what had been agreed upon between them, he took the same course as before--letting the bonde troops return home, but manning 150 ships, with which he sailed southwards along Halland, where he herried all round, and then brought up with his fleet in Lofufjord, and laid waste the country. A little afterwards King Svein came upon them with all the Danish fleet, consisting of 300 ships. When the Northmen saw them King Harald ordered a general meeting of the fleet to be called by sound of trumpet; and many there said it was better to fly, as it was not now advisable to fight. The king replied, "Sooner shall all lie dead one upon another than fly." So says Stein Herdison:-- "With falcon eye, and courage bright, Our king saw glory in the fight; To fly, he saw, would ruin bring On them and him--the folk and king. 'Hands up the arms to one and all!' Cries out the king; 'we'll win or fall! Sooner than fly, heaped on each other Each man shall fall across his brother!'" Then King Harald drew up his ships to attack, and brought forward his great dragon in the middle of his fleet. So says Thiodolf:-- "The brave king through his vessels' throng His dragon war-ship moves along; He runs her gaily to the front, To meet the coming battle's brunt." The ship was remarkably well equipt, and fully manned. So says Thiodolf:-- "The king had got a chosen crew-- He told his brave lads to stand true. The ring of shields seemed to enclose The ship's deck from the boarding foes. The dragon, on the Nis-river flood, Beset with men, who thickly stood, Shield touching shield, was something rare, That seemed all force of man to dare." Ulf, the marshal, laid his ship by the side of the king's and ordered his men to bring her well forward. Stein Herdison, who was himself in Ulf's ship, sings of it thus:-- "Our oars were stowed, our lances high, As the ship moved swung in the sky. The marshal Ulf went through our ranks, Drawn up beside the rowers' banks: The brave friend of our gallant king Told us our ship well on to bring, And fight like Norsemen in the cause-- Our Norsemen answered with huzzas." Hakon Ivarson lay outside on the other wing, and had many ships with him, all well equipt. At the extremity of the other side lay the Throndhjem chiefs, who had also a great and strong force. 64. OF KING SVEIN'S ARMAMENT. Svein, the Danish king, also drew up his fleet, and laid his ship forward in the center against King Harald's ship, and Fin Arnason laid his ship next; and then the Danes laid their ships, according as they were bold or well-equipt. Then, on both sides, they bound the ships together all through the middle of the fleets; but as the fleets were so large, very many ships remained loose, and each laid his ship forward according to his courage, and that was very unequal. Although the difference among the men was great, altogether there was a very great force on both sides. King Svein had six earls among the people following him. So says Stein Herdison:-- "Danger our chief would never shun, With eight score ships he would not run: The Danish fleet he would abide, And give close battle side by side. From Leire's coast the Danish king Three hundred ocean steeds could bring, And o'er the sea-weed plain in haste Thought Harald's vessels would be chased." 65. BEGINNING OF THE BATTLE OF NIS-RIVER. As soon as King Harald was ready with his fleet, he orders the war-blast to sound, and the men to row forward to the attack. So says Stein Herdison:-- "Harald and Svein first met as foes, Where the Nis in the ocean flows; For Svein would not for peace entreat, But, strong in ships, would Harald meet. The Norsemen prove, with sword in hand, That numbers cannot skill withstand. Off Halland's coast the blood of Danes The blue sea's calm smooth surface stains." Soon the battle began, and became very sharp; both kings urging on their men. So says Stein Herdison:-- "Our king, his broad shield disregarding, More keen for striking than for warding, Now tells his lads their spears to throw,-- Now shows them where to strike a blow. From fleet to fleet so short the way, That stones and arrows have full play; And from the keen sword dropped the blood Of short-lived seamen in the flood." It was late in the day when the battle began, and it continued the whole night. King Harald shot for a long time with his bow. So says Thiodolf:-- "The Upland king was all the night Speeding the arrows' deadly flight. All in the dark his bow-string's twang Was answered; for some white shield rang, Or yelling shriek gave certain note The shaft had pierced some ring-mail coat, The foemen's shields and bulwarks bore A Lapland arrow-scat(1) or more." Earl Hakon, and the people who followed him, did not make fast their ships in the fleet, but rowed against the Danish ships that were loose, and slew the men of all the ships they came up with. When the Danes observed this each drew his ship out of the way of the earl; but he set upon those who were trying to escape, and they were nearly driven to flight. Then a boat came rowing to the earl's ship and hailed him and said that the other wing of King Harald's fleet was giving way and many of their people had fallen. Then the earl rowed thither and gave so severe an assault that the Danes had to retreat before him. The earl went on in this way all the night, coming forward where he was most wanted, and wheresoever he came none could stand against him. Hakon rowed outside around the battle. Towards the end of the night the greatest part of the Danish fleet broke into flight, for then King Harald with his men boarded the vessel of King Svein; and it was so completely cleared that all the crew fell in the ship, except those who sprang overboard. So says Arnor, the earls' skald:-- "Brave Svein did not his vessel leave Without good cause, as I believe: Oft on his casque the sword-blade rang, Before into the sea he sprang. Upon the wave his vessel drives; All his brave crew had lost their lives. O'er dead courtmen into the sea The Jutland king had now to flee." And when King Svein's banner was cut down, and his ship cleared of its crew, all his forces took to flight, and some were killed. The ships which were bound together could not be cast loose, so the people who were in them sprang overboard, and some got to the other ships that were loose; and all King Svein's men who could get off rowed away, but a great many of them were slain. Where the king himself fought the ships were mostly bound together, and there were more than seventy left behind of King Svein's vessels. So says Thiodolf:-- "Svein's ships rode proudly o'er the deep, When, by a single sudden sweep, Full seventy sail, as we are told, Were seized by Norway's monarch bold." King Harald rowed after the Danes and pursued them; but that was not easy, for the ships lay so thick together that they scarcely could move. Earl Fin Arnason would not flee; and being also shortsighted, was taken prisoner. So says Thiodolf:-- "To the six Danish earls who came To aid his force, and raise his name, No mighty thanks King Svein is owing For mighty actions of their doing. Fin Arnason, in battle known, With a stout Norse heart of his own, Would not take flight his life to gain, And in the foremost ranks was ta'en." ENDNOTES: (1) The Laplanders paid their seat, or yearly tax, in bows and arrows; and the meaning of the skald appears to be, that as many as were paid in a year were shot at the foe.--L. 66. KING SVEIN'S FLIGHT. Earl Hakon lay behind with his ships, while the king and the rest of the forces were pursuing the fugitives; for the earls' ships could not get forward on account of the ships which lay in the way before him. Then a man came rowing in a boat to the earl's ship and lay at the bulwarks. The man was stout and had on a white hat. He hailed the ship, "Where is the earl?" said he. The earl was in the fore-hold, stopping a man's blood. The earl cast a look at the man in the hat and asked what his name was. He answered, "Here is Vandrad: speak to me, earl." The earl leant over the ship's side to him. Then the man in the boat said, "Earl, I will accept of my life from thee, if thou wilt give it." Then the earl raised himself up, called two men who were friends dear to him, and said to them, "Go into the boat; bring Vandrad to the land; attend him to my friend's Karl the bonde; and tell Karl, as a token that these words come from me, that he let Vandrad have the horse which I gave to him yesterday, and also his saddle, and his son to attend him." Thereupon they went into the boat and took the oars in hand, while Vandrad steered. This took place just about daybreak, while the vessels were in movement, some rowing towards the land, some towards the sea, both small and great. Vandrad steered where he thought there was most room between the vessels; and when they came near to Norway's ships the earl's men gave their names and then they all allowed them to go where they pleased. Vandrad steered along the shore, and only set in towards the land when they had come past the crowd of ships. They then went up to Karl the bonde's farm, and it was then beginning to be light. They went into the room where Karl had just put on his clothes. The earl's men told him their message and Karl said they must first take some food; and he set a table before them and gave them water to wash with. Then came the housewife into the room and said, "I wonder why we could get no peace or rest all night with the shouting and screaming." Karl replies, "Dost thou not know that the kings were fighting all night?" She asked which had the better of it. Karl answered, "The Northmen gained." "Then," said she, "our king will have taken flight." "Nobody knows," says Karl, "whether he has fled or is fallen." She says, "What a useless sort of king we have! He is both slow and frightened." Then said Vandrad, "Frightened he is not; but he is not lucky." Then Vandrad washed his hands; but he took the towel and dried them right in the middle of the cloth. The housewife snatched the towel from him, and said, "Thou hast been taught little good; it is wasteful to wet the whole cloth at one time." Vandrad replies, "I may yet come so far forward in the world as to be able to dry myself with the middle of the towel." Thereupon Karl set a table before them and Vandrad sat down between them. They ate for a while and then went out. The horse was saddled and Karl's son ready to follow him with another horse. They rode away to the forest; and the earl's men returned to the boat, rowed to the earl's ship and told the success of their expedition. 67. OF KING HARALD. King Harald and his men followed the fugitives only a short way, and rowed back to the place where the deserted ships lay. Then the battle-place was ransacked, and in King Svein's ship was found a heap of dead men; but the king's body was not found, although people believed for certain that he had fallen. Then King Harald had the greatest attention paid to the dead of his men, and had the wounds of the living bound up. The dead bodies of Svein's men were brought to the land, and he sent a message to the peasants to come and bury them. Then he let the booty be divided, and this took up some time. The news came now that King Svein had come to Seeland, and that all who had escaped from the battle had joined him, along with many more, and that he had a great force. 68. FIN ARNASON GETS QUARTER. Earl Fin Arnason was taken prisoner in the battle, as before related; and when he was led before King Harald the king was very merry, and said, "Fin, we meet here now, and we met last in Norway. The Danish court has not stood very firmly by thee; and it will be a troublesome business for Northmen to drag thee, a blind old man, with them, and preserve thy life." The earl replies, "The Northmen find it very difficult now to conquer, and it is all the worse that thou hast the command of them." Then said King Harald, "Wilt thou accept of life and safety, although thou hast not deserved it?" The earl replies, "Not from thee, thou dog." The king: "Wilt thou, then, if thy relation Magnus gives thee quarter?" Magnus, King Harald's son, was then steering the ship. The earl replies, "Can the whelp rule over life and quarter?" The king laughed, as if he found amusement in vexing him.--"Wilt thou accept thy life, then, from thy she-relation Thorer?" The earl: "Is she here?" "She is here," said the king. Then Earl Fin broke out with the ugly expressions which since have been preserved, as a proof that he was so mad with rage that he could not govern his tongue:-- "No wonder thou hast bit so strongly, if the mare was with thee." Earl Fin got life and quarter and the king kept him a while about him. But Fin was rather melancholy and obstinate in conversation; and King Harald said, "I see, Fin, that thou dost not live willingly in company with me and thy relations; now I will give thee leave to go to thy friend King Svein." The earl said, "I accept of the offer willingly, and the more gratefully the sooner I get away from hence." The king afterwards let Earl Fin be landed and the traders going to Halland received him well. King Harald sailed from thence to Norway with his fleet; and went first to Oslo, where he gave all his people leave to go home who wished to do so. 69. OF KING SVEIN. King Svein, it is told, sat in Denmark all that winter, and had his kingdom as formerly. In winter he sent men north to Halland for Karl the bonde and his wife. When Karl came the king called him to him and asked him if he knew him, or thought he had ever seen him before. Karl replies, "I know thee, sire, and knew thee before, the moment I saw thee; and God be praised if the small help I could give was of any use to thee." The king replies, "I have to reward thee for all the days I have to live. And now, in the first place, I will give thee any farm in Seeland thou wouldst desire to have; and, in the next place, will make thee a great man, if thou knowest how to conduct thyself." Karl thanked the king for his promise, and said he had now but one thing to ask. The king asked what that was. Karl said that he would ask to take his wife with him. The king said, "I will not let thee do that; but I will provide thee a far better and more sensible wife. But thy wife can keep the bonde-farm ye had before and she will have her living from it." The king gave Karl a great and valuable farm, and provided him a good marriage; and he became a considerable man. This was reported far and wide and much praised; and thus it came to be told in Norway. 70. OF THE TALK OF THE COURT-MEN. King Harald stayed in Oslo the winter after the battle at Nis-river (A.D. 1063). In autumn, when the men came from the south, there was much talk and many stories about the battle which they had fought at Nis-river, and every one who had been there thought he could tell something about it. Once some of them sat in a cellar and drank, and were very merry and talkative. They talked about the Nis-river battle, and who had earne'd the greatest praise and renown. They all agreed that no man there had been at all equal to Earl Hakon. He was the boldest in arms, the quickest, and the most lucky; what he did was of the greatest help, and he won the battle. King Harald, in the meantime, was out in the yard, and spoke with some people. He went then to the room-door, and said, "Every one here would willingly be called Hakon;" and then went his way. 71. OF THE ATTEMPT TO TAKE EARL HAKON. Earl Hakon went in winter to the Uplands, and was all winter in his domains. He was much beloved by all the Uplanders. It happened, towards spring, that some men were sitting drinking in the town, and the conversation turned, as usual, on the Nis-river battle; and some praised Earl Hakon, and some thought others as deserving of praise as he. When they had thus disputed a while, one of them said, "It is possible that others fought as bravely as the earl at Nis-river; but none, I think, has had such luck with him as he." The others replied, that his best luck was his driving so many Danes to flight along with other men. The same man replied, "It was greater luck that he gave King Svein quarter." One of the company said to him, "Thou dost not know what thou art saying." He replied, "I know it for certain, for the man told me himself who brought the king to the land." It went, according to the old proverb, that the king has many ears. This was told the king, and he immediately ordered horses to be gathered, and rode away directly with 900 men. He rode all that night and the following day. Then some men met them who were riding to the town with mead and malt. In the king's retinue was a man called Gamal, who rode to one of these bondes who was an acquaintance of his, and spoke to him privately. "I will pay thee," said he, "to ride with the greatest speed, by the shortest private paths that thou knowest, to Earl Hakon, and tell him the king will kill him; for the king has got to the knowledge that Earl Hakon set King Svein on shore at Nis-river." They agreed on the payment. The bonde rode, and came to the earl just as he was sitting drinking, and had not yet gone to bed. When the bonde told his errand, the earl immediately stood up with all his men, had all his loose property removed from the farm to the forest, and all the people left the house in the night. When the king came he halted there all night; but Hakon rode away, and came east to Svithjod to King Steinkel and stayed with him all summer. King Harald returned to the town, travelled northwards to Throndhjem district, and remained there all summer; but in autumn he returned eastwards to Viken. 72. OF EARL HAKON. As soon as Earl Hakon heard the king had gone north he returned immediately in summer to the Uplands (A.D. 1063), and remained there until the king had returned from the north. Then the earl went east into Vermaland, where he remained during the winter, and where the king, Steinkel, gave him fiefs. For a short time in winter he went west to Raumarike with a great troop of men from Gautland and Vermaland, and received the scat and duties from the Upland people which belonged to him, and then returned to Glutland, and remained there till spring. King Harald had his seat in Oslo all winter (A.D. 1064), and sent his men to the Uplands to demand the scat, together with the king's land dues, and the mulcts of court; but the Uplanders said they would pay all the scat and dues which they had to pay, to Earl Hakon as long as he was in life, and had forfeited his life or his fief; and the king got no dues that winter. 73. AGREEMENT BETWEEN KING HARALD AND KING SVEIN. This winter messengers and ambassadors went between Norway and Denmark, whose errand was that both Northmen and Danes should make peace, and a league with each other, and to ask the kings to agree to it. These messages gave favourable hopes of a peace; and the matter proceeded so far that a meeting for peace was appointed at the Gaut river between King Harald and King Svein. When spring approached, both kings assembled many ships and people for this meeting. So says a skald in a poem on this expedition of the kings, which begins thus:-- "The king, who from the northern sound His land with war-ships girds around, The raven-feeder, filled the coast With his proud ships, a gallant host! The gold-tipped stems dash through the foam That shakes the seamen's planked home; The high wave breaks up to the mast, As west of Halland on they passed, "Harald whose word is fixed and sure, Whose ships his land from foes secure, And Svein, whose isles maintain is fleet, Hasten as friends again to meet; And every creek with vessels teems,-- All Denmark men and shipping seems; And all rejoice that strife will cease, And men meet now but to make peace." Here it is told that the two kings held the meeting that was agreed upon between them, and both came to the frontiers of their kingdoms. So says the skald:-- "To meet (since peace the Dane now craves) On to the south upon the waves Sailed forth our gallant northern king, Peace to the Danes with him to bring. Svein northward to his frontier hies To get the peace his people prize, And meet King Harald, whom he finds On land hard used by stormy winds." When the kings found each other, people began at once to talk of their being reconciled. But as soon as peace was proposed, many began to complain of the damage they had sustained by harrying, robbing and killing men; and for a long time it did not look very like peace. It is here related:-- "Before this meeting of the kings Each bende his own losses brings, And loudly claims some recompense From his king's foes, at their expense. It is not easy to make peace, Where noise and talking never cease: The bondes' warmth may quickly spread, And kings be by the people led. "When kings are moved, no peace is sure; For that peace only is secure Which they who make it fairly make,-- To each side give, from each side take. The kings will often rule but ill Who listen to the people's will: The people often have no view But their own interests to pursue." At last the best men, and those who were the wisest, came between the kings, and settled the peace thus:--that Harald should have Norway, and Svein Denmark, according to the boundaries of old established between Denmark and Norway; neither of them should pay to the other for any damage sustained; the war should cease as it now stood, each retaining what he had got; and this peace should endure as long as they were kings. This peace was confirmed by oath. Then the kings parted, having given each other hostages, as is here related:-- "And I have heard that to set fast The peace God brought about at last, Svein and stern Harald pledges sent, Who witnessed to their sworn intent; And much I wish that they and all In no such perjury may fall That this peace ever should be broken, And oaths should fail before God spoken." King Harald with his people sailed northwards to Norway, and King Svein southwards to Denmark. 74. KING HARALD'S BATTLE WITH EARL HAKON. King Harald was in Viken in the summer (A.D. 1064), and he sent his men to the Uplands after the scat and duty which belonged to him; but the bondes paid no attention to the demand, but said they would hold all for Earl Hakon until he came for it. Earl Hakon was then up in Gautland with a large armed force. When summer was past King Harald went south to Konungahella. Then he took all the light-sailing vessels he could get hold of and steered up the river. He had the vessels drawn past all the waterfalls and brought them thus into the Wener lake. Then he rowed eastward across the lake to where he heard Earl Hakon was; but when the earl got news of the king's expedition he retreated down the country, and would not let the king plunder the land. Earl Hakon had a large armed force which the Gautland people had raised for him. King Harald lay with his ships up in a river, and made a foray on land, but left some of his men behind to protect the ships. The king himself rode up with a part of the men, but the greater part were on foot. They had to cross a forest, where they found a mire or lake, and close to it a wood; and when they reached the wood they saw the earl's men, but the mire was between them. They drew up their people now on both sides. Then King Harald ordered his men to sit down on the hillside. "We will first see if they will attack us. Earl Hakon does not usually wait to talk." It was frosty weather, with some snow-drift, and Harald's men sat down under their shields; but it was cold for the Gautlanders, who had but little clothing with them. The earl told them to wait until King Harald came nearer, so that all would stand equally high on the ground. Earl Hakon had the same banner which had belonged to King Magnus Olafson. The lagman of the Gautland people, Thorvid, sat upon a horse, and the bridle was fastened to a stake that stood in the mire. He broke out with these words: "God knows we have many brave and handsome fellows here, and we shall let King Steinkel hear that we stood by the good earl bravely. I am sure of one thing: we shall behave gallantly against these Northmen, if they attack us; but if our young people give way, and should not stand to it, let us not run farther than to that stream; but if they should give way farther, which I am sure they will not do, let it not be farther than to that hill." At that instant the Northmen sprang up, raised the war-cry, and struck on their shields; and the Gautland army began also to shout. The lagman's horse got shy with the war-cry, and backed so hard that the stake flew up and struck the lagman on the head. He said, "Ill luck to thee, Northman, for that arrow!" and away fled the lagman. King Harald had told his people, "If we do make a clash with the weapons, we shall not however, go down from the hill until they come nearer to us;" and they did so. When the war-cry was raised the earl let his banner advance; but when they came under the hill the king's army rushed down upon them, and killed some of the earl's people, and the rest fled. The Northmen did not pursue the fugitives long, for it was the fall of day; but they took Earl Hakon's banner and all the arms and clothes they could get hold of. King Harald had both the banners carried before him as they marched away. They spoke among themselves that the earl had probably fallen. As they were riding through the forest they could only ride singly, one following the other. Suddenly a man came full gallop across the path, struck his spear through him who was carrying the earl's banner, seized the banner-staff, and rode into the forest on the other side with the banner. When this was told the king he said, "Bring me my armour, for the earl is alive." Then the king rode to his ships in the night; and many said that the earl had now taken his revenge. But Thiodolf sang thus:-- "Steinkel's troops, who were so bold, Who the Earl Hakon would uphold, Were driven by our horsemen's power To Hel, death goddess, in an hour; And the great earl, so men say Who won't admit he ran away, Because his men fled from the ground, Retired, and cannot now be found." 75. DEATH OF HAL, THE MURDERER OF KODRAN. The rest of the night Harald passed in his ships; but in the morning, when it was daylight, it was found that so thick ice had gathered about the vessels that one could walk around them. The king ordered his men to cut the ice from the ships all the way out to the clear water; on which they all went to break the ice. King Harald's son, Magnus, steered the vessel that lay lowest down the river and nearest the water. When the people had cleared the ice away almost entirely, a man ran out to the ice, and began hewing away at it like a madman. Then said one of the men, "It is going now as usual, that none can do so much as Hal who killed Kodran, when once he lays himself to the work. See how he is hewing away at the ice." There was a man in the crew of Magnus, the king's son, who was called Thormod Eindridason; and when he heard the name of Kodran's murderer he ran up to Hal, and gave him a death-wound. Kodran was a son of Gudmund Eyjolfson; and Valgerd, who was a sister of Gudmund, was the mother of Jorun, and the grandmother by the mother's side of this Thormod. Thormod was a year old when Kodran was killed, and had never seen Hal Utrygson until now. When the ice was broken all the way out to the water, Magnus drew his ship out, set sail directly, and sailed westward across the lake; but the king's ship, which lay farthest up the river, came out the last. Hal had been in the king's retinue, and was very dear to him; so that the king was enraged at his death. The king came the last into the harbour, and Magnus had let the murderer escape into the forest, and offered to pay the mulct for him; and the king had very nearly attacked Magnus and his crew, but their friends came up and reconciled them. 76. OF KING HARALD. That winter (A.D. 1065) King Harald went up to Raumarike, and had many people with him; and he accused the bondes there of having kept from him his scat and duties, and of having aided his enemies to raise disturbance against him. He seized on the bondes and maimed some, killed others, and robbed many of all their property. They who could do it fled from him. He burned everything in the districts and laid them altogether waste. So says Thiodolf:-- "He who the island-people drove, When they against his power strove, Now bridle's Raumarike's men, Marching his forces through their glen. To punish them the fire he lights That shines afar off in dark nights From house and yard, and, as he says, Will warn the man who disobeys." Thereafter the king went up to Hedemark, burnt the dwellings, and made no less waste and havoc there than in Raumarike. From thence he went to Hadeland and Ringerike, burning and ravaging all the land. So says Thiodolf:-- "The bonde's household goods are seen Before his door upon the green, Smoking and singed: and sparks red hot Glow in the thatched roof of his cot. In Hedemark the bondes pray The king his crushing hand to stay; In Ringerike and Hadeland, None 'gainst his fiery wrath can stand." Then the bondes left all to the king's mercy. After the death of King Magnus fifteen years had passed when the battle at Nis-river took place, and afterwards two years elapsed before Harald and Svein made peace. So says Thiodolf:-- "The Hordland king under the land At anchor lay close to the strand, At last, prepared with shield and spear The peace was settled the third year." After this peace the disturbances with the people of the Upland districts lasted a year and a half. So says Thiodolf:-- "No easy task it is to say How the king brought beneath his sway The Upland bondes, and would give Nought but their ploughs from which to live. The king in eighteen months brought down Their bonde power, and raised his own, And the great honour he has gained Will still in memory be retained." 77. OF THE KINGS OF ENGLAND. Edward, Ethelred's son, was king of England after his brother Hardacanute. He was called Edward the Good; and so he was. King Edward's mother was Queen Emma, daughter of Richard, earl of Rouen. Her brother was Earl Robert, whose son was William the Bastard, who at that time was earl at Rouen in Normandy. King Edward's queen was Gyda, a daughter of Earl Godwin, the son of Ulfnad. Gyda's brothers were, Earl Toste, the eldest; Earl Morukare the next; Earl Walter the third; Earl Svein the fourth; and the fifth was Harald, who was the youngest, and he was brought up at King Edward's court, and was his foster-son. The king loved him very much, and kept him as his own son; for he had no children. 78. OF HARALD GODWINSON. One summer it happened that Harald, the son of Godwin, made an expedition to Bretland with his ships, but when they got to sea they met a contrary wind, and were driven off into the ocean. They landed west in Normandy, after suffering from a dangerous storm. They brought up at Rouen, where they met Earl William, who received Harald and his company gladly. Harald remained there late in harvest, and was hospitably entertained; for the stormy weather continued, and there was no getting to sea, and this continued until winter set in; so the earl and Harald agreed that he should remain there all winter. Harald sat on the high-seat on one side of the earl; and on the other side sat the earl's wife, one of the most beautiful women that could be seen. They often talked together for amusement at the drinking-table; and the earl went generally to bed, but Harald and the earl's wife sat long in the evenings talking together, and so it went on for a great part of the winter. In one of their conversations she said to Harald, "The earl has asked me what it is we have to talk about so much, for he is angry at it." Harald replies, "We shall then at once let him know all our conversation." The following day, Harald asked the earl to a conference, and they went together into the conference-chamber; where also the queen was, and some of the councillors. Then Harald began thus:--"I have to inform you, earl, that there lies more in my visit here than I have let you know. I would ask your daughter in marriage, and have often spoke over this matter with her mother, and she has promised to support my suit with you." As soon as Harald had made known this proposal of his, it was well received by all who were present. They explained the case to the earl; and at last it came so far that the earl was contracted to Harald, but as she was very young, it was resolved that the wedding should be deferred for some years. 79. KING EDWARD'S DEATH. When spring came Harald rigged his ships and set off; and he and the earl parted with great friendship. Harald sailed over to England to King Edward, but did not return to Valland to fulfill the marriage agreement. Edward was king over England for twenty-three years and died on a bed of sickness in London on the 5th of January, and was buried in Paul's church. Englishmen call him a saint. 80. HARALD GODWINSON MADE KING OF ENGLAND. The sons of Earl Godwin were the most powerful men in England. Toste was made chief of the English king's army, and was his land-defence man when the king began to grow old; and he was also placed above all the other earls. His brother Harald was always with the court itself, and nearest to the king in all service, and had the charge of the king's treasure-chamber. It is said that when the king was approaching his last hour, Harald and a few others were with him. Harald first leans down over the king, and then said, "I take you all to witness that the king has now given me the kingdom, and all the realm of England:" and then the king was taken dead out of the bed. The same day there was a meeting of the chiefs, at which there was some talk of choosing a king; and then Harald brought forward his witnesses that King Edward had given him the kingdom on his dying day. The meeting ended by choosing Harald as king, and he was consecrated and crowned the 13th day of Yule, in Paul's church. Then all the chiefs and all the people submitted to him. Now when his brother, Earl Toste, heard of this he took it very ill, as he thought himself quite as well entitled to be king. "I want," said he, "that the principal men of the country choose him whom they think best fitted for it." And sharp words passed between the brothers. King Harald says he will not give up his kingly dignity, for he is seated on the throne which kings sat upon, and is anointed and consecrated a king. On his side also was the strength of the people, for he had the king's whole treasure. 81. EARL TOSTE'S EXPEDITION TO DENMARK. Now when King Harald perceived that his brother Toste wanted to have him deprived of the kingdom he did not trust him; for Toste was a clever man, and a great warrior, and was in friendship with the principal men of the country. He therefore took the command of the army from Toste, and also all the power he had beyond that of the other earls of the country. Earl Toste, again, would not submit to be his own brother's serving man; therefore he went with his people over the sea to Flanders, and stayed there awhile, then went to Friesland, and from thence to Denmark to his relation King Svein. Earl Ulf, King Svein's father, and Gyda, Earl Toste's mother, were brother's and sister's children. The earl now asked King Svein for support and help of men; and King Svein invited him to stay with him, with the promise that he should get so large an earldom in Denmark that he would be an important chief. The earl replies, "My inclination is to go back to my estate in England; but if I cannot get help from you for that purpose, I will agree to help you with all the power I can command in England, if you will go there with the Danish army, and win the country, as Canute, your mother's brother, did." The king replied, "So much smaller a man am I than Canute the Great, that I can with difficulty defend my own Danish dominions against the Northmen. King Canute, on the other hand, got the Danish kingdom in heritage, took England by slash and blow, and sometimes was near losing his life in the contest; and Norway he took without slash or blow. Now it suits me much better to be guided by my own slender ability than to imitate my relation, King Canute's, lucky hits." Then Earl Toste said, "The result of my errand here is less fortunate than I expected of thee who art so gallant a man, seeing that thy relative is in so great need. It may be that I will seek friendly help where it could less be expected; and that I may find a chief who is less afraid, king, than thou art of a great enterprise." Then the king and the earl parted, not just the best friends. 82. EARL TOSTE'S EXPEDITION TO NORWAY. Earl Toste turned away then and went to Norway, where he presented himself to King Harald, who was at that time in Viken. When they met the earl explained his errand to the king. He told him all his proceedings since he left England, and asked his aid to recover his dominions in England. The king replied that the Northmen had no great desire for a campaign in England, and to have English chiefs over them there. "People say," added he, "that the English are not to be trusted." The earl replied, "Is it true what I have heard people tell in England, that thy relative, King Magnus, sent men to King Edward with the message that King Magnus had right to England as well as to Denmark, and had got that heritage after Hardacanute, in consequence of a regular agreement?" The king replied, "How came it that he did not get it, if he had a right to it?" "Why," replied the earl, "hast thou not Denmark, as King Magnus, thy predecessor, had it?" The king replies, "The Danes have nothing to brag of over us Northmen; for many a place have we laid in ashes to thy relations." Then said the earl, "If thou wilt not tell me, I will tell thee. Magnus subdued Denmark, because all the chiefs of the country helped him; and thou hast not done it, because all the people of the country were against thee. Therefore, also, King Magnus did not strive for England, because all the nation would have Edward for king. Wilt thou take England now? I will bring the matter so far that most of the principal men in England shall be thy friends, and assist thee; for nothing is wanting to place me at the side of my brother Harald but the king's name. All men allow that there never was such a warrior in the northern lands as thou art; and it appears to me extraordinary that thou hast been fighting for fifteen years for Denmark, and wilt not take England that lies open to thee." King Harald weighed carefully the earl's words, and perceived at once that there was truth in much of what he said; and he himself had also a great desire to acquire dominions. Then King Harald and the earl talked long and frequently together; and at last he took the resolution to proceed in summer to England, and conquer the country. King Harald sent a message-token through all Norway and ordered out a levy of one-half of all the men in Norway able to carry arms. When this became generally known, there were many guesses about what might be the end of this expedition. Some reckoned up King Harald's great achievements, and thought he was also the man who could accomplish this. Others, again, said that England was difficult to attack; that it was very full of people; and the men-at-arms, who were called Thingmen, were so brave, that one of them was better than two of Harald's best men. Then said Ulf the marshal:-- "I am still ready gold to gain; But truly it would be in vain, And the king's marshal in the hall Might leave his good post once for all, If two of us in any strife Must for one Thingman fly for life, My lovely Norse maid, in my youth We thought the opposite the truth." Ulf the marshal died that spring (A.D. 1066). King Harald stood over his grave, and said, as he was leaving it, "There lies now the truest of men, and the most devoted to his king." Earl Toste sailed in spring west to Flanders, to meet the people who had left England with him, and others besides who had gathered to him both out of England and Flanders. 83. GYRD'S DREAMS. King Harald's fleet assembled at the Solunds. When King Harald was ready to leave Nidaros he went to King Olaf's shrine, unlocked it, clipped his hair and nails, and locked the shrine again, and threw the keys into the Nid. Some say he threw them overboard outside of Agdanes; and since then the shrine of Saint Olaf, the king, has never been opened. Thirty-five years had passed since he was slain; and he lived thirty-five years here on earth (A.D. 1080-1066). King Harald sailed with his ships he had about him to the south to meet his people, and a great fleet was collected; so that, according to the people's reckoning, King Harald had nearly 200 ships beside provision-ships and small craft. While they lay at the Solunds a man called Gyrd, on board the king's ship, had a dream. He thought he was standing in the king's ship and saw a great witch-wife standing on the island, with a fork in one hand and a trough in the other. He thought also that he saw over all the fleet, and that a fowl was sitting upon every ship's stern, and that these fowls were all ravens or ernes; and the witch-wife sang this song:-- "From the east I'll 'tice the king, To the west the king I'll bring; Many a noble bone will be Ravens o'er Giuke's ship are fitting, Eyeing the prey they think most fitting. Upon the stem I'll sail with them! Upon the stem I'll sail with them!" 84. THORD'S DREAM. There was also a man called Thord, in a ship which lay not far from the king's. He dreamt one night that he saw King Harald's fleet coming to land, and he knew the land to be England. He saw a great battle-array on the land; and he thought both sides began to fight, and had many banners flapping in the air. And before the army of the people of the country was riding a huge witch-wife upon a wolf; and the wolf had a man's carcass in his mouth, and the blood was dropping from his jaws; and when he had eaten up one body she threw another into his mouth, and so one after another, and he swallowed them all. And she sang thus:-- "Skade's eagle eyes The king's ill luck espies: Though glancing shields Hide the green fields, The king's ill luck she spies. To bode the doom of this great king, The flesh of bleeding men I fling To hairy jaw and hungry maw! To hairy jaw and hungry maw!" 85. KING HARALD'S DREAM. King Harald also dreamt one night that he was in Nidaros, and met his brother, King Olaf, who sang to him these verses:-- "In many a fight My name was bright; Men weep, and tell How Olaf fell. Thy death is near; Thy corpse, I fear, The crow will feed, The witch-wife's steed." Many other dreams and forebodings were then told of, and most of them gloomy. Before King Harald left Throndhjem, he let his son Magnus be proclaimed king and set him as king over Norway while he was absent. Thora, the daughter of Thorberg, also remained behind; but he took with him Queen Ellisif and her two daughters, Maria and Ingegerd. Olaf, King Harald's son, also accompanied his father abroad. 86. BATTLE AT SCARBOROUGH. When King Harald was clear for sea, and the wind became favourable, he sailed out into the ocean; and he himself landed in Shetland, but a part of his fleet in the Orkney Islands. King Harald stopped but a short time in Shetland before sailing to Orkney, from whence he took with him a great armed force, and the earls Paul and Erlend, the sons of Earl Thorfin; but he left behind him here the Queen Ellisif, and her daughters Maria and Ingegerd. Then he sailed, leaving Scotland and England westward of him, and landed at a place called Klifland. There he went on shore and plundered, and brought the country in subjection to him without opposition. Then he brought up at Skardaburg, and fought with the people of the place. He went up a hill which is there, and made a great pile upon it, which he set on fire; and when the pile was in clear flame, his men took large forks and pitched the burning wood down into the town, so that one house caught fire after the other, and the town surrendered. The Northmen killed many people there and took all the booty they could lay hold of. There was nothing left for the Englishmen now, if they would preserve their lives, but to submit to King Harald; and thus he subdued the country wherever he came. Then the king proceeded south along the land, and brought up at Hellornes, where there came a force that had been assembled to oppose him, with which he had a battle, and gained the victory. 87. OF HARALD'S ORDER OF BATTLE. Thereafter the king sailed to the Humber, and up along the river, and then he landed. Up in Jorvik were two earls, Earl Morukare, and his brother, Earl Valthiof, and they had an immense army. While the army of the earls was coming down from the upper part of the country, King Harald lay in the Usa. King Harald now went on the land, and drew up his men. The one arm of this line stood at the outer edge of the river, the other turned up towards the land along a ditch; and there was also a morass, deep, broad, and full of water. The earls let their army proceed slowly down along the river, with all their troops in line. The king's banner was next the river, where the line was thickest. It was thinnest at the ditch, where also the weakest of the men were. When the earls advanced downwards along the ditch, the arm of the Northmen's line which was at the ditch gave way; and the Englishmen followed, thinking the Northmen would fly. The banner of Earl Morukare advanced then bravely. 88. THE BATTLE AT THE HUMBER. When King Harald saw that the English array had come to the ditch against him, he ordered the charge to be sounded, and urged on his men. He ordered the banner which was called the Land-ravager to be carried before him, and made so severe an assault that all had to give way before it; and there was a great loss among the men of the earls, and they soon broke into flight, some running up the river, some down, and the most leaping into the ditch, which was so filled with dead that the Norsemen could go dry-foot over the fen. There Earl Morukare fell. So says Stein Herdison:-- "The gallant Harald drove along, Flying but fighting, the whole throng. At last, confused, they could not fight, And the whole body took to flight. Up from the river's silent stream At once rose desperate splash and scream; But they who stood like men this fray Round Morukare's body lay." This song was composed by Stein Herdison about Olaf, son of King Harald; and he speaks of Olaf being in this battle with King Harald, his father. These things are also spoken of in the song called "Harald's Stave":-- "Earl Valthiof's men Lay in the fen, By sword down hewed, So thickly strewed, That Norsemen say They paved a way Across the fen For the brave Norsemen." Earl Valthiof, and the people who escaped, fled up to the castle of York; and there the greatest loss of men had been. This battle took place upon the Wednesday next Mathias' day (A.D. 1066). 89. OF EARL TOSTE. Earl Toste had come from Flanders to King Harald as soon as he arrived in England, and the earl was present at all these battles. It happened, as he had foretold the king at their first meeting, that in England many people would flock to them, as being friends and relations of Earl Toste, and thus the king's forces were much strengthened. After the battle now told of, all people in the nearest districts submitted to Harald, but some fled. Then the king advanced to take the castle, and laid his army at Stanforda-bryggiur (Stamford Bridge); and as King Harald had gained so great a victory against so great chiefs and so great an army, the people were dismayed, and doubted if they could make any opposition. The men of the castle therefore determined, in a council, to send a message to King Harald, and deliver up the castle into his power. All this was soon settled; so that on Sunday the king proceeded with the whole army to the castle, and appointed a Thing of the people without the castle, at which the people of the castle were to be present. At this Thing all the people accepted the condition of submitting to Harald, and gave him, as hostages, the children of the most considerable persons; for Earl Toste was well acquainted with all the people of that town. In the evening the king returned down to his ships, after this victory achieved with his own force, and was very merry. A Thing was appointed within the castle early on Monday morning, and then King Harald was to name officers to rule over the town, to give out laws, and bestow fiefs. The same evening, after sunset, King Harald Godwinson came from the south to the castle with a numerous army, and rode into the city with the good-will and consent of the people of the castle. All the gates and walls were beset so that the Northmen could receive no intelligence, and the army remained all night in the town. 90. OF KING HARALD'S LANDING. On Monday, when King Harald Sigurdson had taken breakfast, he ordered the trumpets to sound for going on shore. The army accordingly got ready, and he divided the men into the parties who should go, and who should stay behind. In every division he allowed two men to land, and one to remain behind. Earl Toste and his retinue prepared to land with King Harald; and, for watching the ships, remained behind the king's son Olaf; the earls of Orkney, Paul and Erlend; and also Eystein Orre, a son of Thorberg Arnason, who was the most able and best beloved by the king of all the lendermen, and to whom the king had promised his daughter Maria. The weather was uncommonly fine, and it was hot sunshine. The men therefore laid aside their armour, and went on the land only with their shields, helmets and spears, and girt with swords; and many had also arrows and bows, and all were very merry. Now as they came near the castle a great army seemed coming against them, and they saw a cloud of dust as from horses' feet, and under it shining shields and bright armour. The king halted his people, and called to him Earl Toste, and asked him what army this could be. The earl replied that he thought it most likely to be a hostle army, but possibly it might be some of his relations who were seeking for mercy and friendship, in order to obtain certain peace and safety from the king. Then the king said, "We must all halt, to discover what kind of a force this is." They did so; and the nearer this force came the greater it appeared, and their shining arms were to the sight like glancing ice. 91. OF EARL TOSTE'S COUNSEL. Then said King Harald, "Let us now fall upon some good sensible counsel; for it is not to be concealed that this is an hostile army and the king himself without doubt is here." Then said the earl, "The first counsel is to turn about as fast as we can to our ships to get our men and our weapons, and then we will make a defence according to our ability; or otherwise let our ships defend us, for there these horsemen have no power over us." Then King Harald said, "I have another counsel. Put three of our best horses under three of our briskest lads and let them ride with all speed to tell our people to come quickly to our relief. The Englishmen shall have a hard fray of it before we give ourselves up for lost." The earl said the king must order in this, as in all things, as he thought best; adding, at the same time, it was by no means his wish to fly. Then King Harald ordered his banner Land-ravager to be set up; and Frirek was the name of him who bore the banner. 92. OF KING HARALD'S ARMY. Then King Harald arranged his army, and made the line of battle long, but not deep. He bent both wings of it back, so that they met together; and formed a wide ring equally thick all round, shield to shield, both in the front and rear ranks. The king himself and his retinue were within the circle; and there was the banner, and a body of chosen men. Earl Toste, with his retinue, was at another place, and had a different banner. The army was arranged in this way, because the king knew that horsemen were accustomed to ride forwards with great vigour, but to turn back immediately. Now the king ordered that his own and the earl's attendants should ride forwards where it was most required. "And our bowmen," said he, "shall be near to us; and they who stand in the first rank shall set the spear-shaft on the ground, and the spear-point against the horseman's breast, if he rides at them; and those who stand in the second rank shall set the spear-point against the horse's breast." 93. OF KING HARALD GODWINSON. King Harald Godwinson had come with an immense army, both of cavalry and infantry. Now King Harald Sigurdson rode around his array, to see how every part was drawn up. He was upon a black horse, and the horse stumbled under him, so that the king fell off. He got up in haste and said, "A fall is lucky for a traveller." The English king Harald said to the Northmen who were with him, "Do ye know the stout man who fell from his horse, with the blue kirtle and the beautiful helmet?" "That is the king himself." said they. The English king said, "A great man, and of stately appearance is he; but I think his luck has left him." 94. OF THE TROOP OF THE NOBILITY. Twenty horsemen rode forward from the Thing-men's troops against the Northmen's array; and all of them, and likewise their horses, were clothed in armour. One of the horsemen said, "Is Earl Toste in this army?" The earl answered, "It is not to be denied that ye will find him here." The horseman says, "Thy brother, King Harald, sends thee salutation, with the message that thou shalt have the whole of Northumberland; and rather than thou shouldst not submit to him, he will give thee the third part of his kingdom to rule over along with himself." The earl replies, "This is something different from the enmity and scorn he offered last winter; and if this had been offered then it would have saved many a man's life who now is dead, and it would have been better for the kingdom of England. But if I accept of this offer, what will he give King Harald Sigurdson for his trouble?" The horseman replied, "He has also spoken of this; and will give him seven feet of English ground, or as much more as he may be taller than other men." "Then," said the earl, "go now and tell King Harald to get ready for battle; for never shall the Northmen say with truth that Earl Toste left King Harald Sigurdson to join his enemy's troops, when he came to fight west here in England. We shall rather all take the resolution to die with honour, or to gain England by a victory." Then the horseman rode back. King Harald Sigurdson said to the earl, "Who was the man who spoke so well?" The earl replied, "That was King Harald Godwinson." Then, said King Harald Sigurdson, "That was by far too long concealed from me; for they had come so near to our army, that this Harald should never have carried back the tidings of our men's slaughter." Then said the earl, "It was certainly imprudent for such chiefs, and it may be as you say; but I saw he was going to offer me peace and a great dominion, and that, on the other hand, I would be his murderer if I betrayed him; and I would rather he should be my murderer than I his, if one of two be to die." King Harald Sigurdson observed to his men, "That was but a little man, yet he sat firmly in his stirrups." It is said that Harald made these verses at this time:-- "Advance! advance! No helmets glance, But blue swords play In our array. Advance! advance! No mail-coats glance, But hearts are here That ne'er knew fear." His coat of mail was called Emma; and it was so long that it reached almost to the middle of his leg, and so strong that no weapon ever pierced it. Then said King Harald Sigurdson, "These verses are but ill composed; I must try to make better;" and he composed the following:-- "In battle storm we seek no lee, With skulking head, and bending knee, Behind the hollow shield. With eye and hand we fend the head; Courage and skill stand in the stead Of panzer, helm, and shield, In hild's bloody field." Thereupon Thiodolf sang:-- "And should our king in battle fall,-- A fate that God may give to all,-- His sons will vengeance take; And never shone the sun upon Two nobler eaglet; in his run, And them we'll never forsake." 95. OF THE BEGINNING OF THE BATTLE. Now the battle began. The Englishmen made a hot assault upon the Northmen, who sustained it bravely. It was no easy matter for the English to ride against the Northmen on account of their spears; therefore they rode in a circle around them. And the fight at first was but loose and light, as long as the Northmen kept their order of battle; for although the English rode hard against the Northmen, they gave way again immediately, as they could do nothing against them. Now when the Northmen thought they perceived that the enemy were making but weak assaults, they set after them, and would drive them into flight; but when they had broken their shield-rampart the Englishmen rode up from all sides, and threw arrows and spears on them. Now when King Harald Sigurdson saw this, he went into the fray where the greatest crash of weapons was, and there was a sharp conflict, in which many people fell on both sides. King Harald then was in a rage, and ran out in front of the array, and hewed down with both hands; so that neither helmet nor armour could withstand him, and all who were nearest gave way before him. It was then very near with the English that they had taken to flight. So says Arnor, the earls' skald:-- "Where battle-storm was ringing, Where arrow-cloud was singing, Harald stood there, Of armour bare, His deadly sword still swinging. The foeman feel its bite; His Norsemen rush to fight, Danger to share, With Harald there, Where steel on steel was ringing." 96. FALL OF KING HARALD. King Harald Sigurdson was hit by an arrow in the windpipe, and that was his death-wound. He fell, and all who had advanced with him, except those who retired with the banner. There was afterwards the warmest conflict, and Earl Toste had taken charge of the king's banner. They began on both sides to form their array again, and for a long time there was a pause in fighting. Then Thiodolf sang these verses:-- "The army stands in hushed dismay; Stilled is the clamour of the fray. Harald is dead, and with him goes The spirit to withstand our foes. A bloody scat the folk must pay For their king's folly on this day. He fell; and now, without disguise, We say this business was not wise." But before the battle began again Harald Godwinson offered his brother, Earl Toste, peace, and also quarter to the Northmen who were still alive; but the Northmen called out, all of them together, that they would rather fall, one across the other, than accept of quarter from the Englishmen. Then each side set up a war-shout, and the battle began again. So says Arnor, the earls' skald:-- "The king, whose name would ill-doers scare, The gold-tipped arrow would not spare. Unhelmed, unpanzered, without shield, He fell among us in the field. The gallant men who saw him fall Would take no quarter; one and all Resolved to die with their loved king, Around his corpse in a corpse-ring." 97. SKIRMISH OF ORRE. Eystein Orre came up at this moment from the ships with the men who followed him, and all were clad in armour. Then Eystein got King Harald's banner Land-ravager; and now was, for the third time, one of the sharpest of conflicts, in which many Englishmen fell, and they were near to taking flight. This conflict is called Orre's storm. Eystein and his men had hastened so fast from the ships that they were quite exhausted, and scarcely fit to fight before they came into the battle; but afterwards they became so furious, that they did not guard themselves with their shields as long as they could stand upright. At last they threw off their coats of ringmail, and then the Englishmen could easily lay their blows at them; and many fell from weariness, and died without a wound. Thus almost all the chief men fell among the Norway people. This happened towards evening; and then it went, as one might expect, that all had not the same fate, for many fled, and were lucky enough to escape in various ways; and darkness fell before the slaughter was altogether ended. 98. OF STYRKAR THE MARSHAL. Styrkar, King Harald Sigurdson's marshal, a gallant man, escaped upon a horse, on which he rode away in the evening. It was blowing a cold wind, and Styrkar had not much other clothing upon him but his shirt, and had a helmet on his head, and a drawn sword in his hand. As soon as his weariness was over, he began to feel cold. A waggoner met him in a lined skin-coat. Styrkar asks him, "Wilt thou sell thy coat, friend?" "Not to thee," says the peasant: "thou art a Northman; that I can hear by thy tongue." Styrkar replies, "If I were a Northman, what wouldst thou do?" "I would kill thee," replied the peasant; "but as ill luck would have it, I have no weapon just now by me that would do it." Then Styrkar says, "As you can't kill me, friend, I shall try if I can't kill you." And with that he swung his sword, and struck him on the neck, so that his head came off. He then took the skin-coat, sprang on his horse, and rode down to the strand. Olaf Haraldson had not gone on land with the others, and when he heard of his father's fall he made ready to sail away with the men who remained. 99. OF WILLIAM THE BASTARD. When the Earl of Rouen, William the Bastard, heard of his relation, King Edward's, death, and also that Harald Godwinson was chosen, crowned, and consecrated king of England, it appeared to him that he had a better right to the kingdom of England than Harald, by reason of the relationship between him and King Edward. He thought, also, that he had grounds for avenging the affront that Harald had put upon him with respect to his daughter. From all these grounds William gathered together a great army in Normandy, and had many men, and sufficient transport-shipping. The day that he rode out of the castle to his ships, and had mounted his horse, his wife came to him, and wanted to speak with him; but when he saw her he struck at her with his heel, and set his spurs so deep into her breast that she fell down dead; and the earl rode on to his ships, and went with his ships over to England. His brother, Archbishop Otto, was with him; and when the earl came to England he began to plunder, and take possession of the land as he came along. Earl William was stouter and stronger than other men; a great horseman and warrior, but somewhat stern; and a very sensible man, but not considered a man to be relied on. 100. FALL OF KING HARALD GODWINSON. King Harald Godwinson gave King Harald Sigurdson's son Olaf leave to go away, with the men who had followed him and had not fallen in battle; but he himself turned round with his army to go south, for he had heard that William the Bastard was overwhelming the south of England with a vast army, and was subduing the country for himself. With King Harald went his brothers Svein and Gyrd, and Earl Valthiof. King Harald and Earl William met each other south in England at Helsingja-port (Hastings). There was a great battle in which King Harald and his brother Earl Gyrd and a great part of his men fell. This was the nineteenth day after the fall of King Harald Sigurdson. Harald's brother, Earl Valthiof, escaped by flight, and towards evening fell in with a division of William's people, consisting of 100 men; and when they saw Earl Valthiof's troop they fled to a wood. Earl Valthiof set fire to the wood, and they were all burnt. So says Thorkel Skallason in Valthiof's ballad:-- "Earl Valthiof the brave His foes a warming gave: Within the blazing grove A hundred men he drove. The wolf will soon return, And the witch's horse will burn Her sharp claws in the ash, To taste the Frenchman's flesh." 101. EARL VALTHIOF'S DEATH. William was proclaimed king of England. He sent a message to Earl Valthiof that they should be reconciled, and gave him assurance of safety to come to the place of meeting. The earl set out with a few men; but when he came to a heath north of Kastala-bryggia, there met him two officers of King William, with many followers, who took him prisoner, put him in fetters, and afterwards he was beheaded; and the English call him a saint. Thorkel tells of this:-- "William came o'er the sea, With bloody sword came he: Cold heart and bloody hand Now rule the English land. Earl Valthiof he slew,-- Valthiof the brave and true. Cold heart and bloody hand Now rule the English land." William was after this king of England for twenty-one years, and his descendants have been so ever since. 102. OF OLAF HARALDSON'S EXPEDITION TO NORWAY. Olaf, the son of King Harald Sigurdson, sailed with his fleet from England from Hrafnseyr, and came in autumn to the Orkney Isles, where the event had happened that Maria, a daughter of Harald Sigurdson, died a sudden death the very day and hour her father, King Harald, fell. Olaf remained there all winter; but the summer after he proceeded east to Norway, where he was proclaimed king along with his brother Magnus. Queen Ellisif came from the West, along with her stepson Olaf and her daughter Ingegerd. There came also with Olaf over the West sea Skule, a son of Earl Toste, and who since has been called the king's foster-son, and his brother Ketil Krok. Both were gallant men, of high family in England, and both were very intelligent; and the brothers were much beloved by King Olaf. Ketil Krok went north to Halogaland, where King Olaf procured him a good marriage, and from him are descended many great people. Skule, the king's foster-son, was a very clever man, and the handsomest man that could be seen. He was the commander of King Olaf's court-men, spoke at the Things (1) and took part in all the country affairs with the king. The king offered to give Skule whatever district in Norway he liked, with all the income and duties that belonged to the king in it. Skule thanked him very much for the offer, but said he would rather have something else from him. "For if there came a shift of kings," said he, "the gift might come to nothing. I would rather take some properties lying near to the merchant towns, where you, sire, usually take up your abode, and then I would enjoy your Yule-feasts." The king agreed to this, and conferred on him lands eastward at Konungahella, Oslo, Tunsberg, Sarpsborg, Bergen, and north at Nidaros. These were nearly the best properties at each place, and have since descended to the family branches which came from Skule. King Olaf gave Skule his female relative, Gudrun, the daughter of Nefstein, in marriage. Her mother was Ingerid, a daughter of Sigurd Syr and Asta, King Olaf the Saint's mother. Ingerid was a sister of King Olaf the Saint and of King Harald. Skule and Gudrun's son was Asolf of Reine, who married Thora, a daughter of Skopte Ogmundson; Asolf's and Thora's son was Guthorm of Reine, father of Bard, and grandfather of King Inge and of Duke Skule. ENDNOTES: (1) Another instance of the old Norse or Icelandic tongue having been generally known in a part of England. 103. OF KING HARALD SIGURDSON. One year after King Harald's fall his body was transported from England north to Nidaros, and was buried in Mary church, which he had built. It was a common observation that King Harald distinguished himself above all other men by wisdom and resources of mind; whether he had to take a resolution suddenly for himself and others, or after long deliberation. He was, also, above all other men, bold, brave, and lucky, until his dying day, as above related; and bravery is half victory. So says Thiodolf:-- "Harald, who till his dying day Came off the best in many a fray, Had one good rule in battle-plain, In Seeland and elsewhere, to gain-- That, be his foes' strength more or less, Courage is always half success." King Herald was a handsome man, of noble appearance; his hair and beard yellow. He had a short beard, and long mustaches. The one eyebrow was somewhat higher than the other. He had large hands (1) and feet; but these were well made. His height was five ells. He was stern and severe to his enemies, and avenged cruelly all opposition or misdeed. So says Thiodolf:-- "Severe alike to friends or foes, Who dared his royal will oppose; Severe in discipline to hold His men-at-arms wild and bold; Severe the bondes to repress; Severe to punish all excess; Severe was Harald--but we call That just which was alike to all." King Harald was most greedy of power, and of all distinction and honour. He was bountiful to the friends who suited him. So says Thiodolf:-- "I got from him, in sea-fight strong, A mark of gold for my ship-song. Merit in any way He generously would pay." King Harald was fifty years old when he fell. We have no particular account of his youth before he was fifteen years old, when he was with his brother, King Olaf, at the battle of Stiklestad. He lived thirty-five years after that, and in all that time was never free from care and war. King Harald never fled from battle, but often tried cunning ways to escape when he had to do with great superiority of forces. All the men who followed King Harald in battle or skirmish said that when he stood in great danger, or anything came suddenly upon him, he always took that course which all afterwards saw gave the best hope of a fortunate issue. ENDNOTES: (1) It is a singular physical circumstance, that in almost all the swords of those ages to be found in the collection of weapons in the Antiquarian Museum at Copenhagen, the handles indicate a size of hand very much smaller than the hands of modern people of any class or rank. No modern dandy, with the most delicate hands, would find room for his hand to grasp or wield with case some of the swords of these Northmen.--L. 104. KING HARALD AND KING OLAF COMPARED. When Haldor, a son of Brynjolf Ulfalde the Old, who was a sensible man and a great chief, heard people talk of how unlike the brothers Saint Olaf and King Harald were in disposition, he used to say, "I was in great friendship with both the brothers, and I knew intimately the dispositions of both, and never did I know two men more like in disposition. Both were of the highest understanding, and bold in arms, and greedy of power and property; of great courage, but not acquainted with the way of winning the favour of the people; zealous in governing, and severe in their revenge. King Olaf forced the people into Christianity and good customs, and punished cruelly those who disobeyed. This just and rightful severity the chiefs of the country could not bear, but raised an army against him, and killed him in his own kingdom; and therefore he is held to be a saint. King Harald, again, marauded to obtain glory and power, forced all the people he could under his power, and died in another king's dominions. Both brothers, in daily life, were of a worthy and considerate manner of living; they were of great experience, and very laborious, and were known and celebrated far and wide for these qualities." 105. KING MAGNUS'S DEATH. King Magnus Haraldson ruled over Norway the first winter after King Harald's death (A.D. 1067), and afterwards two years (A.D. 1068-1069) along with his brother, King Olaf. Thus there were two kings of Norway at that time; and Magnus had the northern and Olaf the eastern part of the country. King Magnus had a son called Hakon, who was fostered by Thorer of Steig in Gudbrandsdal, who was a brother of King Magnus by the mother's side; and Hakon was a most agreeable man. After King Harald Sigurdson's death the Danish king Svein let it be known that the peace between the Northmen and the Danes was at an end, and insisted that the league between Harald and Svein was not for longer time than their lives. There was a levy in both kingdoms. Harald's sons called out the whole people in Norway for procuring men and ships, and Svein set out from the south with the Danish army. Messengers then went between with proposals for a peace; and the Northmen said they would either have the same league as was concluded between King Harald and Svein, or otherwise give battle instantly on the spot. Verses were made on this occasion, viz.:-- "Ready for war or peace, King Olaf will not cease From foeman's hand To guard his land." So says also Stein Herdison in his song of Olaf:-- "From Throndhjem town, where in repose The holy king defies his foes, Another Olaf will defend His kingdom from the greedy Svein. King Olaf had both power and right, And the Saint's favour in the fight. The Saint will ne'er his kin forsake, And let Svein Ulfson Norway take." In this manner friendship was concluded between the kings and peace between the countries. King Magnus fell ill and died of the ringworm disease, after being ill for some time. He died and was buried at Nidaros. He was an amiable king and bewailed by the people. SAGA OF OLAF KYRRE. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. Snorri's account of Olaf Kyrre corresponds with the statements found in "Agrip", "Fagrskinna", and "Morkinskinna". There are but few events in Olaf's long reign, and hence he is very appropriately called the Quiet (Kyrre). As Hildebrand says, this saga seems to be written simply to fill out the empty space between Harald Hardrade and Magnus Barefoot. Skalds quoted in this saga are: Stein Herdison and Stuf. 1. OLAF'S PERSONAL APPEARANCE. Olaf remained sole king of Norway after the death (A.D. 1069) of his brother King Magnus. Olaf was a stout man, well grown in limbs; and every one said a handsomer man could not be seen, nor of a nobler appearance. His hair was yellow as silk, and became him well; his skin was white and fine over all his body; his eyes beautiful, and his limbs well proportioned. He was rather silent in general, and did not speak much even at Things; but he was merry in drinking parties. He loved drinking much, and was talkative enough then; but quite peaceful. He was cheerful in conversation, peacefully inclined during all his reign, and loving gentleness and moderation in all things. Stein Herdison speaks thus of him:-- "Our Throndhjem king is brave and wise, His love of peace our bondes prize; By friendly word and ready hand He holds good peace through every land. He is for all a lucky star; England he frightens from a war; The stiff-necked Danes he drives to peace; Troubles by his good influence cease." 2. OF KING OLAF'S MANNER OF LIVING. It was the fashion in Norway in old times for the king's high-seat to be on the middle of a long bench, and the ale was handed across the fire (1); but King Olaf had his high-seat made on a high bench across the room; he also first had chimney-places in the rooms, and the floors strewed both summer and winter. In King Olaf's time many merchant towns arose in Norway, and many new ones were founded. Thus King Olaf founded a merchant town at Bergen, where very soon many wealthy people settled themselves, and it was regularly frequented by merchants from foreign lands. He had the foundations laid for the large Christ church, which was to be a stone church; but in his time there was little done to it. Besides, he completed the old Christ church, which was of wood. King Olaf also had a great feasting-house built in Nidaros, and in many other merchant towns, where before there were only private feasts; and in his time no one could drink in Norway but in these houses, adorned for the purpose with branches and leaves, and which stood under the king's protection. The great guild-bell in Throndhjem, which was called the pride of the town, tolled to call together to these guilds. The guild-brethren built Margaret's church in Nidaros of stone. In King Olaf's time there were general entertainments and hand-in-hand feasts. At this time also much unusual splendour and foreign customs and fashions in the cut of clothes were introduced; as, for instance, costly hose plaited about the legs. Some had gold rings about the legs, and also used coats which had lists down the sides, and arms five ells long, and so narrow that they must be drawn up with ties, and lay in folds all the way up to the shoulders. The shoes were high, and all edged with silk, or even with gold. Many other kinds of wonderful ornaments were used at that time. ENDNOTES: (1) We may understand the arrangement by supposing the fire in the middle of the room, the smoke escaping by a hole in the roof, and a long bench on each side of the fire; one bench occupied by the high-seat of the king and great guests, the other by the rest of the guests; and the cup handed across the fire, which appears to have had a religious meaning previous to the introduction of Christianity.--L. 3. FASHION OF KING OLAF'S COURT. King Olaf used the fashion, which was introduced from the courts of foreign kings, of letting his grand-butler stand at the end of the table, and fill the table-cups for himself and the other distinguished guests who sat at the table. He had also torch-bearers, who held as many candles at the table as there were guests of distinction present. There was also a marshal's bench outside of the table-circle, where the marshal and other persons of distinction sat with their faces towards the high-seat. King Harald, and the kings before him, used to drink out of deer-horn; and the ale was handed from the high-seat to the otherside over the fire, and he drank to the memory of any one he thought of. So says Stuf the skald:-- "He who in battle is the first, And now in peace is best to trust, A welcome, hearty and sincere, Gave to me on my coming here. He whom the ravens watch with care, He who the gold rings does not spare, A golden horn full to the brink Gave me himself at Haug to drink." 4. ARRANGEMENT OF KING OLAF'S COURT. King Olaf had 120 courtmen-at-arms, and 60 pursuivants, besides 60 house-servants, who provided what was wanted for the king's house wherever it might be, or did other work required for the king. When the bondes asked why he kept a greater retinue than the law allowed, or former kings kept when they went in guest-quarters or feasts which the bondes had to provide for them, the king answered, "It does not happen that I rule the kingdom better, or produce greater respect for me than ye had for my father, although I have one-half more people than he had. I do not by any means do it merely to plague you, or to make your condition harder than formerly." 5. KING SVEIN ULFSON'S DEATH. King Svein Ulfson died ten years after the fall of both the Haralds (A.D. 1076). After him his son, Harald Hein, was king for three years (A.D. 1077-1080); then Canute the Holy for seven years (A.D. 1081-1087); afterwards Olaf, King Svein's third son, for eight years (A.D. 1088-1095). Then Eirik the Good, Svein's fourth son, for eight winters (A.D. 1096-1103). Olaf, the king of Norway, was married to Ingerid, a daughter of Svein, the Danish king; and Olaf, the Danish King Svein's son, married Ingegerd, a daughter of King Harald, and sister of King Olaf of Norway. King Olaf Haraldson, who was called by some Olaf Kyrre, but by many Olaf the Bonde, had a son by Thora, Joan's daughter, who was called Magnus, and was one of the handsomest lads that could be seen, and was promising in every respect. He was brought up in the king's court. 6. MIRACLES OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. King Olaf had a church of stone built in Nidaros, on the spot where King Olaf's body had first been buried, and the altar was placed directly over the spot where the king's grave had been. This church was consecrated and called Christ Church; and King Olaf's shrine was removed to it, and was placed before the altar, and many miracles took place there. The following summer, on the same day of the year as the church was consecrated, which was the day before Olafsmas, there was a great assemblage of people, and then a blind man was restored to sight. And on the mass-day itself, when the shrine and the holy relics were taken out and carried, and the shrine itself, according to custom, was taken and set down in the churchyard, a man who had long been dumb recovered his speech again, and sang with flowing tongue praise-hymns to God, and to the honour of King Olaf the Saint. The third miracle was of a woman who had come from Svithjod, and had suffered much distress on this pilgrimage from her blindness; but trusting in God's mercy, had come travelling to this solemnity. She was led blind into the church to hear mass this day; but before the service was ended she saw with both eyes, and got her sight fully and clearly, although she had been blind fourteen years. She returned with great joy, praising God and King Olaf the Saint. 7. OF THE SHRINE OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. There happened a circumstance in Nidaros, when King Olaf's coffin was being carried about through the streets, that it became so heavy that people could not lift it from the spot. Now when the coffin was set down, the street was broken up to see what was under it at that spot, and the body of a child was found which had been murdered and concealed there. The body was carried away, the street put in order again as it had been before, and the shrine carried on according to custom. 8. KING OLAF WAS BLESSED WITH PEACE. In the days of King Olaf there were bountiful harvests in Norway and many good things. In no man's life had times been so good in Norway since the days of Harald Harfager. King Olaf modified for the better many a matter that his father had inaugurated and maintained with severity. He was generous, but a strict ruler, for he was a wise man, and well understood what was of advantage to the kingdom. There are many stories of his good works. How much he loved and how kind he was to the people may be seen from the following words, which he once spoke at a large banquet. He was happy and in the best of spirits, when one of his men said, "It pleases us, sire, to see you so happy." He answered: "I have reason to be glad when I see my subjects sitting happy and free in a guild consecrated to my uncle, the sainted King Olaf. In the days of my father these people were subjected to much terror and fear; the most of them concealed their gold and their precious things, but now I see glittering on his person what each one owns, and your freedom is my gladness." In his reign there was no strife, and he protected himself and his realm against enemies abroad; and his nearest neighbours stood in great awe of him, although he was a most gentle man, as is confirmed by the skald. 9. MEETING OF OLAF KYRRE AND CANUTE THE SAINT. King Olaf Kyrre was a great friend of his brother-in-law, the Danish king, Canute the holy. They appointed a meeting and met at the Gaut river at Konungahella, where the kings used to have their meetings. There King Canute made the proposal that they should send an army westward to England on account of the revenge they had to take there; first and foremost King Olaf himself, and also the Danish king. "Do one of two things," said King Canute,--"either take sixty ships, which I will furnish thee with, and be thou the leader; or give me sixty ships, and I shall be the leader." Then said King Olaf, "This speech of thine, King Canute, is altogether according to my mind; but there is this great difference between us; your family has had more luck in conquering England with great glory, and, among others, King Canute the Great; and it is likely that this good fortune follows your race. On the other hand, when King Harald, my father, went westward to England, he got his death there; and at that time the best men in Norway followed him. But Norway was so emptied then of chosen men, that such men have not since been to find in the country; for that expedition there was the most excellent outfit, and you know what was the end of it. Now I know my own capacity, and how little I am suited to be the leader; so I would rather you should go, with my help and assistance." So King Olaf gave Canute sixty large ships, with excellent equipment and faithful men, and set his lendermen as chiefs over them; and all must allow that this armament was admirably equipt. It is also told in the saga about Canute, that the Northmen alone did not break the levy when the army was assembled, but the Danes would not obey their king's orders. This king Canute acknowledged, and gave them leave to trade in merchandise where they pleased through his country, and at the same time sent the king of Norway costly presents for his assistance. On the other hand he was enraged against the Danes, and laid heavy fines upon them. 10. A BONDE WHO UNDERSTOOD THE LANGUAGE OF BIRDS. One summer, when King Olaf's men had gone round the country collecting his income and land dues, it happened that the king, on their return home asked them where on their expedition they had been best entertained. They said it was in the house of a bonde in one of the king's districts. "There is an old bonde there who knows many things before they happen. We asked him about many things, which he explained to us; nay, we even believe that he understands perfectly the language of birds." The king replies, "How can ye believe such nonsense?" and insisted that it was wrong to put confidence in such things. It happened soon after that the king was sailing along the coast; and as they sailed through a Sound the king said, "What is that township up in the country?" They replied, "That is the district, sire, where we told you we were best entertained." Then said the king, "What house is that which stands up there, not far from the Sound?" They replied, "That house belongs to the wise old bonde we told you of, sire." They saw now a horse standing close to the house. Then said the king, "Go there, and take that horse, and kill him." They replied, "We would not like to do him such harm." The king: "I will command. Cut off the horse's head; but take care of yourselves that ye let no blood come to the ground, and bear the horse out to my ship. Go then and bring to me the old man; but tell him nothing of what has happened, as ye shall answer for it with your lives." They did as they were ordered, and then came to the old man, and told him the king's message. When he came before the king, the king asked him, "Who owns the house thou art dwelling in?" He replies, "Sire, you own it, and take rent for it." The king: "Show us the way round the ness, for here thou must be a good pilot." The old man went into his boat and rowed before the king's ship; and when he had rowed a little way a crow came flying over the ship, and croaking hideously. The peasant listens to the crow. The king said, "Do you think, bonde, that betokens anything?" "Sire, that is certain," said he. Then another crow flies over the ship, and screeches dreadfully. The bonde was so ill hearing this that he could not row, and the oars hung loose in his hands. Then said the king, "Thy mind is turned much to these crows, bonde, and to what they say." The bonde replies, "Now I suspect it is true what they say." The third time the crow came flying screeching at its very worst, and almost settling on the ship. Now the bonde threw down his oars, regarded them no more, and stood up before the king. Then the king said, "Thou art taking this much to heart, bonde; what is it they say?" The peasant--"It is likely that either they or I have misunderstood--" "Say on," replied the king. The bonde replied in a song:-- "The 'one-year old' Mere nonsense told; The 'two-years' chatter Seemed senseless matter; The three-years' croak Of wonders spoke. The foul bird said My old mare's head I row along; And, in her song, She said the thief Was the land's chief." The king said, "What is this, bonde! Wilt thou call me a thief?" Then the king gave him good presents, and remitted all the land-rent of the place he lived on. So says Stein:-- "The pillar of our royal race Stands forth adorned with every grace. What king before e'er took such pride To scatter bounty far and wide? Hung round with shields that gleam afar; The merchant ship on one bestows, With painted streaks in glowing rows. "The man-at-arms a golden ring Boasts as the present of his king; At the king's table sits the guest, By the king's bounty richly drest. King Olaf, Norway's royal son, Who from the English glory won, Pours out with ready-giving hand His wealth on children of the land. "Brave clothes to servants he awards, Helms and ring-mail coats grace his guards; Or axe and sword Har's warriors gain, And heavy armour for the plain. Gold, too, for service duly paid, Red gold all pure, and duly weighed, King Olaf gives--he loves to pay All service in a royal way." 11. OF KING OLAF KYRRE'S DEATH. King Olaf lived principally in his domains on his large farms. Once when he was east in Ranrike, on his estate of Haukby, he took the disease which ended in his death. He had then been king of Norway for twenty-six years (A.D. 1068-1093); for he was made king of Norway the year after King Harald's death. King Olaf's body was taken north to Nidaros, and buried in Christ church, which he himself had built there. He was the most amiable king of his time, and Norway was much improved in riches and cultivation during his reign. MAGNUS BAREFOOT'S SAGA. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. The greater part of the contents of this saga is also found in "Agrip", "Fagrskinna", and "Morkinskinna". Magnus and his cousin Hakon became kings in 1093, but Hakon ruled only two years and died in 1095. King Magnus fell in the year 1103. Skalds quoted are: Bjorn Krephende, Thorkel Hamarskald, and Eldjarn. 1. BEGINNING OF THE REIGN OF KING MAGNUS AND HIS COUSIN HAKON. Magnus, King Olaf's son, was, immediately after King Olaf's death, proclaimed at Viken king of all Norway; but the Upland people, on hearing of King Olaf's death, chose Hakon, Thorer's foster-son, a cousin of King Magnus, as king. Thereupon Hakon and Thorer went north to the Throndhjem country, and when they came to Nidaros they summoned the Eyrathing; and at that Thing Hakon desired the bondes to give him the kingly title, which was agreed to, and the Throndhjem people proclaimed him king of half of Norway, as his father, King Magnus, had been before. Hakon relieved the Throndhjem people of all harbour duties, and gave them many other privileges. He did away with Yule-gifts, and gained by this the good-will of all the Throndhjem people. Thereafter Hakon formed a court, and then proceeded to the Uplands, where he gave the Upland people the same privileges as the Throndhjem people; so that they also were perfectly well affected to him, and were his friends. The people in Throndhjem sang this ballad about him:-- "Young Hakon was the Norseman's pride, And Steig-Thorer was on his side. Young Hakon from the Upland came, With royal birth, and blood, and name. Young Hakon from the king demands His royal birthright, half the lands; Magnus will not the kingdom break,-- The whole or nothing he will take." 2. HAKON'S DEATH. King Magnus proceeded north to the merchant town (Nidaros), and on his arrival went straight to the king's house, and there took up his abode. He remained here the first part of the winter (A.D. 1094), and kept seven longships in the open water of the river Nid, abreast of the king's house. Now when King Hakon heard that King Magnus was come to Throndhjem, he came from the East over the Dovrefield, and thence down from Throndhjem to the merchant town, where he took up his abode in the house of Skule, opposite to Clement's church, which had formerly been the king's house. King Magnus was ill pleased with the great gifts which Hakon had given to the bondes to gain their favour, and thought it was so much given out of his own property. This irritated his mind; and he thought he had suffered injustice from his relative in this respect, that he must now put up with less income than his father and his predecessors before him had enjoyed; and he gave Thorer the blame. When King Hakon and Thorer observed this, they were alarmed for what Magnus might do; and they thought it suspicious that Magnus kept long-ships afloat rigged out, and with tents. The following spring, after Candlemas, King Magnus left the town in the night with his ships; the tents up, and lights burning in the tents. They brought up at Hefring, remained there all night, and kindled a fire on the land. Then Hakon and the men in the town thought some treachery was on foot, and he let the trumpets call all the men together out on the Eyrar, where the whole people of the town came to him, and the people were gathering together the whole night. When it was light in the morning, King Magnus saw the people from all districts gathered together on the Eyrar; and he sailed out of the fjord, and proceeded south to where the Gulathing is held. Hakon thanked the people for their support which they had given him, and got ready to travel east to Viken. But he first held a meeting in the town, where, in a speech, he asked the people for their friendship, promising them his; and added, that he had some suspicions of his relation, King Magnus's intentions. Then King Hakon mounted his horse, and was ready to travel. All men promised him their good-will and support whenever he required them, and the people followed him out to the foot of Steinbjorg. From thence King Hakon proceeded up the Dovrefield; but as he was going over the mountains he rode all day after a ptarmigan, which flew up beside him, and in this chase a sickness overfell him, which ended in his death; and he died on the mountains. His body was carried north, and came to the merchant town just half a month after he left it. The whole townspeople went to meet the body, sorrowing, and the most of them weeping; for all people loved him with sincere affection. King Hakon's body was interred in Christ church, and Hakon and Magnus had ruled the country for two years. Hakon was a man full twenty-five years old, and was one of the chiefs the most beloved by all the people. He had made a journey to Bjarmaland, where he had given battle and gained a victory. 3. OF A FORAY IN HALLAND. King Magnus sailed in winter (A.D. 1095) eastward to Viken; but when spring approached he went southwards to Halland, and plundered far and wide. He laid waste Viskardal and many other districts, and returned with a great booty back to his own kingdom. So says Bjorn Krephende in his song on Magnus:-- "Through Halland wide around The clang and shriek resound; The houses burn, The people mourn, Through Halland wide around. The Norse king strides in flame, Through Viskardal he came; The fire sweeps, The widow weeps, The Norse king strides in flame." Here it is told that King Magnus made the greatest devastation through Halland. 4. OF THORER OF STEIG. "There was a man called Svein, a son of Harald Fietter. He was a Danish man by family, a great viking and champion, and a very clever man, and of high birth in his own country. He had been some time with King Hakon Magnuson, and was very dear to him; but after King Hakon's decease Thorer of Steig, his foster-father, had no great confidence in any treaty or friendship with King Magnus, if the whole country came into his power, on account of the position in which Thorer had stood to King Magnus, and the opposition he had made to him. Thereupon Thorer and Svein took counsel with each other, which they afterwards carried into effect,--to raise, with Thorer's assistance, and his men, a troop against Magnus. But as Thorer was old and heavy, Svein took the command, and name of leader of the troop. In this design several chiefs took part, among whom the principal was Egil Aslakson of Aurland. Egil was a lenderman, and married to Ingebjorg, a daughter of Ogmund Thorbergson, a sister of Skopte of Giske. The rich and powerful man, Skjalg Erlingson, also joined their party. Thorkel Hamarskald speaks of this in his ballad of Magnus: "Thorer and Egil were not wise, They aimed too high to win a prize: There was no reason in their plan, And it hurt many a udalman. The stone, too great for them to throw, Fell back, and hurt them with the blow, And now the udalmen must rue That to their friends they were so true." Thorer and Svein collected a troop in the Uplands, and went down through Raumsdal into Sunmore, and there collected vessels, with which they afterwards sailed north to Throndhjem. 5. OF THORER'S ADVENTURES. The lenderman Sigurd Ulstreng, a son of Lodin Viggiarskalle, collected men by sending round the war-token, as soon as he heard of Thorer and the troop which followed him, and had a rendezvous with all the men he could raise at Viggia. Svein and Thorer also met there with their people, fought with Sigurd, and gained the victory after giving him a great defeat; and Sigurd fled, and joined King Magnus. Thorer and his followers proceeded to the town (Nidaros), and remained there some time in the fjord, where many people joined them. King Magnus hearing this news immediately collected an army, and proceeded north to Throndhjem. And when he came into the fjord Thorer and his party heard of it while they lay at Herring, and they were ready to leave the fjord; and they rowed their ships to the strand at Vagnvik, and left them, and came into Theksdal in Seliuhverfe, and Thorer was carried in a litter over the mountains. Then they got hold of ships and sailed north to Halogaland. As soon as King Magnus was ready for sea, he sailed from Throndhjem in pursuit of them. Thorer and his party went north all the way to Bjarkey; and Jon, with his son Vidkun, fled from thence. Thorer and his men robbed all the movable goods, and burnt the house, and a good long-ship that belonged to Vidkun. While the hull was burning the vessel keeled to one side, and Thorer called out, "Hard to starboard, Vidkun!" Some verses were made about this burning in Bjarkey:-- "The sweetest farm that I have seen Stood on Bjarkey's island green; And now, where once this farmhouse stood, Fire crackles through a pile of wood; And the clear red flame, burning high, Flashes across the dark-night sky. Jon and Vidkun, this dark night, Will not be wandering without light." 6. DEATH OF THORER AND EGIL. Jon and Vidkun travelled day and night till they met King Magnus. Svein and Thorer proceeded northwards with their men, and plundered far and wide in Halogaland. But while they lay in a fjord called Harm, Thorer and his party saw King Magnus coming under sail towards them; and thinking they had not men enough to fight him, they rowed away and fled. Thorer and Egil brought up at Hesjutun; but Svein rowed out to sea, and some of their people rowed into the fjords. King Magnus pursued Thorer, and the vessels struck together while they were landing. Thorer stood in the forecastle of his ship, and Sigurd Ulstreng called out to him, and asked, "Art thou well, Thorer?" Thorer replied, "I am well in hands, but ill on my feet." Then all Thorer's men fled up the country, and Thorer was taken prisoner. Egil was also taken prisoner, for he would not leave his wife. King Magnus then ordered both of them to be taken out to Vambarholm; and when they were leading Thorer from the ship he tottered on his legs. Then Vidkun called out, "More to the larboard, Thorer!" When he was being led to the gallows he sang:-- "We were four comrades gay,-- Let one by the helm stay." When he came to the gallows he said, "Bad counsel comes to a bad end." Then Thorer was hanged; but when he was hoisted up the gallows tree he was so heavy that his neck gave way, and the body fell down to the ground; for Thorer was a man exceedingly stout, both high of stature and thick. Egil was also led to the gallows, and when the king's thralls were about hanging him he said, "Ye should not hang me, for in truth each of you deserves much more to be hanged." People sang these verses about it:-- "I hear, my girl, that Egil said, When to the gallows he was led, That the king's thralls far more than he Deserved to hang on gallows-tree. It might be so; but, death in view, A man should to himself be true,-- End a stout life by death as stout, Showing no fear; or care, or doubt." King Magnus sat near while they were being hanged, and was in such a rage that none of his men was so bold as to ask mercy for them. The king said, when Egil was spinning at the gallows, "Thy great friends help thee but poorly in time of need." From this people supposed that the king only wanted to have been entreated to have spared Egil's life. Bjorn Krephende speaks of these things:-- "King Magnus in the robbers' gore Dyed red his sword; and round the shore The wolves howled out their wild delight, At corpses swinging in their sight. Have ye not heard how the king's sword Punished the traitors to their lord? How the king's thralls hung on the gallows Old Thorer and his traitor-fellows?" 7. OF THE PUNISHMENT OF THE THRONDHJEM PEOPLE. After this King Magnus sailed south to Throndhjem, and brought up in the fjord, and punished severely all who had been guilty of treason towards him; killing some, and burning the houses of others. So says Bjorn Krephende:-- "He who despises fence of shields Drove terror through the Throndhjem fields, When all the land through which he came Was swimming in a flood of flame. The raven-feeder, will I know, Cut off two chieftans at a blow; The wolf could scarcely ravenous be, The ernes flew round the gallows-tree." Svein Harald Fletter's son, fled out to sea first, and sailed then to Denmark, and remained there; and at last came into great favour with King Eystein, the son of King Magnus, who took so great a liking to Svein that he made him his dish-bearer, and held him in great respect. King Magnus had now alone the whole kingdom, and he kept good peace in the land, and rooted out all vikings and lawless men. He was a man quick, warlike, and able, and more like in all things to his grandfather, King Harald, in disposition and talents than to his father. 8. OF THE BONDE SVEINKE, AND SIGURD ULSTRENG. There was a man called Sveinke Steinarson, who was very wealthy, and dwelt in Viken at the Gaut river. He had brought up Hakon Magnuson before Thorer of Steig took him. Sveinke had not yet submitted to King Magnus. King Magnus ordered Sigurd Ulstreng to be called, and told him he would send him to Sveinke with the command that he should quit the king's land and domain. "He has not yet submitted to us, or shown us due honour." He added, that there were some lendermen east in Viken, namely Svein Bryggjufot, Dag Eilifson, and Kolbjorn Klakke, who could bring this matter into right bearing. Then Sigurd said, "I did not know there was the man in Norway against whom three lendermen besides myself were needful." The king replied, "Thou needst not take this help, unless it be necessary." Now Sigurd made himself ready for the journey with a ship, sailed east to Viken, and there summoned the lendermen to him. Then a Thing was appointed to Viken, to which the people were called who dwelt on the Gaut river, besides others; so that it was a numerous assembly. When the Thing was formed they had to wait for Sveinke. They soon after saw a troop of men coming along, so well furnished with weapons that they looked like pieces of shining ice; and now came Sveinke and his people to the Thing, and set themselves down in a circle. All were clad in iron, with glowing arms, and 500 in number. Then Sigurd stood up, and spoke. "My master, King Magnus, sends God's salutation and his own to all friends, lendermen and others, his subjects in the kingdom; also to the powerful bondes, and the people in general, with kind words and offers of friendship; and to all who will obey him he offers his friendship and good will. Now the king will, with all cheerfulness and peace, show himself a gracious master to all who will submit to him, and to all in his dominions. He will be the leader and defender of all the men of Norway; and it will be good for you to accept his gracious speech, and this offer." Then stood up a man in the troop of the Elfgrims, who was of great stature and grim countenance, clad in a leather cloak, with a halberd on his shoulder, and a great steel hat upon his head. He looked sternly, and said, "Here is no need of wheels, says the fox, when he draws the trap over the ice." He said nothing more, but sat down again. Soon after Sigurd Ulstreng stood up again, and spoke thus: "But little concern or help have we for the king's affairs from you, Elfgrims, and but little friendship; yet by such means every man shows how much he respects himself. But now I shall produce more clearly the king's errand." Thereupon he demanded land-dues and levy-dues, together with all other rights of the king, from the great bondes. He bade each of them to consider with himself how they had conducted themselves in these matters; and that they should now promote their own honour, and do the king justice, if they had come short hitherto in doing so. And then he sat down. Then the same man got up in the troop of Elfgrims who had spoken before, lifted his hat a little up, and said, "The lads run well, say the Laplanders, who have skates for nothing." Then he sat himself down again. Soon after Sigurd arose, after speaking with the lendermen, and said that so weighty a message as the king's ought not to be treated lightly as a jest. He was now somewhat angry; and added, that they ought not to receive the king's message and errand so scornfully, for it was not decent. He was dressed in a red or scarlet coat, and had a blue coat over it. He cast off his upper coat and said, "Now it is come so far that every one must look to himself, and not loiter and jest with others; for by so doing every man will show what he is. We do not require now to be taught by others; for now we can see ourselves how much we are regarded. But this may be borne with; but not that ye treat so scornfully the king's message. Thereby every one shows how highly he considers himself. There is one man called Sveinke Steinarson, who lives east at the Gaut river; and from him the king will have his just land-dues, together with his own land, or will banish him from the country. It is of no use here to seek excuses, or to answer with sharp words; for people are to be found who are his equals in power, although he now receives our speech so unworthily; and it is better now than afterwards to return to the right way, and do himself honour, rather than await disgrace for his obstinancy." He then sat down. Sveinke then got up, threw back his steel-hat, and gave Sigurd many scornful words, and said, "Tut! tut! 'tis a shame for the dogs, says the proverb, when the fox is allowed to cast their excrements in the peasant's well. Here will be a miracle! Thou useless fellow! with a coat without arms, and a kirtle with skirts, wilt thou drive me out of the country? Thy relation, Sigurd Woolsack, was sent before on this errand, and one called Gille the Backthief, and one who had still a worse name. They were a night in every house, and stole wherever they came. Wilt thou drive me out of the country? Formerly thou wast not so mighty, and thy pride was less when King Hakon, my foster-son, was in life. Then thou wert as frightened for him when he met thee on the road as a mouse in a mouse-trap, and hid thyself under a heap of clothes, like a dog on board a ship. Thou wast thrust into a leather-bag like corn in a sack, and driven from house and farm like a year-old colt from the mares; and dost thou dare to drive me from the land? Thou shouldst rather think thyself lucky to escape from hence with life. Let us stand up and attack him." Then all his men stood up, and made a great clash with their weapons. Then Svein Bryggjufot and the other lendermen saw there was no other chance for Sigurd but to get him on horseback, which was done, and he rode off into the forest. The end was that Sveinke returned home to his farm, and Sigurd Ulstreng came, with great difficulty, by land north to Throndhjem to King Magnus, and told the result of his errand. "Did I not say," said the king, "that the help of my lendermen would be needed?" Sigurd was ill pleased with his journey; insisted that he would be revenged, cost what it will; and urged the king much. The king ordered five ships to be fitted out; and as soon as they were ready for sea he sailed south along the land, and then east to Viken, where he was entertained in excellent guest-quarters by his lendermen. The king told them he would seek out Sveinke. "For I will not conceal my suspicion that he thinks to make himself king of Norway." They said that Sveinke was both a powerful and an ungovernable man. Now the king went from Viken until he came to Sveinke's farm. Then the lendermen desired that they might be put on shore to see how matters stood; and when they came to the land they saw that Sveinke had already come down from the farm, and was on the road with a number of well-armed men. The lendermen held up a white shield in the air, as a peace-token; and when Sveinke saw it he halted his men, and they approached each other. Then said Kolbjorn Klakke, "King Magnus sends thee God's salutation and his own, and bids thee consider what becomes thee, and do him obedience, and not prepare thyself to give him battle." Kolbjorn offered to mediate peace between them, if he could, and told him to halt his troops. Sveinke said he would wait for them where he was. "We came out to meet you," he said, "that ye might not tread down our corn-fields." The lendermen returned to the king, and told him all was now at his pleasure. The king said, "My doom is soon delivered. He shall fly the country, and never come back to Norway as long as the kingdom is mine; and he shall leave all his goods behind." "But will it not be more for thy honour," said Kolbjorn, "and give thee a higher reputation among other kings, if, in banishing him from the country, thou shouldst allow him to keep his property, and show himself among other people? And we shall take care that he never comes back while we live. Consider of this, sire, by yourself, and have respect for our assurance." The king replied, "Let him then go forth immediately." They went back, therefore, to Sveinke, and told him the king's words; and also that the king had ordered him out of the country, and he should show his obedience, since he had forgotten himself towards the king. "It is for the honour of both that thou shouldst show obedience to the king." Then Sveinke said, "There must be some great change if the king speaks agreeably to me; but why should I fly the country and my properties? Listen now to what I say. It appears to me better to die upon my property than to fly from my udal estates. Tell the king that I will not stir from them even an arrow-flight." Kolbjorn replied, "This is scarcely prudent, or right; for it is better for one's own honour to give way to the best chief, than to make opposition to one's own loss. A gallant man succeeds wheresoever he goes; and thou wilt be the more respected wheresoever thou art, with men of power, just because thou hast made head so boldly against so powerful a chief. Hear our promises, and pay some attention to our errand. We offer thee to manage thy estates, and take them faithfully under our protection; and also never, against thy will, to pay scat for thy land until thou comest back. We will pledge our lives and properties upon this. Do not throw away good counsel from thee, and avoid thus the ill fortune of other good men." Then Sveinke was silent for a short time, and said at last, "Your endeavours are wise; but I have my suspicions that ye are changing a little the king's message. In consideration, however, of the great good-will that ye show me, I will hold your advice in such respect that I will go out of the country for the whole winter, if, according to your promises, I can then retain my estates in peace. Tell the king, also, these my words, that I do this on your account, not on his." Thereupon they returned to the king, and said, that Sveinke left all in the king's hands. "But entreats you to have respect to his honour. He will be away for three years, and then come back, if it be the king's pleasure. Do this; let all things be done according to what is suitable for the royal dignity and according to our entreaty, now that the matter is entirely in thy power, and we shall do all we can to prevent his returning against thy will." The king replied, "Ye treat this matter like men, and, for your sakes, shall all things be as ye desire. Tell him so." They thanked the king, and then went to Sveinke, and told him the king's gracious intentions. "We will be glad," said they, "if ye can be reconciled. The king requires, indeed that thy absence shall be for three years; but, if we know the truth rightly, we expect that before that time he will find he cannot do without thee in this part of the country. It will be to thy own future honour, therefore, to agree to this." Sveinke replies, "What condition is better than this? Tell the king that I shall not vex him longer with my presence here, and accept of my goods and estates on this condition." Thereupon he went home with his men, and set off directly; for he had prepared everything beforehand. Kolbjorn remains behind, and makes ready a feast for King Magnus, which also was thought of and prepared. Sveinke, on the other hand, rides up to Gautland with all the men he thought proper to take with him. The king let himself be entertained in guest-quarters at his house, returned to Viken, and Sveinke's estates were nominally the king's, but Kolbjorn had them under his charge. The king received guest-quarters in Viken, proceeded from thence northwards, and there was peace for a while; but now that the Elfgrims were without a chief, marauding gangs infested them, and the king saw this eastern part of the kingdom would be laid waste. It appeared to him, therefore, most suitable and advisable to make Sveinke himself oppose the stream, and twice he sent messages to him. But he did not stir until King Magnus himself was south in Denmark, when Sveinke and the king met, and made a full reconciliation; on which Sveinke returned home to his house and estates, and was afterwards King Magnus's best and trustiest friend, who strengthened his kingdom on the eastern border; and their friendship continued as long as they lived. 9. KING MAGNUS MAKES WAR ON THE SOUTHERN HEBUDES. King Magnus undertook an expedition out of the country, with many fine men and a good assortment of shipping. With this armament he sailed out into the West sea, and first came to the Orkney Islands. There he took the two earls, Paul and Erlend, prisoners, and sent them east to Norway, and placed his son Sigurd as chief over the islands, leaving some counsellors to assist him. From thence King Magnus, with his followers, proceeded to the Southern Hebudes, and when he came there began to burn and lay waste the inhabited places, killing the people and plundering wherever he came with his men; and the country people fled in all directions, some into Scotland-fjord, others south to Cantire, or out to Ireland; some obtained life and safety by entering into his service. So says Bjorn Krephende:-- "In Lewis Isle with fearful blaze The house-destroying fire plays; To hills and rocks the people fly, Fearing all shelter but the sky. In Uist the king deep crimson made The lightning of his glancing blade; The peasant lost his land and life Who dared to bide the Norseman's strife. The hunger battle-birds were filled In Skye with blood of foemen killed, And wolves on Tyree's lonely shore Dyed red their hairy jaws in gore. The men of Mull were tired of flight; The Scottish foemen would not fight, And many an island-girl's wail Was heard as through the isles we strife sail." 10. OF LAGMAN, KING GUDROD'S SON. King Magnus came with his forces to the Holy Island (Iona), and gave peace and safety to all men there. It is told that the king opened the door of the little Columb's Kirk there, but did not go in, but instantly locked the door again, and said that no man should be so bold as to go into that church hereafter; which has been the case ever since. From thence King Magnus sailed to Islay, where he plundered and burnt; and when he had taken that country he proceeded south around Cantire, marauding on both sides in Scotland and Ireland, and advanced with his foray to Man, where he plundered. So says Bjorn Krephende:-- "On Sandey's plain our shield they spy: From Isla smoke rose heaven-high, Whirling up from the flashing blaze The king's men o'er the island raise. South of Cantire the people fled, Scared by our swords in blood dyed red, And our brave champion onward goes To meet in Man the Norseman's foes." Lagman (Lawman) was the name of the son of Gudrod, king of the Hebudes. Lawman was sent to defend the most northerly islands; but when King Magnus and his army came to the Hebudes, Lawman fled here and there about the isles, and at last King Magnus's men took him and his ship's crew as he was flying over to Ireland. The king put him in irons to secure him. So says Bjorn Krephende:-- "To Gudrod's son no rock or cave, Shore-side or hill, a refuge gave; Hunted around from isle to isle, This Lawman found no safe asyle. From isle to isle, o'er firth and sound, Close on his track his foe he found. At Ness the Agder chief at length Seized him, and iron-chained his strength." 11. OF THE FALL OF EARL HUGE THE BRAVE. Afterwards King Magnus sailed to Wales; and when he came to the sound of Anglesey there came against him an army from Wales, which was led by two earls--Hugo the brave, and Hugo the Stout. They began immediately to give battle, and there was a severe conflict. King Magnus shot with the bow; but Huge the Brave was all over in armour, so that nothing was bare about him excepting one eye. King Magnus let fly an arrow at him, as also did a Halogaland man who was beside the king. They both shot at once. The one shaft hit the nose-screen of the helmet, which was bent by it to one side, and the other arrow hit the earl's eye, and went through his head; and that was found to be the king's. Earl Huge fell, and the Britons fled with the loss of many people. So says Bjorn Krephende:-- "The swinger of the sword Stood by Anglesey's ford; His quick shaft flew, And Huge slew. His sword gleamed a while O'er Anglesey Isle, And his Norsemen's band Scoured the Anglesey land." There was also sung the following verse about it:-- "On the panzers arrows rattle, Where our Norse king stands in battle; From the helmets blood-streams flow, Where our Norse king draws his bow: His bowstring twangs,--its biting hail Rattles against the ring-linked mail. Up in the land in deadly strife Our Norse king took Earl Huge's life." King Magnus gained the victory in this battle, and then took Anglesey Isle, which was the farthest south the Norway kings of former days had ever extended their rule. Anglesey is a third part of Wales. After this battle King Magnus turned back with his fleet, and came first to Scotland. Then men went between the Scottish king, Melkolm and King Magnus, and a peace was made between them; so that all the islands lying west of Scotland, between which and the mainland he could pass in a vessel with her rudder shipped, should be held to belong to the king of Norway. Now when King Magnus came north to Cantire, he had a skiff drawn over the strand at Cantire, and shipped the rudder of it. The king himself sat in the stern-sheets, and held the tiller; and thus he appropriated to himself the land that lay on the farboard side. Cantire is a great district, better than the best of the southern isles of the Hebudes, excepting Man; and there is a small neck of land between it and the mainland of Scotland, over which longships are often drawn. 12. DEATH OF THE EARLS OF ORKNEY. King Magnus was all the winter in the southern isles, and his men went over all the fjords of Scotland, rowing within all the inhabited and uninhabited isles, and took possession for the king of Norway of all the islands west of Scotland. King Magnus contracted in marriage his son Sigurd to Biadmynia, King Myrkjartan's daughter. Myrkjartan was a son of the Irish king Thialfe, and ruled over Connaught. The summer after, King Magnus, with his fleet, returned east to Norway. Earl Erland died of sickness at Nidaros, and is buried there; and Earl Paul died in Bergen. Skopte Ogmundson, a grandson of Thorberg, was a gallant lenderman, who dwelt at Giske in Sunmore, and was married to Gudrun, a daughter of Thord Folason. Their children were Ogmund, Fin, Thord, and Thora, who was married to Asolf Skulason. Skopte's and Gudrun's sons were the most promising and popular men in their youth. 13. QUARRELS OF KING MAGNUS AND KING INGE. Steinkel, the Swedish king, died about the same time (A.D. 1066) as the two Haralds fell, and the king who came after him in Svithjod was called Hakon. Afterwards Inge, a son of Steinkel, was king, and was a good and powerful king, strong and stout beyond most men; and he was king of Svithjod when King Magnus was king of Norway. King Magnus insisted that the boundaries of the countries in old times had been so, that the Gaut river divided the kingdoms of the Swedish and Norwegian kings, but afterwards the Vener lake up to Vermaland. Thus King Magnus insisted that he was owner of all the places lying west of the Vener lake up to Vermaland, which are the districts of Sundal, Nordal, Vear, and Vardyniar, with all the woods belonging thereto. But these had for a long time been under the Swedish dominion, and with respect to scat were joined to West Gautland; and, besides, the forest-settlers preferred being under the Swedish king. King Magnus rode from Viken up to Gautland with a great and fine army, and when he came to the forest-settlements he plundered and burnt all round; on which the people submitted, and took the oath of fidelity to him. When he came to the Vener lake, autumn was advanced and he went out to the island Kvaldinsey, and made a stronghold of turf and wood, and dug a ditch around it. When the work was finished, provisions and other necessaries that might be required were brought to it. The king left in it 300 men, who were the chosen of his forces, and Fin Skoptason and Sigurd Ulstreng as their commanders. The king himself returned to Viken. 14. OF THE NORTHMEN. When the Swedish king heard this he drew together people, and the report came that he would ride against these Northmen; but there was delay about his riding, and the Northmen made these lines:-- "The fat-hipped king, with heavy sides, Finds he must mount before he rides." But when the ice set in upon the Vener lake King Inge rode down, and had near 300 men with him. He sent a message to the Northmen who sat in the burgh that they might retire with all the booty they had taken, and go to Norway. When the messengers brought this message, Sigurd Ulstreng replied to it; saying that King Inge must take the trouble to come, if he wished to drive them away like cattle out of a grass field, and said he must come nearer if he wished them to remove. The messengers returned with this answer to the king, who then rode out with all his army to the island, and again sent a message to the Northmen that they might go away, taking with them their weapons, clothes, and horses; but must leave behind all their booty. This they refused. The king made an assault upon them, and they shot at each other. Then the king ordered timber and stones to be collected, and he filled up the ditch; and then he fastened anchors to long spars which were brought up to the timber-walls, and, by the strength of many hands, the walls were broken down. Thereafter a large pile of wood was set on fire, and the lighted brands were flung in among them. Then the Northmen asked for quarter. The king ordered them to go out without weapons or cloaks. As they went out each of them received a stroke with a whip, and then they set off for Norway, and all the forest-men submitted again to King Inge. Sigurd and his people went to King Magnus, and told him their misfortune. 15. KING MAGNUS AND GIPARDE. When King Magnus was east in Viken, there came to him a foreigner called Giparde. He gave himself out for a good knight, and offered his services to King Magnus; for he understood that in the king's dominions there was something to be done. The king received him well. At that time the king was preparing to go to Gautland, on which country the king had pretensions; and besides he would repay the Gautland people the disgrace they had occasioned him in spring, when he was obliged to fly from them. He had then a great force in arms, and the West Gautlanders in the northern districts submitted to him. He set up his camp on the borders, intending to make a foray from thence. When King Inge heard of this he collected troops, and hastened to oppose King Magnus; and when King Magnus heard of this expedition, many of the chiefs of the people urged him to turn back; but this the king would not listen to, but in the night time went unsuspectedly against the Swedish king. They met at Foxerne; and when he was drawing up his men in battle order he asked, "Where is Giparde?" but he was not to be found. Then the king made these verses:-- "Cannot the foreign knight abide Our rough array?--where does he hide?" Then a skald who followed the king replied:-- "The king asks where the foreign knight In our array rides to the fight: Giparde the knight rode quite away When our men joined in bloody fray. When swords were wet the knight was slow With his bay horse in front to go; The foreign knight could not abide Our rough array, and went to hide." There was a great slaughter, and after the battle the field was covered with the Swedes slain, and King Inge escaped by flight. King Magnus gained a great victory. Then came Giparde riding down from the country, and people did not speak well of him for not being in the fight. He went away, and proceeded westward to England; and the voyage was stormy, and Giparde lay in bed. There was an Iceland man called Eldjarn, who went to bale out the water in the ship's hold, and when he saw where Giparde was lying he made this verse:-- "Does it beseem a courtman bold Here to be dozing in the hold? The bearded knight should danger face: The leak gains on our ship apace. Here, ply this bucket! bale who can; We need the work of every man. Our sea-horse stands full to the breast,-- Sluggards and cowards must not rest." When they came west to England, Giparde said the Northmen had slandered him. A meeting was appointed, and a count came to it, and the case was brought before him for trial. He said he was not much acquainted with law cases, as he was but young, and had only been a short time in office; and also, of all things, he said what he least understood to judge about was poetry. "But let us hear what it was." Then Eldjarn sang:-- "I heard that in the bloody fight Giparde drove all our foes to flight: Brave Giparde would the foe abide, While all our men ran off to hide. At Foxerne the fight was won By Giparde's valour all alone; Where Giparde fought, alone was he; Not one survived to fight or flee." Then said the count, "Although I know but little about skald-craft, I can hear that this is no slander, but rather the highest praise and honour." Giparde could say nothing against it, yet he felt it was a mockery. 16. BATTLE OF FOXERNE. The spring after, as soon as the ice broke up, King Magnus, with a great army, sailed eastwards to the Gaut river, and went up the eastern arm of it, laying waste all that belonged to the Swedish dominions. When they came to Foxerne they landed from their vessels; but as they came over a river on their way an army of Gautland people came against them, and there was immediately a great battle, in which the Northmen were overwhelmed by numbers, driven to flight, and many of them killed near to a waterfall. King Magnus fled, and the Gautlanders pursued, and killed those they could get near. King Magnus was easily known. He was a very stout man, and had a red short cloak over him, and bright yellow hair like silk that fell over his shoulders. Ogmund Skoptason, who was a tall and handsome man, rode on one side of the king. He said, "Sire, give me that cloak." The king said, "What would you do with it?" "I would like to have it," said Ogmund; "and you have given me greater gifts, sire." The road was such that there were great and wide plains, so that the Gautlanders and Northmen were always in sight of each other, unless where clumps of wood and bushes concealed them from each other now and then. The king gave Ogmund the cloak and he put it on. When they came out again upon the plain ground, Ogmund and his people rode off right across the road. The Gautlanders, supposing this must be the king, rode all after him, and the king proceeded to the ships. Ogmund escaped with great difficulty; however, he reached the ships at last in safety. King Magnus then sailed down the river, and proceeded north to Viken. 17. MEETING OF THE KINGS AT THE GAUT RIVER. The following summer a meeting of the kings was agreed upon at Konghelle on the Gaut river; and King Magnus, the Swedish king, Inge, and the Danish king, Eirik Sveinson, all met there, after giving each other safe conduct to the meeting. Now when the Thing had sat down the kings went forward upon the plain, apart from the rest of the people, and they talked with each other a little while. Then they returned to their people, and a treaty was brought about, by which each should possess the dominions his forefathers had held before him; but each should make good to his own men the waste and manslaughter suffered by them, and then they should agree between themselves about settling this with each other. King Magnus should marry King Inge's daughter Margaret, who afterwards was called Peace-offering. This was proclaimed to the people; and thus, within a little hour, the greatest enemies were made the best of friends. It was observed by the people that none had ever seen men with more of the air of chiefs than these had. King Inge was the largest and stoutest, and, from his age, of the most dignified appearance. King Magnus appeared the most gallant and brisk, and King Eirik the most handsome. But they were all handsome men; stout, gallant, and ready in speech. After this was settled they parted. 18. KING MAGNUS'S MARRIAGE. King Magnus got Margaret, King Inge's daughter, as above related; and she was sent from Svithjod to Norway with an honourable retinue. King Magnus had some children before, whose names shall here be given. The one of his sons who was of a mean mother was called Eystein; the other, who was a year younger, was called Sigurd, and his mother's name was Thora. Olaf was the name of a third son, who was much younger than the two first mentioned, and whose mother was Sigrid, a daughter of Saxe of Vik, who was a respectable man in the Throndhjem country; she was the king's concubine. People say that when King Magnus came home from his viking cruise to the Western countries, he and many of his people brought with them a great deal of the habits and fashion of clothing of those western parts. They went about on the streets with bare legs, and had short kirtles and over-cloaks; and therefore his men called him Magnus Barefoot or Bareleg. Some called him Magnus the Tall, others Magnus the Strife-lover. He was distinguished among other men by his tall stature. The mark of his height is put down in Mary church, in the merchant town of Nidaros, which King Harald built. In the northern door there were cut into the wall three crosses, one for Harald's stature, one for Olaf's, and one for Magnus's; and which crosses each of them could with the greatest ease kiss. The upper was Harald's cross; the lowest was Magnus's; and Olaf's was in the middle, about equally distant from both. It is said that Magnus composed the following verses about the emperor's daughter:-- "The ring of arms where blue swords gleam, The battle-shout, the eagle's scream, The Joy of war, no more can please: Matilda is far o'er the seas. My sword may break, my shield be cleft, Of land or life I may be reft; Yet I could sleep, but for one care,-- One, o'er the seas, with light-brown hair." He also composed the following:-- "The time that breeds delay feels long, The skald feels weary of his song; What sweetens, brightens, eases life? 'Tis a sweet-smiling lovely wife. My time feels long in Thing affairs, In Things my loved one ne'er appears. The folk full-dressed, while I am sad, Talk and oppose--can I be glad?" When King Magnus heard the friendly words the emperor's daughter had spoken about him--that she had said such a man as King Magnus was appeared to her an excellent man, he composed the following:-- "The lover hears,--across the sea, A favouring word was breathed to me. The lovely one with light-brown hair May trust her thoughts to senseless air; Her thoughts will find like thoughts in me; And though my love I cannot see, Affection's thoughts fly in the wind, And meet each other, true and kind." 19. OF THE QUARREL OF KING MAGNUS AND SKOPTE. Skopte Ogmundson came into variance with King Magnus, and they quarrelled about the inheritance of a deceased person which Skopte retained; but the king demanded it with so much earnestness, that it had a dangerous appearance. Many meetings were held about the affair, and Skopte took the resolution that he and his son should never put themselves into the king's power at the same time; and besides there was no necessity to do so. When Skopte was with the king he represented to him that there was relationship between the king and him; and also that he, Skopte, had always been the king's friend, and his father's likewise, and that their friendship had never been shaken. He added, "People might know that I have sense enough not to hold a strife, sire, with you, if I was wrong in what I asked; but it is inherited from my ancestors to defend my rights against any man, without distinction of persons." The king was just the same on this point, and his resolution was by no means softened by such a speech. Then Skopte went home. 20. FIN SKOPTASON'S PROCEEDINGS. Then Fin Skoptason went to the king, spoke with him, and entreated him to render justice to the father and son in this business. The king answers angrily and sharply. Then said Fin, "I expected something else, sire, from you, than that you would use the law's vexations against me when I took my seat in Kvaldinsey Island, which few of your other friends would do; as they said, what was true, that those who were left there were deserted and doomed to death, if King Inge had not shown greater generosity to us than you did; although many consider that we brought shame and disgrace only from thence." The king was not to be moved by this speech, and Fin returned home. 21. OGMUND SKOPTASON'S PROCEEDINGS. Then came Ogmund Skoptason to the king; and when he came before him he produced his errand, and begged the king to do what was right and proper towards him and his father. The king insisted that the right was on his side, and said they were "particularly impudent." Then said Ogmund, "It is a very easy thing for thee, having the power, to do me and my father injustice; and I must say the old proverb is true, that one whose life you save gives none, or a very bad return. This I shall add, that never again shall I come into thy service; nor my father, if I can help it." Then Ogmund went home, and they never saw each other again. 22. SKOPTE OGMUNDSON'S VOYAGE ABROAD. The spring after, Skopte Ogmundson made ready to travel out of the country. They had five long-ships all well equipped. His sons, Ogmund, Fin, and Thord, accompanied him on this journey. It was very late before they were ready, and in autumn they went over to Flanders, and wintered there. Early in spring they sailed westward to Valland, and stayed there all summer. Then they sailed further, and through Norvasund; and came in autumn to Rome, where Skopte died. All, both father and sons, died on this journey. Thord, who died in Sicily, lived the longest. It is a common saying among the people that Skopte was the first Northman who sailed through Norvasund; and this voyage was much celebrated. 23. MIRACLE OF KING OLAF THE SAINT AT A FIRE. It happened once in the merchant town (Nidaros) where King Olaf reposes, that there broke out a fire in the town which spread around. Then Olaf's shrine was taken out of the church, and set up opposite the fire. Thereupon came a crazy foolish man, struck the shrine, threatened the holy saint, and said all must be consumed by the flames, both churches and other houses, if he did not save them by his prayers. Now the burning of the church did cease, by the help of Almighty God; but the insane man got sore eyes on the following night, and he lay there until King Olaf entreated God Almighty to be merciful to him; after which he recovered in the same church. 24. MIRACLE OF KING OLAF ON A LAME WOMAN. It happened once in the merchant town that a woman was brought to the place where the holy King Olaf reposes. She was so miserably shaped, that she was altogether crumpled up; so that both her feet lay in a circle against her loins. But as she was diligent in her prayers, often weeping and making vows to King Olaf, he cured her great infirmities; so that feet, legs, and other limbs straightened, and every limb and part came to the right use for which they were made. Before she could not creep there, and now she went away active and brisk to her family and home. 25. WAR IN IRELAND. When King Magnus had been nine years king of Norway (A.D. 1094-1102), he equipped himself to go out of the country with a great force. He sailed out into the West sea with the finest men who could be got in Norway. All the powerful men of the country followed him; such as Sigurd Hranason, Vidkun Jonson, Dag Eilifson, Serk of Sogn, Eyvind Olboge, the king's marshal Ulf Hranason, brother of Sigurd, and many other great men. With all this armament the king sailed west to the Orkney Islands, from whence he took with him Earl Erlend's sons, Magnus and Erling, and then sailed to the southern Hebudes. But as he lay under the Scotch land, Magnus Erlendson ran away in the night from the king's ship, swam to the shore, escaped into the woods, and came at last to the Scotch king's court. King Magnus sailed to Ireland with his fleet, and plundered there. King Myrkjartan came to his assistance, and they conquered a great part of the country, both Dublin and Dyflinnarskire (Dublin shire). King Magnus was in winter (A.D. 1102) up in Connaught with King Myrkjartan, but set men to defend the country he had taken. Towards spring both kings went westward with their army all the way to Ulster, where they had many battles, subdued the country, and had conquered the greatest part of Ulster when Myrkjartan returned home to Connaught. 26. KING MAGNUS'S FORAY ON THE LAND. King Magnus rigged his ships, and intended returning to Norway, but set his men to defend the country of Dublin. He lay at Ulster ready for sea with his whole fleet. As they thought they needed cattle for ship-provision, King Magnus sent a message to King Myrkjartan, telling him to send some cattle for slaughter; and appointed the day before Bartholomew's day as the day they should arrive, if the messengers reached him in safety; but the cattle had not made their appearance the evening before Bartholomew's mass. On the mass-day itself, when the sun rose in the sky, King Magnus went on shore himself with the greater part of his men, to look after his people, and to carry off cattle from the coast. The weather was calm, the sun shone, and the road lay through mires and mosses, and there were paths cut through; but there was brushwood on each side of the road. When they came somewhat farther, they reached a height from which they had a wide view. They saw from it a great dust rising up the country, as of horsemen, and they said to each other, "That must be the Irish army;" but others said, "It was their own men returning with the cattle." They halted there; and Eyvind Olboge said, "How, sire, do you intend to direct the march? The men think we are advancing imprudently. You know the Irish are treacherous; think, therefore, of a good counsel for your men." Then the king said, "Let us draw up our men, and be ready, if there be treachery." This was done, and the king and Eyvind went before the line. King Magnus had a helmet on his head; a red shield, in which was inlaid a gilded lion; and was girt with the sword of Legbit, of which the hilt was of tooth (ivory), and handgrip wound about with gold thread; and the sword was extremely sharp. In his hand he had a short spear, and a red silk short cloak, over his coat, on which, both before and behind, was embroidered a lion in yellow silk; and all men acknowledged that they never had seen a brisker, statelier man. Eyvind had also a red silk cloak like the king's; and he also was a stout, handsome, warlike man. 27. FALL OF KING MAGNUS. When the dust-cloud approached nearer they knew their own men, who were driving the cattle. The Irish king had been faithful to the promises he had given the king, and had sent them. Thereupon they all turned towards the ships, and it was mid-day. When they came to the mires they went but slowly over the boggy places; and then the Irish started up on every side against them from every bushy point of land, and the battle began instantly. The Northmen were going divided in various heaps, so that many of them fell. Then said Eyvind to the king, "Unfortunate is this march to our people, and we must instantly hit upon some good plan." The king answered, "Call all the men together with the war-horns under the banner, and the men who are here shall make a rampart with their shields, and thus we will retreat backwards out of the mires; and we will clear ourselves fast enough when we get upon firm ground." The Irish shot boldly; and although they fell in crowds, there came always two in the place of one. Now when the king had come to the nearest ditch there was a very difficult crossing, and few places were passable; so that many Northmen fell there. Then the king called to his lenderman Thorgrim Skinhufa, who was an Upland man, and ordered him to go over the ditch with his division. "We shall defend you," said he, "in the meantime, so that no harm shall come to you. Go out then to those holms, and shoot at them from thence; for ye are good bowmen." When Thorgrim and his men came over the ditch they cast their shields behind their backs, and set off to the ships. When the king saw this, he said, "Thou art deserting thy king in an unmanly way. I was foolish in making thee a lenderman, and driving Sigurd Hund out of the country; for never would he have behaved so." King Magnus received a wound, being pierced by a spear through both thighs above the knees. The king laid hold of the shaft between his legs, broke the spear in two, and said, "Thus we break spear-shafts, my lads; let us go briskly on. Nothing hurts me." A little after King Magnus was struck in the neck with an Irish axe, and this was his death-wound. Then those who were behind fled. Vidkun Jonson instantly killed the man who had given the king his death-wound, and fled, after having received three wounds; but brought the king's banner and the sword Legbit to the ships. Vidkun was the last man who fled; the other next to him was Sigurd Hranason, and the third before him, Dag Eilifson. There fell with King Magnus, Eyvind Olboge, Ulf Hranason, and many other great people. Many of the Northmen fell, but many more of the Irish. The Northmen who escaped sailed away immediately in autumn. Erling, Earl Erlend's'son, fell with King Magnus in Ireland; but the men who fled from Ireland came to the Orkney Islands. Now when King Sigurd heard that his father had fallen, he set off immediately, leaving the Irish king's daughter behind, and proceeded in autumn with the whole fleet directly to Norway. 28. OF KING MAGNUS AND VIDKUN JONSON. King Magnus was ten years king of Norway (A.D. 1094-1105), and in his days there was good peace kept within the country; but the people were sorely oppressed with levies. King Magnus was beloved by his men, but the bondes thought him harsh. The words have been transmitted from him that he said when his friends observed that he proceeded incautiously when he was on his expeditions abroad,--"The kings are made for honour, not for long life." King Magnus was nearly thirty years of age when he fell. Vidkun did not fly until he had killed the man who gave the king his mortal wound, and for this cause King Magnus's sons had him in the most affectionate regard. SAGA OF SIGURD THE CRUSADER AND HIS BROTHERS EYSTEIN AND OLAF. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. "Agrip", "Fagrskinna", and "Morkinskinna" more or less complete the story of the sons of Magnus. They contain some things omitted by Snorre, while, on the other hand, some facts related by Snorre are not found in the above sources. Thjodrek the Monk tells of Sigurd that he made a Journey to Jerusalem, conquered many heathen cities, and among them Sidon; that he captured a cave defended by robbers, received presents from Baldwin, returned to Norway in Eystein's lifetime, and became insane, as a result, as some say, of a poisonous drink. The three brothers became kings in the year A.D. 1103. Olaf died 1115, Eystein 1122 or 1123, Sigurd 1130. Skalds quoted in this saga are: Thorarin Stutfeld, Einar Skulason, Haldor Skvaldre, and Arne Fjoruskeif. 1. BEGINNING OF THE REIGN OF KING MAGNUS'S SONS. After King Magnus Barefoot's fall, his sons, Eystein, Sigurd, and Olaf, took the kingdom of Norway. Eystein got the northern, and Sigurd the southern part of the country. King Olaf was then four or five years old, and the third part of the country which he had was under the management of his two brothers. King Sigurd was chosen king when he was thirteen or fourteen years old, and Eystein was a year older. King Sigurd left west of the sea the Irish king's daughter. When King Magnus's sons were chosen kings, the men who had followed Skopte Ogmundson returned home. Some had been to Jerusalem, some to Constantinople; and there they had made themselves renowned, and they had many kinds of novelties to talk about. By these extraordinary tidings many men in Norway were incited to the same expedition; and it was also told that the Northmen who liked to go into the military service at Constantinople found many opportunities of getting property. Then these Northmen desired much that one of the two kings, either Eystein or Sigurd, should go as commander of the troop which was preparing for this expedition. The kings agreed to this, and carried on the equipment at their common expense. Many great men, both of the lendermen and bondes, took part in this enterprise; and when all was ready for the journey it was determined that Sigurd should go, and Eystein in the meantime, should rule the kingdom upon their joint account. 2. OF THE EARLS OF ORKNEY. A year or two after King Magnus Barefoot's fall, Hakon, a son of Earl Paul, came from Orkney. The kings gave him the earldom and government of the Orkney Islands, as the earls before him, his father Paul or his Uncle Erland, had possessed it; and Earl Hakon then sailed back immediately to Orkney. 3. KING SIGURD'S JOURNEY OUT OF THE COUNTRY. Four years after the fall of King Magnus (A.D. 1107), King Sigurd sailed with his people from Norway. He had then sixty ships. So says Thorarin Stutfeld:-- "A young king just and kind, People of loyal mind: Such brave men soon agree,-- To distant lands they sail with glee. To the distant Holy Land A brave and pious band, Magnificent and gay, In sixty long-ships glide away." King Sigurd sailed in autumn to England, where Henry, son of William the Bastard, was then king, and Sigurd remained with him all winter. So says Einar Skulason:-- "The king is on the waves! The storm he boldly braves. His ocean-steed, With winged speed, O'er the white-flashing surges, To England's coast he urges; And there he stays the winter o'er: More gallant king ne'er trod that shore." 4. OF KING SIGURD'S JOURNEY. In spring King Sigurd and his fleet sailed westward to Valland (A.D. 1108), and in autumn came to Galicia, where he stayed the second winter (A.D. 1109). So says Einar Skulason:-- "Our king, whose land so wide No kingdom stands beside, In Jacob's land next winter spent, On holy things intent; And I have heard the royal youth Cut off an earl who swerved from truth. Our brave king will endure no ill,-- The hawks with him will get their fill." It went thus:--The earl who ruled over the land made an agreement with King Sigurd, that he should provide King Sigurd and his men a market at which they could purchase victuals all the winter; but this he did not fulfil longer than to about Yule. It began then to be difficult to get food and necessaries, for it is a poor barren land. Then King Sigurd with a great body of men went against a castle which belonged to the earl; and the earl fled from it, having but few people. King Sigurd took there a great deal of victuals and of other booty, which he put on board of his ships, and then made ready and proceeded westward to Spain. It so fell out, as the king was sailing past Spain, that some vikings who were cruising for plunder met him with a fleet of galleys, and King Sigurd attacked them. This was his first battle with heathen men; and he won it, and took eight galleys from them. So says Haldor Skvaldre:-- "Bold vikings, not slow To the death-fray to go, Meet our Norse king by chance, And their galleys advance. The bold vikings lost Many a man of their host, And eight galleys too, With cargo and crew." Thereafter King Sigurd sailed against a castle called Sintre and fought another battle. This castle is in Spain, and was occupied by many heathens, who from thence plundered Christian people. King Sigurd took the castle, and killed every man in it, because they refused to be baptized; and he got there an immense booty. So says Haldor Skvaldre:-- "From Spain I have much news to tell Of what our generous king befell. And first he routs the viking crew, At Cintra next the heathens slew; The men he treated as God's foes, Who dared the true faith to oppose. No man he spared who would not take The Christian faith for Jesus' sake." 5. LISBON TAKEN. After this King Sigurd sailed with his fleet to Lisbon, which is a great city in Spain, half Christian and half heathen; for there lies the division between Christian Spain and heathen Spain, and all the districts which lie west of the city are occupied by heathens. There King Sigurd had his third battle with the heathens, and gained the victory, and with it a great booty. So says Haldor Skvaldre:-- "The son of kings on Lisbon's plains A third and bloody battle gains. He and his Norsemen boldly land, Running their stout ships on the strand." Then King Sigurd sailed westwards along heathen Spain, and brought up at a town called Alkasse; and here he had his fourth battle with the heathens, and took the town, and killed so many people that the town was left empty. They got there also immense booty. So says Haldor Skvaldre:-- "A fourth great battle, I am told, Our Norse king and his people hold At Alkasse; and here again The victory fell to our Norsemen." And also this verse:-- "I heard that through the town he went, And heathen widows' wild lament Resounded in the empty halls; For every townsman flies or falls." 6. BATTLE IN THE ISLAND FORMINTERRA. King Sigurd then proceeded on his voyage, and came to Norfasund; and in the sound he was met by a large viking force, and the king gave them battle; and this was his fifth engagement with heathens since the time he left Norway. He gained the victory here also. So says Haldor Skvaldre:-- "Ye moistened your dry swords with blood, As through Norfasund ye stood; The screaming raven got a feast, As ye sailed onward to the East." King Sigurd then sailed eastward along the coast of Serkland, and came to an island there called Forminterra. There a great many heathen Moors had taken up their dwelling in a cave, and had built a strong stone wall before its mouth. They harried the country all round, and carried all their booty to their cave. King Sigurd landed on this island, and went to the cave; but it lay in a precipice, and there was a high winding path to the stone wall, and the precipice above projected over it. The heathens defended the stone wall, and were not afraid of the Northmen's arms; for they could throw stones, or shoot down upon the Northmen under their feet; neither did the Northmen, under such circumstances, dare to mount up. The heathens took their clothes and other valuable things, carried them out upon the wall, spread them out before the Northmen, shouted, and defied them, and upbraided them as cowards. Then Sigurd fell upon this plan. He had two ship's boats, such as we call barks, drawn up the precipice right above the mouth of the cave; and had thick ropes fastened around the stem, stern, and hull of each. In these boats as many men went as could find room, and then the boats were lowered by the ropes down in front of the mouth of the cave; and the men in the boats shot with stones and missiles into the cave, and the heathens were thus driven from the stone wall. Then Sigurd with his troops climbed up the precipice to the foot of the stone wall, which they succeeded in breaking down, so that they came into the cave. Now the heathens fled within the stone wall that was built across the cave; on which the king ordered large trees to be brought to the cave, made a great pile in the mouth of it, and set fire to the wood. When the fire and smoke got the upper hand, some of the heathens lost their lives in it; some fled; some fell by the hands of the Northmen; and part were killed, part burned; and the Northmen made the greatest booty they had got on all their expeditions. So says Halder Skvaldre:-- "Forminterra lay In the victor's way; His ships' stems fly To victory. The bluemen there Must fire bear, And Norsemen's steel At their hearts feel." And also thus:-- "'Twas a feat of renown,-- The boat lowered down, With a boat's crew brave, In front of the cave; While up the rock scaling, And comrades up trailing, The Norsemen gain, And the bluemen are slain." And also Thorarin Stutfeld says:-- "The king's men up the mountain's side Drag two boats from the ocean's tide; The two boats lay, Like hill-wolves grey. Now o'er the rock in ropes they're swinging Well manned, and death to bluemen bringing; They hang before The robber's door." 7. OF THE BATTLES OF IVIZA AND MINORCA. Thereafter King Sigurd proceeded on his expedition, and came to an island called Iviza (Ivica), and had there his seventh battle, and gained a victory. So says Haldor Skvaldre:-- "His ships at Ivica now ride, The king's, whose fame spreads far and wide; And hear the bearers of the shield Their arms again in battle wield." Thereafter King Sigurd came to an island called Manork (Minorca), and held there his eighth battle with heathen men, and gained the victory. So says Haldor Skvaldre:-- "On green Minorca's plains The eighth battle now he gains: Again the heathen foe Falls at the Norse king's blow." 8. DUKE ROGER MADE A KING. In spring King Sigurd came to Sicily (A.D. 1109), and remained a long time there. There was then a Duke Roger in Sicily, who received the king kindly, and invited him to a feast. King Sigurd came to it with a great retinue, and was splendidly entertained. Every day Duke Roger stood at the company's table, doing service to the king; but the seventh day of the feast, when the people had come to table, and had wiped their hands, King Sigurd took the duke by the hand, led him up to the high-seat, and saluted him with the title of king; and gave the right that there should be always a king over the dominion of Sicily, although before there had only been earls or dukes over that country. 9. OF KING ROGER. King Roger of Sicily was a very great king. He won and subdued all Apulia, and many large islands besides in the Greek sea; and therefore he was called Roger the Great. His son was William, king of Sicily, who for a long time had great hostility with the emperor of Constantinople. King William had three daughters, but no son. One of his daughters he married to the Emperor Henry, a son of the Emperor Frederik; and their son was Frederik, who for a short time after was emperor of Rome. His second daughter was married to the Duke of Kipr. The third daughter, Margaret, was married to the chief of the corsairs; but the Emperor Henry killed both these brothers-in-law. The daughter of Roger the Great, king of Sicily, was married to the Emperor Manuel of Constantinople; and their son was the Emperor Kirjalax. 10. KING SIGURD'S EXPEDITION TO PALESTINE. In the summer (A.D. 1110) King Sigurd sailed across the Greek sea to Palestine, and thereupon went up to Jerusalem, where he met Baldwin, king of Palestine. King Baldwin received him particularly well, and rode with him all the way to the river Jordan, and then back to the city of Jerusalem. Einar Skulason speaks thus of it:-- "Good reason has the skald to sing The generous temper of the king, Whose sea-cold keel from northern waves Ploughs the blue sea that green isles laves. At Acre scarce were we made fast, In holy ground our anchors cast, When the king made a joyful morn To all who toil with him had borne." And again he made these lines:-- "To Jerusalem he came, He who loves war's noble game, (The skald no greater monarch finds Beneath the heaven's wide hall of winds) All sin and evil from him flings In Jordan's wave: for all his sins (Which all must praise) he pardon wins." King Sigurd stayed a long time in the land of Jerusalem (Jorsalaland) in autumn, and in the beginning of winter. 11. SIDON TAKEN. King Baldwin made a magnificent feast for King Sigurd and many of his people, and gave him many holy relics. By the orders of King Baldwin and the patriarch, there was taken a splinter off the holy cross; and on this holy relic both made oath, that this wood was of the holy cross upon which God Himself had been tortured. Then this holy relic was given to King Sigurd; with the condition that he, and twelve other men with him, should swear to promote Christianity with all his power, and erect an archbishop's seat in Norway if he could; and also that the cross should be kept where the holy King Olaf reposed, and that he should introduce tithes, and also pay them himself. After this King Sigurd returned to his ships at Acre; and then King Baldwin prepared to go to Syria, to a heathen town called Saet. On this expedition King Sigurd accompanied him, and after the kings had besieged the town some time it surrendered, and they took possession of it, and of a great treasure of money; and their men found other booty. King Sigurd made a present of his share to King Baldwin. So say Haldor Skvaldre:-- "He who for wolves provides the feast Seized on the city in the East, The heathen nest; and honour drew, And gold to give, from those he slew." Einar Skulason also tells of it:-- "The Norsemen's king, the skalds relate, Has ta'en the heathen town of Saet: The slinging engine with dread noise Gables and roofs with stones destroys. The town wall totters too,--it falls; The Norsemen mount the blackened walls. He who stains red the raven's bill Has won,--the town lies at his will." Thereafter King Sigurd went to his ships and made ready to leave Palestine. They sailed north to the island Cyprus; and King Sigurd stayed there a while, and then went to the Greek country, and came to the land with all his fleet at Engilsnes. Here he lay still for a fortnight, although every day it blew a breeze for going before the wind to the north; but Sigurd would wait a side wind, so that the sails might stretch fore and aft in the ship; for in all his sails there was silk joined in, before and behind in the sail, and neither those before nor those behind the ships could see the slightest appearance of this, if the vessel was before the wind; so they would rather wait a side wind. 12. SIGURD'S EXPEDITION TO CONSTANTINOPLE. When King Sigurd sailed into Constantinople, he steered near the land. Over all the land there are burghs, castles, country towns, the one upon the other without interval. There from the land one could see into the bights of the sails; and the sails stood so close beside each other, that they seemed to form one enclosure. All the people turned out to see King Sigurd sailing past. The Emperor Kirjalax had also heard of King Sigurd's expedition, and ordered the city port of Constantinople to be opened, which is called the Gold Tower, through which the emperor rides when he has been long absent from Constantinople, or has made a campaign in which he has been victorious. The emperor had precious cloths spread out from the Gold Tower to Laktjarna, which is the name of the emperor's most splendid hall. King Sigurd ordered his men to ride in great state into the city, and not to regard all the new things they might see; and this they did. King Sigurd and his followers rode with this great splendour into Constantinople, and then came to the magnificent hall, where everything was in the grandest style. King Sigurd remained here some time. The Emperor Kirjalax sent his men to him to ask if he would rather accept from the emperor six lispund of gold, or would have the emperor give the games in his honour which the emperor was used to have played at the Padreim. King Sigurd preferred the games, and the messengers said the spectacle would not cost the emperor less than the money offered. Then the emperor prepared for the games, which were held in the usual way; but this day everything went on better for the king than for the queen; for the queen has always the half part in the games, and their men, therefore, always strive against each other in all games. The Greeks accordingly think that when the king's men win more games at the Padreim than the queen's, the king will gain the victory when he goes into battle. People who have been in Constantinople tell that the Padreim is thus constructed:--A high wall surrounds a flat plain, which may be compared to a round bare Thing-place, with earthen banks all around at the stone wall, on which banks the spectators sit; but the games themselves are in the flat plain. There are many sorts of old events represented concerning the Asas, Volsungs, and Giukungs, in these games; and all the figures are cast in copper, or metal, with so great art that they appear to be living things; and to the people it appears as if they were really present in the games. The games themselves are so artfully and cleverly managed, that people appear to be riding in the air; and at them also are used shot-fire (1), and all kinds of harp-playing, singing, and music instruments. ENDNOTES: (1) Fireworks, or the Greek fire, probably were used.--L. 13. SIGURD AND THE EMPEROR OF CONSTANTINOPLE. It is related that King Sigurd one day was to give the emperor a feast, and he ordered his men to provide sumptuously all that was necessary for the entertainment; and when all things were provided which are suitable for an entertainment given by a great personage to persons of high dignity, King Sigurd ordered his men to go to the street in the city where firewood was sold, as they would require a great quantity to prepare the feast. They said the king need not be afraid of wanting firewood, for every day many loads were brought into the town. When it was necessary, however, to have firewood, it was found that it was all sold, which they told the king. He replied, "Go and try if you can get walnuts. They will answer as well as wood for fuel." They went and got as many as they needed. Now came the emperor, and his grandees and court, and sat down to table. All was very splendid; and King Sigurd received the emperor with great state, and entertained him magnificently. When the queen and the emperor found that nothing was wanting, she sent some persons to inquire what they had used for firewood; and they came to a house filled with walnuts, and they came back and told the queen. "Truly," said she, "this is a magnificent king, who spares no expense where his honour is concerned." She had contrived this to try what they would do when they could get no firewood to dress their feast with. 14. KING SIGURD THE CRUSADER'S RETURN HOME. King Sigurd soon after prepared for his return home. He gave the emperor all his ships; and the valuable figureheads which were on the king's ships were set up in Peter's church, where they have since been to be seen. The emperor gave the king many horses and guides to conduct him through all his dominions. Then King Sigurd left Constantinople; but a great many Northmen remained, and went into the emperor's pay. Then King Sigurd traveled from Bulgaria, and through Hungary, Pannonia. Suabia, and Bavaria, where he met the Roman emperor, Lotharius, who received him in the most friendly way, gave him guides through his dominions, and had markets established for him at which he could purchase all he required. When King Sigurd came to Slesvik in Denmark, Earl Eilif made a sumptuous feast for him; and it was then midsummer. In Heidaby he met the Danish king, Nikolas, who received him in the most friendly way, made a great entertainment for him, accompanied him north to Jutland, and gave him a ship provided with everything needful. From thence the king returned to Norway, and was joyfully welcomed on his return to his kingdom (A.D. 1110). It was the common talk among the people, that none had ever made so honourable a journey from Norway as this of King Sigurd. He was twenty years of age, and had been three years on these travels. His brother Olaf was then twelve years old. 15. EYSTEIN'S DOINGS IN THE MEANTIME. King Eystein had also effected much in the country that was useful while King Sigurd was on his journey. He established a monastery at Nordnes in Bergen, and endowed it with much property. He also built Michael's church, which is a very splendid stone temple. In the king's house there he also built the Church of the Apostles, and the great hall, which is the most magnificent wooden structure that was ever built in Norway. He also built a church at Agdanes with a parapet; and a harbour, where formerly there had been a barren spot only. In Nidaros he built in the king's street the church of Saint Nikolas, which was particularly ornamented with carved work, and all in wood. He also built a church north in Vagar in Halogaland, and endowed it with property and revenues. 16. OF KING EYSTEIN. King Eystein sent a verbal message to the most intelligent and powerful of the men of Jamtaland, and invited them to him; received them all as they came with great kindness; accompanied them part of the way home, and gave them presents, and thus enticed them into a friendship with him. Now as many of them became accustomed to visit him and receive gifts from him, and he also sent gifts to some who did not come themselves, he soon gained the favour of all the people who had most influence in the country. Then he spoke to the Jamtaland people, and told them they had done ill in turning away from the kings of Norway, and withdrawing from them their taxes and allegiance. He began by saying how the Jamtaland people had submitted to the reign of Hakon, the foster-son of Athelstane, and had long afterwards been subjected to the kings of Norway, and he represented to them how many useful things they could get from Norway, and how inconvenient it was for them to apply to the Swedish king for what they needed. By these speeches he brought matters so far that the Jamtaland people of their own accord offered to be subject to him, which they said was useful and necessary for them; and thus, on both sides, it was agreed that the Jamtalanders should put their whole country under King Eystein. The first beginning was with the men of consequence, who persuaded the people to take an oath of fidelity to King Eystein; and then they went to King Eystein and confirmed the country to him by oath; and this arrangement has since continued for a long time. King Eystein thus conquered Jamtaland by his wisdom, and not by hostile inroads, as some of his forefathers had done. 17. OF KING EYSTEIN'S PERFECTIONS. King Eystein was the handsomest man that could be seen. He had blue open eyes; his hair yellow and curling; his stature not tall, but of the middle size. He was wise, intelligent, and acquainted with the laws and history. He had much knowledge of mankind, was quick in counsel, prudent in words, and very eloquent and very generous. He was very merry, yet modest; and was liked and beloved, indeed, by all the people. He was married to Ingebjorg, a daughter of Guthorm, son of Thorer of Steig; and their daughter was Maria, who afterwards married Gudbrand Skafhogson. 18. OF IVAR INGIMUNDSON. King Eystein had in many ways improved the laws and priveleges of the country people, and kept strictly to the laws; and he made himself acquainted with all the laws of Norway, and showed in everything great prudence and understanding. What a valuable man King Eystein was, how full of friendship, and how much he turned his mind to examining and avoiding everything that could be of disadvantage to his friends, may be seen from his friendship to an Iceland man called Ivar Ingimundson. The man was witty, of great family, and also a poet. The king saw that Ivar was out of spirits, and asked him why he was so melancholy. "Before, when thou wast with us, we had much amusement with thy conversation. I know thou art a man of too good an understanding to believe that I would do anything against thee. Tell me then what it is." He replied, "I cannot tell thee what it is." Then said the king, "I will try to guess what it is. Are there any men who displease thee?" To this he replied, "No." "Dost thou think thou art held in less esteem by me than thou wouldst like to be?" To this he also replied, "No." "Hast thou observed anything whatever that has made an impression on thee at which thou art ill pleased?" He replied, it was not this either. The king: "Would you like to go to other chiefs or to other men?" To this he answered, "No." The king: "It is difficult now to guess. Is there any girl here, or in any other country, to whom thy affections are engaged?" He said it was so. The king said, "Do not be melancholy on that account. Go to Iceland when spring sets in, and I shall give thee money, and presents, and with these my letters and seal to the men who have the principal sway there; and I know no man there who will not obey my persuasions or threats." Ivar replied, "My fate is heavier, sire; for my own brother has the girl." Then said the king, "Throw it out of thy mind; and I know a counsel against this. After Yule I will travel in guest-quarters. Thou shalt come along with me, and thou will have an opportunity of seeing many beautiful girls; and, provided they are not of the royal stock, I will get thee one of them in marriage." Ivar replies, "Sire, my fate is still the heavier; for as oft as I see beautiful and excellent girls I only remember the more that girl, and they increase my misery." The king: "Then I will give thee property to manage, and estates for thy amusement." He replied, "For that I have no desire." The king: "Then I will give thee money, that thou mayest travel in other countries." He said he did not wish this. Then said the king, "It is difficult for me to seek farther, for I have proposed everything that occurs to me. There is but one thing else; and that is but little compared to what I have offered thee. Come to me every day after the tables are removed, and, if I am not sitting upon important business, I shall talk with thee about the girl in every way that I can think of; and I shall do so at leisure. It sometimes happens that sorrow is lightened by being brought out openly; and thou shalt never go away without some gift." He replied, "This I will do, sire, and return thanks for this inquiry." And now they did so constantly; and when the king was not occupied with weightier affairs he talked with him, and his sorrow by degrees wore away, and he was again in good spirits. 19. OF KING SIGURD. King Sigurd was a stout and strong man, with brown hair; of a manly appearance, but not handsome; well grown; of little speech, and often not friendly, but good to his friends, and faithful; not very eloquent, but moral and polite. King Sigurd was self-willed, and severe in his revenge; strict in observing the law; was generous; and withal an able, powerful king. His brother Olaf was a tall, thin man; handsome in countenance; lively, modest, and popular. When all these brothers, Eystein, Sigurd and Olaf were kings of Norway, they did away with many burthens which the Danes had laid upon the people in the time that Svein Alfifason ruled Norway; and on this account they were much beloved, both by the people and the great men of the country. 20. OF KING SIGURD'S DREAM. Once King Sigurd fell into low spirits, so that few could get him to converse, and he sat but a short time at the drinking table. This was heavy on his counsellors, friends, and court; and they begged King Eystein to consider how they could discover the cause why the people who came to the king could get no reply to what they laid before him. King Eystein answered them, that it was difficult to speak with the king about this; but at last, on the entreaty of many, he promised to do it. Once, when they were both together, King Eystein brought the matter before his brother, and asked the cause of his melancholy. "It is a great grief, sire, to many to see thee so melancholy; and we would like to know what has occasioned it, or if perchance thou hast heard any news of great weight?" King Sigurd replies, that it was not so. "Is it then, brother," says King Eystein, "that you would like to travel out of the country, and augment your dominions as our father did?" He answered, that it was not that either. "Is it, then, that any man here in the country has offended?" To this also the king said "No." "Then I would like to know if you have dreamt anything that has occasioned this depression of mind?" The king answered that it was so. "Tell me, then, brother, thy dream." King Sigurd said, "I will not tell it, unless thou interpret it as it may turn out; and I shall be quick at perceiving if thy interpretation be right or not." King Eystein replies, "This is a very difficult matter, sire, on both sides; as I am exposed to thy anger if I cannot interpret it, and to the blame of the public if I can do nothing in the matter; but I will rather fall under your displeasure, even if my interpretation should not be agreeable." King Sigurd replies, "It appeared to me, in a dream, as if we brothers were all sitting on a bench in front of Christ church in Throndhjem; and it appeared to me as if our relative, King Olaf the Saint, came out of the church adorned with the royal raiment glancing and splendid, and with the most delightful and joyful countenance. He went to our brother King Olaf, took him by the hand, and said cheerfully, to him, 'Come with me, friend.' On which he appeared to stand up and go into the church. Soon after King Olaf the Saint came out of the church, but not so gay and brilliant as before. Now he went to thee, brother, and said to thee that thou shouldst go with him; on which he led thee with him, and ye went into the church. Then I thought, and waited for it, that he would come to me, and meet me; but it was not so. Then I was seized with great sorrow, and great dread and anxiety fell upon me, so that I was altogether without strength; and then I awoke." King Eystein replies, "Thus I interpret your dream, sire,--That the bench betokens the kingdom we brothers have; and as you thought King Olaf came with so glad a countenance to our brother, King Olaf, he will likely live the shortest time of us brothers, and have all good to expect hereafter; for he is amiable, young in years, and has gone but little into excess, and King Olaf the Saint must help him. But as you thought he came towards me, but not with so much joy, I may possibly live a few years longer, but not become old, and I trust his providence will stand over me; but that he did not come to me with the same splendour and glory as to our brother Olaf, that will be because, in many ways, I have sinned and transgressed his command. If he delayed coming to thee, I think that in no way betokens thy death, but rather a long life; but it may be that some heavy accident may occur to thee, as there was an unaccountable dread overpowering thee; but I foretell that thou will be the oldest of us, and wilt rule the kingdom longest." Then said Sigurd, "This is well and intelligently interpreted, and it is likely it will be so." And now the king began to be cheerful again. 21. OF KING SIGURD'S MARRIAGE. King Sigurd married Malmfrid, a daughter of King Harald Valdemarson, eastward in Novgorod. King Harald Valdemarson's mother was Queen Gyda the Old, a daughter of the Swedish king, Inge Steinkelson. Harald Valdemarson's other daughter, sister to Malmfrid, was Ingebjorg, who was married to Canute Lavard, a son of the Danish king, Eirik the Good, and grandson of King Svein Ulfson. Canute's and Ingebjorg's children were, the Danish king, Valdemar, who came to the Danish kingdom after Svein Eirikson; and daughters Margaret, Christina, and Catherine. Margaret was married to Stig Hvitaled; and their daughter was Christina, married to the Swedish king, Karl Sorkvison, and their son was King Sorkver. 22. OF THE CASES BEFORE THE THING. The king's relative, Sigurd Hranason, came into strife with King Sigurd. He had had the Lapland collectorship on the king's account, because of their relationship and long friendship, and also of the many services Sigurd Hranason had done to the kings; for he was a very distinguished, popular man. But it happened to him, as it often does to others, that persons more wicked and jealous than upright slandered him to King Sigurd, and whispered in the king's ear that he took more of the Laplander's tribute to himself than was proper. They spoke so long about this, that King Sigurd conceived a dislike and anger to him, and sent a message to him. When he appeared before the king, the king carried these feelings with him, and said, "I did not expect that thou shouldst have repaid me for thy great fiefs and other dignities by taking the king's property, and abstracting a greater portion of it than is allowable." Sigurd Hranason replies, "It is not true that has been told you; for I have only taken such portion as I had your permission to take." King Sigurd replies, "Thou shalt not slip away with this; but the matter shall be seriously treated before it comes to an end." With that they parted. Soon after, by the advice of his friends, the king laid an action against Sigurd Hranason at the Thing-meeting in Bergen, and would have him made an outlaw. Now when the business took this turn, and appeared so dangerous, Sigurd Hranason went to King Eystein, and told him what mischief King Sigurd intended to do him, and entreated his assistance. King Eystein replied, "This is a difficult matter that you propose to me, to speak against my brother; and there is a great difference between defending a cause and pursuing it in law;" and added, that this was a matter which concerned him and Sigurd equally. "But for thy distress, and our relationship, I shall bring in a word for thee." Soon after Eystein visited King Sigurd, and entreated him to spare the man, reminding him of the relationship between them and Sigurd Hranason, who was married to their aunt, Skialdvor; and said he would pay the penalty for the crime committed against the king, although he could not with truth impute any blame to him in the matter. Besides, he reminded the king of the long friendship with Sigurd Hranason. King Sigurd replied, that it was better government to punish such acts. Then King Eystein replied, "If thou, brother, wilt follow the law, and punish such acts according to the country's privileges, then it would be most correct that Sigurd Hranason produce his witnesses, and that the case be judged at the Thing, but not at a meeting; for the case comes under the law of the land, not under Bjarkey law." Then said Sigurd, "It may possibly be so that the case belongs to it, as thou sayest, King Eystein; and if it be against law what has hitherto been done in this case, then we shall bring it before the Thing." Then the kings parted, and each seemed determined to take his own way. King Sigurd summoned the parties in the case before the Arnarnes Thing, and intended to pursue it there. King Eystein came also to the Thing-place; and when the case was brought forward for judgment, King Eystein went to the Thing before judgment was given upon Sigurd Hranason. Now King Sigurd told the lagmen to pronounce the judgment; but King Eystein replied thus: "I trust there are here men acquainted sufficiently with the laws of Norway, to know that they cannot condemn a lendermen to be outlawed at this Thing." And he then explained how the law was, so that every man clearly understood it. Then said King Sigurd, "Thou art taking up this matter very warmly, King Eystein, and it is likely the case will cost more trouble before it comes to an end than we intended; but nevertheless we shall follow it out. I will have him condemned to be outlawed in his native place." Then said King Eystein, "There are certainly not many things which do not succeed with thee, and especially when there are but few and small folks to oppose one who has carried through such great things." And thus they parted, without anything being concluded in the case. Thereafter King Sigurd called together a Gula Thing, went himself there, and summoned to him many high chiefs. King Eystein came there also with his suite; and many meetings and conferences were held among people of understanding concerning this case, and it was tried and examined before the lagmen. Now King Eystein objected that all the parties summoned in any cases tried here belonged to the Thing-district; but in this case the deed and the parties belonged to Halogaland. The Thing accordingly ended in doing nothing, as King Eystein had thus made it incompetent. The kings parted in great wrath; and King Eystein went north to Throndhjem. King Sigurd, on the other hand, summoned to him all lendermen, and also the house-servants of the lendermen, and named out of every district a number of the bondes from the south parts of the country, so that he had collected a large army about him; and proceeded with all this crowd northwards along the coast to Halogaland, and intended to use all his power to make Sigurd Hranason an outlaw among his own relations. For this purpose he summoned to him the Halogaland and Naumudal people, and appointed a Thing at Hrafnista. King Eystein prepared himself also, and proceeded with many people from the town of Nidaros to the Thing, where he made Sigurd Hranason, by hand-shake before witnesses, deliver over to him the following and defending this case. At this Thing both the kings spoke, each for his own side. Then King Eystein asks the lagmen where that law was made in Norway which gave the bondes the right to judge between the kings of the country, when they had pleas with each other. "I shall bring witnesses to prove that Sigurd has given the case into my hands; and it is with me, not with Sigurd Hranason, that King Sigurd has to do in this case." The lagmen said that disputes between kings must be judged only at the Eyra Thing in Nidaros. King Eystein said, "So I thought that it should be there, and the cases must be removed there." Then King Sigurd said, "The more difficulties and inconvenience thou bringest upon me in this matter, the more I will persevere in it." And with that they parted. Both kings then went south to Nidaros town, where they summoned a Thing from eight districts. King Eystein was in the town with a great many people, but Sigurd was on board his ships. When the Thing was opened, peace and safe conduct was given to all; and when the people were all collected, and the case should be gone into, Bergthor, a son of Svein Bryggjufot, stood up, and gave his evidence that Sigurd Hranason had concealed a part of the Laplanders' taxes. Then King Eystein stood up and said, "If thy accusation were true, although we do not know what truth there may be in thy testimony, yet this case has already been dismissed from three Things, and a fourth time from a town meeting; and therefore I require that the lagmen acquit Sigurd in this case according to law." And they did so. Then said King Sigurd, "I see sufficiently, King Eystein, that thou hast carried this case by law-quirks (1), which I do not understand. But now there remains, King Eystein, a way of determining the case which I am more used to, and which I shall now apply." He then retired to his ships, had the tents taken down, laid his whole fleet out at the holm, and held a Thing of his people; and told them that early in the morning they should land at Iluvellir, and give battle to King Eystein. But in the evening, as King Sigurd sat at his table in his ship taking his repast, before he was aware of it a man cast himself on the floor of the forehold, and at the king's feet. This was Sigurd Hranason, who begged the king to take what course with regard to him the king himself thought proper. Then came Bishop Magne and Queen Malmfrid, and many other great personages, and entreated forgiveness for Sigurd Hranason; and at their entreaty the king raised him up, took him by the hand, and placed him among his men, and took him along with himself to the south part of the country. In autumn the king gave Sigurd Hranason leave to go north to his farm, gave him an employment, and was always afterward his friend. After this day, however, the brothers were never much together, and there was no cordiality or cheerfulness among them. ENDNOTES: (1) These law-quirks show a singularly advanced state of law. and deference to the Law Things, amidst such social disorder and misdeeds.--L. 23. OF KING OLAF'S DEATH. King Olaf Magnuson fell into a sickness which ended in his death. He was buried in Christ church in Nidaros, and many were in great grief at his death. After Olaf's death, Eystein and Sigurd ruled the country, the three brothers together having been kings of Norway for twelve years (A.D. 1104-1115); namely, five years after King Sigurd returned home, and seven years before. King Olaf was seventeen years old when he died, and it happened on the 24th of December. 24. MAGNUS THE BLIND; HIS BIRTH. King Eystein had been about a year in the east part of the country at that time, and King Sigurd was then in the north. King Eystein remained a long time that winter in Sarpsborg. There was once a powerful and rich bonde called Olaf of Dal, who dwelt in Great Dal in Aumord, and had two children,--a son called Hakon Fauk, and a daughter called Borghild, who was a very beautiful girl, and prudent, and well skilled in many things. Olaf and his children were a long time in winter in Sarpsborg, and Borghild conversed very often with King Eystein; so that many reports were spread about their friendship. The following summer King Eystein went north, and King Sigurd came eastward, where he remained all winter, and was long in Konungahella, which town he greatly enlarged and improved. He built there a great castle of turf and stone, dug a great ditch around it, and built a church and several houses within the castle. The holy cross he allowed to remain at Konungahella, and therein did not fulfill the oath he had taken in Palestine; but, on the other hand, he established tithe, and most of the other things to which he had bound himself by oath. The reason of his keeping the cross east at the frontier of the country was, that he thought it would be a protection to all the land; but it proved the greatest misfortune to place this relic within the power of the heathens, as it afterwards turned out. When Borghild, Olaf's daughter, heard it whispered that people talked ill of her conversations and intimacy with King Eystein, she went to Sarpsborg; and after suitable fasts she carried the iron as proof of her innocence, and cleared herself thereby fully from all offence. When King Sigurd heard this, he rode one day as far as usually was two days' travelling, and came to Dal to Olaf, where he remained all night, made Borghild his concubine, and took her away with him. They had a son, who was called Magnus, and he was sent immediately to Halogaland, to be fostered at Bjarkey by Vidkun Jonson; and he was brought up there. Magnus grew up to be the handsomest man that could be seen, and was very soon stout and strong. 25. COMPARISON BETWEEN THE TWO KINGS. King Eystein and King Sigurd went both in spring to guest-quarters in the Uplands; and each was entertained in a separate house, and the houses were not very distant from each other. The bondes, however, thought it more convenient that both should be entertained together by turns in each house; and thus they were both at first in the house of King Eystein. But in the evening, when the people began to drink, the ale was not good; so that the guests were very quiet and still. Then said King Eystein, "Why are the people so silent? It is more usual in drinking parties that people are merry, so let us fall upon some jest over our ale that will amuse people; for surely, brother Sigurd, all people are well pleased when we talk cheerfully." Sigurd replies, bluntly, "Do you talk as much as you please, but give me leave to be silent." Eystein says, "It is a common custom over the ale-table to compare one person with another, and now let us do so." Then Sigurd was silent. "I see," says King Eystein, "that I must begin this amusement. Now I will take thee, brother, to compare myself with, and will make it appear so as if we had both equal reputation and property, and that there is no difference in our birth and education." Then King Sigurd replies, "Do you remember that I was always able to throw you when we wrestled, although you are a year older?" Then King Eystein replied, "But I remember that you was not so good at the games which require agility." Sigurd: "Do you remember that I could drag you under water, when we swam together, as often as I pleased?" Eystein: "But I could swim as far as you, and could dive as well as you; and I could run upon snow-skates so well that nobody could beat me, and you could no more do it than an ox." Sigurd: "Methinks it is a more useful and suitable accomplishment for a chief to be expert at his bow; and I think you could scarcely draw my bow, even if you took your foot to help." Eystein: "I am not strong at the bow as you are, but there is less difference between our shooting near; and I can use the skees much better than you, and in former times that was held a great accomplishment." Sigurd: "It appears to me much better for a chief who is to be the superior of other men, that he is conspicuous in a crowd, and strong and powerful in weapons above other men; easily seen, and easily known, where there are many together." Eystein: "It is not less a distinction and an ornament that a man is of a handsome appearance, so as to be easily known from others on that account; and this appears to me to suit a chief best, because the best ornament is allied to beauty. I am moreover more knowing in the law than you, and on every subject my words flow more easily than yours." Sigurd: "It may be that you know more law-quirks, for I have had something else to do; neither will any deny you a smooth tongue. But there are many who say that your words are not to be trusted; that what you promise is little to be regarded; and that you talk just according to what those who are about you say, which is not kingly." Eystein: "This is because, when people bring their cases before me, I wish first to give every man that satisfaction in his affairs which he desires; but afterwards comes the opposite party, and then there is something to be given or taken away very often, in order to mediate between them, so that both may be satisfied. It often happens, too, that I promise whatever is desired of me, that all may be joyful about me. It would be an easy matter for me to do as you do,--to promise evil to all; and I never hear any complain of your not keeping this promise to them." Sigurd: "It is the conversation of all that the expedition that I made out of the country was a princely expedition, while you in the meantime sat at home like your father's daughter." Eystein: "Now you touched the tender spot. I would not have brought up this conversation if I had not known what to reply on this point. I can truly say that I equipt you from home like a sister, before you went upon this expedition." Sigurd: "You must have heard that on this expedition I was in many a battle in the Saracen's land, and gained the victory in all; and you must have heard of the many valuable articles I acquired, the like of which were never seen before in this country, and I was the most respected wherever the most gallant men were; and, on the other hand, you cannot conceal that you have only a home-bred reputation." Eystein: "I have heard that you had several battles abroad, but it was more useful for the country what I was doing in the meantime here at home. I built five churches from the foundations, and a harbour out at Agdanes, where it before was impossible to land, and where vessels ply north and south along the coast. I set a warping post and iron ring in the sound of Sinholm, and in Bergen I built a royal hall, while you were killing bluemen for the devil in Serkland. This, I think, was of but little advantage to our kingdom." King Sigurd said: "On this expedition I went all the way to Jordan and swam across the river. On the edge of the river there is a bush of willows, and there I twisted a knot of willows, and said this knot thou shouldst untie, brother, or take the curse thereto attached." King Eystein said: "I shall not go and untie the knot which you tied for me; but if I had been inclined to tie a knot for thee, thou wouldst not have been king of Norway at thy return to this country, when with a single ship you came sailing into my fleet." Thereupon both were silent, and there was anger on both sides. More things passed between the brothers, from which it appeared that each of them would be greater than the other; however, peace was preserved between them as long as they lived. 26. OF KING SIGURD'S SICKNESS. King Sigurd was at a feast in the Upland, and a bath was made ready for him. When the king came to the bath and the tent was raised over the bathing-tub, the king thought there was a fish in the tub beside him; and a great laughter came upon him, so that he was beside himself, and was out of his mind, and often afterwards these fits returned. Magnus Barefoot's daughter, Ragnhild, was married by her brothers to Harald Kesia, a son of the Danish king, Eirik the Good; and their sons were Magnus, Olaf, Knut and Harald. 27. OF KING EYSTEIN'S DEATH. King Eystein built a large ship at Nidaros, which, in size and shape, was like the Long Serpent which King Olaf Trygvason had built. At the stem there was a dragon's head, and at the stern a crooked tail, and both were gilded over. The ship was high-sided; but the fore and aft parts appeared less than they should be. He also made in Nidaros many and large dry-docks of the best material, and well timbered. Six years after King Olaf's death, it happened that King Eystein, at a feast at Hustadir in Stim, was seized with an illness which soon carried him off. He died the 29th of August, 1123, and his body was carried north to Nidaros, and buried in Christ church; and it is generally said that so many mourners never stood over any man's grave in Norway as over King Eystein's, at least since the time Magnus the Good, Saint Olaf's son, died. Eystein had been twenty years (A.D. 1104-1123) king of Norway; and after his decease his brother, King Sigurd, was the sole king of Norway as long as he lived. 28. BAPTIZING THE PEOPLE OF SMALAND. The Danish king, Nikolas, a son of Svein Ulfson, married afterwards the Queen Margaret, a daughter of King Inge, who had before been married to King Magnus Barefoot; and their sons were Nikolas and Magnus the Strong. King Nikolas sent a message to King Sigurd the Crusader, and asked him if he would go with him with all his might and help him to the east of the Swedish dominion, Smaland, to baptize the inhabitants; for the people who dwelt there had no regard for Christianity, although some of them had allowed themselves to be baptized. At that time there were many people all around in the Swedish dominions who were heathens, and many were bad Christians; for there were some of the kings who renounced Christianity, and continued heathen sacrifices, as Blotsvein, and afterwards Eirik Arsale, had done. King Sigurd promised to undertake this journey, and the kings appointed their meeting at Eyrarsund. King Sigurd then summoned all people in Norway to a levy, both of men and ships; and when the fleet was assembled he had about 300 ships. King Nikolas came very early to the meeting-place, and stayed there a long time; and the bondes murmured much, and said the Northmen did not intend to come. Thereupon the Danish army dispersed, and the king went away with all his fleet. King Sigurd came there soon afterwards, and was ill pleased; but sailed east to Svimraros, and held a House-thing, at which Sigurd spoke about King Nikolas's breach of faith, and the Northmen, on this account, determined to go marauding in his country. They first plundered a village called Tumathorp, which is not far from Lund; and then sailed east to the merchant-town of Calmar, where they plundered, as well as in Smaland, and imposed on the country a tribute of 1500 cattle for ship provision; and the people of Smaland received Christianity. After this King Sigurd turned about with his fleet, and came back to his kingdom with many valuable articles and great booty, which he had gathered on this expedition; and this levy was called the Calmar levy. This was the summer before the eclipse. This was the only levy King Sigurd carried out as long as he was king. 29. OF THORARIN STUTFELD. It happened once when King Sigurd was going from the drinking-table to vespers, that his men were very drunk and merry; and many of them sat outside the church singing the evening song, but their singing was very irregular. Then the king said, "Who is that fellow I see standing at the church with a skin jacket on?" They answered, that they did not know. Then the king said:-- "This skin-clad man, in sorry plight, Puts all our wisdom here to flight." Then the fellow came forward and said:-- "I thought that here I might be known, Although my dress is scanty grown. 'Tis poor, but I must be content: Unless, great king, it's thy intent To give me better; for I have seen When I and rags had strangers been." The king answered, "Come to me to-morrow when I am at the drink-table." The night passed away; and the morning after the Icelander, who was afterwards called Thorarin Stutfetd, went into the drinking-room. A man stood outside of the door of the room with a horn in his hand, and said, "Icelander! the king says that if thou wilt deserve any gift from him thou shalt compose a song before going in, and make it about a man whose name is Hakon Serkson, and who is called Morstrut (1); and speak about that surname in thy song." The man who spoke to him was called Arne Fioruskeif. Then they went into the room; and when Thorarin came before the king's seat he recited these verses:-- "Throndhjem's warrior-king has said The skald should be by gifts repaid, If he before this meeting gave The king's friend Serk a passing stave. The generous king has let me know My stave, to please, must be framed so That my poor verse extol the fame Of one called Hakon Lump by name." Then said the king, "I never said so, and somebody has been making a mock of thee. Hakon himself shall determine what punishment thou shalt have. Go into his suite." Hakon said, "He shall be welcome among us, for I can see where the joke came from;" and he placed the Icelander at his side next to himself, and they were very merry. The day was drawing to a close, and the liquor began to get into their heads, when Hakon said, "Dost thou not think, Icelander, that thou owest me some penalty? and dost thou not see that some trick has been played upon thee?" Thorarin replies, "It is true, indeed, that I owe thee some compensation." Hakon says, "Then we shall be quits, if thou wilt make me another stave about Arne." He said he was ready to do so; and they crossed over to the side of the room where Arne was sitting, and Thorarin gave these verses:-- "Fioruskeif has often spread, With evil heart and idle head, The eagle's voidings round the land, Lampoons and lies, with ready hand. Yet this landlouper we all know, In Africa scarce fed a crow, Of all his arms used in the field, Those in most use were helm and shield." Arne sprang up instantly, drew his sword, and was going to fall upon him; but Hakon told him to let it alone and be quiet, and bade him remember that if it came to a quarrel he would come off the worst himself. Thorarin afterwards went up to the king, and said he had composed a poem which he wished the king to hear. The king consented, and the song is known by the name of the Stutfeld poem. The king asked Thorarin what he intended to do. He replied, it was his intention to go to Rome. Then the king gave him much money for his pilgrimage, and told him to visit him on his return, and promised to provide for him. ENDNOTES: (1) Morstrut is a short, fat, punchy fellow.--L. 30. OF SIGURD AND OTTAR BIRTING. It is told that King Sigurd, one Whitsunday, sat at table with many people, among whom were many of his friends; and when he came to his high-seat, people saw that his countenance was very wild, and as if he had been weeping, so that people were afraid of what might follow. The king rolled his eyes, and looked at those who were seated on the benches. Then he seized the holy book which he had brought with him from abroad, and which was written all over with gilded letters; so that never had such a costly book come to Norway. His queen sat by his side. Then said King Sigurd, "Many are the changes which may take place during a man's lifetime. I had two things which were dear to me above all when I came from abroad, and these were this book and the queen; and now I think the one is only worse and more loathsome than the other, and nothing I have belonging to me that I more detest. The queen does not know herself how hideous she is; for a goat's horn is standing out on her head, and the better I liked her before the worse I like her now." Thereupon he cast the book on the fire which was burning on the hall-floor, and gave the queen a blow with his fist between the eyes. The queen wept; but more at the king's' illness than at the blow, or the affront she had suffered. Then a man stood up before the king; his name was Ottar Birting; and he was one of the torch-bearers, although a bonde's son, and was on service that day. He was of small stature, but of agreeable appearance; lively, bold, and full of fun; black haired, and of a dark skin. He ran and snatched the book which the king had cast into the fire, held it out, and said, "Different were the days, sire, when you came with great state and splendour to Norway, and with great fame and honour; for then all your friends came to meet you with joy, and were glad at your coming. All as one man would have you for king, and have you in the highest regard and honour. But now days of sorrow are come over us; for on this holy festival many of your friends have come to you, and cannot be cheerful on account of your melancholy and ill health. It is much to be desired that you would be merry with them; and do, good king, take this saving advice, make peace first with the queen, and make her joyful whom you have so highly affronted, with a friendly word; and then all your chiefs, friends, and servants; that is my advice." Then said King Sigurd, "Dost thou dare to give me advice, thou great lump of a houseman's lad!" And he sprang up, drew his sword, and swung it with both hands as if going to cut him down. But Ottar stood quiet and upright; did not stir from the spot, nor show the slightest sign of fear; and the king turned round the sword-blade which he had waved over Ottar's head, and gently touched him on the shoulder with it. Then he sat down in silence on his high-seat. All were silent who were in the hall, for nobody dared to say a word. Now the king looked around him, milder than before, and said, "It is difficult to know what there is in people. Here sat my friends, and lendermen, marshals and shield-bearers, and all the best men in the land; but none did so well against me as this man, who appears to you of little worth compared to any of you, although now he loves me most. I came here like a madman, and would have destroyed my precious property; but he turned aside my deed, and was not afraid of death for it. Then he made an able speech, ordering his words so that they were honourable to me, and not saying a single word about things which could increase my vexation; but even avoiding what might, with truth, have been said. So excellent was his speech, that no man here, however great his understanding, could have spoken better. Then I sprang up in a pretended rage, and made as if I would have cut him down; but he was courageous as if he had nothing to fear; and seeing that, I let go my purpose; for he was altogether innocent. Now ye shall know, my friends, how I intend to reward him; he was before my torchbearer, and shall now be my lenderman; and there shall follow what is still more, that he shall be the most distinguished of my lendermen. Go thou and sit among the lendermen, and be a servant no longer." Ottar became one of the most celebrated men in Norway for various good and praiseworthy deeds. 31. OF KING SIGURD'S DREAM. In King Sigurd's latter days he was once at an entertainment at one of his farms; and in the morning when he was dressed he was silent and still, so that his friends were afraid he was not able to govern himself. Now the farm bailiff, who was a man of good sense and courage, brought him into conversation, and asked if he had heard any news of such importance that it disturbed his mirth; or if the entertainment had not satisfied him; or if there was anything else that people could remedy. King Sigurd said, that none of the things he had mentioned was the cause. "But it is that I think upon the dream I had in the night." "Sire," replied he, "may it prove a lucky dream! I would gladly hear it." The king: "I thought that I was in Jadar, and looked out towards the sea; and that I saw something very black moving itself; and when it came near it appeared to be a large tree, of which the branches stretched far above the water, and the roots were down in the sea. Now when the tree came to the shore it broke into pieces, and drove all about the land, both the mainland and the out-islands, rocks and strands; and it appeared to me as if I saw over all Norway along the sea-coast, and saw pieces of that tree, some small and some large, driven into every bight." Then said the bailiff, "It is likely that you an best interpret this dream yourself; and I would willingly hear your interpretation of it." Then said the king, "This dream appears to me to denote the arrival in this country of some man who will fix his seat here, and whose posterity will spread itself over the land; but with unequal power, as the dream shows." 32. OF ASLAK HANE. It so happened once, that King Sigurd sat in a gloomy mood among many worthy men. It was Friday evening, and the kitchen-master asked what meat should be made ready. The king replies, "What else but flesh-meat?" And so harsh were his words that nobody dared to contradict him, and all were ill at ease. Now when people prepared to go to table, dishes of warm flesh-meat were carried in; but all were silent, and grieved at the king's illness. Before the blessing was pronounced over the meat, a man called Aslak Hane spoke. He had been a long time with King Sigurd on his journey abroad, and was not a man of any great family; and was small of stature, but fiery. When he perceived how it was, and that none dared to accost the king, he asked, "What is it, sire, that is smoking on the dish before you?" The king replies, "What do you mean, Aslak? what do you think it is?" Aslak: "I think it is flesh-meat; and I would it were not so." The king: "But if it be so, Aslak?" He replied, "It would be vexatious to know that a gallant king, who has gained so much honour in the world, should so forget himself. When you rose up out of Jordan, after bathing in the same waters as God himself, with palm-leaves in your hands, and the cross upon your breast, it was something else you promised, sire, than to eat flesh-meat on a Friday. If a meaner man were to do so, he would merit a heavy punishment. This royal hall is not so beset as it should be, when it falls upon me, a mean man, to challenge such an act." The king sat silent, and did not partake of the meat; and when the time for eating was drawing to an end, the king ordered the flesh dishes to be removed and other food was brought in, such as it is permitted to use. When the meal-time was almost past, the king began to be cheerful, and to drink. People advised Aslak to fly, but he said he would not do so. "I do not see how it could help me; and to tell the truth, it is as good to die now that I have got my will, and have prevented the king from committing a sin. It is for him to kill me if he likes." Towards evening the king called him, and said, "Who set thee on, Aslak Hane, to speak such free words to me in the hearing of so many people?" "No one, sire, but myself." The king: "Thou wouldst like, no doubt, to know what thou art to have for such boldness; what thinkest thou it deserves." He replies, "If it be well rewarded, sire, I shall be glad; but should it be otherwise, then it is your concern." Then the king said, "Smaller is thy reward than thou hast deserved. I give thee three farms. It has turned out, what could not have been expected, that thou hast prevented me from a great crime,--thou, and not the lendermen, who are indebted to me for so much good." And so it ended. 33. OF A WOMAN BROUGHT TO THE KING. One Yule eve the king sat in the hall, and the tables were laid out, and the king said, "Get me flesh-meat." They answered, "Sire, it is not the custom to eat flesh-meat on Yule eve." The king said, "If it be not the custom I will make it the custom." They went out, and brought him a dolphin. The king stuck his knife into it, but did not eat of it. Then the king said, "Bring me a girl here into the hall." They brought him a woman whose head-dress went far down her brows. The king took her hand in his hands, looked at her, and said, "An ill looking girl!" ((LACUNA--The rest of this story is missing)) 34. HARALD GILLE COMES TO NORWAY. Halkel Huk, a son of Jon Smiorbalte, who was lenderman in More, made a voyage in the West sea, all the way to the South Hebudes. A man came to him out of Ireland called Gillikrist, and gave himself out for a son of King Magnus Barefoot. His mother came with him, and said his other name was Harald. Halkel received the man, brought him to Norway with him, and went immediately to King Sigurd with Harald and his mother. When they had told their story to the king, he talked over the matter with his principal men, and bade them give their opinions upon it. They were of different opinions, and all left it to the king himself, although there were several who opposed this; and the king followed his own counsel. King Sigurd ordered Harald to be called before him, and told him that he would not deny him the proof, by ordeal, of who his father was; but on condition that if he should prove his descent according to his claim, he should not desire the kingdom in the lifetime of King Sigurd, or of King Magnus: and to this he bound himself by oath. King Sigurd said he must tread over hot iron to prove his birth; but this ordeal was thought by many too severe, as he was to undergo it merely to prove his father, and without getting the kingdom; but Harald agreed to it, and fixed on the trial by iron: and this ordeal was the greatest ever made in Norway; for nine glowing plowshares were laid down, and Harald went over them with bare feet, attended by two bishops. Three days after the iron trial the ordeal was taken to proof, and the feet were found unburnt. Thereafter King Sigurd acknowledged Harald's relationship; but his son Magnus conceived a great hatred of him, and in this many chiefs followed Magnus. King Sigurd trusted so much to his favour with the whole people of the country, that he desired all men, under oath, to promise to accept Magnus after him as their king; and all the people took this oath. 35. RACE BETWEEN MAGNUS AND HARALD GILLE. Harald Gille was a tall, slender-grown man, of a long neck and face, black eyes, and dark hair, brisk and quick, and wore generally the Irish dress of short light clothes. The Norse language was difficult for Harald, and he brought out words which many laughed at. Harald sat late drinking one evening. He spoke with another man about different things in the west in Ireland; and among other things, said that there were men in Ireland so swift of foot that no horse could overtake them in running. Magnus, the king's son, heard this, and said, "Now he is lying, as he usually does." Harald replies, "It is true that there are men in Ireland whom no horse in Norway could overtake." They exchanged some words about this, and both were drunk. Then said Magnus, "Thou shalt make a wager with me, and stake thy head if thou canst not run so fast as I ride upon my horse, and I shall stake my gold ring." Harald replies, "I did not say that I could run so swiftly; but I said that men are to be found in Ireland who will run as fast; and on that I would wager." The king's son Magnus replies, "I will not go to Ireland about it; we are wagering here, and not there." Harald on this went to bed, and would not speak to him more about it. This was in Oslo. The following morning, when the early mass was over, Magnus rode up the street, and sent a message to Harald to come to him. When Harald came he was dressed thus. He had on a shirt and trousers which were bound with ribands under his foot-soles, a short cloak, an Irish hat on his head, and a spear-shaft in his hand. Magnus set up a mark for the race. Harald said, "Thou hast made the course too long;" but Magnus made it at once even much longer, and said it was still too short. There were many spectators. They began the race, and Harald followed always the horse's pace; and when they came to the end of the race course, Magnus said, "Thou hadst hold of the saddle-girth, and the horse dragged thee along." Magnus had his swift runner, the Gautland horse. They began the race again, and Harald ran the whole race-course before the horse. When came to the end Harald asked, "Had I hold of the saddle-girths now?" Magnus replied, "Thou hadst the start at first." Then Magnus let his horse breathe a while, and when he was ready he put the spurs to him, and set off in full gallop. Harald stood still, and Magnus looked back, and called, "Set off now." Then Harald ran quickly past the horse, and came to the end of the course so long before him that he lay down, and got up and saluted Magnus as he came in. Then they went home to the town. In the meantime King Sigurd had been at high mass, and knew nothing of this until after he had dined that day. Then he said to Magnus angrily, "Thou callest Harald useless; but I think thou art a great fool, and knowest nothing of the customs of foreign people. Dost thou not know that men in other countries exercise themselves in other feats than in filling themselves with ale, and making themselves mad, and so unfit for everything that they scarcely know each other? Give Harald his ring, and do not try to make a fool of him again, as long as I am above ground." 36. OF SIGURD'S SWIMMING. It happened once that Sigurd was out in his ship, which lay in the harbour; and there lay a merchant ship, which was an Iceland trader, at the side of it. Harald Gille was in the forecastle of the king's ship, and Svein Rimhildson, a son of Knut Sveinson of Jadar, had his berth the next before him. There was also Sigurd Sigurdson, a gallant lenderman, who himself commanded a ship. It was a day of beautiful weather and warm sunshine, and many went out to swim, both from the long-ship and the merchant vessel. An Iceland man, who was among the swimmers, amused himself by drawing those under water who could not swim so well as himself; and at that the spectators laughed. When King Sigurd saw and heard this, he cast off his clothes, sprang into the water, and swam to the Icelander, seized him, and pressed him under the water, and held him there; and as soon as the Icelander came up the king pressed him down again, and thus the one time after the other. Then said Sigurd Sigurdson, "Shall we let the king kill this man?" Somebody said, "No one has any wish to interfere." Sigurd replies, that "If Dag Eilifson were here, we should not be without one who dared." Then Sigurd sprang overboard, swam to the king, took hold of him, and said, "Sire, do not kill the man. Everybody sees that you are a much better swimmer." The king replies, "Let me loose, Sigurd: I shall be his death, for he will destroy our people under water." Sigurd says, "Let us first amuse ourselves; and, Icelander, do thou set off to the land," which he did. The king now got loose from Sigurd, and swam to his ship, and Sigurd went his way: but the king ordered that Sigurd should not presume to come into his presence; this was reported to Sigurd, and so he went up into the country. 37. OF HARALD AND SVEIN RIMHILDSON. In the evening, when people were going to bed, some of the ship's men were still at their games up in the country. Harald was with those who played on the land, and told his footboy to go out to the ship, make his bed, and wait for him there. The lad did as he was ordered. The king had gone to sleep; and as the boy thought Harald late, he laid himself in Harald's berth. Svein Rimhildson said, "It is a shame for brave men to be brought from their farms at home, and to have here serving boys to sleep beside them." The lad said that Harald had ordered him to come there. Svein Rimhildson said, "We do not so much care for Harald himself lying here, if he do not bring here his slaves and beggars;" and seized a riding-whip, and struck the boy on the head until the blood flowed from him. The boy ran immediately up the country, and told Harald what had happened, who went immediately out to the ship, to the aft part of the forecastle, and with a pole-axe struck Svein so that he received a severe wound on his hands; and then Harald went on shore. Svein ran to the land after him, and, gathering his friends, took Harald prisoner, and they were about hanging him. But while they were busy about this, Sigurd Sigurdson went out to the king's ship and awoke him. When the king opened his eyes and recognised Sigurd, he said. "For this reason thou shalt die, that thou hast intruded into my presence; for thou knowest that I forbade thee:" and with these words the king sprang up. Sigurd replied, "That is in your power as soon as you please; but other business is more urgent. Go to the land as quickly as possible to help thy brother; for the Rogaland people are going to hang him." Then said the king, "God give us luck, Sigurd! Call my trumpeter, and let him call the people all to land, and to meet me." The king sprang on the land, and all who knew him followed him to where the gallows was being erected. The king instantly took Harald to him; and all the people gathered to the king in full armour, as they heard the trumpet. Then the king ordered that Svein and all his comrades should depart from the country as outlaws; but by the intercession of good men the king was prevailed on to let them remain and hold their properties, but no mulct should be paid for Svein's wound. Then Sigurd Sigurdson asked if the king wished that he should go forth out of the country. "That will I not," said the king; "for I can never be without thee." 38. OF KING OLAF'S MIRACLE. There was a young and poor man called Kolbein; and Thora, King Sigurd the Crusader's mother, had ordered his tongue to be cut out of his mouth, and for no other cause than that this young man had taken a piece of meat out of the king-mother's tub which he said the cook had given him, and which the cook had not ventured to serve up to her. The man had long gone about speechless. So says Einar Skulason in Olaf's ballad:-- "The proud rich dame, for little cause, Had the lad's tongue cut from his jaws: The helpless man, of speech deprived, His dreadful sore wound scarce survived. A few weeks since at Hild was seen, As well as ever he had been, The same poor lad--to speech restored By Olaf's power, whom he adored." Afterwards the young man came to Nidaros, and watched in the Christ church; but at the second mass for Olaf before matins he fell asleep, and thought he saw King Olaf the Saint coming to him; and that Olaf talked to him, and took hold with his hands of the stump of his tongue and pulled it. Now when he awoke he found himself restored, and joyfully did he thank our Lord and the holy Saint Olaf, who had pitied and helped him; for he had come there speechless, and had gone to the holy shrine, and went away cured, and with his speech clear and distinct. 39. KING OLAF'S MIRACLE WITH A PRISONER. The heathens took prisoner a young man of Danish family and carried him to Vindland, where he was in fetters along with other prisoners. In the day-time he was alone in irons, without a guard; but at night a peasant's son was beside him in the chain, that he might not escape from them. This poor man never got sleep or rest from vexation and sorrow, and considered in many ways what could help him; for he had a great dread of slavery, and was pining with hunger and torture. He could not again expect to be ransomed by his friends, as they had already restored him twice from heathen lands with their own money; and he well knew that it would be difficult and expensive for them to submit a third time to this burden. It is well with the man who does not undergo so much in the world as this man knew he had suffered. He saw but one way; and that was to get off and escape if he could. He resolved upon this in the night-time, killed the peasant, and cut his foot off after killing him, and set off to the forest with the chain upon his leg. Now when the people knew this, soon after daylight in the morning, they pursued him with two dogs accustomed to trace any one who escaped, and to find him in the forest however carefully he might be concealed. They got him into their hands and beat him, and did him all kinds of mischief; and dragging him home, left barely alive, and showed him no mercy. They tortured him severely; put him in a dark room, in which there lay already sixteen Christian men; and bound him both with iron and other tyings, as fast as they could. Then he began to think that the misery and pain he had endured before were but shadows to his present sufferings. He saw no man before his eyes in this prison who would beg for mercy for him; no one had compassion on his wretchedness, except the Christian men who lay bound with him, who sorrowed with him, and bemoaned his fate together with their own misfortunes and helplessness. One day they advised him to make a vow to the holy King Olaf, to devote himself to some office in his sacred house, if he, by God's compassion and Saint Olaf's prayers could get away from this prison. He gladly agreed to this, and made a vow and prepared himself for the situation they mentioned to him. The night after he thought in his sleep that he saw a man, not tall, standing at his side, who spoke to him thus, "Here, thou wretched man, why dost thou not get up?" He replied, "Sir, who are you?" "I am King Olaf, on whom thou hast called." "Oh, my good lord! gladly would I raise myself; but I lie bound with iron and with chains on my legs, and also the other men who lie here." Thereupon the king accosts him with the words, "Stand up at once and be not afraid; for thou art loose." He awoke immediately, and told his comrades what, had appeared to him in his dream. They told him to stand up, and try if it was true. He stood up, and observed that he was loose. Now said his fellow-prisoners, this would help him but little, for the door was locked both on the inside and on the outside. Then an old man who sat there in a deplorable condition put in his word, and told him not to doubt the mercy of the man who had loosened his chains; "For he has wrought this miracle on thee that thou shouldst enjoy his mercy, and hereafter be free, without suffering more misery and torture. Make haste, then, and seek the door; and if thou are able to slip out, thou art saved." He did so, found the door open, slipped out, and away to the forest. As soon as the Vindland people were aware of this they set loose the dogs, and pursued him in great haste; and the poor man lay hid, and saw well where they were following him. But now the hounds lost the trace when they came nearer, and all the eyes that sought him were struck with a blindness, so that nobody could find him, although he lay before their feet; and they all returned home, vexed that they could not find him. King Olaf did not permit this man's destruction after he had reached the forest, and restored him also to his health and hearing; for they had so long tortured and beaten him that he had become deaf. At last he came on board of a ship, with two other Christian men who had been long afflicted in that country. All of them worked zealously in this vessel, and so had a successful flight. Then he repaired to the holy man's house, strong and fit to bear arms. Now he was vexed at his vow, went from his promise to the holy king, ran away one day, and came in the evening to a bonde who gave him lodging for God's sake. Then in the night he saw three girls coming to him; and handsome and nobly dressed were they. They spoke to him directly, and sharply reprimanded him for having been so bold as to run from the good king who had shown so much compassion to him, first in freeing him from his irons, and then from the prison; and yet he had deserted the mild master into whose service he had entered. Then he awoke full of terror, got up early, and told the house-father his dream. The good man had nothing so earnest in life as to send him-back to the holy place. This miracle was first written down by a man who himself saw the man, and the marks of the chains upon his body. 40. KING SIGURD MARRIES CECILIA. In the last period of King Sigurd's life, his new and extraordinary resolution was whispered about, that he would be divorced from his queen, and would take Cecilia, who was a great man's daughter, to wife. He ordered accordingly a great feast to be prepared, and intended to hold his wedding with her in Bergen. Now when Bishop Magne heard this, he was very sorry; and one day the bishop goes to the king's hall, and with him a priest called Sigurd, who was afterwards bishop of Bergen. When they came to the king's hall, the bishop sent the king a message that he would like to meet him; and asked the king to come out to him. He did so, and came out with a drawn sword in his hand. He received the bishop kindly and asked him to go in and sit down to table with him. The bishop replies, "I have other business now. Is it true, sire, what is told me, that thou hast the intention of marrying, and of driving away thy queen, and taking another wife?" The king said it was true. Then the bishop changed countenance, and angrily replied, "How can it come into your mind, sire, to do such an act in our bishopric as to betray God's word and law, and the holy church? It surprises me that you treat with such contempt our episcopal office, and your own royal office. I will now do what is my duty; and in the name of God, of the holy King Olaf, of Peter the apostle, and of the other saints, forbid thee this wickedness." While he thus spoke he stood straight up, as if stretching out his neck to the blow, as if ready if the king chose to let the sword fall; and the priest Sigurd, who afterwards was bishop, has declared that the sky appeared to him no bigger than a calf's skin, so frightful did the appearance of the king present itself to him. The king returned to the hall, however, without saying a word; and the bishop went to his house and home so cheerful and gay that he laughed, and saluted every child on his way, and was playing with his fingers. Then the priest Sigurd asked him the reason, saying, "Why are you so cheerful, sir? Do you not consider that the king may be exasperated against you? and would it not be better to get out of the way?" Then said the bishop, "It appears to me more likely that he will not act so; and besides, what death could be better, or more desirable, than to leave life for the honour of God? or to die for the holy cause of Christianity and our own office, by preventing that which is not right? I am so cheerful because I have done what I ought to do." There was much noise in the town about this. The king got ready for a journey, and took with him corn, malt and honey. He went south to Stavanger, and prepared a feast there for his marriage with Cecilia. When a bishop who ruled there heard of this he went to the king, and asked if it were true that he intended to marry in the lifetime of the queen. The king said it was so. The bishop answers, "If it be so, sire, you must know how much such a thing is forbidden to inferior persons. Now it appears as if you thought it was allowable for you, because you have great power, and that it is proper for you, although it is against right and propriety; but I do not know how you will do it in our bishopric, dishonouring thereby God's command, the holy Church, and our episcopal authority. But you must bestow a great amount of gifts and estates on this foundation, and thereby pay the mulct due to God and to us for such transgression." Then said the king, "Take what thou wilt of our possessions. Thou art far more reasonable than Bishop Magne." Then the king went away, as well pleased with this bishop as ill pleased with him who had laid a prohibition on him. Thereafter the king married the girl, and loved her tenderly. 41. IMPROVEMENT OF KONUNGAHELLA. King Sigurd improved the town of Konungahella so much, that there was not a greater town in Norway at the time, and he remained there long for the defence of the frontiers. He built a king's house in the castle, and imposed a duty on all the districts in the neighbourhood of the town, as well as on the townspeople, that every person of nine years of age and upwards should bring to the castle five missile stones for weapons, or as many large stakes sharp at one end and five ells long. In the castle the king built a cross-church of timber, and carefully put together, as far as regards the wood and other materials. The cross-church was consecrated in the 24th year of King Sigurd's reign (A.D. 1127). Here the king deposited the piece of the holy cross, and many other holy relics. It was called the castle church; and before the high altar he placed the tables he had got made in the Greek country, which were of copper and silver, all gilt, and beautifully adorned with jewels. Here was also the shrine which the Danish king Eirik Eimune had sent to King Sigurd; and the altar book, written with gold letters, which the patriarch had presented to King Sigurd. 42. KING SIGURD'S DEATH. Three years after the consecration of the cross-church, when King Sigurd was stopping at Viken, he fell sick (A.D. 1130). He died the night before Mary's-mass (August 15), and was buried in Halvard's church, where he was laid in the stone wall without the choir on the south side. His son Magnus was in the town at the time and took possession of the whole of the king's treasury when King Sigurd died. Sigurd had been king of Norway twenty-seven years (A.D. 1104-1130), and was forty years of age when he died. The time of his reign was good for the country; for there was peace, and crops were good. SAGA OF MAGNUS THE BLIND AND OF HARALD GILLE. PRELIMINARY REMARKS An age of conflict now begins in Norway. On his death, in 1130, Sigurd left his son Magnus and his brother Harald. They soon divided the government, and then entered upon a five-years' conflict, until Magnus, in 1135, with eyes picked out, went into a convent. The next year, 1136, a new pretender appeared in the person of Sigurd Slembe, who took King Harald's life in 1137. Magnus died in 1139. Other literature in regard to this epoch is "Fagrskinna" and "Morkinskinna". The corresponding part of "Agrip" is lost. Skalds quoted are: Haldor Skvaldre, Einar Skulason, and Ivar Ingemundson. 1. MAGNUS AND HARALD PROCLAIMED KINGS. King Sigurd's son Magnus was proclaimed in Oslo king of all the country immediately after his father's death, according to the oath which the whole nation had sworn to King Sigurd; and many went into his service, and many became his lendermen. Magnus was the handsomest man then in Norway; of a passionate temper, and cruel, but distinguished in bodily exercises. The favour of the people he owed most to the respect for his father. He was a great drinker, greedy of money, hard, and obstinate. Harald Gille, on the other hand, was very pleasing in intercourse, gay, and full of mirth; and so generous that he spared in nothing for the sake of his friends. He willingly listened to good advice, so that he allowed others to consult with him and give counsel. With all this he obtained favour and a good repute, and many men attached themselves as much to him as to King Magnus. Harald was in Tunsberg when he heard of his brother King Sigurd's death. He called together his friends to a meeting, and it was resolved to hold the Hauga Thing (1) there in the town. At this Thing, Harald was chosen king of half the country, and it was called a forced oath which had been taken from him to renounce his paternal heritage. Then Harald formed a court, and appointed lendermen; and very soon he had as many people about him as King Magnus. Then men went between them, and matters stood in this way for seven days; but King Magnus, finding he had fewer people, was obliged to give way, and to divide the kingdom with Harald into two parts. The kingdom accordingly was so divided (October 3, 1130) that each of them should have the half part of the kingdom which King Sigurd had possessed; but that King Magnus alone should inherit the fleet of ships, the table service, the valuable articles and the movable effects which had belonged to his father, King Sigurd. He was notwithstanding the least satisfied with his share. Although they were of such different dispositions, they ruled the country for some time in peace. King Harald had a son called Sigurd, by Thora, a daughter of Guthorm Grabarde. King Harald afterwards married Ingerid, a daughter of Ragnvald, who was a son of the Swedish King Inge Steinkelson. King Magnus was married to a daughter of Knut Lavard, and she was a sister of the Danish King Valdernar; but King Magnus having no affection for her, sent her back to Denmark; and from that day everything went ill with him, and he brought upon himself the enmity of her family. ENDNOTES: (1) Hauga-thing means a Thing held at the tumuli or burial mounds.--L. 2. OF THE FORCES OF HARALD AND MAGNUS. When the two relations, Harald and Magnus, had been about three years kings of Norway (A.D. 1131-1133), they both passed the fourth winter (A.D. 1134) in the town of Nidaros, and invited each other as guests; but their people were always ready for a fight. In spring King Magnus sailed southwards along the land with his fleet, and drew all the men he could obtain out of each district, and sounded his friends if they would strengthen him with their power to take the kingly dignity from Harald, and give him such a portion of the kingdom, as might be suitable; representing to them that King Harald had already renounced the kingdom by oath. King Magnus obtained the consent of many powerful men. The same spring Harald went to the Uplands, and by the upper roads eastwards to Viken; and when he heard what King Magnus was doing, he also drew together men on his side. Wheresoever the two parties went they killed the cattle, or even the people, upon the farms of the adverse party. King Magnus had by far the most people, for the main strength of the country lay open to him for collecting men from it. King Harald was in Viken on the east side of the fjord, and collected men, while they were doing each other damage in property and life. King Harald had with him Kristrod, his brother by his mother's side, and many other lendermen; but King Magnus had many more. King Harald was with his forces at a place called Fors in Ranrike, and went from thence towards the sea. The evening before Saint Lawrence day (August 10), they had their supper at a place called Fyrileif, while the guard kept a watch on horseback all around the house. The watchmen observed King Magnus's army hastening towards the house, and consisting of full 6000 men, while King Harald had but 1500. Now come the watchmen who had to bring the news to King Harald of what was going on and say that King Magnus's army was now very near the town. The king says, "What will my relation King Magnus Sigurdson have? He wants not surely to fight us." Thjostolf Alason replies, "You must certainly, sire, make preparation for that, both for yourself and your men. King Magnus has been drawing together an army all the summer for the purpose of giving you battle when he meets you." Then King Harald stood up, and ordered his men to take their arms. "We shall fight, if our relative King Magnus wants to fight us." Then the war-horns sounded, and all Harald's men went out from the house to an enclosed field, and set up their banners. King Harald had on two shirts of ring-mail, but his brother Kristrod had no armour on; and a gallant man he was. When King Magnus and his men saw King Harald's troop they drew up and made their array, and made their line so long that they could surround the whole of King Harald's troop. So says Haldor Skvaldre:-- "King Magnus on the battle-plain From his long troop-line had great gain; The plain was drenched with warm blood, Which lay a red and reeking flood." 3. BATTLE AT FYRILEIF. King Magnus had the holy cross carried before him in this battle, and the battle was great and severe. The king's brother, Kristrod, had penetrated with his troop into the middle of King Magnus's array, and cut down on each side of him, so that people gave way before him everywhere. But a powerful bonde who was in King Harald's array raised his spear with both hands, and drove it through between Kristrod's shoulders, so that it came out at his breast; and thus fell Kristrod. Many who were near asked the bonde why he had done so foul a deed. The bonde replies, "He knows the consequences now of slaughtering my cattle in summer, and taking all that was in my house, and forcing me to follow him here. I determined to give him some return when the opportunity came." After this King Harald's army took to flight, and he fled himself, with all his men. Many fell; and Ingemar Sveinson of Ask, a great chief and lenderman, got there his death-wound, and nearly sixty of King Harald's court-men also fell. Harald himself fled eastward to Viken to his ships, and went out of the country to King Eirik Eimune in Denmark, and found him in Seeland and sought aid from him. King Eirik received him well, and principally because they had sworn to each other to be as brothers (1); and gave him Halland as a fief to rule over, and gave him seven long-ships, but without equipment. Thereafter King Harald went northwards through Halland, and many Northmen came to meet him. After this battle King Magnus subdued the whole country, giving life and safety to all who were wounded, and had them taken care of equally with his own men. He then called the whole country his own, and had a choice of the best men who were in the country. When they held a council among themselves afterwards, Sigurd Sigurdson, Thorer Ingeridson, and all the men of most understanding, advised that they should keep their forces together in Viken, and remain there, in case Harald should return from the south; but King Magnus would take his own way, and went north to Bergen. There he sat all winter (A.D. 1135), and allowed his men to leave him; on which the lendermen returned home to their own houses. ENDNOTES: (1) These brotherhoods, by which one man was bound by oath to aid or avenge another, were common in the Middle Ages among all ranks. "Sworn brothers" is still a common expression with us.--L. 4. DEATH OF ASBJORN AND OF NEREID. King Harald came to Konungahella with the men who had followed him from Denmark. The lendermen and town's burgesses collected a force against him, which they drew up in a thick array above the town. King Harald landed from his ships, and sent a message to the bondes, desiring that they would not deny him his land, as he wanted no more than what of right belonged to him. Then mediators went between them; and it came to this, that the bondes dismissed their troops, and submitted to him. Thereupon he bestowed fiefs and property on the lendermen, that they might stand by him, and paid the bondes who joined him the lawful mulcts for what they had lost. A great body of men attached themselves, therefore, to King Harald; and he proceeded westwards to Viken, where he gave peace to all men, except to King Magnus's people, whom he plundered and killed wherever he found them. And when he came west to Sarpsborg he took prisoners two of King Magnus s lendermen, Asbjorn and his brother Nereid; and gave them the choice that one should be hanged, and the other thrown into the Sarpsborg waterfall, and they might choose as they pleased. Asbjorn chose to be thrown into the cataract, for he was the elder of the two, and this death appeared the most dreadful; and so it was done. Halder Skvaldre tells of this:-- "Asbjorn, who opposed the king, O'er the wild cataract they fling: Nereid, who opposed the king, Must on Hagbard's high tree swing. The king given food in many a way To foul-mouthed beasts and birds of prey: The generous men who dare oppose Are treated as the worst of foes." Thereafter King Harald proceeded north to Tunsberg, where he was well received, and a large force gathered to him. 5. OF THE COUNSELS PROPOSED. When King Magnus, who was in Bergen, heard these tidings, he called together all the chiefs who were in the town, and asked them their counsel, and what they should now do. Then Sigurd Sigurdson said, "Here I can give a good advice. Let a ship be manned with good men, and put me, or any other lenderman, to command it; send it to thy relation, King Harald, and offer him peace according to the conditions upright men may determine upon, and offer him the half of the kingdom. It appears to me probable that King Harald, by the words and counsel of good men, may accept this offer, and thus there may be a peace established between you." Then King Magnus replied, "This proposal I will not accept of; for of what advantage would it be, after we have gained the whole kingdom in summer to give away the half of it now? Give us some other counsel." Then Sigurd Sigurdson answered, "It appears to me, sire, that your lendermen who in autumn asked your leave to return home will now sit at home and will not come to you. At that time it was much against my advice that you dispersed so entirely the people we had collected; for I could well suppose that Harald would come back to Viken as soon as he heard that it was without a chief. Now there is still another counsel, and it is but a poor one; but it may turn out useful to us. Send out your pursuivants, and send other people with them, and let them go against the lendermen who will not join you in your necessity, and kill them; and bestow their property on others who will give you help although they may have been of small importance before. Let them drive together the people, the bad as well as the good; and go with the men you can thus assemble against King Harald, and give him battle." The king replies, "It would be unpopular to put to death people of distinction, and raise up inferior people who often break faith and law, and the country would be still worse off. I would like to hear some other counsel still." Sigurd replies, "It is difficult for me now to give advice, as you will neither make peace nor give battle. Let us go north to Throndhjem, where the main strength of the country is most inclined to our side; and on the way let us gather all the men we can. It may be that these Elfgrims will be tired of such a long stride after us." The king replies, "We must not fly from those whom we beat in summer. Give some better counsel still." Then Sigurd stood up and said, while he was preparing to go out, "I will now give you the counsel which I see you will take, and which must have its course. Sit here in Bergen until Harald comes with his troops, and then you will either suffer death or disgrace." And Sigurd remained no longer at that meeting. 6. OF HARALD'S FORCE. King Harald came from the East along the coast with a great army, and this winter (A.D. 1135) is called on that account the Crowd-winter. King Harald came to Bergen on Christmas eve, and landed with his fleet at Floruvagar; but would not fight on account of the sacred time. But King Magnus prepared for defence in the town. He erected a stone-slinging machine out on the holm, and had iron chains and wooden booms laid across over the passage from the king's house to Nordnes, and to the Monks bridge. He had foot-traps made, and thrown into Saint John's field, and did not suspend these works except during the three sacred days of Christmas. The last holyday of Yule, King Harald ordered his war-horns to sound the gathering of his men for going to the town; and, during the Yule holydays, his army had been increased by about 900 men. 7. KING MAGNUS TAKEN PRISONER. King Harald made a promise to King Olaf the Saint for victory, that he would build an Olaf's church in the town at his own expense. King Magnus drew up his men in the Christ church yard; but King Harald laid his vessels first at Nordnes. Now when King Magnus and his people saw that, they turned round towards the town, and to the end of the shore; but as they passed through the streets many of the burgesses ran into their houses and homes, and those who went across the fields fell into the foot-traps. Then King Magnus and his men perceived that King Harald had rowed with all his men across to Hegravik, and landed there, and had gone from thence the upper road up the hill opposite the town. Now Magnus returned back again through the streets, and then his men fled from him in all directions; some up to the mountains, some up to the neighbourhood of the convent of nuns, some to churches, or hid themselves as they best could. King Magnus fled to his ship; but there was no possibility of getting away, for the iron chains outside prevented the passage of vessels. He had also but few men with him, and therefore could do nothing. Einar Skulason tells of this in the song of Harald:-- "For a whole week an iron chain Cut off all sailing to the main: Bergen's blue stable was locked fast,-- Her floating wains could not get past." Soon after Harald's people came out to the ships, and then King Magnus was made prisoner. He was sitting behind in the forecastle upon the chests of the high-seat, and at his side Hakon Fauk, his mother's brother, who was very popular but was not considered very wise, and Ivar Assurson. They, and many others of King Magnus's friends, were taken, and some of them killed on the spot. 8. KING MAGNUS MUTILATED. Thereafter King Harald had a meeting of his counsellors, and desired their counsel; and in this meeting the judgment was given that Magnus should be deposed from his dominions, and should no longer be called king. Then he was delivered to the king's slaves, who mutilated him, picked out both his eyes, cut off one foot, and at last castrated him. Ivar Assurson was blinded, and Hakon Fauk killed. The whole country then was reduced to obedience under King Harald. Afterwards it was diligently examined who were King Magnus's best friends, or who knew most of his concealments of treasure or valuables. The holy cross King Magnus had kept beside him since the battle of Fyrileif, but would not tell where it was deposited for preservation. Bishop Reinald of Stavanger, who was an Englishman, was considered very greedy of money. He was a great friend of King Magnus, and it was thought likely that great treasure and valuables had been given into his keeping. Men were sent for him accordingly, and he came to Bergen, where it was insisted against him that he had some knowledge of such treasure; but he denied it altogether, would not admit it, and offered to clear himself by ordeal. King Harald would not have this, but laid on the bishop a money fine of fifteen marks of gold, which he should pay to the king. The bishop declared he would not thus impoverish his bishop's see, but would rather offer his life. On this they hanged the bishop out on the holm, beside the sling machine. As he was going to the gallows he threw the sock from his foot, and said with an oath, "I know no more about King Magnus's treasure than what is in this sock;" and in it there was a gold ring. Bishop Reinald was buried at Nordnes in Michael's church, and this deed was much blamed. After this Harald Gille was sole king of Norway as long as he lived. 9. WONDERFUL OMENS IN KONUNGAHELLA. Five years after King Sigurd's death remarkable occurrences took place in Konungahella (A.D. 1135). Guthorm, a son of Harald Fletter, and Saemund Husfreyja, were at that time the king's officers there. Saemund was married to Ingebjorg, a daughter of the priest Andres Brunson. Their sons were Paul Flip and Gunne Fis. Saemund's natural son was called Asmund. Andres Brunson was a very remarkable man, who carried on divine service in the Cross church. His wife (1) was called Solveig. Jon Loptson, who was then eleven years old, was in their house to be fostered and educated. The priest Lopt Saemundson, Jon's father, was also in the town at that time. The priest Andres and Solveig had a daughter by name Helga, who was Einar's wife. It happened now in Konungahella, the next Sunday night after Easter week, that there was a great noise in the streets through the whole town as if the king was going through with all his court-men. The dogs were so affected that nobody could hold them, but they slipped loose; and when they came out they ran mad, biting all that came in their way, people and cattle. All who were bitten by them till the blood came turned raging mad; and pregnant women were taken in labour prematurely, and became mad. From Easter to Ascension-day, these portentous circumstances took place almost every night. People were dreadfully alarmed at these wonders; and many made themselves ready to remove, sold their houses, and went out to the country districts, or to other towns. The most intelligent men looked upon it as something extremely remarkable; were in dread of it; and said, as it proved to be, that it was an omen of important events which had not yet taken place. And the priest Andres, on Whit Sunday, made a long and excellent speech, and turned the conclusion of it to the distressing situation of the townspeople; telling them to muster courage, and not lay waste their excellent town by deserting it, but rather to take the utmost care in all things, and use the greatest foresight against all dangers, as of fire or the enemy, and to pray to God to have mercy on them. ENDNOTES: (1) The Catholic priests appear to have had wives at that time in Norway, and celibacy to have been confined to the monks. --L. 10. THE RISE OF WAR IN KONUNGAHELLA. Thirteen loaded merchant ships made ready to leave the town, intending to proceed to Bergen; but eleven of them were lost, men and goods, and all that was in them; the twelfth was lost also, but the people were saved, although the cargo went to the bottom. At that time the priest Lopt went north to Bergen, with all that belonged to him, and arrived safely. The merchant vessels were lost on Saint Lawrence eve (August 10). The Danish king Eirik and the Archbishop Assur, both sent notice to Konungahella to keep watch on their town; and said the Vindland people had a great force on foot with which they made war far around on Christian people, and usually gained the victory. But the townspeople attended very little to this warning, were indifferent, and forgot more and more the dreadful omens the longer it was since they happened. On the holy Saint Lawrence day, while the words of high mass were spoken, came to the Vindland king Rettibur to Konungahella with 550 Vindland cutters, and in each cutter were forty-four men and two horses. The king's sister's son Dunimiz, and Unibur, a chief who ruled over many people, were with him. These two chiefs rowed at once, with a part of their troops, up the east arm of the Gaut river past Hising Isle, and thus came down to the town; but a part of the fleet lay in the western arm, and came so to the town. They made fast their ships at the piles, and landed their horses, and rode over the height of Bratsas, and from thence up around the town. Einar, a relation of priest Andres, brought these tidings up to the Castle church; for there the whole inhabitants of the town were gathered to hear high mass. Einar came just as the priest Andres was holding his discourse; and he told the people that an army was sailing up against the town with a great number of ships of war, and that some people were riding over Bratsas. Many said it must be the Danish king Eirik, and from him they might expect peace. The people ran down into the town to their properties, armed themselves, and went down upon the piers, whence they immediately saw there was an enemy and an immense army. Nine East-country trading vessels belonging to the merchants were afloat in the river at the piers. The Vindland people first directed their course toward these and fought with the merchants, who armed themselves, and defended themselves long, well, and manfully. There was a hard battle, and resistance, before the merchant vessels were cleared of their men; and in this conflict the Vindland people lost 150 of their ships, with all the men on board. When the battle was sharpest the townsmen stood upon the piers, and shot at the heathens. But when the fight slackened the burgesses fled up to the town, and from thence into the castle; and the men took with them all their valuable articles, and such goods as they could carry. Solveig and her daughters, with two other women, went on shore when the Vindlanders took possession of the merchant vessels. Now the Vindlanders landed, and mustered their men, and discovered their loss. Some of them went up into the town, some on board the merchant ships, and took all the goods they pleased; and then they set fire to the town, and burnt it and the ships. They hastened then with all their army to assault the castle. 11. THE SECOND BATTLE. King Rettibur made an offer to those who were in the castle that they should go out, and he would give them their lives, weapons, clothes, silver, and gold; but all exclaimed against it, and went out on the fortification; some shot, some threw stones, some sharp stakes. It was a great battle, in which many fell on both sides, but by far the most of the Vindlanders. Solveig came up to a large farm called Solbjorg, and brought the news. A message war-token was there split, and sent out to Skurbagar, where there happened to be a joint ale-drinking feast, and many men were assembled. A bonde called Olver Miklimun (Mickle Mouth) was there, who immediately sprang up, took helmet and shield, and a great axe in his hand, and said, "Stand up, brave lads, and take your weapons. Let us go help the townspeople; for it would appear shameful to every man who heard of it, if we sit here sipping our ale, while good men in the town are losing their lives by our neglect." Many made an objection, and said they would only be losing their own lives, without being of any assistance to the townspeople. Then said Olver, "Although all of you should hold back, I will go alone; and one or two heathens, at any rate, shall fall before I fall." He ran down to the town, and a few men after him to see what he would do, and also whether they could assist him in any way. When he came near the castle, and the heathens saw him, they sent out eight men fully armed against him; and when they met, the heathen men ran and surrounded him on all sides. Olver lifted his axe, and struck behind him with the extreme point of it, hitting the neck of the man who was coming up behind him, so that his throat and jawbone were cut through, and he fell dead backwards. Then he heaved his axe forwards, and struck the next man in the head, and clove him down to the shoulders. He then fought with the others, and killed two of them; but was much wounded himself. The four who remained took to flight, but Olver ran after them. There was a ditch before them, and two of the heathens jumped into it, and Olver killed them both; but he stuck fast himself in the ditch, so that two of the eight heathens escaped. The men who had followed Olver took him up, and brought him back to Skurbagar, where his wounds were bound and healed; and it was the talk of the people, that no single man had ever made such a bloody onset. Two lendermen, Sigurd Gyrdson, a brother of Philip, and Sigard, came with 600 men to Skurbagar; on which Sigurd turned back with 400 men. He was but little respected afterwards, and soon died. Sigard, on the other hand, proceeded with 200 men towards the town; and they gave battle to the heathens, and were all slain. While the Vindlanders were storming the castle, their king and his chiefs were out of the battle. At one place there was a man among the Vindlanders shooting with a bow, and killing a man for every arrow; and two men stood before him, and covered him with their shields. Then Saemund Husfreyja said to his son Asmund, that they should both shoot together at this bowman. "But I will shoot at the man who holds the shield before him." He did so, and he knocked the shield down a little before the man; and in the same instant Asmund shot between the shields, and the arrow hit the bowman in the forehead, so that it came out at his neck, and he fell down dead. When the Vindlanders saw it they howled like dogs, or like wolves. Then King Rettibur called to them that he would give them safety and life, but they refused terms. The heathens again made a hard assault. One of the heathens in particular fought so bravely, and ventured so near, that he came quite up to the castle-gate, and pierced the man who stood outside the gate with his sword; and although they used both arrows and stones against him, and he had neither shield nor helmet, nothing could touch him, for he was so skilled in witchcraft that weapon could not wound him. Then priest Andres took consecrated fire; blew upon it; cut tinder in pieces, and laid it on the fire; and then laid the tinder on the arrow-point, and gave it to Asmund. He shot this arrow at the warlock; and the shaft hit so well that it did its business, and the man of witchcraft fell dead. Then the heathens crowded together as before, howling and whining dreadfully; and all gathered about their king, on which the Christians believed that they were holding a council about retreating. The interpreters, who understood the Vindland tongue, heard the chief Unibur make the following speech: "These people are brave, and it is difficult to make anything of them; and even if we took all the goods in their town, we might willingly give as much more that we had never come here, so great has been our loss of men and chiefs. Early in the day, when we began to assault the castle, they defended themselves first with arrows and spears; then they fought against us with stones; and now with sticks and staves, as against dogs. I see from this that they are in want of weapons and means of defense; so we shall make one more hard assault, and try their strength." It was as he said, that they now fought with stakes; because, in the first assault, they had imprudently used up all their missile weapons and stones; and now when the Christians saw the number of their stakes diminishing, they clave each stake in two. The heathens now made a very hot attack, and rested themselves between whiles, and on both sides they were exhausted. During a rest the Vindland king Rettibur again offered terms, and that they should retain the weapons, clothes, and silver they could carry out of the castle. Saemund Husfreyja had fallen, and the men who remained gave the counsel to deliver up the castle and themselves into the power of the heathens; but it was a foolish counsel; for the heathens did not keep their promises, but took all people, men, women, and children, and killed all of them who were wounded or young, or could not easily be carried with them. They took all the goods that were in the castle; went into the Cross church, and plundered it of all its ornaments. The priest Andres gave King Rettibur a silver-mounted gilt sceptre, and to his sister's son Dunimiz he gave a gold ring. They supposed from this that he was a man of great importance in the town, and held him in higher respect than the others. They took away with them the holy cross, and also the tables which stood before the altar, which Sigurd had got made in the Greek country, and had brought home himself. These they took, and laid flat down on the steps before the altar. Then the heathens went out of the church. Rettibur said, "This house has been adorned with great zeal for the God to whom it is dedicated; but, methinks, He has shown little regard for the town or house: so I see their God has been angry at those who defended them." King Rettibur gave the priest Andres the church, the shrine, the holy cross, the Bible, the altar-book, and four clerks (prisoners); but the heathens burnt the Castle church, and all the houses that were in the castle. As the fire they had set to the church went out twice, they hewed the church down, and then it burnt like other houses. Then the heathens went to their ships with the booty; but when they mustered their people and saw their loss, they made prisoners of all the people, and divided them among the vessels. Now priest Andres went on board the king's ship with the holy cross, and there came a great terror over the heathens on account of the portentous circumstance which took place in the king's ship; namely, it became so hot that all thought they were to be burnt up. The king ordered the interpreter to ask the priest why this happened. He replied, that the Almighty God on whom the Christians believed, sent them a proof of His anger, that they who would not believe in their Creator presumed to lay hands on the emblem of His suffering; and that there lay so much power in the cross, that such, and even clearer miracles, happened to heathen men who had taken the cross in their hands. The king had the priest put into the ship's boat, and the priest Andres carried the holy cross in his grasp. They led the boat along past the ship's bow, and then along the side of the next ship, and then shoved it with a boat-hook in beside the pier. Then Andres went with the cross by night to Solbjorg, in rain and dreadful weather; but brought it in good preservation. King Rettibur, and the men he had remaining, went home to Vindland, and many of the people who were taken at Konungahella were long afterwards in slavery in Vindland; and those who were ransomed and came back to Norway to their udal lands and properties, throve worse than before their capture. The merchant town of Konungahella has never since risen to the importance it was of before this event. 12. OF MAGNUS THE BLIND. King Magnus, after he was deprived of sight, went north to Nidaros, where he went into the cloister on the holm, and assumed the monk's dress. The cloister received the farm of Great Hernes in Frosta for his support. King Harald alone ruled the country the following winter, gave all men peace and pardon who desired it, and took many of the men into his court-service who had been with King Magnus. Einar Skulason says that King Harald had two battles in Denmark; the one at Hvedn Isle, and the other at Hlesey Isle:-- "Unwearied champion! who wast bred To stain thy blue-edged weapons red! Beneath high Hvedn's rocky shore, The faithless felt thy steel once more." And again, thus:-- "On Hlesey's plain the foe must quail 'Fore him who dyes their shirts of mail. His storm-stretched banner o'er his head Flies straight, and fills the foe with dread." 13. OF KING HARALD GILLE AND BISHOP MAGNUS. King Harald Gille was a very generous man. It is told that in his time Magnus Einarson came from Iceland to be consecrated a bishop, and the king received him well, and showed him much respect. When the bishop was ready to sail for Iceland again, and the ship was rigged out for sea, he went to the hall where the king was drinking, saluted him politely and warmly, and the king received him joyfully. The queen was sitting beside the king. Then said the king, "Are you ready, bishop, for your voyage?" He replied that he was. The king said, "You come to us just now at a bad time; for the tables are just removed, and there is nothing at hand suitable to present to you. What is there to give the bishop?" The treasurer replies, "Sire, as far as I know, all articles of any value are given away." The king: "Here is a drinking goblet remaining; take this, bishop; it is not without value." The bishop expressed his thanks for the honour shown him. Then said the queen, "Farewell, bishop! and a happy voyage." The king said to her, "When did you ever hear a noble lady say so to a bishop without giving him something?" She replies, "Sire, what have I to give him?" The king: "Thou hast the cushion under thee." Thereupon this, which was covered with costly cloth, and was a valuable article, was given to the bishop. When the bishop was going away the king took the cushion from under himself and gave it him, saying, "They have long been together." When the bishop arrived in Iceland to his bishop's see, it was talked over what should be done with the goblet that would be serviceable for the king; and when the bishop asked the opinion of other people, many thought it should be sold, and the value-bestowed on the poor. Then said the bishop, "I will take another plan. I will have a chalice made of it for this church, and consecrate it, so that all the saints of whom there are relics in this church shall let the king have some good for his gift every time a mass is sung over it." This chalice has since belonged to the bishopric of Skalholt; and of the costly cloth with which the cushions given him by the king were covered, were made the choristers' cloaks which are now in Skalholt. From this the generous spirit of King Harald may be seen, as well as from many other things, of which but a few are set down here. 14. BEGINNING OF SIGURD SLEMBIDJAKN. There was a man, by name Sigurd, who was brought up in Norway, and was called priest Adalbrikt's son. Sigurd's mother was Thora, a daughter of Saxe of Vik, a sister of Sigrid, who was mother of King Olaf Magnuson, and of Kare, the king's brother who married Borghild, a daughter of Dag Eilifson. Their sons were Sigurd of Austrat and Dag. Sigurd of Austrat's sons were Jon of Austrat, Thorstein, and Andres the Deaf. Jon was married to Sigrid, a sister of King Inge and of Duke Skule. This Sigurd, in his childhood, was kept at his book, became a clerk, and was consecrated a deacon; but as he ripened in years and strength he became a very clever man, stout, strong, distinguished for all perfections and exercises beyond any of his years,--indeed, beyond any man in Norway. Sigurd showed early traces of a haughty ungovernable spirit, and was therefore called Slembidjakn. He was as handsome a man as could be seen, with rather thin but beautiful hair. When it came to Sigurd's ears that his mother said King Magnus was his father, he laid aside all clerkship; and as soon as he was old enough to be his own master, he left the country. He was a long time on his travels, went to Palestine; was at the Jordan river; and visited many holy places, as pilgrims usually do. When he came back, he applied himself to trading expeditions. One winter he was in Orkney with Earl Harald, and was with him when Thorkel Fostre Summarlidason was killed. Sigurd was also in Scotland with the Scottish king David, and was held in great esteem by him. Thereafter Sigurd went to Denmark; and according to the account of himself and his men, he there submitted to the iron ordeal to confirm his paternal descent, and proved by it, in the presence of five bishops, that he was a son of King Magnus Barefoot. So says Ivar Ingemundson, in Sigurd's song:-- "The holiest five Of men alive,-- Bishops were they,-- Solemnly say, The iron glowing Red hot, yet showing No scaith on skin, Proves cause and kin." King Harald Gille's friends, however, said this was only a lie, and deceit of the Danes. 15. SIGURD IN ICELAND. It is told before of Sigurd that he passed some years in merchant voyages, and he came thus to Iceland one winter, and took up his lodging with Thorgils Odson in Saurby; but very few knew where he was. In autumn, when the sheep were being driven into a fold to be slaughtered, a sheep that was to be caught ran to Sigurd; and as Sigurd thought the sheep ran to him for protection, he stretched out his hands to it and lifted it over the fold dyke, and let it run to the hills, saying, "There are not many who seek help from me, so I may well help this one." It happened the same winter that a woman had committed a theft, and Thorgils, who was angry at her for it, was going to punish her; but she ran to Sigurd to ask his help, and he set her upon the bench by his side. Thorgils told him to give her up, and told him what she had committed; but Sigurd begged forgiveness for her since she had come to him for protection, and that Thorgils would dismiss the complaint against her, but Thorgils insisted that she should receive her punishment. When Sigurd saw that Thorgils would not listen to his entreaty, he started up, drew his sword, and bade him take her if he dared; and Thorgils seeing that Sigurd would defend the woman by force of arms, and observing his commanding mien, guessed who he must be, desisted from pursuing the woman, and pardoned her. There were many foreign men there, and Sigurd made the least appearance among them. One day Sigurd came into the sitting-room, and a Northman who was splendidly clothed was playing chess with one of Thorads house-servants. The Northman called Sigurd, and asked him his advice how to play; but when Sigurd looked at the board, he saw the game was lost. The man who was playing against the Northman had a sore foot, so that one toe was bruised, and matter was coming out of it. Sigurd, who was sitting on the bench, takes a straw, and draws it along the floor, so that some young kittens ran after it. He drew the straw always before them, until they came near the house-servant's foot, who jumping up with a scream, threw the chessmen in disorder on the board; and thus it was a dispute how the game had stood. This is given as a proof of Sigurd's cunning. People did not know that he was a learned clerk until the Saturday before Easter, when he consecrated the holy water with chant; and the longer he stayed there the more he was esteemed. The summer after, Sigurd told Thorgils before they parted, that he might with all confidence address his friends to Sigurd Slembidjakn. Thorgils asked how nearly he was related to him, on which he replies, "I am Sigurd Slembidjakn, a son of King Magnus Barefoot." He then left Iceland. 16. OF SIGURD SLEMBE. When Harald Gille had been six years (A.D. 1136), king of Norway, Sigurd came to the country and went to his brother King Harald, and found him in Bergen. He placed himself entirely in the king's hands, disclosed who his father was, and asked him to acknowledge their relationship. The king gave him no hasty or distinct reply; but laid the matter before his friends in a conference at a specially appointed meeting. After this conference it became known that the king laid an accusation against Sigurd, because he had been at the killing of Thorkel Fostre in the West. Thorkel had accompanied Harald to Norway when he first came to the country, and had been one of Harald's best friends. This case was followed up so severely, that a capital accusation against Sigurd was made, and, by the advice of the lendermen, was carried so far, that some of the king's pursuivants went one evening late to Sigurd, and called him to them. They then took a boat and rowed away with Sigurd from the town south to Nordnes. Sigurd sat on a chest in the stern of the boat, and had his suspicions that foul play was intended. He was clothed in blue trousers, and over his shirt he had a hood tied with ribands, which served him for a cloak. He sat looking down, and holding his hood-strings; and sometimes moved them over his head, sometimes let them fall again before him. Now when they had passed the ness, they were drunk, and merry, were rowing so eagerly that they were not taking notice of anything. Sigurd stood up, and went on the boat's deck; but the two men who were placed to guard him stood up also, and followed him to the side of the vessel, holding by his cloak, as is the custom in guarding people of distinction. As he was afraid that they would catch hold of more of his clothes, he seized them both, and leaped overboard with them. The boat, in the meantime, had gone on a long way, and it was a long time before those on board could turn the vessel, and long before they could get their own men taken on board again; and Sigurd dived under water, and swam so far away that he reached the land before they could get the boat turned to pursue him. Sigurd, who was very swift of foot, hied up to the mountains, and the king's men travelled about the whole night seeking him without finding him. He lay down in a cleft of the rocks; and as he was very cold he took off his trousers, cut a hole in the seat of them, and stuck his head through it, and put his arms in the legs of them. He escaped with life this time; and the king's men returned, and could not conceal their unsuccessful adventure. 17. TREACHERY TOWARDS KING HARALD. Sigurd thought now that it would be of no use to seek any help from King Harald again; and he kept himself concealed all the autumn and the beginning of the winter. He lay hid in Bergen, in the house of a priest. King Harald was also in the town, and many great people with him. Now Sigurd considered how, with his friends' help, he might take the king by surprise, and make an end of him. Many men took part in this design; and among them some who were King Harald's court-men and chamberlains, but who had formerly been King Magnus's court-men. They stood in great favour with the king, and some of them sat constantly at the king's table. On Saint Lucia's day (December 13), in the evening when they proposed to execute this treason, two men sat at the king's table talking together; and one of them said to the king, "Sire, we two table-companions submit our dispute to your judgment, having made a wager of a basket of honey to him who guesses right. I say that you will sleep this night with your Queen Ingerid; and he says that you will sleep with Thora, Guthorm's daughter." The king answered laughing, and without suspecting in the least that there lay treachery under the question, that he who had asked had lost his bet. They knew thus where he was to be found that night; but the main guard was without the house in which most people thought the king would sleep, viz., that which the queen was in. 18. MURDER OF KING HARALD. Sigurd Slembe, and some men who were in his design, came in the night to the lodging in which King Harald was sleeping; killed the watchman first; then broke open the door, and went in with drawn swords. Ivar Kolbeinson made the first attack on King Harald; and as the king had been drunk when he went to bed he slept sound, and awoke only when the men were striking at him. Then he said in his sleep, "Thou art treating me hardly, Thora." She sprang up, saying, "They are treating thee hardly who love thee less than I do." Harald was deprived of life. Then Sigurd went out with his helpers, and ordered the men to be called to him who had promised him their support if he should get King Harald taken out of the way. Sigurd and his men then went on, and took a boat, set themselves to the oars, and rowed out in front of the king's house; and then it was just beginning to be daylight. Then Sigurd stood up, spoke to those who were standing on the king's pier, made known to them the murder of King Harald by his hand, and desired that they would take him, and choose him as chief according to his birth. Now came many swarming down to the pier from the king's house; and all with one voice replied, that they would never give obedience or service to a man who had murdered his own brother. "And if thou are not his brother, thou hast no claim from descent to be king." They clashed their weapons together, and adjudged all murderers to be banished and outlawed men. Now the king's horn sounded, and all lendermen and courtmen were called together. Sigurd and his companions saw it was best for them to get way; and he went northward to North Hordaland, where he held a Thing with the bondes, who submitted to him, and gave him the title of king. From thence he went to Sogn, and held a Thing there with the bondes and was proclaimed king. Then he went north across the fjords, and most people supported his cause. So says Ivar Ingemundson:-- "On Harald's fall The bondes all, In Hord and Sogn, Took Magnus' son. The Things swore too They would be true To this new head In Harald's stead." King Harald was buried in the old Christ church. SAGA OF SIGURD, INGE, AND EYSTEIN, THE SONS OF HARALD PRELIMINARY REMARKS. Sigurd died A.D. 1155, Eystein 1157, and Inge 1161. Other literature is "Morkinskinna" and "Fagrskinna." Sigurd Slembe is the subject of a drama by Bjornstjerne Bjornson, translated into English by William Morton Payne, and published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, 1888. Skalds quoted are: Kolle, Einar Skulason, and Thorbjorn Skakkaskald. 1. HISTORY OF KINGS SIGURD AND INGE. Queen Ingerid, and with her the lendermen and the court which had been with King Harald, resolved to send a fast-sailing vessel to Throndhjem to make known King Harald's death, and also to desire the Throndhjem people to take King Harald's son Sigurd for king. He was then in the north, and was fostered by Sadagyrd Bardson. Queen Ingerid herself proceeded eastward immediately to Viken. Inge was the name of her son by King Harald, and he was then fostered by Amunde Gyrdson, a grandson of Logberse. When they came to Viken a Borgar-thing was immediately called together, at which Inge, who was in the second year of his age, was chosen king. This resolution was supported by Amunde and Thjostolf Alason, together with many other great chiefs. Now when the tidings came north to Throndhjem that King Harald was murdered, the Throndhjem people took Sigurd, King Harald's son, to be the king; and this resolution was supported by Ottar Birting, Peter Saudaulfson, the brothers Guthorm of Reine, and Ottar Balle, sons of Asolf and many other great chiefs. Afterwards the whole nation almost submitted to the brothers, and principally because their father was considered holy; and the country took the oath to them, that the kingly power should not go to any other man as long as any of King Harald's sons were alive. 2. OF SIGURD SLEMBIDJAKN. Sigurd Slembe sailed north around Stad; and when he came to North More, he found that letters and full powers had arrived before him from the leaders who had given in their allegiance to Harald's sons; so that there he got no welcome or help. As Sigurd himself had but few people with him, he resolved to go with them to Throndhjem, and seek out Magnus the Blind; for he had already sent a message before him to Magnus's friends. Now when they came to the town, they rowed up the river Nid to meet King Magnus, and fastened their land-ropes on the shore at the king's house; but were obliged to set off immediately, for all the people rose against them. They then landed at Monkholm, and took Magnus the Blind out of the cloister against the will of the monks; for he had been consecrated a monk. It is said by some that Magnus willingly went with them; although it was differently reported, in order to make his cause appear better. Sigurd, immediately after Yule (January, A.D. 1137), went forth with his suite, expecting aid from his relations and Magnus's friends, and which they also got. Sigurd sailed with his men out of the fjord, and was joined afterwards by Bjorn Egilson, Gunnar of Gimsar, Haldor Sigurdson, Aslak Hakonson, the brothers Bendikt and Eirik, and also the court which had before been with King Magnus, and many others. With this troop they went south to More, and down to the mouth of Raumsdal fjord. Here Sigurd and Magnus divided their forces, and Sigurd went immediately westwards across the sea. King Magnus again proceeded to the Uplands, where he expected much help and strength, and which he obtained. He remained there the winter and all the summer (A.D. 1137), and had many people with him; but King Inge proceeded against him with all his forces, and they met at a place called Mynne. There was a great battle, at which King Magnus had the most people. It is related that Thjostolf Alason carried King Inge in his belt as long as the battle lasted, and stood under the banner; but Thjostolf was hard pressed by fatigue and fighting; and it is commonly said that King Inge got his ill health there, and which he retained as long as he lived, so that his back was knotted into a hump, and the one foot was shorter than the other; and he was besides so infirm that he could scarcely walk as long as he lived. The defeat began to turn upon Magnus and his men; and in the front rank of his array fell Haldor Sigurdson, Bjorn Egilson, Gunnar of Gimsar, and a great number of his men, before he himself would take to his horse and fly. So says Kolle:-- "Thy arrow-storm on Mynne's banks Fast thinn'd the foemen's strongest ranks; Thy good sword hewed the raven's feast On Mynne's banks up in the East. Shield clashed on shield, and bucklers broke Under thy battle-axe's stroke; While thou, uncovered, urged the fray, Thy shield and mail-coat thrown away." And also this:-- "The king to heaven belonging fled, When thou, in war's quick death-game bred, Unpanzered, shieldless on the plain His heavy steel-clad guards hadst slain. The painted shield, and steel-plate mail, Before thy fierce attack soon fail, To Magnus who belongs to heaven, Was no such fame in battle given." Magnus fled eastward to Gautland, and then to Denmark. At that time there was in Gautland an earl, Karl Sonason, who was a great and ambitious man. Magnus the Blind and his men said, wherever they happened to meet with chiefs, that Norway lay quite open to any great chieftain who would attack it; for it might well be said there was no king in the country, and the kingdom was only ruled by lendermen, and, among those who had most sway, there was, from mutual jealousy, most discord. Now Karl, being ambitious of power, listens willingly to such speeches; collects men, and rides west to Viken, where many people, out of fear, submit to him. When Thjostolf Alason and Amunde heard of this, they went with the men they could get together, and took King Inge with them. They met Earl Karl and the Gautland army eastward in Krokaskog, where there was a great battle and a great defeat, King Inge gaining the victory. Munan Ogmundson, Earl Karl's mother's brother, fell there. Ogmund, the father of Munan, was a son of Earl Orm Eilifson, and Sigrid, a daughter of Earl Fin Arnason. Astrid, Ogrnund's daughter, was the mother of Earl Karl. Many others of the Gautland people fell at Krokaskog; and the earl fled eastward through the forest. King Inge pursued them all the way out of the kingdom; and this expedition turned out a great disgrace to them. So says Kolle:-- "I must proclaim how our great lord Coloured deep red his ice-cold sword; And ravens played with Gautland bones, And wolves heard Gautlanders' last groans. Their silly jests were well repaid,-- In Krokaskog their laugh was laid: Thy battle power was then well tried, And they who won may now deride." 3. KING EIRIK'S EXPEDITION TO NORWAY. Magnus the Blind then went to Denmark to King Eirik Eimune, where he was well received. He offered the king to follow him if he would invade Norway with a Danish army, and subdue the country; saying, that if he came to Norway with his army, no man in Norway would venture to throw a spear against him. The king allowed himself to be moved by Magnus's persuasions, ordered a levy, and went north to Norway with 200 ships; and Magnus and his men were with him on this expedition. When they came to Viken, they proceeded peacefully and gently on the east side of the fjord; but when the fleet came westward to Tunsberg, a great number of King Inge's lendermen came against them. Their leader was Vatnorm Dagson, a brother of Gregorius. The Danes could not land to get water without many of them being killed; and therefore they went in through the fjord to Oslo, where Thjostolf Alason opposed them. It is told that some people wanted to carry the holy Halvard's coffin out of the town in the evening when the fleet was first observed, and as many as could took hold of it; but the coffin became so heavy that they could not carry it over the church floor. The morning after, however, when they saw the fleet sailing in past the Hofud Isle, four men carried the coffin out of the town, and Thjostolf and all the townspeople followed it. 4. THE TOWN OF OSLO BURNT. King Eirik and his army advanced against the town; and some of his men hastened after Thjostolf and his troop. Thjostolf threw a spear at a man named Askel, which hit him under the throat, so that the spear point went through his neck; and Thjostolf thought he had never made a better spear-cast, for, except the place he hit, there was nothing bare to be seen. The shrine of St. Halvard, was taken up to Raumarike, where it remained for three months. Thjostolf went up to Raumarike, and collected men during the night, with whom he returned towards the town in the morning. In the meantime King Eirik set fire to Halvard's church, and to the town, which was entirely burnt. Thjostolf came soon after to the town with the men he had assembled, and Eirik sailed off with his fleet; but could not land anywhere on that side of the fjord, on account of the troops of the lendermen who came down against them; and wherever they attempted a landing, they left five or six men or more upon the strand. King Inge lay with a great number of people into Hornborusund, but when he learned this, he turned about southwards to Denmark again. King Inge pursued him, and took from him all the ships he could get hold of; and it was a common observation among people, that never was so poor an expedition made with so great an armament in another king's dominions. King Eirik was ill pleased at it, and thought King Magnus and his men had been making a fool of him by encouraging him to undertake this expedition, and he declared he would never again besuch friends with them as before. 5. OF SIGURD SLEMBIDJAKN. Sigurd Slembidjakn came that summer from the West sea to Norway, where he heard of his relation King Magnus's unlucky expedition; so he expected no welcome in Norway, but sailed south, outside the rocks, past the land, and set over to Denmark, and went into the Sound. He fell in with some Vindland cutters south of the islands, gave them battle, and gained the victory. He cleared eight ships, killing many of the men, and he hanged the others. He also had a battle off the Island Mon with the Vindland men, and gained a victory. He then sailed from the south and came to the eastern arm of the Gaut river, and took three ships of the fleet of Thorer Hvinantorde, and Olaf, the son of Harald Kesia, who was Sigurd's own sister's son; for Ragnhild, the mother of Olaf, was a daughter of King Magnus Barefoot. He drove Olaf up the country. Thjostolf was at this time in Konungahella, and had collected people to defend the country, and Sigurd steered thither with his fleet. They shot at each other, but he could not effect a landing; and, on both sides, many were killed and many wounded. Ulfhedin Saxolfson, Sigurd's forecastle man, fell there. He was an Icelander, from the north quarter. Sigurd continued his course northwards to Viken and plundered far and wide around. Now when Sigurd lay in a harbour called Portyrja on Limgard's coast, and watched the ships going to or coming from Viken to plunder them, the Tunsberg men collected an armed force against him, and came unexpectedly upon them while Sigurd and his men were on shore dividing their booty. Some of the men came down from the land, but some of the other party laid themselves with their ships right across the harbour outside of them. Sigurd ran up into his ship, and rowed out against them. Vatnorm's ship was the nearest, and he let his ship fall behind the line, and Sigurd rowed clear past, and thus escaped with one ship and the loss of many men. This verse was made upon Vatnorm (1):-- "The water serpent, people say, From Portyrja slipped away." ENDNOTES: (1) Vatnorm, the name of this man, means the water-serpent, and appears to have been a favourite name for war-ships also; hence the pun in the lines upon Vatnorm.--L. 6. THE MURDER OF BEINTEIN. Sigurd Slembidjakn sailed from thence to Denmark; and at that time a man was lost in his ship, whose name was Kolbein Thorliotson of Batald. He was sitting in a boat which was made fast to the vessel, and upset because she was sailing quickly. When they came south to Denmark, Sigurd's ship itself was cast away; but he got to Alaborg, and was there in winter. The summer after (A.D. 1138) Magnus and Sigurd sailed together from the south with seven ships, and came unexpectedly in the night to Lister, where they laid their ships on the land. Beintein Kolbeinson, a court-man of King Inge, and a very brave man, was there. Sigurd and his men jumped on shore at daylight, came unexpectedly on the people, surrounded the house, and were setting fire to the buildings; but Beintein came out of a store-house with his weapons, well armed, and stood within the door with drawn sword, his shield before him, helmet on, and ready to defend himself. The door was somewhat low. Sigurd asked which of his lads had most desire to go in against Beintein, which he called brave man's work; but none was very hurried to make ready for it. While they were discussing this matter Sigurd rushed into the house, past Beintein. Beintein struck at him, but missed him. Sigurd turned instantly on Beintein; and after exchanging blows, Sigurd gave him his death-stroke, and came out presently bearing his head in his hands. They took all the goods that were in the farm-house, carried the booty to their ships, and sailed away. When King Inge and his friends, and also Kolbein's sons, Sigurd and Gyrd, the brothers of Beintein, heard of Beintein's murder, the king sent a great force against Sigurd Slembe and his followers; and also travelled himself, and took a ship from Hakon Paulson Pungelta, who was a daughter's son of Aslak, a son of Erling Skjalgson of Sole, and cousin of Hakon Mage. King Inge drove Hakon and his followers up the country, and took all their gear. Sigurd Stork, a son of Eindride of Gautdal, and his brother, Eirik Hael, and Andres Kelduskit, son of Grim of Vist, all fled away into the fjords. But Sigurd Slembe, Magnus the Blind and Thorieif Skiappa sailed outside the isles with three ships north to Halogaland; and Magnus was in winter (A.D. 1139) north in Bjarkey Isle with Vidkun Jonson. But Sigurd had the stem and stern-post of his ship cut out, made a hole in her, and sank her in the inner part of Egisfjord, and thereafter he passed the winter at Tialdasund by Gljufrafjord in Hin. Far up the fjord there is a cave in the rock; in that place Sigurd sat with his followers, who were above twenty men, secretly, and hung a grey cloth before the mouth of the hole, so that no person could see them from the strand. Thorleif Skiappa, and Einar, son of Ogmund of Sand, and of Gudrun, daughter of Einar Arason of Reikiaholar, procured food for Sigurd during the winter. It is said that Sigurd made the Laplanders construct two boats for him during the winter up in the fjord; and they were fastened together with deer sinews, without nails, and with twigs of willow instead of knees, and each boat could carry twelve men. Sigurd was with the Laplanders while they were making the boats; and the Laplanders had good ale, with which they entertained Sigurd. Sigurd made these lines on it:-- "In the Lapland tent Brave days we spent. Under the grey birch tree; In bed or on bank We knew no rank, And a merry crew were we. "Good ale went round As we sat on the ground, Under the grey birch tree; And up with the smoke Flew laugh and joke, And a merry crew were we." These boats were so light that no ship could overtake them in the water, according to what was sung at the time:-- "Our skin-sewed Fin-boats lightly swim, Over the sea like wind they skim. Our ships are built without a nail; Few ships like ours can row or sail." In spring Sigurd and Magnus went south along the coast with the two boats which the Laplanders had made; and when they came to Vagar they killed Svein the priest and his two sons. 7. OF SIGURD'S SLEMBE'S CAMPAIGN. Thereafter Sigurd came south to Vikar, and seized King Sigurd's lendermen, William Skinnare and Thorald Kept, and killed them both. Then Sigurd turned south-wards along the coast, and met Styrkar Glaesirofa south of Byrda, as he was coming from the south from the town of Nidaros, and killed him. Now when Sigurd came south to Valsnes, he met Svinagrim outside of the ness, and cut off his right hand. From thence he went south to More, past the mouth of the Throndhjem fjord, where they took Hedin Hirdmage and Kalf Kringluauge. They let Hedin escape, but killed Kalf. When King Sigurd, and his foster-father, Sadagyrd, heard of Sigurd Slembidjakn's proceedings, and what he was doing, they sent people to search for him; and their leader was Jon Kauda, a son of Kalf Range. Bishop Ivar's brother, and besides the priest Jon Smyril. They went on board the ship the Reindeer, which had twenty-two rowing benches, and was one of the swiftest sailing vessels, to seek Sigurd; but as they could not find him, they returned north-wards with little glory; for people said that they had got sight of Sigurd and his people, and durst not attack them. Afterwards Sigurd proceeded southwards to Hordaland, and came to Herdla, where Einar, a son of Laxapaul, had a farm; and went into Hamar's fjord, to the Gangdaga-thing. They took all the goods that were at the farm, and a long-ship of twenty-two benches which belonged to Einar; and also his son, four years old, who was living with one of his labouring people. Some wanted to kill the boy, but others took him and carried him with them. The labouring man said, "It will not be lucky for you to kill the child; and it will be of no use to you to carry him away, for it is my son, and not Einar's." And on his word they let the boy remain, and went away. When Einar came home he gave the labourer money to the value of two ore of gold, and thanked him for his clever invention, and promised him his constant friendship. So says Eirik Odson, who first wrote down this relation; and he heard himself Einar Paulson telling these circumstances in Bergen. Sigurd then went southward along the coast all the way east to Viken, and met Fin Saudaulfson east at Kvildar, as he was engaged in drawing in King Inge's rents and duties, and hanged him. Then they sailed south to Denmark. 8. OF KING INGE'S LETTER TO KING SIGURD. The people of Viken and of Bergen complained that it was wrong for King Sigurd and his friends to be sitting quietly north in the town of Nidaros, while his father's murderer was cruising about in the ordinary passage at the mouth of the Throndhjem fjord; and King Inge and his people, on the other hand, were in Viken in the midst of the danger, defending the country and holding many battles. Then King Inge sent a letter north to the merchant-town Nidaros, in which were these words: "King Inge Haraldson sends his brother King Sigurd, as also Sadagyrd, Ogmund Svipte, Ottar Birting, and all lendermen, court-men, house-people, and all the public, rich and poor, young and old, his own and God's salutation. The misfortune is known to all men that on account of our childhoods--thou being five, and I but three years of age--we can undertake nothing without the counsel of our friends and other good men. Now I and my men think that we stand nearer to the danger and necessity common to us both, than thou and thy friends; therefore make it so that thou, as soon as possible, come to me, and as strong in troops as possible, that we may be assembled to meet whatever may come. He will be our best friend who does all he can that we may be united, and may take an equal part in all things. But if thou refuse, and wilt not come after this message which I send thee in need, as thou hast done before, then thou must expect that I will come against thee with an armament; and let God decide between us; for we are not in a condition to sit here at so great an expense, and with so numerous a body of troops as are necessary here on account of the enemy, and besides many other pressing charges, whilst thou hast half of all the land-tax and other revenues of Norway. Live in the peace of God!" 9. OTTAR BIRTING'S SPEECH. Then Ottar Birting stood up in the Thing, and first of all answered thus: "This is King Sigurd's reply to his brother King Inge--that God will reward him for his good salutation, and likewise for the trouble and burden which he and his friends have in this kingdom, and in matters of necessity which effect them both. Although now some think there is something sharp in King Inge's message to his brother Sigurd, yet he has in many respects sufficient cause for it. Now I will make known to you my opinion, and we will hear if King Sigurd and the other people of power will agree to it; and it is, that thou, King Sigurd, make thyself ready, with all the people who will follow thee, to defend thy country; and go as strong in men as possible to thy brother King Inge as soon as thou art prepared, in order to assist each other in all things that are for the common good; and may God Almighty strengthen and assist you both! Now, king, we will have thy words." Peter, a son of Saudaulf, who was afterwards called Peter Byrdarsvein, bore King Sigurd to the Thing. Then the king said, "Ye must know that, if I am to advise, I will go as soon as possible to my brother King Inge." Then others spoke, one after the other; but although each began his speech in his own way, he ended with agreeing to what Ottar Birting had proposed; and it was determined to call together the war-forces, and go to the east part of the country. King Sigurd accordingly went with great armament east to Viken, and there he met his brother King Inge. 10. FALL OF MAGNUS THE BLIND. The same autumn (A.D. 1139) Sigurd Slembe and Magnus the Blind came from Denmark with thirty ships, manned both with Danes and Northmen. It was near to winter. When the kings heard of this, they set out with their people eastwards to meet them. They met at Hvalar, near Holm the Grey, the day after Martinmas, which was a Sunday. King Inge and King Sigurd had twenty ships, which were all large. There was a great battle; but, after the first assault, the Danes fled home to Denmark with eighteen ships. On this Sigurd's and Magnus's ships were cleared; and as the last was almost entirely bare of men, and Magnus was lying in his bed, Hreidar Griotgardson, who had long followed him, and been his courtman, took King Magnus in his arms, and tried to run with him on board some other ship. But Hreidar was struck by a spear, which went between his shoulders; and people say King Magnus was killed by the same spear. Hreidar fell backwards upon the deck, and Magnus upon him; and every man spoke of how honourably he had followed his master and rightful sovereign. Happy are they who have such praise! There fell, on King Magnus's ship, Lodin Saupprud of Linustadar, Bruse Thormodson; and the forecastle-men to Sigurd Slembidjakn, Ivar Kolbeinson and Halyard Faeger, who had been in Sigurd Slembe's fore-hold. This Ivar had been the first who had gone in, in the night, to King Harald, and had laid hands on him. There fell a great number of the men of King Magnus and Sigurd Slembe, for Inge's men let not a single one escape if they got hold of him; but only a few are named here. They killed upon a holm more than forty men, among whom were two Icelanders--the priest Sigurd Bergthorson, a grandson of Mas; the other Clemet, a son of Are Einarson. But three Icelanders obtained their lives: namely, Ivar Skrauthanke, a son of Kalf Range, and who afterwards was bishop of Throndhjem, and was father of the archbishop Eirik. Ivar had always followed King Magnus, and he escaped into his brother Jon Kauda's ship. Jon was married to Cecilia, a daughter of Gyrd Bardson, and was then in King Inge's and Sigurd's armament. There were three in all who escaped on board of Jon's ship. The second was Arnbjorn Ambe, who afterwards married Thorstein's daughter in Audsholt; the third was Ivar Dynta, a son of Stare, but on the mother's side of a Throndhjem family,--a very agreeable man. When the troops came to know that these three were on board his ship, they took their weapons and assaulted the vessel, and some blows were exchanged, and the whole fleet had nearly come to a fight among themselves; but it came to an agreement, so that Jon ransomed his brothers Ivar and Arnbjorn for a fixed sum in ransom, which, however, was afterwards remitted. But Ivar Dynta was taken to the shore, and beheaded; for Sigurd and Gyrd, the sons of Kolbein, would not take any mulct for him, as they knew he had been at their brother Beintein's murder. Ivar the bishop said, that never was there anything that touched him so nearly, as Ivar's going to the shore under the axe, and turning to the others with the wish that they might meet in joy here-after. Gudrid Birger's daughter, a sister of Archbishop Jon, told Eirik Odson that she heard Bishop Ivar say this. 11. SIGURD SLEMBE TAKEN PRISONER. A man called Thrand Gialdkere was the steersman of King Inge's ship. It was come so far, that Inge's men were rowing in small boats between the ships after those who were swimming in the water, and killed those they could get hold of. Sigurd Slembe threw himself overboard after his ship had lost her crew, stripped off his armour under the water, and then swam with his shield over him. Some men from Thrand's vessel took prisoner a man who was swimming, and were about to kill him; but he begged his life, and offered to tell them where Sigurd Slembe was, and they agreed to it. Shields and spears, dead men, weapons, and clothes, were floating all around on the sea about the ships, "Ye can see," said he, "a red shield floating on the water; he is under it." They rowed to it immediately, took him, and brought him on board of Thrand's ship. Thrand then sent a message to Thjostolf, Ottar, and Amunde. Sigurd Slembe had a tinder box on him; and the tinder was in a walnut-shell, around which there was wax. This is related, because it seems an ingenious way of preserving it from ever getting wet. He swam with a shield over him, because nobody could know one shield from another where so many were floating about; and they would never have hit upon him, if they had not been told where he was. When Thrand came to the land with Sigurd, and it was told to the troops that he was taken, the army set up a shout of joy. When Sigurd heard it he said, "Many a bad man will rejoice over my head this day." Then Thjostolf Alason went to where Sigurd was sitting, struck from his head a silk hat with silver fringes, and said. "Why wert thou so impudent, thou son of a slave! to dare to call thyself King Magnus Barefoot's son?" Sigurd replied, "Presume not to compare my father to a slave; for thy father was of little worth compared to mine." Hal, a son of the doctor Thorgeir Steinson, King Inge's court-man, was present at this circumstance, and told it to Eirik Odson, who afterwards wrote these relations in a book, which he called "Hryggjarstykke". In this book is told all concerning Harald Gille and his sons, and Magnus the Blind, and Sigurd Slembidjakn, until their deaths. Eirik was a sensible man, who was long in Norway about that time. Some of his narratives he wrote down from Hakon Mage's account; some were from lendermen of Harald's sons, who along with his sons were in all this feud, and in all the councils. Eirik names, moreover, several men of understanding and veracity, who told him these accounts, and were so near that they saw or heard all that happened. Something he wrote from what he himself had heard or seen. 12. TORTURE OF SIGURD SLEMBE. Hal says that the chiefs wished to have Sigurd killed instantly; but the men who were the most cruel, and thought they had injuries to avenge, advised torturing him; and for this they named Beintein's brothers, Sigurd and Gyrd, the sons of Kolbein. Peter Byrdarsvein would also avenge his brother Fin. But the chiefs and the greater part of the people went away. They broke his shin-bones and arms with an axe-hammer. Then they stripped him, and would flay him alive; but when they tried to take off the skin, they could not do it for the gush of blood. They took leather whips and flogged him so long, that the skin was as much taken off as if he had been flayed. Then they stuck a piece of wood in his back until it broke, dragged him to a tree and hanged him; and then cut off his head, and brought the body and head to a heap of stones and buried them there. All acknowledge, both enemies and friends, that no man in Norway, within memory of the living, was more gifted with all perfections, or more experienced, than Sigurd, but in some respects he was an unlucky man. Hal says that he spoke little, and answered only a few, and in single words, under his tortures, although they spoke to him. Hal says further, that he never moved when they tortured him, more than if they were striking a stock or a stone. This Hal alleged as proof that he was a brave hero, who had courage to endure tortures; for he still held his tongue, and never moved from the spot. And farther he says, that he never altered his voice in the least, but spoke with as much ease as if he was sitting at the ale-table; neither speaking higher nor lower, nor in a more tremulous voice than he was used to do. He spoke until he gave up the ghost, and sang between whiles parts of the Psalm-book, and which Hal considered beyond the powers and strength of ordinary men. And the priest who had the church in the neighbourhood let Sigurd's body be transported thither to the church. This priest was a friend of Harald's sons: but when they heard it they were angry at him, had the body carried back to where it had been, and made the priest pay a fine. Sigurd's friends afterwards came from Denmark with a ship for his body, carried it to Alaborg, and interred it in Mary church in that town. So said Dean Ketil, who officiated as priest at Mary church, to Eirik; and that Sigurd was buried there. Thjostolf Alason transported Magnus the Blind's body to Oslo, and buried it in Halvard's church, beside King Sigurd his father. Lodin Saupprud was transported to Tunsberg; but the others of the slain were buried on the spot. 13. EYSTEIN HARALDSON COMES TO NORWAY. When the kings Sigurd and Inge had ruled over Norway about six years, Eystein, who was a son of Harald Gille, came in spring from Scotland (A.D. 1142). Arne Sturla, Thorleif Brynjolfson, and Kolbein Hruga had sailed westward over the sea after Eystein, accompanied him to Norway, and sailed immediately with him to Throndhjem. The Throndhjem people received him well; and at the Eyra-thing of Ascension-day he was chosen king, so that he should have the third part of Norway with his brothers Sigurd and Inge. They were at this time in the east part of the country; and men went between the kings who brought about a peace, and that Eystein should have a third part of the kingdom. People believed what he said of his paternal descent, because King Harald himself had testified to it, and he did not resort to the ordeal of iron. King Eystein's mother was called Bjadok, and she followed him to Norway. Magnus was the name of King Harald Gille's fourth son, who was fostered by Kyrpingaorm. He also was chosen king, and got a fourth part of the country; but Magnus was deformed in his feet, lived but a short time, and died in his bed. Einar Skulason speaks of them:-- "The generous Eystein money gave; Sigurd in fight was quick and brave; Inge loved well the war-alarm; Magnus to save his land from harm. No country boasts a nobler race The battle-field, or Thing, to grace. Four brothers of such high pretence The sun ne'er shone upon at once." 14. MURDER OF OTTAR BIRTING. After King Harald Gille's death Queen Ingerid married Ottar Birting, who was a lendermen and a great chief, and of a Throndhjem family, who strengthened King Inge's government much while he was in his childhood. King Sigurd was not very friendly to Ottar; because, as he thought, Ottar always took King Inge's side. Ottar Birting was killed north in the merchant town (Nidaros), in an assault upon him in the twilight as he was going to the evening song. When he heard the whistling of the blow he held up his cloak with his hands against it; thinking, no doubt, it was a snowball thrown at him, as young boys do in the streets. Ottar fell by the stroke; but his son, Alf Hrode, who just at the same moment was coming into the churchyard, saw his father's fall, and saw that the man who had killed him ran east about the church. Alf ran after him, and killed him at the corner of the choir; and people said that he had good luck in avenging his father, and afterwards was much more respected than he had been before. 15. BEGINNING OF KING EYSTEIN. King Eystein Haraldson was in the interior of the Throndhjem district when he heard of Ottar's murder, and summoned to him the bonde-army, with which he proceeded to the town; and he had many men. Ottar's relations and other friends accused King Sigurd, who was in the town, of having instigated this deed; and the bondes were much enraged against him. But the king offered to clear himself by the ordeal of iron, and thereby to establish the truth of his denial; and accordingly a peace was made. King Sigurd went to the south end of the country, and the ordeal was never afterwards heard of. 16. BEGINNING OF ORM THE KING-BROTHER. Queen Ingerid had a son to Ivar Sneis, and he was called Orm, and got the surname of King-brother. He was a handsome man in appearance, and became a great chief, as shall be told hereafter. Ingerid afterwards married Arne of Stodreim, who was from this called King's-mate; and their children were Inge, Nikolas, Philip of Herdla, and Margaret, who was first married to Bjorn Buk, and afterwards to Simon Karason. 17. JOURNEY OF ERLING SKAKKE AND EARL RAGNVALD. Kyrpingaorm and Ragnhild, a daughter of Sveinke Steinarson, had a son called Erling. Kyrpingaorm was a son of Svein Sveinson, who was a son of Erling of Gerd. Otto's mother was Ragna, a daughter of Earl Orm Eilifson and Sigrid, a daughter of Earl Fin Arnason. The mother of Earl Orm was Ragnhild, a daughter of Earl Hakon the Great. Erling was a man of understanding, and a great friend of King Inge, by whose assistance and counsel Erling obtained in marriage Christina, a daughter of King Sigurd the Crusader and Queen Malmfrid. Erling possessed a farm at Studla in South Hordaland. Erling left the country; and with him went Eindride Unge and several lendermen, who had chosen men with them. They intended to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and went across the West sea to Orkney. There Earl Ragnvald and Bishop William joined them; and they had in all fifteen ships from Orkney, with which they first sailed to the South Hebrides, from thence west to Valland, and then the same way King Sigurd the Crusader had sailed to Norvasund; and they plundered all around in the heathen part of Spain. Soon after they had sailed through the Norvasund, Eindride Unge and his followers, with six ships, separated from them; and then each was for himself. Earl Ragnvald and Erling Skakke fell in with a large ship of burden at sea called a dromund, and gave battle to it with nine ships. At last they laid their cutters close under the dromund; but the heathens threw both weapons and stones, and pots full of pitch and boiling oil. Erling laid his ship so close under the dromund, that the missiles of the heathens fell without his ship. Then Erling and his men cut a hole in the dromund, some working below and some above the water-mark; and so they boarded the vessel through it. So says Thorbjorn Skakkaskald, in his poem on Erling:-- "The axes of the Northmen bold A door into the huge ships' hold Hewed through her high and curved side, As snug beneath her bulge they ride. Their spears bring down the astonished foe, Who cannot see from whence the blow. The eagle's prey, they, man by man, Fall by the Northmen's daring plan." Audunraude, Erling's forecastle-man, was the first man who got into the dromund. Then they carried her, killing an immense number of people; making an extraordinarily valuable booty, and gaining a famous victory. Earl Ragnvald and Erling Skakke came to Palestine in the course of their expedition, and all the way to the river Jordan. From thence they went first to Constantinople, where they left their ships, travelled northwards by land, and arrived in safety in Norway, where their journey was highly praised. Erling Skakke appeared now a much greater man than before, both on account of his journey and of his marriage; besides he was a prudent sensible man, rich, of great family, eloquent, and devoted to King Inge by the strictest friendship more than to the other royal brothers. 18. BIRTH OF HAKON HERDEBREID. King Sigurd went to a feast east in Viken along with his court, and rode past a house belonging to a great bonde called Simon. While the king was riding past the house, he heard within such beautiful singing that he was quite enchanted with it, and rode up to the house, and saw a lovely girl standing at the handmill and grinding. The king got off his horse, and went to the girl and courted her. When the king went away, the bonde Simon came to know what the object of the king's visit had been. The girl was called Thora, and she was Simon the bonde's servant-girl. Simon took good care of her afterwards, and the girl brought forth a male child (A.D. 1047), who was called Hakon, and was considered King Sigurd's son. Hakon was brought up by Simon Thorbergson and his wife Gunhild. Their own sons also, Onund and Andreas, were brought up with Hakon, and were so dear to him that death only could have parted them. 19. EYSTEIN AND THE PEASANTS OF HISING ISLE. While King Eystein Haraldson was in Viken, he fell into disputes with the bondes of Reine and the inhabitants of Hising Isle, who assembled to oppose him; but he gave them battle at a place called Leikberg, and afterwards burnt and destroyed all around in Hising; so that the bondes submitted to his will, paid great fines to the king, and he took hostages from them. So says Einar Skulason:-- "The Viken men Won't strive again, With words or blows, The king to oppose. None safety found On Viken's ground, Till all, afraid, Pledge and scat paid." And further:-- "The king came near; He who is dear To all good men Came down the glen, By Leikberg hill. They who do ill, The Reine folk, fly Or quarter cry." 20. WAR EXPEDITION OF KING HARALDSON. Soon after King Eystein began his journey out of the country over sea to the West (A.D. 1153), and sailed first to Caithness. Here he heard that Earl Harald Maddad's son was in Thursa, to which he sailed directly in three small boats. The earl had a ship of thirty banks of oars, and nearly eighty men in her. But they were not prepared to make resistance, so that King Eystein was able to board the ship with his men; and he took the earl prisoner, and carried him to his own ship, but the earl ransomed himself with three marks of gold: and thus they parted. Einar Skulason tells of it thus:-- "Earl Harald in his stout ship lay On the bright sand in Thursa bay; With fourscore men he had no fear, Nor thought the Norse king was so near, He who provides the eagle's meals In three small boats along-shore steals; And Maddad's son must ransom pay For his bad outlook that fair day." From thence King Eystein sailed south along the east side of Scotland, and brought up at a merchant-town in Scotland called Aberdeen, where he killed many people, and plundered the town. So says Einar Skulason:-- "At Aberdeen, too, I am told, Fell many by our Norsemen bold; Peace was disturbed, and blue swords broke With many a hard and bloody stroke." The next battle was at Hartlepool in the south, with a party of horsemen. The king put them to flight, and seized some ships there. So says Einar:-- "At Hartlepool, in rank and row, The king's court-men attack the foe. The king's sharp sword in blood was red, Blood dropped from every Norse spear-head. Ravens rejoice o'er the warm food Of English slain, each where he stood; And in the ships their thirst was quenched: The decks were in the foe's blood drenched." Then he went southwards to England, and had his third battle at Whitby, and gained the victory, and burnt the town. So says Einar:-- "The ring of swords, the clash of shields, Were loud in Whitby's peaceful fields; For here the king stirred up the strife.-- Man against man, for death or life. O'er roof and tower, rose on high The red wrath-fire in the sky; House after house the red fiend burns; By blackened walls the poor man mourns." Thereafter he plundered wide around in England, where Stephen was then the king. After this King Eystein fought with some cavalry at Skarpasker. So says Einar:-- "At Skarpasker the English horse Retire before the Norse king's force: The arrow-shower like snow-drift flew, And the shield-covered foemen slew." He fought next at Pilavik, and gained the victory. So says Einar:-- "At Pilavik the wild wolf feeds, Well furnished by the king's brave deeds He poured upon the grass-green plain A red shower from the Perthmen slain. On westwards in the sea he urges, With fire and sword the country purges: Langtown he burns; the country rang, For sword on shield incessant clang." Here they burnt Langatun, a large village; and people say that the town has never since risen to its former condition. After this King Eystein left England in autumn, and returned to Norway. People spoke in various ways about this expedition. 21. OF HARALD'S SONS. There was good peace maintained in Norway in the first years of the government of Harald's sons; and as long as their old counsellors were alive, there was some kind of unanimity among them. While Inge and Sigurd were in their childhood, they had a court together; but Eystein, who was come to age of discretion, had a court for himself. But when Inge's and Sigurd's counsellors were dead,--namely, Sadagyrd Bardson, Ottar Birting, Amunde Gyrdson, Thjostolf Alason, Ogmund Svipter, and Ogmund Denger, a brother of Erling Skakke (Erling was not much looked up to while Ogmund lived),--the two kings, Inge and Sigurd divided their courts. King Inge then got great assistance from Gregorius Dagson, a son of Dag Eilifson by Ragnhild a daughter of Skapte Ogmundson. Gregorius had much property, and was himself a thriving, sagacious man. He presided in the governing the country under King Inge, and the king allowed him to manage his property for him according to his own judgment. 22. HABITS AND MANNERS OF HARALD'S SONS. When King Sigurd grew up he was a very ungovernable, restless man in every way; and so was King Eystein, but Eystein was the more reasonable of the two. King Sigurd was a stout and strong man, of a brisk appearance; he had light brown hair, an ugly mouth; but otherwise a well-shaped countenance. He was polite in his conversation beyond any man, and was expert in all exercises. Einar Skulason speaks of this:-- "Sigurd, expert in every way To wield the sword in bloody fray, Showed well that to the bold and brave God always luck and victory gave. In speech, as well as bloody deeds, The king all other men exceeds; And when he speaks we think that none Has said a word but he alone." King Eystein was dark and dingy in complexion, of middle height, and a prudent able man; but what deprived him of consideration and popularity with those under him were his avarice and narrowness. He was married to Ragna, a daughter of Nicolas Mase. King Inge was the handsomest among them in countenance. He had yellow but rather thin hair, which was much curled. His stature was small; and he had difficulty in walking alone, because he had one foot withered, and he had a hump both on his back and his breast. He was of cheerful conversation, and friendly towards his friends; was generous, and allowed other chiefs to give him counsel in governing the country. He was popular, therefore, with the public; and all this brought the kingdom and the mass of the people on his side. King Harald Gille's daughter Brigida was first married to the Swedish king Inge Halsteinson, and afterwards to Earl Karl Sonason, and then to the Swedish king Magnus. She and King Inge Haraldson were cousins by the mother's side. At last Brigida married Earl Birger Brose, and they had four sons, namely, Earl Philip, Earl Knut, Folke, and Magnus. Their daughters were Ingegerd, who was married to the Swedish king Sorkver, and their son was King Jon; a second daughter was called Kristin, and a third Margaret. Harald Gille's second daughter was called Maria, who was married to Simon Skalp, a son of Halkel Huk; and their son was called Nikolas. King Harald Gille's third daughter was called Margaret, who was married to Jon Halkelson, a brother of Simon. Now many things occurred between the brothers which occasioned differences and disputes; but I will only relate what appears to me to have produced the more important events. 23. CARDINAL NIKOLAS COMES TO THE COUNTRY. In the days of Harald's sons Cardinal Nikolas came from Rome to Norway, being sent there by the pope. The cardinal had taken offence at the brothers Sigurd and Eystein, and they were obliged to come to a reconciliation with him; but, on the other hand, he stood on the most affectionate terms with King Inge, whom he called his son. Now when they were all reconciled with him, he moved them to let Jon Birgerson be consecrated archbishop of Throndhjem and gave him a vestment which is called a pallium; and settled moreover that the archbishop's seat should be in Nidaros, in Christ church, where King Olaf the Saint reposes. Before that time there had only been common bishops in Norway. The cardinal introduced also the law, that no man should go unpunished who appeared with arms in the merchant-town, excepting the twelve men who were in attendancce on the king. He improved many of the customs of the Northmen while he was in the country. There never came a foreigner to Norway whom all men respected so highly, or who could govern the people so well as he did. After some time he returned to the South with many friendly presents, and declared ever afterwards that he was the greatest friend of the people of Norway. When he came south to Rome the former pope died suddenly, and all the people of Rome would have Cardinal Nikolas for pope, and he was consecrated under the name of Adrian; and according to the report of men who went to Rome in his days, he had never any business, however important, to settle with other people, but he would break it off to speak with the Northmen who desired to see him. He was not long pope, and is now considered a saint. 24. MIRACLE OF KING OLAF. In the time of Harald Gille's sons, it happened that a man called Haldor fell into the hands of the Vindland people, who took him and mutilated him, cut open his neck, took out the tongue through the opening, and cut out his tongue root. He afterwards sought out the holy King Olaf, fixed his mind entirely on the holy man, and weeping besought King Olaf to restore his speech and health. Thereupon he immediately recovered his speech by the good king's compassion, went immediately into his service for all his life, and became an excellent trustworthy man. This miracle took place a fortnight before the last Olafsmas, upon the day that Cardinal Nikolas set foot on the land of Norway. 25. MIRACLES OF KING OLAF ON RICHARD. In the Uplands were two brothers, men of great family, and men of fortune, Einar and Andres, sons of Guthorm Grabard, and brothers of King Sigurd Haraldson's mother; and they had great properties and udal estates in that quarter. They had a sister who was very handsome, but did not pay sufficient regard to the scandal of evil persons, as it afterwards appeared. She was on a friendly footing with an English priest called Richard, who had a welcome to the house of her brothers, and on account of their friendship for him she did many things to please him, and often to his advantage; but the end of all this was, that an ugly report flew about concerning this girl. When this came into the mouth of the public all men threw the blame on the priest. Her brothers did the same, and expressed publicly, as soon as they observed it, that they laid the blame most on him. The great friendship that was between the earl and the priest proved a great misfortune to both, which might have been expected, as the brothers were silent about their secret determination, and let nothing be observed. But one day they called the priest to them, who went, expecting nothing but good from them; enticed him from home with them, saying that they intended to go to another district, where they had some needful business, and inviting him to go with them. They had with them a farm-servant who knew their purpose. They went in a boat along the shore of a lake which is called Rands lake, and landed at a ness called Skiptisand, where they went on shore and amused themselves awhile. Then they went to a retired place, and commanded their servant-man to strike the priest with an axe-hammer. He struck the priest so hard that he swooned; but when he recovered he said, "Why are ye playing so roughly with me?" They replied, "Although nobody has told thee of it before, thou shalt now find the consequence of what thou hast done." They then upbraided him; but he denied their accusations, and besought God and the holy King Olaf to judge between them. Then they broke his leg-bones, and dragged him bound to the forest with them; and then they put a string around his head, and put a board under his head and shoulders, and made a knot on the string, and bound his head fast to the board. Then the elder brother, Einar, took a wedge, and put it on the priest's eye, and the servant who stood beside him struck upon it with an axe, so that the eye flew out, and fell upon the board. Then he set the pin upon the other eye, and said to the servant, "Strike now more softly." He did so, and the wedge sprang from the eye-stone, and tore the eyelid loose. Then Einar took up the eyelid in his hand, and saw that the eye-stone was still in its place; and he set the wedge on the cheek, and when the servant struck it the eye-stone sprang out upon the cheek-bone. Thereafter they opened his mouth, took his tongue and cut it off, and then untied his hands and his head. As soon as he came to himself, he thought of laying the eye-stones in their place under the eyelids, and pressing then with both hands as much as he could. Then they carried him on board, and went to a farm called Saeheimrud, where they landed. They sent up to the farm to say that a priest was lying in the boat at the shore. While the message was going to the farm, they asked the priest if he could talk; and he made a noise and attempted to speak. Then said Einar to his brother, "If he recover and the stump of his tongue grow, I am afraid he will get his speech again." Thereupon they seized the stump with a pair of tongs, drew it out, cut it twice, and the third time to the very roots, and left him lying half dead. The housewife in the farm was poor; but she hastened to the place with her daughter, and they carried the priest home to their farm in their cloaks. They then brought a priest, and when he arrived he bound all his wounds; and they attended to his comfort as much as they were able. And thus lay the wounded priest grievously handled, but trusting always to God's grace, and never doubting; and although he was speechless, he prayed to God in thought with a sorrowful mind, but with the more confidence the worse he was. He turned his thoughts also to the mild King Olaf the Saint, God's dear favourite, of whose excellent deeds he had heard so much told, and trusted so much more zealously on him with all his heart for help in his necessity. As he lay there lame, and deprived of all strength, he wept bitterly, moaned, and prayed with a sore heart that the dear King Olaf would help him. Now when this wounded priest was sleeping after midnight, he thought he saw a gallant man coming to him, who spoke these words, "Thou art ill off, friend Richard, and thy strength is little." He thought he replied to this assentingly. Then the man accosted him again, "Thou requirest compassion?" The priest replies, "I need the compassion of Almighty God and the holy King Olaf." He answered, "Thou shalt get it." Thereupon he pulled the tongue-stump so hard that it gave the priest pain; then he stroked with his hands his eyes, and legs, and other wounded members. Then the priest asked who he was. He looked at him, and said, "Olaf, come here from Throndhjem;" and then disappeared. But the priest awoke altogether sound, and thus he spoke: "Happy am I, and thanks be to the Almighty God and the holy King Olaf, who have restored me!" Dreadfully mishandled as he had been, yet so quickly was he restored from his misfortune that he scarcely thought he had been wounded or sick. His tongue was entire; both his eyes were in their places, and were clear-sighted; his broken legs and every other wound were healed, or were free from pain; and, in short, he had got perfect health. But as a proof that his eyes had been punched out, there remained a white scar on each eyelid, in order that this dear king's excellence might be manifest on the man who had been so dreadfully misused. 26. KING INGE AND SIGURD HOLD A THING. King Eystein and King Sigurd had quarrelled, because King Sigurd had killed King Eystein's court-man Harald, the Viken man, who owned a house in Bergen, and also the priest Jon Tapard, a son of Bjarne Sigurdson. On account of this affair, a conference to settle it was appointed in winter in the Uplands. The two sat together in the conference for a long time, and so much was known of their conference that all three brothers were to meet the following summer in Bergen. It was added, that their conference was to the effect that King Inge should have two or three farms, and as much income as would keep thirty men beside him, as he had not health to be a king. When King Inge and Gregorius heard this report, they came to Bergen with many followers. King Sigurd arrived there a little later, and was not nearly so strong in men. Sigurd and Inge had then been nineteen years kings of Norway (A.D. 1155). King Eystein came later still from the south than the other two from the north. Then King Inge ordered the Thing to be called together on the holm by the sound of trumpet; and Sigurd and Inge came to it with a great many people. Gregorius had two long-ships, and at the least ninety men, whom he kept in provisions. He kept his house-men better than other lendermen; for he never took part in any entertainment where each guest brings his liquor, without having all his house-men to drink with him. He went now to the Thing in a gold-mounted helmet, and all his men had helmets on. Then King Inge stood up, and told the assembly what he had heard; how his brothers were going to use him, and depose him from his kingdom; and asked for their assistance. The assembled people made a good return to his speech, and declared they would follow him. 27. OF GREGORIUS DAGSON. Then King Sigurd stood up and said it was a false accusation that King Inge had made against him and his brother, and insisted that Gregorius had invented it; and insinuated that it would not be long, if he had his will, before they should meet so that the golden helmet should be doffed; and ended his speech by hinting that they could not both live. Gregorius replied, that Sigurd need not long so much for this, as he was ready now, if it must be so. A few days after, one of Gregorius's house-men was killed out upon the street, and it was Sigurd's house-men who killed him. Gregorius would then have fallen upon King Sigurd and his people; but King Inge, and many others, kept him back. But one evening, just as Queen Ingerid, King Inge's mother, was coming from vespers, she came past where Sigurd Skrudhyrna, a courtman of King Inge, lay murdered. He was then an old man, and had served many kings. King Sigurd's courtmen, Halyard Gunnarson, and Sigurd, a son of Eystein Trafale, had killed him; and people suspected it was done by order of King Sigurd. She went immediately to King Inge, and told him he would be a little king if he took no concern, but allowed his court-men to be killed, the one after the other, like swine. The king was angry at her speech; and while they were scolding about it, came Gregorius in helmet and armour, and told the king not to be angry, for she was only saying the truth. "And I am now," says he, "come to thy assistance, if thou wilt attack King Sigurd; and here we are, above 100 men in helmets and armour, and with them we will attack where others think the attack may be worst." But the most dissuaded from this course, thinking that Sigurd would pay the mulct for the slaughter done. Now when Gregorius saw that there would be no assault, he accosted King Inge thus: "Thou wilt frighten thy men from thee in this way; for first they lately killed my house-man, and now thy court-man, and afterwards they will chase me, or some other of thy lendermen whom thou wouldst feel the loss of, when they see that thou art indifferent about such things; and at last, after thy friends are killed, they will take the royal dignity from thee. Whatever thy other lendermen may do, I will not stay here longer to be slaughtered like an ox; but Sigurd the king and I have a business to settle with each other to-night, in whatever way it may turn out. It is true that there is but little help in thee on account of thy ill health, but I should think thy will should not be less to hold thy hand over thy friends, and I am now quite ready to go from hence to meet Sigurd, and my banner is flying in the yard." Then King Inge stood up, and called for his arms, and ordered every man who wished to follow him to get ready, declaring it was of no use to try to dissuade him; for he had long enough avoided this, but now steel must determine between them. 28. OF KING SIGURD'S FALL. King Sigurd sat and drank in Sigrid Saeta's house ready for battle, although people thought it would not come to an assault at all. Then came King Inge with his men down the road from the smithy shops, against the house. Arne, the king's brother-in-law, came out from the Sand-bridge, Aslak Erlendson from his own house, and Gregorius from the street where all thought the assault would be worst. King Sigurd and his men made many shots from the holes in the loft, broke down the fireplaces, and threw stones on them. Gregorius and his men cut down the gates of the yard; and there in the port fell Einar, a son of Laxapaul, who was of Sigurd's people, together with Halvard Gunnarson, who was shot in a loft, and nobody lamented his death. They hewed down the houses, and many of King Sigurd's men left him, and surrendered for quarter. Then King Sigurd went up into a loft, and desired to be heard. He had a gilt shield, by which they knew him, but they would not listen to him, and shot arrows at him as thick as snow in a snow-shower, so that he could not stay there. As his men had now left him, and the houses were being hewn down, he went out from thence, and with him his court-man Thord Husfreyja from Viken. They wanted to come where King Inge was to be found, and Sigurd called to his brother King Inge, and begged him to grant him life and safety; but both Thord and Sigurd were instantly killed, and Thord fell with great glory. King Sigurd was interred in the old Christ church out on the holm. King Inge gave Gregorius the ship King Sigurd had owned. There fell many of King Sigurd's and King Inge's men, although I only name a few; but of Gregorius's men there fell four; and also some who belonged to no party, but were shot on the piers, or out in the ships. It was fought on a Friday, and fourteen days before Saint John the Baptist's day (June 10, 1155). Two or three days after King Eystein came from the eastward with thirty ships, and had along with him his brother's son Hakon, a son of King Sigurd. Eystein did not come up to the town, but lay in Floruvagar, and good men went between to get a reconciliation made. But Gregorius wanted that they should go out against him, thinking there never would be a better opportunity; and offered to be himself the leader. "For thou, king, shalt not go, for we have no want of men." But many dissuaded from this course, and it came to nothing. King Eystein returned back to Viken, and King Inge to Throndhjem, and they were in a sort reconciled; but they did not meet each other. 29. OF GREGORIUS DAGSON. Somewhat later than King Eystein, Gregorius Dagson also set out to the eastward and came to his farm Bratsberg in Hofund; but King Eystein was up in the fjord at Oslo, and had his ships drawn above two miles over the frozen sea, for there was much ice at that time in Viken. King Eystein went up to Hofund to take Gregorius; but he got news of what was on foot, and escaped to Thelemark with ninety men, from thence over the mountains, and came down in Hardanger; and at last to Studla in Etne, to Erling Skakke's farm. Erling himself had gone north to Bergen; but his wife Kristin, a daughter of King Sigurd, was at home, and offered Gregorius all the assistance he wanted; and he was hospitably received. He got a long-ship there which belonged to Erling, and everything else he required. Gregorius thanked her kindly, and allowed that she had behaved nobly, and as might have been expected of her. Gregorius then proceeded to Bergen, where he met Erling, who thought also that his wife had done well. 30. RECONCILIATION OF EYSTEIN AND INGE. Then Gregorius went north to Throndhjem, and came there before Yule. King Inge was rejoiced at his safety, and told him to use his property as freely as his own, King Eystein having burnt Gregorius's house, and slaughtered his stock of cattle. The ship-docks which King Eystein the Elder had constructed in the merchant town of Nidaros, and which had been exceedingly expensive, were also burnt this winter, together with some good vessels belonging to King Inge. This deed was ascribed to King Eystein and Philip Gyrdson, King Sigurd's foster-brother, and occasioned much displeasure and hatred. The following summer King Inge went south with a very numerous body of men; and King Eystein came northwards, gathering men also. They met in the east (A.D. 1156) at the Seleys, near to the Naze; but King Inge was by far the strongest in men. It was nearly coming to a battle; but at last they were reconciled on these conditions, that King Eystein should be bound to pay forty-five marks of gold, of which King Inge should have thirty marks, because King Eystein had occasioned the burning of the docks and ships; and, besides, that Philip, and all who had been accomplices in the deed, should be outlawed. Also that the men should be banished the country, against whom it could be proved that they gave blow or wound to King Sigurd; for King Eystein accused King Inge of protecting these men; and that Gregorius should have fifteen marks of gold for the value of his property burnt by King Eystein. King Eystein was ill pleased with these terms, and looked upon the treaty as one forced upon him. From that meeting King Inge went eastward to Viken, and King Eystein north to Throndhjem; and they had no intercourse with each other, nor were the messages which passed between them very friendly, and on both sides they killed each other's friends. King Eystein, besides, did not pay the money; and the one accused the other of not fulfilling what was promised. King Inge and Gregorius enticed many people from King Eystein; among others, Bard Standale Brynjolfson, Simon Skalp, a son of Halkel Huk, Halder Brynjolfson, Jon Halkelson, and many other lendermen. 31. OF EYSTEIN AND INGE. Two years after King Sigurd's fall (A.D. 1157) both kings assembled armaments; namely, King Inge in the east of the country, where he collected eighty ships; and King Eystein in the north, where he had forty-five, and among these the Great Dragon, which King Eystein Magnuson had built after the Long Serpent; and they had on both sides many and excellent troops. King Inge lay with his ships south at Moster Isle, and King Eystein a little to the north in Graeningasund. King Eystein sent the young Aslak Jonson, and Arne Sturla, a son of Snaebjorn, with one ship to meet King Inge; but when the king's men knew them, they assaulted them, killed many of their people, and took all that was in the ship belonging to them. Aslak and Arne and a few more escaped to the land, went to King Eystein, and told him how King Inge had received them. Thereupon King Eystein held a House-thing, and told his followers how ill King Inge had treated his men, and desired the troops to follow him. "I have," said he, "so many, and such excellent men, that I have no intention to fly, if ye will follow me." But this speech was not received with much favour. Halkel Huk was there; but both his sons, Simon and Jon, were with King Inge. Halkel replied, so loud that many heard him, "Let thy chests of gold follow thee, and let them defend thy land." 32. KING EYSTEIN'S DEATH. In the night many of King Eystein's ships rowed secretly away, some of them joining King Inge, some going to Bergen, or up into the fjords; so that when it was daylight in the morning the king was lying behind with only ten ships. Then he left the Great Dragon, which was heavy to row, and several other vessels behind; and cut and destroyed the Dragon, started out the ale, and destroyed all that they could not take with them. King Eystein went on board of the ship of Eindride, a son of Jon Morner, sailed north into Sogn, and then took the land-road eastwards to Viken. King Inge took the vessels, and sailed with them outside of the isles to Viken. King Eystein had then got east as far as Fold, and had with him 1200 men; but when they saw King Inge's force, they did not think themselves sufficiently strong to oppose him, and they retired to the forest. Every one fled his own way, so that the king was left with but one man. King Inge and his men observed King Eystein's flight, and also that he had but few people with him, and they went immediately to search for him. Simon Skalp met the king just as he was coming out of a willow bush. Simon saluted him. "God save you, sire," said he. The king replied, "I do not know if thou are not sire here." Simon replied, "That is as it may happen." The king begged him to conceal him, and said it was proper to do so. "For there was long friendship between us, although it has now gone differently." Simon replied, it could not be. Then the king begged that he might hear mass before he died, which accordingly took place. Then Eystein laid himself down on his face on the grass, stretched out his hands on each side, and told them to cut the sign of the cross between his shoulders, and see whether he could not bear steel as King Inge's followers had asserted of him. Simon told the man who had to put the king to death to do so immediately, for the king had been creeping about upon the grass long enough. He was accordingly slain, and he appears to have suffered manfully. His body was carried to Fors, and lay all night under the hill at the south side of the church. King Eystein was buried in Fors church, and his grave is in the middle of the church-floor, where a fringed canopy is spread over it, and he is considered a saint. Where he was executed, and his blood ran upon the ground, sprang up a fountain, and another under the hill where his body lay all night. From both these waters many think they have received a cure of sickness and pain. It is reported by the Viken people that many miracles were wrought at King Eystein's grave, until his enemies poured upon it soup made of boiled dog's flesh. Simon Skalp was much hated for this deed, which was generally ascribed to him; but some said that when King Eystein was taken Simon sent a message to King Inge, and the king commanded that King Eystein should not come before his face. So King Sverre has caused it to be written; but Einar Skulason tells of it thus:-- "Simon Skalp, the traitor bold, For deeds of murder known of old, His king betrayed; and ne'er will he God's blessed face hereafter see." SAGA OF HAKON HERDEBREID (HAKON THE BROAD-SHOULDERED) (1) PRELIMINARY REMARKS. This saga describes the feud between Hakon Sigurdson and his uncle Inge. The only skald quoted is Einar Skulason. ENDNOTES: (1) The period is from A.D. 1157 to 1161.--L. 1. BEGINNING OF HAKON HERDEBREID. Hakon, King Sigurd's son, was chosen chief of the troop which had followed King Eystein, and his adherents gave him the title of king. He was ten years old. At that time he had with him Sigurd, a son of Halvard Hauld of Reyr, and Andreas and Onund, the sons of Simon, his foster-brothers, and many chiefs, friends of King Sigurd and King Eystein; and they went first up to Gautland. King Inge took possession of all the estates they had left behind, and declared them banished. Thereafter King Inge went to Viken, and was sometimes also in the north of the country. Gregorius Dagson was in Konungahella, where the danger was greatest, and had beside him a strong and handsome body of men, with which he defended the country. 2. OF GREGORIUS DAGSON. The summer after (A.D. 1158) Hakon came with his men, and proceeded to Konungahella with a numerous and handsome troop. Gregorius was then in the town, and summoned the bondes and townspeople to a great Thing, at which he desired their aid; but he thought the people did not hear him with much favour, so he did not much trust them. Gregorius set off with two ships to Viken, and was very much cast down. He expected to meet King Inge there, having heard he was coming with a great army to Viken. Now when Gregorius had come but a short way north he met Simon Skalp, Haldor Brynjolfson, and Gyrd Amundason, King Inge's foster-brothers. Gregorius was much delighted at this meeting, and turned back with them, being all in one body, with eleven ships. As they were rowing up to Konungahella, Hakon, with his followers, was holding a Thing without the town, and saw their approach; and Sigurd of Reyr said, "Gregorius must be fey to be throwing himself with so few men into our hands." Gregorius landed opposite the town to wait for King Inge, for he was expected, but he did not come. King Hakon put himself in order in the town, and appointed Thorliot Skaufaskalle, who was a viking and a robber, to be captain of the men in the merchant ships that were afloat in the river; and King Hakon and Sigurd were within the town, and drew up the men on the piers, for all the townspeople had submitted to King Hakon. 3. KING HAKON'S FLIGHT. Gregorius rowed up the river, and let the ship drive down with the stream against Thorliot. They shot at each other a while, until Thorliot and his comrades jumped overboard; and some of them were killed, some escaped to the land. Then Gregorius rowed to the piers, and let a gangway be cast on shore at the very feet of Hakon's men. There the man who carried his banner was slain, just as he was going to step on shore. Gregorius ordered Hal, a son of Audun Halson, to take up the banner, which he did, and bore the banner up to the pier. Gregorius followed close after him, held his shield over his head, and protected him as well as himself. As soon as Gregorius came upon the pier, and Hakon's men knew him, they gave way, and made room for him on every side. Afterwards more people landed from the ships, and then Gregorius made a severe assault with his men; and Hakon's men first moved back, and then ran up into the town. Gregorius pursued them eagerly, drove them twice from the town, and killed many of them. By the report of all men, never was there so glorious an affair as this of Gregorius; for Hakon had more than 4000 men, and Gregorius not full 400. After the battle, Gregorius said to Hal Audunson, "Many men, in my opinion, are more agile in battle than ye Icelanders are, for ye are not so exercised as we Norwegians; but none, I think, are so bold under arms as ye are." King Inge came up soon after, and killed many of the men who had taken part with Hakon; made some pay heavy fines, burnt the houses of some, and some he drove out of the country, or treated otherwise very ill. Hakon fled at first up to Gautland with all his men; but the winter after (A.D. 1159), he proceeded by the upper road to Throndhjem, and came there before Easter. The Throndhjem people received him well, for they had always served under that shield. It is said that the Throndhjem people took Hakon as king, on the terms that he should have from Inge the third part of Norway as his paternal heritage. King Inge and Gregorius were in Viken, and Gregorius wanted to make an expedition against the party in the north; but it came to nothing that winter, as many dissuaded from it. 4. FALL OF GYRD AND HAVARD. King Hakon left Throndhjem in spring with thirty ships nearly; and some of his men sailed before the rest with seven ships, and plundered in North and South More. No man could remember that there ever before had been plundering between the two towns (Bergen and Nidaros). Jon the son of Halkel Huk collected the bondes in arms, and proceeded against them; took Kolbein Ode prisoner, killed every woman's son of them in his ship. Then they searched for the others, found them all assembled in seven ships, and fought with them; but his father Halkel not coming to his assistance as he had promised, many good bondes were killed, and Jon himself was wounded. Hakon proceeded south to Bergen with his forces; but when he came to Stiornvelta, he heard that King Inge and Gregorius had arrived a few nights before from the east at Bergen, and therefore he did not venture to steer thither. They sailed the outer course southwards past Bergen, and met three ships of King Inge's fleet, which had been outsailed on the voyage from the east. On board of them were Gyrd Amundason, King Inge's foster-brother, who was married to Gyrid a sister of Gregorius, and also lagman Gyrd Gunhildson, and Havard Klining. King Hakon had Gyrd Amundason and Havard Klining put to death; but took lagman Gyrd southwards, and then proceeded east to Viken. 5. OF THE CONSULTATIONS OF KING INGE. When King Inge heard of this he sailed east after them, and they met east in the Gaut river. King Inge went up the north arm of the river, and sent out spies to get news of Hakon and his fleet; but he himself landed at Hising, and waited for his spies. Now when the spies came back they went to the king, and said that they had seen King Hakon's forces, and all his ships which lay at the stakes in the river, and Hakon's men had bound the stems of their vessels to them. They had two great East-country trading vessels, which they had laid outside of the fleet, and on both these were built high wooded stages (castles). When King Inge heard the preparations they had made, he ordered a trumpet to call a House-thing of all the men; and when the Thing was seated he asked his men for counsel, and applied particularly to Gregorius Dagson, his brother-in-law Erling Skakke, and other lendermen and ship-commanders, to whom he related the preparations of Hakon and his men. Then Gregorius Dagson replied first, and made known his mind in the following words:--"Sometimes we and Hakon have met, and generally they had the most people; but, notwithstanding, they fell short in battle against us. Now, on the other hand, we have by far the greatest force; and it will appear probable to the men who a short time ago lost gallant relations by them, that this will be a good occasion to get vengeance, for they have fled before us the greater part of the summer; and we have often said that if they waited for us, as appears now to be the case, we would have a brush with them. Now I will tell my opinion, which is, that I will engage them, if it be agreeable to the king's pleasure; for I think it will go now as formerly, that they must give way before us if we attack them bravely; and I shall always attack where others may think it most difficult." The speech was received with much applause, and all declared they were ready to engage in battle against Hakon. Then they rowed with all the ships up the river, until they came in sight of each other, and then King Inge turned off from the river current under the island. Now the king addressed the lendermen again, and told them to get ready for battle. He turned himself especially to Erling Skakke, and said, what was true, that no man in the army had more understanding and knowledge in fighting battles, although some were more hot. The king then addressed himself to several of the lendermen, speaking to them by name; and ended by desiring that each man should make his attack where he thought it would be of advantage, and thereafter all would act together. 6. ERLING'S SPEECH. Erling Skakke replied thus to the king's speech: "It is my duty, sire, not to be silent; and I shall give my advice, since it is desired. The resolution now adopted is contrary to my judgment; for I call it foolhardy to fight under these circumstances, although we have so many and such fine men. Supposing we make an attack on them, and row up against this river-current; then one of the three men who are in each half room must be employed in rowing only, and another must be covering with the shield the man who rows; and what have we then to fight with but one third of our men? It appears to me that they can be of little use in the battle who are sitting at their oars with their backs turned to the enemy. Give me now some time for consideration, and I promise you that before three days are over I shall fall upon some plan by which we can come into battle with advantage." It was evident from Erling's speech that he dissuaded from an attack; but, notwithstanding, it was urged by many who thought that Hakon would now, as before, take to the land. "And then," said they, "we cannot get hold of him; but now they have but few men, and we have their fate in our own hands." Gregorius said but little; but thought that Erling rather dissuaded from an attack that Gregorius's advice should have no effect, than that he had any better advice to give. 7. OF HAKON'S FLEET. Then said King Inge to Erling, "Now we will follow thy advice, brother, with regard to the manner of attacking; but seeing how eager our counsellors are for it, we shall make the attack this day." Erling replied, "All the boats and light vessels we have should row outside the island, and up the east arm of the river, and then down with the stream upon them, and try if they cannot cut them loose from the piles. Then we, with the large ships, shall row from below here against them; and I cannot tell until it be tried, if those who are now so furiously warm will be much brisker at the attack than I am." This counsel was approved by all. There was a ness stretched out between their fleet and Hakon's, so that they could not see each other. Now when Hakon and his men, who had taken counsel with each other in a meeting, saw the boat-squadron rowing down the river, some thought King Inge intended to give them battle; but many believed they did not dare, for it looked as if the attack was given up; and they, besides, were very confident, both in their preparations and men. There were many great people with Hakon: there were Sigurd of Reyr, and Simon's sons; Nikolas Skialdvarson; Eindride, a son of Jon Mornef, who was the most gallant and popular man in the Throndhjem country; and many other lendermen and warriors. Now when they saw that King Inge's men with many ships were rowing out of the river, Hakon and his men believed they were going to fly; and therefore they cut their land-ropes with which they lay fast at the piles, seized their oars, and rowed after them in pursuit. The ships ran fast down with the stream; but when they came further down the river, abreast of the ness, they saw King Inge's main strength lying quiet at the island Hising. King Inge's people saw Hakon's ships under way, and believed they were coming to attack them; and now there was great bustle and clash of arms, and they encouraged each other by a great war-shout. Hakon with his fleet turned northwards a little to the land, where there was a turn in the bight of the river, and where there was no current. They made ready for battle, carried land-ropes to the shore, turned the stems of their ships outwards, and bound them all together. They laid the large East-country traders without the other vessels, the one above, the other below, and bound them to the long-ships. In the middle of the fleet lay the king's ship, and next to it Sigurd's; and on the other side of the king's ship lay Nikolas, and next to him Endride Jonson. All the smaller ships lay farther off, and they were all nearly loaded with weapons and stones. 8. SIGURD OF REYR'S SPEECH. Then Sigurd of Reyr made the following speech: "Now there is hope that the time is come which has been promised us all the summer, that we shall meet King Inge in battle. We have long prepared ourselves for this; and many of our comrades have boasted that they would never fly from or submit to King Inge and Gregorius, and now let them remember their words. But we who have sometimes got the toothache in our conflicts with them, speak less confidently; for it has happened, as all have heard, that we very often have come off without glory. But, nevertheless, it is now necessary to fight manfully, and stand to it with steadiness; for the only escape for us is in victory. Although we have somewhat fewer men than they, yet luck determines which side shall have the advantage, and God knows that the right is on our side. Inge has killed two of his brothers; and it is obvious to all men that the mulct he intends to pay King Hakon for his father's murder is to murder him also, as well as his other relations, which will be seen this day to be his intent. King Hakon desired from the beginning no more of Norway than the third part, which his father had possessed, and which was denied him; and yet, in my opinion, King Hakon has a better right to inherit after his father's brother, King Eystein, than Inge or Simon Skalp, or the other men who killed King Eystein. Many of them who would save their souls, and yet have defiled their hands with such bloody deeds as Inge has done, must think it a presumption before God that he takes the name of king; and I wonder God suffers such monstrous wickedness as his; but it may be God's will that we shall now put him down. Let us fight then manfully, and God will give us victory; and, if we fall, will repay us with joys unspeakable for now allowing the might of the wicked to prevail over us. Go forth then in confidence, and be not afraid when the battle begins. Let each watch over his own and his comrade's safety, and God protect us all." There went a good report abroad of this speech of Sigurd, and all promised fairly, and to do their duty. King Hakon went on board of the great East-country ship, and a shield-bulwark was made around him; but his standard remained on the long-ship in which it had been before. 9. OF KING INGE'S MEN. Now must we tell about King Inge and his men. When they saw that King Hakon and his people were ready for battle, and the river only was between them, they sent a light vessel to recall the rest of the fleet which had rowed away; and in the meantime the king waited for them, and arranged the troops for the attack. Then the chiefs consulted in presence of the army, and told their opinions; first, which ships should lie nearest to the enemy; and then where each should attack. Gregorius spoke thus: "We have many and fine men; and it is my advice, King Inge, that you do not go to the assault with us, for everything is preserved if you are safe. And no man knows where an arrow may hit, even from the hands of a bad bowman; and they have prepared themselves so, that missiles and stones can be thrown from the high stages upon the merchant ships, so that there is less danger for those who are farthest from them. They have not more men than we lendermen can very well engage with. I shall lay my ship alongside their largest ship, and I expect the conflict between us will be but short; for it has often been so in our former meetings, although there has been a much greater want of men with us than now." All thought well of the advice that the king himself should not take part in the battle. Then Erling Skakke said, "I agree also to the counsel that you, sire, should not go into the battle. It appears to me that their preparations are such, that we require all our precaution not to suffer a great defeat from them; and whole limbs are the easiest cured. In the council we held before to-day many opposed what I said, and ye said then that I did not want to fight; but now I think the business has altered its appearance, and greatly to our advantage, since they have hauled off from the piles, and now it stands so that I do not dissuade from giving battle; for I see, what all are sensible of, how necessary it is to put an end to this robber band who have gone over the whole country with pillage and destruction, in order that people may cultivate the land in peace, and serve a king so good and just as King Inge who has long had trouble and anxiety from the haughty unquiet spirit of his relations, although he has been a shield of defence for the whole people, and has been exposed to manifold perils for the peace of the country." Erling spoke well and long, and many other chiefs also; and all to the same purpose--all urging to battle. In the meantime they waited until all the fleet should be assembled. King Inge had the ship Baekisudin; and, at the entreaty of his friends, he did not join the battle, but lay still at the island. 10. BEGINNING OF THE BATTLE. When the army was ready they rowed briskly against the enemy, and both sides raised a war-shout. Inge's men did not bind their ships together, but let them be loose; for they rowed right across the current, by which the large ships were much swayed. Erling Skakke laid his ship beside King Hakon's ship, and ran the stem between his and Sigurd's ship, by which the battle began. But Gregorius's ship swung upon the ground, and heeled very much over, so that at first she could not come into the battle; and when Hakon's men saw this they laid themselves against her, and attacked Gregorius's ship on all sides. Ivar, Hakon Mage's son, laid his ship so that the stems struck together; and he got a boat-hook fastened on Gregorius, on that part of his body where the waist is smallest, and dragged him to him, by which Gregorius stumbled against the ship's rails; but the hook slipped to one side, or Gregorius would have been dragged over-board. Gregorius, however, was but little wounded, for he had on a plate coat of armour. Ivar called out to him, that he had a "thick bark." Gregorius replied, that if Ivar went on so he would "require it all, and not have too much." It was very near then that Gregorius and his men had sprung overboard; but Aslak Unge threw an anchor into their ship, and dragged them off the ground. Then Gregorius laid himself against Ivar's ship, and they fought a long while; but Gregorius's ship being both higher sided and more strongly manned, many people fell in Ivar's ship, and some jumped overboard. Ivar was so severely wounded that he could not take part in the fight. When his ship was cleared of the men, Gregorius let Ivar be carried to the shore, so that he might escape; and from that time they were constant friends. 11. KING HAKON'S FLIGHT. When King Inge and his men saw that Gregorius was aground, he encouraged his crew to row to his assistance. "It was," he said, "the most imprudent advice that we should remain lying here, while our friends are in battle; for we have the largest and best ship in all the fleet. But now I see that Gregorius, the man to whom I owe the most, is in need of help; so we must hasten to the fight where it is sharpest. It is also most proper that I should be in the battle; for the victory, if we win it, will belong to me. And if I even knew beforehand that our men were not to gain the battle, yet our place is where our friends are; for I can do nothing if I lose the men who are justly called the defence of the country, who are the bravest, and have long ruled for me and my kingdom." Thereupon he ordered his banner to be set up, which was done; and they rowed across the river. Then the battle raged, and the king could not get room to attack, so close lay the ships before him. First he lay under the East-country trading ship, and from it they threw down upon his vessel spears, iron-shod stakes, and such large stones that it was impossible to hold out longer there, and he had to haul off. Now when the king's people saw that he was come they made place for him, and then he laid alongside of Eindride Jonson's ship. Now King Hakon's men abandoned the small ships, and went on board the large merchant vessels; but some of them sprang on shore. Erling Skakke and his men had a severe conflict. Erling himself was on the forecastle, and called his forecastlemen, and ordered them to board the king's ship; but they answered, this was no easy matter, for there were beams above with an iron comb on them. Then Erling himself went to the bow, and stayed there a while, until they succeeded in getting on board the king's ship: and then the ship was cleared of men on the bows, and the whole army gave way. Many sprang into the water, many fell, but the greater number got to the land. So says Einar Skulason:-- "Men fall upon the slippery deck-- Men roll off from the blood-drenched wreck; Dead bodies float down with the stream, And from the shores witch-ravens scream. The cold blue river now runs red With the warm blood of warriors dead, And stains the waves in Karmt Sound With the last drops of the death-wound. "All down the stream, with unmann'd prow, Floats many an empty long-ship now, Ship after ship, shout after shout, Tell that Kign Hakon can't hold out. The bowmen ply their bows of elm, The red swords flash o'er broken helm: King Hakon's men rush to the strand, Out of their ships, up through the land." Einar composed a song about Gregorius Dagson, which is called the River-song. King Inge granted life and peace to Nikolas Skialdvarson when his ship was deserted, and thereupon he went into King Inge's service, and remained in it as long as the king lived. Eindride Jonson leaped on board of King Inge's ship when his own was cleared of men, and begged for his life. King Inge wished to grant it; but Havard Klining's son ran up, and gave him a mortal wound, which was much blamed; but he said Eindride had been the cause of his father's death. There was much lamentation at Eindride's death, but principally in the Throndhjem district. Many of Hakon's people fell here, but not many chiefs. Few of King Inge's people fell, but many were wounded. King Hakon fled up the country, and King Inge went north to Viken with his troops; and he, as well as Gregorius, remained in Viken all winter (A.D. 1160). When King Inge's men, Bergliot and his brothers, sons of Ivar of Elda, came from the battle to Bergen, they slew Nickolas Skeg, who had been Hakon's treasurer, and then went north to Throndhjem. King Hakon came north before Yule, and Sigurd was sometimes home at Reyr; for Gregorius, who was nearly related to Sigurd, had obtained for him life and safety from King Inge, so that he retained all his estates. King Hakon was in the merchant-town of Nidaros in Yule; and one evening in the beginning of Yule his men fought in the room of the court, and in this affray eight men were killed, and many were wounded. The eighth day of Yule, King Hakon's man Alf Rode, son of Ottar Birting, with about eighty men, went to Elda, and came in the night unexpectedly on the people, who were very drunk, and set fire to the room; but they went out, and defended themselves bravely. There fell Bergliot, Ivar's son, and Ogmund, his brother, and many more. They had been nearly thirty altogether in number. In winter died, north in the merchant-town, Andres Simonson, King Hakon's foster-brother; and his death was much deplored. Erling Skakke and Inge's men, who were in Bergen, threatened that in winter they would proceed against Hakon and his men; but it came to nothing. Gregorius sent word from the east, from Konungahella, that if he were so near as Erling and his men, he would not sit quietly in Bergen while Hakon was killing King Inge's friends and their comrades in war north in the Throndhjem country. 12. THE CONFLICT UPON THE PIERS. King Inge and Gregorius left the east in spring, and came to Bergen; but as soon as Hakon and Sigurd heard that Inge had left Viken, they went there by land. When King Inge and his people came to Bergen, a quarrel arose between Haldor Brynjolfson and Bjorn Nikolason. Bjorn's house-man asked Haldor's when they met at the pier, why he looked so pale. He replied, because he had been bled. "I could not look so pale if I tried, at merely being bled." "I again think," retorted the other, "that thou wouldst have borne it worse, and less manfully." And no other beginning was there for their quarrel than this. Afterwards one word followed another, till from brawling they came to fighting. It was told to Haldor Brynjolfson, who was in the house drinking, that his house-man was wounded down on the pier and he went there immediately. But Bjorn's house-men had come there before, and as Haldor thought his house-man had been badly treated, he went up to them and beat them; and it was told to Bjorn Buk that the people of Viken were beating his house-men on the pier. Then Bjorn and his house-men took their weapons, hurried down to the pier, and would avenge their men; and a bloody strife began. It was told Gregorius that his relation Haldor required assistance, and that his house-men were being cut down in the street; on which Gregorius and his men ran to the place in their armour. Now it was told Erling Skakke that his sister's son Bjorn was fighting with Gregorius and Haldor down on the piers, and that he needed help. Then he proceeded thither with a great force, and exhorted the people to stand by him; saying it would be a great disgrace never to be wiped out, if the Viken people should trample upon them in their own native place. There fell thirteen men, of whom nine were killed on the spot, and four died of their wounds, and many were wounded. When the word came to King Inge that Gregorius and Erling were fighting down on the piers, he hastened there, and tried to separate them; but could do nothing, so mad were they on both sides. Then Gregorius called to Inge, and told him to go away; for it was in vain to attempt coming between them, as matters now stood. He said it would be the greatest misfortune if the king mixed himself up with it; for he could not be certain that there were not people in the fray who would commit some great misdeed if they had opportunity. Then King Inge retired; and when the greatest tumult was over, Gregorius and his men went to Nikolas church, and Erling behind them, calling to each other. Then King Inge came a second time, and pacified them; and both agreed that he should mediate between them. When King Inge and Gregorius heard that King Hakon was in Viken, they went east with many ships; but when they came King Hakon fled from them, and there was no battle. Then King Inge went to Oslo, and Gregorius was in Konungahella. 13. MUNAN'S DEATH. Soon after Gregorius heard that Hakon and his men were at a farm called Saurby, which lies up beside the forest. Gregorius hastened there; came in the night; and supposing that King Hakon and Sigurd would be in the largest of the houses, set fire to the buildings there. But Hakon and his men were in the smaller house, and came forth, seeing the fire, to help their people. There Munan fell, a son of Ale Uskeynd, a brother of King Sigurd Hakon's father. Gregorius and his men killed him, because he was helping those whom they were burning within the house. Some escaped, but many were killed. Asbjorn Jalda, who had been a very great viking, escaped from the house, but was grievously wounded. A bonde met him, and he offered the man money to let him get away; but the bonde replied, he would do what he liked best; and, adding that he had often been in fear of his life for him, he slew him. King Hakon and Sigurd escaped, but many of their people were killed. Thereafter Gregorius returned home to Konungahella. Soon after King Hakon and Sigurd went to Haldor Brynjolfson's farm of Vettaland, set fire to the house, and burnt it. Haldor went out, and was cut down instantly with his house-men; and in all there were about twenty men killed. Sigrid, Haldor's wife, was a sister of Gregorius, and they allowed her to escape into the forest in her night-shift only; but they took with them Amunde, who was a son of Gyrd Amundason and of Gyrid Dag's daughter, and a sister's son of Gregorius, and who was then a boy about five years old. 14. OF THE FALL OF GREGORIUS DAGSON. When Gregorius heard the news he took it much to heart, and inquired carefully where they were. Gregorius set out from Konungahella late in Yule, and came to Fors the thirteenth day of Yule, where he remained a night, and heard vespers the last day of Yule, which was a Saturday, and the holy Evangel was read before him. When Gregorius and his followers saw the men of King Hakon and Sigurd, the king's force appeared to them smaller than their own. There was a river called Befia between them, where they met; and there was unsound ice on the river, for there went a stream under the ice from it. King Hakon and his men had cut a rent in the ice, and laid snow over it, so that nobody could see it. When Gregorius came to the ice on the river the ice appeared to him unsound, he said; and he advised the people to go to the bridge, which was close by, to cross the river. The bonde-troops replied, that they did not know why he should be afraid to go across the ice to attack so few people as Hakon had, and the ice was good enough. Gregorius said it was seldom necessary to encourage him to show bravery, and it should not be so now. Then he ordered them to follow him, and not to be standing on the land while he was on the ice, and he said it was their council to go out upon the dangerous ice, but he had no wish to do so, or to be led by them. Then he ordered the banner to be advanced, and immediately went out on the ice with the men. As soon as the bondes found that the ice was unsound they turned back. Gregorius fell through the ice, but not very deep, and he told his men to take care. There were not more than twenty men with him, the others having turned back. A man of King Hakon's troop shot an arrow at Gregorius, which hit him under the throat, and thus ended his life. Gregorius fell, and ten men with him. It is the talk of all men that he had been the most gallant lenderman in Norway that any man then living could remember; and also he behaved the best towards us Icelanders of any chief since King Eystein the Elder's death. Gregorius's body was carried to Hofund, and interred at Gimsey Isle, in a nunnery which is there, of which Gregorius's sister, Baugeid, was then the abbess. 15. KING INGE HEARS OF GREGORIUS'S FALL. Two bailiffs went to Oslo to bring the tidings to King Inge. When they arrived they desired to speak to the king: and he asked, what news they brought. "Gregorius Dagson's death," said they. "How came that misfortune?" asked the king. When they had told him how it happened, he said, "They gave advice who understood the least." It is said he took it so much to heart that he cried like a child. When he recovered himself he said, "I wanted to go to Gregorius as soon as I heard of Haldor's murder; for I thought that Gregorius would not sit long before thinking of revenge. But the people here would think nothing so important as their Yule feasts, and nothing could move them away; and I am confident that if I had been there, he would either have proceeded more cautiously, or I and Gregorius would now have shared one lodging. Now he is gone, the man who has been my best friend, and more than any other has kept the kingdom in my hands; and I think it will be but a short space between us. Now I make an oath to go forth against Hakon, and one of two things shall happen: I shall either come to my death, or shall walk over Hakon and his people; and such a man as Gregorius is not avenged, even if all were to pay the penalty of their lives for him." There was a man present who replied, "Ye need not seek after them, for they intend to seek you." Kristin, King Sigurd's daughter and King Inge's cousin, was then in Oslo. The king heard that she intended going away. He sent a message to her to inquire why she wished to leave the town. She thought it was dangerous and unsafe for a female to be there. The king would not let her go. "For if it go well with me, as I hope, you will be well here; and if I fall, my friends may not get leave to dress my body; but you can ask permission, and it will not be denied you, and you will thereby best requite what I have done for you." 16. OF KING INGE. On Saint Blasius' day (February 3, 1161), in the evening, King Inge's spies brought him the news that King Hakon was coming towards the town. Then King Inge ordered the war-horns to call together all the troops up from the town; and when he drew them up he could reckon them to be nearly 4000 men. The king let the array be long, but not more than five men deep. Then some said that the king should not be himself in the battle, as they thought the risk too great; but that his brother Orm should be the leader of the army. The king replied, "I think if Gregorius were alive and here now, and I had fallen and was to be avenged, he would not lie concealed, but would be in the battle. Now, although I, on account of my ill health, am not fit for the combat as he was, yet will I show as good will as he would have had; and it is not to be thought of that I should not be in the battle." People say that Gunhild, who was married to Simon, King Hakon's foster-brother, had a witch employed to sit out all night and procure the victory for Hakon; and that the answer was obtained, that they should fight King Inge by night, and never by day, and then the result would be favourable. The witch who, as people say, sat out was called Thordis Skeggia; but what truth there may be in the report I know not. Simon Skalp had gone to the town, and was gone to sleep, when the war-shouts awoke him. When the night was well advanced, King Inge's spies came to him, and told him that King Hakon and his army were coming over the ice; for the ice lay the whole way from the town to Hofud Isle. 17. KING INGE'S SPEECH. Thereupon King Inge went with his army out on the ice, and he drew it up in order of battle in front of the town. Simon Skalp was in that wing of the array which was towards Thraelaberg; and on the other wing, which was towards the Nunnery, was Gudrod, the king of the South Hebudes, a son of Olaf Klining, and Jon, a son of Svein Bergthor Buk. When King Hakon and his army came near to King Inge's array, both sides raised a war-shout. Gudrod and Jon gave King Hakon and his men a sign, and let them know where they were in the line; and as soon as Hakon's men in consequence turned thither, Gudrod immediately fled with 1500 men; and Jon, and a great body of men with him, ran over to King Hakon's army, and assisted them in the fight. When this news was told to King Inge, he said, "Such is the difference between my friends. Never would Gregorius have done so in his life!" There were some who advised King Inge to get on horseback, and ride from the battle up to Raumarike; "where," said they, "you would get help enough, even this very day." The king replied, he had no inclination to do so. "I have heard you often say, and I think truly, that it was of little use to my brother, King Eystein, that he took to flight; and yet he was a man distinguished for many qualities which adorn a king. Now I, who labour under so great decrepitude, can see how bad my fate would be, if I betook myself to what proved so unfortunate for him; with so great a difference as there is between our activity, health, and strength. I was in the second year of my age when I was chosen king of Norway, and I am now twenty-five; and I think I have had misfortune and sorrow under my kingly dignity, rather than pleasure and peaceful days. I have had many battles, sometimes with more, sometimes with fewer people; and it is my greatest luck that I have never fled. God will dispose of my life, and of how long it shall be; but I shall never betake myself to flight." 18. KING INGE'S FALL. Now as Jon and his troop had broken the one wing of King Inge's array, many of those who were nearest to him fled, by which the whole array was dispersed, and fell into disorder. But Hakon and his men went briskly forwards; and now it was near daybreak. An assault was made against King Inge's banner, and in this conflict King Inge fell; but his brother Orm continued the battle, while many of the army fled up into the town. Twice Orm went to the town after the king's fall to encourage the people, and both times returned, and went out again upon the ice to continue the battle. Hakon's men attacked the wing of the array which Simon Skalp led; and in that assault fell of King Inge's men his brother-in-law, Gudbrand Skafhogson. Simon Skalp and Halvard Hikre went against each other with their troops, and fought while they drew aside past Thraelaberg; and in this conflict both Simon and Halvard fell. Orm, the king's brother, gained great reputation in this battle; but he at last fled. Orm the winter before had been contracted with Ragna, a daughter of Nikolas Mase, who had been married before to King Eystein Haraldson; and the wedding was fixed for the Sunday after Saint Blasius's mass, which was on a Friday. Orm fled east to Svithjod, where his brother Magnus was then king; and their brother Ragnvald was an earl there at that time. They were the sons of Queen Ingerid and Henrik Halte, who was a son of the Danish king Svein Sveinson. The princess Kristin took care of King Inge's body, which was laid on the stone wall of Halvard's church, on the south side without the choir. He had then been king for twenty-three years (A.D. 1137-1161). In this battle many fell on both sides, but principally of King Inge's men. Of King Hakon's people fell Arne Frirekson. Hakon's men took all the feast and victuals prepared for the wedding, and a great booty besides. 19. OF KING HAKON AND QUEEN KRISTIN. Then King Hakon took possession of the whole country, and distributed all the offices among his own friends, both in the towns and in the country. King Hakon and his men had a meeting in Halvard's church, where they had a private conference concerning the management of the country. Kristin the princess gave the priest who kept the church keys a large sum of money to conceal one of her men in the church, so that she might know what Hakon and his counsellors intended. When she learnt what they had said, she sent a man to Bergen to her husband Erling Skakke, with the message that he should never trust Hakon or his men. 20. OF OLAF'S MIRACLE. It happened at the battle of Stiklestad, as before related, that King Olaf threw from him the sword called Hneiter when he received his wound. A Swedish man, who had broken his own sword, took it up, and fought with it. When this man escaped with the other fugitives he came to Svithjod, and went home to his house. From that time he kept the sword all his days, and afterwards his son, and so relation after relation; and when the sword shifted its owner, the one told to the other the name of the sword and where it came from. A long time after, in the days of Kirjalax the emperor of Constantinople, when there was a great body of Varings in the town, it happened in the summer that the emperor was on a campaign, and lay in the camp with his army. The Varings who had the guard, and watched over the emperor, lay on the open plain without the camp. They changed the watch with each other in the night, and those who had been before on watch lay down and slept; but all completely armed. It was their custom, when they went to sleep, that each should have his helmet on his head, his shield over him, sword under the head, and the right hand on the sword-handle. One of these comrades, whose lot it was to watch the latter part of the night, found, on awakening towards morning, that his sword was gone. He looked after it, and saw it lying on the flat plain at a distance from him. He got up and took the sword, thinking that his comrades who had been on watch had taken the sword from him in a joke; but they all denied it. The same thing happened three nights. Then he wondered at it, as well as they who saw or heard of it; and people began to ask him how it could have happened. He said that his sword was called Hneiter, and had belonged to King Olaf the Saint, who had himself carried it in the battle of Stiklestad; and he also related how the sword since that time had gone from one to another. This was told to the emperor, who called the man before him to whom the sword belonged, and gave him three times as much gold as the sword was worth; and the sword itself he had laid in Saint Olaf's church, which the Varings supported, where it has been ever since over the altar. There was a lenderman of Norway while Harald Gille's sons, Eystein, Inge, and Sigurd lived, who was called Eindride Unge; and he was in Constantinople when these events took place. He told these circumstances in Norway, according to what Einar Skulason says in his song about King Olaf the Saint, in which these events are sung. 21. OLAF'S MIRACLE IN FAVOUR OF THE VARINGS. It happened once in the Greek country, when Kirjalax was emperor there, that he made an expedition against Blokumannaland. When he came to the Pezina plains, a heathen king came against him with an innumerable host. He brought with him many horsemen, and many large waggons, in which were large loop-holes for shooting through. When they prepared for their night quarters they drew up their waggons, one by the side of the other, without their tents, and dug a great ditch without; and all which made a defence as strong as a castle. The heathen king was blind. Now when the Greek king came, the heathens drew up their array on the plains before their waggon-fortification. The Greeks drew up their array opposite, and they rode on both sides to fight with each other; but it went on so ill and so unfortunately, that the Greeks were compelled to fly after suffering a great defeat, and the heathens gained a victory. Then the king drew up an array of Franks and Flemings, who rode against the heathens, and fought with them; but it went with them as with the others, that many were killed, and all who escaped took to flight. Then the Greek king was greatly incensed at his men-at-arms; and they replied, that he should now take his wine-bags, the Varings. The king says that he would not throw away his jewels, and allow so few men, however bold they might be, to attack so vast an army. Then Thorer Helsifig, who at that time was leader of the Varings replied to the king's words, "If there was burning fire in the way, I and my people would run into it, if I knew the king's advantage required it." Then the king replied, "Call upon your holy King Olaf for help and strength." The Varings, who were 450 men, made a vow with hand and word to build a church in Constantinople, at their own expense and with the aid of other good men, and have the church consecrated to the honour and glory of the holy King Olaf; and thereupon the Varings rushed into the plain. When the heathens saw them, they told their king that there was another troop of the Greek king's army come out upon the plain; but they were only a handful of people. The king says, "Who is that venerable man riding on a white horse at the head of the troop?" They replied, "We do not see him." There was so great a difference of numbers, that there were sixty heathens for every Christian man; but notwithstanding the Varings went boldly to the attack. As soon as they met terror and alarm seized the army of the heathens, and they instantly began to fly; but the Varings pursued, and soon killed a great number of them. When the Greeks and Franks who before had fled from the heathens saw this, they hastened to take part, and pursue the enemy with the others. Then the Varings had reached the waggon-fortification, where the greatest defeat was given to the enemy. The heathen king was taken in the flight of his people, and the Varings brought him along with them; after which the Christians took the camp of the heathens, and their waggon-fortification. MAGNUS ERLINGSON'S SAGA. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. With this saga, which describes a series of conflicts, Snorre's "Heimskringla" ends. King Eystein died in 1177, but Magnus Erlingson continued to reign until his death in 1184. The conflicts continued until the opposition party was led to victory by King Sverre. The only skald quoted is Thorbjorn Skakkaskald. 1. OF MAGNUS ERLINGSON'S BEGINNING. When Erling got certain intelligence of the determinations of Hakon and his counsellors, he sent a message to all the chiefs who he knew had been steady friends of King Inge, and also to his court-men and his retinue, who had saved themselves by flight, and also to all Gregorius's house-men, and called them together to a meeting. When they met, and conversed with each other, they resolved to keep their men together; and which resolution they confirmed by oath and hand-shake to each other. Then they considered whom they should take to be king. Erling Skakke first spoke, and inquired if it was the opinion of the chiefs and other men of power that Simon Skalp's son, the son of the daughter of King Harald Gille, should be chosen king, and Jon Halkelson be taken to lead the army; but Jon refused it. Then it was inquired if Nikolas Skialdvarson, a sister's son of King Magnus Barefoot, would place himself at the head of the army; but he answered thus:--It was his opinion that some one should be chosen king who was of the royal race; and, for leader of the troops, some one from whom help and understanding were to be looked for; and then it would be easier to gather an army. It was now tried whether Arne would let any of his sons, King Inge's brothers, be proclaimed king. Arne replies, that Kristin's son, she was the daughter of King Sigurd the Crusader, was nearest by propinquity of descent to the crown of Norway. "And here is also a man to be his adviser, and whose duty it is to take care of him and of the kingdom; and that man is his father Erling, who is both prudent, brave, experienced in war, and an able man in governing the kingdom; he wants no capability of bringing this counsel into effect, if luck be with him." Many thought well of this advice. Erling replied to it, "As far as I can see or hear in this meeting, the most will rather be excused from taking upon themselves such a difficult business. Now it appears to me altogether uncertain, provided we begin this work, whether he who puts himself at the head of it will gain any honour; or whether matters will go as they have done before when any one undertakes such great things, that he loses all his property and possibly his life. But if this counsel be adopted, there may be men who will undertake to carry it through; but he who comes under such an obligation must seek, in every way, to prevent any opposition or enmity from those who are now in this council." All gave assurance that they would enter into this confederacy with perfect fidelity. Then said Erling, "I can say for myself that it would almost be my death to serve King Hakon; and however dangerous it may be, I will rather venture to adopt your advice, and take upon me to lead this force, if that be the will, counsel, and desire of you all, and if you will all bind yourselves to this agreement by oath." To this they all agreed; and in this meeting it was determined to take Erling's son Magnus to be king. They afterwards held a Thing in the town; and at this Thing Magnus Erlingson, then five years old, was elected king of the whole country. All who had been servants of King Inge went into his service, and each of them retained the office and dignity he had held under King Inge (A.D. 1161). 2. KING MAGNUS GOES TO DENMARK. Erling Skakke made himself ready to travel, fitted out ships, and had with him King Magnus, together with the household-men who were on the spot. In this expedition were the king's relatives,--Arne; Ingerid, King Inge's mother, with her two sons; besides Jon Kutiza, a son of Sigurd Stork, and Erling's house-men, as well as those who had been Gregorius's house-men; and they had in all ten ships. They went south to Denmark to King Valdemar and Buriz Heinrekson, King Inge's brother. King Valdemar was King Magnus's blood-relation; for Ingebjorg, mother of King Valdemar, and Malmfrid, mother of Kristin, King Magnus's mother, were cousins. The Danish king received them hospitably, and he and Erling had private meetings and consultations: and so much was known of their counsels, that King Valdemar was to aid King Magnus with such help as might be required from his kingdom to win and retain Norway. On the other hand, King Valdemar should get that domain in Norway which his ancestors Harald Gormson and Svein Forked-beard had possessed; namely, the whole of Viken as far north as Rygiarbit. This agreement was confirmed by oath and a fixed treaty. Then Erling and King Magnus made themselves ready to leave Denmark, and they sailed out of Vendilskage. 3. BATTLE OF TUNSBERG. King Hakon went in spring, after the Easter week, north to Throndhjem, and had with him the whole fleet that had belonged to King Inge. He held a Thing there in the merchant-town, and was chosen king of the whole country. Then he made Sigurd of Reyr an earl, and gave him an earldom, and afterwards proceeded southwards with his followers all the way to Viken. The king went to Tunsberg; but sent Earl Sigurd east to Konungahella, to defend the country with a part of the forces in case Erling should come from the south. Erling and his fleet came to Agder, and went straight north to Bergen, where they killed Arne Brigdarskalle, King Hakon's officer, and came back immediately against King Hakon. Earl Sigurd, who had not observed the journey of Erling and his followers from the south, was at that time east in the Gaut river, and King Hakon was in Tunsberg. Erling brought up at Hrossanes, and lay there some nights. In the meantime King Hakon made preparations in the town. When Erling and his fleet were coming up to the town, they took a merchant vessel, filled it with wood and straw, and set fire to it; and the wind blowing right towards the town, drove the vessel against the piers. Erling had two cables brought on board the vessel, and made fast to two boats, and made them row along as the vessel drove. Now when the fire was come almost abreast of the town, those who were in the boats held back the vessel by the ropes, so that the town could not be set on fire; but so thick a smoke spread from it over the town, that one could not see from the piers where the king's array was. Then Erling drew the whole fleet in where the wind carried the fire, and shot at the enemy. When the townspeople saw that the fire was approaching their houses, and many were wounded by the bowmen, they resolved to send the priest Hroald, the long-winded speaker, to Erling, to beg him to spare them and the town; and they dissolved the array in favour of Hakon, as soon as Hroald told them their prayer was granted. Now when the array of towns-people had dispersed, the men on the piers were much thinned: however, some urged Hakon's men to make resistance: but Onund Simonson, who had most influence over the army, said, "I will not fight for Earl Sigurd's earldom, since he is not here himself." Then Onund fled, and was followed by all the people, and by the king himself; and they hastened up the country. King Hakon lost many men here; and these verses were made about it:-- "Onund declares he will not go In battle 'gainst Earl Sigurd's foe, If Earl Sigurd does not come, But with his house-men sits at home. King Magnus' men rush up the street, Eager with Hakon's troop to meet; But Hakon's war-hawks, somewhat shy, Turn quick about, and off they fly." Thorbjorn Skakkaskald also said:-- "The Tunsberg men would not be slow In thy good cause to risk a blow; And well they knew the chief could stain The wolves' mouths on a battle-plain. But the town champion rather fears The sharp bright glance of levelled spears; Their steel-clad warrior loves no fight Where bowstring twangs, or fire flies bright." King Hakon then took the land-road northwards to Throndhjem. When Earl Sigurd heard of this, he proceeded with all the ships he could get the seaway north-wards, to meet King Hakon there. 4. OF ERLING AND HAKON. Erling Skakke took all the ships in Tunsberg belonging to King Hakon, and there he also took the Baekisudin which had belonged to King Inge. Then Erling proceeded, and reduced the whole of Viken in obedience to King Magnus, and also the whole country north wheresoever he appeared up to Bergen, where he remained all winter. There Erling killed Ingebjorn Sipil, King Hakon's lenderman of the north part of the Fjord district. In winter (A.D. 1162) King Hakon was in Throndhjem; but in the following spring he ordered a levy, and prepared to go against Erling. He had with him Earl Sigurd, Jon Sveinson, Eindride Unge, Onund Simonson, Philip Peterson, Philip Gyrdson, Ragnvald Kunta, Sigurd Kapa, Sigurd Hiupa, Frirek Keina, Asbjorn of Forland, Thorbjorn, a son of Gunnar the treasurer, and Stradbjarne. 5. OF ERLING'S PEOPLE. Erling was in Bergen with a great armament, and resolved to lay a sailing prohibition on all the merchant vessels which were going north to Nidaros; for he knew that King Hakon would soon get tidings of him, if ships were sailing between the towns. Besides, he gave out that it was better for Bergen to get the goods, even if the owners were obliged to sell them cheaper than they wished than that they should fall into the hands of enemies and thereby strengthen them. And now a great many vessels were assembled at Bergen, for many arrived every day, and none were allowed to go away. Then Erling let some of the lightest of his vessels be laid ashore, and spread the report that he would wait for Hakon, and, with the help of his friends and relations, oppose the enemy there. He then one day called a meeting of the ship-masters, and gave them and all the merchant ships and their steersmen leave to go where they pleased. When the men who had charge of the cargoes, and were all ready to sail away with their goods, some for trade, others on various business, had got leave from Erling Skakke to depart, there was a soft and favourable wind for sailing north along the coast. Before the evening all who were ready had set sail, and hastened on as fast as they could, according to the speed of their vessels, the one vying with the other. When this fleet came north to More, Hakon's fleet had arrived there before them: and he himself was there fully engaged in collecting people, and summoning to him the lendermen, and all liable to serve in the levy, without having for a long time heard any news from Bergen. Now, however, they heard, as the latest news, that Erling Skakke had laid his ships up in Bergen, and there they would find him; and also that he had a large force with him. King Hakon sailed from thence to Veey, and sent away Earl Sigurd and Onund Simonson to gather people, and sent men also to both the More districts. After King Hakon had remained a few days at the town he sailed farther, and proceeded to the South, thinking that it would both promote his journey and enable new levies to join him sooner. Erling Skakke had given leave on Sunday to all the merchant vessels to leave Bergen; and on Tuesday, as soon as the early mass was over, he ordered the warhorns to sound, summoned to him the men-at-arms and the townsmen, and let the ships which were laid up on shore be drawn down into the water. Then Erling held a House-Thing with his men and the people of the levy; told them his intentions; named ship commanders; and had the names called over of the men who were to be on board of the king's ship. This Thing ended with Erling's order to every man to make himself ready in his berth wherever a place was appointed him; and declared that he who remained in the town after the Baekisudin was hauled out, should be punished by loss of life or limb. Orm, the king's brother, laid his ships out in the harbour immediately that evening, and many others, and the greater number were afloat before. 6. OF ERLING SKAKKE. On Wednesday, before mass was sung in the town, Erling sailed from Bergen with all his fleet, consisting of twenty-one ships; and there was a fresh breeze for sailing northwards along the coast. Erling had his son King Magnus with him, and there were many lendermen accompanied by the finest men. When Erling came north, abreast of the Fjord district, he sent a boat on shore to Jon Halkelson's farm, and took Nikolas, a son of Simon Skalp and of Maria, Harald Gille's daughter, and brought him out to the fleet, and put him on board the king's ship. On Friday, immediately after matins, they sailed to Steinavag, and King Hakon, with thirteen ships, was lying in the harbour in the neighbourhood. He himself and his men were up at play upon the island, and the lendermen were sitting on the hill, when they saw a boat rowing from the south with two men in it, who were bending back deep towards the keel, and taking hasty strokes with their oars. When they came to the shore they did not belay the boat, but both ran from it. The great men seeing this, said to each other, "These men must have some news to tell;" and got up to meet them. When they met, Onund Simonson asked, "Have ye any news of Erling Skakke, that ye are running so fast?" They answered, as soon as they could get out the words, for they had lost their breath, "Here comes Erling against you, sailing from the south, with twenty-one ships, or thereabouts, of which many are great enough; and now ye will soon see their sails." Then said Eindride Unge, "Too near to the nose, said the peasant, when his eye was knocked out." They went in haste now to where the games were playing, and immediately the war-horns resounded, and with the battle-call all the people were gathered down to the ships in the greatest haste. It was just the time of day when their meat was nearly cooked. All the men rushed to the ships, and each ran on board the vessel that was nearest to him, so that the ships were unequally manned. Some took to the oars; some raised the masts, turned the heads of the vessels to the north, and steered for Veey, where they expected much assistance from the towns. 7. FALL OF KING HAKON. Soon after they saw the sails of Erling's fleet, and both fleets came in sight of each other. Eindride Unge had a ship called Draglaun, which was a large buss-like long-ship, but which had but a small crew; for those who belonged to her had run on board of other ships, and she was therefore the hindmost of Hakon's fleet. When Eindride came abreast of the island Sek, the Baekisudin, which Erling Skakke himself commanded, came up with her; and these two ships were bound fast together. King Hakon and his followers had arrived close to Veey; but when they heard the war-horn they turned again to assist Eindride. Now they began the battle on both sides, as the vessels came up. Many of the sails lay midships across the vessels; and the ships were not made fast to each other, but they lay side by side. The conflict was not long before there came disorder in Hakon's ship; and some fell, and others sprang overboard. Hakon threw over him a grey cloak, and jumped on board another ship; but when he had been there a short time he thought he had got among his enemies; and when he looked about him he saw none of his men nor of his ships near him. Then he went into the Baekisudin to the forecastle-men, and begged his life. They took him in their keeping, and gave him quarter. In this conflict there was a great loss of people, but principally of Hakon's men. In the Baekisudin fell Nikolas, Simon Skalp's son; and Erling's men are accused of having killed him themselves. Then there was a pause in the battle, and the vessels separated. It was now told to Erling that Hakon was on board of his ship; that the forecastle-men had taken him, and threatened that they would defend him with arms. Erling sent men forwards in the ship to bring the forecastle-men his orders to guard Hakon well, so that he should not get away. He at the same time let it be understood that he had no objection to giving the king life and safety, if the other chiefs were willing, and a peace could be established. All the forecastle-men gave their chief great credit and honour for these words. Then Erling ordered anew a blast of the war-horns, and that the ships should be attacked which had not lost their men; saying that they would never have such another opportunity of avenging King Inge. Thereupon they all raised a war-shout, encouraged each other, and rushed to the assault. In this tumult King Hakon received his death-wound. When his men knew he had fallen they rowed with all their might against the enemy, threw away their shields, slashed with both hands, and cared not for life. This heat and recklessness, however, proved soon a great loss to them; for Erling's men saw the unprotected parts of their bodies, and where their blows would have effect. The greater part of Hakon's men who remained fell here; and it was principally owing to the want of numbers, as they were not enough to defend themselves. They could not get quarter, also excepting those whom the chiefs took under their protection and bound themselves to pay ransom for. The following of Hakon's people fell: Sigurd Kapa, Sigurd Hiupa, and Ragnvald Kunta; but some ships crews got away, rowed into the fjords, and thus saved their lives. Hakon's body was carried to Raumsdal, and buried there; but afterwards his brother, King Sverre, had the body transported north to the merchant town Nidaros, and laid in the stone wall of Christ church south of the choir. 8. FLIGHT OF THE CHIEFS OF HAKON'S MEN. Earl Sigurd, Eindride Unge, Onund Simonson, Frirek Keina, and other chiefs kept the troop together, left the ships in Raumsdal, and went up to the Uplands. King Magnus and his father Erling sailed with their troops north to Nidaros in Throndhjem, and subdued the country as they went along. Erling called together an Eyra-thing, at which King Magnus was proclaimed king of all Norway. Erling, however, remained there but a short time; for he thought the Throndhjem people were not well affected towards him and his son. King Magnus was then called king of the whole country. King Hakon had been a handsome man in appearance, well grown, tall and thin; but rather broad-shouldered, on which account his men called him Herdebreid. As he was young in years, his lendermen ruled for him. He was cheerful and friendly in conversation, playful and youthful in his ways, and was much liked by the people. 9. OF KING SIGURD'S BEGINNING. There was an Upland man called Markus of Skog, who was a relation of Earl Sigurd. Markus brought up a son of King Sigurd Mun, who was also called Sigurd. This Sigurd was chosen king (A.D. 1162) by the Upland people, by the advice of Earl Sigurd and the other chiefs who had followed King Hakon. They had now a great army, and the troops were divided in two bodies; so that Markus and the king were less exposed where there was anything to do, and Earl Sigurd and his troop, along with the lendermen, were most in the way of danger. They went with their troops mostly through the Uplands, and sometimes eastwards to Viken. Erling Skakke had his son King Magnus always with him, and he had also the whole fleet and the land defence under him. He was a while in Bergen in autumn; but went from thence eastward to Viken, where he settled in Tunsberg for his winter quarters (A.D. 1163), and collected in Viken all the taxes and revenues that belonged to Magnus as king; and he had many and very fine troops. As Earl Sigurd had but a small part of the country, and kept many men on foot, he soon was in want of money; and where there was no chief in the neighbourhood he had to seek money by unlawful ways,--sometimes by unfounded accusations and fines, sometimes by open robbery. 10. EARL SIGURD'S CONDEMNATION. At that time the realm of Norway was in great prosperity. The bondes were rich and powerful, unaccustomed to hostilities or violence, and the oppression of roving troops; so that there was soon a great noise and scandal when they were despoiled and robbed. The people of Viken were very friendly to Erling and King Magnus, principally from the popularity of the late King Inge Haraldson; for the Viken people had always served under his banner. Erling kept a guard in the town, and twelve men were on watch every night. Erling had Things regularly with the bondes, at which the misdeeds of Sigurd's people were often talked over; and by the representations of Erling and his adherents, the bondes were brought unanimously to consider that it would be a great good fortune if these bands should be rooted out. Arne, the king's relation, spoke well and long on this subject, and at last severely; and required that all who were at the Thing,--men-at-arms, bondes, towns-men, and merchants,--should come to the resolution to sentence according to law Earl Sigurd and all his troop, and deliver them to Satan, both living and dead. From the animosity and hatred of the people, this was agreed to by all; and thus the unheard-of deed was adopted and confirmed by oath, as if a judgment in the case was delivered there by the Thing according to law. The priest Hroald the Long-winded, who was a very eloquent man, spoke in the case; but his speech was to the same purpose as that of others who had spoken before. Erling gave a feast at Yule in Tunsberg, and paid the wages of the men-at-arms at Candlemas. 11. OF ERLING. Earl Sigurd went with his best troops down to Viken, where many people were obliged to submit to his superior force, and many had to pay money. He drove about thus widely higher up the country, penetrating into different districts. But there were some in his troop who desired privately to make peace with Erling; but they got back the answer, that all who asked for their lives should obtain quarter, but they only should get leave to remain in the country who had not been guilty of any great offenses against Erling. And when Sigurd's adherents heard that they would not get leave to remain in the country, they held together in one body; for there were many among them who knew for certain that Erling would look upon them as guilty of offences against him. Philip Gyrdson made terms with Erling, got his property back, and went home to his farm; but soon after Sigurd's men came there, and killed him. They committed many crimes against each other, and many men were slain in their mutual persecution; but here what was committed by the chiefs only is written down. 12. ERLING GETS NEWS OF EARL SIGURD. It was in the beginning of Lent that news came to Erling that Earl Sigurd intended to come upon him; and news of him came here and there, sometimes nearer, sometimes farther off. Erling sent out spies in all quarters around to discover where they were. Every evening he assembled all the men-at-arms by the war-horn out of the town; and for a long time in the winter they lay under arms all night, ready to be drawn up in array. At last Erling got intelligence that Sigurd and his followers were not far distant, up at the farm Re. Erling then began his expedition out of the town, and took with him all the towns-people who were able to carry arms and had arms, and likewise all the merchants; and left only twelve men behind to keep watch in the town. Erling went out of the town on Thursday afternoon, in the second week of Lent (February 19); and every man had two days' provisions with him. They marched by night, and it was late before they got out of the town with the men. Two men were with each shield and each horse; and the people, when mustered, were about 1200 men. When they met their spies, they were informed that Sigurd was at Re, in a house called Rafnnes, and had 500 men. Then Erling called together his people; told them the news he had received, and all were eager to hasten their march, fall on them in the houses, or engage them by night. Erling replied to them thus:--"It is probable that we and Earl Sigurd shall soon meet. There are also many men in this band whose handy-work remains in our memories; such as cutting down King Inge, and so many more of our friends, that it would take long to reckon them up. These deeds they did by the power of Satan, by witchcraft, and by villainy; for it stands in our laws and country rights, that however highly a man may have been guilty, it shall be called villainy and cowardly murder to kill him in the night. This band has had its luck hitherto by following the counsel of men acquainted with witchcraft and fighting by night, and not in the light of day; and by this proceeding have they been victorious hitherto over the chiefs whose heads they have laid low on the earth. Now we have often seen, and proved, how unsuitable and improper it is to go into battle in the nighttime; therefore let us rather have before our eyes the example of chiefs better known to us, and who deserve better to be imitated, and fight by open day in regular battle array, and not steal upon sleeping men in the night. We have people enough against them, so few as they are. Let us, therefore, wait for day and daylight, and keep together in our array in case they attack us." Thereafter the whole army sat down. Some opened up bundles of hay, and made a bed of it for themselves; some sat upon their shields, and thus waited the daydawn. The weather was raw, and there was a wet snowdrift. 13. OF EARL SIGURD'S BATTLE ARRAY. Earl Sigurd got the first intelligence of Erling's army, when it was already near to the house. His men got up, and armed themselves; but not knowing how many men Erling had with him, some were inclined to fly, but the most determined to stand. Earl Sigurd was a man of understanding, and could talk well, but certainly was not considered brave enough to take a strong resolution; and indeed the earl showed a great inclination to fly, for which he got many stinging words from his men-at-arms. As day dawned, they began on both sides to draw up their battle array. Earl Sigurd placed his men on the edge of a ridge between the river and the house, at a place at which a little stream runs into the river. Erling and his people placed their array on the other side of the river; but at the back of his array were men on horseback well armed, who had the king with them. When Earl Sigurd's men saw that there was so great a want of men on their side, they held a council, and were for taking to the forest. But Earl Sigurd said, "Ye alleged that I had no courage, but it will now be proved; and let each of you take care not to fail, or fly, before I do so. We have a good battle-field. Let them cross the bridge; but as soon as the banner comes over it let us then rush down the hill upon them, and none desert his neighbour." Earl Sigurd had on a red-brown kirtle, and a red cloak, of which the corners were tied and turned back; shoes on his feet; and a shield and sword called Bastard. The earl said, "God knows that I would rather get at Erling Skakke with a stroke of Bastard, than receive much gold." 14. EARL SIGURD'S FALL. Erling Skakke's army wished to go on to the bridge; but Erling told them to go up along the river, which was small, and not difficult to cross, as its banks were flat; and they did so. Earl Sigurd's array proceeded up along the ridge right opposite to them; but as the ridge ended, and the ground was good and level over the river, Erling told his men to sing a Paternoster, and beg God to give them the victory who best deserved it. Then they all sang aloud "Kyrie Eleison", and struck with their weapons on their shields. But with this singing 300 men of Erling's people slipped away and fled. Then Erling and his people went across the river, and the earl's men raised the war-shout; but there was no assault from the ridge down upon Erling's array, but the battle began upon the hill itself. They first used spears then edge weapons; and the earl's banner soon retired so far back, that Erling and his men scaled the ridge. The battle lasted but a short time before the earl's men fled to the forest, which they had close behind them. This was told Earl Sigurd, and his men bade him fly; but he replied, "Let us on while we can." And his men went bravely on, and cut down on all sides. In this tumult fell Earl Sigurd and Jon Sveinson, and nearly sixty men. Erling lost few men, and pursued the fugitives to the forest. There Erling halted his troops, and turned back. He came just as the king's slaves were about stripping the clothes off Earl Sigurd, who was not quite lifeless. He had put his sword in the sheath, and it lay by his side. Erling took it, struck the slaves with it, and drove them away. Then Erling, with his troops, returned, and sat down in Tunsberg. Seven days after Earl Sigurd's fall Erling's men took Eindride Unge prisoner, and killed him, with all his ship's crew. 15. MARKUS OF SKOG, AND SIGURD SIGURDSON. Markus of Skog, and King Sigurd, his foster-son, rode down to Viken towards spring, and there got a ship; but when Erling heard it he went eastwards against them, and they met at Konungahella. Markus fled with his followers to the island Hising; and there the country people of Hising came down in swarms, and placed themselves in Markus's and Sigurd's array. Erling and his men rowed to the shore; but Markus's men shot at them. Then Erling said to his people, "Let us take their ships, but not go up to fight with a land force. The Hisingers are a bad set to quarrel with,--hard, and without understanding. They will keep this troop but a little while among them, for Hising is but a small spot." This was done: they took the ships, and brought them over to Konungahella. Markus and his men went up to the forest district, from which they intended to make assaults, and they had spies out on both sides. Erling had many men-at-arms with him, whom he brought from other districts, and they made attacks on each other in turn. 16. BEGINNING OF ARCHBISHOP EYSTEIN. Eystein, a son of Erlend Himaide, was selected to be archbishop, after Archbishop Jon's death; and he was consecrated the same year King Inge was killed. Now when Archbishop Eystein came to his see, he made himself beloved by all the country, as an excellent active man of high birth. The Throndhjem people, in particular, received him with pleasure; for most of the great people in the Throndhjem district were connected with the archbishop by relationship or other connection, and all were his friends. The archbishop brought forward a request to the bondes in a speech, in which he set forth the great want of money for the see, and also how much greater improvement of the revenues would be necessary to maintain it suitably, as it was now of much more importance than formerly when the bishop's see was first established. He requested of the bondes that they should give him, for determining law-suits, an ore of silver value, instead of what they had before paid, which was an ore of judgment money, of that kind which was paid to the king in judging cases; and the difference between the two kinds of ore was, that the ore he desired was a half greater than the other. By help of the archbishop's relations and friends, and his own activity, this was carried; and it was fixed by law in all the Throndhjem district, and in all the districts belonging to his archbishopric. 17. OF MARKUS AND KING SIGURD. When Sigurd and Markus lost their ships in the Gaut river, and saw they could get no hold on Erling, they went to the Uplands, and proceeded by land north to Throndhjem. Sigurd was received there joyfully, and chosen king at an Eyra-thing; and many gallant men, with their sons, attached themselves to his party. They fitted out ships, rigged them for a voyage, and proceeded when summer came southwards to More, and took up all the royal revenues wheresoever they came. At this time the following lendermen were appointed in Bergen for the defence of the country:--Nikolas Sigurdson, Nokve Palson, and several military leaders; as Thorolf Dryl, Thorbjorn Gjaldkere, and many others. As Markus and Sigurd sailed south, they heard that Erling's men were numerous in Bergen; and therefore they sailed outside the coast-rocks, and southwards past Bergen. It was generally remarked, that Markus's men always got a fair wind, wherever they wished to sail to. 18. MARKUS AND KING SIGURD KILLED. As soon as Erling Skakke heard that Sigurd and Markus had sailed southwards, he hastened to Viken, and drew together an armed force; and he soon had a great many men, and many stout ships. But when he came farther in Viken, he met with a strong contrary wind, which kept him there in port the whole summer. Now when Sigurd and Markus came east to Lister, they heard that Erling had a great force in Viken; so they turned to the north again. But when they reached Hordaland, with the intention of sailing to Bergen, and came opposite the town, Nikolas and his men rowed out against them, with more men and larger ships than they had. Sigurd and Markus saw no other way of escaping but to row away southwards. Some of them went out to sea, others got south to the sound, and some got into the Fjords. Markus, and some people with him, sprang upon an isle called Skarpa. Nikolas and his men took their ships, gave Jon Halkelson and a few others quarter, but killed the most of them they could get hold of. Some days after Eindride Heidafylja found Sigurd and Markus, and they were brought to Bergen. Sigurd was beheaded outside of Grafdal, and Markus and another man were hanged at Hvarfsnes. This took place on Michaelmas day (September 29, 1163), and the band which had followed them was dispersed. 19. ERLING AND THE PEOPLE OF HISING ISLE. Frirek Keina and Bjarne the Bad, Onund Simonson and Ornolf Skorpa had rowed out to sea with some ships, and sailed outside along the land to the east. Wheresoever they came to the land they plundered, and killed Erling's friends. Now when Erling heard that Sigurd and Markus were killed, he gave leave to the lendermen and people of the levy to return home; but he himself, with his men, set his course eastward across the Folden fjord, for he heard of Markus's men there. Erling sailed to Konungahella, where he remained the autumn; and in the first week of winter Erling went out to the island Hising with his men, and called the bondes to a Thing. When the Hising people came to the Thing, Erling laid his law-suit against them for having joined the bands of Sigurd and Markus, and having raised men against him. Assur was the name of one of the greatest of the bondes on the island, and he answered Erling on account of the others. The Thing was long assembled; but at the close the bondes gave the case into Erling's own power, and he appointed a meeting in the town within one week, and named fifteen bondes who should appear there. When they came, he condemned them to pay a penalty of 300 head of cattle; and the bondes returned home ill pleased at this sentence. Soon after the Gaut river was frozen, and Erling's ships were fast in the ice; and the bondes kept back the mulct, and lay assembled for some time. Erling made a Yule feast in the town; but the Hising people had joint-feasts with each other, and kept under arms during Yule. The night after the fifth day of Yule Erling went up to Hising, surrounded Assur's house, and burnt him in it. He killed one hundred men in all, burnt three houses, and then returned to Konungahella. The bondes came then, according to agreement, to pay the mulct. 20. DEATH OF FRIREK KEINA AND BJARNE. Erling Skakke made ready to sail in spring as soon as he could get his ships afloat for ice, and sailed from Konungahella; for he heard that those who had formerly been Markus's friends were marauding in the north of Viken. Erling sent out spies to learn their doings, searched for them, and found them lying in a harbour. Onund Simonson and Ornolf Skorpa escaped, but Frirek Keina and Bjarne the Bad were taken, and many of their followers were killed. Erling had Frirek bound to an anchor and thrown overboard; and for that deed Erling was much detested in the Throndhjem country, for the most powerful men there were relatives of Frirek. Erling ordered Bjarne the Bad to be hanged; and he uttered, according to his custom, many dreadful imprecations during his execution. Thorbjorn Skakkaskald tells of this business:-- "East of the Fjord beyond the land, Unnoticed by the pirate band, Erling stole on them ere they knew, And seized and killed all Keina's crew. Keina, fast to an anchor bound, Was thrown into the deep-blue Sound; And Bjarne swung high on gallows-tree, A sight all good men loved to see." Onund and Ornolf, with the band that had escaped, fled to Denmark; but were sometimes in Gautland, or in Viken. 21. CONFERENCE BETWEEN ERLING AND EYSTEIN. Erling Skakke sailed after this to Tunsberg, and remained there very long in spring (A.D. 1164); but when summer came he proceeded north to Bergen, where at that time a great many people were assembled. There was the legate from Rome, Stephanus; the Archbishop Eystein, and other bishops of the country. There was also Bishop Brand, who was consecrated bishop of Iceland, and Jon Loptson, a daughter's son of King Magnus Barefoot; and on this occasion King Magnus and Jon's other relations acknowledged the relationship with him. Archbishop Eystein and Erling Skakke often conversed together in private; and, among other things, Erling asked one day, "Is it true, sir, what people tell me, that you have raised the value of the ore upon the people north in Throndhjem, in the law cases in which money-fees are paid you?" "It is so," said the archbishop, "that the bondes have allowed me an advance on the ore of law casualties; but they did it willingly, and without any kind of compulsion, and have thereby added to their honour for God and the income of the bishopric." Erling replies, "Is this according to the law of the holy Olaf? or have you gone to work more arbitrarily in this than is written down in the lawbook?" The archbishop replies, "King Olaf the Holy fixed the laws, to which he received the consent and affirmative of the people; but it will not be found in his laws that it is forbidden to increase God's right." Erling: "If you augment your right, you must assist us to augment as much the king's right." The archbishop: "Thou hast already augmented enough thy son's power and dominion; and if I have exceeded the law in taking an increase of the ore from the Throndhjem people, it is, I think, a much greater breach of the law that one is king over the country who is not a king's son, and which has neither any support in the law, nor in any precedent here in the country." Erling: "When Magnus was chosen king, it was done with your knowledge and consent, and also of all the other bishops here in the country." Archbishop: "You promised then, Erling, that provided we gave our consent to electing Magnus king, you would, on all occasions, and with all your power, strengthen God's rights." Erling: "I may well admit that I have promised to preserve and strengthen God's commands and the laws of the land with all my power, and with the king's strength; and now I consider it to be much more advisable, instead of accusing each other of a breach of our promises, to hold firmly by the agreement entered into between us. Do you strengthen Magnus in his dominion, according to what you have promised; and I will, on my part, strengthen your power in all that can be of advantage or honour." The conversation now took a more friendly turn; and Erling said, "Although Magnus was not chosen king according to what has been the old custom of this country, yet can you with your power give him consecration as king, as God's law prescribes, by anointing the king to sovereignty; and although I be neither a king, nor of kingly race, yet most of the kings, within my recollection, have not known the laws or the constitution of the country so well as I do. Besides, the mother of King Magnus is the daughter of a king and queen born in lawful wedlock, and Magnus is son of a queen and a lawfully married wife. Now if you will give him royal consecration, no man can take royalty from him. William Bastard was not a king's son; but he was consecrated and crowned king of England, and the royalty in England has ever since remained with his race, and all have been crowned. Svein Ulfson was not a king's son in Denmark, and still he was a crowned king, and his sons likewise, and all his descendants have been crowned kings. Now we have here in Norway an archiepiscopal seat, to the glory and honour of the country; let us also have a crowned king, as well as the Danes and Englishmen." Erling and the archbishop afterwards talked often of this matter, and they were quite agreed. Then the archbishop brought the business before the legate, and got him easily persuaded to give his consent. Thereafter the archbishop called together the bishops, and other learned men, and explained the subject to them. They all replied in the same terms, that they would follow the counsels of the archbishop, and all were eager to promote the consecration as soon as the archbishop pleased. 22. KING MAGNUS'S CONSECRATION. Erling Skakke then had a great feast prepared in the king's house. The large hall was covered with costly cloth and tapestry, and adorned with great expense. The court-men and all the attendants were there entertained, and there were numerous guests, and many chiefs. Then King Magnus received the royal consecration from the Archbishop Eystein; and at the consecration there were five other bishops and the legate, besides a number of other clergy. Erling Skakke, and with him twelve other lendermen, administered to the king the oath of the law; and the day of the consecration the king and Erling had the legate, the archbishop, and all the other bishops as guests; and the feast was exceedingly magnificent, and the father and son distributed many great presents. King Magnus was then eight years of age, and had been king for three years. 23. KING VALDEMAR'S EMBASSY. When the Danish king Valdemar heard the news from Norway that Magnus was become king of the whole country, and all the other parties in the country were rooted out, he sent his men with a letter to King Magnus and Erling, and reminded them of the agreement which Erling had entered into, under oath, with King Valdemar, of which we have spoken before; namely, that Viken from the east to Rygiarbit should be ceded to King Valdemar, if Magnus became the sole king of Norway. When the ambassadors came forward and showed Erling the letter of the Danish king, and he heard the Danish king's demand upon Norway, he laid it before the other chiefs by whose counsels he usually covered his acts. All, as one man, replied that the Danes should never hold the slightest portion of Norway; for never had things been worse in the land than when the Danes had power in it. The ambassadors of the Danish king were urgent with Erling for an answer, and desired to have it decided; but Erling begged them to proceed with him east to Viken, and said he would give his final answer when he had met with the men of most understanding and influence in Viken. 24. ERLING AND THE PEOPLE OF VIKEN. Erling Skakke proceeded in autumn to Viken, and stayed in Tunsberg, from whence he sent people to Sarpsborg to summon a Thing (1) of four districts; and then Erling went there with his people. When the Thing was seated Erling made a speech in which he explained the resolutions which had been settled upon between him and the Danish king, the first time he collected troops against his enemies. "I will," said Erling, "keep faithfully the agreement which we then entered into with the king, if it be your will and consent, bondes, rather to serve the Danish king than the king who is now consecrated and crowned king of this country." The bondes replied thus to Erling's speech: "Never will we become the Danish king's men, as long as one of us Viken men is in life." And the whole assembly, with shouts and cries, called on Erling to keep the oath he had taken to defend his son's dominions, "should we even all follow thee to battle." And so the Thing was dissolved. The ambassadors of the Danish king then returned home, and told the issue of their errand. The Danes abused Erling, and all Northmen, and declared that evil only proceeded from them; and the report was spread, that in Spring the Danish king would send out an army and lay waste Norway. Erling returned in autumn north to Bergen, stayed there all winter, and gave their pay to his people. ENDNOTES: (1) This reference to a Thing of the people in the affairs of the country is a striking example of the right of the Things being recognised, in theory at least, as fully as the right of our parliaments in later times.--L. 25. LETTERS OF THE THRONDHJEM PEOPLE. The same winter (A.D. 1165) some Danish people came by land through the Uplands, saying they were to go, as was then the general practice, to the holy King Olaf's festival. But when they came to the Throndhjem country, they went to many men of influence, and told their business; which was, that the Danish king had sent them to desire their friendship, and consent, if he came to the country, promising them both power and money. With this verbal message came also the Danish king's letter and seal, and a message to the Throndhjem people that they should send back their letters and seals to him. They did so, and the most of them received well the Danish king's message; whereupon the messengers returned back towards Lent. Erling was in Bergen; and towards spring Erling's friends told him the loose reports they had heard by some merchant vessels that had arrived from Throndhjem, that the Throndhjem people were in hostility openly against him; and had declared that if Erling came to Throndhjem, he should never pass Agdanes in life. Erling said this was mere folly and idle talk. Erling now made it known that he would go to Unarheim to the Gangdag-thing; and ordered a cutter of twenty rowing benches to be fitted out, a boat of fifteen benches, and a provision-ship. When the vessels were ready, there came a strong southerly gale. On the Thursday of the Ascension week, Erling called his people by sound of trumpet to their departure; but the men were loath to leave the town, and were ill inclined to row against the wind. Erling brought his vessels to Biskupshafn. "Well," said Erling, "since ye are so unwilling to row against the wind, raise the mast, hoist the sails, and let the ship go north." They did so, and sailed northwards both day and night. On Wednesday, in the evening, they sailed in past Agdanes, where they found a fleet assembled of many merchant vessels, rowing craft, and boats, all going towards the town to the celebration of the festival,--some before them, some behind them--so that the townspeople paid no attention to the long-ships coming. 26. ERLING AND THE PEOPLE OF THRONDHJEM. Erling came to the town just as vespers was being sung in Christ church. He and his men ran into the town, to where it was told them that the lenderman, Alf Rode, a son of Ottar Birting, was still sitting at table, and drinking with his men. Erling fell upon them; and Alf was killed, with almost all his men. Few other men were killed; for they had almost all gone to church, as this was the night before Christ's Ascension-day. In the morning early, Erling called all the people by sound of trumpet to a Thing out upon Evrar. At the Thing Erling laid a charge against the Throndhjem people, accusing them of intending to betray the country, and take it from the king; and named Bard Standale, Pal Andreason, and Razabard, who then presided over the town's affairs, and many others. They, in their defence, denied the accusation; but Erling's writer stood up, produced many letters with seals, and asked if they acknowledged their seals which they had sent to the Danish king; and thereupon the letters were read. There was also a Danish man with Erling who had gone with the letters in winter, and whom Erling for that purpose had taken into his service. He told to these men the very words which each of them had used. "And you, Razabard, spoke, striking your breast; and the very words you used were, 'Out of this breast are all these counsels produced.'" Bard replied, "I was wrong in the head, sirs, when I spoke so." There was now nothing to be done but to submit the case entirely to the sentence Erling might give upon it. He took great sums of money from many as fines, and condemned all those who had been killed as lawless, and their deeds as lawless; making their deaths thereby not subject to mulct. Then Erling returned south to Bergen. 27. KING VALDEMAR'S EXPEDITION TO NORWAY. The Danish king Valdemar assembled in spring (A.D. 1165) a great army, and proceeded with it north to Viken. As soon as he reached the dominions of the king of Norway, the bondes assembled in a great multitude. The king advanced peacefully; but when they came to the mainland, the people shot at them even when there were only two or three together, from which the ill-will of the country people towards them was evident. When they came to Tunsberg, King Valdemar summoned a Hauga-thing; but nobody attended it from the country parts. Then Valdemar spoke thus to his troops: "It is evident that all the country-people are against us; and now we have two things to choose: the one to go through the country, sword in hand, sparing neither man nor beast; the other is to go back without effecting our object. And it is more my inclination to go with the army to the East against the heathens, of whom we have enough before us in the East country, than to kill Christian people here, although they have well deserved it." All the others had a greater desire for a foray; but the king ruled, and they all returned back to Denmark without effecting their purpose. They pillaged, however, all around in the distant islands, or where the king was not in the neighbourhood. They then returned south to Denmark without doing anything. 28. ERLING'S EXPEDITION TO JUTLAND. As soon as Erling heard that a Danish force had come to Viken, he ordered a levy through all the land, both of men and ships, so that there was a great assemblage of men in arms; and with this force he proceeded eastward along the coast. But when he came to Lidandisnes, he heard that the Danish army had returned south to Denmark, after plundering all around them in Viken. Then Erling gave all the people of the levy permission to return home; but he himself and some lendermen, with many vessels, sailed to Jutland after the Danes. When they came to a place called Dyrsa, the Danes who had returned from the expedition lay there with many ships. Erling gave them battle, and there was a fight, in which the Danes soon fled with the loss of many people; and Erling and his men plundered the ships and the town, and made a great booty, with which they returned to Norway. Thereafter, for a time, there was hostility between Norway and Denmark. 29. ERLING'S EXPEDITION TO DENMARK. The princess Krisfin went south in autumn (A.D. 1165) to Denmark, to visit her relation King Valdemar, who was her cousin. The king received her kindly, and gave her fiefs in his kingdom, so that she could support her household well. She often conversed with the king, who was remarkably kind towards her. In the spring following (A.D. 1166) Kristin sent to Erling, and begged him to pay a visit to the Danish king, and enter into a peace with him. In summer Erling was in Viken, where he fitted out a long-ship, manned it with his finest lads, and sailed (a single ship) over to Jutland. When he heard that the Danish king Valdemar was in Randaros, Erling sailed thither, and came to the town just as the king sat at the dinner-table, and most of the people were taking their meal. When his people had made themselves ready according to Erling's orders, set up the ship-tents, and made fast the ship, Erling landed with twelve men, all in armour, with hats over their helmets, and swords under their cloaks. They went to the king's lodging, where the doors stood open, and the dishes were being carried in. Erling and his people went in immediately, and drew up in front of the high-seat. Erling said, "Peace and safe conduct we desire, king, both here and to return home." The king looked at him, and said, "Art thou here, Erling?" He replies, "Here is Erling; and tell us, at once, if we shall have peace and safe conduct." There were eighty of the king's men in the room, but all unarmed. The king replies, "Peace ye shall have, Erling, according to thy desire; for I will not use force or villainy against a man who comes to visit me." Erling then kissed the king's hand, went out, and down to his ship. Erling stayed at Randaros some time with the king, and they talked about terms of peace between them and between the countries. They agreed that Erling should remain as hostage with the Danish king; and that Asbjorn Snara, Bishop Absalon's brother, should go to Norway as hostage on the other part. 30. KING VALDEMAR AND ERLING. In a conference which King Valdemar and Erling once had together. Erling said, "Sire, it appears to me likely that it might lead to a peace between the countries if you got that part of Norway which was promised you in our agreement; but if it should be so, what chief would you place over it? Would he be a Dane?" "No," replied the king; "no Danish chief would go to Norway, where he would have to manage an obstinate hard people, when he has it so easy here with me." Erling: "It was on that very consideration that I came here; for I would not on any account in the world deprive myself of the advantage of your friendship. In days of old other men, Hakon Ivarson and Fin Arnason, came also from Norway to Denmark, and your predecessor, King Svein, made them both earls. Now I am not a man of less power in Norway than they were then, and my influence is not less than theirs; and the king gave them the province of Halland to rule over, which he himself had and owned before. Now it appears to me, sire, that you, if I become your man and vassal, can allow me to hold of you the fief which my son Magnus will not deny me, by which I will be bound in duty, and ready, to undertake all the service belonging to that title." Erling spoke such things, and much more in the same strain, until it came at last to this, that Erling became Valdemar's man and vassal; and the king led Erling to the earl's seat one day, and gave him the title of earl, and Viken as a fief under his rule. Earl Erling went thereafter to Norway, and was earl afterwards as long as he lived; and also the peace with the Danish king was afterwards always preserved. Earl Erling had four sons by his concubines. The one was called Hreidar, the next Ogmund; and these by two different mothers: the third was called Fin; the fourth Sigurd: these were younger, and their mother was Asa the Fair. The princess Kristin and Earl Erling had a daughter called Ragnhild, who was married to Jon Thorbergson of Randaberg. Kristin went away from the country with a man called Grim Rusle; and they went to Constantinople, where they were for a time, and had some children. 31. BEGINNING OF OLAF. Olaf, a son of Gudbrand Skafhaug, and Maria, a daughter of King Eystein Magnuson, were brought up in the house of Sigurd Agnhot in the Uplands. While Earl Erling was in Denmark (A.D. 1166), Olaf and his foster-father gathered a troop together, and many Upland people joined them; and Olaf was chosen king by them. They went with their bands through the Uplands, and sometimes down to Viken, and sometimes east to the forest settlements; but never came on board of ships. Now when, Earl Erling got news of this troop, he hastened to Viken with his forces; and was there in summer in his ships, and in Oslo in autumn (A.D. 1167) and kept Yule there. He had spies up the country after this troop, and went himself, along with Orm, the King-brother, up the country to follow them. Now when they came to a lake called.... .... (1) they took all the vessels that were upon the lake. ENDNOTES: (1) The name of the lake not given. 32. OF ERLING. The priest who performed divine service at a place called Rydiokul, close by the lake, invited the earl to a feast at Candlemas. The earl promised to come; and thinking it would be good to hear mass there, he rowed with his attendants over the lake the night before Candlemas day. But the priest had another plan on hand. He sent men to bring Olaf news of Earl Erling's arrival. The priest gave Erling strong drink in the evening, and let him have an excessive quantity of it. When the earl wished to lie down and sleep, the beds were made ready in the drinking-room; but when they had slept a short time the earl awoke, and asked if it was not the hour for matins. The priest replied, that only a small part of the night was gone, and told him to sleep in peace. The earl replied, "I dream of many things to-night, and I sleep ill." He slumbered again, but awoke soon, and told the priest to get up and sing mass. The priest told the earl to sleep, and said it was but midnight. Then the earl again lay down, slept a little while, and, springing out of bed, ordered his men to put on their clothes. They did so; took their weapons, went to the church, and laid their arms outside while the priest was singing matins. 33. BATTLE AT RYDIOKUL. As Olaf got the message in the evening, they travelled in the night six miles, which people considered an extraordinarily long march. They arrived at Rydiokul while the priest was still singing mass, and it was pitch-dark. Olaf and his men went into the room, raised a war-shout, and killed some of the earl's men who had not gone to the early mass. Now when Erling and his men heard the war-shout, they ran to their weapons, and hastened down to their ships. Olaf and his men met them at a fence, at which there was a sharp conflict. Erling and his men retreated along the fence, which protected them. Erling had far fewer men, and many of them had fallen, and still more were wounded. What helped Earl Erling and his men the most was, that Olaf's men could not distinguish them, it was so dark; and the earl's men were always drawing down to their ships. Are Thorgeirson, father of Bishop Gudmund fell there, and many other of Erling's court-men. Erling himself was wounded in the left side; but some say he did it himself in drawing his sword. Orm the King-brother was also severely wounded; and with great difficulty they escaped to their ships, and instantly pushed off from land. It was generally considered as a most unlucky meeting for Olaf's people, as Earl Erling was in a manner sold into their hands, if they had proceeded with common prudence. He was afterwards called Olaf the Unlucky; but others called his people Hat-lads. They went with their bands through the Uplands as before. Erling again went down to Viken to his ships, and remained there all summer. Olaf was in the Uplands, and sometimes east in the forest districts, where he and his troop remained all the next winter (A.D. 1168). 34. BATTLE AT STANGAR. The following spring the Hat-lads went down to Viken, and raised the king's taxes all around, and remained there long in summer. When Earl Erling heard this, he hastened with his troops to meet them in Viken, and fell in with them east of the Fjord, at a place called Stangar; where they had a great battle, in which Erling was victorious. Sigurd Agnhot, and many others of Olaf's men, fell there; but Olaf escaped by flight, went south to Denmark, and was all winter (A.D. 1169) in Alaborg in Jutland. The following spring Olaf fell into an illness which ended in death, and he was buried in the Maria church; and the Danes call him a saint. 35. HARALD'S DEATH. King Magnus had a lenderman called Nikolas Kufung, who was a son of Pal Skaptason. He took Harald prisoner, who called himself a son of King Sigurd Haraldson and the princess Kristin, and a brother of King Magnus by the mother's side. Nikolas brought Harald to Bergen, and delivered him into Earl Erling's hands. It was Erling's custom when his enemies came before him, that he either said nothing to them, or very little, and that in all gentleness, when he had determined to put them to death; or rose with furious words against them, when he intended to spare their lives. Erling spoke but little to Harald, and many, therefore, suspected his intentions; and some begged King Magnus to put in a good word for Harald with the earl; and the king did so. The earl replies, "Thy friends advise thee badly. Thou wouldst govern this kingdom but a short time in peace and safety, if thou wert to follow the counsels of the heart only." Earl Erling ordered Harald to be taken to Nordnes, where he was beheaded. 36. EYSTEIN EYSTEINSON AND THE BIRKEBEINS. There was a man called Eystein, who gave himself out for a son of King Eystein Haraldson. He was at this time young, and not full grown. It is told of him that he one summer appeared in Svithjod, and went to Earl Birger Brosa, who was then married to Brigida, Eystein's aunt, a daughter of King Harald Gille. Eystein explained his business to him, and asked their assistance. Both Earl Birger and his wife listened to him in a friendly way, and promised him their confidence, and he stayed with them a while. Earl Birger gave him some assistance of men, and a good sum for travelling expenses; and both promised him their friendship on his taking leave. Thereafter Eystein proceeded north into Norway (A.D. 1174), and when he came down to Viken people flocked to him in crowds; and Eystein was there proclaimed king, and he remained in Viken in winter. As they were very poor in money, they robbed all around, wherefore the lendermen and bondes raised men against them; and being thus overpowered by numbers, they fled away to the forests and deserted hill grounds, where they lived for a long time. Their clothes being worn out, they wound the bark of the birch-tree about their legs, and thus were called by the bondes Birkebeins. They often rushed down upon the settled districts, pushed on here or there, and made an assault where they did not find many people to oppose them. They had several battles with the bondes with various success; and the Birkebeins held three battles in regular array, and gained the victory in them all. At Krokaskog they had nearly made an unlucky expedition, for a great number of bondes and men-at-arms were assembled there against them; but the Birkebeins felled brushwood across the roads, and retired into the forest. They were two years (A.D. 1175-1176) in Viken before they showed themselves in the northern parts of the country. 37. BIRKEBEINS, KING EYSTEIN, AND SKAKKE. Magnus had been king for thirteen years when the Birkebeins first made their appearance. They got themselves ships in the third summer (A.D. 1176), with which they sailed along the coast gathering goods and men. They were first in Viken; but when summer advanced they proceeded northwards, and so rapidly that no news preceded them until they came to Throndhjem. The Birkebeins' troop consisted principally of hill-men and Elfgrims, and many were from Thelemark; and all were well armed. Their king, Eystein, was a handsome man, and with a little but good countenance; and he was not of great stature, for his men called him Eystein Meyla. King Magnus and Earl Erling were in Bergen when the Birkebeins sailed past it to the north; but they did not hear of them. Earl Erling was a man of great understanding and power, an excellent leader in war, and an able and prudent ruler of the country; but he had the character of being cruel and severe. The cause of this was principally that he never allowed his enemies to remain in the country, even when they prayed to him for mercy; and therefore many joined the bands which were collected against him. Erling was a tall strong-made man, somewhat short-necked and high-shouldered; had a long and sharp countenance of a light complexion, and his hair became very grey. He bore his head a little on one side; was free and agreeable in his manners. He wore the old fashion of clothes,--long body-pieces and long arms to his coats, foreign cloak, and high shoes. He made the king wear the same kind of dress in his youth; but when he grew up, and acted for himself, he dressed very sumptuously. King Magnus was of a light turn of mind, full of jokes; a great lover of mirth, and not less of women. 38. OF NIKOLAS. Nikolas was a son of Sigurd Hranason and of Skialdvor, a daughter of Brynjolf Ulfalde, and a sister of Haldor Brynjolfson by the father's side, and of King Magnus Barefoot by the mother's side. Nikolas was a distinguished chief, who had a farm at Ongul in Halogaland, which was called Steig. Nikolas had also a house in Nidaros, below Saint Jon's church, where Thorgeir the scribe lately dwelt. Nikolas was often in the town, and was president of the townspeople. Skialdvor, Nikolas's daughter, was married to Eirik Arnason, who was also a lenderman. 39. OF EIRIK AND NIKOLAS. As the people of the town were coming from matins the last day of Marymas (September 8th), Eirik came up to Nikolas, and said, "Here are some fishermen come from the sea, who report that some long-ships are sailing into the fjord; and people conjecture that these may be the Birkebeins. It would be advisable to call the townspeople together with the war-horns, to meet under arms out on Eyrar." Nikolas replies, "I don't go after fishermen's reports; but I shall send out spies to the fjord, and in the meantime hold a Thing to-day." Eirik went home; but when they were ringing to high mass, and Nikolas was going to church, Eirik came to hint again, and said, "I believe the news to be true; for here are men who say they saw them under sail; and I think it would be most advisable to ride out of town, and gather men with arms; for it appears to me the townspeople will be too few." Nikolas replies, "Thou art mixing everything together; let us first hear mass, and then take our resolution." Nikolas then went into the church. When the mass was over Eirik went to Nikolas, and said, "My horses are saddled; I will ride away." Nikolas replies, "Farewell, then: we will hold a Thing to-day on the Eyrar, and examine what force of men there may be in the town." Eirik rode away, and Nikolas went to his house, and then to dinner. 40. THE FALL OF NIKOLAS. The meat was scarcely put on the table, when a man came into the house to tell Nikolas that the Birkebeins were roving up the river. Then Nikolas called to his men to take their weapons. When they were armed Nikolas ordered them to go up into the loft. But that was a most imprudent step; for if they had remained in the yard, the townspeople might have come to their assistance; but now the Birkebeins filled the whole yard, and from thence scrambled from all sides up to the loft. They called to Nikolas, and offered him quarter, but he refused it. Then they attacked the loft. Nikolas and his men defended themselves with bow-shot, hand-shot, and stones of the chimney; but the Birkebeins hewed down the houses, broke up the loft, and returned shot for shot from bow or hand. Nikolas had a red shield in which were gilt nails, and about it was a border of stars. The Birkebeins shot so that the arrows went in up to the arrow feather. Then said Nikolas, "My shield deceives me." Nikolas and a number of his people fell, and his death was greatly lamented. The Birkebeins gave all the towns-people their lives. 41. EYSTEIN PROCLAIMED KING. Eystein was then proclaimed king, and all the people submitted to him. He stayed a while in the town, and then went into the interior of the Throndhjem land, where many joined him, and among them Thorfin Svarte of Snos with a troop of people. When the Birkebeins, in the beginning of winter (A.D. 1177), came again into the town, the sons of Gudrun from Saltnes, Jon Ketling, Sigurd, and William, joined them; and when they proceeded afterwards from Nidaros up Orkadal, they could number nearly 2000 men. They afterwards went to the Uplands, and on to Thoten and Hadaland, and from thence to Ringerike, and subdued the country wheresover they came. 42. THE FALL OF KING EYSTEIN. King Magnus went eastward to Viken in autumn with a part of his men and with him Orm, the king's brother; but Earl Erling remained behind in Bergen to meet the Berkebeins in case they took the sea route. King Magnus went to Tunsberg, where he and Orm held their Yule (A.D. 1177). When King Magnus heard that the Birkebeins were up in Re, the king and Orm proceeded thither with their men. There was much snow, and it was dreadfully cold. When they came to the farm they left the beaten track on the road, and drew up their array outside of the fence, and trod a path through the snow with their men, who were not quite 1500 in number. The Birkebeins were dispersed here and there in other farms, a few men in each house. When they perceived King Magnus's army they assembled, and drew up in regular order; and as they thought their force was larger than his, which it actually was, they resolved to fight; but when they hurried forward to the road only a few could advance at a time, which broke their array, and the men fell who first advanced upon the beaten way. Then the Birkebeins' banner was cut down; those who were nearest gave way and some took to flight. King Magnus's men pursued them, and killed one after the other as they came up with them. Thus the Birkebeins could never form themselves in array; and being exposed to the weapons of the enemy singly, many of them fell, and many fled. It happened here, as it often does, that although men be brave and gallant, if they have once been defeated and driven to flight, they will not easily be brought to turn round. Now the main body of the Birkebeins began to fly, and many fell; because Magnus's men killed all they could lay hold of, and not one of them got quarter. The whole body became scattered far and wide. Eystein in his flight ran into a house, and begged for his life, and that the bonde would conceal him; but the bonde killed him, and then went to King Magnus, whom he found at Rafnnes, where the king was in a room warming himself by the fire along with many people. Some went for the corpse, and bore it into the room, where the king told the people to come and inspect the body. A man was sitting on a bench in the corner, and he was a Birkebein, but nobody had observed him; and when he saw and recognised his chief's body he sprang up suddenly and actively, rushed out upon the floor, and with an axe he had in his hands made a blow at King Magnus's neck between the shoulders. A man saw the axe swinging, and pulled the king to a side, by which the axe struck lower in the shoulder, and made a large wound. He then raised the axe again, and made a blow at Orm, the King-brother, who was lying on a bench, and the blow was directed at both legs; but Orm seeing the man about to kill him, drew in his feet instantly, threw them over his head, and the blow fell on the bench, in which the axe stuck fast; and then the blows at the Birkebein came so thick that he could scarcely fall to the ground. It was discovered that he had dragged his entrails after him over the floor; and this man's bravery was highly praised. King Magnus's men followed the fugitives, and killed so many that they were tired of it. Thorfin of Snos, and a very great number of Throndhjem people, fell there. 43. OF THE BIRKEBEINS. The faction which called itself the Birkebeins had gathered together in great numbers. They were a hardy people, and the boldest of men under arms; but wild, and going forward madly when they had a strong force. They had few men in their faction who were good counsellors, or accustomed to rule a country by law, or to head an army; and if there were such men among them who had more knowledge, yet the many would only allow of those measures which they liked, trusting always to their numbers and courage. Of the men who escaped many were wounded, and had lost both their clothes and their arms, and were altogether destitute of money. Some went east to the borders, some went all the way east to Svithjod; but the most of them went to Thelemark, where they had their families. All took flight, as they had no hope of getting their lives from King Magnus or Earl Erling. 44. OF KING MAGNUS ERLINGSON. King Magnus then returned to Tunsberg, and got great renown by this victory; for it had been an expression in the mouths of all, that Earl Erling was the shield and support of his son and himself. But after gaining a victory over so strong and numerous a force with fewer troops, King Magnus was considered by all as surpassing other leaders, and that he would become a warrior as much greater than his father, Earl Erling, as he was younger.